Tina the tortoise has been given a lift after being fitted with a suspension system and a pneumatic tyre to help her cope with muddy terrain.

The three-legged reptile can now go ‘off-road’ after the 4x4-style system was attached to her shell.

Tina was fitted with a plastic wheel four years ago to replace her rear right leg.

But our increasingly warmer autumns mean Tina hibernates later in the year, leaving her battling to cope with muddy grass and slopes and dead leaves.

So the rudimentary wheel has now been replaced with an air-filled tyre and a spring suspension system with shock absorber.

Speedy Tina can now explore areas of her enclosure at Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire, which have been out of bounds to her in the past.

The spur thigh tortoise was donated to Longleat in 2002 when she seemed to be depressed because of her lack of manoeuvrability.

She rapidly recovered when the plastic wheel was fitted but it wore out and buckled over time as she tried to access rougher parts of her enclosure.
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The large rubber wheel and adapted axle were stuck on to Tina’s shell with an animal friendly adhesive.

Darren Beasley, the animal’s carer at Longleat, said: ‘The new system is incredible and allows Tina to go all over the place. She is one of the oldest tortoises we have here at Longleat but you would never know it. She is now among the fastest and certainly making the most of the warm weather prior to hibernating. And she can cope with any terrain – it’s amazing.’

The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (96%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (95%)
4. New Age (91%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (90%)
6. Reform Judaism (82%)
7. Theravada Buddhism (76%)
8. Bahá’í Faith (73%)
9. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (73%)
10. Jainism (69%)
11. Hinduism (67%)
12. New Thought (67%)
13. Sikhism (67%)
14. Taoism (62%)
15. Scientology (60%)
16. Secular Humanism (58%)
17. Orthodox Quaker (48%)
18. Orthodox Judaism (47%)
19. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (43%)
20. Islam (39%)
21. Nontheist (29%)
22. Seventh Day Adventist (22%)
23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (19%)
24. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (19%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (17%)
26. Roman Catholic (17%)
27. Jehovah’s Witness (10%)

Monolith Perhaps Largest Found in Mexico

Friday, October 13, 2006

(10-13) 17:12 PDT MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) —

Archaeologists announced Friday that a monolith discovered earlier this month near Mexico City’s main square is perhaps the largest ever unearthed in the city’s center.

The monolith, found on Oct. 2, is rectangular and measures nearly 13 feet on its longest side. The largest monolith from the city’s center until this latest discovery — the circular Piedra del Sol, or Aztec Calendar, unearthed in 1790 — has a diameter of 12 feet.
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The 24-ton Aztec Calendar stone, however, is nearly double the weight of the newcomer, which is estimated to be a mere 14 tons.

“It’s tough to say which is the biggest, because the Piedra del Sol (Aztec Calendar) weighs more, but its circular radius is not as long as this monolith’s largest side,” said Angel Romas, information director of the Templo Mayor Museum, which is collaborating with the archaeological team.
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The archaeological team thus far has removed 480 cubic feet of earth from the area around the top of the monolith. The group estimates that in order to be able to completely view the monolith, they need to remove another 13.5 cubic meters.

Pregnant women infected by cat parasite more likely to give birth to boys, say researchers

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Thursday October 12, 2006

Keep clear of the cat if you want baby girls. It sounds like the lamest of old wives’ tales, but according to scientists women infected with a common cat parasite give birth to more sons than daughters.

The parasite, toxoplasma, infects around 15% of Britons, but up to 80% of the population in some countries. It is spread by contaminated cat faeces, but also lurks in uncooked pork and beef.

Researchers in the Czech Republic collected medical records from 1,803 newborn babies between 1996 and 2004 and checked them for information on the mothers and babies including gender, the number of previous pregnancies, and the mother’s levels of toxoplasma antibodies.

They discovered that women whose antibody count was high - suggesting a substantial infection - had a much higher chance of having baby boys. In most populations the birth rate is around 51% boys, but women infected with toxoplasma had up to a 72% chance of a boy. Toxoplasma causes congenital defects in newborns and can trigger miscarriages, but a link with the gender of newborns has never been identified before.

Jaroslav Flegr and his team at Charles University in Prague believe the parasite may interfere with the immune systems of pregnant women and make it more likely for male embryos to survive.

Cat Lovers Lining Up for No-Sneeze Kitties

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: October 6, 2006

A small California biotech company says it is ready to deliver the Holy Grail of the $35 billion pet industry: a hypoallergenic cat.

At the start of next year, the first kittens — which the company calls “lifestyle pets” — will go home to eager owners who have been carefully screened and have been on a waiting list for more than two years.

Since it announced the project in October 2004, the company, Allerca, of San Diego, says it has received inquiries from people in 85 countries seeking to buy a cat bred so that its glands do not produce the protein responsible for most human cat allergies.

Cats ordered now will take 12 to 15 months for delivery in the United States, 15 to 18 months in Europe. Cost: $4,000. And owners must pass Allerca’s finicky screening tests.

Prospective buyers are interviewed for motivation and warmth, approved as if they were adopting a child. Will they punish if kitty has an accident on the floor or scratches the furniture? Their families and their homes — from carpets to curtains — must also be evaluated for allergies and allergens.

“You’re not just buying a cat; it’s a medical device that replaces shots and pills,” said Megan Young, chief executive of Allerca. “At the same time, this is a living animal, so the well-being of our product comes before our customers. This is not some high-priced handbag that you put back on the shelf if it doesn’t match.”
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Most human cat allergies are caused by Fel d 1, a molecule that has been sequenced and its gene mapped in the last decade. At first, Allerca scientists sought a method to delete or disable the gene.

But in testing to see whether the gene had been effectively silenced, they made a fortuitous discovery: A very small number of cats carry a mutant gene that produces a modified protein, far less likely to induce allergies.

At that point, the research shifted course. Allerca screened thousands of cats to identify a population with the modified gene and then set those cats to breeding. Because the mutant gene is dominant, the breeding cats could be mated with normal cats to produce hypoallergenic kittens. And no special licensing or government approvals were necessary.
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At 10 to 12 weeks, every Allerca kitten is neutered before it is delivered. The company insists this is mainly to prevent feline overpopulation. But every Allerca cat carries the dominant hypoallergenic gene and, in theory, could produce copycat hypoallergenic kittens.

Are you tired of those long endless nights, working extra phone sex shifts to pay for your tubs of organic hummous, and being constantly stymied by your inability to reach that last bag of pre-cut kale krisps in the back of the fridge while making $2.99/minute leading on johnny-come-slowly? Oh, if it weren’t for that damn short CORD on your telephone! If you were only free free free, you could be untethered, able to practice your interpretive dance routine while working, and finally get that arts scholarship at Fancy Tom’s School for Exploratory Arts Movement! But that CORD is holding you back, crushing your hopes, tangling them in little twisty knots. How will you ever achieve your Flashdance-esque dreams?

Well, this may be your lucky day! Free for your taking, a vtech cordless phone system running on 2.4 GHz digital! It’s got caller id so you can avoid your many stalkers from your mickey mouse club days, and even call waiting caller id so you can pick up calls from your stalkers from your playboy bunny club days. It even comes with an extra handset and charging base, although the handset doesn’t seem to work. But the charging base does! Feel the freedom! Do I leave the handset over here, or over there? Feel the panic as that crucial call from the academy admissions department comes in! Did I leave the handset over here? or over there?!?

yes, there you are, fresh back from burning man. oh, what a life-changing experience you had out there. so many friends, such great adventures, and the invigorating excitement of experiencing humanity at its most basic level. or at least at its burniest.

but now back in the “real” world, it’s hard to adjust. where’s the beating sun? where are the art installations? why is everyone wearing so many clothes? is my piss still clear? how can i reintegrate myself when i still feel like i’m carrying black rock city around with me all the time? oh, that damned playa dust everywhere, why won’t it leave me be? it’s in all my gear and clothes and naughty crevices, and i can’t get it out! if there were only some sort of machine that could take it away!

alas, my friends, you are saved.

for i have to offer you one miracle machine which will whisk your problems (playa dust) away. it’s a miracle of the modern technological world, called a vacuum cleaner, or more specifically, a hoover (hoov ‘er? i hardly know ‘er!) elite 350 upright. bagless? HELL NO. bag definitely required. you don’t want your memories and remnants just floating around all willy-nilly, do you? you want a BAG to carry them in. maybe to the dumpster. whatever.

included are also various hosey attachments. not included is you getting to tell me what you’re going to do with the hosey attachments.

think of it as a star-off machine, and you’re all black rock sneetches. which would make me mr. slyvester mcmonkey mcbean. except this machine is free. for you. because i love you. and you’re dirty.

TOKYO — A new dessert sold from a roadside stand in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district is drawing crowds with its unique taste — exactly like that of freshly fallen snow.

Ever eaten really good snow? The appeal isn’t in the flavor (it’s just frozen water) but in what food experts call the mouth-feel. This dessert, called xue-hua-bin (“snowflake ice”), replicates it perfectly: the dry, powdery, airy crystals that crunch lightly in your mouth before quickly melting.

The unique dessert had its origins in Taiwan’s nighttime street fairs, but is slowly making its way around the world. (One of the commenters on my blog found it in an Asian mall in Vancouver.) The Akihabara shop, called Snowflake Village, is the only place to get it in eastern Japan.
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Piled up on a plate, xue-hua-bin looks at first like a huge pile of ice cream — large by American standards, impossibly colossal by Japanese ones. But there’s actually plenty of air whipped into the heap of delicate, sweetened crystals.

The dessert comes from a yellow drum-like machine, about the size of a quarter-keg. Its innards are most likely the stuff of trade secrets. All I know is that when the clerk turns a large crank, the bottom of the drum undulates and shakes out the powdery treat.
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Another friend ordered the “Gold and Silver Treasure” — mango, drizzled with a yellow-orangey sauce and gooey fruit chunks. The clerk told us it’s the most popular style, loved by the host of the TV variety program Pittanko Can-Can.

IN the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.

The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.

Consider the parallels. The perpetrators of this spectacular assault were not in the pay of any foreign power: no nation would have dared to attack Rome so provocatively. They were, rather, the disaffected of the earth: “The ruined men of all nations,” in the words of the great 19th-century German historian Theodor Mommsen, “a piratical state with a peculiar esprit de corps.”

Like Al Qaeda, these pirates were loosely organized, but able to spread a disproportionate amount of fear among citizens who had believed themselves immune from attack. To quote Mommsen again: “The Latin husbandman, the traveler on the Appian highway, the genteel bathing visitor at the terrestrial paradise of Baiae were no longer secure of their property or their life for a single moment.”

What was to be done? Over the preceding centuries, the Constitution of ancient Rome had developed an intricate series of checks and balances intended to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a single individual. The consulship, elected annually, was jointly held by two men. Military commands were of limited duration and subject to regular renewal. Ordinary citizens were accustomed to a remarkable degree of liberty: the cry of “Civis Romanus sum” — “I am a Roman citizen” — was a guarantee of safety throughout the world.

But such was the panic that ensued after Ostia that the people were willing to compromise these rights. The greatest soldier in Rome, the 38-year-old Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known to posterity as Pompey the Great) arranged for a lieutenant of his, the tribune Aulus Gabinius, to rise in the Roman Forum and propose an astonishing new law.

“Pompey was to be given not only the supreme naval command but what amounted in fact to an absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone,” the Greek historian Plutarch wrote. “There were not many places in the Roman world that were not included within these limits.”

Pompey eventually received almost the entire contents of the Roman Treasury — 144 million sesterces — to pay for his “war on terror,” which included building a fleet of 500 ships and raising an army of 120,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Such an accumulation of power was unprecedented, and there was literally a riot in the Senate when the bill was debated.

Nevertheless, at a tumultuous mass meeting in the center of Rome, Pompey’s opponents were cowed into submission, the Lex Gabinia passed (illegally), and he was given his power. In the end, once he put to sea, it took less than three months to sweep the pirates from the entire Mediterranean. Even allowing for Pompey’s genius as a military strategist, the suspicion arises that if the pirates could be defeated so swiftly, they could hardly have been such a grievous threat in the first place.

But it was too late to raise such questions. By the oldest trick in the political book — the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as “soft” or even “traitorous” — powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned. Pompey stayed in the Middle East for six years, establishing puppet regimes throughout the region, and turning himself into the richest man in the empire.

Wambach leads rout with three goals
Associated Press

CARSON, Calif. — Abby Wambach had three goals and three assists to lead the United States to a 10-0 rout of Taiwan in a women’s soccer exhibition game Sunday.

Wambach moved into sixth place, passing Shannon MacMillan, on the U.S. career scoring list by increasing her total to 62 goals.

Lindsey Tarpley and Megan Rapinoe added two goals apiece, and Kristine Lilly had a goal and two assists in her 312th international game — an all-time appearance record for women or men.

Goalkeeper Briana Scurry did not need to make a save in getting her first shutout since the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Taiwan did not take a shot.

The United States scored four goals in the first 27 minutes. Leslie Osborne scored her first international goal in the eighth minute with a header off Lilly’s corner kick. Wambach followed in the 13th minute by converting Lilly’s right-wing crossing pass.

Tarpley added her goals in a 5-minute span. After goalkeeper Chen Yi-Ju blocked a short shot, Tarpley converted the rebound in the 22nd minute. Tarpley then scored in the 27th minute on a breakaway.