The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

Today's horoscope says:
They say that opposites attract, but the people who appeal to you most today will be those who are on the same wavelength as you.
People with different viewpoints and attitudes won't interest you.
Differences are usually quite intriguing to you, but right now your inner self is avidly seeking comfort and validation that what you feel and think is right.
Obey this need, and don't feel guilty if you just don't want conflict right now!

Some of our readers today have been in:

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
London, England, United Kingdom
Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Espoo, Southern Finland, Finland
Gengenbach, Baden-Wurttembrg, Germany
Edinburgh Scotland, United Kingdom
Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
Geneva, Geneve, Switzerland
Gloucester, England, United Kingdom
Herford, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Annecy, Rhone-Alpes, France
Oviedo, Asturias, Spain
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

as well as Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria, Israel, Finland, Austria, Norway, Georgia, Mexico, Peru, Kuwait, Serbia, Bangladesh, Latvia, Greece, Scotland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Wales, Iran, Singapore, Poland, Taiwan, Sweden, Afghanistan, Belgium, Tibet, Croatia, Pakistan, Romania, Paraguay, Sudan, Vietnam, Argentina, Cambodia, Egypt, France, Estonia, Puerto Rico, Maldives, Qatar, Brazil, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Slovenia, China, Iraq, Ecuador, Nigeria, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Paupa New Guinea, Moldova, Venezuela, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Czech Republic, Vietnam, Norway, Finland

and in cities across the United States such as Greely, Tulsa, Northville, Glendale and more.

Today is:

Today is Friday, May 27, the 147th day of 2011.

There are 218 days left in the year.

Today's unusual holidays or celebrations are:

National Wig Out Day
and
Old-Time Player Piano Day.

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

Random Celebrity Photo

More repugican chicanery

The Right's Latest Target: Girl Scouts

The Girl Scouts have long been synonymous with wholesome American girlhood, with their cookies and their uniforms and their appearance in a late '80s movie with Shelley Long.

 The tea party is so ...  Yesterday's news

Sodium Chloride

Once-picturesque lake turning to salt

The third largest saltwater lake on earth could dry up completely within a few years, experts say.

Why it's shrinking 

Also: 

• Disappearing lake
• African chimps imperiled
• Endangered places

Across Bolivia's Salt Desert

Guy Nesher, a photographer based out of Tel Aviv, shot this picture of the Salar de Uyuni. At over four thousand square miles, this region of Bolivia is the largest salt flat in the world. It functions like a natural mirror, but I’ve never seen a picture of it that expresses that quality quite as well as this one.

Full Story

Awesome Pictures

Culinary DeLites

Best and worst barbecue dishes

A quarter-pound beef burger with a slice of cheese will set you back 510 calories.

Guess how many grams of fat? 

Also: 

• 5 Memorial Day burgers
• Great things to grill
• Healthy snack choices

5 perfect Memorial Day burgers 

Also:

• Unlikely foods you should grill this weekend
• Ending the great condiment debate

Big demand for tiny desserts

Tiny desserts have a big catch

Restaurants love selling little treats like the Mini Blizzard for one key reason. 

Lower calories, but something's higher 

Also: 

• Snack craze fading?
• Lasagna cupcakes
• New No. 1 fast-food chain

Five Tips To Find Serenity In Your Busy Life

Stressed out?

Feeling stretched with too much to do?

Want to just escape from your life for a bit to a far away island for some peace and serenity?

I have learned from years of meditation that some simple techniques help anchor us through difficult times and…

Read More

In Matters Of Health

Extra Weight Could Mean Increased Risk of Dementia

You might not be in the mood for a good workout this morning or tomorrow, but burning off some calories now could lessen the risk of developing dementia such as Alzheimer's disease later -- by more than 70 percent, says a recent report in the journal Neurology .

Full Story

3 reasons you're gaining weight 

Also:

• What to eat for strong muscles
• "How losing 85 pounds boosted my confidence"
• 6 ways to avoid a blood clot

Obesity Stigma in Online News?

A new study suggests that images accompanying news stories about obesity may promote stigma, but there's reason for caution.  

Read more 

For Your Health

19% of young adults have high blood pressure, and may not even realize it.

Nineteen percent of U.S. adults ages 24-32 have hypertension -- a blood pressure reading of 140/90 millimeters of mercury or more -- researchers found.

Full Story

Cultured People Feel Less Stress

People who go to museums and concerts or create art or play an instrument are more satisfied with their lives, a study finds.  

Read more 

Cognitive decline incidence higher in Southern stroke belt

New research shows that residents of the Stroke Belt—a southern portion of the U.S. with significantly elevated stroke morality rate—also have a greater incidence of cognitive decline than other regions [...]

Cognitive decline incidence higher in Southern stroke belt

Non Sequitur

On The Job

5% unemployment may be gone forever

A mismatch in the labor market means today's 9% rate won't drop much.

What it means for job hunters 

Also: 

• Energy prices stall growth
• No emergency savings
• Pessimism is overdone

Three steps all LinkedIn users should take

Increase your chances of being recruited for a new job by following these simple tips.

How posting a photo can help 

Also: 

• Lessons from LinkedIn IPO
• 7 networking mistakes
• Ace your next interview

Weight Affects Women's Chances of Employment

Being overweight can hurt a woman in the workplace, according to a new study.  

Read more 

Surprise tax hike is coming

The coming tax hike you haven't heard of

A much-overlooked tax that most people pay will shoot up again after a one-year reduction. 

Who'll feel the sharpest pain 

Also: 

• Tax breaks threatened
• Why refunds are bigger
• Could Medicare sink the repugicans?

Ziggy

Wall St. scarier than ever

Why the next crisis could be even scarier

The situation that led to bank bailouts has been "squared or quadrupled,” say authors.  

'Risks are enormous' 

Also: 

• Fannie Mae key to crisis
• Tale of two bailouts
• Japan credit rating cut

The Language of Golf

A man goes to confession, sits down and tells the priest, "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned."

"What was your sin, my son?" the priest asked.

"Obscene language,"

the man replied.

"That's a terrible sin," the priest replied. "Do you swear often?"

"No," answered the man, "but do you know the local golf course?"

"Indeed I do," said the priest.

"I play there often. When I was on the tee at the fourth hole, the long par three, I hit one of the best drives of my life. It must have gone 220 yards on the fly, straight down the middle, took one bounce, and then hit a sprinkler head and bounced off into the bush."

"I'm not surprised that you swore," said the priest, "If that had happened to me..."

"No, I didn't swear then.

The shot I had hit was a great one and the bounce was just the luck of the game. When I checked the position of my ball, I realized that I still had a chance of making par. The ball was on a hardpan lie, and there was a small gap through the trees for me to have a shot at the green. I really should have taken the safe option and just played out sideways to the fairway, but I had hit such a great drive that my confidence was high."

The man continued, "I was still about 200 yards from the green, so I took a five wood from the bag, positioned the ball back in my stance to keep it low and hopefully get under the trees, told myself to forget about all the hazards and just imagine the ball on the green, and played the shot. Even using the wood, I nipped the ball perfectly off the hard lie, the ball kept low as I
planned, and flew straight as a die toward the green, took one bounce onto the green, hit the flagstick and bounced off sideways into that deep pot bunker to the right of the green."

"My son, my son," said the priest; "I'm ready to forgive you already. That would have made a saint swear."

"No father," said the man, "I didn't swear then. I realized that I had just played two perfect shots and only bad luck had stopped me from getting the result I deserved. When I saw my ball, I thought that all my hopes of making par had disappeared. It was lying right against the face of a five-foot deep bunker with very little green to work with, and I really should have gone out sideways, but after the two good shots, I was feeling confident. I took my sand iron out, opened the clubface fully, aimed the ball about six feet left of the pin and played the shot. The ball popped almost straight up in the air, landed on the green, and the spin on the ball dragged it back to four inches from the pin."

"F#?!ing hell!" said the priest, "Don't tell me you missed a four-inch putt!"

Drivers don't know road rules

One in five are not fit to drive

More than 36 million Americans would fail a written driving test if they took one today, a survey says.  

Women vs. men 

Also: 

• Find a used car
• Rusty autos worth millions
• Most stolen vehicles

Girl shoots dad with arrow over phone

A 15-year-old girl used a hunting bow to shoot her father with an arrow after he grounded her and took her cell phone, then hid in the woods until she was arrested, authorities said.

Full Story

ACLU to defend man who gave the finger to trooper

A civil liberties group plans to provide free representation to a 35-year-old Colorado man who faces criminal prosecution and a jail sentence for displaying his middle finger to a Colorado State Patrol trooper.

Full Story

American jailed for royal 'insult'

American jailed over 'insult' to king

A Colorado man could face up to 15 years in a Bangkok prison partly over a link he posted to his blog.

Unusual law 

Also: 

• N. Korea to free American
• Inmates made to play WoW
• 60-year POW saga ends

Odds and Sods

Police: Mom was Shoplifting, Used Child as Shield

Deputies with the Bay County Sheriff's Office were called to the Callaway Wal-Mart, where store employees say they caught a woman shoplifting.

Police hunt for "Goldilocks"

British police appealed for help Friday in tracing a suspected burglar they have dubbed "Goldilocks" because he breaks into houses, eats food and then has a sleep.

A New Spin On an Old Industry

Holgate Windmill

 

Holgate Windmill in York, England was a working grain mill for over a hundred years before it was shut down 70 years ago. It was never torn down because of its historic charm, and a neighborhood grew up around it. Now, thanks to The Holgate Windmill Preservation Society, it will begin to mill grain once again.

By 2008 the Society had secured £250,000 in grants, prizes and donations – and in winning the People’s Millions award in November 2010, they finally have the money to rebuild the sails.
After decades of neglect, this mill will mill. Using locally produced grain, the Society will provide bakers with specialty flours milled in the traditional way, allowing them to make specialty breads with a 250-year-old heritage. Any profits will be reinvested in the mill so it pays for its upkeep by doing what it does best.

Read all about the project at ecosalon. 

Husband's tornado heroism

Man's bold move saves wife from tornado

As winds ripped their Joplin home apart, Don Lansaw acted fast — and made the ultimate sacrifice.

'He was my hero' 

Also: 

• Joplin before and after
• Dog's incredible return
• Tally of missing and dead

Boy breaks record with Everest feat

A British teenager has become the youngest climber in the world to conquer the Seven Summits when he reached the peak of Mount Everest.

Full Story

Good Things

Science News

Science spat over discovery of unusual bacteria

A scientific tiff went public Friday as the journal Science took the unusual step of publishing challenges to a report about a strange, arsenic-eating bacteria.

The First Trillionaires Will Make Their Fortunes in Space

It’s always interesting to me when people start bringing economics into such other worldly endeavors as space exploration. However financial gain will ultimately be the driving force to get us there.

Twenty trillion USD is the estimated market value of a relatively small metallic asteroid that was first calculated by John S. Lewis in his book Mining The Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets. Lewis argued that “using presently available or readily foreseeable technologies, we can relieve Earth of its energy problem, make astronomical amounts of raw materials available, and raise the living standard of people worldwide.”

Full Story

A 3D Map of The Universe

Scientists have created the largest 3D map of the universe that covers 380 million light years. The project took over a decade to complete.

It’s called the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) and is based upon the University of Massachusetts’ Two-Micron All-SkySurvey (2MASS). Between 1997 and 2001, telescopes in Arizona and Chile worked together on an ambitious project to map the night sky.

Full Story

Astronomical News

Student unlocks cosmic puzzle

Student cracks a cosmic mystery

A 22-year-old woman on summer break solves a problem that has vexed scientists for decades.

'Missing mass' 

Also:

• 4th-graders' discovery
• Satellite spots 17 pyramids
• Astronaut battles tears

Wizard of Id

Castle defenders 'met violent end'

Medieval residents of a Scottish castle suffered "brutally violent" deaths, new research has shown.
New tests were carried out on nine skeletons discovered at Stirling Castle in the 1990s.
They were buried underneath a lost royal chapel dating from the 12th century.

Radiocarbon dating found that the people probably died in a series of incidents between the 13th century and around 1450. New tests have shown that at least five of them met bloody ends.

Archaeologists said they probably died in sieges, skirmishes or battles around Stirling during the Wars of Independence.

Stirling Castle changed hands several times in the Wars of Independence, sometimes being held by the Scots, sometimes by the English.

The tests, carried out at the University of Bradford, showed one man, aged between 26 and 35, endured some 44 skull fractures from repeated blows with a blunt object, and up to 60 more across the rest of his body.
And a woman, aged between 36 and 45, had 10 fractures to the right side of her skull, resulting from two heavy blows.
Neat, square holes through the top of her skull suggest she may then have fallen and been killed with a weapon such as a war hammer.

Richard Strachan, Historic Scotland's senior archaeologist, said: "It was unusual for people to be buried under the floor of a royal chapel and we suspected that they must have been pretty important people who died during periods of emergency - perhaps during the many sieges which took place."

Archaeology News

Blackbeard's Anchor To Be Recovered Off NC Coast 

An anchor from what's believed to be the wreck of the pirate Blackbeard's flagship may see daylight again for the first time in almost 300 years.

B.C.

Upping the cute factor

Awwwww

Family find mountain lion in garage

Michelle Taylor shudders when she realizes she may have been sharing her garage with a mountain lion for the past three days. “I think it was in there since Sunday night,” the Hesperia mother of five said, with neighbors reporting they had seen a mountain lion roaming the area since Friday.

California Fish and Game, Hesperia Animal Control and San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Hesperia station officials worked together to get the young cougar out of the Taylors’ garage and back into its habitat on Tuesday morning. Michelle Taylor called 911 after her husband, Jesse Taylor, rooted around the garage in search of what he thought was a raccoon or other small critter.

Instead, less than 3 feet from him, he spotted a large paw and the face of the mountain lion. Authorities responded to the home and learned the family had secured the frightened animal in the garage.

Officials worked for nearly two hours trying to coax the animal from the Taylor family’s garage, but ultimately had to tranquilize the mountain lion. The lion was a young male. The mountain lion was examined and then taken to the San Bernardino National Forest where it was released.

New cockroach found in popular reserve

'It is quite a neat-looking thing'

Some scientists peer into ocean depths and explore jungles in search of new species.

Full Story

Animal News

Photo: law_keven/Creative Commons

Let's be honest: A Tiger dad is usually a bit of a deadbeat.
But for what may be the very first time, officials from a wildlife preserve in India have observed a male tiger that has adopted a litter of cubs left orphaned and alone when their mother died.
We also have monkeys hired as human bodyguards, drunk birds, suicidal whales, bedbugs carrying antibiotic-resistant viruses, and more in the Week in Animal News.

Article continues: The Week in Animal News: Tiger Dad Saves Cubs, Monkey Bodyguards, and More 

Hitler tried to make talking dogs

Only a month ago it was revealed that the Nazis had planned to kill allied forces with poisoned sausages if they managed to set foot on German soil.

Now an equally unlikely weapon in Hitler’s armory has emerged – talking dogs.

The Germans saw canines as being almost as intelligent as humans and tried to train them to ‘speak’, read and spell, a university academic claims. They even conducted experiments in man-to-dog telepathy.

Hitler, a well-known dog lover, hoped the animals would learn to communicate with their SS masters, and supported a special dog school set up to teach them to talk.

Nazi officials recruited so-called educated dogs from all over Germany and trained them to tap out signals using their paws.

Full Story

Caution warned after Alaska moose attacks

Caren della Cioppa remembers the thundering roar of hooves behind her, just before a cow moose slammed her to the ground as she cleared a trail on her Alaska property.

Full Story

Animal Pictures