Putting cows online
"You'd hate to be the IT person who has to fix this network," says the New Scientist. "By putting electronic devices into the stomachs of cows and linking them wirelessly, researchers hope to reduce climate-warming bovine burps. Chris McSweeney from Australia's research institute CSIRO in Brisbane has developed a gas-sniffing 'submarine.' The device can stay safely in a cow's stomach for weeks and measures gas concentration using infrared sensors as the cows roam around. By monitoring many cows, farmers should be able to see what difference varying types and times of feeds make to emissions."
The upside to hunger
"People who sometimes go hungry as children have slower cognitive decline once they are elderly than people who always had enough to eat, according to a new study," reports Psych Central. "'These results were unexpected because other studies have shown that people who experience adversity as children are more likely to have problems such as heart disease, mental illness and lower cognitive functioning than people whose childhoods are free of adversity,' said study author Lisa Barnes, PhD, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago."
Why all this advice?
"I'm subscribed to this mailing list, the Listserve," writes Paul Ford at Slate.com, "where once a day a person is selected at random to write whatever they want and send it to the rest of the list, its membership now numbering in the tens of thousands. And nearly every one of these e-mails ends up with someone telling a bunch of strangers to live, dammit. To love openly and dance like no one's watching. … What's with this innate assumption that everyone is living in some repressed nightmare? This urge to punish a mass of strangers with bromides that would test the patience even of the editor-in-chief of a fridge magnet company?"
Shoplifter sues owner
"A shoplifter who was shot in the face after stealing a bottle of vodka from a Colorado Springs liquor store is suing the shop owner," says The Denver Post. "The [Colorado Springs] Gazette reports that the shoplifter is seeking at least $100,000 for pain and suffering. Bryson Adrian Dewberry was shot in the jaw two years ago by Chang Ho Yi, the owner of Austin Bluffs Plaza Liquor. According to a lawsuit … Yi witnessed the 2010 theft and pursued Dewberry out of his store with a loaded .357 revolver, which fired as Dewberry was in the backseat of a getaway car. Dewberry's lawsuit alleges that Yi behaved 'negligently and recklessly.'"
Friend falls on victim
A Scottish man who collapsed and "died" from a heart attack had his life saved – because his 210-pound friend accidentally fell on top of him, says The Daily Express. "The shock of the impact jump started Kevin Brockbank's heart and kept him alive until paramedics arrived to get him to hospital. Engineer Kevin's heart had stopped beating for a full minute when he suffered a massive coronary during a coffee break at work in a Dundee printing plant. Colleague Martin Amriding panicked and tried to grab his friend of 35 years – but as Kevin slumped to the floor he was dragged down with him. Slumped Martin fell on to Kevin's chest – and, amazingly, his heart started beating again. As Kevin recovered in hospital, doctors confirmed that Martin's fall had saved his life. … 'I felt awful when I fell on him,' [said Martin], 'because I thought I'd really hurt him. Then I found out I'd actually saved his life. I was gob-smacked.'"
Thought du jour
"Money … buys privacy, silence. The less money you have, the noisier it is; the thinner your walls, the closer your neighbours. … The first thing you notice when you step into the house or apartment of a rich person is how quiet it is."
Fran Lebowitz
American author (1950- )