True Stories of the World

[Barrow-wight aka MELLON]

;D ;D ;D ROFLMAO. This is so funny, Pina. Only after I finished my quick reading of your post I realized that there were couple of typing errors in it ! ;D ;D ;D Yet as the text said, it made complete sense, LOL.

[Pina]

Some scientists have waaaay too much time on their hands! ;D

World’s oldest genitals discovered

Fossils preserve 400 million-year-old daddy longlegs

LONDON, Sept. 17 — Scientists have discovered fossils of the world’s oldest genitals — belonging to 400 million-year-old insects — in ancient rocks in Scotland. The thingy of the ancient harvestmen insects, commonly known as a daddy longlegs, was two-thirds the length of the body and remarkably similar to the modern-day species, New Scientist magazine said Wednesday.
“THE DISCOVERY of the world’s oldest genitals proves that little has changed over the last 400 million years — at least for daddy longlegs,” the magazine said.
Jason Dunlop and a team of researchers from Humbolt University in Berlin, who will present their findings at a conference in Aberdeen, also uncovered a long egg-laying organ called an ovipositor from a female.
“As well as genitals, the fossils have the oldest known arachnid respiratory system, suggesting harvestmen’s ancestors had long since crawled out of the sea and learned to breathe,” the magazine said.
Harvestmen arachnids are sometimes mistaken for spiders, but they are more closely related to ticks or mites because they do not spin webs.
The previous oldest thingy, which dated back 100 million years and was found in Brazil, belonged an ostracod, an early crustacean related to crabs, shrimps and water fleas.

© 2003 Reuters Limited.

[Pina]

That is weird!

[Pina]

[Pina]

Keep your darn cucumbers: angry monkeys

Last Updated Wed, 17 Sep 2003 15:01:29

ATLANTA - Some monkeys have a sense of fairness and complain if they're getting a bum deal, primatologists say.

Researchers trained brown capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) to exchange a granite token for a cucumber treat.

If a monkey saw another capuchin received a better payoff, such as a grape, she would often show her disapproval by throwing a tantrum.

Sarah Brosnan and psychology Prof. Frans de Waal of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta studied 10 small primates from the forests of central and South America.

In field studies, scientists have found capuchins to be cooperative animals living in a tolerant society where they often share their food.

The researchers set up the captive female monkeys in pairs and took turns rewarding each one during 25 trials.

Monkeys won't stand for monkey business

They found if both monkeys received a piece of cucumber as a reward, the primates' behavior stayed the same.
But if one monkey received a grape, considered a more valuable prize, the other often refused to accept cucumber, threw it away or gave it to the other monkey.

"This effect is amplified when the partner does not have to work for the reward," Brosnan said in a release.

She said the findings may help explain why people often forgo a reward if they don't perceive it as fair. The seemingly irrational behaviour has baffled scientists and economists.

The researchers are now testing chimpanzees to see if they have the same sense of fair play.

The study appears in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Written by CBC News Online staff

Capuchin monkeys share a piece of food (Courtesy: Frans de Wall, Emory University)

[Pina]

Five-second food rule fails microbiology test

Last Updated Wed, 17 Sep 2003 7:36:01

CHICAGO - A high school senior in the U.S. has dealt a blow to the gastronomic principle known as the five-second rule.

The rule states if food falls on the floor and remains there for five seconds or less then it's fine to pick it up and polish it off.

Jillian Clarke of Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences put the rule to the test.

Clarke says the rule was started by Genghis Khan. He apparently considered food safe to eat so long as it had been on the floor for 20 hours or less.

As part of her seven-week internship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she tested the five-second rule around campus.

The researchers tested how many microorganisms transferred onto food from rough and smooth tiles. Gummy bears and fudge-type cookies were tested – the two-most commonly dropped and eaten snacks.

The campus floors were actually quite clean. They found fewer than 20 so-called colony-forming units of E. coli on the floors. The lower limit for detecting the microbes is 25 colony-forming units.

When the researchers purposely inoculated food with bacteria, they found it doesn't take long for the bugs to contaminate a morsel.

"People think if it made contact for only five seconds then it is OK to eat but it's false because if you do drop anything full of microorganisms such as E.coli, it will transfer and transfer immediately," Clarke told CBC Radio's As It Happens.

The texture of the food and floor tiles also made a difference, she found. Microbes transfer faster on smooth foods like gummy bears falling on smooth tiles compared to rough tiles or fudgey cookies.

Written by CBC News Online staff

E. coli easily stick to gummy bears