Flowers "wave" at insects to get their attention, scientists have discovered.
The finding helps explain why many flowers waft in the breeze, and reveals a hitherto unknown trick used to attract pollinators.
Scientists made the discovery while studying common wildflowers known as sea campion on the Welsh coast.
Mobile flowers are visited more often by insects and also produce more seeds, they report in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
Moving flowers also attract a wider variety of insect species than more static blooms.
For years, biologists have known that flowers use striking colours, fragrances, elaborately shaped petals and nectar to attract pollinating insects such as bees and flies.
Yet no-one had ever seriously considered whether wafting in the wind acted as a similar signal.
"I was lying on the beach watching flowers wave in the wind at my daughter's birthday party, and I wondered why they have stalks and risked getting damaged in such an exposed habitat," recounted John Warren from the University of Aberystwyth.
So he looked at what research had previously been done, and found very few answers.
"The only reference I found to motion in attracting pollinators says it's unlikely to be important, because insects are not good at detecting movement; which is clearly rubbish."
To find out more, Dr Warren and colleague Penri James experimented with sea campion (Silene maritima) growing on an exposed coast within a Site of Special Scientific Interest in Cardigan Bay in west Wales.
They observed 300 specially grown flowers of varying stem lengths, recording how much each flower moved in the wind, how often it was visited by insects and for how long, and how many seeds it went on to produce.
Their experiments reveal that flowers mounted on long, thin stalks move around more in the wind.
This acts as a powerful signal to passing pollinators, allowing the plant to attract more insects than less mobile flowers growing atop short, thick stems.
"We found wavy flowers are more visible to insects, and thus attract more pollinators and set more seeds," said John Warren.
But flowers ultimately face an evolutionary trade-off, he believes.
"Short, fat-stalked flowers don't wobble enough and are less attractive to pollinators; yet very wobbly flowers are just too wobbly for the insects to handle, as the insects cannot land on them.
"Only flowers that wobble the right amount are successful in setting seeds."
A British satirist has translated 15 of Shakespeare's classic plays into chav speak.
Martin Bauam's updated version of Hamlet reveals: "Dere was somefing minging in de State of Denmark."
The Danish prince, who is re-named 'Amlet, asks: "To be or not to be, innit?", while Romeo pines for his "fit bitch Jools".
Mr Baum's other titles include Macbeff, Much Ado About Sod All, De 'Appy Bitches of Windsor, De Taming of de Bitch, Two Geezas Of Verona and All's Sweet That Ends Sweet, Innit.
Mr Baum, 48, says his versions of the Bard's classics, while abridged, remain true to the originals, retaining "the important sexist, duplicitous, cross-dressing and violent moments that made William Shakespeare well wicked."
Mr Baum's version of Romeo and Juliet sets the scene for the star-crossed lovers with: "Verona was de turf of de feuding Montagues and de Capulet families.
"And coz they was always brawling and stuff, de prince of Verona told them to cool it or else they was gonna get well mashed if they carried on larging it with each other."
If the Bard was living today, Mr Baum writes on his website, he would "still be writing in the Globe turf, getting loads of respect from the Stratford-upon-Avon massive and producing works of pure genius."
Life may begin at 40, but research suggests that 44 is the age at which we are most vulnerable to depression.
Data analysis on two million people from 80 countries found a remarkably consistent pattern around the world.
The risk of depression was lowest in younger and older people, with the middle-aged years associated with the highest risk for both men and women.
The study, by the University of Warwick and Dartmouth College in the US, will feature in Social Science & Medicine.
The only country which recorded a significant gender difference was the US, where unhappiness reached a peak around the age of 40 for women, and 50 for men.
Previous research has suggested that the risk of unhappiness and depression stays relatively constant throughout life.
However, the latest finding - of a peak risk in middle age - was consistent around the globe, and in all types of people.
Researcher Professor Andrew Oswald, an economist at the University of Warwick, said: "It happens to men and women, to single and married people, to rich and poor, and to those with and without children."
He said the reason why middle age was a universally vulnerable time was unclear.
However, he said: "One possibility is that individuals learn to adapt to their strengths and weaknesses, and in mid-life quell their infeasible aspirations.
"Another possibility is that a kind of comparison process is at work in which people have seen similar-aged peers die and value more their own remaining years. Perhaps people somehow learn to count their blessings."
Professor Oswald said for the average person, the dip in mental health and happiness comes on slowly, not suddenly in a single year.
Only in their 50s do most people emerge from the low period.
"But encouragingly, by the time you are 70, if you are still physically fit then on average you are as happy and mentally healthy as a 20-year-old.
"Perhaps realizing that such feelings are completely normal in midlife might even help individuals survive this phase better."
Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said: "This study raises intriguing questions about the processes that lead to depression in mid-life, as well as indicating what a common experience it is worldwide.
"Depression is a complex and challenging condition that remains poorly understood, with as many as one in ten people with severe depression taking their own life.
"We welcome any scientific contribution to our understanding of this illness, particularly if the research can aid the development of better treatments, both therapeutic and pharmaceutical."
Andy Bell, of the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, said mental health problems were extremely common - but he stressed they could occur at any time in life.
A soft toy designer has come up with a macabre new range of road kill teddies.
The first to be launched is Twitch the Raccoon which comes complete with its own body bag to keep the maggots out, reports Metro.
Twitch also has an identity tag revealing it was "run over over by a milk float last Thursday, near the Hangar Lane Giratory system in London".
A zip on each side of the toy allows the owner to remove Twitch's innards and stuff them back in again. A tyre print runs across its back.
Creators, Compost Communications, style themselves 'toy terrorists' and according to their website: "We squash and burn and bludgeon and maim. But we're also toy fanatics like you. We love toys."
Toy creator Adam Arber, 33, from London, said: "I got the idea from looking at my mother-in-law's dog which is quite ugly and I thought it would make a great toy. A friend of mine had taken some pictures of road kill and the two things gelled into one idea."
He said he thought the toys, which cost £25, would appeal to people with a sense of humour and "probably not anyone easily upset".
Coming soon are other characters including Grind the rabbit, Splodge the hedgehog and Pop the weasel.
The toys go on sale this week at Play Lounge in Soho, London, and from mid-December on www.roadkilltoys.com.
It occurred to me in the shower this morning that you never hear the phrase 'Y2k' anymore. Clearly this is a good thing since it was an exceptionally annoying thing to hear.
Quite why the thought occurred to me I can't explain, but it got me thinking about other annoying phrases.
Top of my shit-list at the moment is 'no biggie'. A wholly unnecessary and obnoxious phrase that needs to be expunged from the record as soon as possible.
Additionally and also, any sentence that begins with the word 'basically' should be inadmissable in conversation.
Which phrases or buzzword annoy the crap out of you?
I have received 5 visits this month from people looking for the cunnilingus world record - I can see this from my traffic logs that give details of the Google search people made that led them hear.
Now I am flattered that Google thinks I might somehow be involved in the setting of such a record, but frankly I think I would lose interest long before any sort of record was in sight.
There is a certain amount of etiquette for men 'going down'. Resurfacing after 30 seconds would be inconsiderate, but overstaying your welcome would be equally so.
The key, naturally, is 'her'. When has she had enough / been sated? And that is down to skill. A world record for cunnilingus seems to require the opposite of skill - the ability to give nothing at all to the woman concerned.
And that is a world record not worth holding.
Nevertheless, for my esteemed readers, I will see if I can find out what the record is, who holds it, and who the poor lass was.
West country farmers set up the Cheddarvision website featuring a 25 kg block of cheddar, reports ITN.
Farmer Tom Calver said: "How many other cheeses do you know of on the internet that have their own webcam and a live feed to the internet? I don't think many."
The highlight of the day on www.cheddarvision.tv is at around 10am when the cheese at the Somerset dairy is turned.
"We've had 47,000 hits on our website, so somebody must like it somewhere," Mr Calver added.
Marion Harris who is in charge of the live webcam said: "I think if this website actually gets people to think a little bit more about where cheese comes from and the process it gets through before it gets in the shops, then I guess it's a good thing."
[from ananova.com]
COPENHAGEN: Denmark's Council for Animal Ethics has said there is no need to ban sex with animals unless it takes place in pornographic films or sex shows.
Only one of the 10 members of the council, set up by the Danish Justice Ministry to establish and uphold animal ethics, wants bestiality expressly forbidden.
The others said current laws provided enough animal protection, according to Danish news agency Ritzau.
A senior member of the right wing Danish People's Party was shocked by the recommendation and said the subject should be put to a referendum.
"Then there wouldn't be any doubt about the result," Christian Hansen said. A Justice Ministry spokesman was not available for comment.
LONDON: Looking for safe excitement? November is fig month at the Dull Men's Club, a place in cyberspace for men who feel "born to be mild" and enjoy watching grass grow and photographing garden sheds.
"Figs are good for you. High fibre and high nutritional value ... fat-free, sodium-free, cholesterol-free ... not to mention the great taste. And they are portable," enthuses the Dull Men's Club website, www.dullmen.com, just above its choice of "Anorak of the Month".
While the rest of the web teems with hazards – Trojans, viruses, bots, phishers, spyware and other people - this monochrome haven boasts "no violence or scary scenes" and does its best to exclude exclamation marks.
Instead, an analysis of baggage carousels at 376 airports globally discovers that 44.8 per cent rotate counterclockwise, 29 per cent clockwise. The site also reveals the reason for that orientation.
"Many people - corporate executives and celebrities I've heard about - enjoy doing the dull things," the site's author Lee Carlson, also known as Grover Click, told Reuters.
"It's an ordinary subject taken to extremes. Here's one: take a bucket, fill it with water, put in some wood, and watch it warp."
For the Dull Men's Club, watching water freeze is stimulus enough, as is discovering the history of soap.
One of the more adventurous pastimes for members is "Binge Flossing" - partly because it is "an inexpensive thing to do on a date".
Visiting museums is a favourite dull men's activity, and the site contains references to a plethora of resources, from safety razors through aprons to water hydrants, via a comb museum in China and Jerusalem's Tax Museum.
"One of the museum's purposes was to be a place to learn about the routine work of the tax department. Wow ... it doesn't get much better than that," enthuses the site.
Women are excluded from the site's host society, the "National Council of Dull Men, Washington, DC"
Carlson - a semi-retired former tax accountant – founded the society with a few friends along the lines of gentlemen's clubs in London and New York, to share common interests.
"Our view is that women are not dull. Women are exciting. Moreover, we think women would be offended if we said they were dull ... that it would be politically incorrect to refer to women as being dull," the site says.
"We also question what they might do if they were in one of our meeting rooms. The first thing they probably would do is rearrange the furniture. We like our furniture where it already is."
[blagged from stuff.co.nz]
Thanks to Maddy, a flanerie roving reporter, for sending this one to me.
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Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.
The winners are:
Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavoured mouthwash.
Flatulence (n.), emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
Pokemon (n.), a Rastafarian proctologist.
Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners:
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
Foreploy (v.): Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
Giraffiti (n.): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
Sarchasm (n.): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Inocullate (v.): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Hipatitis (n.): Terminal coolness.
Osteopornosis (n.): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.) (as it should)
Karmageddon (n.): its like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
Glibido (v.): All talk and no action.
Dopeler effect (n.): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
Caterpallor (n.): The colour you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you are eating.
And the pick of the literature:
Ignoranus (n.): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
PHILADELPHIA: The father of a young football player pulled a gun on his son's coach because he didn't think the boy was getting enough playing time, Philadelphia police said.
Wayne Derkotch, 40, was charged with aggravated assault after getting in a fight with the coach over the amount of time the boy was getting on the field at a game for six- and seven-year-olds on Sunday morning, said police spokesman Officer Raul Malveiro.
"There was a physical altercation about what child should play or not play and then he pulled the gun," Malveiro said.
There were no injuries and Derkotch fled before being arrested after a complaint was made by the coach, whose name was not released, Malveiro said.
Parental behaviour at children's sports events has come under scrutiny from groups such as the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance. The group's study gave parents a D grade for their conduct and involvement at kids' games.
An Internet straw poll of nearly 3000 by the US web-based Centre for Sports Parenting found that 85 per cent of the participants had witnessed parents or coaches becoming verbally abusive during games. Forty percent had seen physical abuse.
Vicar saves Inglewood's knickerless women
21 October 2006
WELLINGTON: A vicar has come to the rescue of Inglewood, a town that has run out of women's underwear.
A group of women at the local Anglican church revealed the crisis caused by the only clothing shop in Inglewood no longer stocking women's underwear.
"Someone came up with the point that it was a bit difficult that ladies essentials were not able to be bought in Inglewood," Reverend Gary Husband told National Radio.
"So we're going to have what's been called a knickers run."
Husband, who came up with the solution to the less-than-spiritual problem, said volunteers would take anyone without transport to the nearby city of New Plymouth, about 20km away, to buy their essentials.
Men's underwear is readily available in the town of around 3000, but it also has no shoe shop and no bus service.
Husband said a trial run would be made before Christmas and if successful it would probably become a monthly event and open to all, regardless of faith.
"This is for the community ... the response has been positive, we've had one (other) denomination get in touch with us, so it's spreading."
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PERUGIA: Four Italians have constructed what they believe is the world's first full-sized chocolate igloo but they have yet to solve an age-old problem.
It still melts.
"It was a tough thing to do, much more difficult than building a normal snow igloo," Marco Fanti, 45, who used to race cars in desert rallies, told Reuters as he stood beside the 1.65-metre-high, dome-shaped traditional Inuit shelter made of some 330 dark chocolate bricks.
Fanti and fellow instructors at a survival school took 23 hours working with tricky, crumbling chocolate material to construct what they believe to be the world's first chocolate igloo for the Eurochocolate fair in Perugia.
They normally build one made of snow, for survival courses, within three to four hours.
Fanti said it has yet to be decided what to do with the 3.6-tonne igloo – which is kept indoors and will start melting at above 30 C – when the fair ends on Oct 22.
[pilfered from stuff.co.nz]
HANOI: A death-row inmate held in solitary confinement in Vietnam for almost a year is pregnant and is seeking a pardon to give birth, a newspaper reported.
The Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper quoted a police doctor as saying tests in September confirmed that convicted heroin trafficker Nguyen Thi Oanh, 39, was then 11 weeks pregnant.
The report said it was the first time that a death-row prisoner had become pregnant in Vietnam and that police were investigating how it had happened.
Oanh's husband was serving a jail sentence at another prison in another province, the newspaper said.
Oanh was due to face a firing squad this year after losing her appeal against the death sentence she received last year for possession of a billion dong worth of heroin.
Trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin in Vietnam is punishable by death or life imprisonment.
[found on stuff.co.nz]
BERLIN: A German plastic surgeon who was cheated out of payment by several women has given pictures of their enlarged breasts to police, in the hope the photos will help trace them.
"The women registered under fake names," Michael Koenig, a surgeon in Cologne, told Bild newspaper. "After the operations, which lasted about an hour, they just ran away."
"Tanja" went out for "fresh air" after 8,000-euro ($NZ15,333) surgery to enlarge her breasts. "She never came back and never paid," Koenig said. He now plans to demand payment in advance.
Bild published a five-column picture of Tanja's naked breasts. "It's probably the most unusual wanted poster police ever had," the newspaper wrote.
[from stuff.co.nz]
It's official: monkeys are as obsessed with celebrity and pay-per-view porn as the next man.
A team from Duke University Medical Centre, led by neurobiologist Dr Michael Platt, offered 12 thirsty adult male rhesus macaque monkeys a choice between their favourite drink (Juicy Juice cherry juice, ABC News notes), and the chance to view pictures of their pack's dominant, "celebrity" monkey.
Surprisingly, the monkeys eschewed the juice in favour of a bit of celeb-watching, but had to bribed with extra refreshment to look at ordinary "rhesus riffraff". They were also willing to "pay" juice to cop an eyeful of female monkeys' hind quarters, something the team dubbed "Monkey Pay-Per-View".
And on the question of whether Paris Hilton would give up her Juicy Juice for a shufti at Angelina Jolie's hind quarters, the Duke University scientists confirmed that "celebrity" monkeys were just as interested in fellow celebs as the hoi polloi. ®
[from El Reg]
It's official: graduate women are more likely to experience an orgasm when making the beast with two backs, according to a revealing survey of 19,307 Australians.
According to "Sexual Practices at Last Heterosexual Encounter and Occurrence of Orgasm in a National Survey", carried out by researchers from the UK's Sussex University and the universities of Sydney and Melbourne, it also helps if you speak English at home, have a "higher household income" and "a managerial/professional occupation".
Those women who'd "used a sex toy in the last year" and "had sex more than twice a week in the four weeks before being interviewed" were similarly "significantly more likely" to have felt the earth move.
The likelihood of female orgasm was not, however, affected by "whether [women] had become sexually active before age 16, the length of time they had been sexually active, the number of sexual partners over the lifetime, whether they had masturbated in the last month, had deliberately visited an internet sex site in the last year, had watched an X-rated video or film in the last year, or their attitudes toward sex".
As for the blokes, well, the researchers found there "was no significant association between whether men reached orgasm during their most recent sexual encounters and language spoken at home, education, household income, occupational classification, or religious belief".
Clearly demonstrating their ability to shoot their loads without regard for their mother tongue or how fat their paypacket is, 94.8 per cent of men had an orgasm during their last sexual encounter, compared to just 68.9 per cent of the opposite sex who finished the session totally satisifed as women.
The principal reason for female frustration is, however, not due to socio-economic factors. Yup, you guessed it: lack of proper attention considerably reduced a woman's likelihood to orgasm. Specifically, "orgasm was least likely (50 per cent) among the group whose only reported practice was vaginal intercourse. Rates were higher (around 70 per cent) among those who had intercourse plus manual stimulation, or intercourse plus cunnilingus".
And, finally, the survey unsurprisingly found that "women having sex with women were more likely to reach orgasm at their last encounter (76 per cent)" - a fact which provoked UK tabloid The Sun to condense the entire report down to the delicious headline "Lesbians have more orgasms".
[ripped from El Reg]
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I guess all of that is fairly predictable, including, and perhaps especially, the part about men being worthless grunts. Hopefully more details will emerge, such as whether pondering household chores during sex affects women's ability to orgasm.
Four out of ten Britons would be prepared to give up sex if it meant they could live to be 100, according to a new poll.
Almost half of the women asked in the Bupa survey said they would take up celibacy to reach the milestone .
However, only 31% of men said they would be prepared to sacrifice nookie for a telegram from the Queen.
Many people - 39% - would be prepared to give up eating and drinking whatever they wanted to ensure they lived to 100, while 42% would give up travel.
But there were some things people would not give up - 94% would not be ready to give up the company of friends and family for a long life, and 74% would not sacrifice money.
The Ipsos MORI research of more than 1,000 adults reveals that if we had a choice, we only aspire to live on average to 85.
Unsurprisingly, young and old people were divided on when old age begins. The 16-24 year olds see it as starting at 61, while those 75 and over said it began at 71.
But nearly half agreed scientists should continue to keep trying to prolong people's life spans.
When asked about the main advantages of science being able to extend life, 16% said to be there for family and friends and 14% to see grandchildren grow up.
Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen, Bupa's medical director, said: "Britain is facing an ageing time bomb with major challenges presented by retirement, the desire to live longer and the increasing burden of caring for older people."
[ripped from Ananova]
LONDON: Surgeons in China who performed the first successful penis transplant had to remove the donated organ because of the severe psychological problems it caused to the recipient and his wife.
Dr Weilie Hu and surgeons at Guangzhou General Hospital in China performed the complex 15-hour surgery on a 44-year old man whose penis had been damaged in a traumatic accident.
The microsurgery to attach the penis, which had been donated by the parents of a 22-year-old brain-dead man, was successful but Hu and his team removed it two weeks later.
"Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off," Hu said in a report published online by the peer reviewed journal European Urology, without elaborating.
"This is the first reported case of penile transplantation in a human," Hu added.
Both the man and his wife had requested the surgery. He had been unable to have intercourse or urinate properly since the accident that occurred 8 months before the surgery was performed.
Ten days after the operation, which had been approved by the hospital's medical ethical committee, the recipient had been able to urinate.
There had been no signs of the 10-centimetre organ being rejected by the recipient's body. But Hu said more cases and longer observation are needed to determine whether sexual sensation and function can be restored.
"The patient finally decided to give up the treatment because of the wife's psychological rejection, as well as the swollen shape of the transplanted penis" Hu added.
In a commentary in the journal, Yoram Vardi, of the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa, Israel, said the successful surgery represents an additional step in contemporary medicine.
But he added that careful patient selection is required as well as thorough informed consent of the patient and his family.
"Satisfactory consideration of these issues must be taken into account so that this approach can be considered a serious therapeutic option in the future," Vardi added.
[found at stuff.co.nz]
I don't quite understand this. The point of fishing is to catch something to eat. Why else would you spend 8 hours on a river bank freezing your knackers off? For the entertainment of it?
---
A row has erupted between anglers and migrant workers who are accused of catching fish and taking them home to eat rather than returning their catch.
Local fishermen claim eastern Europeans are catching fish illegally in private lakes and rivers without a licence.
Many migrants see carp, perch and roach as part of their diet and struggle to understand the concept of fishing for pleasure without eating what you catch.
Signs in five different languages have now gone up at lakes in Southampton.
The signs, in Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, Latvian and Portuguese, have been put up at Little Testwood Lake and Nutsy Lake in Totton, which are reserved for members of Test Valley Angling Club.
They state that all fish must be returned to the water alive to ensure stocks are not depleted.
Andy Thomas, Environment Agency fishery officer, said problems have also been reported along the River Itchen.
He said: "We've received quite a number of reports from anglers fishing down here about certain fishing activity where course fish have been taken from the river.
"At the moment we don't have any real hard evidence that there's any environmental impact.
"For people from some countries the carp is a traditional dish so they've been quite quick to take them and unfortunately that has ruffled some feathers with our local anglers.
"From our viewpoint we have to make sure that all anglers fish legally and we want to make sure that's the case."
Barbara Storey is Polish and lives in Southampton, which has one of the biggest Polish populations in the country with more than 20,000 Poles living in the city.
Ms Storey, who is a translator and runs a helpline for Polish workers, said carp is traditionally eaten at Christmas in her home country.
"We fish for eating," she said.
"Most of the people believe that having some water and the opportunity to catch something like fish is mainly to have a good dinner when they go home.
"We believe it's quite cruel to hurt the fish, to cut the fish and then to put this poor little thing back to the water, dying there somewhere lonely.
"There is a culture difference that we have to sort out. We have to tell them [Poles] that local British people don't do it and they must know it."
[from BBC online]
Keen security personnel at Birmingham International Airport ordered a man to turn his t-shirt inside out because it bore a drawing of two crossed guns.
Staffordshire design engineer Dave Osbourne was wearing a Guns N Rollers t-shirt.
Guns N Rollers are a team in "an all-female roller derby league located in Portland Oregon", according to their website. Their logo is a tribute to that of hard rocking, hard drinking, legendarily fractious LA band Guns N Roses.
As he waited to board the flight to Newark, New Jersey, guards told Osbourne the graphic represented a security risk, and could upset other passengers. See here for a chilling picture of the deadly duds.
The 21-year-old said: "I am all for extra security, but this was just plain stupid."
Bosses at the airport apologised, admitting guards "over-reacted".
However, something altogether more sinister could be at work here. New Jersey is, of course, home to card-carrying poodle rockers Bon Jovi. We therefore suspect the airport security men working the passage to said Garden State are in their employ, discharging an old grudge against Axl Rose and Co. for putting the Golden Age of Spandex out of its misery.
[lifted from El Reg]
Golf is a pretty dire game in the first place. 'A good walked spoiled,' as Mark Twain allegedly had it, and not made any better by the golf bore who insists on reliving his greatest shots over a beer.
I once spent a business dinner with four golf fanatics and it set a new standard for tedium. Look here fuckwits, you spoiled your own walk, now don't spoil my dinner.
Bad though golf is, there is always someone looking to make a buck out of making it worse.
Step up to the plate LoudmouthGolf.com
For instance:
They even have a customers gallery of tedious middle aged men showing how hilarious they can be. Come the revolution, those photos will be very useful.
The British government is to outlaw the possession of violent porn, with 'possession' including anything cached on a PC after viewing online.
There is the obvious issue of how to define violent porn - one man's violent sex is another's slightly frisky encounter - and I probably know some people whose activity falls into a middle England definition. In fact I definitely do, but I can't name them without having my plums removed. And if that happened, it would be illegal to watch it. I wonder if it would be illegal to witness it myself as a victim? That would be a bitter pill - prosecuted for witnessing yourself being the victim of a crime.
Returning rapidly from that blind alley, the real issue is why ban it at all.
The cause celeb behind this law change is the murder of a teacher by a psychopath that was addicted to violent porn. Well that seems perfectly reasonable then.
Of course we would need to ban alcohol too since it is involved in fifty percent of rape cases. Fifty percent. That means if you think that alcohol should be legal you are supporting the rape of thousands of women each year.
Hmmm, now it isn't so clear cut.
Okay so alcohol is essential to the workings of society (i.e. big business), but what about video entertainment? Surely a ban is legitimate here - violent porn has no merit as entertainment.
True, but nor does 90% of television.
Okay, okay, but violent porn has no merit as entertainment and could lead people to violence.
Fox News does that to me already, so I say ban them both.
British Airways is the shittest airline in Europe, which is quite an accomplishment give the competition from Aeroflot and Alitalia. Rather annoyingly there is no sign of them going out of business.
Anyway, this time they have lost a leg.
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In just seven days Paralympic athlete Kate Horan is due to line up in the 100 metres at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Assen in the Netherlands. But there's a hitch – British Airways has lost her leg.
The Wellington athlete's $10,000 running leg has been missing for more than a week, sitting somewhere in a London warehouse with 20,000 other pieces of luggage.
"It's the worlds – this is the biggest event apart from the Paralympics," Horan said. She has been preparing for the championships for two years.
Since British authorities foiled a terrorist plot to attack flights out of Heathrow Airport, increased security has forced travellers to limit their carry-on luggage.
For Horan that meant she had to check in her running leg for the short flight from London to Amsterdam a week ago.
It was the first time the unique leg was not with her as carry-on luggage. And British Airways told her there was little it could do. "They said there's 20,000 bags sitting in Heathrow and mine is just one of them. I was told they don't know where it is."
Horan is now in a race against time with manufacturer Otto Bock and Ossur, which will attempt to build her another leg in time for the world championships. "I head to Holland today," she said. "And I'm going straight to the factory. These sort of legs take weeks to fine tune. At the moment that's the only possibility I've got.
"All the time that I should be training and getting myself ready, I'm going to be spending trialling this leg and trying to get a leg that fits."
Judy the racing pigeon has ditched her chilly Northumberland home for a tropical paradise 5,000km away.
Her owner, John Stewart, got into a flap when the veteran racer failed to return to her coop in Hadston, after being released from Bourges in France.
Mr Stewart assumed Judy perished during the 600 mile cross-Channel trip.
But he was astonished to discover the bird had somehow managed to make it 5,000km (3,106 miles) to the island of St. Eustatius in the West Indies.
Mr Stewart believes Judy hitched a ride on a ship, ending up on the other side of the Atlantic.
He had given up on his prized racing bird after she disappeared in July.
But the North of England Homing Union contacted Mr Stewart to say Judy had been found in the back yard of an expatriate British couple in St Eustatius.
The bird was traced after the couple emailed the identification number on a leg ring.
Mr Stewart said: "I didn't know what to think when they told me. I don't even know where the West Indies are.
"I think she probably took a wrong turn and dropped on a boat.
"I know I'll never get her back now, so I've written a letter to the people over there telling them to pass her on to fancier, if there is one.
"I'll miss her, but you just have to get on with life."
Flanerie.org have always been a fan of cows, and no mistake. Cows rock, cows kick ass. Cows rock while they kick ass. Cows own.
Small surprise then that the flanerie news desk received three emails today alerting us to an interesting news item. We immediately despatched one of our junior hacks to investigate rip the story from another site.
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Cows have regional accents like humans, language specialists have suggested.
They decided to examine the issue after dairy farmers noticed their cows had slightly different moos, depending on which herd they came from.
John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at the University of London, said regional twangs had been seen before in birds.
The farmers in Somerset who noticed the phenomenon said it may have been the result of the close bond between them and their animals.
Farmer Lloyd Green, from Glastonbury, said: "I spend a lot of time with my ones and they definitely moo with a Somerset drawl.
"I've spoken to the other farmers in the West Country group and they have noticed a similar development in their own herds.
"It works the same as with dogs - the closer a farmer's bond is with his animals, the easier it is for them to pick up his accent."
Peer pressure
Prof Wells felt the accents could result from their contemporaries.
He said: "This phenomenon is well attested in birds. You find distinct chirping accents in the same species around the country.
"This could also be true of cows.
"In small populations such as herds you would encounter identifiable dialectical variations which are most affected by the immediate peer group."
Dr Jeanine Treffers-Daller, reader in linguistics at the University of the West of England in Bristol, agreed that the accent could be influenced by relatives.
She said: "When we are learning to speak, we adopt a local variety of language spoken by our parents, so the same could be said about the variation in the West Country cow moo."
[from BBC News]
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This is one of those stories that sound reasonable enough to be true, but equally could be complete nonsense. It is also a little heart-warming. I plan to visit some cows at the weekend to see what they make of it all.
Blondes may have more fun but redheads have more sex, according to new research in Germany.
The study by Hamburg Sex Researcher Professor Dr Werner Habermehl looked at the sex lives of hundreds of German women and compared them with their hair colour.
He said: "The sex lives of women with red hair were clearly more active than those with other hair colour, with more partners and having sex more often than the average. The research shows that the fiery redhead certainly lives up to her reputation."
He added that women who dyed their hair red from another colour were signalling they were looking for a partner, and added: "Even women in a fixed relationship are letting their partners know they are unhappy if they dye their hair red. They are saying that they are looking for something better."
Psychologist Christine Baumanns said however that it may not be the women who were to blame for the better sex lives of redheads.
She said: "Red stands for passion and when a man sees a redhead he will think he is dealing with a woman who won't mess around, and gets straight to the point when it comes to sex."
[from Ananova]
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Hmmm. I have no personal data to go on here. Which makes me think I should find out.
NEW YORK: Left-handed men, often seen as having an advantage over right-handed counterparts in sports like tennis, also enjoy much better paydays, a new study says.
Left-handed men with at least some college education earned 15 per cent more than similarly educated right-handers, while those who finished college earned about 26 per cent more, wrote Christopher S Ruebeck of Lafayette College, and Joseph Harrington and Robert Moffitt of Johns Hopkins University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
There are "several suggestive and economically and statistically significant results that suggest further support for the notion that handedness matters," they wrote.
"We do not have a theory that reconciles all of these findings."
The researchers did not find a similar effect among women.
The data used for the study were hourly earnings taken from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a set of surveys including individuals aged 14-21 in 1979 who were interviewed every year until 1994 and every other year thereafter.
[lifted from stuff.co.nz]
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I thought my success was down to diligence and hard work, now it turns out it was all in the hand.
Is it a mysterious ape? Someone's lost pet monkey or the product of overactive imaginations?
Whatever it is, Cypriot authorities are searching for a stray primate reported to have tapped on windows at dinner time to beg for food near the western resort town of Paphos.
Police could not say whether they thought the animal was an ape or a monkey, but said there was no cause for alarm.
At least two sightings have been reported north of Paphos. A Russian tourist saw the beast in dense woodlands and a local woman said it appeared at her kitchen window, officials said.
Politis newspaper reported that the animal was thought to have either run away or been abandoned by its owner. Apes and monkeys are not indigenous to the east Mediterranean island and their ownership is permitted only with a licence.
"There was a team of people out this morning searching. . . but nothing was found," a Veterinary Services official said.
Animal rights' campaigners have complained of an upsurge in people abandoning or neglecting exotic animals.
Earlier this year a stray raccoon, a native of the Americas, caused a power outtage to more than 2000 homes after chewing through 11,000 volts of electric cable. It survived.
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I am a little concerned that volts have become a unit of measure of electric cable. As for the monkey, surely a trail of bananas leading to the police station would do the trick.
It's official: the UK office is a steaming cauldron of sexual desire in which colleagues exchange flirtatious emails and smouldering looks as a ritual prelude to forming the work-based beast with two backs.
That, at least, is according to research by the Aziz Corporation, which concludes that not only have one third of Brits had a "fling" with a fellow worker, but that the majority of managers consider the practice "perfectly acceptable".
Indeed, 83 per cent of big cheeses polled presented no objections to inter-staff rumpy-pumpy, and 53 per cent said they'd indulge in a bit themselves - even if it were with a junior colleague.
Your average boss does not, however, simply pounce on the receptionist and drag her into the server room for some light executive relief. Forty-three per cent admitted they'd "fancied someone at work but were unsure about what to do about it" - a far cry from the days when scullery maids were considered a fair target for the master's cruel intentions.
The hoi polloi, meanwhile, are apparently going at it like jackrabbits. In addition to the aforementioned 35 per cent who've enjoyed a brief encounter with a fellow worker, 29 per cent have formed long-term relationships with someone from work.
[continued here on El Reg]
A retired US judge is himself before the beak in Bristow, Oklahoma, "on charges he used a penis pump on himself in the courtroom while sitting in judgment of others", AP reports.
The trial of Donald D Thompson, 59, has reportedly provoked much courtroom merriment as the jury has been entertained by both a defence attorney and prosecutor indulging in "pantomime masturbation" and a former juror in Thompson's court identifying the sound of the pump because "he had seen such devices in Austin Powers and Dead Man on Campus".
After contacting getitfree.net I managed to convince them that I have done all that was necessary to have my sign up status confirmed.
Now all I have to do is get five of the eight people that have signed up beneath me to do that same and I might (possibly, maybe might) get myself a free ipod.
Another update once I have harassed the magnificent eight.
Four pelicans suspected of being drunk on sea algae were being tested at a Southern California wildlife centre on Saturday after one of them crashed headlong into a car.
Three of the California brown pelicans were found wandering dazed in the streets of Laguna Beach after another pelican struck a vehicle's windshield on a nearby coast road.
It suffered internal injuries and a long gash in its pouch and was undergoing toxicology tests.
Officials at the Wildlife Care Center said the seabirds may have been under the influence of algae in the ocean that can produce domoic acid poisoning when eaten.
The other pelicans were rounded up after assistant wildlife director Lisa Birkle warned the public to be on the lookout for birds acting "drunk," disoriented or being in an unusual place.
Shellfish tainted with domoic acid was thought to be the culprit behind a 1961 attack of seabirds on people and cars in the oceanside California town of Capitola that inspired Alfred Hitchcock's horror movie The Birds.
I am in Miami now, hence the eratic posting, and seven guys have been arrested for planning to blow up a big piece of chicago. Presumably not the musical.
Their (alleged) plans were a little half-assed or possibly even quarter-assed - they had got as far as deciding they wanted to cause some fireworks and then tried to find al-Qaeda for some assistance.
Finding al-Qaeda is not easy and has defeated the $500bn a year US military machine. Fortunately for al-Qaeda hunters, the FBI, CIA and the rest of the governmental alphabet soup have set up a ton of fake al-Qaeda types.
I always wondered, when watching the A-team all those years ago, why the feds didn't pretend to be them to take out their customers, or at least pretend to be the single mother with a nice rack facing trouble with loan sharks, or whatever it was that the storyline required.
Twenty years on the feds are so up to speed with this that you only need to wander along the beach asking to al-Qaeda to find yourself surrounded by a forest of turbans carrying badges. The next step is to open an al-Qaeda store in Aventura mall.
So now, if you have a problem terrorist plot, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... al-Qaeda.
