Saturday, December 1, 2007
Like a Speeding Bullet...
Our solar system, which careens around our galaxy at nearly half a million miles per hour, isn’t round. It isn’t even symmetrical. Instead, says George Mason University astrophysicist Merav Opher, the sun’s domain is shaped like a slightly squashed bullet and tilts up to 90 degrees away from the...
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Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Date Rape? It's Child's Play...
"Be safe: buy your children a savings bond this Christmas. Amid an already-massive recall of contaminated toys, authorities have confirmed that Aqua Dots - a craft kit made in China and distributed by a Toronto company - are laced with a toxic chemical that turns into the "date rape drug" if...
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
And Here’s More on THAT Topic: Author Vows to Fight Bazoonga Ban
“What they say about my grandmother is true. She does have generous bazoongas, and all of Tarragon Island has seen them.” – Heather Blake, a fictional heroine of the children’s novel Trouble on Tarragon Island. The phrase “generous bazoongas” got the book banned in a school library in the small...
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Monday, November 26, 2007
Dancing Dentist Should Avoid Car Wash...
Dr. George Trusty, a Syracuse, NY, dentist, was removing a tooth from Brandy Fanning's mouth when he heard the song Car Wash on the radio. He started dancing and lost control of a 2.5 cm long drill bit. It punctured her sinus cavity and came to a halt next to her eye socket. Attempts to remove it...
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Friday, November 23, 2007
Women of Bara Brost do the Breaststroke...
A group of 40 Swedish women is making waves by taking their tops off at public swimming pools “to start a debate about why women’s bodies are sexualized.” The fact that men can be bare-chested at a public pool is “a concrete example of how women have fewer rights than men,’ said Sanna Ferm, 22, a...
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Thursday, November 22, 2007
Chocolatier's Crushing Visit Baffles Rivals...
Barry Colenso has left his job at the top British chocolate-maker Thorntons, after he was found inside a rival's store squishing truffels. Staff at the Hotel Chocolat watched perplexed as Colenso walked around, crushing as he went. Colenso agreed to leave Thorntons after "inappropriate handling" of...
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Hi, I’m Bessy, and I’ll be your food for tonight…
Jason Freeman of the Farmers’ Direct Co-operative wants you to know everything about the cow that made it from pasture to your plate: where it lived, what it ate, who raised it, and who killed it. Each cow’s tale includes a portrait of the farm and the family that runs it, raising conditions and…at...
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Monday, November 19, 2007
Why it's Naughty to be Nice in Illinois High School
Meagan Coulter, a grade 8 student in Mascoutah, Ill., has been given two detentions for breaching rules. "I was just being nice to my friends, that's all," she says. Her transgression was hugging her pals. Mascoutah Middle School expressly forbids expressions of affection among students. Affection,...
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Saturday, November 17, 2007
Give the kids a disease for Christmas!
Forget plush teddy bears: this Christmas, give the kids some diseases. American toy company Giantmicrobes has created a line of toys in bright colours and beguiling shapes of well-known germs, only with kid-friendly faces on them. Pick from lovable rabies, Ebola, malaria, mad cow, black death, bad...
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Friday, November 16, 2007
Sense of fairness goes back to the monkeys
Trading game sheds light on how other primates deal with inequity Like children who complain "no fair," capuchin monkeys throw fits when their companions get better treats. In a new study, envy reared its ugly head if capuchins, primates like us, landed slices of cucumber while their cagemates...
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