There’s a new app available for iPhones that may help finally settle one of the grave issues of our time. To function properly, society has to be divided into haves, and have nots. Currently, one of the ways that happens is the stratification between those who own iPhones, and those who don’t. Those who don’t are obviously a mass of unwashed rabble who can be safely ignored. And those who do own one of the sexy little devices are awesome. But there’s a problem with this division – pretty much everyone now owns one. So if everyone is a have, how do we as a society know who to look down on? And how does an individual iPhone owner know whether to be filled with self-confidence, or to hate themselves for being part of the unwashed masses?

Thankfully, a new app has been released that will make it much easier to draw this important distinction. Visit the App Store right now, and for 99 cents, you can download “Fit or Fugly”.

Here’s how it works. You upload a photo of yourself (or a loved or loathed one) and then attach “anchor pins” to all the important facial features: eyes, nose, mouth, ears, dimples, etc. The app then uses the data collected from the anchor pins and measures your features against Fibonacci’s Golden Ratio. If your face is symmetrical, you’re declared Fit. But if your facial symmetry resembles that of Ron Howard’s little brother, you’re branded Fugly. Oh, and it works on pets too!

Fibonacci’s Golden Ratio, by the way, isn’t just something the app designers made up. It’s a mathematical formula that some maintain is an accurate means to determine how aesthetically pleasing things are, based on their symmetry.

But can Fibonacci’s Golden Ratio, and a 99 cent app, really tell you if you’re Hot or Not Fit or Fugly? I wish I could tell you, but I don’t own an iPhone.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.  Sure to enter the realms of the weird and ultimately useless, the creators of the new app Outbreaks Near Me, Clark Freifeld and John Brownstein admit that they are “We’re really just putting it out there”   - and these guys are at Harvard and MIT! 

This “disease-ridden” app basically lets users submit information about unusual and infectious outbreaks in their area, creating a map illustrated with hotspots of infectious activity, as well as detailed information about that outbreak.  Within hours of creating the app, there was already feeds about an illness at a local school.  Freifeld and Brownstein hope that the app will allow the public to gain up-to-the-minute health information faster than the official channels may be able to transmit it.  This information could prove useful in the case of a dangerous outbreak, allowing people to avoid infection and further spread of disease.  At its worst however, the app could be riddled with false or incorrect information, leading to artificial panic, or to users ignoring legitimate information. 

In my opinion, the Internet is an amazing invention for the communication and sharing of knowledge and ideas.  It allows us to connect with anyone in the world and to expand our minds with that information.  However, because of its sheer openness, the Internet can also be a very dangerous thing and taken too far, as with ideas like this, something very altruistic can go very wrong.  There is a reason why only some people become doctors.  If any random person has the power to diagnose and broadcast word of what they deem an outbreak, then I can only foresee what I will so eloquently put as, a load of crap flooding this service.  I am just one opinion though, so perhaps there are more optimistic minds out there? Do you see Outbreaks Near Me as a valuable service?

In just a couple of hours, a historical celestial event will take place. And it will be visible to millions and millions of people. Unfortunately for most of us here on Senses, none of the places this event will be visible from are in North America. But, thanks to live, streaming video, we’ll all be able to watch the longest total solar eclipse of the century, as it happens.

If everything goes as planned (and if it doesn’t, it means something has gone terribly, terribly wrong) the eclipse will last six minutes and thirty nine seconds, at its longest duration. The maximum time a total eclipse could ever last is just over seven minutes, so this is a big one. The path of totality (the darkness that falls as the moon completely blocks the sun) travels from northern India, through parts of Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, then into China, where it will be visible to tens of millions of people, weather dependent. The eclipse’s path will then take it to sea, where it will pass Japan’s Ryukyu Islands before heading out into the Pacific Ocean.

If you’re reading this, odds are you’re not likely to be able to get anywhere near that path in the next couple hours. For those of us on the wrong side of the planet, NASA has kindly provided both an extremely in-depth information page, and some links to sites to sites that will be streaming video of the eclipse from various points along the path of totality. I also did some poking around on my iPhone to see if there’s an app for that. Just search for “Eclipse 2009″ and you’ll find at least one app that offers info on tonight’s eclipse…though there didn’t seem to be any streaming video. So you might be best off heading over to one of those linked webcasts. The action starts in just a couple hours, at 5:30 PST or thereabouts, so it’s almost time to start popping that popcorn.