Friday, May 11, 2007
Funny comment
“A big problem at the club is that the members lick their balls”
Comment made by student during an engineering class on recycled water at University of New South Wales.
He was talking about a golf club.
2007
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Alive after two mile fall
By Ryan Morrison
BBC
10th May 2007
Jersey skydiver Michael Holmes survived a two mile fall in New Zealand after his parachute failed. Jersey's Michael Holmes was skydiving in New Zealand when his parachute failed and he found himself heading for the ground at 120mph on Tuesday 12 December.
During what would have been a relatively routine jump for a man who's been doing this for seven years, and was the youngest British person ever to qualify as a skydiving instructor, the parachute failed.
Michael's father told us that the main parachute became tangled, which then caused problems for the reserve parachute.
He explained what happened:
"Half of the parachute collapsed. The parachute is attached to a container on the skydivers back with a load of lines and they became tangled. "The tangle went right back down to the container with the result that he couldn't release the pain chute, what they call, cut away the main chute.
"Nor could he deploy the reserve and the reserve couldn't deploy itself either because of the tangle."
However, despite falling 12,000ft Michael survived. He fell into a blackberry bush at around 100 mph and suffered a punctured lung and broken ankle.
Michael was found unconscious by police in a blackberry bush in a conservation area in Five Mile Bay in Taupo on New Zealand's North Island.
A Taupo Fire Brigade spokesman said "Mr Holmes had fallen into dense bushes and the brigade had been called to slash a path through to free him"
Michael Holmes snr told us "It's a one in a million chance it could happen and he was very fortunate he survived."
He was asked how his son felt about falling and told us "Michael is Michael and he will bounce back from it and will be skydiving again in a months time".
Eyewitness John Siddles told New Zealand's Daily Post "One of the skydivers was coming down and going round and round. He looked like he was all tangled up or something. He just came down, straight down".
The accident is being investigated by the New Zealand Parachute Industry Association.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Nine of of ten babies in the US watch TV
May 8, 2007
About 90 per cent of US children under age 2 and as many as 40 per cent of infants under three months are regular watchers of television, DVDs and videos, researchers said on Monday.
They said the number of young kids watching TV was much greater than expected.
"We don't know from the study whether it is good or bad. What we know is that it is big," said Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington, whose research appears in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
A second study suggested excessive TV viewing could lead to attention and learning problems down the road.
The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children in the United States watch about four hours of television every day. They recommend that children under age 2 should not watch any and older children should watch no more than 2 hours a day of quality programming.
But 29 per cent of parents surveyed by Zimmerman and colleagues believed baby-oriented TV and DVD programs offered educational benefits.
"Parents are getting the message loud and clear from marketers of TV and videos that this is good for their kids. That it will help their brain development ... None of this stuff has ever been proven," Zimmerman said in a telephone interview.
For their study, Zimmerman's team conducted random telephone surveys of more than 1000 families with young children in Minnesota and Washington.
They found 90 per cent of children under age 2 and 40 per cent of infants under three months watched TV regularly.
At 3 months, children watched less than an hour per day, but by 24 months, they watched more than 1.5 hours per day.
About half of the shows watched were in the educational category, with the remainder split evenly among noneducational children's content, baby DVDs/videos and adult TV.
In a separate survey of 1051 parents published in the journal Pediatrics, 75 per cent of children aged 0 to 6 were found to watch TV every day, often in their own bedrooms.
"We don't know that it is bad but we don't know that it is harmless," Zimmerman said.
A second study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that teens who watch three to four hours of television a day were more likely to have attention or learning problems and were less likely to get a college degree.
"Even watching more than an hour of TV per day had some adverse consequences, but three hours was much worse than one hour, and two was worse than one," Jeffrey Johnson of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute said in a telephone interview.
Johnson and colleagues studied 678 families in New York state over more than 20 years.
"Kids who watched less than one hour of TV per day were twice as likely to go to college as those who watched three or more hours per day," he said.
Just 12 per cent of the parents whose children watched less than an hour of television a day said their child "hardly ever does homework," compared to 21 per cent of those who watched one to three hours a day and 27 per cent of those who watched more than three hours a day.
Parents said 22 per cent of teens who watched less than an hour a day were often bored at school, compared to 35 per cent of the moderate watchers and 42 per cent of those who watched three hours or more.
The result was the same regardless of socioeconomic status.
Johnson said he believed TV may be shortening teens' attention spans. "Over time, it could really dumb down society," he said.
Reuters
About 90 per cent of US children under age 2 and as many as 40 per cent of infants under three months are regular watchers of television, DVDs and videos, researchers said on Monday.
They said the number of young kids watching TV was much greater than expected.
"We don't know from the study whether it is good or bad. What we know is that it is big," said Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington, whose research appears in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
A second study suggested excessive TV viewing could lead to attention and learning problems down the road.
The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children in the United States watch about four hours of television every day. They recommend that children under age 2 should not watch any and older children should watch no more than 2 hours a day of quality programming.
But 29 per cent of parents surveyed by Zimmerman and colleagues believed baby-oriented TV and DVD programs offered educational benefits.
"Parents are getting the message loud and clear from marketers of TV and videos that this is good for their kids. That it will help their brain development ... None of this stuff has ever been proven," Zimmerman said in a telephone interview.
For their study, Zimmerman's team conducted random telephone surveys of more than 1000 families with young children in Minnesota and Washington.
They found 90 per cent of children under age 2 and 40 per cent of infants under three months watched TV regularly.
At 3 months, children watched less than an hour per day, but by 24 months, they watched more than 1.5 hours per day.
About half of the shows watched were in the educational category, with the remainder split evenly among noneducational children's content, baby DVDs/videos and adult TV.
In a separate survey of 1051 parents published in the journal Pediatrics, 75 per cent of children aged 0 to 6 were found to watch TV every day, often in their own bedrooms.
"We don't know that it is bad but we don't know that it is harmless," Zimmerman said.
A second study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that teens who watch three to four hours of television a day were more likely to have attention or learning problems and were less likely to get a college degree.
"Even watching more than an hour of TV per day had some adverse consequences, but three hours was much worse than one hour, and two was worse than one," Jeffrey Johnson of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute said in a telephone interview.
Johnson and colleagues studied 678 families in New York state over more than 20 years.
"Kids who watched less than one hour of TV per day were twice as likely to go to college as those who watched three or more hours per day," he said.
Just 12 per cent of the parents whose children watched less than an hour of television a day said their child "hardly ever does homework," compared to 21 per cent of those who watched one to three hours a day and 27 per cent of those who watched more than three hours a day.
Parents said 22 per cent of teens who watched less than an hour a day were often bored at school, compared to 35 per cent of the moderate watchers and 42 per cent of those who watched three hours or more.
The result was the same regardless of socioeconomic status.
Johnson said he believed TV may be shortening teens' attention spans. "Over time, it could really dumb down society," he said.
Reuters
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Ben Cousins in shock
Tuesday May 1, 2007
The Guardian
Colombian Navy Finds 27 Tons of Cocaine
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Colombia's navy made the largest drug seizure in the nation's history when it uncovered about 27 tons of cocaine buried along the Pacific coast, the defense minister said Monday.
The cocaine, with a wholesale value of more than $500 million, was found Sunday buried in 1,000 packages of 55 pounds each near the coastal town of Pizarro, 250 miles west of Bogota, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told a news conference.
Santos said the seizure was the result of eight months of undercover police work and he called it the ``biggest in the history of Colombia.''
The cocaine was buried near an estuary accessible only by sea, he said.
There were no arrests in the operation, but the drugs were believed to belong to Colombia's biggest drug trafficking organization, the Norte del Valle cartel, which operates near the area.
Colombia is the world's leading cocaine producer, producing annually more than 500 tons of cocaine that represents 90 percent of the drug consumed in the United States.
Most of the cocaine leaves the country by sea, on go-fast boats that transport the drugs up along the Central American coast for their eventual smuggling into the United States overland through Mexico.
Although drug seizures are an everyday affair, they rarely reach such large numbers. Last October, Colombia's navy made headlines when it found 9.3 tons of cocaine on three go-fast boats near the Pacific coastal port city of Buenaventura - its biggest seizure of the year.
President Alvaro Uribe travels to Washington on Tuesday to shore up support on Capitol Hill and the White House for the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia, an anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency program that has cost American taxpayers more than $5 billion since 2000.
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