Fact x Importance = News

[ReZourceman]

http://www.inquisitr.com/28631/summer-nelson-baby-sitter-sleeps-with-14-year-old-boy/

 

Why do they call it abuse?

[Happenstance]

I think the official quote was originally:

 

"Niiiiiiiice"

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Was thinking the same

Ditto ...

[Dan_Dare]

I think the official quote was originally:

 

"Niiiiiiiice"

 

[Dante]

Cats 'exploit' humans by purring.

 

Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans.

 

Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a "soliciting purr" to overpower their owners and garner attention and food.

 

Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a "cry", with a similar frequency to a human baby's.

 

The team said cats have "tapped into" a human bias - producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore.

 

Dr Karen McComb, the lead author of the study that was published in the journal Current Biology, said the research was inspired by her own cat, Pepo.

 

"He would wake me up in the morning with this insistent purr that was really rather annoying," Dr McComb told BBC News.

 

"After a little bit of investigation, I discovered that there are other cat owners who are similarly bombarded early in the morning."

 

While meowing might get a cat expelled from the bedroom, Dr McComb said that this pestering purr often convinced beleaguered pet lovers to get up and fill their cat's bowl.

 

To find out why, her team had to train cat owners to make recordings of their own cats' vocal tactics - recording both their "soliciting purrs" and regular, "non-soliciting" purrs.

 

"When we played the recordings to human volunteers, even those people with no experience of cats found the soliciting purrs more urgent and less pleasant," said Dr McComb.

 

How annoying?

 

She and her team also asked the volunteers to rate the different purrs - giving them a score based on how urgent and pleasant they perceived them to be.

 

"We could then relate the scores back to the specific purrs," explained Dr McComb. "The key thing (that made the purrs more unpleasant and difficult to ignore) was the relative level of this embedded high-frequency sound."

 

"When an animal vocalises, the vocal folds (or cords) held across the stream of air snap shut at a particular frequency," explained Dr McComb. The perceived pitch of that sound depends on the size, length and tension of the vocal folds.

 

"But cats are able to produce a low frequency purr by activating the muscles of their vocal folds - stimulating them to vibrate," explained Dr McComb.

 

Since each of these sounds is produced by a different mechanism, cats are able to embed a high-pitched cry in an otherwise relaxing purr.

 

"How urgent and unpleasant the purr is seems to depend on how much energy the cat puts into producing that cry," said Dr McComb.

 

Previous studies have found similarities between a domestic cat's cry and the cry of a human baby - a sound that humans are highly sensitive to.

 

Dr McComb said that the cry occurs at a low level in cats' normal purring. "But we think that (they) learn to dramatically exaggerate it when it proves effective in generating a response from humans."

 

She added that the trait seemed to most often develop in cats that have a one-on-one relationship with their owners.

 

"Obviously we don't know what's going on inside their minds," said Dr McComb. "But they learn how to do this, and then they do it quite deliberately."

 

So how does Dr McComb feel about Pepo now she knows he has been manipulating her all these years?

 

"He's been the inspiration for this whole study, so I'll forgive him - credit where credit's due."

 

Video

 

BBC NEWS....

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Proof that cats are awesome.

[Dan_Dare]

Dogs have owners; Cats have staff

[Dante]

Strange! Humans Glow in Visible Light

 

The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal.

 

Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals.

 

(This visible light differs from the infrared radiation - an invisible form of light - that comes from body heat.)

 

To learn more about this faint visible light, scientists in Japan employed extraordinarily sensitive cameras capable of detecting single photons. Five healthy male volunteers in their 20s were placed bare-chested in front of the cameras in complete darkness in light-tight rooms for 20 minutes every three hours from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for three days.

 

The researchers found the body glow rose and fell over the day, with its lowest point at 10 a.m. and its peak at 4 p.m., dropping gradually after that. These findings suggest there is light emission linked to our body clocks, most likely due to how our metabolic rhythms fluctuate over the course of the day.

 

Faces glowed more than the rest of the body. This might be because faces are more tanned than the rest of the body, since they get more exposure to sunlight - the pigment behind skin color, melanin, has fluorescent components that could enhance the body's miniscule light production.

 

Since this faint light is linked with the body's metabolism, this finding suggests cameras that can spot the weak emissions could help spot medical conditions, said researcher Hitoshi Okamura, a circadian biologist at Kyoto University in Japan.

 

"If you can see the glimmer from the body's surface, you could see the whole body condition," said researcher Masaki Kobayashi, a biomedical photonics specialist at the Tohoku Institute of Technology in Sendai, Japan.

 

The scientists detailed their findings online July 16 in the journal PLoS ONE.

 

Yahoo

[Ashley]

Going back to the cat thing; its hardly news and the same is true for dogs :p

 

Naked Cowyboy Runs for NYC Mayor.

Edited July 23, 2009 by Ashley

[EEVILMURRAY]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090725/twl-two-children-shot-by-their-brothers-3fd0ae9.html

 

Do parents ever use these guns? It seems it's always the kids.

[Shino]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090725/twl-two-children-shot-by-their-brothers-3fd0ae9.html

 

Do parents ever use these guns? It seems it's always the kids.

 

Don't you DARE question their constitutional right to have weapons to protect democracy, freedom and liberty, in the case the most militarized country in the world becomes totalitarian! Don't, you, dare!

[EEVILMURRAY]

You taking the piss sunshine?

[Dante]

AT&T blocks 4chan.

[EEVILMURRAY]

"One of us is in Deep trouble."

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

AT&T blocks 4chan.

Like 4chan or not, I am very much against censorship like this.

[Dante]

The actions of IGDA board member Tim Langdell since his election in March 2009 have raised questions regarding his suitability as our elected representative. As you no doubt know, the IGDA's mission is: To advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers by connecting members with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community.

 

Tim Langdell's company, Edge Games, has trademarked the word "edge" and they leverage this trademark against any media that contains this word--threatening legal action should their target not enter into a licensing arrangement with the studio. Such targets have included David Mamet's film The Edge, Marvel's comic book Edge, EA's Mirror's Edge, and Namco's Soul Edge, which was released as Soul Blade and later, Soulcalibur in the west as a direct result of Edge Games' actions. Most recently their actions have resulted in the removal of the indie game hit, Edge, from the iPhone app store.

 

Meanwhile, Edge Games has not been associated with the direct production of an original video game in the last fifteen years.

 

After his election to the IGDA board, in a lawsuit against Cybernet regarding Edge of Extinction, Tim Langdell presented himself to the court like this: "Dr. Tim Langdell is considered to be a pioneer in the field of computer gaming and is widely publicized on the Internet and has been engaged as a legal expert in the field of computer gamin." He adds "He presently serves on the Board of Directors of the International Game Developers Association, which is the largest game association worldwide".

 

Many of us believe that this is a gross misrepresentation and feel that Tim Langdell is able to use his position on the board of the IGDA to work directly against the mission of the organization. As IGDA members with voting rights, it is our responsibility to elect a board that we can trust to represent us. But no election system is perfect and sometimes corrections need to be made.

 

 

 

We are asking that you take some time to consider this issue, do a little research online, make up your mind how you feel about it, and take action.

 

 

 

Under the IGDA bylaws, we are able to call for a special meeting of the membership to vote on the removal of Tim Langdell from the board of directors. In order to do this, we need 10% of the membership to request the board call the special meeting. We are hosting a petition to this effect here: www.surveymonkey.com

[Dan_Dare]

That....that's insanity.

 

I'm going to trademark some punctuation. See how they roll with that.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

I am copyrighting text and speech. Ha!

[Daft]

Tomorrow marks the 64th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

 

 

 

[Ashley]

Fuck me you're right.

 

I was there only about six weeks ago. Such a beautiful city and the peace park itself is truely overwhelming. The museum is dirt cheap (50yen = 20-odd pence) and is such a wonderful thing to see, and suprisingly balanced. They admit that Japan had faults too all in the interest of putting and end to nuclear weaponary. The exhibits are quite moving. And of course the statues around the park itself. For instance:

 

 

Each of those paper cranes are individually folded and I would say that is about 5% of the total cranes within the park. There are THOUSANDS. Sent in from all over the world as a symbol of peace.

 

Dome as it is now:

 

 

Its one of the 4 (I believe its 4) buildings which survived simply because the epicentre was pretty much north of that.

 

I would love to be there today (as its gone midnight now) as there's always a big ceremony.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Ashley

[EEVILMURRAY]

A tool in China believed drinking petrol would make him a Transformer, and has such 'tarded himself.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090805/twl-fan-drinks-petrol-to-be-like-transfo-3fd0ae9.html

[Daft]

"Since my son started drink gasoline, his intelligence dropped sharply.

 

"Before that, he was a very smart boy, and he could even repair the television. But now he does not know the answer of seven plus 17."

 

Harsh but lol.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

"Before that, he was a very smart boy"

 

I question the validity of that statement.

[Dyson]

Best headline ever.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2698507.stm

 

Family of faggot fans fly the flag

[Daft]

they will launch National Faggot Week.

 

Someone must of had a riot writing that.

 

Although it is an unusually high standard piece of journalism from the BBC.