By Sarah Masker
Elm Staff Writer
1.) Skunks, deer and squirrels are the usual victims of road kill—birds usually escape thanks to the wonderful gift of flight. Wieble the “Window Eagle,” however, seems to have problems with directions. Apparently, the bald eagle was feeding on a dead deer and took off in the wrong direction when she heard a semi-truck approaching. Luckily, although she crashed through the windshield, she survived her 60 mile per hour collision without any broken bones. After a month in a Wyoming rehab center, where pulmonary issues and internal bleeding were treated, Wieble was released in her beautiful home of Bear Lake, Idaho. Msnbc.com
2.) Gotta go? Don’t. You’ll make better decisions. Researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands conducted a study on 500 college students, where the students drank either five cups of water or sipped a little from each cup. 40 minutes later, they were offered the choice of receiving $18 the next day or $30 in 25 days. Students who had drunk all five cups experienced higher bladder pressure and tended to wait for the $30, while the other group of students tended to choose the immediate reward. These findings, along with other tests, seem to indicate that a full bladder helps with impulse control as well. Msnbc.com
3.) The United Kingdom is just full of lake monsters. In addition to Scotland’s Nessie of Loch Ness, England’s Lake Windermere is home to the so-called “Bownessie,” named for the local town Bowness. Tom Pickles and Sara Harrington were kayaking on the lake when they snapped a photo of the possible sea monster moving through the water. Professional crytozoologists, who make a living out of studying unidentified animals, remain unconvinced. Paleontologist Alton Dooley explains, “I think it’s very easy to see things you don’t understand.” Sorry, Bownessie, but it looks like the world needs more than a cell phone picture to believe in your existence. Msnbc.om
4.) In elementary school classes, interactive lessons are often the most memorable. When an American history class at Chapelfield Elementary school in Ohio divided the students into slaves and masters, they definitely made a difficult-to-forget lesson. Nikko Burton, a ten year old African-American student assigned to the role of a slave, says, “After people were bidding on people it kind of made me a little mad and stuff.” After his mother complained to the school, a district spokeswoman explained that the one-time lesson was part of the state required curriculum. Aolnews.com
5.) Did the Icecreamists really think that naming their weird new flavor after Lady Gaga would make it sell better? Lady Gaga is suing the London ice cream parlor for “riding on the coattails” of her success with the new flavor “Baby Gaga,” which is made from human breast milk. Owner Matt O’Connor explains that he sees the name as more of a tribute, since, like the singer herself, the flavor sparks discussion. “Is it better if we use milk from cows injected with hormones…or human milk?” Lady Gaga calls the product “nausea inducing” and requests that the outlet “change the name of the ice cream to something which is not aurally, visually or conceptually similar to Lady Gaga” unless it wants a lawsuit. Aolnews.com
6.) In the Jiangsu province of eastern China, a road-expansion project turned into an archaeological dig when a 700 year old entombed mummy was discovered about six feet below the streets of Taizhou. When archaeologists from the Museum of Taizhou opened the coffin, they found a perfectly preserved corpse wearing a dress from the Ming Dynasty, which means she lived somewhere between 1368 and 1644. The corpse was so well preserved, even her eyelashes were intact. Aolnews.com
7.) Ah, the days of state skills tests. Wouldn’t it have been awesome to know the answers ahead of time? For Scott Mueller’s fifth-graders at Charles Seipelt Elementary School in Ohio, that was the case, as several students recognized questions on the math test from those that had been on the study guide Mueller had handed out the day before. Word spread throughout the school, and when district officials heard about it, Mueller was put on paid leave. When investigators concluded that Mueller had copied questions for both the fifth-grade math and science tests, he resigned. Usatoday.com
8.) “The Motorcycle Diaries” romanticized the motorcycle journey of two Argentines for the silver screen, but Alberto Granado, who accompanied revolutionary icon Ernesto “Che” Guevara on the famous journey, has recently died at the age of 88. The Argentine native, who travelled across Latin America in 1952, died of natural causes in Cuba, where he lived since 1961. The Cuban state-run television announced his death without any supplementary details. Abcnews.com
March 11, 2011
Volume LXXXI Issue 18