Several 1000-year-old modded skulls discovered in Mexico

13 unusually-shaped skulls were recently unearthed in Mexico when workers were digging an irrigation system. They are about 1,000 years old. Time reported that researcher Cristina Garcia Moreno of Arizona State University said, “We don’t know why this population specifically deformed their heads.”
Tai-wiki-widbee said: "There's more information at the Artificial Cranial Deformation page at Wikipedia, where I found the image at right (Painting by Paul Kane, showing a Chinookan child in the process of having its head flattened, and an adult after the process) and these notes:"

Early examples of intentional human cranial deformation predate written history and date back to 45,000 BC in Neanderthal skulls, and to the Proto-Neolithic Homo sapiens component (12th millennium BCE) from Shanidar Cave in Iraq. It occurred among Neolithic peoples in SW Asia. The earliest written record of cranial deformation dates to 400 BC in Hippocrates' description of the Macrocephali or Long-heads, who were named for their practice of cranial modification.

This is NOT the skull of an extraterrestrial alien

The Principality of Poyais

In the 1820s, many Europeans saw the value of investing in the exploration and exploitation of the New World. Governments were being organized up and down the map, and natural resources were there for the taking. People wanted to emigrate, too, and start all over in a rich and exotic place. In this atmosphere, Scotsman Gregor MacGregor stepped in and offered in investment opportunity in a nation he owned, an attractive Latin American coastal plot called Poyais.

MacGregor claimed that Poyais covered 8m acres (an area larger than Wales). It was rich in natural resources but in need of development. That would require both cash and manpower. Through an elaborate publicity campaign, he succeeded in persuading people not only to invest their savings in the bonds of a non-existent government, but also to emigrate to a fictional country. How on earth did he manage it?

The investors lost money, but many of those who emigrated to Poyais lost their lives. Read the story of MacGregor's outrageous con at The Economist.

Random Celebrity Photo

Britt Ekland

Were you aware ...

That 2012 was officially hottest year on record

Of the top ten science stories of 2012

A toast to physics

You will be pleased to note that multiple physicists are at work on the problem of why a piece of falling toast tends to land with the butter side down.

Your Brain

Why can’t we tickle ourselves but Schizophrenics can?

Have you ever tried to tickle yourself? Try it; you will find that the feeling will be nothing like the ...

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Chinese medicine yields secrets to scientists

The mysterious inner workings of Chang Shan—a Chinese herbal medicine used for thousands of years to treat fevers associated with ...

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Fluctuating environment may have driven human evolution

A series of rapid environmental changes in East Africa roughly 2 million years ago may be responsible for driving human ...

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How Did Humans Develop Lactose Tolerance?

The majority of the world's people become lactose-intolerant as they mature into adulthood. The exceptions are mostly people of European ancestry, who continue to drink milk all their lives. Why? It's a case of genetic mutation, in which an adult continues to produce lactase, the enzyme that digests the milk sugar lactose. But why did the mutation become so prevalent in the population so quickly (about 20,000 years)? Evolutionary geneticist Mark Thomas says there had to be something about drinking milk in Europe that led to increased chances of survival or higher fertility. Here are a couple of possibilities:

First, the farmers that settled there came from the Fertile Crescent, and they brought crops native to that region, like wheat and barley. But with Northern Europe's shorter growing season, these crops were more likely to fail, causing famine.

Additionally, the colder Northern European climate lent itself to natural refrigeration. "If you're a farmer in Southern Europe, and you milk a cow in the morning and you leave the milk out, it will be yogurt by noon. But if you do the same thing in Germany, it'll still be milk," says Thomas. A healthy lactose-intolerant person who drank that still-fresh milk would get a bad case of diarrhea. "But if you're malnourished, then you'll die," Thomas says.

In times of famine, milk drinking probably increased. And the very people who shouldn't have been consuming high-lactose dairy products — the hungry and malnourished — would be the ones more likely to drink fresh milk. So, with milk's deadly effects for the lactose intolerant, individuals with the lactase mutation would have been more likely to survive and pass on that gene.

Read more about lactose-tolerance at NPR.

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Microbes lose in Amazon deforestation

Research from an international team of microbiologists has revealed a new concern about deforestation in the Amazon rainforest ...

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Man Cuddles With Pythons To Celebrate The New Year

Burmese pythons aren't generally thought of as cute or cuddly, but maybe the guy in this picture can change our minds.
He's cuddling with a bunch of pythons, some of which are over ten feet in length, as a celebration of the new year.
Ain't no party like a snake cuddlin' party, cause a snake cuddlin' party don't stop...until you've been swallowed whole!

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Vivacious Variant of Vulpes Vulpes

The Silver Fox

Many people think the silver fox is a species related to the red fox. But they are the same species. The silver fox looks so different to the red because of something called melanism. Effectively, this is the opposite of albinism - it is the development of a dark pigment in the skin or fur of animals.

So, although a silver fox may look like a visiting relative it is still the Vulpes vulpes that we see more regularly in its red form. However, the rarity of this melanistic mutation has meant that throughout history the silver fox has been even more persecuted than its red counterpart.

Bee Named to Honor The Big Bang Theory

I hate to make a bad joke, but the joke just can't be contained. Looks like Bazinga, a catchphrase used by Sheldon Cooper on the Big Bang Theory, is officially a 'buzz word.' Instead of naming the brand new orchid bee species after himself or the species' appearance, Andre Nemesio and his team named the bee Euglossa bazinga. Why, you may ask?

The specific epithet honors the clever, funny, captivating “nerd” character Sheldon Cooper, brilliantly portrayed by the North American actor James Joseph “Jim” Parsons on the CBS TV show “The Big Bang Theory”. Sheldon Cooper’s favorite comic word “bazinga”, used by him when tricking somebody, was here chosen to represent the character. Euglossa bazinga sp. n. has tricked us for some time due to its similarity to E. ignita, what led us to use “bazinga”. Sheldon Cooper has also an asteroid named after him (246247 Sheldoncooper).

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They'll eat anyfin!

Great white shark filmed devouring Great White Shark

A great white shark ends up as a snack for an even greater white shark as a fisherman tries to reel him in.

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Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Somethings have always been ...

Some of our readers today have been in:

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Waterloo, Canada

Baghdad, Iraq

Jakarta, Indonesia

Yerevan, Armenia

Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Sialkot, Pakistan

Lublin, Poland

Sofia, Bulgaria

Cape Town, South Africa

London, England

Bayan Lepas, Malaysia

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Lahore, Pakistan

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Doha, Qatar

Vienna, Austria

Puchong, Malaysia

Kenitra, Morocco

Ankara, Turkey

Bordeaux, France

Tallinn, Estonia

Birmingham, England

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

San Jose, Costa Rica

Kiev, Ukraine

Karachi, Pakistan

Bekasi, Indonesia

Chisinau, Moldova

Beirut, Lebanon

 

Today is Bacon Day

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Today in History

1460		The Duke of York is defeated and killed by Lancastrians at the Battle of Wakefield.
1803		The United States takes possession of the Louisiana area from France at New Orleans with a simple ceremony, the simultaneous lowering and raising of the national flags.
1861		Banks in the United States suspend the practice of redeeming paper money for metal currency, a practice that would continue until 1879.
1862		The draft of the Emancipation Proclamation is finished and circulated among President Abraham Lincoln's cabinet for comment.
1905		Governor Frank Steunenberg of Idaho is killed by an assassin's bomb.
1922		Soviet Russia is renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
1932		The Soviet Union bars food handouts for housewives under 36 years of age. They must now work to eat.
1947		Romania's King Michael is forced to abdicate by Soviet-backed Communists. Communists now control all of Eastern Europe.
1965		Ferdinand E. Marcos is sworn in as the Philippine Republic's sixth president.
1972		After two weeks of heavy bombing raids on North Vietnam, President Nixon halts the air offensive and agrees to resume peace negotiations with Hanoi representative Le Duc Tho.
1976		Governor Carey of New York pardons seven inmates, closing the book on the Attica uprising.
2006		Saddam Hussein, former Iraq dictator, is executed by hanging for crimes committed against his own people during his rule.

Non Sequitur

Fun Facts for New Year's

Wear Red Underwear, Lock Your Car and Eat Black-Eyed Peas

   

 

If you're celebrating New Year's Eve this year and find a lull in the conversation, impress your family and friends with this New Year's trivia.

• According to statistics from the National Insurance Crime Bureau, more vehicles are stolen on New Year's Day than on any other holiday throughout the year.
• Why should you ring in the New Year with family and friends? It is thought that the first visitors you see after ringing in the New Year would bring you good or bad luck, depending on who you keep as friends and enemies. Keep your friends close and your enemies far, far away!
• The Times Square New Year's Eve Ball came about as a result of a ban on fireworks. The first ball, in 1907, was an illuminated 700-pound iron and wood ball adorned with one hundred 25-watt light bulbs. Today, the round ball designed by Waterford Crystal, weighs 11,875-pounds, is 12 feet in diameter and is bedazzled with 2,668 Waterford crystals.
• Due to wartime restrictions, the New Year's Eve ball was not lowered in 1942 and 1943.
• Throughout the year, visitors to Times Square in New York City write their New Year's wishes on pieces of official Times Square New Year's Eve confetti. At the end of the year, the wishes are collected and added to the one ton of confetti that showers the crowd gathered in Times Square in celebration of the New Year.
• The top three destinations in the United States to ring in the New Year are Las Vegas, Disney World and New York City.
• Food plays a big role in New Year's traditions. Eating black-eyed peas, ham or cabbage are thought to bring prosperity. However, stay away from bad luck foods like lobsters, because they move backwards, and chicken, because they scratch in reverse. It is believed that eating these on New Year's day might cause a reversal of fortune.
• In Colombia, Cuba and Puerto Rico families stuff a life-size male doll called Mr. Old Year with memories of the outgoing year and dress him in old clothes from each family member. At midnight he is set on fire - thus burning away the bad memories of the year. 
• According to this survey , 40 to 45 percent of American adults make one or more resolutions each year. The top New Year's resolutions include weight loss, exercise, quitting smoking and better money management. By the second week of January, 25 percent of people have abandoned their resolutions.
• In Italy, people wear red underwear on New Year's Day as a symbol of good luck for the upcoming year.

New N.C. laws cover immigration status, fishing, used cooking oil

Sixteen new laws take effect Tuesday.
Most are technical fixes, but there are new ones that affect companies selling kitchen grease, day care owners and fishermen.
Some of the more noteworthy changes:
E-Verify
A law passed in 2011 that takes a phased approach at requiring government agencies and businesses to verify employees’ immigration status will expand to include smaller businesses.
Cities, counties and companies with more than 500 employees are already required to use federal E-Verify software, but businesses with 100 to 500 employees will also need to comply. The law will be in full effect July 1, 2013, when companies with 25 to 100 employees need to comply.
Protecting grease
A modification to the state’s Rendering Act offers harsher penalties to those who steal used cooking oil.
Steal more than $1,000 worth of grease and you’ll be charged with a felony; less than that and it’s a misdemeanor.
Kitchen grease has become a valuable commodity because it’s also used in producing biodiesel fuel.
Changes to the original law also makes it easier for small businesses that collect the grease. Instead of requiring a state license and requiring $1 million in liability insurance as the law originally stated, collectors must now provide a certificate of grease ownership. The liability insurance requirement shifts to the companies making biodiesel.
House Bill 512 was sponsored by Rep. John Torbett, r-Stanley.
Fishing without a net
Industrial-scale purse seine fishing for Menhaden and Atlantic Thread Herring has been banned. A law, which calls for studying fees associated with coastal fishing licenses makes it unlawful to take those species of fish with a purse seine net using a mother ship and runner boats in coastal fishing waters.
The goal is to conserve the fish populations.
Senate Bill 821 was sponsored by Sens. Harry Brown, r-Jacksonville, Thom Goolsby, r-Wilmington, and Bill Rabon, r-Southport.
New definition of dependent child
The state health plan for teachers and public employees has been changed so the definition of “dependent child” complies with the Affordable Care Act. Previously, parents of foster children and court-appointed guardians needed to be “legally responsible” for caring for a child to claim them as a dependent. Now, caretakers of any child may claim them as a dependent.
House Bill 1085 was sponsored by Rep. Nelson Dollar, r-Cary.
Day care protections
Owners of child-care facilities have long been regulated by the state, and will now face more regulations.
Several criminal offenses have been added to a list of crimes the facilities will check for during mandatory criminal background checks: burglary, larceny, credit fraud, identity theft, bribery, riots and cruelty to animals.
The state will also be allowed to prevent someone who is a habitual alcohol user, consumer of illicit drugs or mentally or emotionally unstable from running a child-care facility.
The law, from House Bill 737, was sponsored by Reps. Ruth Samuelson, r-Charlotte, Fred Steen, r-Landis, Beverly Earle, D-Charlotte, and William Brisson, D-Dublin.

Indian rape victim, whose attack sparked massive protest, dies

It’s a horrific story.  An Indian woman on a bus with a male friend, coming home from a movie, brutally attacked by six men and raped for over an over.  This, in a country whose police, and politicians, often don’t take charges of rape seriously.I had heard something about this the other day, but was so busy with other stories I neglected to look into it. Then caught a bit of it on the news tonight, and now this.
Not only was the crime horrible. But the official reaction to it by some in India was, of course, to blame women.
From AP:

The woman and a male friend, who have not been identified, were traveling in a public bus in the Indian capital, New Delhi, after watching a film on the evening of Dec. 16 when they were attacked by six men who raped her. They also beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into her body resulting in severe organ damage. Both of them were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.
Indian police have arrested six people in connection with the attack, which left the victim with severe internal injuries, a lung infection and brain damage. She also suffered from a heart attack while in hospital in India.

The woman has now died in Singapore.
India’s government doesn’t seem terrible interested in moving the ball forward on this one. From NPR:

Prime Minister Singh said Friday that the public can be assured his government is committed to punishing the guilty. The six accused in the gang rape will reportedly be charged next week.
Singh did not publicly address the rape that unleashed the mass protests until Monday, eight days after the attack occurred. Nor did any government official address the crowds, deepening a perception of indifference.
Unfazed by the public outcry, the president’s son, Abhijit Mukherjee ignited new anger Thursday when he described the women protesting the rape as “dented and painted,” as if they were a damaged car.

The son, a national lawmaker, has since apologized.  Not enough.  He should resign.
More evidence of the Indian government’s rank idiocy and misogyny:

Meanwhile, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said he was not obligated to speak to the protesters, and he equated them with Maoist rebels who have long infiltrated the countryside.
The Delhi police, overseen by the central government, used tear gas and water cannons on the protesters, whose ranks included families with children. India apparently has a problem with police not taking rape cases seriously.
From CBS News:

Indian authorities have been accused of belittling rape victims and refusing to file cases against their attackers, further deterring victims — already under societal pressure to keep the assaults quiet — from reporting the crimes.

Indian attitudes toward rape are so entrenched that even politicians and opinion makers have often suggested that women should not go out at night or wear clothes that might be seen provocative.

CBS notes that another woman, age 18, killed herself a month after reporting to the police that she was gang-raped:

The Press Trust of India reported that the woman was raped Nov. 13 and reported the attack to police Nov. 27. But police harassed the girl, asked her embarrassing questions and took no action against the accused, PTI reported, citing police sources.
Authorities in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh also suspended a police officer on accusations he refused to register a rape complaint from a woman who said she had been attacked by a driver.

No wonder people are in the street.  What a horrific story.

What is wrong with them?

Congress decides every aspect of your electronic life can be spied on without a warrant and you can't know how much spying is going on

They voted down every single privacy amendment to FISA, the act that lets the NSA spy on you without a warrant. They voted down the amendment that would let you hear rough estimates of how much the NSA was spying on you. Obama spoke out against amendments that offered less privacy protection than the ones that he voted for in 2008.

The common-sense amendments the Senate hastily rejected were modest in scope and written with the utmost deference to national security concerns. The Senate had months to consider them, but waited until four days before the law was to expire to bring them to the floor, and then used the contrived time crunch to stifle any chances of them passing.
Sen. Ron Wyden's amendment would not have taken away any of the NSA's powers, it just would have forced intelligence agencies to send Congress a report every year detailing how their surveillance was affecting ordinary Americans. Yet Congress voted to be purposely kept in the dark about a general estimate of how many Americans have been spied on.
You can watch Sen. Ron Wyden's entire, riveting floor speech on the privacy dangers and lack of oversight in the FISA Amendments Act here.
Sen. Jeff Merkley's amendment would have encouraged (not even forced!) the Attorney General to declassify portions of secret FISA court opinions—or just release summaries of them if they were too sensitive. This is something the administration itself promised to do three years ago. We know—because the government has admitted—that at least one of those opinions concluded the government had violated the Constitution. Yet Congress also voted to keep this potentially critical interpretation of a public law a secret.
Tellingly, Sen. Rand Paul's "Fourth Amendment Protection Act," which would have affirmed Americans' emails are protected from unwarranted search and seizures (just like physical letters and phone calls), was voted down by the Senate in a landslide.

Congress Disgracefully Approves the FISA Warrantless Spying Bill for Five More Years, Rejects All Privacy Amendments bipartisan,privacy,fisa,videos,youtube,surveillance

Daily Comic Relief

"Too big to prosecute"

Remember "too big to fail."  Here's what comes next...

Over the last year, federal investigators found that one of the world's largest banks, HSBC, spent years committing serious crimes, involving money laundering for terrorists; "facilitat[ing] money laundering by Mexican drug cartels"; and "mov[ing] tainted money for Saudi banks tied to terrorist groups". Those investigations uncovered substantial evidence "that senior bank officials were complicit in the illegal activity." As but one example, "an HSBC executive at one point argued that the bank should continue working with the Saudi Al Rajhi bank, which has supported Al Qaeda."

Needless to say, these are the kinds of crimes for which ordinary and powerless people are prosecuted and imprisoned with the greatest aggression possible. If you're Muslim and your conduct gets anywhere near helping a terrorist group, even by accident, you're going to prison for a long, long time. In fact, powerless, obscure, low-level employees are routinely sentenced to long prison terms for engaging in relatively petty money laundering schemes, unrelated to terrorism, and on a scale that is a tiny fraction of what HSBC and its senior officials are alleged to have done.

But not HSBC. On Tuesday, not only did the US Justice Department announce that HSBC would not be criminally prosecuted, but outright claimed that the reason is that they are too important, too instrumental to subject them to such disruptions. In other words, shielding them from the system of criminal sanction to which the rest of us are subject is not for their good, but for our common good. We should not be angry, but grateful, for the extraordinary gift bestowed on the global banking giant:

"US authorities defended their decision not to prosecute HSBC for accepting the tainted money of rogue states and drug lords on Tuesday, insisting that a $1.9bn fine for a litany of offenses was preferable to the 'collateral consequences' of taking the bank to court. . . .

"Announcing the record fine at a press conference in New York, assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer said that despite HSBC"s 'blatant failure' to implement anti-money laundering controls and its willful flouting of US sanctions, the consequences of a criminal prosecution would have been dire.

"Had the US authorities decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the US, the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized...

There's more at The Guardian, where it is noted that the financial penalty "represents about four weeks' earnings given the bank's pre-tax profits of $21.9bn last year."

Did you know ...

That the failure to prosecute bank fraud is what's really destroying the economy.

Demand side economics

I have marveled over the wingnut position that putting money into the hands of the upper class will create more jobs because they are the job creators. The notion, as those of us who've watched this debate for any time know, is that the money will trickle down. Unfortunately this has been the manner in which the U.S. Government has conducted it's business since the Ronald Reagan junta. And we have been on a downhill slide ever since.

Middle class wages have languished, the rich have taken an ever increasing slice of America's wealth and plowed it into speculative investments instead of into jobs and businesses because demand for goods and services is dwindling. The very notion that businesses will create jobs just to create jobs is foolish - if there are no customers, why would they hire more people?

The U.S. is in dire need of improving its infrastructure - improved roads, high speed rail, upgraded energy delivery systems, etc. Obama knows this, but can't get legislation through Congress that would invest money in construction and in the middle class. THIS would create middle class wealth - THIS would create jobs - THIS would create more demand and lead to growing businesses.

But too many morons are in too many positions of power and so our great nation languishes. Will this lead to the end of the great American story? Or will there be a resurgence of intellectualism that will lead to more enlightened leadership in the next few years? We are probably on the cusp.

Correcting the flaws in America.

Kinder children are more popular

Kinder children are more popular

Performing “random acts of kindness" makes pre-teen children more popular with their peer group, researchers discover.

• Are humans born fair?

Idiots

The World's Hottest Burger

A super-spicy burger so hot it must be eaten wearing protective gloves has gone on sale - but only to over-18s who sign a disclaimer. The mega-hot Atomic Fallout burger, which contains two of the world's hottest chillies, contains a sauce registering a volcanic 1million on the Scoville scale.

Chefs at Atomic Burger, Bristol, used two of the world's hottest chillies to create it, the Naga Bhut Jolokia, also known as the Ghost Chilli, and the Scotch Bonnet. And the burger's size is almost as daunting as its spiciness, with the usual bun replaced by two deep fried pizza slices. The Atomic Fallout also contains 18oz of minced beef as well as 18oz of cheese and is served up with a triple portion of chilli fries.

A "real-life" Quasimodo

In August 2010 Adrian Glew, a Tate archivist, announced evidence for a real-life Quasimodo, a "humpbacked [stone] carver" who worked at Notre Dame during the 1820s. The evidence is contained in the memoirs of Henry Sibson, a 19th-century British sculptor who worked at Notre Dame at around the same time Hugo wrote the novel.

Sibson describes a humpbacked stonemason working there: "He was the carver under the Government sculptor whose name I forget as I had no interaction with him, all that I know is that he was humpbacked and he did not like to mix with carvers."

Because Victor Hugo had close links with the restoration of the cathedral it is likely he was aware of the unnamed "humpbacked carver" nicknamed "Le Bossu", who oversaw "Monsieur Trajin".

Adrian Glew also uncovered that both the hunchback and Hugo were living in the same town of Saint Germain-des-Pres in 1833, and in early drafts of Les Misérables, Hugo named the main character "Jean Trajin" (the same name as the unnamed hunchback carver's employee), but later changed it to "Jean Valjean".

Top 20 Strangest Stories of 2012

Doomsday, cannibals, robotic butts and more. 2012 sure was a weird year. Read more

Twisted Sifter's Top 100 Pictures of 2012

This shot of an outdoor Jacuzzi near the Matterhorn at a resort in Zermatt, Switzerland is one of 100 photographs selected by Twisted Sifter as the best of their 2012 "Picture of the Day" features. From sleeping whales to knitted Mexican buses to meteor showers, this collection of spectacular photos challenges anyone who says life is mundane.

See the top 100 at Twisted Sifter.

Ten Spectacular Underground Homes Around The World

Even though it's uncommon, some people prefer to live underground. It's an interesting alternative to regular homes and whether it's a decision based on style, personal preferences and the wish to recreate an image from a movie, living in any of these homes must be unique. You will be surprised to see how similar these homes are to those almost everyone has gotten used with.

Abandoned In Iceland

It is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland, warmed by the Gulf Stream, has a temperate climate and has been settled for more than a millennium.

Yet despite having a population of only just over three hundred thousand, the majestic countryside of Iceland is dotted with the ruins of houses and other buildings abandoned when they were no longer needed or their inhabitants were forced to move on. Take a look at some of the abandoned buildings of Iceland with some imposing views thrown in for good measure.

Women of The Twilight Zone

Women of The Twilight Zone … Susan Harrison

Einstein: In His Own Voice

On Being has a nice little archive of rare audio clips from Albert Einstein, speaking on various subjects, including what it means to be American, E=MC^2, Gandhi, and "The common language of science."

Einstein: In His Own Voice

Hidden Chinese Emperors Tomb May Be Too Deadly To Explore

After discovering a secret palace hidden in the massive burial complex of China's first emperor, Chinese technicians are nervous. Not because Qin Shi Huang's tomb is the most important archeological discovery since Tutankhamun, but because they believe his burial place is full of deadly traps that will kill any trespassers. Not to talk about deadly quantities of mercury.

Archeologists working at the excavation said that 'it's like having a present all wrapped at home, knowing that inside is what you always wanted, and not being able to open it.' But, at the same time, nobody wants to be the first to get inside because of the mausoleum's dangerous traps. But it's not clear if the traps are really there, even while many texts describe them.

What Makes A Halo Around The Sun Or Moon?

A ring or circle of light around the sun or moon is called a halo. Solar and lunar haloes are pretty common, but they're so mysterious-looking that people often express amazement upon seeing them. They want to know: what causes a halo around the sun or moon?

Random Photo

Can You Find The Hidden Animals In These 20 Wildlife Photos?

Hunting down the animals in each of these wildlife photos by Art Wolfe is no easy task, they've blended into their surroundings so well that even a trained eye will have trouble spotting them.
And don't let the giraffe pic above fool you, the rest of the hidden critters are much harder to find!

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Hope for Nicky the blind baby rhino

Nicky is just like any other baby rhino. He likes to play and is curious about the world around him. Only the world doesn't look the same to this little black rhino because he was born blind. With his lack of vision, Nicky is particularly vulnerable and at risk from predators in the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya.

To keep him safe from harm, Nicky has been living at the family home of Mike Watson, Lewa's CEO, since he was one month old. He has his own boma (enclosure) with a padded play area and a straw-lined room for sleeping. His best animal friend is a yellow Labrador, one of the Watsons' family dogs.

The Watson family and two experienced handlers, Yusuf and Tonga, care for Nicky around-the-clock. He is never left alone for a minute and there is always someone on hand to look after his needs and show him the way. He spends his days running around, taking afternoon naps and wallowing in his mud bath.

YouTube link.

By early next year, Mike and the Lewa staff are hoping to raise enough funds to fly in a specialist to perform cataract surgery to restore Nicky's eyesight.

Full story with more photos here.

Vultures pick at visitors cars in Florida

Visitors to parts of Everglades National Park are getting tarps and bungee cords to make their vehicles less delectable to vultures.

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Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Enough, Said. 

Some of our readers today have been in:

San Jose, Costa Rica

Waterloo, Canada

Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Karachi, Pakistan

Jakarta, Indonesia

Bayan Lepas, Malaysia

Chisinau, Moldova

Lublin, Poland

Puchong, Malaysia

Beirut, Lebanon

Cape Town, South Africa

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Bekasi, Indonesia

Lahore, Pakistan

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Kiev, Ukraine

Doha, Qatar

Ampang, Malaysia

Tallinn, Estonia

Ankara, Turkey

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

Today in History

	1170		Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, is murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights of Henry II.
	1607		Indian chief Powhatan spares John Smith's life after the pleas of his daughter Pocahontas.
	1778		British troops, attempting a new strategy to defeat the colonials in America, capture Savannah.
	1845		Texas (comprised of the present state of Texas and part of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming) is admitted as the 28th state of the Union, with the provision that the area (389,166 square miles) should be divided into no more than five states "of convenient size."
	1849		Gas lighting is installed in the White House.
	1862		Union General William T. Sherman's troops try to gain the north side of Vicksburg in the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs.
	1890		The last major conflict of the Indian wars takes place at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota after Colonel James W. Forsyth of the 7th Cavalry tries to disarm Chief Big Foot and his followers.
	1914		The production of Belgian newspapers is halted to protest German censorship.
	1921		Sears Roebuck president Julius Rosenwald pledges $20 million of his personal fortune to help Sears through hard times.
	1926		Germany and Italy sign an arbitration treaty.
	1934		Japan formally denounces Washington Naval Treaty of 1922.
	1940		In a radio interview, President Roosevelt proclaims the United States to be the "arsenal of democracy."
	1940		London suffers its most devastating air raid when Germans firebomb the city on the evening of December 29.
	1948		Tito declares Yugoslavia will follow its own path to Communism.
	1956		President Dwight Eisenhower asks Congress for the authority to oppose Soviet aggression in the Middle East.
	1965		A Christmas truce is observed in Vietnam, while President Johnson tries to get the North Vietnamese to the bargaining table.
	1981		President Ronald Reagan curtails Soviet trade in reprisal for its hash policies on Poland.

Non Sequitur

Did you know ...

That banks want to roll back a Nevada law that forces them to prove they own a property before they can foreclose on it.

Mysterious Itch Cells Found

The nerve cells that sense itch prove itchiness isn't just a weird form of pain. Read more

US Childhood Obesity Dipping

Obesity rates among small children may finally be on the decline after more than tripling in the United States the past 30 years. Read more
 

Census Dotmap: a dot for every person in the United States

Cartography and data analysis nut Brandon M-Anderson put together this impressive zoomable map of the United States with one dot for each of the 308,450,225 people recorded by the 2010 census: oddities revealed include people living in "abandoned" areas or parks. A Redditor stitched the tiles into a huge image.

Study shows people are more honest online, less so on the phone

Research by Cornell professor Jeff Hancock has shown that people are more honest when communicating electronically than they are in person, citing the paper trails that emails and text messages leave as a check on our penchant for deception.According to Hancock’s research, we have developed new ways to lie that are exclusive to digital communication: We lie to shield us from the constant availability our phones and computers provide us (“Sorry I didn’t text you back, my phone died”), and we lie to embellish our public image (using a fake name to write a positive review of your own book). But since, unlike in verbal communication, the words we say online don’t vanish into thin air, we run a greater risk of getting caught when we lie electronically, and are therefore less likely to do so when penning an email, for example:

For in-person communication, most cultures look a person in the eye to gauge if he or she is lying. Big mistake. Forty-five years of research prove that “humans cannot rely at all on eyes for deception,” Hancock said. “The average deception detection rate is 54 percent.” Reliance on facts, now easier to check via the Internet than ever before, he said, is the best way to determine truth.

And while in-person communication is unreliable, telephone communication is even less so. With no visual or in-text mechanism to verify what is being said, phones provide us our most convenient way to sidestep the truth.

While this is all good to know while chatting on Facebook or commenting on AMERICAblog, this information is also useful for the increasing number of people who are aggregating online information and are wondering how accurate it might be. Hancock’s analysis of Twitter usage during the Libyan revolution, for example, showed an ability to predict with 85 percent accuracy when a large-scale protest was about to take place given the volume of certain keywords. If individuals are honest online, the crowd is even more honest.
Americans spend over fifteen hours per month on Facebook alone, and countless more hours on other Web sites. There are plenty of reasons to be troubled that we spend so much time online, but it’s good to know that as we post more, at least we lie less.

Woman Obtained Restraining Order Against Helicopter Parents

Got helicopter parents? A 21-year-old theater student named Aubrey Ireland does, and she had to go to court to obtain a civil stalking restraining order against them after telling the judge that they attempted to control all aspects of her daily life:

The dean's list student's complaints against her parents began when she realized they'd installed monitoring software on her computer and her phone. They paid unannounced visits, traveling 600 miles from their home in Kansas, to meet with Aubrey's department head.
They also accused their daughter of promiscuity, doing drugs, and having mental issues to the point where they were considering going to court to order that she get treatment.
"My mom has always been very overly involved," Ireland said. "I would have to get on Skype all the time to show them that I was in my dorm room, or there were nights I had to leave my Skype on all night and my mom would watch me basically sleep."

ABC Good Morning America has more: here.