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Thread: Strange News

  1. #101
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    Mich. woman fatally shoots self while adjusting bra holster[at] - NY Daily News

    A Michigan woman was trying to adjust her bra holster when she shot herself in the face, authorities said.
    Christina Bond, 55, was repositioning the handgun inside her brassiere when she looked down and fired a round into her eye, the Kalamazoo Gazettereported Wednesday.
    "She was having trouble adjusting her bra holster, couldn't get it to fit the way she wanted it to," said St. Joseph Public Safety Director Mark Clapp.
    "She was looking down at it and accidentally discharged the weapon," he said.

  2. #102
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    CT Scan of 1,000-Year-Old Buddha Statue Reveals Mummified Monk Hidden Inside




    What looks like a traditional statue of Buddha dating back to the 11th or 12th century was recently revealed to be quite a bit more. A CT scan and endoscopy carried out by the Netherlands-based Drents Museum at the Meander Medical Centre in Amersfoort, showed the ancient reliquary fully encases the mummified remains of a Buddhist master known as Liuquan of the Chinese Meditation School. While it was known beforehand the remains of a person were inside, another startling discovery was made during the scan: where the organs had been removed prior to mummification, researches discovered rolls of paper scraps covered in Chinese writing.

    The Liuquan mummy has since been transported to Hungary where it will be on view at the Hungarian Natural History Museum through May of 2015.

    ____________

    Teacher changes her name to Abcdefg Hijklmn Opqrst Uvwxyz

    A teacher has legally changed her name to include ALL 26 letters of the alphabet – in order.


    The 36-year-old has been fighting red tape for over TWO years to get approval of her new name.

    But now she finally has the seal of approval to call herself – Abcdefg Hijklmn Opqrst Uvwxyz.

    Ms Uvwxyz – or Abcdefg to her friends – has a habit of regularly changing her name, with her previous name change resulting in her being called Ladyzunga Cyborg.

    The teacher, who lives in the Colombian capital Bogota, said she has always had the need to constantly "redefine" herself.

    ____________

    Drug-Resistant Malaria Outbreak Is a ‘Huge Threat’


    A strain of drug-resistant malaria that was discovered last summer along the Thailand-Cambodia border has been been spreading throughout Southeast Asia, to Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.

    A study published Thursday in the Lancet Infectious Diseases Journal says this strain of malaria may soon trickle into India--a possibility that officials have deemed an “enormous threat” to public health. "We are facing the imminent threat of resistance spreading into India, with thousands of lives at risk,” said the head of infection and immunobiology at the medical charity Wellcome Trust, Mike Turner, in an interview with BBC.

    _____________

    Scientists find strongest natural material known to humans


    Limpet teeth might be the strongest natural material known to humans, a new study has found.

    Researchers from the University of Portsmouth have discovered that limpets -- small aquatic snail-like creatures with conical shells -- have teeth with biological structures so strong they could be copied to make cars, boats and planes of the future.

    The study examined the small-scale mechanical behaviour of teeth from limpets using atomic force microscopy, a method used to pull apart materials all the way down to the level of the atom.
    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  3. #103
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    First full body transplant is two years away, surgeon claims

    Doctor plans to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body using procedures he believes will soon be ready


    A surgeon says full-body transplants could become a reality in just two years.

    Sergio Canavero, a doctor in Turin, Italy, has drawn up plans to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body and claims the procedures needed to carry out the operation are not far off.

    Canavero hopes to assemble a team to explore the radical surgery in a project he is due to launch at a meeting for neurological surgeons in Maryland this June.

    He has claimed for years that medical science has advanced to the point that a full body transplant is plausible, but the proposal has caused raised eyebrows, horror and profound disbelief in other surgeons.

    The Italian doctor, who recently published a broad outline of how the surgery could be performed, told New Scientist magazine that he wanted to use body transplants to prolong the lives of people affected by terminal diseases.

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    Iraq: Isis take sledgehammers to priceless Assyrian artefacts at Mosul museum


    The Islamic State (Isis) has published a video showing militants destroying ancient artefacts in a Mosul museum with sledgehammer and pickaxes.

    IS fighters are seen unveiling old statues in the Ninawa museum dating back to the Assyrian empire and then dragging them down to the ground, where they fall into pieces.

    Then, they are depicted pounding 3,000-year-old sculptures with hammers until they are completely shattered. Tens of militants are seen using ladders, hammers and drills to destroy every statue in the museum, including a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity dating back to the 7th century BC.

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    Scientists use drones to bring you this spectacular video from inside an active volcano

    Video technology and science converge on an active volcano in Vanuatu, where explorer Sam Cossman operated camera-mounted drones to capture high-definition images of the spectacular yet dangerous Marum Crater. Cossman and his team piloted the drones over the 7.5-mile-wide (12-kilometer) caldera while confronting toxic gases and boiling lava. Although two drones succumbed to the harsh environment, the team was able to bring back video and photos that will help scientists learn more about the volcano and the life around it.


    _____________

    There’s A Tinder For Kinky BDSM People Now


    Are you getting bored with the girls that you meet Tinder? Maybe they are a little too vanilla in the sack for your sexual tastes. Great news, there’s a new app that let’s you get your rocks off with other like-minded BDSM enthusiasts!

    Whether it’s because Fifty Shades of Grey is so hot right now and it has brought BDSM to the mainstream or because people are just more open about their sexuality, the doors have swung open for an app that specializes in S&M. It is called “Whiplr,” and it is a a location-based app much like Tinder, but it hooks up kinky individuals up with each other who may enjoy things like erotic humiliation.

    Here’s the description from iTunes:

    Connect with people who share your fetishes and kinks (such as for fashion, accessories, sounds, etc.) discreetly and anonymously with Whiplr. Chat, send photos or video-chat securely – all in one user-friendly app. Download today and embark on your personal “Fifty Shades of Grey” journey!

    ___________

    Arizona llama drama

    Two llamas on the loose in a West Valley retirement community were lassoed into Internet fame after escaping their owner on Thursday afternoon.

    In what is arguably the most famous llama-related journey since Disney's "The Emperor's New Groove," the pair running through Sun City made national news and became social media darlings as they briefly avoided capture from a crowd of curious onlookers and several area residents on live television.

    The dynamic duo -- one black and one white -- dodged cars, avoided lassos, and managed to launch their own Twitter account as they ran amok in the town northwest of Phoenix just before noon.

    Wow. We're famous. #LlamasonTheLoosepic.twitter.com
    — SunCityLlamas (@SunCityLlamas) February 26, 2015


  4. #104
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    Stolen Picasso Work Is Seized in Newark


    A Picasso painting missing from Paris for more than a decade resurfaced in the United States, where it had been shipped under false pretenses as a $37 holiday-themed art craft.

    The 1911 painting, “La Coiffeuse,” which translates to “The Hairdresser,” was unearthed in December in a FedEx shipment from Belgium to Newark. The canvas had been smuggled out of a storeroom of the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Paris museum and arts center, and its whereabouts had not been known.

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    An Italian fisherman reeled in a gigantic catfish.


    Dino Ferrari's catch weighed a jaw-dropping 280 pounds and measured 8.7 feet in length, according to a post on the Sportex Italia Facebook page. The pictures and video seem to back up his claim.

    The fish was caught on Feb. 19 in Italy's Po Delta, according to the post.

    Wels catfish mainly eat fish, but according to the University of Michigan's Museum of Zoology, they can also prey on ducks, eels, frogs, rats – even snakes.

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    Man gets stuck inside his married lover after suffering ‘penis captivus’ during sex


    Police in South Africa had to be called in to restore order after a crowd gathered to see a cheating wife and her lover locked together during sex after the rumour spread that her husband had asked a witch doctor to put a curse on her private parts.

    And although medical experts say the embarrassing experience was more likely a case of ‘penis captivus’, in which the woman’s vagina had contracted too much and trapped the man’s penis, they were unable to stop the rumour and the mob had quickly assembled.

    Local media said that unfaithful Sasha Ngema, 34, had reportedly been romping with toyboy Sol Qoboza, 22, at a rented apartment in the city of Johannesburg while her husband was away on business.

    _______________

    Archaeologists unearth lost fortress of Genghis Khan in western Mongolia


    Japanese and Mongolian archaeologists said Feb. 26 that they have discovered the remains of a 13th-century military outpost established for Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227) in southwestern Mongolia.

    The joint research team said the discovery could be useful in learning about the Mongol Empire’s strategy on western expansion and trade routes.

    “We hope the discovery will be useful in ascertaining the history of the Mongolian Plateau between the 13th and 14th centuries,” said team leader Koichi Matsuda, professor emeritus of Mongol Empire history at Osaka International University.

    _______________

    More than two hundred skeletons discovered in mass grave beneath Paris supermarket


    More than 200 skeletons have been discovered in a medieval mass grave beneath a supermarket in the middle of the French capital, with archeologists unsure of how they died or why the bodies were placed there.

    The grisly discovery was made beneath a Monoprix supermarket on Rue Sebastopol in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, which stands on the site of a medieval hospital torn down in the 18th century.

    When the store’s management decided to carry out redevelopment work on its basement, it gave archaeologists a chance to see what was buried beneath.

    What they found was dozens of skeletons of men, women and children aligned head to toe and buried up to six people deep.

    Snip

    “The crisis may have resulted from an epidemic, famine, or extreme fever.”

    Paris was hit by several epidemics of plague in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as well as an outbreak of smallpox in the seventeenth century.

    ______________

    Blind Man Now Able To See Shapes Thanks To Bionic Eye (and Mayo Clinic)


    The man in the clip, 68-year-old Allen Zderad from Minnesota, suffers a rare, degenerative eye disease known as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Those with this inherited condition suffer a loss of cells, called photoreceptors, in the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye known as the retina. Although some may only experience a severe impairment in night vision, others can become completely blind.

    Zderad’s vision began seriously deteriorating around 20 years ago until reaching a point when he was effectively rendered blind. As he could only see extremely bright light, but not objects, people or features, he was forced to quit his professional career as a chemist. In spite of this, he managed to teach himself to continue woodworking by relying on his sense of touch and spatial relationships.

  5. #105
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Lazy Weasel Takes A Wild Ride On A Woodpecker’s Back


    The now-viral image of a weasel clinging to the back of a woodpecker is not photoshopped, according to wildlife experts and Martin Le-May, the photographer of the picture-perfect moment.

    Mr. Le-May was talking a stroll with his wife Ann when he caught sight of the bird squawking in distress. “I soon realized it was a woodpecker with some kind of small mammal on its back," said Le-May to BBC News.

    Just as he swapped his binoculars for a camera, the bird flew off with the weasel on its back. Le-May thinks their presence may have momentarily distracted the weasel, and the woodpecker seized upon the fortuitous interruption to fly off the ground and dislodge the weasel.

    “The woodpecker left with its life,” said Le-May, and “the weasel just disappeared into the long grass.”

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    Japanese World War II Battleship Musashi's Wreck Found

    The World War II-era Japanese battleship Musashi was sunk by U.S. warplanes Oct. 24 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles of the war. Despite numerous eyewitness accounts at the time, the ship's location was never known. Until now.

    Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, whose father served in World War II, says his research team discovered the Musashi's wreckage on March 1 in the Sibuyan Sea off the Philippines. Allen's team used "historical records from four different countries, detailed topographical data and advanced technology aboard his yacht, M/Y Octopus," a statement said.

    Allen announced the find on Twitter.


    A statement on Allen's website said he has been searching for the Musashi for more than eight years, "and its discovery will not only help fill in the narrative of WWII's Pacific theater, but bring closure to the families of those lost."


    _______________

    Jesus' House? 1st-Century Structure May Be Where He Grew Up


    Archaeologists working in Nazareth — Jesus' hometown — in modern-day Israel have identified a house dating to the first century that was regarded as the place where Jesus was brought up by Mary and Joseph.

    The house is partly made of mortar-and-stone walls, and was cut into a rocky hillside. It was first uncovered in the 1880s, by nuns at the Sisters of Nazareth convent, but it wasn't until 2006 that archaeologists led by Ken Dark, a professor at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, dated the house to the first century, and identified it as the place where people, who lived centuries after Jesus' time, believed Jesus was brought up.

    Whether Jesus actually lived in the house in real life is unknown, but Dark says that it is possible.

  6. #106
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    Mysterious craters in Siberia.

    Scientists may have cracked the giant Siberian crater mystery ? and the news isn?t good - The Washington Post






    There’s now a substantiated theory about what created the crater. And the news isn’t so good.
    It may be methane gas, released by the thawing of frozen ground. According to a recent Nature article, “air near the bottom of the crater contained unusually high concentrations of methane — up to 9.6% — in tests conducted at the site on 16 July, says Andrei Plekhanov, an archaeologist at the Scientific Centre of Arctic Studies in Salekhard, Russia. Plekhanov, who led an expedition to the crater, says that air normally contains just 0.000179% methane.”
    The scientist said the methane release may be related to Yamal’s unusually hot summers in 2012 and 2013, which were warmer by an average of 5 degrees Celsius. “As temperatures rose, the researchers suggest, permafrost thawed and collapsed, releasing methane that had been trapped in the icy ground,” the report stated.



    "don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"

  7. #107
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Solar Impulse 2: Photos of the Historic Round-the-World Flight

    A solar-powered plane has embarked on an unprecedented flight around the world. The aircraft, known as Solar Impulse 2, is designed to fly day and night without using any fuel. The plane took off from Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, and will circumnavigate the globe as part of an initiative that is expected to last until July. Check out these photos of the Solar Impulse 2 mission.


    Solar Impulse 2 took off from Al Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi, to kick off the first leg of its round-the-world flight . The plane's first stop will be in Oman.

    Touching down


    The Solar Impulse 2 lands after the first leg of its record-setting around the world flight.


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    Autonomous Mercedes car spotted cruising San Francisco streets


    If you are an automaker testing out a new driverless car, the place to test them (or at least take photos) is in California apparently. A new Mercedes autonomous car has been seen cruising the streets of San Francisco and it looks like something out of Blade Runner that might take to the skies any second. The car is called the Mercedes F015 Luxury In Motion and was seen in San Francisco on March 4.

    This car was unveiled last September in Las Vegas and we have talked about the autonomous Mercedes before. The car was apparently driving around San Francisco for a photo shoot and people on the street started to snap images of the car and those images spread via Reddit and Imgur.


    Reports indicate that the car was transported via trailer to shoot locations around the city, but people on the streets do report seeing the car drive. What we don't know is if the car was driving itself at those times or if a human was behind the wheel.

    _____________


    First photos taken of entire Amur tiger family

    Composite photo of a series of images taken in the forests of Russian Far East shows adult male walking past camera trap followed by adult female, three cubs.

    “We have collected hundreds of photos of tigers over the years, but this is the first time we have recorded a family together,” said Svetlana Soutyrina, deputy director for scientific programs at the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve who set the camera traps. “These images confirm that male Amur tigers do participate in family life, at least occasionally, and we were lucky enough to capture one such moment.”

    “Although WCS’s George Schaller documented sporadic familial groups of Bengal tigers as early as the 1960s, this is the first time such behavior has been photographed for Amur tigers in the wild,” WCS Russia director Dr. Dale Miquelle said. “These photos provide a small vignette of social interactions of Amur tigers, and provide an evocative snapshot of life in the wild for these magnificent animals.”

    Every 10 years an ambitious survey is conducted involving hundreds of scientists, hunters and volunteers to determine an estimate as to the number of remaining endangered Amur tigers in the wild. In 2005, there were an estimated 430 to 500 tigers.

    Results of the survey taken in February will be released by summer.

    _________________

    This Indonesian House Is for Sale and Comes With a Pond, a Backyard and … a Wife

    If you don't talk the price down, you can marry the owner

    A homeowner in Indonesia has put her house on the market, and herself with it.

    The two-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Sleman — a sleepy district near the Javanese city of Yogyakarta — comes with a fishpond, spacious backyard and a chance to ask 40-year-old owner Wina Lia for her hand in marriage.

    The asking price is the rough equivalent of $76,500. “Buyers who don’t negotiate the price,” the sales literature says, “can ask the owner to marry (terms and conditions apply).”

    Last edited by S Landreth; 11-03-2015 at 01:58 PM.

  8. #108
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    No way!

    There's a thin line between adventurous and crazy.

    Judging by this drone video, that line happens to extend through Sedona, Arizona, where it's manifested as a white stripe of sandstone on the edge of a cliff.

    Professional mountain biker Michal Kollbek rode the White Line trail recently and described it to his Instagram followers as "one of the scariest things i have done on a bike."


    ______________

    Germany court orders measles sceptic to pay 100,000 euros


    A German biologist who offered €100,000 (£71,350; $106,300) to anyone who could prove that measles is a virus has been ordered by a court to pay up.

    Stefan Lanka, who believes the illness is psychosomatic, made the pledge four years ago on his website.

    The reward was later claimed by German doctor David Barden, who gathered evidence from various medical studies. Mr Lanka dismissed the findings.

    But the court in the town of Ravensburg ruled that the proof was sufficient.

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    Italy's Epic Treehouse Apartments Fulfill Everyone's Childhood Dreams

    Treehouses used to be total kid territory, but now adults are taking them over in the coolest housing trend around.

    The best example we've seen of these "adult" treehouse apartments is in Turin, Italy, where one apartment building stands out like a green thumb. Designed by architect Luciano Pia, the apartment building is called 25 Verde (which translates to "25 Green"). Standing five stories high with 63 rooms, the building lives up to its moniker and looks like a giant, beautiful forest.


    I want one.

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    Newly Emerged Pacific "Island" Photographed For The First Time


    The new land rises to 250 meters (820 feet) and is approximately 2 kilometers (1.3 miles) across, making it substantially larger and higher than the existing part of Hunga Ha'apai. Without plant cover to hold it together, the peak is expected to erode quickly, with some speculation it may last only a few months. It is only six years since a different eruption greatly expanded Hunga Ha'apai's southern end, but little survives of what was added at that time.


    ________________

    Two pet goldfish get surgeries totaling $750


    For some people, the price of a pet's health is never too high: A team of veterinarians in Scotland performed a set of operations on pet goldfish that cost nearly $750.

    The team -- from Inglis Veterinary Hospital in Fife, Scotland -- removed the blind, cancerous eye of a goldfish named "Star." They also operated on another fish named "Nemo" to remove a lump. The complex operations, which cost $747 U.S. (500 British pounds), involved an exotic consultant surgeon, a vet to keep the fish anesthetized and a nurse to monitor their heart rates, hospital staff wrote in a Facebook post.

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    Ill-tempered badger shuts down luxury hotel in Stockholm


    A luxury hotel in central Stockholm came under siege early Friday by an ill-tempered badger that refused to allow any guests in or out, forcing police to intervene.

    “A crazy or stressed-out badger is preventing the staff and clients at a major hotel from leaving their cars, and from picking up their bags,” the Swedish capital’s police website said.

    The Radisson Blu badger crisis began at around 5 a.m. and lasted some 40 minutes, when the police decided to take action.

    “The stressed animal was refusing to leave the place, so the police called in the local wildlife services to settle the problem,” the police statement said.

    It remains unclear why the badger was angry.

    As if,.... A badger needs a reason to be angry?

  9. #109
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    Awesome post Landreth, great.

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    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    They fell into the Pacific ocean in 1992, and have been washing up ever since. Scientists use them to model ocean currents. Some of them have managed to travel 17,000 miles, washing up in the UK after spending years frozen in Arctic ice.

    A consignment of Friendly Floatee toys, manufactured in China for The First Years Inc., departed from Hong Kong on a container ship, the Ever Laurel, destined for Tacoma, Washington, U.S.. On 10 January 1992, during a storm in the North Pacific Ocean close to the International Date Line, twelve 40-foot (13.3 m) intermodal containers were washed overboard.
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    The Happiest Countries in The World


    The 10 Happiest Countries
    Paraguay
    Colombia
    Ecuador
    Guatemala
    Honduras
    Panama
    Venezuela
    Costa Rica
    El Salvador
    Nicaragua

    The 10 Least Happy Countries
    Afghanistan
    Nepal
    Lithuania
    Georgia
    Bosnia and Herzegovina
    Turkey
    Serbia
    Bangladesh
    Tunisia
    Sudan

    Rank

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    We are finally learning the Perth Canyon’s deep-sea secrets


    After going unexplored for centuries, one of Australia’s biggest marine features is finally giving up its secrets. The Perth Canyon, roughly the length of the Grand Canyon, twice as deep and reaching depths of 4000 metres below the waves, is just 20 kilometres west of Rottnest Island, yet it has never been properly surveyed – until now.

    Despite being so close to Perth and Fremantle, little is known about life in this abyss. But an ocean expedition currently exploring the canyon is aiming to change that.

    A team of scientists from the University of Western Australia, together with researchers from the Western Australian Museum, CSIRO and the Institute of Marine Sciences in Italy, are spending 12 days investigating the Perth Canyon on board the R/V Falkor, a research vessel run by the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

    Using state-of-the-art mapping systems and a remotely operated vehicle to examine the life in the canyon, the cruise’s main goal is to examine and collect a variety of marine organisms that are living at great depths, particularly deep-sea corals. These corals, like their shallow-water counterparts, form reef structures that create local biodiversity hotspots by attracting a range of other animals.


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    Boy who fell into icy stream resuscitated after nearly 2 hours of CPR


    Last Wednesday evening, a 22-month-old child tripped and fell into an icy tributary of Buffalo Creek, outside Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania. The boy was quickly swept downstream for about a quarter of a mile before being washed up on a grassy knoll, which was where a neighbor later found him. The infant had no pulse and was not breathing at the time of discovery and may have been in the 1oC (34oF) water for as long as 30 minutes.

    According to PennLive, emergency services were immediately called and as soon as they arrived they began to perform CPR on him, which continued uninterrupted as they made their way to Evangelical Community Hospital before boarding a helicopter destined for Geisinger.

    Upon arrival, the child still had no pulse and his body temperature was a mere 25oC (77oF), which is substantially lower than the normal body temperature of 37oC (98.6oF), so attempts to resuscitate him were continued alongside administering fluids to warm him. The medical team was ready to admit him into surgery in order to place him on a heart bypass machine, but a pulse was finally detected after 20 minutes so doctors decided to carry on with resuscitation and warming efforts. Amazingly, CPR was carried out for a total of one hour and 41 minutes, which required the hands of many as it is such a tiring procedure.

    Once he reached a more reasonable body temperature, the boy was given blood pressure medicine and placed on a ventilator. Amazingly, he woke up at 2am Thursday and, despite everything, he suffered no neurological damage. Five days on, he returned home with his parents, who said that he is healthy, smiling and talking again.

    So how did he manage to make it through this dramatic event?

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    ^Very lucky lad...

    A type of suspended animation, methinks, aided by the cold temperature...

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    Bear claimed there were old men and women he knew as a child who practiced a deep form of winter sleep and could den up nearly as long as bear or groundhog in a state of consciousness more akin to death than anything else.

    Those old ones would not eat or drink or dream or even rise from slumber to piss for nearly three months.

    But now the exact art of it was lost, like knapping flint into knife blades sharp enough to shave the hair on your arms.

    Charles Frazier (Thirteen Moons)

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    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    World’s oldest person dies at 117 in Japan


    The world’s oldest person, Misao Okawa, died in Japan on Wednesday, a month after celebrating her 117th birthday.

    The nursing home where she lived in Osaka said she breathed her last around 7am (2200 GMT Tuesday).

    _____________

    This is Siam, a gibbon that lives in Monkeyland sanctuary in South Africa. Most gibbons, given the choice, will always use their powerful arms to get around, swinging underneath the ropes. Siam decided to walk across instead.


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    NASA Tests Flying Saucer


    The Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, or LDSL has been designed to allow soft landings of large pay loads on the surface of planetary bodies, like Mars and Earth. It will also allow access to much more of a planet’s surface, by enabling landings at higher altitude sites.

    The rocket-powered, 7,000 pound, 15-foot diameter flying saucer inflates to full size via a series of balloons which increase its surface area, using drag to decelerate from Mach 3 to Mach 2, which allows for soft landings. The craft will be tested at Hawaii’s Pacific Missile Range Facility where it will undergo a “table top spin test”, demonstrating how the craft will spin as it decelerates its cargo during descent.

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    Marijuana Science: Why Today's Pot Packs a Bigger Punch


    The marijuana that is available today may be much more potent than marijuana cultivated in the past, according to the results of new tests.

    The psychoactive component in the marijuana plant is the chemical THC, and the new tests showed that today's marijuana may contain 30 percent THC, Andy LaFrate, the author of the new report, said in a statement.

    By contrast, THC levels in marijuana 30 years ago were lower than 10 percent, said LaFrate, who is the president and research director at Charas Scientific, one of eight labs certified by the state of Colorado to conduct marijuana potency testing.

    ___________

    Final Six: Stunning Animal Photos in Wild Competition


    Camera-trap photos can transport you to wild scenes you would likely otherwise miss. In celebration of that tool, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s photo blog, Wild View, has held a competition to highlight the technique, with the winner to be announced in early April. Until March 31, you can vote at Wild View for one of the six finalists — out of 43 submissions

  14. #114
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Beware! Chimp Tushi at the Dutch Burgers' Zoo is a real drone-buster.


    When the zoo sent a drone over the chimpanzee enclosure for a better look at how their 14 apes live, the response was swift.

    With the unfamiliar intruder coming close to them, 23-year-old female Tushi waited in a tree, gritted her teeth and with two whacks from a long branch, downed the drone. No sweat.

    Zoo spokesman Bas Lukkenaar said on Tuesday that "we can write the drone off. It cost about 2,000 euros ($2,100). Then again, it doesn't surprise that Tushi did this. She is very handy with sticks."

    With the camera still rolling on the ground Friday after Tushi's strike, the zoo got some close-up footage anyway — of chimps coming to inspect their kill.

    ____________

    Bristol, Rhode Island has been known as one of the centers of the maritime world. The small town has a long history of boat building and today still has its fingerprint in the boating world.

    But now, a company from Bristol is helping build the world’s largest surfboard.


    “We were just excited about it,” said president of mouldCAM John Barnitt.

    The board is being built for Visit Huntington Beach campaign where they hope to break the world record for most people to catch a wave on a surfboard.

    The board is going to be 42 feet long, 11 feet wide and is designed to hold 62 people onboard.

    To break the record, 62 people must all be standing on the board and ride a wave for 10 seconds.

    _______________

    Armed rangers guard last northern white rhino male


    The world’s population of northern white rhinos is down to five and the Ol Pejeta Conservancy is home to three of them, including the last remaining male—which is being guarded by armed rangers around the clock.

    Along with the critically endangered northern white rhinos, the conservancy in Kenya is also home to 23 white rhinos and 105 black rhinos, making it the largest black rhino sanctuaries in East Africa.

    In an effort to protect the rhinos from poaching, and to possibly save the northern white rhinos from extinction, the conservancy enlists 40 armed rangers to patrol the 90,000-acre conservancy.

    The most important rhino is Sudan, the 40-year-old male northern white rhino that is under constant surveillance, as are two females. Sudan isn’t always surrounded closely by armed guards, as “we try and let our rhinos be ‘wild’ as much as possible without human interaction,” Eldoie Sampere of the conservancy told GrindTV in an email.

    To increase security, Sudan was fitted with a radio transmitter, and its horn was removed.

    _______________

    Sailing The Arctic Race is heading north in 2017, taking a fleet of international sailors racing high performance volcanic-fiber offshore yachts for an epic adventure through pristine wilderness.


    Rapid climate change has hit the Arctic hard. For the first time in human history it is possible to sail over the top of North America in a single season.

    In 2017, crews aboard a fleet of revolutionary volcanic fiber STAR46 racing yachts will compete for the glory of being the first to race through the Passage, breaking records for the fastest transit. Fans can get their own taste of Arctic adventure and cheer on the elite sailors at any of the 7 host cities along the race route.

    2017 marks Canada’s 150th birthday. What better way to celebrate our young and vibrant country than with an epic adventure?


    Along its 7,700 mile route, STAR will touch all three coasts of Canada as well as parts of the USA and Greenland. International sailing teams and fans are invited to one of the few international yacht races with a Canadian flavour and the only one to take in a broad expanse of the huge country. Come see the beauty, multiculturalism and rich history of Canada’s Maritimes, Inuit territories, and Pacific Northwest.

    ________________

    How to make a dolphin laugh


  15. #115
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    Law Professor Who Sent Anal-Bead Porn To Her Students Now Under Investigation

    She sent an email to her students, writing "I thought this article on brief writing would be interesting for all of you," and then included a link.

    It was a link to PornHub, entitled SHE LOVES HER ANAL BEADS.

    Law Professor Who Sent Anal-Bead Porn To Her Students Now Under Investigation | Above the Law

    Heh...but what kind of prevert surfs porn during working hours?
    A Deplorable Bitter Clinger

  16. #116
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    Slappers?

  17. #117
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Scientists Explain Why We Can't Resist Puppy Dog Eyes


    Oxytocin, or the love hormone, helps reinforce the bond between a parent and a child. And now, researchers working with man’s best friend reveal that dogs have tapped into—or hijacked, some might say—this same instinctual bonding mechanism. Gazing into those sweet puppy dog eyes increases our oxytocin levels, and theirs too. The findings, published in Science this week, suggest that this “oxytocin-gaze” may have been acquired during the domestication of dogs from wolves.

    _________________

    18th-Century Sex Toy Found In Ancient Latrine


    Polish archaeologists digging an ancient latrine in the Baltic city of Gdańsk have stumbled upon a 250-year-old sex toy.

    The phallic object is "large, thick, made of leather filled with bristles, and has a wooden tip," the Regional Office for the Protection of Monuments in Gdansk said in a press release.

    Dating from the second half of the 1700s, the artificial penis was found "preserved in excellent condition."

    _____________

    Incredible Video: Curious Whale Inspects Underwater Robot

    A lucky group of ocean lovers got the surprise of a lifetime when a huge sperm whale swam into their live video broadcast.

    "What the heck is that?!," a crewmember exclaims. "OH WOW. We have a sperm whale."

    The incredible footage was filmed yesterday (April 14) by the Nautilus Live expedition, which is exploring the Gulf of Mexico's seafloor methane seeps. The whale suddenly appeared while scientists were watching methane bubbles and sampling seawater with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), called Hercules.


    _____________

    The Smell of Your Sweat Can Make Other People Happy


    People seem to be able to send happy vibes through their sweat, according to a new A Sniff of Happiness study in Psychological Science. The study found that women showed more signs of happiness when they sniffed sweat made by happy men than when they smelled sweat generated by men in a neutral emotional state.

    “Being exposed to sweat produced under happiness induces a simulacrum of happiness in receivers, and induces a contagion of the emotional state,” said study author Gün Semin, a professor at Utrecht University, in a statement. “Somebody who is happy will infuse others in their vicinity with happiness.”

    ______________

    Scientists develop mesh that captures oil—but lets water through

    Nano-coated mesh could clean oil spills for less than $1 per square foot


    COLUMBUS, Ohio—The unassuming piece of stainless steel mesh in a lab at The Ohio State University doesn’t look like a very big deal, but it could make a big difference for future environmental cleanups.

    Water passes through the mesh but oil doesn’t, thanks to a nearly invisible oil-repelling coating on its surface.

    In tests, researchers mixed water with oil and poured the mixture onto the mesh. The water filtered through the mesh to land in a beaker below. The oil collected on top of the mesh, and rolled off easily into a separate beaker when the mesh was tilted.

    The mesh coating is among a suite of nature-inspired nanotechnologies under development at Ohio State and described in two papers in the journal Nature Scientific Reports. Potential applications range from cleaning oil spills to tracking oil deposits underground.

    ______________

    A student taking video in Ireland's Aran Islands captured the moment a tourist taking pictures atop a tall cliff was washed away by a massive wave.


    Brian Smith, a U.S. student studying in Ireland, was taking video on Inis Mor, the largest of the islands, when a massive wave swept Aparajita Gupta, 21, off the cliff where she was taking pictures of the crashing waters.

    Smith said he and his girlfriend ran to call for help.

    "It was pretty scary at first," Smith told NBC News.

    Gupta, who was visiting Ireland from India with her parents, estimated she fell about 50 feet to the water below.

    "The water cushioned my fall, so when I finally fell the impact wasn't as great as it could have been and next to me, there was a boulder and I held onto it," Gupta said.

  18. #118
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    I’m wondering where the next step will go,…….


    New Gloves Could Let You Feel In Virtual Reality

    Gaming might be about to become a lot more hands on. With most major gaming companies focusing on the sights and sounds of virtual reality (VR), a group of mechanical engineering students at Rice University have instead turned their attention to touch. They’ve managed to produce a prototype VR glove that makes it seem like you’re actually feeling objects in the game.

    Haptic gloves aren’t new technology, but whilst most systems rely on vibration to tell the brain that a virtual object has been touched, the students decided to go with pressure. The glove works by hiding a network of bladders within the glove, which inflate with air when you touch something in the game. This then provides feedback to the fingertips, telling your brain that you’ve touched or grabbed an item.

    _____________

    3D ‘Printout’ Device Keeps Very Ill Babies Breathing


    An implant created with a 3D printer has saved the lives of three baby boys near death from a rare airway disease.

    University of Michigan researchers are calling the implant a “4D” device because they successfully engineered it to adapt to the children’s growth over time.

    The boys — from 3 months to 16 months old — suffered from a condition called tracheobronchomalacia, which occurs when the airway walls are too weak and collapse during breathing.

    “It’s hard to convey how very sick these children were,” said senior author Dr. Glenn Green, an associate professor specializing in pediatric otolaryngology.

    The children had been in an intensive care unit for months, he said. Breathing tubes were implanted into their necks, and they were kept on ventilation under heavy sedation. One “was unable to have any food in his stomach without having cardiac arrest,” Green said, and all required frequent resuscitation.

    To save their lives, researchers designed an airway splint made of hollow, porous tubes shaped like the letter “C,” said study co-author Scott Hollister, a professor of biomedical and mechanical engineering. Surgeons sutured the splints around the affected airways, essentially propping open the passages.

    As the children grew, the thin splints flexed and allowed their airways to grow while staying open. “That splint will essentially give way and allow the airway to grow over time,” Hollister said. The splints are made of a biomaterial that will dissolve as the airway becomes strong enough to stand open on its own.

    _____________

    21 Grams


    21 Grams is a memory-box that allows a widow to go back to the intimate memories of a lost beloved one. After a passing, the missing of intimacy with that person is only one aspect of the pain and grieve.

    This forms the base for 21 Grams. The urn offers the possibility to conserve 21 grams of ashes of the deceased and displays an immortal desire.

    By bringing different nostalgic moments together like the scent of his perfume, ‘their’ music and reviving the moment he gave her her first ring, it opens a window to go back to moments of love and intimacy.

    She is able to have an intimate night with her sweetheart again.

    ___________________

    YouTube star talks about life with two vaginas


    A young and successful YouTube star from California has garnered thousands of followers on her channel “DiamondsAndHeels14” after sharing everything from living with chronic acne to how to deal with bullying, and now — life with two vaginas. A doctor’s visit for lower back pain changed 22-year-old Cassandra Bankson’s life after an ultrasound, MRI, and blood tests revealed she was really “twice the woman.” The YouTube star’s diagnosis concluded she only has one kidney, but has two vaginas, two wombs, and two cervixes.


    ________________

    Mini Sky City, 19 days 57-story building


    A Chinese construction company says it built a 57-story skyscraper -- and it only took 19 days.

    Broad Sustainable Building said the Mini Sky City building, located in the Hunan provincial capital of Changsha, has 800 apartments and office space for 4,000 workers.

    Last edited by S Landreth; 05-05-2015 at 04:19 AM.

  19. #119
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    6 Record-Breaking Mothers


    Most births from one pregnancy:
    Nadya Suleman, better known as "Octomom," became world famous when she gave birth to eight babies in January 2009. When she was 33, the single American mother gave birth to the only known set of octuplets to live past their first week

    Most prolific mom:
    The most children born to any woman in recorded history is 69, according to Guinness World Records. The mother was a peasant from Shuya, Russia, identified only as the wife of Feodor Vassilyev. Mrs. Vassilyev lived during the 18th century, and had 27 pregnancies, including 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets

    Youngest mother:
    The youngest mother ever to give birth was Lina Medina, a Peruvian girl who was 5 years, 7 months and 21 days old when she gave birth in May 1939, according to a report in the journal La Presse Médicale.

    Oldest mother:
    The oldest woman to give birth was an Indian woman named Omkari Panwar, who gave birth to twins at age 72, in June 2008.

    First 'pregnant man':
    Thomas Beatie, a transgender man living in Oregon, became the world's first man to become pregnant and give birth, in 2008.

    Smallest mom:
    Stacey Herald, who stands just 2 feet 4 inches (71 centimeters) tall, has given birth to three babies, despite doctors' warnings that the pregnancies could be life-threatening.

    ______________


    A terrifying photo of a great white shark, mouth open and just inches from a photographer's hands, isn't what it seems to be.

    "Basically it's a very curious great white shark," Australian filmmaker Dave Riggs told ABC Goldfields-Esperance. "She was around 15 foot long, and wasn't being aggressive, believe it or not, but certainly looks like it in that image. But that's how they assess their surroundings."

    Riggs was filming material for a Discovery Channel documentary off Australia's Neptune Islands when the female shark came up for what he called a "sniff."

    _______________

    Lesson for the day: Your butt is not a gun holster.


    The stolen pistol a New Jersey man allegedly had lodged in his anal cavity allowed cops to lodge more charges against him.

    Bridgeton police arrested Darquan R. Lee, 21, on a contempt of court warrant Friday afternoon, officials at the southern New Jersey town’s police department said in a release.

    But cops suspected Lee may have been hiding something else when he first asked to use the restroom but then said he’d rather not go to the bathroom after all when they mentioned they would search him and inspect the washroom before and after.

    Prison guards at the Cumberland County Jail later strip searched Lee after hearing the story, and they found an automatic .25-caliber handgun shoved between his buttocks and up his anus, according to cops.

    The gun was fully loaded and investigators discovered it had been reported stolen in Alabama, police said.

    _____________

    Captain Kidd's Treasure May Have Been Found Off Madagascar


    "There's more down there. I know the whole bottom of the cavity where I found the silver bar is filled with metal," marine archaeologist and treasure hunter Barry Clifford, who discovered the wreck, told the BBC. "It's too murky down there to see what metal, but my metal detector tells me there is metal on all sides."

    The ingot, which weighs more than 120 pounds, was discovered off the coast of the small island of Sainte Marie. It was handed over to Madagascar President Hery Rajaonarimampianina in a ceremony on Thursday.

    ________________

    Chinese billionaire gives France vacation to 6,400 workers


    The billionaire chief executive of the Chinese conglomerate Tiens has given 6,400 of his best salespeople a vacation that started in Paris and ended with a parade on France's Cote d'Azur.

    CEO Li Jinyuan said he was celebrating the company's 20th anniversary by rewarding his staff and aimed for the world record in spelling out a phrase in human bodies.

    As their vacation wound down, the employees on Friday massed on the coastal promenade in Nice and, dressed in identical sky blue hats and T-shirts, spelled out the words "Tiens' dream is Nice in the Cote d'Azur."

    Jinyuan was greeted by France's foreign affairs minister, Laurent Fabius, mid-week in Paris.

    French media estimated the trip's cost at 13-20 million euros ($14.5-$22.3 million).

    ______________

    2 Guys With Jetpacks Fly In Formation Over Dubai, Proving The Future Is Already Here


  20. #120
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    First Warm-Blooded Fish Found


    The car-tire-size opah is striking enough thanks to its rotund, silver body. But now, researchers have discovered something surprising about this deep-sea dweller: It's got warm blood.

    That makes the opah (Lampris guttatus) the first warm-blooded fish every discovered. Most fish are ectotherms, meaning they require heat from the environment to stay toasty. The opah, as an endotherm, keeps its own temperature elevated even as it dives to chilly depths of 1,300 feet (396 meters) in temperate and tropical oceans around the world.

    _______________

    Dogs have been friends with humans for 30,000 years: study


    Dogs' special relationship to humans may go back 27,000 to 40,000 years, according to genomic analysis of an ancient Taimyr wolf bone reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 21. Earlier genome-based estimates have suggested that the ancestors of modern-day dogs diverged from wolves no more than 16,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age.

    The genome from this ancient specimen, which has been radiocarbon dated to 35,000 years ago, reveals that the Taimyr wolf represents the most recent common ancestor of modern wolves and dogs.

    ______________

    This Lens Could Give You Superhuman Vision


    Ocumetics Technology Corp claims to have developed a painless eight-minute procedure that would give you vision that is supposedly three times better than 20/20. The "bionic" lenses would give even 100-year-olds better vision than anything currently available. Does this sound too good to be true? Well, we can’t tell, as it has yet to undergo any clinical trials.

    “Freedom from glasses and contact lenses is a goal that is now a reality,” Ocumetics says on its website. The CEO, Dr Gareth Webb, a Canadian optometrist, invented the "button-shaped" lens and has been working on the product for eight years of research, costing $3m.

    "This is vision enhancement that the world has never seen before. If you can just barely see the clock at 10 feet, when you get the Bionic Lens you can see the clock at 30 feet away," Webb told CBC.

    The procedure is similar to cataract surgery. It involves removing your original lens and replacing it with an Ocumetics' Bionic Lens, which is folded into a syringe in a saline solution and injected directly into your eye. Webb says that the specialized lens would also prevent people from developing cataracts as the procedure replaces natural lenses, which decay over time.

    _____________

    Stone tool discovery pushes back the archaeological record by 700,000 years


    We, and the West Turkana Archaeological Project which we co-lead, had discovered the earliest stone artifacts yet found, dating to 3.3 million years ago. The discovery of the site, named Lomekwi 3, instantly pushed back the beginning of the archaeological record by 700,000 years. That’s over a quarter of humanity’s previously known material cultural history. These tools were made as much as a million years before the earliest known fossils attributed to our own genus, Homo.

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    Newquay Celebrates Success Of Mankini Ban

    Since calling a halt to stag do party-goers wearing the 'Borat' thong, Cornwall's surfing town says it has cracked down on crime.

    Seaside resort Newquay says it is thriving after banning mankinis, the thong-type swimwear made popular by Sasha Baron Cohen's comedy character Borat.


    Police and community leaders from the southwest town say the ban has led to less antisocial behaviour which, in turn, means the resort is booming.



    In recent years Newquay had become better known as a place for boozy stag and hen parties than happy family holidaymakers.

    But now, locals say, it is shedding the "Wild West" image it once had.

    The change came after residents protested in 2009 after two teenagers fell separately to their deaths from cliffs during visits to the town.

    The deaths were the last in a long line of troubles for exasperated locals.



    They formed the Newquay Safe partnership to try to get rid of its increasingly poor reputation and "take back their town" from rampant party-goers.

    Things have improved year-on-year since, with crime and antisocial behaviour figures falling.

    Since the protests, reports of antisocial behaviour have dropped from 937 in 2009/10 to 485 in 2012/13.

    Inspector Dave Meredith, the town's most senior policeman, said: "When you speak to anybody from patrol officers to PCSOs, partners in town, shopkeepers, everybody says Newquay has made a miraculous improvement.

    "Did Newquay have a problem with its reputation five years ago? Almost certainly it did.


    "Five or six years ago and more, Newquay was a little bit of a Wild West town. It had a bad reputation nationally.

    "People expected to come to Newquay to drink a lot, behave irresponsibly; a lot of really young people came to Newquay and knew they had a good chance of getting drunk.

    "Certainly we have clamped down on that and the image of Newquay now has certainly curtailed some of that."

    Mr Meredith continued: "We have a really robust approach to alcohol-related disorder. That doesn't start when you arrive at a nightclub in Newquay - it starts at the marketing while they're at home.

    "It's not completely the opposite now, but the town has successfully evolved into something which has a broader appeal to it."


    At its worse, he said, problems would go "right the way through the night".

    He said: "It would range from 56 to 68-year-olds mostly, at the younger end of the scale, but I wouldn't put all the blame on them.

    "You're going up to 40 and 50-year-olds on stag nights - it was the stag culture of 'do what you like' - it was quite intense."

    Resident Dave Sleeman, who helped organise the 2009 protests, is now the town's mayor.



    He said: "I remember back in the 2000s you couldn't walk the streets on a Saturday without seeing someone wearing a mankini or what have you.

    "But now they're not allowed in Newquay.

    "The police will tell them to go home and get changed if they see them wearing one, and the guest houses and camp sites are pretty good at warning their guests about what's acceptable.

    "I think we have turned the corner here."

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    Hawaiian Fisherman Dies in Struggle with Swordfish he Speared



    Reuters
    May 31, 2015

    A Hawaiian fisherman died when a swordfish he had speared in a harbor on the Big Island struck him in the chest with its sharp bill, officials said.

    The man, a captain in the charter fishing business, on Friday morning saw the swordfish in the Honokohau small boat harbor and jumped into the water to catch it, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

    Witnesses say he speared the fish but it struck him in the chest with its spear-shaped bill, according to the department.

    Onlookers pulled the unresponsive man out of the water and performed CPR until paramedics took him to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, the department said in a statement.

    The man was not named in the statement but local television station KITV identified him as 47-year-old Randy Llanes.

    "He was a tough guy, he was such a tough guy that everyone's scared of him, the whole harbor's scared of him," Kalina Llanes, the man's sister-in-law, told the station.

    She added that those who knew him well were "not scared of him because he has such a big heart."

    KITV showed an image of the fish, which according to the Department of Land and Natural Resources measured 3 feet long with a bill that extended another 3 feet, lying dead at the water's edge.

    Hawaiian fisherman dies in struggle with swordfish he speared

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    KFC Is Going to Court to Dispel Rumors of GMO Spider Chickens



    Takepart.com
    June 3, 2015
    By Jason Best

    KFC wants the world to know: There’s no such thing as an eight-legged, six-winged chicken.

    Among the urban legends that have dogged the fried-chicken chain for years, it seems a particularly stubborn one alleges that the company has created a mutant strain of arachnid chickens capable of producing a bumper crop of drumsticks and hot wings.

    Apparently, the rumors have proved so persistent in China, where KFC is the largest fast-food purveyor of fried chicken, that parent company Yum Brands has filed suit against three companies, according to Reuters, that it charges have been among the most persistent online rumormongers: Yingchenanzhi Success and Culture Communication, Shanxi Weilukuang Technology Co., and Taiyuan Zero Point Technology.

    Lost in the translation here is why, exactly, these three companies might have fueled a widespread campaign of chicken disinformation on the Internet. Neither Reuters nor any of the news organizations that have picked up the story appear to speculate about what might have motivated the corporate triad to try to bring down KFC with stomach-turning allegations of monster spider chickens.

    The chain says it has found upwards of 4,000 messages online containing libelous claims—including photos!—that have been viewed more than 100,000 times. KFC is seeking the equivalent of $242,000 from each defendant as well as an apology. The Shanghai Xuhui District People’s Court has accepted the case, according to the Associated Press.

    Even as KFC pursues tough legal action to defend its reputation, its PR response would appear at once dismissive and also possessed of a healthy dose of online snark—though again, there may be something off in the translation here. As Reuters reports, a statement on KFC’s China website reads, “The rumors about KFC using chickens with six wings and eight legs have been around a long time,” and it goes on to chide the gullible for even entertaining the notion that such a thing were scientifically possible, saying that if the company had somehow managed the feat, “it could be in the running for a Nobel Prize.”

    As recently as February, KFC found itself on the defensive yet again here in the U.S., fending of similar rumors about Frankenchickens as well as the decades old canard that the federal government had ordered the chain to switch its name from Kentucky Fried Chicken because it had stopped serving up “real chickens” in favor of test-tube-generated, genetically engineered creatues that are a far cry from a barnyard bird.

    “There is absolutely no truth to this ridiculous urban legend, which has been debunked many times,” a KFC spokesman told Business Insider via email. “KFC uses top quality poultry from trusted companies like Tyson and Pilgrim’s Pride—the same brands customers know from their local supermarkets.”

    Yet in a bizarre way, could the rumors about spider chickens turn out to be not such a bad thing for KFC? Sure, some conspiracy-minded sliver of the population will no doubt continue to want to enlighten the rest of us about the “truth” regarding what those mad scientists are up to over at KFC and other fast-food chains. But next to outlandish rumors like the eight-legged chicken, the scary reality of what Big Food is actually doing on its factory farms comes to seem, well, normal.

    “Modern factory-farmed chickens look very little like their wild chicken ancestors,” as the ASPCA describes it. “Thanks to selective breeding—combined with low-dose antibiotics, excessive feeding and inadequate exercise—factory-farmed meat chickens grow unnaturally quickly and disproportionately. While their breasts grow large to meet market demand, their skeletons and organs lag behind. Many suffer heart failure, trouble breathing, leg weakness and chronic pain. Some cannot support their own weight and become crippled, unable to reach food and water.”

    Turns out the truth can be just as unappetizing as fiction.

    KFC Is Going to Court to Dispel Rumors of GMO Spider Chickens

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    Hit Man Killed Wrong Victim with Target's Name

    Associated Press
    June 11, 2015

    CHARDON, Ohio (AP) — Three men were indicted Wednesday on aggravated murder charges for a contract killing nine years ago in which the hit man went to the wrong house and killed a man with the same name as the intended target, Ohio authorities said.

    The men were arrested June 1 on conspiracy and aggravated murder charges and are in custody at the Geauga County Jail, located in a town just east of Cleveland.

    "Detectives have worked tirelessly on the case since 2006," County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz said. "It was never a closed case. They pursued suspects throughout Ohio and the United States."

    The indicted men are Joseph Rosebrook, 59, of Saint Cloud, Florida; Carl Rosebrook, 57, of East Liberty, Ohio; and Chad South, 45, of Moraine, Ohio. No attorney information was available for them.

    Geauga County Sheriff Dan McClelland said Joseph Rosebrook hired Chad South to kill a Daniel Ott. Authorities said it was in retaliation for Ott's willingness to testify against Joseph Rosebrook, the operator of a stolen car operation. His cooperation had forced Rosebrook to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge in central Ohio and accept a 10-year sentence.

    McClelland said the hired man broke into a home in northeast Ohio and, after a struggle, killed 31-year-old Daniel Ott with a shotgun.

    But it was the wrong house and the wrong Daniel Ott.

    The only thing the slain Daniel Ott was guilty of was having the name Daniel Ott. He worked at a greenhouse nursery and lived an unassuming life with his girlfriend in quiet Burton Township.

    Rosebrook was released in March 2014 and moved to Florida. Joseph Rosebrook's brother, Carl, handled the payment to South while his brother was in prison, McClelland said.

    It took wiretaps, the help of state investigators and dogged determination to finally arrest the three men, McClelland said. The case took so long to solve because promising leads went nowhere thanks to Joe Rosebrook's terrifying reputation. McClelland said Rosebrook specialized in witness intimidation and that he remains a suspect in the death of an associate killed in 1999 after he cooperated with authorities in an earlier criminal case against Rosebrook.

    "Detectives repeatedly ran into the phrase, 'I know what you want, but they will kill me,'" McClelland said. "Witnesses flat out refused to talk."

    The Daniel Ott who was the intended target has survived two assassination attempts, McClelland said. The sheriff wouldn't say where that Daniel Ott lives for his protection.

    Authorities won't say why the hit man picked out the wrong Daniel Ott.

    Ohio sheriff: Hit man killed wrong victim with target's name

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    Most Kangaroos are Left-Handed



    Bangkok Post / AFP
    June 19, 2015

    WASHINGTON - Kangaroos tend to be lefties, according to a study that sheds new light on the capacity for mammals, particularly those that walk upright, to prefer one paw over the other. The study was published in the journal Current Biology.

    Lead researcher Yegor Malashichev of Saint Petersburg State University in Russia studied kangaroos for the first time, after previously focusing on handedness in jumping frogs, walking frogs and gray short-tailed opossums.

    Wild kangaroos in Australia and Tasmania showed "a natural preference for their left hands when performing particular actions -- grooming the nose, picking a leaf, or bending a tree branch, for example," said the study.

    "Left-handedness was particularly apparent in eastern grey and red kangaroos."

    When it came to red-necked wallabies, they appeared to favor their left hand for some tasks -- like those involving fine motor skills -- and their right for others that used more physical strength.

    "According to a special-assessment scale of handedness adopted for primates, kangaroos pulled down the highest grades," said Malashichev. "We observed a remarkable consistency in responses across bipedal species in that they all prefer to use the left, not the right, hand."

    A key reason why researchers were surprised at the finding was that kangaroo brains lack the same neural circuit that bridges the left and right hemispheres of the brain seen in other mammals. "What we observed in reality we did not initially expect," Malashichev said. "But the more we observed, the more it became obvious that there is something really new and interesting in the wild."

    Most kangaroos are left-handed: study | Bangkok Post: news

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