Pause to Wonder

… that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction.

To find out why they think this happens, read the BBC article here.

Sarah Palin is at best a painful embarrassment and at worst the person who may destroy the whole world. In the run up to the election, the inability to vote (not American) makes the suspense even worse, so it was a great relief to have a laugh again.

“…given the way the McCain campaign has controlled access to Palin, the prank feels like just plain good journalism — almost as good as the real thing delivered by Katie Couric last month. The prank audio is entertaining, informative and damning, at least if you think the nation’s leaders should be a little more sophisticated than, say, an excitable (and gullible) 10-year-old.”

If your French is rusty, check out the translations in the transcript here. I love the seals and the bread-under-the-arm bits. And the “special American Advisor Johnny Hallyday” mentioned is France’s equivalent of Elvis. Only with a lot more plastic surgery.

Thank you Les Justiciers Masques!

The survey found that many people engage in very poor dental habits, with a significant number admitting to using every day items such as hammers, screwdrivers, scissors and lollipop sticks to pick food from between their teeth - risking cuts and infection.

More than a quarter (27%) of respondants said they had opened a bottle with their teeth.

More than one in ten (13%) of respondants admitted to flossing their teeth while driving.

Dr Carter said: “People are putting themselves at risk with these shocking habits… [full article]

Here’s a bit of recorded music time travel for you: mp3s, CDs, cassettes, 8-tracks, LPs, reel-to-reel, wire recordings, 78s, one-sided records, cylinder recordings. The latter were the standard from approx. the 1880’s to 1929. Here’s a fabulous site with over 8,000 recordings that you can listen to! To get you started, here’s a favorite of mine: Yes, we have no bananas!

 Did You Know?

Concert cylinders sold for around $5US in 1898, about $110US in 2005 dollars.

And you think CDs are a rip off!

[from the CPDP website]

When the Buddhas of Bamiyan were carved out of the mountainside, the Roman Empire still held sway.

They towered over a rich valley in what is now central Afghanistan, where caravans of traders would stop and rest on the Silk Road as they transported goods between east and west.For centuries the two huge statues stood guard over Bamiyan. But in 2001, just months before they were forced from power, the Taleban dynamited what they considered un-Islamic representations of the human form.

Today all that remains are the recesses where they stood, and the labyrinth of fragile caves surrounding them…

Inside those caves the steep, narrow steps are crumbling, there are cracks in the mud tunnels carved into the mountainside, and still visible high in the echoing chambers are pieces of Buddhist iconic art which are now thought to be the oldest oil paintings in the world.

Read the full article here. (Don’t miss the video at the beginning!)