Indian robot can save children trapped in bore-wells

A former plumber in Madurai, southern India, has developed a robot that can save little children trapped in bore-wells. Last month the innovation by the plumber turned instructor, Mr M. Manikandan at the TVS Community College in the temple town rescued a three-year-old boy who had fallen into a tube well in the Theni district of Tamil Nadu. (Video).

How Far Are You Flung When an Amusement Park Ride Goes Terribly Wrong?

The carnival ride shown here is the Booster Maxx, which flings two gondolas of riders around in a circle at the end of its two arms. Alejandro Tauber in Amsterdam enjoys the terror of such a ride, and also wondered what could go wrong. He knew the maximum speed (90 mph) and the height of the ride (180 feet), so he calculated the maximum distance you could be flung if the restraints were to fail.

And the rest is a piece of cake. When you leave the Booster Maxx, you are traveling at a speed of 40.3 meters per second at an angle of 45 degrees to the ground. We don’t have to take weight into account because the thing is already at full speed. Let’s leave air friction out of the equation too, but throw in some gravity for good measure.

Now we’ve got a quadratic equation and after some simple calculations, we end up with 168 meters. BUT! We haven’t accounted for the fact that you start at a height of 35.4 meters yet, which you have to add to the total distance. With that extra factor, the grand total is around 204 meters before you die a bloody and painful death.

The post at Motherboard is dressed up with diagrams and even a Google Map showing to where you would be flung if the maximum disaster were to occur (not quite all the way to the hospital). Of course, the fear of such an accident is part of the allure of carnival rides, therefore he also included a first-person description of the ride experience.

Random Photos

Lärchwandschrägaufzug

The Lärchwandschrägaufzug is an inclined lift, also known as funiculars, located at Kaprun in Austria inside the Hohe Tauern National Park. Stretching 810 meters over a vertical distance of 431 meters on 8,200 millimeter gauge, it is the largest funicular system in Europe.
The funicular entered operation in 1952 to transport heavy loads up the steep slopes to the power plants on the high-altitude dam reservoirs above Kaprun. Over the years the funicular was increasingly used to transport tourists. What makes Lärchwandschrägaufzug such an attraction among tourist and locals is the open roofed carriage.

'The Scream' appears in tree stump

"I felt as though a vast, endless scream passed through nature,” the painter Edvard Munch famously wrote. But he probably didn't mean it quite as literally as this.

"I was just having a walk along the river (Mesna) and I just happened to stumble over this stump," Kjell Marius Mathisen, who works with cultural heritage for Oppland county council in Lillehammer, Norway, said.

Despite Munch's poem, Mathisen said he believed the appearance of a near perfect replica of the famous painting 'The Scream' in nature was "just a coincidence".
"This is the most famous and recognizable piece of art probably in the world, so there's a lot of people who recognize the motif," Mathisen added.

Ancient standing stone daubed with paint

The Lia Fail stone on the Hill of Tara, located near the River Boyne, in County Meath, Ireland, has been desecrated in an overnight paint attack.

The paint-damaged Lia Fail stone

Gardai have been called to the historic site to examine the damage to the ancient stone, reputed to be an ancient coronation stone of the High Kings of Ireland.
This is the second time in recent years that the ancient stone has been vandalized, following an attack on it with a sharp implement in June 2012.

The Amazing Longsheng Rice Terraces

Two hours ride from the city of Guilin in Guanxi province the problem of growing rice on steep hills was long ago solved. From the Yuan Dynasty at the end of the thirteenth century the colossal task of terracing the Longsheng hills to provide a rice harvest began.
It took four hundred years for the terraces, also known as Longjii, to be built. During that time countless generations toiled on the terraces to ensure the annual rice harvest which did little more than feed their families. Yet in their efforts to provide for their families they produced a scene of tremendous beauty. It is little wonder that the Chinese call it the 'amazing terrace.'

Daily Comic Relief

Bear spotted lounging in backyard hammock

After knocking over bins and scaring the residents of a Daytona Beach, Florida, neighborhood on Thursday, this black bear needed a rest. Rafael Torres said he followed the bear as it climbed into a hammock and got comfortable.

Torres said he was about 60 feet away when he took the photos, and the bear didn't seem bothered by his presence. It stayed in the hammock for 20 minutes before heading back into the woods at around 8:15pm.

"He got in the hammock like he was a tourist or something," said Vincent James, who owns the home and the hammock. "Then something spooked him and he ran right back there. Then half an hour later I come back and I saw there he is in the hammock again."

YouTube link.

The bear has been spotted multiple times in the Pebble Creek neighborhood in Daytona Beach since Wednesday. Residents say he was looking for food, tearing through a bird feeder and then trash cans. Torres said he has seen a lot of wildlife near that hammock, but this is the first black bear visit.

The Art of Water Buffalo Bodypainting

China hosted an international water buffalo bodypainting competition on May 18 in Pu'er, Yunnan Province. 48 water buffaloes participated. The winning team was a group of local schoolchildren who walked away with the 100,000 yuan ($16,005 USD) prize.
That’s not surprising because painting on water buffalos is a well-established local custom. It's a traditional means of protecting them from predators:

According to legend, a villager once saw his water buffalo getting attacked by a tiger. As the creatures rolled around on the field, mud and blood covered the buffalo's body.
The bull looked so terrifying that the tiger got scared and ran away. After that locals started painting on their cattle to keep the predators away.
The tradition developed into a popular festival held each year to celebrate harvest and honor the cattle.

You can see more photos of these colorful beasts at Amusing Planet.

Could a Mars Volcano be an Oasis for Life?

Could a Mars Volcano be an Oasis for Life?

In our continuing fascination for Mars and its past habitable potential, scientists are now focusing on a possible red planet oasis where liquid water may have been stored underground and heated by a volcano.

Photographer Captures Vaporizing Camelopardalid Meteor

Photographer Captures Vaporizing Camelopardalid Meteor

While camping out under some of the darkest skies in the U.S., photographer Gavin Heffernan captured the beautiful ionization trail of a Camelopardalid meteor.

Animal Pitcures

The Daily Drift

Yeah, Health ...!

 

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Caracas, Venezuela

Thunder Bay, L'ancienne-Lorette, Toronto, Edmonton and Waterloo, Canada

Chaparral, Marblehead, Terre Haute, Somerset and Pocatello, United States

Sao Paulo and Pocao De Pedras, Brazil

Lima, Peru

Mexico City, Mexico

Agua De Dios, Colombia

Tipitapa, Nicaragua

Europe

Luxembourg, Luxembourg

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Perugia, Florence, Milan and Ivrea, Italy

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Today in History

1537		Pope Paul III bans the enslavement of Indians in the New World.
1774		The Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to allow British soldiers into their houses, is reenacted.
1793		Maximillian Robespierre, a member of France's Committee on Public Safety, initiates the "Reign of Terror."
1818		The British army defeats the Maratha alliance in Bombay, India.
1859		French forces cross the Ticino River.
1865		At Galveston, Texas, Confederate general Edmund Kirby Smith surrenders the Trans-Mississippi Department to Union forces.
1883		The first baseball game under electric lights is played in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
1886		Grover Cleveland becomes the first American president to wed while in office.
1910		Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, becomes the first man to fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways. Tragically, he becomes Britain's first aircraft fatality the following month when his biplane breaks up in midair.
1924		The United States grants full citizenship to American Indians.
1928		Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek captures Peking, China, in a bloodless takeover.
1942		The American aircraft carriers Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown move into their battle positions for the Battle of Midway.
1944		Allied "shuttle bombing" of Germany begins, with bombers departing from Italy and landing in the Soviet Union.
1946		Italian citizens vote by referendum for a republic.
1948		Jamaican-born track star Herb McKenley sets a new world record for the 400 yard dash.
1953		Elizabeth II is crowned queen of England at Westminster Abbey.
1954		Senator Joseph McCarthy charges that there are communists working in the CIA and atomic weapons plants.
1969		The Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne slices the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half off the shore of South Vietnam.

Non Sequitur

How To Eat A Hamburger ...

... According To Science

Is there an efficient way to hold and eat a hamburger without the guts going everywhere? Three researchers spent four months finding the best way to hold a large hamburger.

YouTube link

What's Behind Children's Reincarnation Claims?

What's Behind Children's Reincarnation Claims?

Are claims of reincarnation by children just the products of the power of suggestion or the manufacturing of false memories? Or can some children really remember past lives?

The 25 Most Powerful TV Shows Of The Last 25 Years

TV doesn't get much respect. It rots your brain and grows couch potatoes. But the so-called idiot box also swings elections, rewires brains, snares criminals, and even sways the Supreme Court.

The following 25 TV shows may not be the best shows of the last 25 years - in fact, some are among the worst - but their impact reaches far beyond the living room.

Why Is Online Shopping So Confusing?

Why Is Online Shopping So Confusing?

Shopping without leaving the house may be the pinnacle of convenient consumerism, but it can also completely flummox even the best and the brightest among us. Find out why.

Top 10 Countries with the Most Obese People

Top 10 Countries with the Most Obese People Named

More than 50 percent of the world's 671 million obese people live in these 10 countries.

Stromness

Abandoned Whaling Station Of South Georgia

The island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic is remote, to say the least - they are 1,390 kilometers (864 miles) east-southeast of the Falkland Islands, considered the ends of the earth by many themselves.
There is no air strip and visitors must arrive on the island by boat. On the northern coast of the island is the former whaling station of Stromness, named for a village in the Scottish Orkney isles. The last time the place was used commercially was in the early 1960s. Now it's left to decay, its only company the seals and penguins native to the islands.

The Red Beach In Panjin, China

Seeing red? Don't worry, you're not having some eyesight issues; it's just the Red Beach in Panjin, China. Unlike the usual beaches, the Red Beach doesn't have red sand, but only seaweeds that cover almost the entire Liaohe Delta. When autumn comes the landscape's colors turn from orange, to pink, and to flaming red.
Other than the vivid red color that paints the marsh, you can also see the Crown Cranes and Black Beaked Gulls around the area. That's why the Red Beach is also called the 'home of the cranes.'

Straight Razors And Social Justice

The Empowering Evolution Of Black Barbershops

In a country where institutionalized racism has been the norm for centuries, black barbershops remain an anomaly. Though initially blocked from serving black patrons, these black-owned businesses evolved into spaces where African Americans could freely socialize and discuss contemporary issues.
Quincy Mills spent a decade researching the history of black barbershops for his recent book, which provides a fascinating look into our nation's complicated racial dynamic: Barbershops remain both a proud symbol of African American entrepreneurship and a relic of an era when black labor exclusively benefited whites. Collectors Weekly spoke with Mills about the roots of black barbershops and their relevance today.

Mother angry after teenage daughter's armpits were shaved by teacher

A mother is furious that a teacher shaved her teenage daughter's armpits in front of two other girls in a classroom as part of the school's "life skills" program.

Railway station platform closed by pair of jogging bottoms

Trains in and out of Coventry railway station were stopped by a pair of jogging bottoms hanging on overhead lines. Virgin Trains, said one platform was closed for over an hour and ten trains had to be re-routed to other parts of the station. A Virgin Trains’ customer service manager called Dotty later said: “We have no idea how the trousers got up there in the first place.

“Sadly, we haven’t seen anybody running around half naked - although we have been looking. Network Rail came and they had to take the power out of the lines so they could safely remove the offending item.
“Since they’re 25,000 volt lines, they couldn’t have removed the trousers without cutting the power, or they’d have been hot pants. The workmen used a litter-picker to reach up nine feet to take them off.”

Ziggy

Absolutely charming 89-year-old lady fought off sword-wielding robber with a golf club

An 89-year-old store owner in Washington state used a golf club to beat off a suspected robber who wielded a sword, prompting the suspect to drop the stolen cash register as he made away on a bicycle, according to police. Police in the 21,000-population city of Moses Lake say owner Miyo Koba was inside Frank's Superette on Sunday morning when a tall, slender male wearing a ski mask and dark glasses swooped in.

Koba has owned the store in this community between Seattle and Spokane for 60 years, and kept it up even after her husband died, police said. When Koba found the suspect standing behind the cash register, she set about a campaign of aggression. Police describe Koba as a small woman who weighs no more than 125 pounds. "I had the scissors in my hand like this, and he was trying to open the till, and he said, 'Open the till!' " Koba said. "I said, 'No, I'm not going to open the till for you,' and I said, 'If you don't get your hands off the till, I'm going to stab you with my scissors.' But I didn't. I didn't have the nerve to stab him,"

However, her tactics apparently had an effect. The suspect became unnerved when Koba would not open the register. "He started pounding on the register trying to open it," Koba said. "He pulled out his little sword out of his little jacket, and he just kind of waved it a little bit," she said, making reference to the man's 3-foot weapon. “I didn't feel threatened. It just probably made me a little bit more brave,” said Koba. She said the man pushed her slightly to get away. “I fell down here and so I got into a sitting position.

 Original news video.

“I got into a sitting position and I found the club so I went tried to swing this club at him and I tried to hit his head a couple times but I couldn't reach it,” said Koba. So she went for his legs, swinging and hitting them. The man escaped on a bicycle, cash register and sword in tow, but police said Koba later recovered the register nearby with the money still in it. The man apparently stripped after he left the store because police found his clothing after the incident. “He must have been running around in his underwear and no shoes because that's what they said, they found all his clothes,” said Koba. Police are still searching for the man.

Jail for 'spiritual healer' who promised to hang cash from magical tree in Amazonian rainforest

A woman described as “pure evil” has been has been jailed for 10 years after swindling £1 million from vulnerable people by claiming to be spiritual healer who could cure cancer or help them to get pregnant by sending money to the Amazon jungle. Juliette D’Souza, 59, extracted huge sums of cash from 11 people across Hampstead and north London – including opera singers, photographers and solicitors – by claiming to be a shamanic healer with links to the rainforest in Suriname.

D’Souza was such a persuasive con-artist that she managed to convince her victims she could cure terminal illnesses, help disabled children or enable them to conceive by sending cash to the South American jungle – to be hung from a sacred tree. Her victims believed she was working with two other shamans in Suriname, known as Pa and Oma, who would hang their cash “sacrifices” on the tree in the heart of the jungle. Instead, D’Souza spent the money on a lavish lifestyle, renting three or four luxury flats at a time in Hampstead and splashing a fortune on Louis Vuitton bags, jewellery, antique furniture and holidays. She boasted of celebrity clients including Princess Diana and Simon Cowell.

Her victims described her as confident, well-spoken and attractive, and said she was incredibly manipulative and persuasive, convincing them that terrible things would happen if they did not hand over cash sacrifices. The victims were so under her spell during the 12-year scam that one woman, who cannot be named, had an abortion at her say so, while another, Ruth Fillingham, sold her home because D’Souza said it was “spooked”. The woman who had the abortion had previously given D’Souza more than £170,000 in the belief it would help her to conceive. Ms Fillingham, had paid £169,000 from 1998 to 2004 to ward off the evil spirit of her deceased brother, save her partner from a nonexistent tumour and ensure her eye surgery would be a success – which it was not.
Her boyfriend, Geoff Wheeler, handed over £195,000 in the same period. Much of the money was supposed to secure his job, but he was still made redundant. Retired opera singer Sylvia Eaves, 83, was conned out of a total of £353,000. D’Souza had multiple identities and a litany of addresses across Hampstead, as well as in West Hampstead, Belsize Park, Kensington and St John’s Wood. She would pay up to a year’s rent in advance – in cash – and occupy several flats at once. It emerged during the trial that she was previously convicted of 28 counts of fraud and four of theft, spending time in Holloway prison in the 1980s. Sentencing her to 10 years in prison for each of 23 counts to run concurrently - the maximum sentence allowed by Parliament, Judge Ian Karsten QC said: “It is the worst confidence fraud I have ever had to deal with or indeed that I have heard of”.

Serial feet tickler on the loose at college

A man has been breaking into the homes of students who live near Boston College in Massachusetts and watching them sleep or tickling their feet, police and several alleged victims have confirmed. Police report at least 10 sightings of the so-called Tickler, who some in the neighborhood had long believed to be a myth. At least three students report having encountered him on the same night. “This is no myth,” said Sergeant Michael O’Hara, community service officer for the Boston Police district that covers Allston and Brighton. “It’s happening.” Victims have described him as a 5-foot-8-inch black male of unknown age in dark clothing and a hoodie, he said. Some reported that the man watched them through their windows as he committed a sex act.
Teddy Raddell, a BC junior, said he was jolted from a sound sleep at 5am on a Sunday by the sound of someone running down the stairs of the house he shares with several fellow Boston College students. “I thought my roommate had fallen down the steps,” Raddell said, “but then he started yelling. I got up and he said that he had woken up to someone touching his feet.” Like other students, he said no valuables were stolen. “The guy didn’t take anything and there were laptops and wallets out in the main room,” said Raddell. BC junior Daniel Marenzi said he woke up late, also on a Sunday, to his feet being tickled.
“I thought my friend was just trying to annoy me, but I soon realized it wasn’t anyone I knew,” Marenzi says. “I freaked out and sat up but he was already on the way out.” He said he and his housemates now lock all their doors. O’Hara said many students living off campus leave their doors unlocked, however. “Absolutely students should be concerned,” he said. “You don’t know what this guy is going to do or if he has a weapon. You need to lock your doors. It’s not as safe as you think.” There is no hard evidence in the cases, O’Hara said, and no photos or video of the alleged Tickler. “If we had something to go on,” he said, “we would.”

Chocolate thief caught in Thailand

Amid the very serious military coup in Thailand, an even more serious piece of news: Police have nabbed this brazen chocolate thief. He stole 35 candy bars from a 7-11, "for distribution to friends." At last, the citizens of Thailand can sleep soundly, knowing the candy criminal is off the streets.

Father charged with child cruelty for making teenage son carry heavy stone

Police in Douglasville, Georgia, arrested a father on child cruelty charges after the man punished his 16-year-old son by making him carry a 23-pound landscape stone for several miles.

Charlie Mayes, a 40-year-old military veteran with no criminal record, told police he used military-style punishment because his son watched too many videos and didn't do his chores and school work. Douglasville Police charged Mayes with first-degree child cruelty. "This was done multiple times over a three-day period, sometimes as early as 3 o'clock in the morning," Police Sgt. Todd Garner said.
Garner said the boy, who is only 4'2" tall, was also punished in-between the 3-mile hikes. In between that time, he was at home having to move rocks and stuff from one side of the back yard to the other and then being taken right back out to the same location and dropped off and made to walk back again," Garner said.

YouTube link.

A pizza delivery driver alerted police to the teen's punishment walks, one of which was captured in the background of a police dash cam video during an unrelated traffic stop. Mayes freely admitted what happened. "He did not feel that this was inappropriate at all and neither did his wife," Garner said. Meanwhile police alerted DFCS about the case and Mayes was released from jail on $3,500 bond. A judge also ordered Mayes to get family counseling.

Man accused of stealing skin from hospital

A man from Delaware County has been arrested for allegedly stealing more than $350,000 worth of human skin from a local hospital over the past few years. Gary Dudek, 54, of Wallingford, Pennsylvania, is charged with theft and tampering with records.

Man in possession of stolen GPS device called 911 to report himself lost

A Florida man who called 911 to say he was lost and being chased by wild hogs was found to have a stolen GPS device in his backpack. Andrew James Joffe, 24, of Chuluota, called 911 at around 1:50am on Thursday, saying he didn't known his exact location, but that he was walking somewhere along Deen Still Road.

Deputies found him still on Deen Still Road. They discovered that he had an open warrant for driving with a suspended/revoked driver’s licence and was taken into custody. As Joffe’s backpack was being inventoried for safe keeping, a deputy found items ranging from electronic equipment, cell phones, ear rings and a GPS device.

The GPS was turned on and a “home address” was programmed in the GPS. The home address was not Joffe’s. It was determined that the resident was a victim of a burglary from her car and was missing her GPS device. Upon questioning, Joffe admitted to deputies that he illegally entering the vehicle and taken the GPS.
“We have had people with warrants call us to turn themselves in before, but it’s unusual for someone with an active warrant, who just burglarized a car, to get lost and call us for help. In his defense, it does get pretty dark out on Deen Still Road in the middle of the night ,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. Joffe was arrested and taken to jail in Bartow.

Two people killed and three injured after woman dropped her phone into toilet

Two people died and three were injured after wading into a cesspit in an attempt to retrieve a woman's mobile phone and rescue those who fainted. The two fatalities were the woman's husband and mother-in-law. The tragedy unfolded after the young woman in Xinxiang city, Henan, China, accidentally dropped her brand new phone into a cesspit when she went to the open-pit toilet on Wednesday.

Her husband jumped in to find the 2,000-yuan (£190, $320) phone but he could not breathe and soon lost consciousness. Then, the husband's mother jumped in to save him but she, too, soon lost consciousness. In panic, the young woman followed and suffered the same fate. Seeing his family lying helpless in waste, her father-in-law called to neighbors for help.
When they arrived, the old man also entered the cesspit but could not get out while two neighbors who jumped inside fainted. “The smell was too strong. I lost consciousness before I could see anything,” said a neighbor. Other villagers found a rope and tied it on rescuers who, taking turns, pulled six people out of the pit.
The husband and mother-in-law died in hospital while the woman and a neighbor remain in the intensive care unit. The father-in-law was also injured. The woman and her husband had a one-year-old son. Villagers said the victims were in the pit, which was knee deep in waste, for no more than five minutes. A hospital doctor said the victims suffocated. Villagers said the dead victims had pulses after being pulled out but the ambulance did not arrive for more than an hour.

Daily Comic Relief

Police found steroids, cocaine, marijuana and a raccoon in a birdcage during drugs bust

A drugs bust in Florida led to police finding a raccoon inside a bird cage when the home of David Watson, 50, in Port St. Lucie was searched.

Police also found vials human growth hormones (HGH) in Watson's refrigerator, and cocaine and marijuana in the house. Police say they believe the raccoon spent all day, every day in the cage, never being let out.

"The only door that opened up to the cage was zip-tied shut," Master Sgt. Frank Sabol said. "And the raccoon was obese." Along with the raccoon, police also confiscated several rabbits, a snake and two kittens.
Watson's mother came up from Miami to care for most of the animals. The raccoon was transferred to a wildlife shelter in Jupiter. Watson was arrested and was taken to the St. Lucie County Jail for booking.

Police on the hunt for car-attacking raven

Police in Richmond, Maine, are dealing with reports of an amorous raven that has caused hundreds of dollars in damage to at least three cars. Police Chief Scott MacMaster said two people went to the police station last week to report their vehicles had been attacked by the raven, which caused damaged rubber gaskets around windscreen and windows and the windscreen wipers on at least three cars.

MacMaster said the first raven attack, in which a pickup truck was damaged was reported on May 21. The owner said he had watched the raven land and see its reflection in the truck window. The bird caused approximately $500 in damage, according to the owner. “The raven does its territorial strut as he described it and it starts attacking the reflection in the window and pulling off the rubber around the windows and his windshield wipers,” MacMaster said.

“The raven in the reflection would not back down, so he attacked himself.” The next day a resident reported that “a buzzard” had ripped the windscreen wipers off his car. MacMaster said the buzzard was, in fact, a raven. “He had to bring his own car in to be fixed, and while he was having the repairs done and it started attacking the rental car,” MacMaster said. The second victim said he took an unpaid day off from work so he could conduct a stakeout to try to catch the bird in the act. When that failed he went to the police station. “He wanted us to shoot the raven,” MacMaster said.
MacMaster said officers inspected the rental car and found rubber missing from around the window and windscreen and scratches on front. MacMaster said the vehicle owners would be allowed to safely dispatch of the nuisance bird, but he advised both to contact the Warden Service as well. MacMaster said identifying the bird could prove difficult. Ravens are easily mistaken for crows, but the first victim was confident in the type of bird that carried out the attack. “He said he’d researched it,” MacMaster said. “He says he believes it’s a raven because it’s much bigger.”

Shoppers surprised by wandering alligator

Shoppers in North Charleston, South Carolina, were shocked to see an alligator in a parking lot at Tanger Outlets on Tuesday evening.

Danielle McAdory said she was coming out of the Verizon store at around 7:15pm when she noticed a gator at the Hardees parking lot.

"I thought it was strange that a gator could make it that far inland and I was hoping animal control wasn't going to shoot it," McAdory said.

YouTube link.

The gator attempted to crawl to the main road, but police managed to block the animal. Officers with the North Charleston Police Department were able to capture the gator at around 8:30pm. The gator was then placed in the back of a truck before being transported to the Goose Creek reservoir where it was released.

Snake lunging at tires caused traffic delays

A rat snake slowed traffic down at Mayde Creek in Katy, Texas, on Tuesday morning.

Deer that fell from the sky crashed though windshield of vehicle traveling at 70 mph

An Illinois woman had an unusual encounter with a deer as the animal leaped from an overpass and crashed through her windscreen. Heidi Conner says she was driving a minivan with her four children at about noon on Sunday.

Injured deer ran into hospital

A startled deer ran into the Carolinas Medical Center-NorthEast in Concord, North Carolina, on Thursday morning, much to the surprise of hospital workers.

YouTube link.

A source inside the hospital says the deer was loose in the hospital's kitchen-storage area before being trapped inside a mop closet. Animal control officers were called to the hospital to capture the injured buck. The deer was tranquilized and removed from the hospital on a rolling cart.

It appears the deer came from a wooded, residential area across from the hospital. It is believed the buck ran across traffic, leaped over the bushes and landed on a vehicle in the parking lot of the hospital, shattering the windscreen. The deer then entered the hospital. Animal control officers say the deer was taken about three or four miles away from the hospital and released in a wooded area.

Officers stayed with the deer until the tranquilizer wore off, which took about 15 to 20 minutes. Once the deer got his bearings, he was able to walk away and into the woods. The deer was reportedly only injured along the protective coating on his antlers. Considering that he'd crashed into a car windscreen, officers say he was in good condition.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Van Gogh Poppies ...!

 

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Bare Foot Is Best ... !

Today  is  -  National Go Barefoot  Day

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Some of our reader today have been in:

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Saint John's, Edmonton, Ottawa, L'ancienne-Lorette and Toronto, Canada

Lawrenceville, Greenville, Mooresville, Huntersville, Simpsonville, Williamsville, Jaksonville, Statesville, Pineville and Charlottesville, United States

Sao Paulo, Campos and Natal, Brazil

Barquisimeto, Venezuela

The Bottom, Sint Eustatus and Saba

Managua, Nicaragua

Bogota and Sibate, Colombia

Colegiales and Buenos Aires, Argentina

Freeport, Bahamas

Europe

Warsaw, Kielice and Tarnobrzeg, Poland

Madrid and Santa Cruz De Tenerife, Spain

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Athens, Greece

Ryazan, Mosrentgen and Moscow, Russia

Ivrea, Naples and Rome, Italy

Oslo, Norway

Espoo and Vantaa, Finland

Bucharest, Romania

Amersfoort, Netherlands

Dublin, Ireland

Dresden, Nuremberg and Bad Homberg Var Der Hohe, Germany

Salon-De-Provence, Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Frederiksberg, Denmark

Uppsala, Sweden

Riga, Latvia

Rowley Regis, England

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Africa 

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Today in History

193		The Roman emperor, Marcus Didius, is murdered in his palace.
1533		Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's new queen, is crowned.
1774		The British government orders the port of Boston closed.
1789		The first U.S. congressional act on administering oaths becomes law.
1812		American navy captain James Lawrence, mortally wounded in a naval engagement with the British, exhorts to the crew of his vessel, the Chesapeake, "Don't give up the ship!"
1862		General Robert E. Lee assumes command of the Confederate army outside Richmond after General Joe Johnston is injured at Seven Pines.
1864		The Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, begins as Confederate general Robert E. Lee tries to turn Union general Ulysses S. Grant's flank.
1868		James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, dies.
1877		U.S. troops are authorized to pursue bandits into Mexico.
1915		Germany conducts the first zeppelin air raid over England.
1916		The National Defense Act increases the strength of the U.S. National Guard by 450,000 men.
1921		A race riot erupts in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing 85 people.
1939		The Douglas DC-4 makes its first passenger flight from Chicago to New York.
1941		The German Army completes the capture of Crete as the Allied evacuation ends.
1942		America begins sending Lend-Lease materials to the Soviet Union.
1958		Charles de Gaulle becomes premier of France.
1963		Governor George Wallace vows to defy an injunction ordering integration of the University of Alabama.
1978		The U.S. reports finding wiretaps in the American embassy in Moscow.

Non Sequitur

The American Man Who Found His Mother Living in an Amazonian Tribe

On the right is David Good, a man from Philadelphia. One the left is his mother, Yarima of the Yanomami people of Venezuela.
How this relation came to pass is a long story told in detail at the New York Post. David's father, Kenneth Good, was an anthropology student at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1970s. In 1975, Kenneth went on an expedition to a remote jungle area on the border of Venezuela and Brazil. Arrogant and stubborn, he separated from the group he was traveling with and set out on his own into the unknown.
There Kenneth found the Yanomami tribe. He befriended them and made further visits. On one visit in 1978, the tribe gave Kenneth a young girl as a wife. Her name was Yarima.
Kenneth went in and out of the jungle and did not provide the protection that a husband owes his wife in the Yanomami culture. By 1986, she was pregnant with his child, so he brought her back to the United States. It was impossible for her to adjust:

In November 1986, within a week of arriving in Bryn Mawr, Pa., Yarima went into labor and was panicked by the American hospital: the gurneys, the monitors, the machines, the needles. Once admitted, she sprung herself out of bed and attempted to give birth by squatting in the corner of the hospital room.
“It was so unnatural to her,” Kenneth says. “It went against ­everything she ever learned.” […]
Meanwhile, his wife was becoming ever more isolated and desperate. While Kenneth was teaching, Yarima would take the $20 he left every morning and go to Dunkin’ Donuts, then the $10 store, where she never knew how much she could buy. She had to adapt to wearing clothes every day and thought that running cars were animals on the attack. She had no friends.
“I miss my family,” Yarima told People magazine. “I want to go home.” Kenneth was her translator.

In 1991, Yarima went back to her people, leaving her young son, David, with his father. Two decades later, David journeyed into the jungle to find her:

He arrived in August 2011, the tribe expecting him. When his mother emerged, he recognized her immediately. She wore wooden shoots through her face and little clothing, and he felt immediately that he was her son in every way.
He’d thought a lot about whether to hug her — he wanted to, but he was too nervous, and the Yanomami don’t hug — so he put his hand on her shoulder and told her what he’d wanted to for years.
“I said, ‘Mama, I made it, I’m home. It took so long, but I made it.’ ” Yarima wept.