January 14, 2015

Top News Stories –

Space Panic Stations –
Crew members were evacuated from a US segment of the International Space Station when an ammonia leak was detected in the USA section of the craft forcing all the crew to evacuate the area. The six crew members put on breathing equipment and moved into the Russian segment after the alert at around 0900 GMT, closing the hatch to the US side behind them. NASA officials believe a computer problem is likely to have caused the false impression of leaking coolant.
STS-115 ISS after undocking

Pub Landlord takes on Nigel Farage –
British comedian Al Murray will stand against UKIP leader Nigel Farage at the general election in May using his character the Pub Landlord as a front. Murray, who has formed the Free United Kingdom Party (FUKP), will stand for election in Thanet South in Kent but said “Let it be known that like many of the parliamentary hopefuls in the forthcoming election, I have no idea where South Thanet is. But did that stop Margaret Thatcher from saving the Falkland Islands? No.”
Al Murray
Samsung launches Tizen –
Samsung’s first smartphones powered by its Tizen operating system have gone on sale. The Z1 handsets are only available in India and cost 5,700 rupees ($92 or £60) and have faster boot times and longer-lasting battery life than many budget-priced rivals. All other Samsung phones use the Android operating system.

Yosemite’s Dawn Wall finally scaled –

Tommy Caldwell, 36, and Kevin Jorgeson, 30, become the first climbers to successfully scale Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan mountain’s without bolts or climbing tools. The men have been ‘free-climbing’ the Dawn Wall to the 3,000-foot summit for 17 days, using only ropes only to prevent falling.

Video of the Day –


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January 1, 2016

Top News Stories –

Rat on a plane: Air India flight returns to Mumbai after rodent spotted on board –
An Air India plane flying to London was forced to return to Mumbai after passengers spotted a rat on board, the airline said on Thursday. Though the rat was not found, the pilot returned to Mumbai on Wednesday keeping passenger safety in mind, Air India said in a statement. Passengers were later flown by a separate aircraft to London. The aircraft would be fumigated and checked before it is returned to service. Maintenance workers would have to make sure that the rat did not damage equipment or chew any wires and the plane is certified to be rodent-free, an airline official said. [Daily Telegraph]

China’s new two-child policy law takes effect –
Married couples in China will from Friday (Jan 1) be allowed to have two children, after concerns over an ageing population and shrinking workforce ushered in an end to the country’s controversial one-child policy. The change, which was announced in October by the ruling Communist Party, takes effect from Jan 1, 2016, Beijing’s official Xinhua news agency reported over the weekend. The “one-child policy”, instituted in the late 1970s, restricted most couples to only a single offspring through a system of fines for violators and even forced abortions. For years, authorities argued that it was a key contributor to China’s economic boom and had prevented 400 million births. [Channel News Asia]

Video of the Day –

Philips Presents: The Longest Night from T Brand Studio on Vimeo.

List of the Day –

100 Things we didn’t know last year – by the BBC (1-33)

1. It costs £300 to operate on a constipated goldfish.

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2. Traditionally, police horses in England’s Thames Valley force can be called Odin, Thor or Hercules, but not Brian.

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3. Barack Obama calls David Cameron “bro”.

Find out more (Time)

4. The first sports bra was made from two jockstraps.

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5. One in 10 of Britain’s train carriages still flush toilet waste straight on to the railway tracks.

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6. Jamaica, Colombia and Saint Lucia are the only countries in the world where a woman is more likely to be a boss than a man.

Find out more (Washington Post)

7. You don’t have to speak French to become French-language Scrabble world champion.

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8. Kolo Toure, the Ivory Coast and Liverpool defender, hasn’t touched his own dog for seven years.

Find out more (Metro)

9. An egg can be unboiled.

Find out more (Metro)

10. There are four different ways to pronounce diplodocus, and the way children say it is probably more technically correct than the academics’ preferred option.

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11. A 51-year-old software engineer named Bryan Henderson has edited Wikipedia 47,000 times to remove the ungrammatical term “comprised of”.

Find out more (Backchannel)

12. Buzz Aldrin claimed $33.31 in travel expenses connected to his trip to the moon.

Find out more (Daily Telegraph)

13. Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond once played a ghost in a Bollywood soap opera.

Find out more (Buzzfeed)

14. “Let us turn ours into a country of mushrooms by making mushroom cultivation scientific, intensive and industrialised!” is an official slogan of North Korea.

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15. Roughly 56% of average monthly earnings in Malawi are spent on mobile phone charges, compared with about 0.11% in Macau, China.

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16. Quentin Tarantino still records films from TV on VHS cassettes.

Find out more (Independent)

17. Lollipop men and ladies who “high five” pedestrians may be breaching official protocol.

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18. Squid can fly – but they tend to do it under cover of darkness.

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19. It’s possible to trick the brain into thinking it can hear Mariah Carey sing All I Want For Christmas Is You.

Find out more (New Scientist)

20. King Arthur may have been Glaswegian.

Find out more (The National)

21. A man-sized lobster lived 480 million years ago.

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22. At Hotel Football, run by ex-Manchester United players, Gary Neville is represented in the bathroom by blackcurrant-extract shampoo while brother Phil is a bar of soap.

Find out more (Financial Times)

23. Vicars and priests have the highest job satisfaction of all UK workers.

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24. Narwhals’ long tusks – an exaggerated front tooth used for courtship – are super-sensitive.

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25. There is only one concert grand piano in Gaza.

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26. Boston in Lincolnshire is one of the most neurotic places in Great Britain while Orkney is one of the least.

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27. Michael Jackson made a series of prank calls to Russell Crowe.

Find out more (Guardian)

28. Breaking Bad is the show people most often lie about having watched.

Find out more (Radio Times)

29. The UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency does not permit the wearing of colanders on heads in driving licence photos, even for religious reasons.

Find out more (Daily Mirror)

30. People who swear have larger vocabularies.

Find out more (Toronto Sun)

31. The Queen likes to have her pre-lunch gin and Dubonnet in front of BBC Two’s The Daily Politics.

Find out more (Daily Mail

32. In September 1944 the New York Times explained pizza to its readers and included a rare use of its plural “pizze” – there was an earlier article but it only mentioned pizza in passing.

Find out more (New York Times)

33. There is little international trade in onions – about 90% are consumed in their country of origin.

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