Archive for March, 2008
Acid Rain good?
Mummy of big-bottomed dinosaur found
The mummified remains of a huge crested duck-billed dinosaur – the Hadrosaur – have recently been discovered, preserved by a series of freak occurences: acidic waterlogged sediments formed around the fallen beast triggering a rapid deposit of minerals and trapping organic molecules before they decayed.
The creature which lived (and died) 67 million years ago may well shake scientists’ conception of how dinosaurs looked and moved, because the herbivore was longer and had more stripes – and a bigger bottom – than previously realised.
“Big Bum” is about 25 percent larger than previously thought and changes in the size of its scales imply that it may have had an almost striped camouflage pattern rather like a tapir today.
More widely spaced vertebrae than assumed suggest the beast was around one yard longer than traditional 25-30 ft estimates.
So, acid rain – good or bad? Just think, all those taxis rattling around without exhausts in Liverpool may well be accidentally helping to preserve remains of the human race while destroying the ecosystem!
“No, no, be honest – does my bum REALLY look big to you?”
2 comments March 18, 2008
Bit of a bore
Surgeon uses DIY drill to remove brain tumour
By Stephen Adams
A leading brain surgeon used a £30 DIY drill to carry out a successful operation on a fully conscious patient.
Henry Marsh used a Bosch PSR960 cordless drill because he did not have his normal equipment on him.
The do-it-yourself 9.6 volt drill cost one thousand times less the price of his preferred tool – a £30,000 compressed air medical drill.
But Mr Marsh had to use the Bosch because he was on a trip to Ukraine in Eastern Europe to help people let down by a vastly inadequate health system.
Halfway through the operation to remove the tumour from Marian Dolishny’s head, the power ran out.
His patient was only given local anaesthetic because he could not find a fully trained anaesthetist.
However, he said this gave him the reassuring benefit of being able to talk to his patient, to ensure that he was not inflicting brain damage.
3 comments March 18, 2008
Where’s Lucy when you want her…?
Balloon lost in the sky with diamond
By Natalie Paris
Last Updated: 11:24am GMT 14/03/2008
It had seemed a romantic and highly original way to propose to the love of your life with a £6,000 diamond ring.
Lefkos Hajji, 28, wanted to make his engagement one his girlfriend would never forget, only to have his dreams cruelly snatched from his grasp by a gust of wind.
Rather than simply dropping to one knee before Leanne, 26, he told a florist to put her engagement ring in a silver helium balloon.
But no sooner had he left the shop when his plans backfired spectacularly and the balloons blew away – taking the ring with them.
Keeping his prize in sight, Mr Hajji, from Hackney, London, pursued the balloons for two hours in his car across London before giving them up as lost.
Daily Telegraph
2 comments March 17, 2008
Grave charges
French mayor’s grave warning: ‘You’ll be better off not dead’
By Nick Drainey
The mayor of a village in south-west France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.
In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that “all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish”.
It added: “Offenders will be severely punished.”
The mayor, who turned 70 on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term, said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.
New Scotsman
2 comments March 11, 2008
Loss of face
PC overkill for school’s internet newsletter
Last Updated: 7:56am GMT 06/03/2008
A school has been accused of taking political correctness too far after it replaced the heads of pupils in a school newsletter with smiley faces to protect their identities.
All the children in the internet newsletter, including those in sporting and presentation pictures, have been obscured on safety grounds.
2 comments March 7, 2008
Hexed!
A hexapus, not a six-legged octopus
By Tom Chivers and agencies : Last Updated: 2:39am GMT : 04/03/2008
It would of course be technically nonsensical to describe this creature as a “six-legged octopus”.
“Octopus” meaning “eight-legged”, it would be similar to talking about a “three-wheeled bicycle”.
Henry the Hexapus – as he has been christened by his keepers – is a resident of Blackpool Sea Life Centre in the north-west of England.
Found two weeks ago in a lobster-pot off the coast of north Wales, Henry was one of eight “lesser octopuses” that Sea Life took delivery of from Anglesey Sea Zoo.
His shortage of extremities is the result of a genetic defect, rather than an accident, and he is believed to be the first of his six-legged kind known to humanity.
2 comments March 5, 2008
Hot Shot
Man asks friend to shoot him to avoid work
By Megan Levy and agencies
Last Updated: 2:25am GMT 03/03/2008
A 21-year-old man in the United States asked his friend to shoot him in the shoulder so he could skip work, sheriff’s detectives in Washington say.
Not content with faking a cough or sniffle, Daniel Kuch took the bullet in the right shoulder allegedly to avoid taking a drug test at his place of employment.
It is unclear where Mr Kuch works, or whether he still has a job.
Daily Telegraph
2 comments March 3, 2008
