Time is endless, though limited...

Intelligent Life:

This must shock the pro-abortionists: Fetuses found to have memories - Washington Times

Foetus that are 30 week old have short-time memory, and those just 4 weeks older than them, 34 week old foetus can recall things four weeks later!

"It seems like every day we find out marvelous new things about the development of unborn children. We hope that this latest information helps people realize more clearly that the unborn are members of the human family with amazing capabilities and capacities like these built in from the moment of conception," said Randall K. O'Bannon, director of education and research for the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund.

We were talking in this blog about lower heart-rate and longevity, and here is another place where lowering your heart rate helps you- lower heart-rates help Penguins survive extreme cold- Live Science

For example, one study revealed that diving emperor penguins have heart rates significantly lower than that of their heart rates at rest. During one emperor penguin’s impressive 18-minute dive, its heart rate decreased to as low as three beats per minute, with a rate of six beats per minute lasting for over five minutes during the dive. As heart rate is a very good indicator of how much oxygen is utilized, decreased heart rates during dives correspond to conservation of oxygen, enabling the animals to dive for a longer time.

Heard about the African Tree Lizard that floats like a feather?- EurekAlert

But how was the tiny tree lizard able to remain airborne for so long?

...Curious to find out why the tree lizard is so light, Herrel contacted Renaud Boistel, Paul Tafforeau and Vincent Fernandez at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility to scan all three lizards' bodies. Visualising the animals' skeletons with X-rays, it was clear that the tree lizard's bones were packed full of air spaces, making the lizard's skeleton feather light for gliding.

via http://jeb.biologists.org

Dumb People:

Website survives by helping people write hoax death news that look true- New York Times.

By the week’s end, the celebrity death toll had turned into a conga line. Harrison Ford had gone down in a capsized yacht in St-Tropez; George Clooney’s private plane had nose-dived somewhere in Colorado. Miley Cyrus? Car accident. Natalie Portman? That tricky cliff in New Zealand. Ellen DeGeneres, Britney Spears and the comedian Louie Anderson were allegedly R.I.P., too.

...Twitter may have been the messenger, but most of the rumors did not originate there. The hoax trifecta of Mr. Goldblum, Mr. Ford and Mr. Clooney started at a prank Web site called Fake a Wish, which offers visitors a template to generate outlandish stories about the actor or actress of their choice. Think of it as macabre Mad Libs for the crowdsourcing era.

It works like this: a user enters a celebrity’s name and is given a list of fake news stories to choose from — the celebrity can die by plane, yacht or cliff, or be hospitalized after a traffic altercation. The user must choose whether the victim is male or female.

From there, the prankster is directed to a site called Global Associated News, where a vaguely plausible story appears, ready to be e-mailed, linked to and instant-messaged. A disclaimer at the bottom of the page reveals that the content is “100% fabricated.”

The Borat of this particular Web site is Rich Hoover, a 37-year-old Atlanta resident who parlayed his information-technology expertise into a modest empire of 20 Web sites, including Global Associated News and a YouTube-style pornography site. He is proud to say that he makes money off of his sites (through advertising) and generates all the death hoax stories himself.

And in case you didn't know- In the German capital, Berlin, 36% of children are considered poor- BBC

If you want to know what child poverty looks like in Germany, do not go onto the streets; go into homes, into living rooms and talk to people like the Thiel family.

Twelve-year-old Jasmin Thiel and her twin brother Florian do not look poor.

They have a DVD player and a colour TV. Jasmin is clutching a mobile phone.

Much of what this Berlin family owns, from their furniture to their clothes, has been handed out by local charities.

Dumb is nothing new for Man- 5300 year-old iceman has 57 tattoos- Discovery

The 57 tattoos sported by Oetzi, the 5300-year-old Tyrolean iceman mummy, were made from fireplace soot that contained glittering, colorful precious stone crystals, according to an upcoming study in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

And here's the ice-woman, thanks to her son who kept her refrigerated- Fox News

An upstate New York man has admitted he stuffed his 98-year-old dead mother in a freezer so he could keep cashing her Social Security checks.

State police discovered Herta Auslander's body in a freezer in October after receiving a tip she'd died more than a year earlier. An autopsy concluded she died of natural causes.

Prosecutors say 69-year-old Rosland Auslander kept his mother in the freezer for at least 18 months at his home in the hamlet of Cooks Falls, about 100 miles northwest of New York City.

Talking of scams, this one takes the cake: Man who was charged with issuing bogus checks posted a bond- forged, of course: Daily Herald

One of two Chicago men accused of trying to buy close to $400,000 worth of cars with bogus checks may have dug the hole he is in a little deeper.

During his arraignment on forgery charges Thursday, it was revealed that Torrez Moore, 49, apparently sent a similar check to Circuit Clerk Sally Cofelt's office in an attempt to post his bond. The check was made out for the full $250,000 bond set in his case instead of the 10 percent of that amount people normally have to post.

Clever Thoughts:

On questions of the probability of collisions, randomness and what is special about the number 867-5309: The Numbers Guy has the answers.

If you are someone who likes numbers and want to have a look at the stories behind them, this blog at Wall State Journal is the place to go. Maths made easy, Statistics made relevant- look it up when you are feeling dull.

Here’s a reading list related to prior Numbers Guy columns and blog posts:

Objects kept crashing into each other in unlikely settings earlier this year, which prompted me to analyze the probability of so many collisions. One of these collisions involved two space satellites. At The Space Review, Brian Weeden sorts through disparate numbers about just what’s in orbit. One problem: The original cataloging systems may not be big enough to encompass all orbiting objects, a problem in other numbering systems that can outlive their usefulness.

But, We are what We are, so:

Time is endless, though limited, eternity is in the split moment of the now. We miss it because the mind is ever shuttling between the past and the future. It will not stop to focus the now. It can be done with comparative ease, if interest is aroused.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Be Happy.