Snake head in food rattles diner at NY restaurant

A diner at a T.G.I. Friday’s in upstate New York says he got a little something extra with his broccoli — a severed snake head. Jack Pendleton says he was at the restaurant in Clifton Park on Sunday when he spotted something gray mixed in with his vegetables. He realized it was a snake head the size of his thumb, with part of the spine still attached.

Pendleton says he snapped a photo with his cell phone camera and called the waiter over. He says he has no plans to sue.

A spokeswoman for the Carrollton, Texas, chain says it’s investigating. It wasn’t immediately known what kind of snake it was.

Pendleton and his girlfriend weren’t charged for their meals.

via Snake head in food rattles diner at NY restaurant.

I once got a cooked wasp in my rice.  I stayed away from the place for a few years after that.

Math buffs awed by Odd Day

For the mathematically challenged, Thursday’s date, 5/7/09, is one of only six this century that will feature three consecutive odd numbers.

Numbers lovers say the rare occurrence is an excuse to celebrate.

“The previous stretch of six dates like this started with 1/3/1905 — 13 months after the Wright Brothers’ flight,” said Ron Gordon, the Redwood City teacher who enthusiastically promotes these numerical holidays, like Square Root Day on 3/3/09.

Gordon is offering a prize of $579 to those who celebrate the date with the most zeal or who get the most people involved in an Odd Celebration.

via Math buffs awed by Odd Day.

Cow wins free pass after escaping slaughter in NYC

A cow escaped death when it fled a New York City slaughterhouse on Wednesday, running through the streets before being corralled by mounted police.

The escape appears to have earned the cow a free pass — it will be turned over to an animal care agency rather then sent back to the slaughterhouse in the New York City borough of Queens, police said.

via Cow wins free pass after escaping slaughter in NYC.

Stem Cell Powder Re-grows Limbs

From nih.govThe McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine at The University of Pittsburgh and the Brook Army Medical Center are trying to make at least one of the tales of science fiction a reality for modern soldiers who have lost a part of their body in service to their country.

The experimental procedure involves a powder, make from the adult stem cells found in pigs bladders, to try and regenerate lost limbs. The powder is called an extra cellular matrix, a tool that is used by surgeons to aid in healing. The hope is that the powder can be used to attract other types of cells from the effected area of the body and regenerate a lost limb or digit in another area of the body.

This idea is based on the discovery that stem cells will grow to be the type of tissue that they are placed next to. Stem cell research first began in 1998 at the University of Wisconsin, making this the 10th year of stem cell research.

via Stem Cell Powder Re-grows Limbs.

Possible Alien UFO retrieved in Japan

Sketchy details are emerging of an event that took place near the city of Tokushima on Shikoku Island in the Southern part of Japan last year.

By all accounts in the early evening of July 16 last year a small technological object or UFO was seen losing control and hurtling to earth. On impacting earth a loud explosion was heard and smoke and fire were seen coming from the spot of impact. Numerous witnesses, both on the ground and in nearby planes, saw the craft descend. One witness alleges the craft shaved a nearby bridge prior to crashing. The Japanese Defence Ministry initially confirmed that it could not identify the craft.

Shortly after impact the entire area swarmed with rescue squads and ground crews. Locals also noted numerous very low-flying military type planes in the skies above area shortly after the event. The spot where the UFO hit earth was sealed off and after initial reports of the event and panic amongst locals the incident was hushed up and blacked-out by the media.

While it is difficult to find any articles on the topic that haven’t been removed from the internet All News Web has been able to write this article based on articles posted on Japanese UFO forums and the many remnant trails of old articles (see example in source below). Obviously the story remains rather clouded. The above unconfirmed photo is appearing on forums and is claimed by some to show the event as it happened (Editors note:This photo has since been discredited).

Japanese UFO buffs are convinced that an alien or extraterrestrial UFO was carted away from the scene and numerous proofs of this are being put forward including power failures in the area at the time. Some are suggesting that EBEs (Aliens) were taken from the area as well.

No doubt the question will be asked for a long time: Did a UFO crash in Japan last year and why was the whole incident so hushed up?

via All News Web – Breaking News: Possible Alien UFO retrieved in Japan, photo.

Sacramento Teen Tops More Than 300,000 Texts In Month

She logged more than 300,000 text messages in one month.

“My friends said, ‘Text your little thumbs off’,” Crystal Wiski said.

“Thank God for free texting,” added her mother, Jacki Wiski.

Jacki Wiski said she just bought the iPhone for her daughter a month ago.

“I get cramps,” Crystal Wiski said of her habit.

Needless to say, it didn’t take long for her to get used to it.

Her mother is amazed by the number of texts.

“Oh my God, that’s unbelievable,” Jacki Wiski said. “She must text while she’s sleeping.”

“I am popular. I can’t help it,” Crystal Wiski added.

To put 303,000 text messages into perspective: that’s more than 10,000 text messages a day, 421 messages an hour and seven texts a minute.

KCRA 3 even timed her.

“I don’t talk on the phone that much,” Crystal Wiski said.

Jacki Wiski said despite her daughter’s addiction, it doesn’t stop her from holding down a full-time job. It also has not affected her grades.

“She has a 40-hour-a-week job and straight As,” Jacki Wiski said. … If you calculate the more than 300,000 text messages at 10 cents a text, she would owe more than $30,000. Unlimited texting has definitely helped in this case.

via Teen Tops More Than 300,000 Texts In Month – Sacramento News Story – KCRA Sacramento.

West Virginia Woman Wins Lottery for the Fifth Time

Since September, the 59-year-old South Charleston woman has won five West Virginia Lottery cash prizes, totaling $167,600.

All of Bailey’s winnings came from the Lottery’s instant games. Her latest win is her biggest — the $100,000 top prize in the Price is Right game.

Bailey claimed that prize Tuesday. Her other winnings from various instant games include $50,000 in April, $1,000 in March, $6,000 in January and $10,000 in September.

Lottery Director John Musgrave says none of his staff can recall a similar streak of luck.

via FOXNews.com – West Virginia Woman Wins Lottery for the Fifth Time – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News.

Pressure on web ‘brothels’

Tough-talking attorneys general are pushing for policing and even the complete shutdown of online “brothels” hosted by Craigslist and the Boston Phoenix on thinly veiled sex-for-hire sites in the wake of the murder of an erotic masseuse in Boston.

“We have the horrific evidence that bad people use these services. We have to do more together,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch, president of the National Association of Attorneys General.

The online sites contain graphic, descriptive ads for sexually oriented services. One from “Chelsea” on the Phoenix Web site offers “sensual body rubs” and fetish services at $225 an hour. On Craigslist Boston, “Bella” offers sessions with a “mind-blowing ending.”

The Phoenix has for years offered the adult services ads in its free weekly print editions as well.

But law enforcement has tread lightly on such ad services until now, citing First Amendment issues as well as difficulty in applying criminal statutes to them.

“I don’t believe we have the authority to shut them down. We recognize it’s a problem . . . and the solution has to be at the federal level,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. “Craigslist, like the Phoenix, advertises what is illegal activity. . . . It’s almost impossible to police.”

But after the murder of Julissa Brisman, 26, in a Boston hotel by accused Craigslist killer Philip Markoff, 23, last month, attorneys general are pushing for change.

Top prosecutors in Connecticut and South Carolina announced yesterday they’re ready to drag down online sites that give sleazy sex services an advertising platform – and put escorts, masseuses and other workers in danger.

“The time for talking is over. Prosecution is the only thing some people understand,” South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster told the Herald.

via Pressure on web ‘brothels’ – BostonHerald.com.

Absurd. What next? Will McMaster ban bathrooms because hookers advertise on the walls?

Dinosaurs ‘were wiped out by volcanoes in India’

For the last thirty years scientists have believed a giant meteorite that struck Chicxulub in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula was responsible for the mass extinction of species, including T Rex and its cousins.

But now Professor Gerta Kellera, a geologist at Princeton University, New Jersey, says fossilised traces of plants and animals dug out of low lying hills at El Penon in north east Mexico show this event happened 300,000 years after the dinosaurs disappeared.

Prof Keller believes instead that volcanoes might have killed the dinosaurs.

“Now we find that another catastrophe, which is Deccan Volcanism, which has not had much attention paid to it, may be the real culprit,” she said.

The volcanic eruptions happened on India’s Deccan plateau between 63 and 67 million years ago, spewing large amounts of sulphur dioxide into the air.

Prof Keller, whose findings are published in the Journal of the Geological Society of London, said: “Not a single species went extinct as a result of the Chicxulub impact.”

She said the meteorite, despite having a diameter spanning six miles, seems to have had no effect on any of the plant and animal life of the region whereas the volcanic eruptions could have blocked sunlight, altered climate and caused acid rain.

But she does not believe her research, which has taken twenty years, will stop the raging debate at the heart of the demise of the dinosaurs.

“The decades old controversy over the cause of the mass extinction will never achieve consensus,” she said.

Understanding what caused the dinosaurs to disappear remains a great mystery

y.Theheories attempting to explain it include asteroid or cometary impacts, volcanoes, global climate change, rising sea levels and supernova explosions.

via Dinosaurs ‘were wiped out by volcanoes in India’ – Telegraph.

Youtube Cares More About Copy Rights Than Human Rights?