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Stone-age hunting today
"Late last month, Mike Huston crouched in a prickly pear patch," The Wall Street Journal says. "His blood-stained quiver - sewn from the hide of a deer he killed - was full of arrows fashioned from turkey feathers, wild plants and sharpened stones. … Mr. Huston, who goes by 'Hawk,' is at the forefront of a backward movement in the U.S.: Hunters are increasingly devolving, favouring crude hand-wrought weapons made with ancient methods. … Some use flint-tipped arrows for deer and coyotes, while other fell wild boar and alligators with rudimentary spears. With weapons of his own design, Mr. Huston, 41, has targeted elk and deer and impaled stingrays in the Gulf of Mexico. 'They taste like scallops,' he says."
Measuring kids' meals
"Health officials trying to reduce obesity and improve eating habits at five San Antonio, Tex., elementary schools unveiled a $2-million [U.S.]research project [last]Wednesday that will photograph students' lunch trays before they sit down to eat and later take a snapshot of the leftovers," says Associated Press. "A computer program then analyzes the photos to identify every piece of food on the plate - right down to how many ounces are left in that lump of mashed potatoes - and calculates the number of calories each student scarfed down. … The cameras, about the size of pocket flashlights, point only toward the trays and don't photograph the students. Researchers say about 90 per cent of parents gave permission to record every morsel of food their child eats."
Sensing plump fish
"Harbour seals can detect the fattest fish using just their whiskers, according to research," BBC News reports. "Tests with a trained seal have revealed that the animals can sense underwater objects, even with their hearing and sight restricted. The seal detected objects' sizes and shapes by sensing differences in the trail of disturbance they made in the water. Scientists suggest that seals use this ability to identify the best prey. Dr. Wolf Hanke and scientists from the Marine Science Centre at the University of Rostock, Germany, first showed how sensitive seals' whiskers were last year." Their findings have been published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
It's as dull as what?
"Soon to be extinct: one of the more hyperbolic compliments engendered by last century's technology - 'I could listen to her read the phonebook …'" writes Dennis Loy Johnson at Mhpbooks.com. "The what? The telephone book has long been employed rhetorically as the exemplar of dullness. And since to enliven such material requires great charisma - or, at least, an arresting voice - anybody who could claim your attention while reading the phonebook would have it no matter what she was doing. I spell this out because some of our younger readers won't remember having used a phonebook. They won't remember that phonebooks could be found in phone booths at every major intersection in the city; at the airports, and in the train stations - and in every bar."
Burglary hits prison
"Staff at an open prison in England learned lawbreakers can get in as well as out when they discovered tools missing from a workshop," says United Press International. "The burglary at the Sudbury Prison took place some time before 9 a.m. [last]Monday, the Derby Telegraph reported. In addition to tools, oxyacetylene tanks and hoses were missing. … Inmates returning from day release found the break-in funny, with one asking, 'How can they be expected to keep the prisoners in if they can't keep the burglars out?' Prison authorities were tight-lipped, saying only that the theft is a 'police matter.'"
A robber's senior moment
"A would-be bank robber who told a cashier to 'fill a bag with money' left empty-handed - because he forgot to bring a bag with him," says Orange News U.K. "The man walked into the bank in Okeechobee County, Fla., and handed the cashier a note … [instructing]the cashier to put cash in a bag - but she told the robber that she did not have a bag. … Eventually, he left the bank empty-handed and tried to escape on a bicycle he had hidden in nearby trees. However, the cashier activated the alarm and police arrested a 61-year-old man just seven minutes later."
Short form or long form?
"A fake census form that asks respondents things like what kind of drugs they take and the size of their sex organs is causing a furor in Germany," Aol.com reports. "The forms look like Germany's current 2011 census forms - which just went out [last]week - and have questions like 'Which drugs do you take?' with boxes marked with options like LSD or marijuana. Another question asks if the respondent has a breast or penis enlargement procedure. … 'These questions were all entirely fictitious; we wouldn't ask anything like that,' said Klaus Voy, census project manager at the Brandenburg-Berlin Office of Statistics.'"
Thought du jour
"No good neurotic finds it difficult to be both opinionated and indecisive."
- Mignon McLaughlin (1913-83), U.S. journalist