Daily Archives: April 4, 2011

Apr 4 2011

Loyal and easy to reconcile with: Two things a cat will never be.

THIS is why dogs are awesome.

A cat would simply NEVER do this.

Ever.

ELGIN, SC (WIS) – A missing 2-year-old boy in Elgin was found Saturday morning after Kershaw County deputies say the family dog kept him warm and safe all night.

Sheriff Jim Matthews said 22-month-old Tyler Jacobson was reunited with his family after he was found across the street behind a neighbor’s home when someone reported hearing crying in the area.

Tyler was reported missing around 8:00pm Friday from a residence on Ashley Creek Drive. Matthews said the boy’s mother, 25-year-old Jacklyn Marie Jacobson, and her boyfriend Jose Gloria told investigators Tyler went to get some juice and didn’t come back.

Kershaw County deputies used a bloodhound tracking team and a SLED helicopter with infrared capabilities, but called the search off around 12:30am Saturday. The search resumed around 7:45am, and the boy was found shortly thereafter. “Just thinking that a dog would watch a baby over the night, it’s kind of like a movie instead of real life,” said Emily DuBose, who lives in the house outside which the baby was found.

DuBose had no idea a story of devotion and survival was playing out right outside her door. “When we saw the choppers last night, we just assumed a criminal was loose, so I locked the door,” said Linda Harr, who also lives at the house. “The last thing I was gonna do is go outside.”

“I heard some barking early in the morning, but I didn’t really think about it, I just heard dogs barking,” said DuBose.

But during the night, Jacobson’s dog was keeping watch over his 22-month-old master in temperatures that got down to the 40s. “I just wish I’d have known, I could have warmed him up, called the cops,” said Harr.

Now, words of praise for the dog who likely helped save little Tyler’s life. “Since he belonged to them, he must have followed them the whole way, so that’s very special,” said Harr.

And so this story has a happy ending, thanks to the special bond of a child’s best friend. [Read More]

VIDEO

Come to think of it…

A cat would probably NEVER do this either.

Angry ravens might kick and chase each other, but if they are close allies they make up afterwards.

Plenty of primates and other mammals reconcile after a conflict, but previously no birds were known to do so, says Orlaith Fraser of the University of Vienna in Austria.

Monitoring a group of seven captive ravens (Corvus corax), Fraser and colleague Thomas Bugnyar found that pairs of birds were likely to be more friendly to each other if they had fought each other in the previous 10 minutes.

“It wasn’t just standard friendly behaviour,” Fraser says. Rather the ravens sat touching each other, and sometimes touched their beaks together or preened each other. Ravens are not tactile like primates, so sitting in contact is a strong social signal.

Unusual behaviour

“That’s very good evidence for reconciliation,” says Filippo Aureli of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. Comparing animals’ typical behaviour with the behaviour they display in the minutes immediately after a fight is a “well-established method” to look for such behaviour, he adds.

Ravens that had squabbled were more likely to reconcile if they were allies. “These are valuable partners who share food and support each other in fights,” says Fraser.

“Many animals have mechanisms for maintaining valuable relationships,” saysPhyllis Lee of the University of Stirling, UK. Social animals that can recognise other individuals and form long-term relationships with them are most likely to be able to reconcile, she says. [Read More]

Reconcile with it’s household mates?

Pffft.

With cats?

Not likely.

What is a cat likely to do however?

Definitely this.

And maybe attempt to take over the world.

Scary.

But yeah, I could see that.

Apr 4 2011

The mantidfly species needs a population boost, ASAP!

Makes one wonder (especially if one is of the arachnophobia variety) if one can actually raise a mantidfly species…

You know, to an effort to combat E V I L.

[via Netorama] Hipsters may consider dogboarding to be way cooler than horseboarding, but both pale in comparizon to “spider-boarding” – a technique that has been used by mantidfly larvae for millions of years.

The larvae of most mantidfly species are fussy diners – they only eat the eggs of spiders. [Bwhaha - Best. Insect. EVER!] That seems like a dangerous enough strategy, for spiders are formidable hunters. But it gets crazier – some mantidflies find spider egg sacs by hitching a ride on the backs of adults… The “spider-boarders” can’t chew through the egg sacs. Instead, they ensure that they get inside the sac as it is being built. They climb aboard passing females, wrapping themselves around the base of their abdomens so they can’t be caught.

The photo above, by Michael Ohl of Berlin’s Museum of Natural History, shows a spider embedded in a 44 million year old piece of amber. “And there, latched onto its underside just as its modern relatives do, is a mantidfly larva… it’s facing to the right and you can clearly see the three legs on its right side.” [Read More]

And by ‘E V I L’, yes I mean spiders.

I’m willing to give it a shot, if for nothing else? Than to kill off all the wolf spiders this next article says are waiting to come our way.

Sound crazy?

New research from the University of Cincinnati provides food for thought. The research examined how short-term and long-term hunger affected mate selection and aggression in female wolf spiders (Schizocosa ocreata) commonly found in the eastern United States and Canada. These female spiders are potentially aggressive and cannibalistic when approached by a courting male.

The research is published in the April 2011 print issue of the journal, “Animal Behavior.” It was carried out by George Uetz, UC professor of biology, and former UC doctoral student Brian Moskalik, now a postdoctoral teaching fellow at College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Mass.

According to Uetz, this research helps indicate what might result if environmental changes affect food resources for animal populations, shedding light on the possible effects of scarce resources on short- and long-term mating preferences and potential long-term population dynamics.

He added, “For instance, we had a drought this past summer, and we saw smaller spiders in the fall. This spring, we’re getting a lot of rain, which will likely mean more insects and an abundant food supply for spiders. That should mean well-fed spiders this year – and, according to our research, that will affect spider mating choices.”

SATIATED (WELL-FED) FEMALE SPIDERS

Hunger does affect female spiders’ receptivity to mating, with well-fed females showing the most overall receptivity to mate and the least aggression. These satiated females were, however, quite choosy, and were most receptive to large-bodied males with large leg tufts (an indication of success in foraging for food). As they aged, they showed lower levels of aggression, and that aggression was directed toward small-bodied males with small leg tufts. [Read More]

So…

How about now?

I suppose this means this is a good year for spiders, and WELL FED spiders at that.

Raising a mantidfly species doesn’t sound quite so crazy now, does it?

Oh, mantidfly…

Can I have one for my very own?

I will call him squishy, evil-spider-killing-slayer-machine-from-Hades, and he will be my friend.

*hearts in eyes*

Apr 4 2011

Duh – It’s confidence, not helplessness, that is attractive!

These next two studies serve as a fine example about who sometimes science can completely miss the point.

It’s not about aggressiveness, stupid…

Exposure to attractive, aggressive, female leads in films affects how men and women think about who women ought to be in the real world. Women in particular have high standards for other women, and expect them to be both stereotypically feminine and masculine i.e. beautiful and aggressive rather than beautiful and passive. That’s according to new research by Laramie Taylor and Tiffany Setters, from the University of California, Davis in the US, published online in Springer’s Sex Roles journal.

Taylor and Setters’ work looks at the impact of media representations of film stars on gender role expectations for women – or those behaviors and attitudes expected of, or held as standard for, women in general.

The results showed that students perceived the more attractive film leads as better role models than the less attractive leads. Students who watched the violent, attractive protagonist endorsed feminine gender role expectations significantly more than those who viewed the violent, less stereotypically attractive lead. In addition, participants who viewed the attractive, aggressive lead also endorsed more stereotypically masculine gender role expectations for women. This suggests that both men and women expect women to fulfill both feminine and masculine roles, that women generally tend to have higher expectations of women than men, and that watching attractive, aggressive heroines exaggerates these expectations.

Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider was the stereotypically attractive, aggressive protagonist and Kathy Bates in Primary Colors was less attractive but also aggressive. The non-violent clips where the protagonist was passive and submissive were from Changeling (Jolie) and Fried Green Tomatoes (Bates).The students then completed a questionnaire to assess their gender role expectations for women. For example, they were asked whether the female character portrayed in the clip was a good role model for women.

According to Taylor and Setters, “Exposure to attractive, aggressive, female characters actually increases expectations on women, including potentially inconsistent roles – after viewing, women are expected to be both more independent and ambitious and more socially connected and nurturing. These increased expectations for women occur not only among men, but among women as well, suggesting that women’s expectations for themselves are affected.” [Read More]

It’s about confidence.

Are you unlucky in love? Or being messed around by a boyfriend who won’t commit? Or does your husband treat you like a doormat?

According to a controversial new book, all of these situations are caused by you being too nice — and it’s time to start acting like, well, a complete diva.

Best-selling author Sherry Argov caused a storm when she wrote her first bestseller, Why Men Love Bitches, in 1997. It was translated into 30 languages, dubbed a self-help classic and still sells extremely well.

Now she’s back with a new book that shows women how to transform a casual relationship into a committed one — and the secret lies in ditching the nice girl act and getting tough.

‘Bending over backwards does not bring you the love and attention you crave, but having your own life, your own goals and a backbone will,’ says Sherry.

‘Men secretly respect a woman who is strong, has confidence and has dreams of her own. There’s nothing more attractive to a man than a woman who has dignity and pride in who she is. He marries the woman who won’t lay down on the floor.’ [Read More]

Which when it comes to confidence, being secure in who you are, what you want…

TIP: Is not the same things as being aggressive.

Though for the weaker, more helpless? I’m sure it is.

But we all know better, don’t we?

Apr 4 2011

Japan’s big idea to save the ocean from nuclear waste is diaper stuffing?

Everyone knows they are absolutely brilliant when it comes to thinking outside the box.

The Japanese are aces in technology.

And usually they are ‘aces’ to the point that their technological advances tease the edge of human insane and conscious, personal terror. [See below of an example as seen at AR before]

[via Popsci] Maybe it’s just us, but some Japanese robots are a special brand of creepy. The moaning mouthwas bad enough, but now there’s this tadpole-shaped telepresence robot, hereby christened Larvabot.

The Telenoid R1 is meant to be a minimalist human, so details are restricted to its eyes and face, which are strangely realistic. Its body is limited to flipper-like arms and a stylized torso that ends in a mermaid-ish taper.

It is the newest creation of Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University known for creating telepresence androids, designed to “transmit the presence” of people to another place. [Read More]

With that said…

Someone tell me why THIS was the best technology they could come up with to stop the radioactive waste leaking into the ocean?

Would that this were a joke. Highly radioactive water is leaking into the sea at the badly damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northern Japan. Workers there have tried to stop the flow with polymeric water absorbent, the stuff used in baby diapers, that can soak up 50 times its volume in liquid. At left, a snapshot of the material (photo: Kyodo News).

They’re also using sawdust and shredded newspapers. But Japan’s nuclear safety agency, NISA, says so far none of this is working. And the government’s top spokesperson says it will likely take several months before radiation stops leaking from the plant.

Engineers put 8 kilograms of the polymeric water absorbent together with 60 kilograms of sawdust and three bags of shredded newspaper into pipes leading to a pit connected to the No. 2 reactor building where a 20-centimeter crack has been found to be leaking radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, the agency said.However, those materials injected at a point 23 meters away from the seaside pit have not been sucked into the water flow, leaving no impact on the rate of leakage, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the governmental Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Nishiyama said the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. will keep monitoring the situation until Monday morning to examine the effects of the water-absorbing mission. The firm will also try to trace the route of the radioactive water leakage from the pit by draining colored water on Monday, he added. [Read More]

Filling the ocean with giant diaper stuffing, really, that’s the best you can do, Japan?

Uh-huh.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think it’s going to work.

You know what that means?

I hate to even think it…

GODZILLA will so be a reality.

Yes, it could indeed be that a real-life Godzilla is just around the corner and just in time for 2012 to boot…

Sadness.

Who would have seen this one coming?

The Mayans that’s who.

*whisper* They knew all along.

Who knew the Mayans were so awesome with the foretelling, mad skills that they would predict the end of the world through an earthquake inspired tsunami that would wipe out Japans nuclear reactor, causing radiation to spill into the ocean, creating a monster that would destroy all on Earth?

I know I sure didn’t.

Talent.

I tell you, those Mayans have it.

Apr 4 2011

While Republicans work on a 4 trillion budget cut proposal, Obama golfs…Again!

Not surprising…

But definitely telling.

THIS serves as a fine showcase for the huge difference in the way those NOT in power govern…

The House Republican who’s writing a proposed 2012 federal budget said Sunday that the plan would cut more than $4 trillion in Washington spending over the next 10 years.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., head of the House Budget Committee, previewed general details of the plan set to be officially unveiled Tuesday even as Republicans and Democrats continued negotiations over a spending deal for the next six months that’s needed to avoid a government shutdown on Friday.

In a Fox News Sundayappearance, Ryan said the GOP 2012 budget blueprint would exceed the $4 trillion in spending cuts previously recommended by a presidential debt commission “by cutting spending, reforming entitlements and growing our economy.”

Instead of using changeable spending caps as a percentage of the economy, the plan would use budget caps set by law on the portion of the federal budget that is negotiated by Congress and the president each year, Ryan said. Republican proposals for the precise levels are still being discussed, he said.

The plan would also lower federal tax rates and broaden the tax base, Ryan said. Decisions on specific tax changes, such as eliminating federal tax breaks for oil and gas companies, would come later, Ryan said.

Discussing entitlements, he said the plan would change Medicare, the federal health care plan for seniors, by creating a “premium support” system that allows seniors “to pick the (private health) plan of their choosing, and then Medicare subsidizes that plan.”

However, the plan would allow Americans who are now 55 and older to keep the current Medicare programs.

“By addressing the drivers of the debt now, we do it in a gradual way,” Ryan said. “We can guarantee the mission of health and retirement security, not just for current generations, but for future generations.”

Democrats who appeared on the Sunday morning TV news broadcasts said they looked forward to congressional debate once specifics of the GOP proposal are released.

Meanwhile, Republicans and Democratic leaders used the Sunday broadcasts to stake out their positions on efforts to fund government operations through Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year. [Read More]

As opposed to the way our present and in power Administration chooses to…

Because you know that MAIN dude in power, the one running our country?

He doesn’t have a clue.

[via weaselzippers] Obama Spent Sunday Working on Fixing the Economy, War in Afghanistan and Libya, Passing a Budget… Just Kidding, He’s Playing Golf…

Priorities.

Posted by ZIP on Sunday, April 3, 2011, at 2:44 pm [Read More]

Unless it’s about golfing…

He’s a wonder at that!

Gawd, we need another leader…

You know, as in one who actually acts like he WANTS the job!

Jeez, is that too much to ask?

Apr 4 2011

Although human nature draws our curiosity to witness ‘car wrecks’…

We seldom cheer them.

For whatever reason…

People are attracted to wrecks of all sorts: Train wrecks, personal wrecks and car wrecks.

It’s why, I suppose, people are attracted to certain shows, especially when ‘wrecking’ is definitely possible.

And although the prospect of actually seeing an awesome wreck gets people in to fill the seats?

What people tend to forget that what they actually cheer is, and always will be, actually no wreck at all, but success from…

A monster truck driver has become the first person to complete a full backflip in one of the big-wheeled vehicles. And it’s more impressive than it sounds.

The stunt by Ryan Anderson has become an online hit since he performed it in Las Vegas during the recent Monster Jam World Finals.

Anderson started off by revving the engine of his giant 12-ton truck and driving over a small ramp to help him build up speed.

From there he drove into another ramp which was angled at a wall and as the momentum carried him upwards the truck flipped.
While we’ve somehow managed to make that sound simple and as though anyone could do it, we’re assured it wasn’t and they couldn’t. [Read More]

They also forget during the initial excited prospect of seeing a car wreck…

That human nature NEVER allots us a ‘guilt-free’ pass to cheer absolute failure.

[via Gawker]Charlie Sheen’s live show,I am Teetering On the Brink of Utter Obscurity, is awful. So awful that the crowd reportedly booed Sheen off stage during his first performance in Detroit last night. 

Here’s some video of Sheen struggling to shout out hecklers to tell a story about crack at that performance. Yikes. Who directed this abomination, Julie Taymor?
VIDEO

In fact, it might be more entertaining to play this video for someone who bought an overpriced ticket to one of Sheen’s future shows and watch their reaction. [Read More]

It’s just too darn sad.