‘Crows have shown that two tools are better than one when it comes to problem solving, scientists say.
A University of Auckland study has revealed that New Caledonian crows can use separate tools in quick succession to retrieve an out-of-reach snack. [..]
The scientists said the crows’ performance was comparable to that of the great apes in similar experiments.
The team believes that because the birds were able to solve the problem on their first attempt they were using analogical reasoning rather than trial and error.’
‘Dressed in white coveralls and wearing a crash helmet, Gary Le Fever, 70, sat gripping the wheel of his 1921 Model T speedster. Before him loomed a 475-foot-tall hill that in Evansville, Ind. passes as a mountain. He revved his engine, waiting for the climbing contest to begin. Competing with him were other vintage racers and, at FORBES’ request, a 2003 Hummer H2. [..]
When the flag dropped, Le Fever punched both feet to the floor. He crossed the finish line in 9.96 seconds. Later the Hummer had its turn: 10.74.
How? Why? Weight has much to do with it. The 316hp Hummer weighs twice as much per unit of power. Not only did the Model T beat the Hummer, it beat every other comer, including a modern turbocharged Dodge diesel and the county sheriff’s patrol car.’
‘He survived against all the odds; now Peng Shulin has astounded doctors by learning to walk again.
When his body was cut in two by a lorry in 1995, it was little short of a medical miracle that he lived. [..]
Skin was grafted from his head to seal his torso – but the legless Mr Peng was left only 78cm (2ft 6in) tall. [..]
Doctors at the China Rehabilitation Research Centre in Beijing found out about Mr Peng’s plight late last year and devised a plan to get him up walking again.
They came up with an ingenious way to allow him to walk on his own, creating a sophisticated egg cup-like casing to hold his body with two bionic legs attached to it.’
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‘So, driving home from work today I have some fuckwad tailing me, just banging on the horn. I look in my rear view and it is some dork in a BMW or Mercedes or some other overpriced piece of shit. I can see dude’s veins bulging in his forehead and literally I can see the specks of saliva splashing off the windshield and he is LEAAAANNNNNING over the steering wheel yelling at me as if this was going to help me hear him better.
By the looks of him, he is a pretty big dude. So, unluckily for me, I have to stop at a light. [..] So, of course Mr Testosterone has to get out of his car and confront me. [..]
So, I continued to look straight ahead, I rolled my window down, maybe a 1/3, not quite half and asked him if he was having a bad day. Without warning, Road Rage Guy punches at me. Fucking longest light in the history of Vancouver right here…sadly for him, his big fucking mitt hit most of my window–shaking his hand he yelled for me to get out of the car–LOL, here is where it gets funny. [..]’
‘Whenever folks who have lived or traveled in Germany gather for a beer, sooner or later one subject is sure to rear its ugly head: what is the deal with those toilets? [..]
We’ve had innumerable bad experiences with German toilets. In Berlin, we lived on an upper floor and the water pressure was too weak to push a healthy-sized log off the shelf. After a few minutes’ fruitless flushing you’d be forced to grab a wad of toilet paper and give the horrid thing an encouraging nudge. Then followed a lengthy bout of brushing and cleaning to remove the skid marks from the porcelain. At the other extreme, in Munich we lived in a basement suite where the water pressure was too high. Worse, the shelf was actually slightly concave, forming a shallow bowl. The first time I flushed the toilet the water came rushing through so forcefully that a small chunk of poo launched off the lip and shot out over the floor. After that we always held the lid down when we flushed. I swore you could feel a kick as the turd ricoched off the underside.’
It’s kinda like a backwards version of the old classic. You’re the asteroid. Destroy the ships.
‘The ultimate solution to the Rubik’s cube has come closer thanks to hours of number crunching on a supercomputer.
The research has proved that a Rubik’s cube can be returned to its original state in no more than 26 moves.
The supercomputer took 63 hours to crank out the proof which goes one better than the previous best solution. [..]
The study brings scientists one step closer to finding the so-called “God’s Number” which is the minimum number of moves needed to solve any disordered Rubik’s cube.
It is so named because God would only need the smallest number of moves to solve a cube. Theoretical work suggests that God’s Number is in the “low 20s”.’
‘According to an alarming new Department of Defense report combining civilian, military, and calendric evidence, Iran may be as few as nine years away from the year 2016.
“Every day they get one day closer,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a White House press conference Tuesday. “At the rate they’re going, they will reach 2016 at the same time as the United States—and given their geographic position relative to the international date line, possibly even sooner.”
The report recommended that the U.S. engage in bellicose international posturing, careless brinksmanship, and an eventual overwhelming series of nuclear strikes in order to prevent Iran from reaching this milestone.’
‘MIT scientists and colleagues have found a way to create in the lab large amounts of cancer stem cells, or cells that can initiate tumors. The work, reported in the August 13 issue of Cancer Cell, could be a boon to researchers who study these elusive cells. Labs could easily grow them for use in experiments.
The findings also contradict an assumption about the trajectory of cancer cells. According to current cancer models, any normal cell can evolve toward a malignant state through a series of alterations, including mutations. Given the right alterations, any cell could eventually acquire the ability to invade other tissues.
But the new study suggests that some normal cells are more prone to become tumor-initiating and have a higher potential to metastasize, or spread to other tissues.’
‘Damn it! These fish sticks are as hard as tits!’
‘All you ever do is stay at home and play with your tits and look at your ass at the same time!’
(22.1meg Flash video)
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‘Malaysian police have arrested a man who practised as a dentist for 29 years although he had no medical training and treated patients at his home in a cast-off examining chair.
The impostor’s closest brush with the dental profession was during the years 1962 to 1978, when he assisted an army dentist by carrying his bag on visits to plantation workers’ homes, the New Straits Times reported.
“I watched the doctor diagnose and treat problems with teeth,” the paper quoted the unidentified man as saying when officials raided his home this week.
“I also saw how he would extract teeth and make models and measurements for dentures.”‘
‘Their experiments focused on the travel of microwave photons – energetic packets of light – through two prisms.
When the prisms were moved apart, most photons reflected off the first prism they encountered and were picked up by a detector.
But a few appeared to “tunnel” through a gap separating them as if the prisms were still held together.
Although these photons had travelled a longer distance, they arrived at their detector at the same time as the reflected photons. This suggests that the transit between the two prisms was faster than the speed of light.
Dr Gunter Nimtz, of the University of Koblenz, told the magazine New Scientist: “For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of.”‘
‘Deputies said they spotted a vehicle Tuesday night and attempted to stop the driver on suspicion he was driving drunk.
The driver then led police on a chase that ended on Mott Avenue in the Lockhart area.
Officers said the driver tried to run them down before jumping from the vehicle and running away.
The man was spotted fleeing while still clutching a beer.
“There was a 12-pack of Corona he was working on in the front seat,” Orange County sheriff’s Cmdr. Jeff Stonebreaker said. “He decided to take one of those over the fence with him. So, he bails out of the car and runs from the deputies with a beer in his hand.”‘
‘Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez unveiled a plan to rewrite the constitution that would allow him to seek indefinite re-election and deepen the country’s transformation to a socialist political and economic system.
Chavez, 53, addressed the nation last night from the National Assembly, outlining his proposal to create new federal, military and municipal districts, nationalize natural gas and coal resources and grant the state increased power to expropriate property, among other measures.
“We have to change the geometry of power,” Chavez said in comments broadcast by state television, in which he proposed the creation of communes and federal cities across the country. “All of these proposals will deepen this Bolivarian democracy,” Chavez said.’
‘The legend was almost too good to be true.
For decades, a mysterious figure dressed in black, his features cloaked by a wide-brimmed hat and scarf, crept into a churchyard to lay three roses and a bottle of cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.
Now, a 92-year-old man who led the fight to preserve the historic site says the visitor was his creation.
“We did it, myself and my tour guides,” said Sam Porpora. “It was a promotional idea. We made it up, never dreaming it would go worldwide.”‘
‘A drunken barrister accused of exposing himself to bridesmaids before battering a guest at a wedding told his victim he would ‘seriously beat him up’, a court has heard.
Best man Christopher Dunn, 40, so offended women and children guests at the country hotel reception, that David Baird-Dean stepped in to drag him away.
Dunn was threatened with police being called but guests relented when he offered an abject apology and pleaded as a barrister he would be in trouble if arrested, Preston Crown Court heard.
But hours later the heavily built lawyer allegedly beat his victim until he was unconscious after ushering him onto a sun terrace outside the venue, Harefield Hall Hotel in Pateley, Bridge, North Yorkshire. [..]
Its alleged the trouble began when Dunn was asked if he had a tattoo of a white rose, to which he replied, “I’ll show you a white rose” – then unzipped his trousers and pulled out his penis.’
‘Starting your lawn mower can be trouble enough.
But Danny Fendley, of Johns Creek, started more than just his mower Tuesday afternoon when he tugged at the pull cord.
The mower “exploded,” starting a fire that soon consumed Fendley’s home.
“It’s a goner,” said Fulton County Fire Lt. Gregory Chambers, at the scene of the blaze. “There’s not even one brick standing.” [..]
As Fendley struggled with the blaze, he said his wife tried to toss a can of gasoline out a window. She missed.
“Gas spilled everywhere,” he said.’
‘A British clown has had the smile wiped off his face after being told he couldn’t use balloons in his act because children might be allergic to latex.
Barney Baloney said he was told by bosses at a supermarket where he was booked to appear that he should leave his balloons at home because of the potential for allergic reactions.
The 47-year-old entertainer, also known as Tony Turner, has previously had to ditch his bubble-making machine because he could not get public liability insurance as companies assessed that youngsters might slip and hurt themselves.
He said he was also told by one venue he could not twist balloons into the shape of guns for fear of encouraging youngsters to commit violence, although swords were deemed acceptable.’
Apparently this Tesla coil is 15 feet tall, runs at 33 kW and throws lightning 26 feet.
(11.6meg Flash video)
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‘A 23-year-old St. Augustine man who told deputies he was “angry with God” and intentionally drove his pickup truck into a Catholic church Tuesday morning, according to the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office. [..]
Just before 3 a.m., deputies responded to a report of a crash at St. Anastasia Catholic Church in the 5200 block of state Road A1A South. They said they found Thomas Kyle Nursey still in the driver’s seat of his Ford F-150 pickup that had crashed into the door of the church, according to WJXT-TV.
Deputies reported damage to the door and north wall of the church, but an estimate of damages was not immediately available.
The church would not comment on the crash.’
‘The idea that the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has created a wildlife haven is not scientifically justified, a study says.
Recent studies said rare species had thrived despite raised radiation levels as a result of no human activity.
But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster’s impact on birds said the ecological effects were “considerably greater than previously assumed”. [..]
The study, which recorded 1,570 birds from 57 species, found that the number of birds in the most contaminated areas declined by 66% compared with sites that had normal background radiation levels.’
‘A monkey that freed himself two weeks ago from a Mississippi zoo has escaped again, zoo officials said. Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo Manager Kirk Nemecheck and other employees noticed the white-faced capuchin’s cage open and lock on the ground around 8:30 a.m. Monday.
Oliver and another capuchin named Baby were found wandering nearby. Workers easily captured Baby, but Oliver fled the park headed in the direction of the Tupelo Country Club, Nemecheck said.
“This is the craziest thing I have ever seen,” Nemecheck said. “I have heard of chimps and orangutans that can pick locks. I’ve also heard a guy who swears his raccoon can pick a lock, but I’ve never heard of a monkey who can pick a lock.”‘
Followup to Tupelo Zoo Searches For Escaped Monkey.
‘A diplomatic incident of some kind is perhaps foreseeable when four young Liverpudlians arrive in a land they’ve never seen before to meet legions of screaming, weeping young women. That might be what Harold Wilson had in the back of his mind when, as Prime Minister, he ensured that a visit to the British embassy in Washington was on the Beatles’ itinerary when they travelled to the US in February 1964.
If that was the case, then Wilson had evidently not anticipated quite how enthusiastically the Fab Four would actually be received by the likes of Lord Harlech, British ambassador of the day, and his wife Lady Sylvia Ormsby-Gore. [..]
John Lennon was pushed and pulled by a “rugby scrum of young Foreign Office officials” while George Harrison was grappled into a corner by dozens of autograph hunters in formal dress. But Ringo had the worst of it. “Someone just cut off a piece of my hair. I’m ruddy mad. This lot here are terrifying,” he said. “Much worse than the kids.”‘
‘For months, Shira Barlow’s cell phone was flooded with wrong-number calls and text messages, mostly between 2 and 4 a.m. on weekends. Told they had reached a college student, callers refused to believe it.
“Baby girl, how are you?” one man purred in a foreign accent. “Why are you doing this?” a woman asked. “This is so rude.” And there were several seemingly random references to “Paris.”
As in Paris Hilton. [..]
Barlow had been given a recycled phone number that used to be Hilton’s. The practice stems from efforts to conserve phone numbers to minimize area-code splitting. [..]
Barlow plans to keep the number because she says it has been a greater source of amusement than a hassle.’
‘Cape York stockman David George has spent seven nights up a tree in a crocodile-infested swamp, bleeding and with little food – and lived to tell the tale.
The father-of-one and co-manager at Silver Plains cattle station yesterday told his remarkable tale of survival and rescue by chopper in rugged bushland near Coen, in the state’s remote far north.
“Every night I was stalked by two crocs who would sit at the bottom of the tree staring up at me,” Mr George recalled yesterday.
“All I could see was two sets of red eyes below me and all night I had to listen to a big bull croc bellowing a bit further out.
“I’d yell out at them, ‘I’m not falling out of this tree for you bastards’.”‘
