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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

50 THINGS WE DIDN'T KNOW BEFORE 2008

Published: December 22, 2008

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Well, well, well. Wasn't 2008 a newsy little year?

Believe it or not, stuff happened that had nothing to do with the presidential election, gas prices or Michael Phelps. Not that you'd have an easy time sifting through all the media debris to find the information that actually meant something.

With so many distractions, you probably didn't hear that using Facebook makes you a better employee, or that drinking wine can help you avoid lung cancer, or that doing tai chi makes life easier for asthmatics. (Unless you do it in a public park wearing something approximating pajamas, of course. Then you just look silly.)

For those and other warm, delicious infomuffins, we humbly present our list of stuff you know this year that you didn't know this time last year. Feel free to unleash these at your New Year's Eve party:

1. Dogs appear to experience jealousy and pride. Previously, only humans and chimpanzees were thought to suffer those emotions.

Read About It

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2. Two pounds of a dried plant that turned out to be the oldest marijuana in the world was discovered in a 2,700-year-old grave in the excavated Yanghai Tombs in the Gobi Desert. The cannabis was found near the head of a blue-eyed, 45-year-old shaman among other objects intended for use in the afterlife.

Read About It

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3. Starch grains embedded in plaque on the teeth of early Peruvians show they had a more varied diet than previously believed, including beans and a local fruit known as pacay that indicate they had settled into farming long before we thought they had.

Read About It

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4. Scientists discovered a more efficient way to build synthetic genomes, which could lead to one day creating artificial life.

Read About It

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5. Puerto Rican anole lizards perform push-ups and unfurl their dewlaps, the flaps of skin beneath their chins, to grab the attention of others when the forest is noisy.

Read About It

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6. Stress causes human brain cells to either shrink or grow, leaving victims of serious stress with dramatic changes to their nervous systems.

Read About It

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7. After a decade of increases, the number of mobile phones being shipped to market is shrinking. Consumers are sticking with their phones longer.

Read About It

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8. Ground-penetrating radar used by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed enormous underground reservoirs of frozen water far from Mars' polar caps — glaciers up to a half-mile thick buried beneath rock and debris. Researchers said one glacier is three times the size of Los Angeles.

Read About It

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9. Learning math triggers a large-scale reorganization of brain processes in order to understand written symbols for various quantities.

Read About It

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10. The world's oceans are growing more acidic at an increasing rate, a phenomenon that may lead to major disruptions for corals, lobster, oysters, crabs, mussels and snails, which have difficulty building their calcium crusts in such conditions.

Read About It

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11. Magnetic resonance imaging scans of blood flow in the human brain indicate that bullies often derive pleasure from watching others in pain.

Read About It

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12. The use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace on company computers leads to increased productivity.

Read About It

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13. Children ages 5 to 11 who spend less time sleeping have a higher Body Mass Index and are more likely to be obese when they get older.

Read About It

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14. Asthma sufferers may be able to better control their breathing and improve their exercise performance with training in tai chi.

Read About It

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15. Hospital patients who receive a transfusion of stored blood aged 29 days or older face double the risk of developing one or more serious infections compared to those who get "fresher" blood.

Read About It

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16. Exposure to light in grocery stores reduces the quality of cauliflower, broccoli, chard, leeks and asparagus.

Read About It

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17. Scientists developed a method for reducing the amount of flatulence-causing carbohydrates in soybeans and soy yogurt while raising the levels of healthy antioxidants known as isoflavones.

Read About It

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18. The virus that causes AIDS most likely emerged around 1908 near the African town then known as LĂ©opoldville, now known as Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Read About It

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19. People in a position to hire are biased against applicants with limp or wet handshakes, and interviewers often rate women who don't shake hands as firmly as men lower than their qualifications warrant.

Read About It

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20. Searching online is better than reading books for increasing the brainpower of middle-aged and older adults.

Read About It

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21. Drinking red wine, but not white wine, may reduce lung cancer risk, especially among current and ex-smokers

Read About It

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22. One in 75 patients who gets a new knee or hip must get it replaced again within three years.

Read About It

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23. Men who suffer from sleep apnea often have trouble getting sexually aroused because of oxygen deprivation experienced during episodes of obstructed breathing.

Read About It

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24. Chemotherapy tends to be less effective for overweight patients with operable breast cancer than their normal-weight peers.

Read About It

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25. More than 20 percent of U.S. Internet users are watching prime-time episodic content online, with half of that viewing serving as a replacement for watching the shows on TV.

Read About It

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26. Girls and boys now perform equally on standardized high school mathematics tests across North America, ending a gender gap that lasted for decades.

Read About It

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27. Delaying fatherhood can substantially increase the risk of fertility problems, with the chance of impregnation decreasing once the man is older than 35.

Read About It

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28. Online videos get the majority of their views soon after they're posted. Of 10,916 videos with at least 1,000 views after 90 days, half of those views happened over the first two weeks.

Read About It

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29. Excessive flip-flop wearing leads to a much higher risk of developing skin cancer on the feet. Only half of patients with foot melanomas survive.

Read About It

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30. An ADHD-related gene may encourage behaviors beneficial for nomads.

Read About It

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31. Taking a 10-minute online break during the course of the working day serves to reduce stress while sharpening and refocusing the mind.

Read About It

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32. The likelihood an older person will enter a nursing home or other long-term care facility is particularly high immediately after the death of a spouse.

Read About It

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33. Among kidney transplant recipients, depression doubles the risk of kidney failure, return to dialysis therapy, and death.

Read About It

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34. Data on rainfall in the Mediterranean region from 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. suggests that the decline of the Roman and Byzantine empires may have been partly caused by climate change.

Read About It

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35. The fully fleshed-out head of a Tyrannosaurus rex may have weighed more than 1,100 pounds, but much of that volume came from air cavities that likely created painful sinus infections.

Read About It

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36. An expedition 6,500-feet below the Atlantic Ocean caused one explorer to describe the region as "a new continent." Hundreds of rare and unknown species were discovered in the 1,500-mile-long Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Europe and America.

Read About It

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37. Great white sharks travel long distances every winter to meet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. During this gathering, they make dives to depths of 300 meters.

Read About It

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38. Men with rounded faces, soft jaw lines, thin eyebrows, bright eyes, small nostrils, large mouths, thin lips, a warm, bright complexion and no facial hair are considered the most trustworthy, according to "modern-day facial stereotyping."

Read About It

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39. Scientists found an assortment of 100-million-year-old, perfectly intact marine microorganisms trapped in tree resin in the Charente region of southwestern France. The discovery pushes back by at least 20 million years the period when a type of single-cell algae called diatoms are known to have appeared on earth.

Read About It

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40. A newly found species of bacteria can grow at low temperatures, spoiling raw milk even when it's refrigerated.

Read About It

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41. Killer whales off the coast of Vancouver Island know the precise sound of their favorite prey, Chinook salmon, and can identify the fish from more than 100 yards away.

Read About It

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42. The Canadian Basin of the Arctic Ocean is a hotbed for tiny gelatinous zooplankton, including at least one new species of jelly fish.

Read About It

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43. A stalagmite found in a cave in China reveals a nearly 2,000-year record of the annual Asian monsoon rainy season.

Read About It

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44. Mexican scientists discovered a way to make diamonds from the carbon and organic compounds found in tequila.

Read About It

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45. Rocks found in south China and quartz rock of south Australia show that an eight-armed creature lived in many of the world's oceans during the Ediacaran Period 635 to 541 million years ago — 300 million years before the first dinosaurs emerged.

Read About It

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46. About every eight minutes, the magnetic fields of the sun and Earth briefly merge or reconnect, forming a portal through which particles can flow. The portal is in the form of a cylinder about as wide as Earth.

Read About It

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47. Women who answer to another woman in the workplace feel significantly more stressed than those who have a male supervisor.

Read About It

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48. Chimpanzees keep a mental record of helpful acts from other members of their group, such as grooming, scratching and removing fleas, so they can return the favor.

Read About It

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49. When a leaf of a plant is attacked by a virus, fungi or other pathogen, the plant's roots can secrete an acid containing protective bacteria.

Read About It

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50. Drinking just three cups of coffee a day can make women's breasts shrink.

Read About It

MEMORY TEST

Short Memory Test
Have a go at this
Try and get past Level three
Buggered if I can
Maybe next week when my brain is active again



neutralx0.net/home/mini04.html

Thanks to Phil

QUICKIES

My gran's one of those people who thinks a cup of tea is the answer to everything.
And the daft bat still wonders why she didn't get past the first round of Mastermind.




I sometimes get my guitar out on the bus and have a little sing-along.
It's great fun, but my passengers shit themselves.




A ginger kid got knocked down by a lorry outside my house today. Just think - that could've been me. But I can't drive a lorry.




The school said my son is really clever and could end up being a scientist!
I wonder where he gets that from? I'll ask the milkman - he's in Mensa and has been on Mastermind.




A ginger bloke at work fell into the industrial meat mincer this week.Took us fucking ages to find the on switch.




I'm sick of people knocking on my door, begging.
There's just been a woman asking for donations for a sperm bank........so I gave her a right fucking mouthful.



I got hit by a car yesterday.
The driver came over and said, "What's your name, so I can call and tell your mum and dad?"
"That’s a waste of time” I said, "They already know my name".



My grandma passed away on Christmas Eve.
In her will, she stipulated that she wanted to be buried with all of her favourite possessions.
You should have seen the look on the cat's face, when they were nailing the coffin lid down.



My girlfriend was telling me that black men's cocks taste like cabbage. Then I thought- how would she know that? The fat bitch has never eaten cabbage in her life.



I didn’t know my wife was a gymnast. But you should see how she flipped when she found out I was fucking her sister.



A gay guy walks into a bar and sees a mate of his. He says to him really loudly 'How's your arse today?'
The second guy is embarassed and says 'Shut up!'
So the first guy says 'So's mine, it must be the cold weather'.



My wife said that I don't know my arse from my elbow.
But she was wrong, as I clearly demonstrated that my arse, couldn’t knock three of her teeth out.



I bought myself a new stick of roll on deodorant today. Instructions said 'Take off top and push up bottom'……..Five fucking hours I spent in casualty!

Monday, January 05, 2009

SEE DICK RUN

Can you remember your
first grade reading material?

See Dick!
See Dick run!!


No, not this one...

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this one...
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Image and video hosting by TinyPic

TRUE LOVE!!


This 80 year old woman was arrested for
shop lifting.
When she went before the judge in Cincinnati he asked her,
"What did you steal?"
She replied,
"A can of peaches."
The judge then asked her why she had stolen the can of peaches
and she replied that she was hungry.
The judge then asked her how many peaches were in the can.
She replied 6.
The judge then said,
"I will then give you 6 days in jail."
Before the judge could actually pronounce the punishment,
the woman's husband spoke up and asked the judge if he could say something.
The judge said,
"What is it?"
The husband said,
"She also stole a can of peas."

THINGS YOU DON'T SAY TO YOUR WIFE

Tim Hawkins ( a very funny guy)

HISTORY IN THE MAKING....

In a few short days, an African American man will move from his private residence into a much larger and infinitely more expensive one owned not by him but by the taxpayers. A vast lawn, a perimeter fence and many well trained security specialists will insulate him from the rest of us but the mere fact that this man will be residing in this house should make us all stop and count or blessings - because it proves that we live in a nation where anything is possible.

Many believed this day would never come. Most of us hoped and prayed that it would, but few of us actually believed we would live to see it. Racism is an ugly thing in all of it's forms and there is little doubt that if this man had moved into this house fifteen years ago, there would have been a great outcry - possibly even rioting in the streets. Today, we can all be both grateful and proud that no such mayhem will take place.when this man takes up residency in this house.

This man, moving into this house at this time in our nation's history is much more than a simple change of addresses for him - it is proof of a change in our attitude as a nation. It is an amends of sorts - the righting of a great wrong. It is a symbol of our growth, and of our willingness to "judge a man, not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character". There can be little doubt now that the vast majority of us truly believe that this man has earned both his place in history and his new address.

His time in this house will not be easy - it will be fraught with danger and he will face many challenges. I am sure there will be many times when he asks himself how in the world he ended up here and like all who have gone before him, the experience will age him greatly. But I for one will not waste an ounce of worry for his sake - because in every way a man can, he asked for this.

His whole life for the past fifteen years appears to have been inexorably leading this man toward this house. It is highly probable that that in the past, despite all of his actions, racism would have kept this man out of this house. Today, I thank the Lord above that I am an American and that I live in a nation where wrongs are righted, where justice matters and where truly anything is possible.

Who is this man, you ask...
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THANKS TO comedyplus.blogspot.com/

Sunday, January 04, 2009

STATISTICS FOR THE LAST THREE SEASONS

As we head into an exciting 2009, it's good to look back at this year and with the help of some numbers and figures, we can see to it ourselves how Rafa Benitez have brought Liverpool from strength to strength.

This figures are compiled by a blogger from Oh You Beauty so do drop by and give him some credit.


Points total after 19 games:
08/09: 42
07/08: 37
06/07: 34

Results over 19 games:
08/09: 12 wins, 6 draws, 1 loss
07/08: 10 wins, 7 draws, 2 losses
06/07: 10 wins, 4 draws, 5 losses

League position after 19 games:
08/09:1st place
07/08: 4th place
06/07: 3rd place

# of points behind 1st place:
08/09: +1
07/08: -10, with a game in hand
06/07: -13

Goals scored after 19 games:
08/09: 30
07/08: 33
06/07: 28

Goals against after 19 games:
08/09: 12
07/08: 12
06/07: 15

Home Goals:
08/09: 16
07/08: 20
06/07: 20

Away Goals:
08/09: 14
07/08: 13
06/07: 8

Goal scorers:
08/09: Gerrard 6; Keane, Kuyt, Torres 5; Alonso, Riera 2; Arbeloa, Benayoun, Babel, Carragher 1
07/08: Torres 9; Gerrard 7; Babel, Kuyt, Voronin 3; Alonso, Benayoun 2; Hyypia, Sissoko 1
06/07: Kuyt 6; Bellamy 5; Alonso, Gerrard 3; Crouch, Garcia, Gonzalez 2; Agger, Carragher, Fowler, Riise 1

Clean Sheets:
08/09: 11
07/08: 10
06/07: 10

# of games Liverpool failed to score in:
08/09: 4 [Villa (a), Stoke (h), Fulham (h), West Ham (h)]
07/08: 5 [Pompey (a), Birmingham (h), Blackburn (a), United (h), City (a)]
06/07: 7 [Everton (a), Chelsea (a), Bolton (a), United (a), Arsenal (a), Boro (a), Portsmouth (h)]

Away form:
08/09: 6 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss; 20 points out of 27
07/08: 6 wins, 3 draws, 1 loss; 21 points out of 30
06/07: 2 wins, 2 draws, 5 losses; 8 points out of 27

Home form:
08/09: 6 wins, 4 draws; 22 points out of 30
07/08: 4 wins, 4 draws, 1 loss; 16 points out of 27
06/07: 8 wins, 2 draws; 26 points out of 30


Pretty good showing, isn't it? Well, let's hope that 2009 will be even better, getting our number 19 in the bag and on towards 20th! Happy New Year, guys. And thanks for the support you've given through the years. I'm eternally grateful.

thanks to Red Cauldron



The Best 'Big Pictures' Of 2008