LOTD for August 30

Researchers concluded that most of Earth’s clouds get their start in deep space–they say that cosmic rays collide with water molecules in our atmosphere to form clouds:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/805/1

Study found that optimists outlive pessimists–optimists were 9% less likely to develop heart disease within 8 years and 14% less likely to die than women who were pessimists:
http://wellness.blogs.time.com/2009/08/10/stay-positive-study-shows-that-optimists-live-longer/

Mosquitoes brought by tourist planes and boats into the Galapagos threaten “ecological disaster”:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/08/12/galapagos-tourism.html

UK researchers found that crows can use tools to retrieve a worm that they couldn’t otherwise reach–just like in Aesop’s fables:
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-birds8-2009aug08,0,272489.story

Survey found that American workers waste two hours per day at work, so this article gives tips on how to avoid time wasters:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/2009/08/01/105837605/

Article about how people should try to work no more than 10 hours per day to avoid productivity losses and other problems:
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jul2009/ca20090724_744218.htm

63-year-old Iowa woman was trapped on a small raft caught in tangled river brush for *five* days. She was a couple hundred yards from a bridge that she could see cars driving over, but nobody could hear her. She had just two cans of Mountain Dew and a bottle of water with her!
http://news.aol.com/article/jeanne-schnepp-survives-5-days-on-raft/628677

Woman in Raleigh, North Carolina is suing the city for $10,000 because men won’t play tennis against her:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/881246.html

Amazing video (shot from the camera on his helmet) of what happened when a skydiver fell 10,000 feet and somehow survived even though his parachute failed to open:
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/478476/Paul-Lewis-miracle-skydiver.html

Four-star hotel near Venice accidentally offered a rate of 1 euro cent (about 1.4 US cents) for a two-night stay. The erroneous rate was just on their website for one night, but 228 people booked 1,400 room nights before they fixed the mistake. They hotel will honor all reservations at that rate, even though they normally charge between $128 and $214 for single night stay…I wonder what happened to the people who messed up in Atlanta:
http://news.aol.com/article/italian-hotel-mistakenly-offers-1-cent/619605

Philadelphia has banned using a cell phone while skateboarding, bicycling, and skating:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111897770