The Daily Drift

Let it go ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 203 countries around the world daily.   

  
  Just Let It Go ... !

Today is - Let It Go Day

You want the unvarnished truth?

Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told

Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Argentina - Brazil - Canada - Colombia - Guatemala - Panama - Peru - Puerto Rico - United States  Uruguay - Venezuela
Europe
Armenia - Belarus - Bosnia/Herzegovina - Bulgaria - Czech Republic -  England - Finland - France  Germany - Greece - Iceland - Ireland - Italy - Lithuania - Netherlands - Northern Ireland - Norway
Poland - Portugal - Russia - Scotland - Slovakia - Slovenia - Spain - Switzerland - Wales
Asia
Bangladesh - Brunei Darussalam - China - India - Indonesia - Iran - Malaysia - Pakistan - Saudi Arabia  Singapore - Sri Lanka - Thailand
Africa
Algeria - Nigeria - South Africa - South Sudan
The Pacific
Australia - Philippines

Don't forget to visit our sister blogs Here and Here.

Today in History

1683		William Penn signs a friendship treaty with the Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.
1700		Russia gives up its Black Sea fleet as part of a truce with the Ottoman Empire.
1758		British and Hanoverian armies defeat the French at Krefeld in Germany.
1760		Austrian forces defeat the Prussians at Landshut, Germany.
1848		A bloody insurrection of workers erupts in Paris.
1860		The U.S. Secret Service is created to arrest counterfeiters and protect the president.
1863		Confederate forces overwhelm a Union garrison at the Battle of Brasher City in Louisiana.
1865		Confederate General Stand Watie surrenders his army at Fort Towson, in the Oklahoma Territory.
1884		A Chinese Army defeats the French at Bacle, Indochina.
1885		Former general and president Ulysses S. Grant dies at the age of 63.
1902		Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy renew the Triple Alliance for a 12-year duration.
1934		Italy gains the right to colonize Albania after defeating the country.
1944		In one of the largest air strikes of the war, the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force sends 761 bombers against the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.
1951		Soviet U.N. delegate Jacob Malik proposes cease-fire discussions in the Korean War.
1952		The U.S. Air Force bombs power plants on Yalu River, Korea.
1964		Henry Cabot Lodge resigns as the U.S. envoy to Vietnam and is succeeded by Maxwell Taylor.
1966		Civil Rights marchers in Mississippi are dispersed by tear gas.

Smile!

Smile! People May Trust You More

Even subtle changes in facial muscles can alter a persons perception of our trustworthiness.

The human tragedy of land mines

"Selected as Miss Landmine Cambodia 2009, Dos Sopheap tries on her prize, a titanium leg,

with pageant organizer Morten Traavik..."

As reported by National Geographic:

The American position is complicated. The United States has not used antipersonnel land mines since 1991, not exported them since 1992, and not produced them since 1997. But the nation has a stockpile of some 10 million land mines, and prior to the '90s, it exported 4.4 million antipersonnel land mines, an unknown number of which are still in the ground. Ian Kelly, a State Department spokesman, described the government's official position in 2009: "We would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we signed this convention." Nonetheless, under pressure from the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Obama Administration has been conducting a comprehensive review of its land mine policy.

For fox ache.  Just do it.
Editor's Note:  The above was from a 2012 National Geographic article.  A report in 2014 by Reuters indicates that the U.S. still supplies land mines to South Korea and "will begin destroying stockpiles..."
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Link Dump

What was the number one song on the day you were born?‘

Pills that make you poop rainbow glitter

What Does 200 Calories Look like?

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Gas Stations  

Can you Pass This Tricky General Knowledge Quiz? 

Art – Kinetic Hair Dryer Installations by Antoine Terrieux

10 Unique Day Trips In Missouri That Are An Absolute Must-Do

The wit and wisdom of Donald Trump

The home of late ‘Golden Girl’ Bea Arthur for sale at $15.995 mil

12 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Airports

Hidden camera shows what’s making the noises Joe hears at night

The Best Food For a Safe and Healthy Dog

Hermit Crabs Go House Shopping

Short Girl Problems   

This Slippery Floor Warning Sign Looks Like a Banana Peel

Now that's a useful AND ap-peel-ing sign!
That's the Banana Cone, a bright yellow "Caution Wet Floor" sign that warns passers-by of slippery floor. Surely you've seen such a sign before, but this one is shaped like a banana peel! Talk about a universal sign of slipping!
You can get some from Amazon, if you're bananas over things that look like bananas.

Baltimore Woman Vows To Make Her 'Relentlessly Gay' Yard Even Gayer After Homophobic Note

by Curtis M. Wong

A Baltimore woman is vowing to make her garden even gayer after a neighbor reportedly slammed her for keeping her front yard "relentlessly gay" in a note.
A snapshot of the note, which has appeared on the Baltimore Sun, Raw Story and the Daily Mail, among other media outlets, which appeared on Julie Baker's door, reads:

Your yard is becoming Relentlessly Gay! Myself and Others in the neighborhood ask that you Tone it Down. This is a Christian area and there are Children. Keep it up and I will be forced to call the police on You! Your kind need to have Respect for GOD.

Simply signed "a concerned home owner," the note appeared after Baker and her daughters had decorated the lawn with a set of rainbow lights, which spelled out "love" and "ohana," a Hawaiian expression for family unity, according to ABC News.
But Baker, who described her neighbors as "predominately beautiful" in an interview with ABC, isn't planning on redecorating. In fact, she's launched an online fundraiser to make her yard even more colorful and pro-equality.
"I need more rainbows," she wrote on the campaign page. "Many, many more rainbows … If we go high enough, I will see if I can get a Rainbow Roof. ...Because my invisible relentlessly gay rainbow dragon should live up there in style!"
She went on to note, "Put simply, I am a widow and the mother of four children, my youngest in high school and I WILL NOT relent to hatred. Instead, I will battle it with whimsy and beauty and laughter and love, wrapped around my home, yard and family!"
At the time this story was first published, Baker's campaign had raised over $31,000.

Philladelphia cops "legally" steal millions from poor people every year

Civil asset forfeiture is way for police to confiscate people's property and share the bounty with prosecutors' offices, without the tiresome hassle of due process.

More

Doctor Throws Breastfeeding Mom Out Of Office Because ‘It Makes Him Uncomfortable’

No one should suffer this kind of discrimination by a medical professional.

Read more

Gun Owner Stephen King Just Weighed In On Gun Control And The Nation Needs To Listen

“Until responsible gun owners support responsible gun control laws, innocent blood will continue to flow.”

Read more

Conrad Hilton Terrorized A Flight, Escaped Prison Time Because He’s A Rich Asshole

If it had been anybody who isn’t a millionaire, they would be sitting behind bars right now.

Read more

A College Is Experimenting with ‘Texting Lanes’ for Students Who Are Too Stupid to Look Up

by Jason Mathews

Utah Valley University has installed a “texting lane” on a campus staircase for students who can’t take their faces out of their phones.
“You have 18-24 year olds walking down the hall with smartphones, you’re almost bound to run into someone somewhere.” UVU creative director Matt Bambrough told Fusion. “It’s something we’re dealing with in this day and age.”
However, while the lane might seem like a plausible idea, it is not meant to be taken seriously. It’s actually part of an art project designed to grab the attention of chronic texters.
“We did it to engage the students,” Bambrough said. “It’s meant to be there for people to look at and enjoy.”
The project might be satirical in nature, but Bambrough still hopes the lane will result in students paying more attention while walking.
“It’s the nature of the world we live in,” Bambrough said. “I’ve texted and walked before; it’s not against the law.”

This Student Was Asked About “Hell” On An Exam

Here Is His Priceless Answer…

I tell ya, sometimes young people can be so profoundly clever it hurts. A professor asked a question in a test:

Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?

The student’s answer? Awesome:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct….. …leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my dog.’

'We are surrounded'

By last count we heard it was 21 separate fires

'We are surrounded': Firefighters battle massive blazes from Alaska to drought-hit California

Most Americans want better fuel economy

Most Americans want better fuel economy, however it’s achieved

While nearly all American drivers are at least somewhat concerned about fuel economy, a majority don’t care how a vehicle saves fuel—just that it does, say University of Michigan researchers. […]

Science Interrupted

Science Interrupted: How Young Investigators Must Sideline Science to Compete for Scarce Funding

When young investigators start their first labs, their fresh ideas blow open new territories of science. While finding funding to support their work has always been challenging, young scientists now […]

Slow Aging Diet

Diet that mimics fasting appears to slow aging

Want to lose abdominal fat, get smarter and live longer? New research led by USC’s Valter Longo shows that periodically adopting a diet that mimics the effects of fasting may […]

High Salt and High Fat

High salt prevents weight gain in mice on a high-fat diet

In a study that seems to defy conventional dietary wisdom, University of Iowa scientists have found that adding high salt to a high-fat diet actually prevents weight gain in mice. […]

Terrifying Prehistoric Sea Monsters

There are a lot of people who are scared of sharks, but if we traveled back 1.5 million years, we'd find a monster that would terrify the biggest, baddest of sharks -the megalodon. And believe it or not, the megalodon is only ranked ten on TopTenz's list of terrifying prehistoric sea monsters.

So what's scarier than a megalodon? How about a dunkleosteus  -a 30 foot long beast with a bite force of 8,000 pounds per square inch, which leaves it tied to with the T Rex and crocodiles  for strongest bit force in history. Even scarier, the creature could open its mouth so quickly that it would vacuum food into its mouth -including prey as large as a human.

Check out the full list of horrific beasts at TopTenz.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

A Guy Thing - Oh, Yeah ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 203 countries around the world daily.   

  
  The magic of Duct Tape ... !

Today is - It's A Guy Thing Day

You want the unvarnished truth?

Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told

Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Brazil - Canada - Colombia - Guatemala - Nicaragua - Panama - Paraguay - Peru - Puerto Rico 
Sint Eustatius/Saba - United States - Uruguay - Venezuela
Europe
Armenia - Belarus - Bosnia/Herzegovina - Bulgaria - Czech Republic - England - Finland - France  Germany -  Greece - Iceland - Italy - Netherlands - Norway - Poland - Portugal - Russia - Scotland  Slovenia - Spain - Switzerland - Wales
Asia
Brunei Darussalam - China - India - Indonesia - Iran - Iraq - Malaysia - Mauritius - Sri Lanka - Thailand
Africa
Algeria
The Pacific
Australia - Philippines

Don't forget to visit our sister blogs Here and Here.

Today in History

1558		The French take the French town of Thioville from the English.
1772		Slavery is outlawed in England.
1807		British seamen board the USS Chesapeake, a provocation leading to the War of 1812.
1864		Confederate General A. P. Hill turns back a Federal flanking movement at the Weldon Railroad near Petersburg, Virginia.
1876		General Alfred Terry sends Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer to the Rosebud and Little Bighorn rivers to search for Indian villages.
1910		German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich announces a definitive cure for syphilis.
1911		King George V of England crowned.
1915		Austro-German forces occupy Lemberg on the Eastern Front as the Russians retreat.
1925		France and Spain agree to join forces against Abd el Krim in Morocco.
1930		A son is born to Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
1933		Hitler bans political parties in Germany other than the Nazis.
1938		Joe Louis floors Max Schmeling in the first round of the heavyweight bout at Yankee Stadium.
1940		France and Germany sign an armistice at Compiegne, on terms dictated by the Nazis.
1941		Under the codename Barbarossa, Germany invades the Soviet Union.
1942		A Japanese submarine shells Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia River.
1944		President Franklin Roosevelt signs the "GI Bill of Rights" to provide broad benefits for veterans of the war.
1956		The battle for Algiers begins as three buildings in Casbah are blown up.
1970		President Richard Nixon signs the 26th amendment, lowering the voting age to 18.
1973		Skylab astronauts splash down safely in the Pacific after a record 28 days in space.
1980		The Soviet Union announces a partial withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.
1981		Mark David Chapman pleads guilty to killing John Lennon.
1995		Nigeria’s former military ruler Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and his chief deputy are charged with conspiracy to overthrow Gen. Sami Abacha’s military government.

DOJ Charges 243 With Medicare Fraud In 'Largest Takedown' Ever

The US Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the charging of 243 people across 17 federal districts for Medicare fraud.

Focus On Islamic Extremism Leaves Lunatic Fringe Overlooked

Focusing primarily on islamic extremism “would be a serious mistake."

Judge has banned mother from breastfeeding because she got a tattoo

A judge in Australia has banned a mother from breastfeeding because she got a tattoo, ruling the woman's decision to get it four weeks earlier exposed her 11-month-old baby to an unacceptable risk of harm. Federal Circuit Court Judge Matthew Myers' decision to grant an injunction to stop the woman from breastfeeding her son comes despite the mother recording negative results on hepatitis and HIV tests. Judge Myers said there was still an unacceptable risk to the baby because the tests were not conclusive. The case came before the court because the baby's father raised concerns about the mother's tattoo during a bitter parenting dispute. The decision has shocked breastfeeding advocates like Dr Karleen Gribble from the University of Western Sydney.

"I think if it were reasonable then we would have very, very many women in Australia who would be quite horrified and perhaps child protection authorities should be taking action because many mothers who are breastfeeding get tattoos - very often of their children's names," she said. In making the ruling, Judge Myers relied on material published by the Australian Breastfeeding Association. Chief executive officer Rebecca Naylor said she is worried a dangerous precedent could be set. "Tattooing is a regulated industry, so if you go to a tattoo parlor that is reputable then the chances [of contracting an infection] are very low," she said. "I think unless there's evidence that she has contracted an infection as a result of that tattoo, then it is unreasonable.

"Tattooing in and of itself, as long as it's done in reputable way and that the infection control procedures are followed, the risk is low and so no, we would absolutely encourage women who have had tattoos to breastfeed their babies for as long as they choose to." Ms Naylor also flagged broader concerns about the wider implications of the ruling, saying it raised questions about a judge's right to control the risk taking behaviors of women. "Does that mean that women who expose themselves to any sort of risks around the contraction of a blood-borne virus... shouldn't be allowed to breast feed?" she said. "Of course we have to consider the risk to babies, and I'm not in any way dismissing that. Women do need to be careful.
"They're feeding a child, it's going to be their main source of nutrition up until they're 12 months of age, so you do have to be careful. But it doesn't mean that you have to wrap yourself in glad wrap." Dr Gribble said she had never seen a case like this before. "I'm only aware of one case where somebody contracted HIV from tattooing and that was somebody who'd got a tattoo in Bali, not somebody who'd gotten it in Australia," she said. "I think when it comes to mothers and breastfeeding, we need to consider that mothers are people, they do things. Sometimes there's a risk associated with what they do, but we generally think that they don't need to protect their children from all risk and it [comes down to] considering, is this a reasonable risk? Most people consider that the risk of contracting HIV or hepatitis from using a tattoo parlor, and particularly if they've been careful about checking it out, is infinitesimally small." A full bench of the Family Court has agreed to hear an urgent appeal against the ruling in Sydney.
Update: The Family Court have now overturned the decision.

Barber jailed after violent attack on rival hairdresser following row over a comb

A barber who bit a rival in a violent attack following a row over a comb has been jailed for 18 weeks. Gary Hatto, 48, sank his teeth into the thumb of former employee Mike Harford after attacking him on his own doorstep, leaving his face covered in blood. And Hatto, who has a chain of eight shops bearing his name, also rained punches on his victim in the terrifying Sunday morning attack. Hatto, of South Wraxall, Wiltshire, pleaded not guilty to common assault but was convicted by magistrates following a trial last month. He said he had not started the fight and had only gone to the house in Devizes, to apologize. The men had been friends in the past with Harford doing his apprenticeship with his attacker but they fell out 11 years later when he branched out on his own.
The justices heard how the incident started on Saturday, June 21, last year when one of Hatto's staff had gone to Mr Harford's shop to borrow a specialist flat-top comb. Mr Harford was not at work that day as he was at home looking after his three children while his wife was away and his employee refused to loan the tool. Later that day, when Hatto got wind of the snub, he bombarded his victim with text messages before turning up on his doorstep at 9.30am the following day. Nick Barr, prosecuting, told the court: "Mr Harford asked him to leave as he had his three young children inside. But Mr Hatto became angry and, five or six times, punched him to the head.
"Mr Harford got him a headlock to try and stop the punches and they fell to the ground. Hatto then bit him on the thumb causing excruciating pain." The two men were locked together on the ground in the front garden until Hatto's employee Yvonne Tallis, who had been sitting outside in a van, tried to split them up. After Hatto had gone, Mr Harford was taken to Chippenham hospital and was treated for injuries to his face and thumb. Miss Tallis, who gave evidence in defense of her boss, said they were traveling to Hatto's Marlborough shop and he decided to stop so he could apologize for the texts. She said Hatto stepped back a couple of meters after knocking on the door and it was Mr Harford who launched himself at Hatto and tried to strangle him before they fell to the ground.
However the magistrates said they believed Mr Harford's version of events and found Hatto, who has four previous convictions for violence and was jailed for 12 weeks in 2010, guilty. In 2007 a judge branded him 'arrogant' when he partially upheld his appeal against a community order for a violent attack. In that incident, again at about 9am, he laid into a dog walker in a local park pushing a woman and then punching her husband. He was under the misapprehension his then fiancée was being attacked when in reality she was crouching down trying to put one of his bulldogs back on its lead. Mr Harford said: "I’m glad justice has been served and it’s all over. I don’t want to rake it up again by saying any more than that.”

Town bans bananas in preparation for boat festival

A ban on bananas has been imposed in a small Scottish town ahead of its traditional boat festival. Superstitious seafarers regard bananas as bad luck on board boats and festival organizers have come up with the unusual move to ward off any potential misfortune to the North-east’s biggest maritime celebration, which takes place in Portsoy, Aberdeenshire, on July 4 and 5.

Banana ban signs have been posted, a banana amnesty has been introduced and local businesses have come out in support of the action, with Portsoy Ice Cream removing banana flavored ices from its range until after the event. Roger Goodyear, chairman of the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Traditional Boat Festival, says: “Bananas may be a delicious fruit but they are considered bad luck on boats.

“We want to do everything possible to make sure our 2015 festival is a success and we don’t want to take any chances.Our ban on bananas is a tongue-in-cheek nod to our seafaring heritage and is a reminder that the ocean can be a mystical, but dangerous, place and as such there are many traditional superstitions among fisher people.” There are several theories on why people believe bananas are bad luck for a boat.
One is that back in the early days of the banana trade, crews would overload the banana boats when leaving the tropics, resulting in the boats capsizing in bad weather. Another is that wooden sailing boats involved in the Caribbean trade of the 1700s had to move so quickly to deliver bananas before they spoiled that the crew had a hard job catching fish. It has also been suggested that it's because bananas harbored dangerous spiders whose bite could be painful or even fatal.

Diplomatic row over stray Venezuelan golf balls landing in Switzerland

A dispute has been teed off between Switzerland's ambassador to Venezuela and a neighboring elite golf club, after a banner appeared at the diplomat's residence warning that golf balls injuring or killing anyone inside would violate the Vienna Convention.

The large placard, located on the residence's fence near the third of the Caracas Country Club's 18 holes, begins by explaining that the residence is considered Swiss territory. "Launching balls into this residence is a danger to whoever is within Swiss territory and a violation of the Vienna Convention if a golf ball injures or kills anyone on Swiss soil."
Ambassador Sabine Ulmann said she had nothing to say on the matter. Her residence is located in a wealthy area of Caracas, alongside the official residences of many other European nations. The private Caracas Country Club itself is one of Venezuela's most elite hangouts. It was derided by late President Hugo Chavez, who described golf as a "bourgeois" sport.
  The Venezuelan Federation of Golf said in a statement that it had read the sign with "astonishment." "We have no fear whatsoever that we are attacking Swiss territory should a golf ball land in embassy premises," the statement read. It added that the sign appeared a "strange overreaction." Article 30 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations states: "The private residence of a diplomatic agent shall enjoy the same inviolability and protection as the premises of the mission."

Amelia Earhart's Emergency Camp Site

Theory on Amelia Earhart's Emergency Camp Site Shifts

A team investigating an island where they believe Amelia Earhart took refuge after emergency landing now believe she and her navigator may have camped in a place by the beach.

Feminine Cro-Mangnon

Early humans had to become more feminine before they could dominate the planet

'Kennewick Man' Closely Related To Modern Native Americans, Scientists Say

by Jacqueline Howard

Who was "Kennewick Man?"

The 9,500-year-old skeleton was found in 1996 along the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wash., and it's been called the most important ancient human skeleton ever unearthed in North America.
But as to Kennewick Man's ethnicity and origins, researchers haven't been able to agree.
Some scientists argued that he was likely related to indigenous Japanese or Polynesian peoples, others said that he had Caucasian features. Still other scientists were convinced that he was probably an ancestor of modern-day Native Americans -- and a new DNA study suggests that, indeed, they're right.
"Using ancient DNA, we were able to show that Kennewick Man is more closely related to Native Americans than any other population," Dr. Morten Rasmussen, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and an author of the study, said in a written statement.
For the study, the researchers analyzed DNA taken from Kennewick Man's bones. Then they compared the DNA sequences to those of modern-day Native Americans.
There was not enough information to assign Kennewick Man to a particular Native American tribe, but the researchers discovered that Kennewick Man was closely related to members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington.
"Advances in DNA sequencing technology have given us important new tools for studying the great human diasporas and the history of indigenous populations," Dr. Carlos Bustamante, professor of genetics at Stanford University and an author of the study, said in the statement. "Now we are seeing its adoption in new areas, including forensics and archeology. The case of Kennewick Man is particularly interesting given the debates surrounding the origins of Native American populations."
The new findings not only shed light on Kennewick Man's ancestral history but also may reignite a long-standing legal dispute regarding the skeleton's fate, according to the researchers.
In 2004, five Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest requested repatriation of Kennewick Man's remains so that they could be reburied as the sacred remains of an ancestor. But the proceedings were halted as scientists won a court case to conduct further research on the skeleton.
"Due to the massive controversy surrounding the origins of this sample, the ability to address this will be of interest to both scientists and tribal members," Bustamante said in the statement.
The study was published online in the journal Nature on June 17, 2015.

Alaska Records Temperature Hotter Than Arizona Thanks To A Crazy Heat Wave

Alaska is experiencing record high temperatures. But the deniers, of course, will say that climate change isn’t the culprit. It is.

Read more 

NOAA: Hottest May, Hottest Spring, Hottest Year-To-Date On Record By Far

So far, this year is blowing past every other year in terms of global temperatures.

Water Going ... Fast

Global Water Going Fast: How Much Is Left?

New studies reveal that humans are rapidly draining a third of the world's aquifers, and nobody knows how much water is left in them.

Mysterious Blob Wreaking Havoc

Mysterious Warm Blob in Pacific Wreaking Havoc

A bizarre patch of warm water is being blamed for everything from the California drought to deaths of sea lions.

Eight Million Mummies

8 Million Dog Mummies Found in Mass Grave

In ancient Egypt, so many people worshiped Anubis, the jackal-headed god of death, that the catacombs next to his temple once held nearly 8 million mummified pups.

Real-Life 'Jurassic World' ...

Real-Life 'Jurassic World' Dinos May Be 10 Years Off

The key in recreating dinosaurs may lie in chickens' DNA.

Huge Toxic Algal Bloom Shuts Down West Coast Fisheries

Scientists are calling the current algal bloom, which stretches from central California to Alaska, "unprecedented."

Leading pianist forced to pull out of concerts after injuring finger in seagull attack

An internationally-renowned pianist has been forced to pull out of concerts after a swooping seagull caused him to injure himself.

Paul Lewis was leaving rehearsals with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra when he was startled, causing him to fall and sprain a finger. The 43-year-old musician had been due to play in two performances but has had to pull out, the orchestra confirmed.

A spokesperson said they wished him "a speedy recovery". Head of communications Jayne Garrity said: "Unfortunately, Paul Lewis has had to withdraw from his concerts this week with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

"On leaving rehearsals with the orchestra earlier this week, Paul sustained an injury, spraining one of the fingers on his right hand, after a seagull which had been nesting close by, swooped close to his head, causing him to stumble." Mr Lewis was born in Liverpool, where seagulls are a common sight.

Animal Pictures