The Lighter Side of the News

[Buster's Uncle]

I saw that on the news yesterday.  I rather think the cat had to be male and rather hefty to body-slam the dog and move it at all.  A female would probably go tooth and claws first, not slam...

[Geo]

So weird that a dog is scared off by an animal perhaps a fifth the size/mass of this kid.

[Buster's Uncle]

Cats will claw your poop up, hardcore...

[Unorthodox]

I had a pet cat that killed a wolf. 


Ok, HALF wolf, half german shepherd. 

Damn thing ate his food, he jumped on it's back and rode it like he was at the rodeo while biting it's neck.  The vet was able to close the wound, but infection got it in the end. 

[Geo]

So, it weregerms that killed it in the end?

[Unorthodox]

It never recovered from the fight, so that's pretty much the cat kicking ass.

[gwillybj]

Across Egypt, 1 question today: What time is it?
Associated Press By LAURA DEAN
May 16, 2014 12:16 PM
 
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's sudden flip to daylight saving time Friday had everyone asking the same question: What time is it?

The decision to move clocks ahead one hour, now putting the country seven hours ahead of New York, saw computers and mobile phones showing the wrong time. Worried employees at Cairo International Airport made sure to make announcements and scurried to help passengers, though the flights appeared calm during the day.

Worshippers also showed up early or late at mosques across the country for Friday prayers. However, Muslim prayer times depend on the sun — not clocks — and the call to prayer echoed across Cairo just like normal.

Egypt's military-backed interim government announced its decision in May to move clocks ahead as a power-saving measure. Though Egypt first implemented daylight saving time in 1988, it too got ousted following the 2011 revolt that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The decision also had an effect on faith. The holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which sees the faithful fast during the day and eat after sunset, has cycled into the long daylight hours of the summer months for the coming years.

This daylight saving time period will last until Ramadan starts next month, then will resume afterward until September.

However, some see the time changes as just another trouble for Egypt, following a tumultuous year that saw Islamist President Mohammed Morsi overthrown by the military following protests by millions against his administration.

Alaa el Din, a 50-year-old devout Muslim and agricultural engineer from Cairo's Faisal neighborhood, summed up the confusion over Egypt's political situation and its clock chaos succinctly when asked the time Friday: "Your time or my time?"

http://news.yahoo.com/across-egypt-1-today-time-144424597.html

Around my house the question is more often: What day is it? Problem is there's a pill for that and we both take it.

[Buster's Uncle]

[gwillybj]

Iowa City Cites 74M-Year-Ago Meteor For Well Woes
Associated Press
May 16, 2014 7:39 PM
 
MANSON, Iowa (AP) — A small central Iowa city is having a big problem drilling a new well, and the reason could date back millions of years.

Manson has failed three times to drill for a new steady water supply. The difficulty apparently is due to a meteor that struck an estimated 74 million years ago, creating what is known as the Manson impact crater. Geologists believe the meteor caused a catastrophic explosion that burned up everything within 130 miles, although there now is no evidence of the impact.

Underground, however, remnants of the meteor remain, and they are causing headaches for drill engineers, according to the Fort Dodge Messenger (http://bit.ly/1jlZUyB ).

To improve the chances of success in the city's fourth drilling attempt, the city hired Aquetech Innovation, a company in nearby Fort Dodge that uses satellite imagery to determine well sites.

"When the meteor hit, it blew out all the natural formations," said Lanny Rosenquist, a geologist and owner of Aquetech. "It destroyed all the natural geology. Over in Fort Dodge you get certain layers; over here you don't hit those layers. Everything's mixed up."

Rosenquist said satellite imagery shows markers that can indicate aquifers.

After an analysis, the company started drilling near an auto parts store. If that spot doesn't work, there are two other options on opposite ends of town.

Mayor Dave George said it should be clear by Wednesday if current drilling has succeeded.

Although the meteor created an inconvenience for the city of 1,700 people some 80 miles northwest of Des Moines, George contends it somehow improved the water's taste by removing minerals that make nearby well water harder.

"Manson has naturally soft water," George said. "It's a little harder to get to, but it's worth it."

___

Information from: The Messenger, http://www.messengernews.net

[gwillybj]

Not knowing where to put this question, I'll ask it here: Which way do SMACX quotes and concepts go? Did they come into the game from outside sources, or do they move out into the real world?
A recent example: “Today, Russia firmly places China at the top of its foreign trade partners,” {Russian President Vladimir} Putin said in an interview with Chinese journalists on the eve of his visit, according to a transcript released Monday by the Kremlin. “In the context of turbulent global economy, the strengthening of mutually beneficial trade and economic ties, as well as the increase of investment flows between Russia and China, are of paramount importance.”
Sounds a bit Morganish to me. I wonder if Mr. Putin has ever played this game?

(http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/world/europe/ukraine-crisis-pushing-putin-toward-china.html)

I'm keeping an ear open for future examples.

[Geo]

Mukashimukashi, karera wa sonogo zutto shiawase ni kurashimashita.

What language is that? Google translate auto-detects it as Swahili, but it looks like Japanese to me?

[Buster's Uncle]

First and last words look definitely Japanese.  Wa and ni, also.

[Unorthodox]

Close enough to Lakota, could be another native american nation

[gwillybj]

It's the Google Japanese translation of: "Once upon a time, they lived happily ever after." I have no idea how well it's done.

[gwillybj]

The New York Times
Science
Mice Run for Fun, Not Just Work, Research Shows
By JAMES GORMAN
MAY 20, 2014

If an exercise wheel sits in a forest, will mice run on it?

Every once in a while, science asks a simple question and gets a straightforward answer.

In this case, yes, they will. And not only mice, but also rats, shrews, frogs and slugs.

True, the frogs did not exactly run, and the slugs probably ended up on the wheel by accident, but the mice clearly enjoyed it. That, scientists said, means that wheel-running is not a neurotic behavior found only in caged mice.

They like the wheel.

Two researchers in the Netherlands did an experiment that it seems nobody had tried before. They placed exercise wheels outdoors in a yard garden and in an area of dunes, and monitored the wheels with motion detectors and automatic cameras.

They were inspired by questions from animal welfare committees at universities about whether mice were really enjoying wheel-running, an activity used in all sorts of studies, or were instead like bears pacing in a cage, stressed and neurotic. Would they run on a wheel if they were free?



Now there is no doubt. Mice came to the wheels like human beings to a health club holding a spring membership sale. They made the wheels spin. They hopped on, hopped off and hopped back on.

“When I saw the first mice, I was extremely happy,” said Johanna H. Meijer at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “I had to laugh about the results, but at the same time, I take it very seriously. It’s funny, and it’s important at the same time.”

Dr. Meijer’s day job is as a “brain electrophysiologist” studying biological rhythms in mice. She relished the chance to get out of the laboratory and study wild animals, and in a way that no one else had.

She said Konrad Lorenz, the great-grandfather of animal behavior studies, once mentioned in a letter that some of his caged rats had escaped and then returned to his garden to use running wheels placed there.

But, Dr. Meijer said, the Lorenz observation “was one sentence.”

For the experiment, the wheels were enclosed so that small animals could come and go but so that larger animals could not knock them over. Dr. Meijer set up motion sensors and automatic video cameras. Several years and 12,000 snippets of video later, she and Yuri Robbers, also a Leiden researcher, reported the results. They were released online Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Gene D. Block, chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, was not involved with the paper but knows Dr. Meijer and had seen the wheel set up in her garden. He said the study made it clear that wheel-running is “some type of rewarding behavior” and “probably not driven by stress or anxiety.”

Mice accounted for 88 percent of the wheel-running events, and spent one minute to 18 on the wheel. The other animals each accounted for less than 1 percent. Frogs, though there were very few, were seen to get on the wheel, get off and get back on.

Russell Foster, a circadian rhythm researcher at Oxford University, said he read the paper and sent it out to other scientists on behalf of the Proceedings and was delighted when peer reviews from other scientists were positive.

Marc Bekoff, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado who is active in the animal welfare movement, said in an email that he thought the paper did show that wheel-running could be a “voluntary activity,” but that mice in labs may be doing more of it because of the stress of confinement.

“Wild bears will often pace back and forth,” he wrote, “but in captivity, the rate of doing it seems to be greatly heightened.”

As to why the mice, frogs or perhaps even slugs run, or move, on the wheel, Dr. Meijer said she thought that “there is an intrinsic motivation for animals, or should I say organisms, to be active.”

Huda Akil, co-director of the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute at the University of Michigan, who has studied reward systems, said: “It’s not a surprise. All you have to do is watch a bunch of little kids in a playground or a park. They run and run and run.”

Dr. Akil said that in humans, running activates reward pathways in the brain, although she pointed out that there are innate differences in temperament in all sorts of animals, including humans. Rats that do not like to run can be bred. And plenty of people do all they can to avoid jogging, cycling and elliptical machines.

Presumably, the same is true of wild mice. While some were setting the wheel on fire with their exertions, others, out of camera range, may have been sprawled out on the mouse equivalent of a lounge chair, shaking their whiskers in dismay and disbelief.

A version of this article appears in print on May 21, 2014, on page A3 of the New York edition with the headline: Mice Run for Fun, Not Just Work, Research Shows.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/science/study-shows-that-mice-run-for-fun-not-just-for-lab-work.html