Flossing your pearly whites daily can extend your life span by three to five years.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
Wells Fargo backtracks on monthly debit card
First it was Bank of America and now Wells Fargo. Their timing to slap new fees on customers could not have happened at a worse time.
Keep up the good work Occupy and thanks for your help!
Keep up the good work Occupy and thanks for your help!
Spending and saving tips
Top money bloggers offer their favorite personal advice to help improve your financial life.
Also: Woman Fined for Having Car Parked in the Same Spot since 208 AD
A woman in Sicily faced a massive fine for illegal parking when a police officer accidentally noted the year 208 instead of 2008:Police in Sicily issued a whopping 32,000 euros ($44,500) fine for an illegally parked car after totting up 2,000 years of interest by mistake, Italy’s Repubblica newspaper said Wednesday.The lady called in a favor from the Emperor (pictured) and had the fine waived.
The interest due was calculated from the year 208 A.D. after a policeman dated the fine back to the year 208 instead of 2008.
Nine worthless collectibles
Beware of companies that put tons of marketing behind items that have little resale value.
Also: The Creepiest Antiques
Mummies And Monkey Skulls
Halloween is the time of year when people reveal their most ghoulish fears and fantasies, decorating their houses with fake mummies, plastic skulls and skeletons, and eerie contorted faces carved into apples and pumpkins. But for a certain breed of collector, like artist Ryan Matthew Cohn, this sort of decor is just not creepy enough.
Such collectors would rather deck their apartments with specimen jars, real mummified heads, musical instruments made out of human bones, Victorian hair art, and actual skeletons - human or otherwise. Take a look inside Cohn's Brooklyn apartment, decorated with taxidermy.
Lego man to stay in police custody in Florida
Lego man, a 100-pound, 8-foot-tall sculpture, didn't do anything wrong except wash up on a Florida beach.The Ten Deadliest Tsunamis In Living Memory
In the last 50 years our ability to investigate, predict and record tsunamis has reached new heights, but the devastation these unstoppable walls of water can cause has also become ever more evident. A list of the ten most catastrophic tsunamis in recent memory.
What's That Mysterious Spot on Uranus?
In all seriousness, there is a mysterious spot on the gas giant.
No, really.
Discover Magazine explains:
Uranus, like the other giant planets in the solar system (Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune), is made up almost entirely of gas, although it differs in composition to Jupiter and Saturn -- it has higher quantities of water, methane and ammonia ices. Unlike conventional ice, it's a super dense liquid. Uranus, like Neptune, is often referred to as an "ice giant." [...]
An image taken by planetary scientist Larry Sromovsky, with the Gemini 8.1 meter telescope shows a bright patch that is thought to be an eruption of methane ice high in the atmosphere. [...]
Understanding the nature of this spot is important, Hammel explained to Discovery News.
"The reason we care about the clouds on the planet Uranus is that they seem to be seasonally driven," said Hammel. "Uranus spins tipped over on its side, giving rise to extreme changes in sunlight as its seasons progress.
"The changes are therefore much more dramatic than for other planets. Uranus thus gives us unique insight into the energy balance in a planetary atmosphere."
Hero dog drags owner hit by lightening home to safety
The Mayor of Redruth owes his life to his "best friend" and a pair of wellington boots after being struck by lightning. Ian Thomas made his usual early morning trip to feed his animals last Monday when he was thrown violently to the ground. Stunned and lying in agony, he had to grab hold of Monty, his large black schnauzer, who helped him struggle back to the house. His wife Sharen rushed him to hospital, fearing he had suffered a stroke or a heart attack.
An hour or two later and after a series of check-ups, including an MRI scan and an ECG, he was diagnosed as having been struck by lightning. He said: "I was walking along carrying a metal bowl when I had what seemed like an explosion in my head and at the same moment I heard the dog scream. I saw my legs thrown into the air in front of me and I was thrown into the air. It didn't make any sense. Some time later I came to my senses and found myself curled up in a ball on the ground. I knew I wasn't dead because the pain was so bad."
Mr Thomas often hangs on to Monty when walking up steep hills. So when he said, "Help me, help me", the dog knew what to do. I grabbed hold of him and stumbled home," said Mr Thomas. Mrs Thomas, who is trained in first aid, knew her husband had left the house at 6.45am. He arrived home at 7.05am so she guessed he must have been unconscious for between ten and 15 minutes. She said: "I thought he had had a heart attack. I didn't want to worry our son Lewis, and I knew it was important for Ian to get help within the hour.
"The consultant said that if he hadn't been wearing wellies, it could have been a different story." Mr Thomas spent four days in the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, where he said the treatment was "outstanding". He did feel a bit like an exhibit, though, as medical students and even the ward cleaner wanted to hear his story. All he has to remind himself of the incident are marks on his head and hip – entry and exit marks – and a letter from his consultant signing him off work because of "lightning strike".
An hour or two later and after a series of check-ups, including an MRI scan and an ECG, he was diagnosed as having been struck by lightning. He said: "I was walking along carrying a metal bowl when I had what seemed like an explosion in my head and at the same moment I heard the dog scream. I saw my legs thrown into the air in front of me and I was thrown into the air. It didn't make any sense. Some time later I came to my senses and found myself curled up in a ball on the ground. I knew I wasn't dead because the pain was so bad."
Photo from SWNS.
Mr Thomas often hangs on to Monty when walking up steep hills. So when he said, "Help me, help me", the dog knew what to do. I grabbed hold of him and stumbled home," said Mr Thomas. Mrs Thomas, who is trained in first aid, knew her husband had left the house at 6.45am. He arrived home at 7.05am so she guessed he must have been unconscious for between ten and 15 minutes. She said: "I thought he had had a heart attack. I didn't want to worry our son Lewis, and I knew it was important for Ian to get help within the hour.
"The consultant said that if he hadn't been wearing wellies, it could have been a different story." Mr Thomas spent four days in the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, where he said the treatment was "outstanding". He did feel a bit like an exhibit, though, as medical students and even the ward cleaner wanted to hear his story. All he has to remind himself of the incident are marks on his head and hip – entry and exit marks – and a letter from his consultant signing him off work because of "lightning strike".
'Miracle dog' up for adoption
An unwanted beagle gains celebrity status after coming out alive from a gas chamber.
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How Woodpeckers Peck Wood without Hurting Themselves
If you routinely and repeatedly bang your head against the wall in the vain hope that doing so will alter reality, then you should know that it’s not as safe as when a woodpecker does it. How can these birds hammer away like they do without suffering brain injuries? Scientists think that they have the answer:The birds have little “sub-dural space” between their brains and their skulls, so the brain does not have room to bump around as it does in humans. Also, their brains are longer top-to-bottom than front-to-back, meaning the force against the skull is spread over a larger brain area.Close examination of the birds’ movements permitted researchers to create a computer simulation. It revealed that:
Firstly, the hyoid bone’s looping structure around the whole skull was found to act as a “safety belt”, especially after the initial impact.
The team also found that the upper and lower halves of the birds’ beaks were uneven, and as force was transmitted from the tip of the beak into the bone, this asymmetry lowered the load that made it as far as the brain.
Lastly, plate-like bones with a “spongy” structure at different points in the skull helped distribute the incoming force, thereby protecting the brain.
Real Life Imitates The Simpsons
Three-Eyed Fish Caught Near Nuclear Plant
A group of fishermen in Cordoba caught a mutant fish off a lake near a nuclear power plant that looked like it came straight out of The Simpsons. Folks, meet the real life equivalent of Blinky, the three-eyed fish:
"We were fishing and we got the surprise of getting this rare specimen. As it was dark at that time we did not notice, but then you looked at him with a flashlight and saw that he had a third eye," said Julian Zmutt, one of the fishermen.
A 16-foot python found in Everglades had eaten deer
Officials in the Florida Everglades have captured and killed a 16-foot-long Burmese python that had just eaten an adult deer.
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