Patrick Abbazia attends his class bound in blue duct tape. He's not doing it just to be weird - instead, he's protesting a strange policy of the East Shore Middle School in Milford Connecticut: a "no-touching' policy that bans physical contact between students!
"Going down the halls it is so cramped that it is hard not to touch anyone," Amanda Bollano said. "But if it is accidental, they won't do anything. If it is intentional, you might get detention."
Patrick Abbazia said that he and his friends like to give each other "knuckles" and to high-five, and that to ban those actions -- when fighting is the problem -- doesn't seem right.
"My mom says it's not good for a person to go all day without touching,'' the eighth-grader said.
Normally, you'd fight fire with water, but not at Jesse and Amee Ellsworth's home. They have so much natural gas, leaking from nearby gas wells, in their water that they can light it on fire!
This one is fascinating, though if you're a little squeamish about human anatomy, this isn't for you. Here's a video clip of Dr. Christopher Chang performing a transnasal fiberoptic stroboscopy to evaluate the vocal cords. (Plain English translation: here's how your vocal cords make the sound that's comin' out of your mouth!)
After determining the biological basis of why teenagers don't like doing chores, science turns it attention to another of life's great mystery: why toddler don't do what they're told.
Are you listening to me? Didn't I just tell you to get your coat? Helloooo! It's cold out there...
So goes many a conversation between parent and toddler. It seems everything you tell them either falls on deaf ears or goes in one ear and out the other. But that's not how it works.
Toddlers listen, they just store the information for later use, a new study finds.
"I went into this study expecting a completely different set of findings," said psychology professor Yuko Munakata at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "There is a lot of work in the field of cognitive development that focuses on how kids are basically little versions of adults trying to do the same things adults do, but they're just not as good at it yet. What we show here is they are doing something completely different."
After Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, school teacher Jane Elliott wanted to teach her third-grade class about racism. Rather than a lengthy discussion about it, she decided to show the 8-year-olds what racism is all about in a famous "experiment":
With King shot just the day before in Memphis, Elliott encouraged her third-graders to discuss how something so horrible could happen.
"I finally said, 'Do you kids have any idea how it feels to be something other than white in this country?' "
The children shook their heads and said they wanted to learn, so Elliott set the rules. Blue-eyed children must use a cup to drink from the fountain. Blue-eyed children must leave late to lunch and to recess. Blue-eyed children were not to speak to brown-eyed children. Blue-eyed children were troublemakers and slow learners.
Within 15 minutes, Elliott says, she observed her brown-eyed students morph into youthful supremacists and blue-eyed children become uncertain and intimidated.
Brown-eyed children "became domineering and arrogant and judgmental and cool," she says. "And smart! Smart! All of a sudden, disabled readers were reading. I thought, 'This is not possible, this is my imagination.' And I watched bright, blue-eyed kids become stupid and frightened and frustrated and angry and resentful and distrustful. It was absolutely the strangest thing I'd ever experienced."
Corina Knoll of the Los Angeles Times has the story: Link
University of Hertfordshire psychologist and researcher Richard Wiseman (he wrote The Luck Factor book featured previously on Neatorama here) is interested in scientific research into the paranormal.
So he asked people to submit their "ghost" photographs in an effort to find scientific explanation of the mysterious, "ghostly" images found in them. Here's the preliminary result, a list of 10 most remarkable ghost photos as voted by web users:
In
1967, Nashville attorney John Jay Hooker convinced Grand Ole Opry comedienne
Minnie Pearl that she could sell more drumsticks than Colonel Sanders.
After all, Minnie Pearl seemed like the sort of lady who'd have a good
family recipe for fried chicken. Unfortunately, she didn't. But that didn't
stop Hooker from selling franchises. Within no time, plans were in place
for 300 restaurants and public stock was worth $64 million.
Meanwhile, no one seemed worried that only five restaurants were actually
operating and that no two franchises used the same fried chicken recipe.
Regular customer complaints, combined with an SEC investigation into the
company's accounting practices, meant that it wasn't long before the restaurants
began hemorrhaging money.
By late 1971, the last bird had been fried. Hooker spent decades living
down the debacle, while Pearl continued to apologize to her fans right
up until her death in 1996.
Singer
Conway Twitty dreamed of a restaurant chain that would one day hawk Twitty
Burgers - a hamburger topped with cheese, two slices of bacon, and a deep-fried,
graham cracker-crusted pineapple ring. In 1969, Conway persuaded his friends
to invest $100,000 in his cholesterol-rich scheme.
But the Twitty Burger never found its audience, and mismanagement led
to the chain's swift demise. When Conway decided to repay his investors,
he deduced $100,000 as a business expense on his tax returns. (Another
bad idea.) The IRS soon caught wind, and Twitty wound up in court.
Lucky for him, he was assigned to Judge Leo Irwin, an amateur singer
with a soft spot for country. Not only did Irwin allow Twitty to keep
the money, but after he read the verdict, he sang a song he wrote entitled
"Ode to Conway Twitty."
(Image: Conway Twitty's album Gold)
PoFolks
When
singer Whisperin' Bill Anderson visited PoFolks in 1981, he had lawsuits
on his mind. After all, the restaurant chain had swiped the title of his
biggest hit and the name of his road band. But the owner's hospitality
- combined with all the fried food - weakened Anderson's resolve. By the
end of the meal, he'd agreed to become PoFolk's national spokesman.
As Anderson did PoFolks commercials and even became a partner in several
franchises, the chain's prospects grew. He even convinced his pal Conway
Twitty to become an investor (apparently the Twitty Burger debacle didn't
faze him). At its height, individual PoFolks restaurants were grossing
$2 million a year.
But careless expansion took its toll, and by 1989, PoFolks was headed
for the PoHouse. The chain rebounded in 1991, but without Anderson. Today,
there are nine remaining restaurants, mostly in Florida.
In
a Seinfeld episode called "The Chicken Roaster," Newman gets
Kramer hooked on chicken from Kenny Rogers' Roasters. "The man makes
a pretty strong bird," Newman says. True enough. Founded in 1991
by Rogers and former KFC owner John Brown Jr., the Roasters' menu featured
wood-fired rotisserie chicken. By 1995, the chain had grown to 350 restaurants
worldwide.
While Rogers was an affable spokesman, he didn't know his brand. In 1997,
on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Rogers failed a blind taste
test, choosing chicken from the NBC cafeteria instead of Roasters'. That
may have been a sign. The company filed for bankruptcy a year later, meaning
that Kenny didn't know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.
Jimmy Dean Sausages
Jimmy
Dean Sausage was a hit from its first sizzle in 1969. Most manufacturers
at the time made sausage from old sows and chilled the pork before shipping
it. But the country music star had a different vision. Jimmy Dean decided
to only use top hogs and package the product while it was still warm.
The tender, juicy result went on to gross nearly $60 million a year.
While running the company with his brother, Dean pitched his product
on TV, singing of sausage "from the whole hawg, not just the leavin's."
Amazingly, those leavin's didn't go to waste, either. The inner skins
were donated to burn treatment centers, while the outer skins were fashioned
into coats for Dean's spin-off company, Pigskin. Other spare parts were
turned into cat food. But trouble soon surfaced in hog heaven.
The company expanded too fast, and unsophisticated accounting practices
and manufacturing equipments couldn't keep up. When the stress started
taking a toll on Jimmy Dean's health, he sold the company in 1984. Despite
the change in ownership, Jimmy stood by his product and kept his job as
pitchman for another 20 years.
The article above, written by Bill DeMain,
is reprinted with permission from Scatterbrained section of the Mar/Apr
2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss'
website and blog for more fun stuff!
The View From the Intl Space Station Window This short but fantastic video clip is of the view from
the Space Shuttle Endeavour's left window looking at the Japanese
Experiment Module (JEM) of the International Space Shuttle.
Ying-Yang Twins on Cribs - Translated
Does anyone understand what rappers Kaine and D-Roc of the Ying-Yang
Twins (shouldn't that be Yin Yang?) are talking about.
So thankfully, the guys over at Tasty
Booze blog stepped in to translate.
While you laugh at their expense, keep this in mind: they probably
make more in a week than we all do in a year. Sad, ain't it?
While watching this, I had an epiphany about MTV Cribs - the jerky
camera work is to distract you from how bad the show actually is!
Either that or this is how the younger generation actually see the
world, and if so God saves us all.
A Ventriloquist and Her Monkey
This one is NSFW (strong language), but it's very funny: here's
British actress and comedian Nina
Conti performing ventriloquism with her sarcastic and profane
puppet monkey Monk.
(Interestingly, YouTube removed a video "due to terms of use
violation" from her own website - what's up with that?)
Iron Man vs Bruce Lee
Who will win? Iron man or the Little Dragon?
Regardless of who wins, one thing is for sure: French Canadian
filmmaker Patrick Boivin, the man behind this short clip, sure knows
how to make an excellent stop motion animation!
Teachers Diana Carter and Dona McKenzie are fed up with their students wearing clown trousers - y'know, pants that sag to their bums - so they came up with this: "Pull Up Your Pants Day."
Following in the footsteps of President Obama, who last year told MTV that "brothers should pull up their pants," the school is encouraging kids to hide the underwear and hike up their trousers.
The day was devised by two teachers, Diana Carter and Dona McKenzie, who had become frustrated with the low-hanging look in the school's hallways. The two even managed to get a Pompano Beach Wal-Mart to donate belts for teachers to hand out to offenders.
"The young men need to be educated based upon where it originated from, which it came from our prisons," McKenzie said. "They need to be aware of how they're looking when they're out and walking around, how people perceive them."
In the ongoing saga of the economic crisis, AIG has been squarely portrayed as the villains. Everybody piled on the bandwagon of villifying the greed and brazenness of their multi-million dollar bonuses (yes, including this blog).
But is that the full and true story? Here's a letter published in the Opinion section of The New York Times - it's a resignation letter, actually, sent by Jake DeSantis, an executive VP of the AIG's much maligned Financial Products unit, explaining why he quit:
I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.
After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.
I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.
Substitute science teacher Alex Dolan took covert footage of students in London and Leeds to document and uncover deficiencies in the local school system.
And what did she get for her trouble? Why, she was found guilty of professional misconduct, of course! Didn't she ever heard of the adage "no good deeds go unpunished?"
Alex Dolan recorded the footage covertly at four schools in London and Leeds in 2005, exposing apparent attempts by the school to dupe Ofsted inspectors.
A General Teaching Council panel found her guilty of taking advantage of pupils, breaching their trust – and that of colleagues – and abusing her position.
Dolan was praised at a hearing of the panel last week for showing integrity, and acting as a whistleblower to expose conditions in the schools in which she had taught.
But in its judgment, the panel said it did not accept that the public interest issues raised by the film Undercover Teacher justified the use of covert filming.
It's long been known that if you want someone to do something (especially if that "something" is contrary to what they're likely to do in the first place), give them an "expert" advice. But why is that?
Emory University Neuroscientist Greg Berns and colleagues have found the answer: a brain-scanning study of people making financial choices found that when given the so-called expert advice, the decision-making parts of their brains often shut down.
In the study, Berns' team hooked 24 college students to brain scanners as they contemplated swapping a guaranteed payment for a chance at a higher lottery payout. Sometimes the students made the decision on their own. At other times they received written advice from Charles Noussair, an Emory University economist who advises the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Though the recommendations were delivered under his imprimatur, Noussair himself wouldn't necessarily follow it. The advice was extremely conservative, often urging students to accept tiny guaranteed payouts rather than playing a lottery with great odds and a high payout. But students tended to follow his advice regardless of the situation, especially when it was bad.
When thinking for themselves, students showed activity in their anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — brain regions associated with making decisions and calculating probabilities. When given advice from Noussair, activity in those regions flat lined.
Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainment community. The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.
Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours. Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded.
Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much dough on half baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive role model for millions.
Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, three children: John Dough, Jane Dough and Dosey Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart. The funeral was held at 350 for about 20 minutes.
Thanks Jen and Tiffy! And yes, this is an oldie but it's still a goodie :) Does anyone know the origin of this little story?
Quick: what did you have for lunch yesterday? How about two days ago? If you remember, then you have a pretty good memory - but how about remembering everything you have seen and experienced throughout your life in vivid detail as if it was happening right now?
Meet Jill Price, the woman who simply could not forget:
The three UC Irvine scientists who studied her decided that her case deserved its own name—hyperthymestic syndrome, academic Greek for "exceptional memory"—and it's not hard to see why.
I come prepared with a stack of questionnaires, and when we return to her house, Price is kind enough to let me administer my tests, easily blowing through the first few. I ask, for example, if she can tell me some dates of famous accidents and airline crashes; she's all but unstoppable. She instantly retrieves from memory the exact dates of the explosions of space shuttle Challenger and Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. She remembers not just that September 25, 1978, was when a PSA flight crashed in San Diego but also that the jet collided with a Cessna. She can go in either direction, disaster to date or date to disaster. When I say "January 13, 1982," Price has no trouble recalling the Air Florida flight that plummeted into the Potomac.
According to McGaugh's Neurocase article, Price is even more astounding on the events of her own life. At the scientists' behest, for example, she recalled—without warning and in just 10 minutes—what she'd done on every Easter since 1980. "April 6, 1980: 9th grade, Easter vacation ends. April 19, 1981: 10th grade, new boyfriend, H. April 11, 1982: 11th grade, grandparents visiting for Passover ..
And before you think it's a wonderful thing to have such a prodigious memory, imagine this: Jill Price remembers all the sad and bad things in her life - the death of loved ones, for instance, like it's happening right now. Time heals all wounds, but not for Jill Price.
