News

Sausage and mash

A British cash machine company has introduced Cockney rhyming slang to a number of its ABMs. People using Bank Machine's ABMs in East London can choose to have their instructions given to them in rhyming slang, BBC News reports. Customers will be asked to enter their Huckleberry Finn, rather than their pin, and will have to select how much sausage and mash – or cash – they want. The company plans to test the slang option in five cash machines for three months.

Source: Ananova.com

Lightning and nails

“Lightning bolts could help create artificial organs, according to new research by scientists at Texas A&M University. An electrically charged block of plastic gives way to a series of tunnel-carving lightning bolts when a nail is driven into it. Adding human blood vessel cells to the tunnels could create a template upon which an artificial organ could grow. ‘One of the biggest problems in tissue engineering is how to create a vascular network to feed the growing tissue,' said Arul Jayaraman, a professor at Texas A&M who, along with his colleague Victor Ugaz, co-authored the study that appears in the journal Advanced Materials. … With each strike of the hammer, lightning streaks through the block and exits through the nail, leaving tiny tunnels in its wake.” These tunnels, which connect with each other, are remarkably similar to the capillary system inside the human body. The entire process takes only a few seconds.

Source: MSNBC.com

Brain workouts

The brain is more complicated than muscle, and keeping it busy doesn't necessarily make it stronger, says Liz Zelinski, a professor of gerontology and psychology at the University of Southern California. “According to Zelinski, a brain game or any other activity can't improve thinking or turn back the mental clock unless it's both challenging and novel enough to build new connections between brain cells. Crossword puzzles and sudoku can be fun, she says, but they mainly make use of old connections that people already have. The challenge for brain trainers is to go beyond typical games and brain teasers to give the brain the type of exercise it needs to really grow.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

Thanks, mom

An 80-year-old West Tennessee woman and her son are being held in jail after police said she shot at them when they came to arrest the man, Associated Press reports. Sheriff Melvin Bond said the elderly woman fired several shots at officers Friday night, in a standoff that began when deputies tried to capture her 60-year-old son. The Jackson (Tenn.) Sun reported four deputies went to the woman's mobile home on a tip that her son was there. They heard the man talking inside and, when they knocked on the door, the woman opened it, slammed it shut and fired a shot through it. Two more shots were fired during the hour-long standoff. The man was found hiding in a closet.

Bleached parrots

“Illegal wildlife traffickers in Argentina are bleaching the plumage of common parrots and passing them off as their rarer and more valuable cousins,” The Times of London reports. “Wildlife groups say the burrowing parrot, a breed that inhabits most of the country's territory, is being captured in large numbers and dyed in order to give it the appearance of a much rarer Amazon species that can fetch at least double the price on the thriving black market. The bird, which has an olive-green back, blue wings and a yellow belly with a red stain, is given a hydrogen peroxide bath to give it the appearance of a blue-and-yellow macaw, which has a much higher price tag of up to $530 [U.S.].”

Dinner's on her

“Adventurous Londoners are now able to eat sushi off naked female models – but the cost of sampling the traditional Nyotaimori experience comes at a high cost,” The Daily Telegraph reports. “Nyotaimori – translated as ‘female body presentation' – has been the preserve of the Japanese elite for generations, but now an enterprising British duo has introduced it to London. Despite the credit-crunch-defying price of £250 [$440] per head, founder Nigel Carlos said there was a ‘need in the market for it.' … He admitted the high price tag – which includes champagne on arrival, a 10-course authentic sushi dinner prepared by a genuine Japanese chef, all eaten off the female body, and unlimited alcohol – limited the number of people who could partake in it.”

Thought du jour

“We may pretend that we're basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”

– Terry Hands, British theatre and opera director