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Is there a picky eater in your family? This story may be useful to back up your warnings to the child who won’t eat anything but chicken nuggets or peanut butter sandwiches or bread. British 17-year-old Stacey Irvine was admitted to a hospital after she collapsed and had trouble breathing. It came to light that she had eaten hardly anything at all besides chicken nuggets since she was two years old.
Miss Irvine, who has never eaten fruit or vegetables, had swollen veins in her tongue and was found to have anaemia.
Medics gave her a series of injections and started her on an urgent course of vitamins.
But, despite being warned that she could die if she sticks to her nugget addiction, she still can’t resist the fast food.
Miss Irvine, who prefers McDonald’s treats but also enjoys KFC’s, told The Sun: ‘I am starting to realise this is really bad for me.’
That understatement is not news to Irvine’s mother, who has been warning her for years that her diet would send her to a hospital. But Irvine had eaten other things -fries, chips, and an occasional piece of toast to go with her nuggets. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: NTI)
(Image credit: Flicker user “The Wanderer’s Eye”)
by Alice Shirrell Kaswell, AIR staff
Which came first — the chicken or the egg?
The question has a reputation for being difficult, perhaps even impossible, to answer. Philosophers treat it as a conundrum. But in the hands of an experimental scientist, the question is simple and straightforward, and the answer is easily obtained.
I doubt that I am the first to solve the chicken-and-egg problem, but a search of the scientific literature turned up surprisingly few accounts — none, in fact — of previous work. Here, then, is an account of my work on what turns out to be a trivial question.
Figure 2. The 2003 USPS regulations for mailing chickens.
Which came first — the chicken of the egg? I tackled the question experimentally, using a chicken, an egg, and the United States Postal Service (USPS).
I mailed the chicken and the egg, each in its own separate packaging, and kept careful track of when each shipment was sent from a post office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and when it subsequently arrived at its intended destination in New York City.
more …
Chicken Head Mask – $24.95
Are you on the hunt for a cluck-tastic Halloween mask? You need the Chicken Head Mask from the NeatoShop. This latex mask shaped like a rooster’s head will have you crowing with pride and strutting your stuff this Halloween.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Halloween items!
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Chicken Coin Purse – $9.60
Are you looking for the perfect coin purse to go with your favorite Chicken Bag? You need the Chicken Coin Purse from the NeatoShop. This great little zippered rubber pouch will have your friends clucking with envy.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Wallets & Coin Purses!
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Flickin’ Chicken – $19.95
Are you looking for fun drinking family friendly game for your next shindig? You need the Flick’ Chicken game from the NeatoShop! Lay out the targets and watch the poultry fly. Whoever throws the rubber chicken closest to the target wins. Beware! This game is not as easy as it looks. These featherless fowl have some serious bounce.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more hilarious Toys & Games!
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Rooster LED Flashlight and Keychain – $3.95
Behold the Rooster LED Flashlight and Keychain from the NeatoShop! With a push of a button, a hearty crow, and a small beacon of light you can show the world your love of all things chicken.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more hilarious Keychains & Key Covers.
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A farmer in China noticed something really strange about his cat. She doesn’t eat chicken. Instead, Niu Niu has taken 30 young chicks under her wing (so to speak), and even licks them clean.
“I came back home and found Niu Niu had got into the chicks’ box and I thought she was going to eat them,” he said.
“I shouted at her and she froze. But then I realised that the chicks were climbing all over her and she was just playing with them.”
Lao, of Suibing County, Heilongjiang Province, said he now leaves Niu Niu to look after the baby chicks while he goes out to work.
The chicks have bonded with the cat, and follow her everywhere. Link -via The Daily What
Chicken Tape Dispenser – $11.95
Are you looking for a way to bring some country flair to your desk? You need the Chicken Tape Dispenser from the NeatoShop. This little cutey will have your coworkers clucking with envy.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Office & Desk fun!
Comments Off Greetings culture lover and citizens of the world wide web, the Muppets present … The Blue Danube by Classical Chicken! Move over, Rebecca Black!
Surely this makes your day better: Hit play or go to link [YouTube] – via Swiss Miss
Research into why Transylvanian naked neck chickens have naked necks reveals a complex balance between genes and chemicals that produce a bird’s (not just chickens) feather pattern while it is still an embryo in an egg. Once the combination was discovered, Chunyan Mou from the University of Edinburgh found that bird necks are naturally more disposed to nakedness than the rest of their bodies. This may be no benefit to poultry, but chickens are related to birds that do benefit.
Mou thinks that similar genetic tweaks have happened time and again in the evolution of birds. Many groups have lost their neck feathers independently, including vultures, the marabou stork, and large flightless birds like ostriches and emus. Naked necks allow vultures to stuff their heads into carcasses without soiling any feathers; in other cases, a naked neck probably helps its owner to keep cool in hot climates.
Whatever the benefit, it seems that it’s particularly easy for birds to evolve a naked neck, rather than another part of their body. After all, Mou found that the necks of embryonic ducks, turkeys, quails and guinea fowl all have much higher levels of retinoic acid than the rest of the body. This pattern would normally be innocuous, completely hidden from natural selection. But it allows BMP-boosting mutations to denude the neck in one fell swoop, while keeping the rest of the body covered in feathers. As Mou writes, “An underlying map within the skin provides a one-step route to a bare neck.”
The post goes into detail about how the genes initiate the production of chemical activators and inhibitors, and ends with a parable from Alan Turing that explains the concept in layman’s terms. Link
(Image credit: Demontux)
Chicken Bag – $29.95
Show everyone that you are ready for spring with the Chicken Bag from the NeatoShop.
Your friends will be clucking with envy as you tote this fabulously fashion forward Chicken Bag around town. Yes, it’s true! Chickens are the new owl.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic bags and totes.
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It’s a hotel. For Chicken. Yeah? What’s so strange about it? I hear the room service is eggscellent!
It’s a hotel – but with a major difference. Instead of booking in guests in human form, Cornwall’s newest hotel only takes chickens.
The aptly-named Chicken Hotel recently opened for business at Boskenwyn, Helston. The venture was set up to give chicken owners a place to check-in their birds while away from home.
David Roberts, 31, a maths teacher who keeps his own chickens as a hobby, runs the hotel. He said: "With more people looking to escape the rat race and move out in the country with a little bit of land, keeping chickens is becoming more and more popular. "Producing your own eggs is better for the environment and better for the animals and people, you know exactly what’s gone into your eggs.
"But what do you do if you go away on holiday? "Who would look after your chickens?"
GETTING GOOSED
The events of January 15, 2009, gave new meaning to the fear of flying. At 3:27PM, a flock of Canada geese struck an outbound plane leaving LaGuardia, blowing out both engines and sending the aircraft plummeting to the ground. The incident made a hero of Captain Chesley Sullenberger, who safely piloted the plane into the Hudson River, but it also made Canada geese out to be small, feathered suicide bombers.
The truth is, Canada geese populations in the United States have skyrocketed since 1960. Today, America is home to more than 4 million of the birds. Why the sudden spike in numbers? The geese thrive on trash. Landfills and estuaries provide them with so much food they can live in one place year-round, instead of migrating. And because there’s lot of garbage surrounding New York’s airports, many geese call the Big Apple home. During the past two years, there have been more than 200 instances of Canada geese flocks colliding with airplanes that were landing or taking off near JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark.
Following the “Miracle on the Hudson”, state and federal authorities have worked to deter the birds from nearby flight paths. They even enlisted the help of wildlife biologists, who’ve tried all sorts of tricks. They’ve cut the grass near the runways to undesirable lengths and played goose distress calls over the airport loudspeakers. More aggressively, they’ve trapped geese by the hundreds and euthanized them. So far, the geese have not counterattacked. Not yet.
(Image credit: Flickr user Alanna@VanIsle)
MIKE THE HEADLESS CHICKEN
When a Colorado farmer named Lloyd Olsen botched the decapitation of his rooster in 1945, he didn’t realize he’d given birth to a legend. For the next 18 months, Mike the Headless Chicken ran around with his head cut off. Operating with only one ear and most of his brain stem, Mike made the best of the situation. Before long, he was earning his owner thousands of dollars a month touring as a sideshow. The rooster’s only real handicap was that he didn’t have a mouth, so he had to be fed through an eyedropper directly into his neck. Sadly, while being fed one night, Mike choked to death. His legacy lives on, however. In his hometown of Fruita, Colorado, “Mike’s Festival” is held every third weekend in May. Events in his honor include the “Run Like a Chicken with Your Head Cut Off” 5K and a “Pin the Head on the Chicken” contest.
(Image Source: Mike the Headless Chicken)
DUCK, DUCK, SHUTTLECOCK
In 2006, professional badminton players noticed something strange. Their shuttlecocks, which routinely whiz around the courts at speeds of 150 mph, weren’t moving so fast. The phenomenon was especially strange because the process of making a shuttlecock is highly controlled. Each feather in a premium shuttlecock is hand-selected from the left wing of a goose, and each goose can supply only two quality feathers, at most!
So what caused the change? The avian flu. When geese began transmitting the disease, Chinese manufacturers switched to using duck feathers. Luckily, our fine feathered friends have been on the mend, returning smiles to the faces of badminton players everywhere.
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The above article by David Goldenberg is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the November-December 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
The 2010 Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded this Thursday, September 30th, at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater. Tickets are sold out, but the ceremonies will be streamed live for your entertainment beginning at 7:30 Eastern time.
Meanwhile, here is a mini-opera that was performed at the 2007 ceremonies. The theme for the awards that year was “Chicken”, but the opera was edged out in the post-publicity for the awards due to winner Dan Meyer’s demonstration of his research on sword-swallowing.
Chicken versus Egg
A mini-opera in three acts
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Words by Marc Abrahams
Hen: Gail Kilkelly
Egg: Maggie McNeil
Other eggs: Nobel Laureates Roy Glauber, Dudley Herschbach, William Lipscomb, Craig Mello and Robert Laughlin
Pianist: Scott Nicholas
Opera Director: Margot Button
NARRATOR: Tonight’s opera is called “Chicken versus Egg.” It’s about a chicken sitting on an egg, and you can probably guess where it goes from there. The chicken is played by Gail Kilkelly. We will meet her in Act 2. The egg is played by Maggie McNeil. The two singers are, like the characters they play, mother and daughter.
Here’s some background. The hen has been sitting on the egg for quite a while now. The egg is getting awfully bored. Let’s join her now as she complains to her mother.
[MUSIC: “Voi Che Sapete” from “The Marriage of Figaro” by Mozart.]
[The EGG sings this. Her manner is that of a petulant, bored teenager. As the EGG sings, she sometimes looks upward, in the direction of the sitting hen.]
EGG:
Mother! Oh, Mother! Please stop sitting on my head.
Did you he-ar,
Mother de-ar?
Did you hear what I just sa-ai-aid?
You’re overprotective. It’s total envelop-ment.
Don’t keep me tucked away—
Teach me to play
Well with others.
Your love smothers
Your child’s develop-ment.
Then there’s my posture and my growth.
Also my deportment.
A small bustline!
A twi-isted spine!
It looks like I’ll have both.
But your most nasty cut,
Mother, you brute,
Is that your keeping me beneath your butt
Might smoosh my suit!
Mother dear,
Here is what I fear:
Mother, Mother!
You will smother
My modeling career!
I have… the most perfect suit
One could possess.
It’s really cu-u-u-ute.
Y es! Yes! Yes!
Look! The color is a perfect shade of eggshell!
And the shape’s a perfect ovoid! It looks swell!
But when you sit on me, my clothes will go to hell.
All this you know… perfectly well!
Mother! Oh, Mother! Please stop sitting on my head.
Oh, what a crying shame!
Don’t play this game!
Mental slaughter
Of your daughter!
I’ll never be the same!
Mental slaughter
Of your daughter!
I’ll never be the same!
NARRATOR: Since our first visit with the chicken and the egg, not a whole lot has happened. The egg has continued to be an egg, and the chicken has continued to sit on it. Here in Act 2, the chicken has grown weary of her egg’s incessant whining. Let’s join the mother hen now as she tells her daughter some facts of life.
[MUSIC: “Queen of the Night” from “The Magic Flute” by Mozart.]
[The HEN holds an egg in her hand, and sings this song to it. She is fed up with the egg’s attitude.]
HEN:
You little egg, you listen to your mother!
Listen to Mother!
Sit still, and cock an ear. Now then, my dear…
I’ve heard enough!
Enough about your feeling and your passions.
Enough about your shape-revealing fashions.
My ovoid nitwit,
Put a lid on it!
Your foolish rot
Has really made me hot!
Ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-t!
Baking, frying, roasting in foil!
Ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-t!
You watch it, kid—an egg is easy to boil.
Your simpering seems human,
But you—you’re just albumin. [pronounced “al-BYOO-min”]
You act like I’m a doormat.
I will not stand for that.
But I know
That you know
I can’t stop you.
Okay! Stand up, and go!
Oh, ho, ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!
Your demands are quite a joke.
Settle down. Have lunch. Relax, and eat your yolk.
Ha! Ha! Ha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!
I’m your mother.
There… I’m glad we spoke.
NARRATOR: It’s time for the thrilling conclusion to our opera. After nine months—er, um, nine weeks—uh, uh… or however long it takes an egg to hatch—the magic moment is about to arrive. The hen and her favorite egg are reallllllllllly excited.
You may notice some other eggs here on the stage, played by the Nobel Laureates and the other scientists. These other eggs, too, are eager to hatch—but they’re not going anywhere right now. Their stories will have to be told some other time.
Now let’s join the mother hen as her favorite egg breaks out of its shell, and becomes a chick.
[Sung by HEN and EGG. At the beginning, the HEN is giving encouragement and instruction to the EGG, who is tentative and a bit frightened. In the middle, after EGG has hatched, both HEN and EGG grow progressively more excited and happy. The HEN is evermore proud and relieved and happy—but the EGG grows progressively more dismayed once she realizes she has become just like her mother. By the very end of the song, the hen is radiantly joyful, but the egg is in near-panicked despair.]
[The scientists all play the part of OTHER EGGS. They hold whatever we are using as simple egg costumes—perhaps a few pieces of paper taped together, and they say “peck, peck, peck, peck, peck” when the singers are singing the “peck, peck...” part, and at such other times as the mother HEN may direct them to.]
[Music: “Pa-pa-gena! ... Pa-pa-geno!” from “The Magic Flute” by Mozart.]
EGG: Peck! Peck, peck!
HEN: Peck! Peck, peck!
EGG: Peck, peck! Peck, peck!
HEN: Peck, peck! Peck, peck!
EGG: Peck, peck, peck, peck! Peck, peck, peck, peck!
HEN: Peck, peck, peck, peck! Peck, peck, peck, peck!
HEN: Peck, peck, peck! Peck, peck!
EGG: Peck, peck, peck! Peck, peck!
HEN: Peck! Peck! Peck! Peck! Peck!
EGG: Peck! Peck! Peck! Peck! Peck! Yayyyyyy!!!
[The EGG’s shell breaks, and she becomes a chicken.]
HEN: That was a tightly-fitting dress!
EGG: Oh, such a tightly-fitting dress!
HEN: I can imagine your distress!
EGG: You can imagine my distress!
BOTH: Oh, what distress! Oh, what distress!
HEN: You felt peckish? You felt squeezed?
EGG: I felt peckish. I felt squeezed!
HEN: Bottle-neckish, almost tweezed?
EGG: Bottle-neckish, almost tweezed!
BOTH:
Well, at first I [you] tried to make do.
Then at last I [you] had a breakthrough.
I [you] got rid of that thing quick.
I’m [You’re] a chick!
I’m [You’re] a chick!!
I’m [You’re] a chick!!!
Yes, I am [you are] quite a stylish chick!
Yes, I am [you are] quite a stylish chick!!
HEN: Now! Now at last! You are a chicken!
EGG: Now! Now at last! I am a chicken!
HEN: Now! Now at last! You are a chicken!
EGG: Now! Now at last! I am a chicken!
HEN: You’re a chicken!
EGG: I’m a chicken!
HEN: You’re a chicken!
EGG: I’m a chicken!
BOTH:
I’m [You’re] a chicken!
I’m [You’re] a chicken!
EGG: Do you know what I want to do?
HEN: Yes, I know what you want to do!
EGG: To lay an egggggggggggg!
HEN: You’ll lay an egg and be a mother!
BOTH:
Lay an egg and be a mother!
Lay an egg and be a mother!
lay an egg and be a mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!
To lay an egg!
To lay an egg!
HEN: Yes, that IS just what I would do!
EGG: Oh, no! That’s just what YOU would do!
HEN: I’d lay an egggggggggggg!
EGG: I’ve become just like my mother!
I’ve become just like my mother!
I’ve become just like my mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!
BOTH:
I’m [You’re] just like her [me]!
I’m [You’re] just like her [me]!
Like my [your] mother!
Like my [your] mother!
Like my [your] mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!
Well, well, well! Well, well, well, well!
Like my [your] mother!
Like my [your] mother!
Like my [your] mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!
Put me back into my [You have come out of your] shell!
Put me back into my [You have come out of your] shell!!
Put me back into my [You have come out of your] shell!!!
EGG: I’ve become just like my mother!!!!
HEN: You’ve become just like your mother!!!!
BOTH:
Mother, mother, mother, mother!
Mother, mother, mother, mother!
Mother, mother, mother, mother!
_____________________
The article above is from the November-December 2007 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.
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A hen in Shrewsbury, UK has been nesting on a litter of puppies born on the farm of Edward and Ros Tate. This is to the chicken’s advantage, as the Tates have since decided to not eat her:
Mr Tate said: ‘Mabel was hatched here about a year ago. She would have gone onto someone’s dinner plate but we saved her.[...]
‘We have a dog, Nettle, which has just given birth to a litter of pups. Within a few days of giving birth, Nettle was up and about, prowling in the yard.
‘Mabel observed Nettle’s behaviour and, as soon as there was a chance, she hoped into the dog basket to roost on the pups.
‘She keeps them and herself warm, while Nettle is outside on the yard.’
More and larger photos at the link.
Link via Urlesque | Photo: Anita Marik/Newsteam.co.uk
If you think that dinosaurs looked like giant lizards, you’d be forgiven as that has been the depiction in stories, movies, and even in school textbooks. Scientists, however, have recently reached a different conclusion: dinos actually looked like giant chickens!
The subject of the new study—the 155-million-year-old Anchiornis huxleyi—turns out to have looked something like a woodpecker the size of a chicken, with black-and-white spangled wings and a rusty red crown [...]
The color patterns on Anchiornis’s limbs are "quite similar to the silver-spangled Hamburg chicken, a domestic breed of ornamental chicken," said ornithologist Richard Prum of Yale University.
There is some evidence that peeling a hard-boiled egg is not as easy as it was a couple of decades ago. The reason why might surprise you -older eggs are easier to peel, and the eggs we eat are fresher than ever! As an egg ages, it loses both moisture and carbon dioxide, which causes the air bubble between the shell and the membrane to get bigger. A bigger air pocket makes eggs easier to peel.
While I’ve noticed the Peeling Problem most distinctly with superfresh farm eggs, the eggs you buy at the supermarket could be getting fresher too. Most American eggs are produced and distributed by agribusiness concerns like Cal-Maine and Rose Acre, which each have more than 20 million hens cranking out eggs just for you.
Statistics on the time it takes for an egg to go from hen to supermarket have not been calculated, a USDA representative told Wired.com, but there’s some reason to believe that new production techniques could be delivering eggs to markets faster.
A 1998 report by the agency found that big consolidated chicken egg facilities, which wash and package the eggs on-site instead of sending them to a separate processing location, could reduce the time from farm to store from 100 hours to 53 hours. And, according to Cal-Maine’s SEC filings, the industry continues to centralize, squeezing out the old facilities in favor of the new ones.
So if you are going to use hard-boiled eggs in your Thanksgiving dishes, you might want to purchase your eggs soon. Link -via Unique Daily
A wattle is the bit of flesh below a rooster’s beak. What purpose does it serve? Carolynn Smith at Macquarie University in Australia conducted a study that suggests that it’s pure chicken bling. Sarah Zielinski writes in Scientific American about the results:
Cutting off the wattles of roosters and seeing how the behavior of hens changed wasn’t an option. Instead, Smith created four animated roosters. The animated roosters (see second part of the video below) all acted the same, performing the tidbitting routine over and over, and they all looked the same, except for their wattles. One had a normal wattle, one was missing his, a third had a wattle that didn’t move, and the fourth had an extra floppy wattle.
A test chicken would be placed inside a test pen with two “audience hens,” a couple of buddies intended to make the test hen more comfortable in the less familiar surroundings (fowl are social creatures). One of the videos was then played for the test chicken and her response was recorded: How quickly did she respond to the animated rooster? How quickly did she start searching for food (the normal response to a male tidbitting)? And how long did she search for food?
The test hens responded more quickly to the tidbitting males that had the normal or stationary wattles, less quickly to the one with the extra floppy wattle (the wattle moved so much that it swung up the side of the rooster’s head and appeared much smaller than it was) and slowest to the male lacking wattles. After the hen’s attention was gained, though, she reacted about the same to each of the four animated chickens. Smith suggests that the wattle helps a rooster gain a hen’s attention when he is tidbitting, rather like a human guy wearing flashy clothes while doing his best dance moves to try and pick up chicks.
Video at the link.
Link | Photo: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
This sculpture may look a little bit like a roast chicken, but don’t let that distract you – it’s an incredibly important artistic find. This small figurine is arguably the oldest representation of the human body yet discovered.
(image credit: Nicholas Conard)
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by mattphunkadellic.
Photo: brucethelesser [deviantART]
Today, the question of which is the most awesome steampunk gear has been conclusively answered: Behold the Steampunk Hawkman flying helmet by deviantART user brucethelesser.
Here is a picture of the Hawkman’s flying helmet, goggles and mask.
Costuming Tip: Look closely at the crest feathers. When any decent light falls on them they look like shards of glass. To achieve this affect back paint thin cheap plastic (microscope slides) with translucent paint and metallic pigments and stick them together. you now have your shards of bottle glass and the paint can’t flake off since there sandwiched between two layers of plastic. Additionally there is no danger of shattered glass on the floor if the "feathers" get hit.
The mask is made of wonderflex, a themo-formable plastic.
Bravo, Bruce, bravo! Link – via Brass Googles
