@tsarstepan,
You know I don't like this..
she snarffles.
I wish I was over there ----------------------->
@ossobuco,
Technically, neither do I. I like squirrels. I don't like dead squirrels.
Good version of Donkey Serenade, letty. I hope they punish that donkey's owner.
1936 Bugatti has sold for $30 mil.
Geordie wakes after stroke with new accent
By Nigel Bunyan
A woman spoke of her distress yesterday at emerging from a stroke to find that her Geordie accent had been transformed into a Jamaican one.
Linda Walker, 60, is one of only 50 people to have been recorded as suffering from foreign accent syndrome. She is now helping researchers from Newcastle University in the hope that they can find a cure for future sufferers.
The condition occurs when patients wake up after a brain injury. In Mrs Walker's case it appeared as she regained consciousness from a stroke in March.
She failed to realise the extent of the transformation of her voice until her speech therapist played her a tape.
"I was devastated," said Mrs Walker. "I don't sound like me. It is so strange because you don't feel the same person. Not only did I have a stroke but I got lumbered with this foreign accent syndrome as well."
There is nothing in Mrs Walker's history to indicate why she should now have an accent that some hear as Jamaican and others as an Eastern European dialect.
She was brought up in the Westerhope area of Newcastle and now lives a short distance away in Fenham. She lived for a brief period of time in Canada.
After four months of speech therapy she is beginning to despair of recovering her native accent.
She said: "I want my own voice back. It's like losing a big part of your identity. You don't feel like the same person any more."
Frauke Buerk, Mrs Walker's speech therapist, said: "Although Linda has improved it looks likely that she will be left with an accent."
Foreign accent syndrome was first discovered in Norway in 1941 when a young woman started to speak with a German accent after an air raid.
link to story
@Reyn,
That sounds similar to the tale of Lobsang Rampa. He was an ordinary Brit, but something like that happened to him. After that, he always said he believed that a dying Tibetan Buddhist took his body so that he could finish his work. As the monk, Rampa wrote a dozen or more books and worked studying the human 'aura.' I don't recall the year he died.
Watching the football game a bit earlier, the announcer remarked, "Wade Phillips has lost forty pounds. He looks good." About that time, Phillips walked by, with his enormous gut hanging down. -
Visine Introduces New Eye-Whitening Strips
onion.com
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—The Johnson and Johnson company unveiled its new Visine-brand "Eye-Bright" whitening strips Tuesday, an over-the-counter product designed to reduce unsightly stains in bloodshot and yellowed eyeballs.
NPR
As a dinosaur enthusiast from the tender age of 5, it was with an existential sense of upheaval that I read the recent news about my favorite prehistoric herbivore, Triceratops. Turns out that gentle giant is simply the teenage version of the not-nearly-as-famous Torosaurus. As educational publishers gnash their teeth and I throw away my VHS copy of “The Land Before Time” (I’ll always love you Cera!), Need to Know spotlights 5 things you learned in school that heartless scientists have since ripped away…
1. Triceratops
Montana State University paleontologists John Scannella and Jack Horner announced in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology that the dinosaur we’ve always known as Triceratops was, in fact, just a juvenile Torosaurus. It was an easy mistake, they say. Like humans, some dinosaurs also had awkward teenage years. In their case, it wasn’t just “backne” or a bad perm, but the shape of their skulls was actually significantly different from that of mature animals. Traditionalists can take solace in the fact that the Torosaurus lost the name battle and both juveniles and adults will now be known as Triceratops.
2. Pluto
Remember the days of My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas? Gone. All gone. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union removed “Pizzas” from the planetary mnemonic when they voted in a definition of planet that demoted Pluto from the celestial hierarchy. Now, it’s just a “plutoid.” And apparently, there are a couple of new dwarf planets we’re supposed to learn, named Ceres (formerly an asteroid) and Eris (larger than Pluto, discovered in 2005 and originally known as Xena). In 2008, 10-year-old Maryn Smith of Great Falls, Mont., won a National Geographic Children’s Books contest for a new solar system mnemonic — My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants. Childhood-destroying collaborator and songstress Lisa Loeb even wrote a tune about it.
3. Five kingdoms of biology
Back when I was dissecting flatworms and building baking soda & vinegar volcanoes, there were five kingdoms I had to memorize for my biology test — Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista and Monera. But since then, scientists have decided that’s just not good enough. In the ‘70s, a new group of organisms was identified and named the Archaea. These microscopic guys can live in extreme environments like deep sea rift vents and the digestive tracts of cows and are genetically very different from the bacteria formerly classified under Monera. Now, the taxonomic system is in debate. According to a 2008 article in American Biology Teacher, an educator in Massachusetts said, “In my district, for example, a 1997 textbook I had been using in seventh grade life science presents five kingdoms; its 1999 update includes six; and our high school biology text, from 2004, uses the three-domain system.” Are you happy now, scientists?
4. Four tastes
One of the earliest science class demonstrations I remember was the tongue map. We took cotton swabs dabbed in different tastes — sweet, salty, sour and bitter — and put them on our tongues in what, retrospectively, was probably the vector for our second-grade outbreak of strep throat. Receptors on the tips of our tongues were supposed to be sensitive to the sweet taste. Salt and sour were on the sides, and bitter was supposed to light up the back. Turns out, that’s all a lie based on a century-old misconception that no one bothered to challenge until 1974. Actually, the entire tongue is sensitive to all of those tastes. And that’s not all. There are fifth and sixth tastes. Umami, or savory, is what makes bacon and soy sauce so delicious, and the taste of fat is also a distinct flavor. Mmmmmm…
5. Gravity
What’s next for those ivory tower snobs to destroy? In a paper from January 2010 entitled “On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton,” string theorist and University of Amsterdam physics professor Erik Verlinde takes issue with gravity as a fundamental force. He’s not the first to do this — Einstein wreaked havoc with Newtonian physics a century ago — but he’s one of the most recent to provoke heated discussion. Verlinde told a New York Times reporter, “We’ve known for a long time gravity doesn’t exist. It’s time to yell it.”
So, will my tears shed over the loss of grade school science still fall to the ground? Admittedly, it might only be sentimental geeks like me that mourn the passing of the tongue taste test or the nine-planet solar system. Most people seem to be moving on just fine. Elizabeth Carney, the editor of Scholastic’s SuperScience classroom magazine for 3rd to 6th graders says they have to stay on top of the science. “Here, when Pluto was demoted we did articles. We made a new poster. Fortunately, kids aren’t as married to these things as adults are. They took it all in stride.”
We’ll see how those kids feel 20 years from now when their precious Kingdom Archaea turns out to be a crock.
Hillary Clinton Drags Taliban Leader's Body Through Streets Of Kabul
onion.com
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN—As members of the international press looked on, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rode on horseback through the streets of Kabul Monday, dragging the mutilated remains of Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Jalil through the dirt behind...
Here's a goody!
--------------
Nearly naked biker arrested in Hamilton, charged for failing to wear helmet
The Canadian Press
HAMILTON - A Hamilton, Ont. man is facing several charges after taking an early-morning motorcycle ride wearing nothing but a T-shirt.
Police spotted the nearly-nude 40-year-old going down a city street dotted with shops and homes at around 4 a.m. on Sunday.
The man tried to get away once he saw an officer, momentarily loosing control of his bike before steadying himself and speeding away.
Police caught up with the nearly nude man a short time later. He tried to flee on foot, but was arrested close to his home after a brief struggle.
Acting Staff Sgt. David Hennick said the man had been drinking, but was not impaired.
Despite his nudity, the pants-free rider was not charged with indecent exposure.
"No one else was around, it was just the officer and the accused," said Hennick.
"It is kind of bizarre," he chuckled.
The man faces several charges, including flight from police, dangerous driving and failing to wear a helmet.
link to story
@DrewDad,
Oh yes, it's Monday alright.
Reading this story reminded me of a similar incident I had as a meter reader a few years back.
I was on a rural road and saw a cat with a tin can on its head. I guess it had been hungry and tried to get ahold of any food scraps left in the can.
So, I firmly held onto the can and the cat did the rest by moving around and backing away from the can until it managed to get itself loose.
Before running away, it turned and gave me what appeared to be a knowing look of 'thanks'.
--------------------
at 12:17 on August 14, 2010, EDT.
Days from death, Florida wildlife officials free plastic jar that was stuck on bear cub's head
The Associated Press
OCALA, Fla. - A black bear cub in Florida affectionately known as "jarhead" can finally enjoy a good meal.
A clear plastic container was removed from the 6-month-old cub's head after being stuck for at least 10 days. The cub poked its head into the jar when digging through trash in a neighbourhood in central Florida.
Biologists say the cub was days away from death because the jar made it impossible to eat or drink. The team had to tranquilize the mother bear and then grab the cub to remove the jar from the bear's head.
The subdued mother was then put in a trap and the cubs followed. After she awoke and nursed the cubs, the bears were moved to a less populated area nearby.
link to story
@Reyn,
From here on in, I shall refer you as
Saint Reyn, savior of all simple minded and/or desperate cats.
@tsarstepan,
It was nothing. I'm sure the cat would have ended up starving to death, more than likely.
Hopefully, it learned from its experience that maybe this was not the best place to look for food.
