Saturday 30 August 2014
TRY BEFORE YOU DIE
EAR-A MOTH
Weird ‘red blob’ washed up on shore baffles beachgoers
Beachgoers on Australia’s Sunshine Coast were left bemused when a fat, slimy, ‘red blob’ washed up on the shore.
The mysterious thing, which has no visible limbs, eyes or mouth, drifted onto Mudjimba Beach on Monday morning, where it was picked up by Debbie Higgs, a local resident, who took it home.
Ms Higgs, who says she takes a stroll along the beach every day, described the frilly red lump as ‘cold and rather smelly’.
‘It is about 25 cm long, so about the length of my arm. I had a tea towel in the car so I picked it up and took it home and put it in a bucket of salty water,’ she said-.READ MORE
Parents delighted as baby gives thumbs up on ultrasound
It
might not be a very scientific indication of how an unborn baby is
doing, but it must be quite reassuring all the same when your
child-to-be pops you a thumbs up on the ultrasound.Cambridge University Selwyn master keeps 'banned' dog as 'very large cat'
The master of a Cambridge
University college that banned dogs from accommodation has been allowed
to keep his canine companion after persuading officials it was "a very
large cat".
YoYo the bassett hound lives at Selwyn College with Roger Mosey.Mr Mosey said cats were allowed but dogs were "technically" banned.
However, after a past master set a "dog-owning precedent" decades ago, the college "tongue-in-cheek agreed YoYo could stay as a large cat", he said.
Mr Mosey, former editorial director of the BBC, became master of Selwyn College in October.
Sunday 24 August 2014
Mysterious Fissure Splits Ground in Mexico
A Massive crack tore through more than a half-mile of ground in northern Mexico, according to numerous local reports. Now experts are struggling to explain what caused it and if it is a threat to public safety.
The mysterious trench in question is up-to nearly 16 feet across at its thickets, and stretches for nearly half a mile according to Sky News, one of the first to report this unusual geological event.
Related Articles
Some local officials and experts alike are blaming seismic activity for the phenomenon, with a 5.0 magnitude earthquake occurring only earlier this month-.read more
Saturday 23 August 2014
5 Weird Ways Stress Can Actually Be Good for You
We
hear over and over again that stress is unhealthy. And all that talk
makes us, well, stressed. But getting worked up isn’t always a bad
thing, says Richard Shelton, MD, vice chair for research in the
Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alabama Birmingham; after
all, the body’s fight-or-flight response is meant to be protective, not
harmful.
It’s only when stress becomes chronic, or when we feel we’re no longer in control of a situation, that it negatively affects our health and wellbeing.
Here, then, are five reasons you should rest easier when it comes to everyday stress—and how a little short-term anxiety can actually benefit your brain and body.
It helps boost brainpower
Low-level stressors stimulate the production of brain chemicals called neurotrophins, and strengthen the connections between neurons in the brain. In fact, this may be the primary mechanism by which exercise (a physical stressor) helps boost productivity and concentration, Dr. Shelton says. Short-term psychological stressors, he adds, can have a similar effect, as well. Plus, animal studies have suggested that the body’s response to stress can temporarily boost memory and learning scores.
Health.com: Best and Worst Ways to Cope With Stress
It can increase immunity—in the short term
“When the body responds to stress, it prepares itself for the possibility of injury or infection,” says Dr. Shelton. “One way it does this is by producing extra interleukins—chemicals that help regulate the immune system—providing at least a temporary defensive boost.” Research in animals support this idea, as well: A 2012 Stanford study found that subjecting lab rats to mild stress produced a “massive mobilization” of several types of immune cells in their bloodstreams.
It can make you more resilient
Learning to deal with stressful situations can make future ones easier to manage, according to a large body of research on the science of resilience. It’s the idea behind Navy SEAL training, Dr. Shelton says—although you can certainly benefit from less extreme experiences, as well. “Repeated exposure to stressful events gives [SEALs] the chance to develop both a physical and psychological sense of control, so when they’re in actually combat they don’t just shut down,” he says.
Health.com: 25 Surprising Ways Stress Affects Your Health
This idea may even hold true at a cellular level: A 2013 University of California San Francisco study found that while chronic stress promotes oxidative damage to our DNA and RNA, moderate levels of perceived daily stress actually seem to protect against it and enhance “psychobiological resilience.”
It motivates you to succeed
Good stress, also known in the scientific community as eustress, may be just the thing you need to get job done at work. “Think about a deadline: It’s staring you in the face, and it’s going to stimulate your behavior to really manage the situation effectively, rapidly, and more productively,” says Dr. Shelton. The key, he says, is viewing stressful situations as a challenge that you can meet, rather than an overwhelming, unpassable roadblock.
Eustress can also help you enter a state of “flow,” a heightened sense of awareness and complete absorption into an activity, according to research from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow can be achieved in the workplace, in sports, or in a creative endeavor (such as playing a musical instrument), and Csikszentmihalyi argues that it’s driven largely by pressure to succeed.
Health.com: 13 Ways to Beat Stress in 15 Minutes or Less
It can enhance child development
Moms-to-be often worry that their own anxiety will negatively affect their unborn babies—and it can, when it’s unrelenting. But a 2006 Johns Hopkins study found that most children of women who reported mild to moderate stress levels during pregnancy actually showed greater motor and developmental skills by age 2 than those of unstressed mothers. The one exception: the children of women who viewed their pregnancy as more negative than positive had slightly lower attention capacity.
Health.com: 12 Signs You May Have an Anxiety Disorder
This article originally appeared on Health.com.
READ MORE
It’s only when stress becomes chronic, or when we feel we’re no longer in control of a situation, that it negatively affects our health and wellbeing.
Here, then, are five reasons you should rest easier when it comes to everyday stress—and how a little short-term anxiety can actually benefit your brain and body.
It helps boost brainpower
Low-level stressors stimulate the production of brain chemicals called neurotrophins, and strengthen the connections between neurons in the brain. In fact, this may be the primary mechanism by which exercise (a physical stressor) helps boost productivity and concentration, Dr. Shelton says. Short-term psychological stressors, he adds, can have a similar effect, as well. Plus, animal studies have suggested that the body’s response to stress can temporarily boost memory and learning scores.
Health.com: Best and Worst Ways to Cope With Stress
It can increase immunity—in the short term
“When the body responds to stress, it prepares itself for the possibility of injury or infection,” says Dr. Shelton. “One way it does this is by producing extra interleukins—chemicals that help regulate the immune system—providing at least a temporary defensive boost.” Research in animals support this idea, as well: A 2012 Stanford study found that subjecting lab rats to mild stress produced a “massive mobilization” of several types of immune cells in their bloodstreams.
It can make you more resilient
Learning to deal with stressful situations can make future ones easier to manage, according to a large body of research on the science of resilience. It’s the idea behind Navy SEAL training, Dr. Shelton says—although you can certainly benefit from less extreme experiences, as well. “Repeated exposure to stressful events gives [SEALs] the chance to develop both a physical and psychological sense of control, so when they’re in actually combat they don’t just shut down,” he says.
Health.com: 25 Surprising Ways Stress Affects Your Health
This idea may even hold true at a cellular level: A 2013 University of California San Francisco study found that while chronic stress promotes oxidative damage to our DNA and RNA, moderate levels of perceived daily stress actually seem to protect against it and enhance “psychobiological resilience.”
It motivates you to succeed
Good stress, also known in the scientific community as eustress, may be just the thing you need to get job done at work. “Think about a deadline: It’s staring you in the face, and it’s going to stimulate your behavior to really manage the situation effectively, rapidly, and more productively,” says Dr. Shelton. The key, he says, is viewing stressful situations as a challenge that you can meet, rather than an overwhelming, unpassable roadblock.
Eustress can also help you enter a state of “flow,” a heightened sense of awareness and complete absorption into an activity, according to research from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow can be achieved in the workplace, in sports, or in a creative endeavor (such as playing a musical instrument), and Csikszentmihalyi argues that it’s driven largely by pressure to succeed.
Health.com: 13 Ways to Beat Stress in 15 Minutes or Less
It can enhance child development
Moms-to-be often worry that their own anxiety will negatively affect their unborn babies—and it can, when it’s unrelenting. But a 2006 Johns Hopkins study found that most children of women who reported mild to moderate stress levels during pregnancy actually showed greater motor and developmental skills by age 2 than those of unstressed mothers. The one exception: the children of women who viewed their pregnancy as more negative than positive had slightly lower attention capacity.
Health.com: 12 Signs You May Have an Anxiety Disorder
This article originally appeared on Health.com.
READ MORE
Porn, rhubarb and implants. . . welcome to the weird world of an MP’s summer
Thanks to David Cameron’s stubbornness, it looks as though MPs will enjoy
their summer recess without being summoned back to Parliament early, in
spite of one of the worst periods in international affairs for many years.
The Prime Minister has returned to his second summer holiday, and presumably
other MPs are doing the same: relaxing on beaches, clearing their moats:
whatever it is out-of-touch Westminster bubble dwellers are supposed to do.
Except, as any MP will remind you given half the chance, that’s not what the
summer recess is for. MPs, like teachers, can get a little chippy when you
suggest that they’re not working flat out the whole time. In recess, they
return to their constituencies to try to catch up on everything left hanging
while they are at the Commons.
One study found that a third of MPs spend up to half their time solving
problems on behalf of their constituents. For another third it’s more like
three quarters. Quite right, you might think. Why aren’t they spending all
their time solving voters’ issues? And then you look at the sort of queries
that make up the 200 new cases many receive each month.
Moat-clearing it ain’t. When I sat in on Labour MP Tristram Hunt’s
constituency surgery in Stoke recently, I watched as a stream of people
entered with bags stuffed full of horribly big piles of paper that showed
just how horribly they were being treated by the state, the landlord, the
bank, or [fill in blank]. They dumped this heaving mass of letters, bills,
final demands and court summonses on the trestle table Mr Hunt had set up in
one corner of a vast gym. Then they asked him to sort them out.
MPs must give the impression they are all-powerful: why else would a woman
have asked the Tory MP Tim Loughton for advice on how to make the man who
had dumped her change his mind? Perhaps the man who left a 3am voicemail
with another MP telling him he was having a heart attack had similarly high
opinions of his representative (when a panicked caseworker phoned back the
following morning, the chap was fine).
Doctor Loo! Cafe celebrates show's return with decorated toilet
The Time Lord’s blue police box has been converted into a loo at a Bristol cafe.
It’s fun but functional
Justin and Claire
Hoggans picked up the replica Tardis for £1,800 and spent almost as
much again installing the “Who Loo” at the Warmley Waiting Room Cafe on
the Bristol and Bath Railway Path.
Justin, 41, said: “We went to a B&B that had a Tardis changing room. This gave me the idea. It’s fun but functional.”
Claire,
47, said: “We enjoy Doctor Who but are not crazy Trekkie-people. We get
asked numerous times a day ‘is it bigger on the inside?’Sunday 17 August 2014
SPIDER ON NEWS
One strange thing happened on a Scottish news program during a live bulletin a spider crawled across the camera lens to catch insect
Saturday 9 August 2014
YOGHURT CURE- PARKINSON DISEASE.
Its is believed that Sour Sheep Milk Yoghurt may help fight PARKINSON DISEASE.This was noticed when a German scientist team noticed a worm had a damaged gene staring its brain of latic acid -1 of causes.The worm was fed the acid rich yoghurt and had a healing effect.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2014/aug/07/monkey-owns-selfie-wikimedia-video
Wikimedia, the company that owns Wikipedia, has refused to delete a
photo that a monkey took of itself, claiming there is no copyright.
British nature photographer David Slater has argued the photograph
belonged to him, as it was his camera that was hijacked by the primate.
Slater began a legal battle with Wikimedia after the photo went viral
online
20 Weird and Wonderful Uses for Tomato Ketchup
Everybody loves tomato sauce. Well, everyone except perhaps Jamie Oliver and people from Chicago (they hate it on Hot Dogs, apparently). The rest of us slather ketchup over our comfort foods like its going out of style.
Tomato ketchup is without all reasonable doubt the best condiment, although mayonnaise holds the number one sales spot, apparently. Lord knows why, ketchup is obviously the better choice.
Ketchup started out as a fish sauce, before transforming into a staple we slap on junk food. Along the way we’ve forgotten just how versatile a foodstuff tomato ketchup is; tomato ketchup is a great sauce to have in the kitchen with a range of weird and wonderful uses.
Here are some of the things you never knew tomato ketchup could do -- head over to LifeHacker UK for the remaining 10:
1.) Shine copper and silverware with ketchup
Tomato ketchup is a surprisingly effective cleaning agent. Ketchup has acetic acid content of around four per cent (from the vinegar used in the recipe). And thanks to its high viscosity (the gloopiness) it’s great for shining brass, copper and silverware. Ketchup is cheap, effective and above all it’s eco-friendly. If you only do one thing on this list (and even for a laugh) try using ketchup to clean your metal. There’s a detailed guide to cleaning with ketchup over on wikiHow.-READ MOREECHO readers show off their weird and wonderful pets
When a snake was said to be on the loose in Skelmersdale last month, and was later found in the owner's house, we wondered if our readers also shared their homes with exotic animals.
We appealed to our followers on Facebook and Twitter to send in photos of their weird and wonderful pets - and they didn't disappoint.
We received photos from Merseysiders who are sharing their homes with snakes, tarantulas, bearded dragons, geckos and the odd Macaw-READ MORE
Saturday 2 August 2014
What lies beneath ‘weird’ giant cocoon?
A homeowner has been left stumped after a huge mystery web cocooned an entire plant on the side of her house.
Judy Dunbar, of Challoner Place, Aylesbury, was alarmed to discover the 6ft tall bush completely covered in the white stuff.
She said: “It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.
“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and find that my whole house has been cocooned!
“My neighbour thought it might be a spider’s web but I’ve not seen one. All that I can see are tiny little worms in the web.”
She said: “I’m tempted to get my husband to jet wash it all off and cut off the plant at the root so it can’t happen again.”
The intricate web could possibly be the work of the Ermine Moth caterpillar, which weave the protective cocoon over their favourite plants to protect themselves and their food before pupating into moths.
Do you know what creature could be responsible for the cocoon? Call reporter Becca Choules on 01296 619762 or email becca.choules@jpress.co.uk.
Weird science leaves my thoughts all over the place
Scientists, it was reported this week, have managed to separate an
object from its speed and observed both, at the same time, but in
different places!
They have produced evidence that shows a neutron can be observed in one place while its movement is in another. They’re calling it the quantum Cheshire Cat theory.
I’ve tried to read the research paper. It should come with a large whisky.
This mind-numbing discovery raises serious questions about the role of science in our lives, the main questions being: Have scientists not got anything else better to do, and why the obsession with cats?
The findings would probably have made a bigger story in our media outlets, but Kim Kardashian in a bikini taking a selfie of her backside knocked it off the news schedules.
The quantum Cheshire Cat theory has come around too soon for me, but I can empathise- READ MORE
They have produced evidence that shows a neutron can be observed in one place while its movement is in another. They’re calling it the quantum Cheshire Cat theory.
I’ve tried to read the research paper. It should come with a large whisky.
This mind-numbing discovery raises serious questions about the role of science in our lives, the main questions being: Have scientists not got anything else better to do, and why the obsession with cats?
The findings would probably have made a bigger story in our media outlets, but Kim Kardashian in a bikini taking a selfie of her backside knocked it off the news schedules.
The quantum Cheshire Cat theory has come around too soon for me, but I can empathise- READ MORE
Gentle bear saves crow from drowning
The footage was taken at Budapest Zoo and according to YouTube uploader Aleksander Medveš sees a "crow rescue".It's possible what we're actually seeing is a bear fishing a potential snack out of the water and then ditching it when he realises it's not a tasty salmon, but let's stop with the negativity IT IS OBVIOUSLY THE MOST GENTLE BEAR EVER AND HE LOVES THE CROW DEARLY.
The crow looks a little puzzled after its rescue, managing to get back to its feet and staring in disbelief as the bear doesn't chase it down but slopes off to eat an apple.READ MORE AND VIDEO LINK
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