Thursday, April 28, 2011
Why we lap up bottled water
Americans spend $21 billion a year on the stuff, and one analyst says that makes no sense.
Also: WHO warns of enormous burden of chronic disease
Natural spring allergy cures
Eating locally produced honey may make you less sensitive to allergens in your area.
Also: Heart Plunging Machine
After one man went into cardiac arrest and his family successfully performed CPR on him with a toilet plunger, Advanced Circulator Systems developed the ResQPump. It’s a machine that regulates chest compressions and airflow during the resuscitation process:
According to a study published in The Lancet this winter, the ResQPump, which is used for chest compressions, and the ResQPOD, which prevents too much air from entering the lungs during CPR, could increase certain cardiac-arrest victims’ chances of survival by 50 percent.
The ResQPump works like a toilet plunger, but while decompressing it can draw air back into the lungs. The ResQPOD, cleared by the FDA in 2003, regulates airflow by creating suction in the chest, which draws blood up into the brain.
Study probes how surgery makes diabetes disappear
Teacher's Bribe
A professor was giving a big test one day to his students. He handed out all of the tests and went back to his desk to wait.Once the test was over the students all handed the tests back in. The professor noticed that one of the students had attached a $100 bill to his test with a note saying "A dollar per point."
The next class the professor handed the graded tests back out.
This student got back his test, his test grade, and $64 change.
A 123 Years Of Tablet PCs
While Apple would be happy having many of us believe that the iPad is the genius invention of Steve Jobs and company alone, it turns out that tablets have been in development for over 100 years. As far back as 1888 the forerunners of today’s devices where being patented. In the 1960’s the RAND Corporation created The RAND Tablet, a stylus that could digitally capture handwriting. I’d like to believe that in a parallel universe people in the 60’s and 70’s were walking around with funky RAND Tablets.
(A)ll technology evolves from sometimes cruder predecessors, and tablets are no different. People have been playing with some of the technologies underlying tablet PCs for over a century: In July 1888, for example, inventor Elisha Gray (pictured) received a US patent for an electrical stylus device that captured handwriting.
Ten Amazing Underground Walks
Photo: Stephen Alvarez [National Geographic]
If you’re looking for something to do on your next vacation that’s a little different than the usual sightseeing fare, National Geographic has 10 jaw-dropping suggestions that all take place underground. That’s part of the Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky in the picture above. Other suggestions include the Underground City of Montreal, the Cu Chi Tunnels of Vietnam and the Berlin Nuclear Bunker in Germany.
Missouri elk are being reintroduced in the wrong part of the state, MU anthropologist says
According to prehistoric records, elk roamed the northwestern part of Missouri until 1865.
Now, the Missouri Department of Conservation is planning to reintroduce elk, but this time in the southeast part of the state.
Now, the Missouri Department of Conservation is planning to reintroduce elk, but this time in the southeast part of the state.
In a cave with Werner Herzog
During two brief periods a year, a few select paleontologists, geologists and other specialists receive special permission from the French government to pass through a vault-like door on a cliff above the Ardeche River in southwestern France.
The Discovery Of A New Species
Then, one day, things changed. He was looking through specimens when he found something more interesting than anything he had ever seen before. It was a fossil that looked like a cross between two different kinds of animals. It had the wrong mix of parts. It was - he would come to convince himself - a single individual of an entirely new order of beasts.
Tourist wanting open-mouthed photo threw bricks at captive crocodile
A captive crocodile in Australia is lucky to be alive after a reckless tourist threw bricks at him. Alice Springs Reptile Center's resident saltwater crocodile, Terry, almost swallowed the brick before he was rescued by staff. The tourist wanted to see Terry open his mouth for a photo - so he jumped over the barricade and threw two bricks at the croc.
Alice Springs Reptile Center owner Rex Neindorf came to the rescue when he saw a brick in the beast's jaws. "I was walking past on Saturday afternoon and something caught my eye. I went to check on Terry and I saw him with the brick," he said.
"He had his mouth above water so I knew he was about to swallow it. I bashed him on the nose with a pool pole. It was the only thing I could do to make him drop the brick. I had to hit him six times before he let go. I had to hit him so hard that the pole broke. If Terry had swallowed the brick, he would have died."
Terry chipped three or four teeth as a result of biting the bricks. Mr Neindorf said the New Zealand tourist was frightened. "He hadn't thought about the consequences ... People need to think about the consequences before they do silly things around animals," he said.
Alice Springs Reptile Center owner Rex Neindorf came to the rescue when he saw a brick in the beast's jaws. "I was walking past on Saturday afternoon and something caught my eye. I went to check on Terry and I saw him with the brick," he said.
"He had his mouth above water so I knew he was about to swallow it. I bashed him on the nose with a pool pole. It was the only thing I could do to make him drop the brick. I had to hit him six times before he let go. I had to hit him so hard that the pole broke. If Terry had swallowed the brick, he would have died."
Terry chipped three or four teeth as a result of biting the bricks. Mr Neindorf said the New Zealand tourist was frightened. "He hadn't thought about the consequences ... People need to think about the consequences before they do silly things around animals," he said.
Watch Out For Armadillos
Federal research confirms: Armadillos Transmit Leprosy to Humans.
Using genetic sequencing machines, researchers were able to confirm that about a third of the leprosy cases that arise each year in the United States almost certainly result from contact with infected armadillos. The cases are concentrated in Louisiana and Texas, where some people hunt, skin and eat armadillos.
Sixty black lambs born from flock of all-white sheep
A farmer was left stunned when her flock of 37 white sheep gave birth to 60 lambs - that are all black. Sally Du Toit, 39, and husband Jacob, 29, helped deliver the first black lamb on April 2 this year at their smallholding near Royston, Herts. Since then their flock of 37 white ewes has given birth to a total of 60 black lambs, all sired by a one-year-old ram called Rowley. Incredibly, the South African Dorper ram also has a white fleece, leaving mother-of-one Mrs Du Toit baffled by the freak births.
In sheep, a white fleece is the result of a dominant gene that actively switches color production off - that is why most sheep are white. This means a black fleece in most sheep is recessive, so if a white ram and a white ewe are each heterozygous (have the black and white forms of the gene for fleece color), in about 25 per cent of cases they will produce a black lamb.
This is quite a rare occurrence though, and in most white sheep breeds only a few white sheep are heterozygous for black, so black lambs are usually much rarer than this. That is why this case is so special. Mrs Du Toit said: 'We have had 60 lambs this month and every single one of them is black but all of their parents are white.
'Usually you see just one black sheep in an entire flock and that's where you get the saying from, but all of ours have this jet black coat. It is amazing. We don't know why it has happened. When the first few were born we thought it was great but now lamb after lamb has come out black. We feel blessed. I love the color. People are stopping on the cycle path and in their cars to look at the lambs and ask us if they are a special kind of breed.'
In sheep, a white fleece is the result of a dominant gene that actively switches color production off - that is why most sheep are white. This means a black fleece in most sheep is recessive, so if a white ram and a white ewe are each heterozygous (have the black and white forms of the gene for fleece color), in about 25 per cent of cases they will produce a black lamb.
Photo from SWNS.
This is quite a rare occurrence though, and in most white sheep breeds only a few white sheep are heterozygous for black, so black lambs are usually much rarer than this. That is why this case is so special. Mrs Du Toit said: 'We have had 60 lambs this month and every single one of them is black but all of their parents are white.
'Usually you see just one black sheep in an entire flock and that's where you get the saying from, but all of ours have this jet black coat. It is amazing. We don't know why it has happened. When the first few were born we thought it was great but now lamb after lamb has come out black. We feel blessed. I love the color. People are stopping on the cycle path and in their cars to look at the lambs and ask us if they are a special kind of breed.'
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