Pushy Animal

"Don't bug me man. Push off!"
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Where Is the Internet Going?

There isn't much doubt that mobile devices will soon outnumber the fixed PC. It is surprising that it has taken so long. People are tripping over each other to make pre-orders on the iPhone. There will probably be a rush for Microsoft's new offerings. In recent years Google's Android products have been racing forward, generally at the expense of Microsoft, not Apple.

Web developers are slowly making a change as well. Old "easy" website building is a thing of the past. It seems websites have to provide a "traditional" PC type website and have another built-in for mobile devices. There must be an automatic link in the main website so that only the smaller site is sent to mobiles. Though many users have said they prefer looking at traditional sites with a small handheld, even though it means moving around a page to see all the info, download times are just too long for this to continue.

HTML5 was envisaged to make it easier for developers, standardizing code. The opposite has happened. Infighting has occurred between the Internet powers that be in the US and developers choosing to go their own way. They don't like to hear that their good ideas have been dropped by the controlling body. Up to six web architectures are doing the rounds on mobiles. This makes writing apps so complex that it rules out simple web building by the home web builder. New web building software will have to be capable in so many areas. This will make the software program download huge - and expensive.

The Internet is moving inevitably forward. Data cloud services have made smaller devices possible. Storing things actually on a mobile is no longer necessary. We will have to wait and see if the new fixed system RT from Microsoft is broadly accepted. How many customers will buy something that will only run Microsoft software fixed at the time of purchase? The market could get angry.
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Internet
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Mop Head Duck

"Stop calling me mop head."
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Consuming More Tea and Coffee Prevents Diabetes - Doubtfu

Claims about consuming certain things to improve health are way off beam. Every now and then supposed new research shows that if you eat this or don't eat that your health will improve. Years late we discover that the "experts' were totally wrong and your health was actually damaged. This happened with margarine, milk, eggs and so on.

What is the latest? Well, apparently drinking up to three cups of coffee or tea each day reduces the risk of getting diabetes. Look around. Do you see people who drink these beverages regularly with diabetes? You sure do. There are thousands of them.

The University of Sydney says “If such beneficial effects were observed in interventional trials to be real, the implications for the millions of individuals who have diabetes mellitus, or who are at future risk of developing it, would be substantial.”

Their trials must be wrong. Surely millions of regular drinkers who have diabetes are thinking, "Why me? Why have I got the disease". Eight percent of people in the US have diabetes and many of them drink coffee every day. In fact tea and coffee are two of the most consumed commodities on earth.

When you read the text of research papers two important factors are played down: exercise and weight loss. Another issue is the finding that consumption of decaffeinated coffee reduced risk even more, so caffeine did not "cause" this reduction. Decaffeinated coffee is identical to ordinary coffee in every way except the caffeine level.  Could it be that heavy tea and coffee drinkers consume less sweet soda?
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Society
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Poor Cat

"I'm feeling a bit poorly."
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Vampires Could Be Right About Consuming Blood

Maybe vampires have got it right - infusing blood into one's body from a younger person is good for you. Saul Villeda did tests on rats. He injected older mice with blood from younger mice. The mice with ailments related to age got better. They actually became younger looking. Effects of aging were reversed.

It is rumoured that Saul has infused himself with blood from young virgins. Though blood from virgins is really not necessary. Blood from any younger person will do.

He has connected the circulatory systems of young and old mice together for several days. The older mice definitely became younger looking. Autopsies showed a 20 per cent increase in brain stem cell activity for the aging mice.

There is a down side. When the blood systems of mice were joined together young mice actually aged. If this is true. And there is no reason to think otherwise. Factors in blood that cause changes in the aging process could be identified and used as a medicine. It would be unfortunate if the young received remuneration from older people for their blood.

When it was found that a drug-like high could be obtained from playing sounds with different beat rates into each ear, people began using this system to temporarily enter "dreamland". If selling one's blood on the streets becomes the norm, what a frightening scenario that would be.
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Health
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Cat Look See

"Can you see it."
"Where?"
"Over there."
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Watch Out for Fowl Attacks

A three month old boy was brought into the emergency section of a local hospital with deep cuts to his head. X-rays showed skull fractures. In consultation with the boy's parents doctors discovered that the child had been the target of an attack by a rooster.

Such assaults are not uncommon. In another incident a sixteen months old girl had a swollen face and seizures after a rooster went for her head. She had to have intravenous penicillin. An operation was carried out to drain an abscess on her brain. Unfortunately, she died.

Adults have also been attacked. A sixty year old women developed lockjaw after being pecked on the face. She was given a tracheotomy to help her breath. To assist recovery the hospital kept her sedated for a month in a darkened room.

Chickens are dirty creatures pecking around in the dirt. Bacteria thrive on their bodies. Tetanus injections must be given when an attack by a fowl is suspected. People should be watchful of all birds. Even pet birds are unpredictable and can suddenly become violent.
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Society
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Dog Teeth

"I do visit the dentist. How did you know?"
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Men No Longer Have an Identity

It seems women are changing to fit into the new technical society.  Men, on the other had, see traditional values fall away and struggle for an identity.  The old 40 hour week is gone for ever.  Men in particular are working more hours, up to 65 hours a week.  They feel that they are always on call to go back to work.  There is nowhere to hide.  Mobile phones have moved the "work/finished-work" barrier right into the home.  Despite more women in the workforce, men feel that they have to work to leave women free to look after children.

Men and women are living separate lives.  They are not communicating.  Even though couples share the same bed, men feel that they are left out and on their own.  They want to have quality time with the children.  With the mobile always ringing they don't get the chance.

Mothers are so tied up with their children that they won't even consider taking a part-time job to free up more of their partner's time.  Society has been moving too far away from the traditional to meet the demands of modern women.  In the process men have been forgotten.  Many men now feel that getting married was the worst thing they had ever done.  They get no appreciation from their partners and are fiercely told by females that the role of men is to work and provide.

It is sad that many men stay in a relationship because they fear their partners will say that they want a divorce, take over half the property and leave the man financially burdened for life.  They earn good money but have to ask female partners if they can spend money on what they want rather than on what they need.  Surveys show it is a myth that women spend more hours on domestic duties than men doing formal work.
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Society
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Snakes Are Tough

My owners locked me in. I guess I'll have stay here until they let me out."
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Horse Buys Trailer

"This trailer is a little small. Have you got something larger?"
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Funny Animal Photos
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Asteroids Can Have Magnetic Fields

It has been found that asteroids can have magnetic fields. This was quite a surprise. Planets have magnetic fields due to a moving molten metal core. Mercury has a very strong field. The reason for this is not yet known.

Vesta is a large asteroid with a diameter of 525 kilometer. It was first identified in 1807 by Heinrich Wilheim Olbers. It is the most easily seen asteroid from Earth. Smaller asteroids hit Vesta and some of the debris falls to Earth. The fallen "rocks" can be linked to Vesta because they have the same spectral color match.

Vesta is unusual for an asteroid as it once had a crust, mantle and molten metal core. The orbiting dawn spacecraft/satellite confirms this. It is now frozen and no longer active. A meteor named Alan Hills A81001 composed of Vestan crust fell to Earth in the Arctic. When it was analysed it was found to have a weak magnetic field.  The original crust gained  a magnetic field when it cooled 3.7 billion years ago. An impact a billion years later hit the frozen crust. This melted and refroze some crust which resulted in magnetism being transferred, imprinted, on rock which became the Alan Hills meteor.
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Science
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Shocked Cat

"You dare to enter my home dressed like that?"
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A Great Australian Dies

An outspoken man has died with little fanfare and hardly a report in the media. Yet this man spoke out about injustice in Australia all his life. His name was Arthur Murray. Australians once lived longer than people anywhere else  - the white people that is. "Blackfellas" died young and they could not even vote.

Aboriginal men were hired at very low rates of pay in outback cotton fields. Arthur worked with them. Pesticides were dropped directly on top of them, planes flying so low the workers had to quickly lie face down in the mud. The white pilots didn't care. In 1973 thousands of dead fish floated in the Namoi River, killed by pesticides.

Arthur had had enough. He went on strike with other Aboriginals. Five hundred disgruntled men marched through the center of Wee Waa. The local newspaper said they were radicals. They were called boongs and niggers, though many had vomited in the fields after spraying and some suffered from permanent coughing. Their tents were burnt and they went hungry.

Arthur was targeted by police. They trumped up a charge of trespassing on the property of the Returned Serviceman's Club. In court he made a statement that was to start a movement and change Australian law. He said that all of Australia was Aboriginal land so he had the right to go anywhere. Police hatred continued. His son was arrested for drunkenness and died mysteriously in a cell. Arthur managed to get his son's body exhumed and it was shown that he died from a broken sternum - he was beaten to death.

The police didn't win though. Even today police say the Wee Waa station is haunted by Eddie Murray's ghost. They asked the Aboriginals to do a "smoke Out" cleansing of the cell. They refused.

A man who came at the right time to change things, Arthur Murray died at the age of 70. The life expectancy of Aboriginal men is 45 years.
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Science
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Ginger Cat

"Goodness gracious I'm ginger!"
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Spider Eats Bird



Is it safe to go out? Well maybe not. A spider was seen eating a bird in Cairns, north Queensland.

The golden orb weaver spider usually eats insects. It is a step up for it to consume a bird. The bird had flown into the spider's web and become weak. Then the spider attacked it.

Golden orb spiders grow much larger than the one shown in the photograph. Though they were not thought capable of eating a whole bird.
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Science
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Pig in the Hole

"What's going on here then?"
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Damage From Hurricanes and Tornadoes Still Not Foreseen

Natural disasters on this planet cause human pain and suffering. This includes financial loss from destroyed properties. The science in forecasting such events is still developing. Tornadoes are very unpredictable. Hurricanes move slower; yet the amount of damage is still an unknown quantity.

The whole history of the US has included repeated "attacks" by hurricanes and tornadoes. Tracking of these events began in 1873 with the first hurricane warning by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Advances were made in understanding flooding from storm surges. This did not prevent the most destructive hurricane of 1900 hitting without warning killing 12,000 citizens.

In 1943 a pilot was sent into the eye of a hurricane. This marked the beginning of an intensive period of study into natural weather events. Ultimately, hurricane forecast models were developed. The 1960s saw the first use of satellites. In 1975 the Saffir-Simpson scale rating hurricane strength of one to five was formulated by two scientists. Consequently, the number of lives lost fell. Twenty three people died during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The amount of damage remained high - $26 billion. Building better levees after Hurricane Katrina of 2005 only resulted in flooding of regions further along the coast during Hurricane Isaac.

Predicting the paths of hurricanes and tornadoes is improving. There seems to be little hope of reducing property damage. The is a difficult conundrum to accept. Even Mankind cannot overcome every problem.
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Science
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It's a What?

Can work this picture out?
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Who Is Spoilt Mr Forrest?

Andrew Forrest chairman of Fortescue Metals Group has been a critic of the mining tax. This appears to be for mainly selfish reasons though he does claim that the tax will reduce investment in the mining sector. He does not come across as a caring person and worrying about the future economic welfare of other Australians seems to be far from his thoughts.

It is odd that when people criticize others the name calling seems to apply more appropriately to the caller than the target. When he calls environmentalists "spoilt children" a good look at him shows he is the spoilt one. As well as mining he is a farmer, so he often faces harassment from greenies.

Being a free society Mr Forrest has a right to say this, or say anything else that intends to bring all environmentalists down. However, a cursory glance at Andrew Forrest makes one feel that there isn't much in his almost empty head apart from a dollar sign.
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Politics
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"Mammy. How I-luv-yuh, how I-luv-yuh.  My dear old Mammy."
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Animal To Human Transplants Allowed in Australia

An old joke: Do you want a new heart? Then get one from a gorilla - "grunt!"

This is not a joke any longer. Australia has just given the go ahead for animal-to-human transplants. This is a turn around from the outright banning of such transplants in 2004. There are two conditions: one, a monitoring system must be in place: and two, there must be a patient register. New Zealand allowed transplants in 2005. The first "transplant" involved implanting insulin producing pig cells into volunteer diabetics.

This change has happened when direct research on animals such as chimpanzees is being reduced because tests can more effectively be done in a test tube. Results in many instances are quite different for chimpanzees, for example. This was discovered in AIDs research when chimpanzees didn't get AIDs. They became carriers of the disease. Animals are proving more useful when material at a cellular level is transplanted. Using animals as hosts is far more beneficial than just infecting them and seeing what happens. Soon, infusion of material to patients suffering from Parkinson's disease will begin.

The medical world is hoping that research done in Australia will be of a high standard and will add to knowledge about new medical techniques. Great care is needed in housing animals such as pigs in sterile environments. It is hoped that improved transplant success from animals will reduce the waiting lists for organ transplants.
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Science
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