The Best Of Humanity

All those years of communism in Russia couldn't purge the humanity out of the Russians:



Now, if we could just get to work on Putin.

What I Do With My Spare Time

of which, I have plenty.

I watch tres interesting videos like these ones:





Hope he's right.

Kinda Wants To Make You Go...

..."Awe, the world is a good place after all." From some place in Russia:



Chivalry is alive and well. The kindness of strangers, and all that.

Everything You've Wanted to Know, But...

...were afraid to ask:

History of the penis: Lies, damn lies and self-measurements

Believe it or not, I've covered this subject before.

Every Year I Wait With...

...anticipation for the Ig Nobel Awards. That time has arrived:

Ponytail Math

Device that shuts people up, dynamics of sloshing coffee

Now those sound like valuable advances in science, as long as they aren't used on me (especially the first one).

Dead salmon brain activity

That could very well have human applications, too, dontcha think?

This one certainly does. But, alas, they caved:

"But what would have been the most spectacular display of science was called off at the last second. The Ig Nobel Prize for medicine went to a team led by Emmanuel Ben-Soussan, a medical researcher at the Clinique de l’Alma in Paris, for developing a technique that prevents the rare but dangerous problem of gas explosions during colonoscopy. (Yes, intestines really can explode.) A human subject was brought on stage for a demonstration. The doctor got as far as putting on a rubber glove before the demo was cancelled for fear of offending the audience."

And did you know that if you lean to the left, the Eiffel Tower looks smaller? What could we do without that knowledge? Perhaps there's a lesson here for folks of the leftard persuasion, too. They tend not to see the big picture and what they do see is bent out of shape.

Sure beats the real Nobel Prizes, in any case, especially the Peace Prize.

Aaawwwweee...

....Sometimes the news just tugs at the old heart strings:

Bus driver gives his shoes to homeless man

And theeeeeeeen, the Canadian MSM steps in.

Of course, it's far more important that we learn about how "those Americans" flubbed up, than it is to learn about the kindness  of a good Samaritan.

What Does It Mater?

Or Madre? Or Matka? Or Madar?

Results of a Morning's Surfing

Christianity vs Islam – Who Started This Whole Mess?

...from which comes this most excellent video:



'course, I knew that already.

An update on the Wounded Warriors Weekend in Nipawin.

Return of the death penalty is on Canada's agenda, or at least it's being talked about, thanks to the perv Luka Magnotta. Like I said here and here...and several times before that. These kind of nutcases need to be permanently removed from society for the safety of the rest of us and there's no need for us to pay for their care and safekeeping, whether or not a life sentence mean life.  There's no cure.

An 82 year old gets himself a science degree. And now wants to get a post graduate degree. Hope he's not a Dipper.

Hmmmm

I wonder if he could wangle a workers comp claim outta this? And we learned a new word today, didn't we. Priapism. Use it to impress your friends. But I guess in this case it's not a case of "use it before you lose it".

Inneresting!

Did Ancient Drifters 'Discover' British Columbia? That would be 'drifters' of the Chinese variety. The Indian Industry isn't gonna like this.

Oetzi's Life After Death

Oetzi is still making news. I remember there was a feud between Italy and Austria about which country could claim him as their own, since his remains were found essentially on the border between the two countries. Seems maybe France can get a piece of him, too.

"New clues have emerged in what could be described as the world's oldest murder case: that of Oetzi the "Iceman", whose 5,300-year-old body was discovered frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991.

Oetzi's full genome has now been reported in Nature Communications.

It reveals that he had brown eyes, "O" blood type, was lactose intolerant, and was predisposed to heart disease.

They also show him to be the first documented case of infection by a Lyme disease bacterium.

Analysis of series of anomalies in the Iceman's DNA also revealed him to be more closely related to modern inhabitants of Corsica and Sardinia than to populations in the Alps, where he was unearthed."

Too bad, Austria.

I must say, though, I've seen some Saskatchewan farmers that bear a striking resemblance to him.

Seems he died of a wound sustained in a fight.

Poor old goat:

"Oetzi was about 159cm tall (5ft 2.5in), 46 years old, arthritic, and infested with whipworm."

That'd be enough to get him run outta town, I would think.

Seems it was the Italians who did him in, too.

His last supper was quite sumptuous. No pizza, though, or lasagne.

And it's amazing what they can figure out using modern science.

Awwwwe

There are some heart warming things in the world after all.

Costa Concordia: divers launch rescue mission for boy's teddy bear

"The child's father told rescuers that the little boy had been unable to sleep since the disaster and desperately missed his toy.

He wrote to islanders who had given shelter to him and his son after they were brought ashore when the 950ft long vessel ran aground on the Italian island of Giglio on the night of Jan 13.

Islanders passed the letter to the island's mayor, Sergio Ortelli, who in turn gave it to rescue divers, who entered the hull on a special mission, finding the cabin where the boy had been staying and retrieving the soft toy – bedraggled but intact."

Nothing like the broken heart of a small child to move the adults into action. My eyes feel a little teary.

Another Good One from TED

I Love Stories Like This

UPDATED AND BUMPED

Lego Man's trip to space wins international recognition:

From New York, ABC, the UK, L.A. and Australia,
====Original Starts Here=======
Of course there's sourpusses in the comments nitpicking about irrelevant stuff, but these two kids show all the signs of two young men who will accomplish great things in their lives. Well done fellows. And good luck in your future.

Videos:

Sixty-Six Years On!!

WWII bomb in Rhine near Koblenz successfully defused

"Bomb disposal experts in the German city of Koblenz have successfully defused two bombs from World War II found in the riverbed of the Rhine."

[---]

"The bigger of the two bombs weighed 1.8 tonnes and was dropped by the Royal Air Force between 1943 and 1945.

Nearly half the city's population - 45,000 - has been evacuated, including the inhabitants of two hospitals, seven nursing homes and a prison.

It is the biggest bomb disposal operation in Germany since 1945."

[---]

"About 600 tonnes of unexploded ordnance are discovered in Germany every year"

Wow!!

Good News!!

"Middle age does not really exist elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Indeed, it wouldn't make any sense anywhere else in the animal kingdom. We humans usually stop making babies in our early 40s. Any other self-respecting species would take the Darwinian hint and die once that happened.

Yet we humans are exceptional because we don't curl up and die. Far from it. Data from life insurance companies suggests that in the fifth and sixth decades of life you are less likely to die over the coming year than at any other time in your life."

[---]

"...cognitive tests show that apart from brute speed, the brain's abilities are not diminished in middle age. They may be reaching their peak."

[---]

"...the changes of middle age represent a developmental stage of life, as distinct and real as infancy or adolescence. Middle-aged development is programmed into each of us. We each possess the genetic recipe for long, healthy, human middle age. And we owe that genetic inheritance to hundreds of thousands of years of human history, during which - contrary to what you might think - humans frequently lived into their fifth and sixth decades."

And as it turns out, there's not much to the proverbial male mid-life crisis, either. You blokes will have to come up with another excuse.

Will The Real Seven Millionth Person....

...please stand up - er - yawn, or something.

Baby  Danica May,  Philippines

Baby Nargis, Lucknow, India and six others..

If It Was As Cold...

...as it was here last night, that man is probably dead.

Thank God!!

These stories don't usually end this way.

Conundrum

Without them, how am I gonna prove they could be mine?