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If you recall the kitten eating a melon video, you won't be surprised at how much the really big cats at Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida enjoy pumpkins and other gourds, both for playing with and for eating. -via Metafilter

A glue formula used by people in South Africa 70,000 years ago required more intelligence than archaeologists normally attribute to Stone Age men. It was made by mixing red ochre with the gum of acacia trees. It turns out that the red ochre serves more than a decorative purpose, as researchers found out when they made some of the glue themselves.

"We discovered that when we used ochre, the glue is much more robust, and the stone tool doesn't come off the shaft," said study team member Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

But making the glue wasn't easy for the ancient Africans.

It was mentally taxing work that would have required humans to account for differences in the chemistry of gum harvested from different trees and in the iron content of ochre from different sites.

"They couldn't possibly have known about chemical pH or iron content … but they knew that certain combinations of things worked very well," Wadley said.

Link

The worldwide rate of twins is one in every 80 births. In India, the normal rate is lower, only one 250 births. But in the village of Kodinhi, in the Indian state of Kerala, there are at least 250 sets of twins in a population of 2,000 families. And the rate of twin births has been increasing over the past decades. Dr Krishnan Sribiju has been studying the phenomenon.

"Without access to detailed biochemical analysis equipment I cannot say for certain what the reason for the twinning is, but I feel that it is something to do with what the villagers eat and drink.

"If that is the case then maybe whatever is causing this exceptional level of twinning can be bottled and provide help for infertile couples." Categorising the twin phenomenon as a naturally occurring anomaly, Dr Sribiju has ruled out genetic factors as the cause due to the localised nature of the village.

He also dismisses any suggestion that the unusual level of twins could be caused by an unknown pollutant pointing to the high number of healthy twins born without any deformities.

Link -via Digg

Preciously at Neatorama: the village of Brazilian Twins.

Officers of the Palm Bay Police Department in Florida keep an eye on a large area by using motorized paragliders!

Police Chief Bill Berger says they are a way for the department to have a bird's eye view of the semi-rural city at minimal cost.

"Because we don't have a lot of roadway here, this gives us the ability to basically take short cuts," said Berger.

The vehicles and training cost $10,000 per officer, which is cost-effective compared to using helicopters. And they have other benefits.

Chief Berger sees the gliders as an ideal tool for searching for missing elderly people who have wandered away.

"The problem with helicopters is you can't go below 1,000 feet," said Berger. "The canopy of trees in our community prevented the helicopter from seeing a woman who had [died] close to her car. The paragliders would have been able to get much lower."

Link -via Fark

(image credit: ABC News)

How well do you know your comedians? In today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you'll be given a quote and you decide whether the line is from Steven Wright or Mitch Hedberg. I surprised myself by scoring 79% just by guessing, based on the what I know of the two comedian's styles. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25410

The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development released a new study ranking the world's nations by the happiness levels of their citizens. According to the published results, northern Europeans are the happiest people in the world. The top ten are:

1. Denmark
2. Finland
3. The Netherlands
4. Sweden
5. Ireland
6. Canada
7. Switzerland
8. New Zealand
9. Norway
10. Belgium

The US ranked above average. Link to article. Link to slideshow. -via the Presurfer

(image credit: Eddie Gerald/Alamy)

(YouTube link)
Summer in the Arctic Circle means 24-hour daylight. The sun doesn't set; it just bounces along the horizon! This time-lapse video covers a week of Arctic summertime. Music by Avi Hochberg. -via baszkocsgenyfas

Martha Mason of Lattimore, North Carolina was a victim of polio that left her paralyzed from the neck down when she was a child. She breathed with the help of an iron lung which encased her body, leaving only her head free. Ms. Mason died last week at age 71, having spent over 60 years living inside the apparatus. There are no documented cases of anyone living as long in an iron lung.

From her horizontal world — a 7-foot-long, 800-pound iron cylinder that encased all but her head — Ms. Mason lived a life that was by her own account fine and full, reading voraciously, graduating with highest honors from high school and college, entertaining and eventually writing.

She chose to remain in an iron lung, she often said, for the freedom it gave her. It let her breathe without tubes in her throat, incisions or hospital stays, as newer, smaller ventilators might require. It took no professional training to operate, letting her remain mistress of her own house, with just two aides assisting her.

“I’m happy with who I am, where I am,” Ms. Mason told The Charlotte Observer in 2003. “I wouldn’t have chosen this life, certainly. But given this life, I’ve probably had the best situation anyone could ask for.”

Ms. Mason wrote a book about her life entitled Breathe and starred in the documentary Martha in Lattimore. Link -via Fark

(image credit: Wake Forest University)

Sliding down a mountain on a snowboard is a completely different experience when the mountain is an active volcano! The new sport is drawing snowboarders and surfers to the foothills of Nicaragua's Cerro Negro mountain.

Surfers, dressed in protective jump suits, knee-pads and helmets, can reach speeds of up to 80 km/h (50mph) on their specially-constructed plywood boards.

Phillip Southan, owner and manager of Bigfoot Hostel and Green Pathways Tours, said the unique trip is a world first.

'We started offering this trip on 2005 and its has become so popular,' the 26-year-old from Barbados said. 'This is a unique tour as nowhere else in the world can you board down an active volcano.

'This is the fourth year and to date we have taken over 10,000 people on this tour,' said Mr Southan. 'It is a 45 minute hike of easy to moderate difficulty.

Cerro Negro last erupted in 1999, and the crater is still smoking. Link -via Unique Daily

Army Major Phil Packer began the London Marathon when everyone else did, but his doctor will only allow him to walk two miles a day, so he is expected to finish on Saturday, 13 days after starting the race. Last year Packer was seriously injured in Iraq and was told he probably would never walk again. However, he is walking the marathon on crutches to raise money for Help for Heroes, a British organization that supports wounded veterans.

The marathon is only part of his project, he says. In February, he rowed the English Channel, and next month, he plans to climb El Capitan, one of America's iconic mountaineering sites. It's a 3,000-foot vertical rock formation in California.

The idea to take on the three challenges for charity came to him while he was in a hospital for more than four months last year following a serious injury in Iraq, he says.

"I needed and wanted to be able to move on in life," he says. "I wanted to do something for other personnel who had been wounded.

"I don't want to be helped. I want to help other people. Not that I'm not grateful, but ... you know," he says, an apologetic smile forming as he makes his way up the north bank of the Thames River, along the marathon course. "I really want to be able to help people."

Packer’s goal is to raise £1 million; he has so far raised over half the amount. Link -via Fark

Look at the size of that saxophone!

Pitched one octave below bass, contrabass and subcontrabass instruments are about as low as most instruments go. Aside from those massive pipe organs, they're also about as big as most instruments get.

See and hear the biggest flutes, clarinets, saxophones, and more in this collection of videos. Link -via the Presurfer

Scientists have named a newly discovered species of beetle, Agaporomorphus colberti, in honor of humorist Stephen Colbert.

One of the outstanding features of the species is the genitalia of the males. “This new species is similar to members of a clade within the genus exemplified by A. knischi…and unique in having similar, extremely complicated male genitalia…”

Link -via Digg

I just love the whimsical designs of Polish artist Roman Klonek! This picture shown is a detail from an animation called Cheewing Gum. Link to artist's site. http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/attack-of-the-kloneks/ to an exhibition of posters. -via Everlasting Blort

Bowen, Australia, a town about 700 miles from Brisbane, is seeing in influx of eastern tarantulas, also known as "bird-eating spiders". Dozens of spiders have crawled out of gardens and have made their way into public areas of the town.

While not deadly like other Australian spiders, the eastern tarantulas are venomous and can grow up to 6cm (2.4in) long with a leg span of 16cm (6.3in). Despite their common name, they do not eat birds, but can kill a dog with one bite, and make a human very sick.

They are also known as whistling or barking spiders for the hissing noise they emit when they are disturbed or aggravated at close range.

Audy Geiszler, who runs a local pest control service, caught one this week that more than covered his hand after he killed it.

“I think I’m going to mount this one in acrylic to show people how big it is. It’ll make a great paperweight.”

Link -via Arbroath

In any building, it's always good to know how you're going to get out in case of an emergency. As we all know now, it's not always easy in a skyscraper, or even a building with a few floors. Several innovative systems have been developed for these events, including the Evacuchute, a parachute designed to be used for jumping out of tall buildings. See it in action as well as some other ideas in The World Of High Rise Office Escape Systems. Link -Thanks, David!