The race for the ‘fastest slimmer’ title is on the way
November 30, 2008
It will be a 100-day contest where one fat cat and seven heavy hounds will compete for the UK’s “fastest slimmer” title for the pets. The 13-year-old feline, who lives in Gillingham in southeast England, weighs around 9.8 kilograms which makes him almost 95 percent overweight.
The feline is also one of Britain’s most obese pets, eight of which are to undertake a 100-day diet and fitness regime in a kind of animal version of the TV show The Biggest Loser. Globe and Mail reported the winner will be crowned this year’s feline or canine weight-loss champion.
The veterinary charity PDSA, which is running the slimming contest, picked “Tinks” and
Seven dogs, who incidentally are severely overweight and together, weigh a total of 191 kg,
The animals, to reach their ideal weights, need to lose a total of 74 kg- equivalent to the weight of soccer star David Beckham. The fete is to be achieved over the next three months. During this period, they will under go a specially tailored diet and exercise programmes.
The winner will be the pet who achieves the biggest percentage of weight loss and will be judged the best contestant and then crowned champion thereby winning its owner a pet friendly holiday.
Deryck Wilson, spokesperson of PDSA, in a telephone interview told Globe and Mail:
“The competition does have a serious veterinary basis. As well as providing free treatment for those that come through the doors of our pet hospitals, we also have a mission to improve pet health in more general terms.”
Saying that the competition is in its fourth year, he added,
“More and more people are becoming aware that by feeding scraps to their pets and giving them chocolates, although they’re doing it as an expression of their affection towards their pet, in reality they’re killing with kindness.”
Female monkeys chat more than their male counter parts.
November 29, 2008
According to Nathalie Greno researcher at Rohentpon University,
“the result suggests that females rely on vocal communication more than males due to their need to maintain larger social networks.”
Women are considered and stereotyped as the talkative sex. Yet according to the researchers they are not the only ones, as at least female-centric monkey groups too fall in the same category.
The research team at Roehampton University in London observed a female-centric group of macaques, and noticed that the gossipy nature of the monkeys perhaps support the theory that human language evolved to forge social bonds.
Researchers Nathalie Greeno and Stuart Semple depending on the belief of large number of scientist’s belief that the language replaced grooming as a less time-consuming way of preserving close bonds in ever- growing societies, hypothesized that in species of animals with large social networks, such as macaques, vocal exchanges should be just as important as grooming.
The scientists listened and studied a group of 16 female and eight male macaques – the most primitive species apart from humans – living on Cayo Santiago Island off Puerto Rico for three months. The grunts, coos and girneys – friendly chit-chat between two individuals- were counted by the scientists while calls specifically used when in the presence of food or predator were not taken into account.
It was found that female macaques made 13 times as many friendly noises as males. They were also more likely to chat to other females than to their male counter parts.
UK children shop behind parent’s back
November 27, 2008
Reports claim that one in five under-16-year-olds are making their parents pay without their knowledge in order to shop online. This has resulted in, approximately, a shopping bill of £191m per year. According to a survey done with 500 adults and 500 children by insurance services company CPP, the children in the age group of fifteen are the worst offenders. Most of them spend £25 per unlawful purchase. Around five per cent of children who were surveyed claim that they have spent between £75 and £150 at a go.
Almost seventy per cent of the children interrogated claimed that they know where their parents shop. Around 20 per cent claim that they know their passwords and usernames used at those sites. However, parents are clueless about this.
Only one out of six parents believes that their children have access to their credit cards. A mere 2 percent believe that their children have the audacity to make purchase without the permission of their parents. The survey found that three-quarters of children under16 say that they have absolute freedom to make purchases on the web. Children staying in Cardiff are more prone to spend money without the permission of their parents.
Stone age 4,600 year old ‘nuclear-family’ evidence unearthed
November 20, 2008
The earliest evidence for the existence of the nuclear family has been unearthed at a Stone Age burial ground in Germany. A detailed scientific examination analysis of 13 people, buried four grave sites in the Stone Age site near Eulan in Germany dating to the later Stone Age, 4,600 years ago proves existence of nuclear family.
The scientists said in the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
“A direct child-parent relationship was detected in one burial, providing the oldest molecular genetic evidence of a nuclear family.”
The ancient family was killed in a massacre.
New Scientist reported:
“Analysis of DNA in the bones and teeth of the remains in one grave found that an adult male and female, and two boys, were the classic nuclear family. All the signs are that these people died violent deaths, one female had an arrowhead embedded in her spine, and the head and forearms of several other adults and children had stone-axe marks.”
Wolfgang Haak, Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at Adelaide University, said:
“These were the old and the injured, children and women. Whatever violence happened that day, they were not capable of fighting.”
British sex buyers will be fined according to the new law
November 19, 2008
In a bid to curb human trafficking, the British government is planning a law under which it will be illegal to pay for sex with a prostitute who is controlled by a pimp or trafficker. However, paying for consensual sex would be legal, but a prostitute support group said the plans could make life more dangerous for the women by scaring away safer clients.
According to the new law, clients would be subjected to prosecution even if they paid for sex believing a woman was operating independently, when that was later shown to be incorrect. Smith told Sky News she wanted to change the law to protect vulnerable women by reducing the demand for paid sex.
“I hope that men will think twice about the fact that probably the majority of women in prostitution… are effectively as good as slaves. If you are paying for that, you are part of the problem. Men may face a fine up to £1,000 and a criminal record if found guilty. Ignorance of a prostitute’s dependency would not be a defense.”
Niki Adams of the English Collective of Prostitutes disputed the claim of Smith who said around 80,000 women working as prostitutes in Britain and most did so against their will. Adams told BBC radio:
“Most women are not working for pimps. Most women are not trafficked.”
She added:
“What we do know is that women from all kinds of walks of life, also working as teachers and students, are working in prostitution. And it is consenting sex. Women are going to end up taking more risk to get the same kind of business in an economic crisis. There is nothing in these proposals to address homelessness and domestic violence which the government itself acknowledges are factors that force women into prostitution.”
Scarcity of burial land in the UK popularises sea-burial
November 18, 2008
When you face a ‘grave’ problem, here is an alternative. Just go for sea-burial. That is exactly what is happening in the UK. As grave space is getting scarcer, the alternative sea-burial is gaining popularity. At two locations off the British coast- near Isle of Wight and Newhaven in East Sussex, more and more people are opting for a watery send-off.
As many as 14 sea burials have taken place this year and the number is expected to grow in future. Cost wise, sea burial is much costlier than its counterpart at £4000 per head. Traditional burial in a grave yard costs around £2000 a head.
John Lister of the Britannia Shipping Company in Devon said; “We charter a boat on the Isle of Wight, from where family and friends are taken to a designated burial point where the coffin is lowered into the sea from a mechanical ramp.”
His company has already collected deposits from 150 people, who have left instructions to carry out a sea burial.
Mr. John added: “We are now seeing more hobby sailors and people who have moved to the coast and love the sea. It has captured the imagination and has a certain romance about it.”
To create more burial space, the government now plans to exhume remains in graveyards and rebury them deeper. This effort is first of its kind since the Victorian days.
Teenage pregnancy is a cause for worry
November 18, 2008
In a bid to fight rise in the teenage pregnancy, the UK government has ordered the local authorities to pursue teenage girls, even the thirteen years olds, to have contraceptive jabs. A policy that resulted in outcry in the country, counter captive jabs can make girls infertile for up to three months.
The Daily Telegraph reported that the government wants school-based clinics to push for “an overall increase in the uptake of long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC), which can make girls infertile for up to three months.
The British Daily revealed, projecting figures from five of England’s 152 primary care trusts, girls as young as 13 have been administered injections and implants. Findings of the research in 16 schools in Bristol reveal that two percent of girls had been given the injections. Way back in 2005, an outrage was caused when a nurse in Gateshead revealed that she gave contraceptive injection to a school girl in the lavatories of a McDonald’s restaurant.
Critics were worried over the government move fearing that it will promote promiscuity. The move has sparked an outcry. Some health experts expressed their opinion saying the drugs are unsuitable for girls who are still growing. Thirteen year girls are definitely at the growing stage by any standards.
EU clears the way for the “curvy cucumber” and ‘wonky” fruits
November 13, 2008
Thanks to the EU, the curvy cucumber and its likes will find their place on supermarket shelves. European Union nations have given a green signal for bent cucumbers and “Wonky” vegetables, fruits allowed to be sold in supermarkets and elsewhere.
European Commission spokesman Michael Mann said:
“This is a happy day indeed for the curvy cucumber and knobbly carrot, and other amusingly shaped fruits and vegetables.”
The commission said in a statement:
“Rules governing the size and shape of fruits and vegetables will be consigned to the history. In a move to prevent dumping of food, a process has been initiated to help cut red tape and stop food dumping. According to Mann, the decision would rid of 100 pages of EU legislation at a stroke.”
It was for a long period of twenty years, due to, European standards, only the most standard- looking produce reached supermarket shelves. In all, scrapping of marketing standard for 26 fruits and vegetables, results in paving way for the return to shopping trolleys of some of the deviant vegetables like forked carrots, onions that are less than two thirds covered with skin and the bent cucumbers.
The rules were considered as “bonkers” by the likes of major British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, and at the same time major agricultural nation like France are not in favour of the changes in the rule as they argue that scrapping the curbs will lead to a fall in prices and there by hit farmers.
World’s deep-sea octopuses evolved from a common ancestor
November 12, 2008
According to a report by BBC News, the findings of a research study, many of the world’s deep-sea octopuses evolved from a common ancestor, which still dwells in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean.
The project known as the Census of Marine Life (OML) began way back in 2000, and is set to be completed in 2010 after a decade long research activities. Scientists from 82 nations are involved in the project. The research into the evolution of the deep-sea octopus was part of the OML programme.
Don O’Dor, CoML’s co-senior scientist told BBC News:
“Many of these octopuses were collected from deep sea by a number of the COML’s different projects.”
According to researcher’s suggestion, octopuses evolved after being driven to other ocean basins 30 million years ago by nutrient-rich and salty currents.
He added:
“All of that material was brought together and made available to Dr. Jan Strugnell, a biologist at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. She, in turn, used it to carry out DNA studies. She has been able to trace the timeline for their distribution back 30 million years to a common ancestor.”
According to Dr. O’Dor, the BAS researcher’s work also enabled her to identify effect of changes in the region’s ocean playing a pivotal role in the development of the new species.
The UK Post Office services struggling to survive
November 10, 2008
Delays in working out if the Post Office will manage to retain the contract so as to handle pension as well as benefit payment card accounts is rather ‘destabilising’, MPs state. The ‘business and enterprise select committee’ remarked that the longer uncertainty continued, the tougher it was for the network to come up with long-term plans. And awarding the contract to an entity other than the Post Office would cause the closure of further outlets, according to MPs.
Ministers stated a contract decision would be announced as soon as possible. Currently, the Post Office Card Account (POCA) is used by over four million people. It was designed to do away with the requirement for giros and tedious payment books for pensioners as well as benefit claimants, while allowing them to use Post Offices for the purpose of collecting money.
The contract for this account will run out in 2010 and ministers are compelled by competition law to issue tender – with at least two or more other providers competing. The Post Office presently faces some competition from the UK’s biggest private payment network PayPoint.
The National Federation of Sub Post Masters is urging customers to lobby the MPs about the contract, and has warned 3,000 Post Offices would shut if the service was taken away.
