CAROLINA NATURALLY: Feb 19, 2009

Thursday, February 19, 2009

What I Like About You

The Romantics

Repugican governors turning down stimulus money

In typical repugican fashion ... in a move calculated to screw the people over ...

A handful of repugican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.

Read the rest here.

Eating Your Veggies

They may not be as good for you as you thought.

If the economy isn't grim enough for you, just check out the February issue of the Journal of HortScience, which contains a report on the sorry state of American fruits and veggies. Apparently produce in the U.S. not only tastes worse than it did in your grandparents' days, it also contains fewer nutrients ...

Read the rest here.

We like Salmon ... Too Much

The smallest number of Pacific ocean salmon ever recorded swam back to the Sacramento river via San Francisco bay last fall, the latest evidence of the decline of the storied fish along the west coast, officials said Wednesday.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal body that regulates commercial and sport fishing, estimated that only 66,286 adult salmon returned to the Sacramento river to spawn. six years ago, the peak return was 13 times higher.

More here

Extinct bird rediscovered, then eaten

This rare Worcester's buttonquai, thought by scientists to be extinct, was recently photographed in the Philippines by a TV crew and then sold for food at a market.

From Cryptomundo:

Found only on the island of Luzon, Worcester’s buttonquail was known solely through drawings based on dated museum specimens collected several decades ago...

Wild Bird Club of the Philippines President Michael Lu asked a question that naturally came to my mind: “What if this was the last of its species?”

He told the Agence France-Press news agency that it’s unfortunate that the locals aren’t more conscious of the threatened wildlife around them.

"Extinct Bird Found, Photographed & Then Eaten"

Big Rat Caught

... and it is not a repugican! Imagine that ...

A gentleman known only as Mr Xian nabbed this massive six-pound rat on a street in Fuzhhou, China.

From The Telegraph:

"I did it, I caught a rat the size of a cat!" he shouted out afterward, according to the reports. Mr Xian is believed to still be in possession of the animal, after stuffing into a bag and departing the scene.

The local forestry unit in the city identified the nightmarish creature as a bamboo rat from initial photographs, but said that it would need to examine the rat more closely before making a final identification.

Giant rat caught in China

Science News

Beta-blockers relieve fear factor from scary memories

New research suggests that a class of drugs called beta-blockers can alleviate the anxiety associated with scary memories while leaving the memories intact. While beta blockers are commonly used to treat heart conditions, some musicians and public performers have used the drugs "off-label" to help overcome stagefright. Last year, McGill University neurobiologists reported that beta-blockers seemed to help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Now, University of Amsterdam psychologist Merel Kindt and colleagues published a paper in Nature Neuroscience that confirms the PTSD clinical study.

From Science News:

Kindt and her colleagues showed subjects a photograph of a spider, which was accompanied by an electric shock, conditioning the participants to have a fearful memory of the image. Later, some participants were given a beta-blocker drug, propranolol, and others were given a placebo before being exposed to the image again. The beta-blocker group’s fear response was greatly reduced or even eliminated when the subjects were shown the spider photograph 24 hours after taking the drugs. “The people did not forget seeing the photograph of the spider,” Kindt says. ”But the fear associated with the image was erased.”

The researchers think beta-blockers work by changing the way the frightening memories are stored. Each time a memory is recalled it changes a little, and the new version is recorded in the long-term memory stash via brain chemical fluctuations in a process called reconsolidation. The beta-blockers could interfere with the brain chemicals, blocking reconsolidation of the emotional component of the memory, but leaving the rest of the memory intact, the scientists suggest.

Beta-blockers erase emotion of fearful memories

Video Killed The Radio Star

The Buggles

Outbreak of horse tail theft puzzles and angers horse owners

Now here is a question that just doesn't come up every day.

Why is someone stealing horse tails?

An intruder broke into a pasture and unevenly cut off the hoof-length tails of half a dozen Belgian draft horses and ponies.
Other horse owners in Elbert County, Colorado, have also reported tail thefts, while similar cases have been recorded in recent years in Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida.
While the animals were not injured, as the tails were cut off below the fleshy dock, horses rely on their tails to swat away flies in summer and owners say they will take 10 years to grow back.
But police are puzzled as to the motive behind the crime. Horse owners said it would not make commercial sense to steal tails in such limited quantities, as horsehair fetches no more than $80 a pound.

Horse tail thieves confuse Colorado police

Speeding bullet stopped by hair weave

From the UPI news wire:

Police in Kansas City, Mo., said a woman's tight hair weave stopped a bullet, rescuing her from injury and likely saving her life.

Officers said they arrived at the Country View Market at about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday to find the woman's boyfriend had allegedly shot out the back window of a car, KSHB-TV, Kansas City, reported Thursday.

Investigators said the woman wasn't injured after her hair weave stopped the bullet and her boyfriend was taken into custody.

Speeding bullet stopped by hair weave

That headline alone makes the story worth posting! And there will be some armorers wanting to know the lady's hairdresser's name, to find out just how tight she wove that weave!