On a tour of Noura Lifschitz’s home in Tel Aviv, you’ll find some unexpected guests hanging out. Lifschitz opened her home to some 70 injured fruit bats and created a shelter where she and volunteers help nurse them back to health and release them back into the wild. Source: Reuters
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The birth order of brothers, says George Howe Colt, is just one of the things that cause them to be so different. History is full of brothers so different that it seems impossible they could have the same parents. A brief sampling through the ages might include the Arouets (Armand was a sanctimonious, evangelical Catholic; his younger brother Frangois-Marie, […]
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Spending evenings in front of a glowing computer, TV, or cellphone screen can put you at risk of depression, Science News reports. Nighttime exposure to light from gadgets has already been shown to contribute to insomnia, cancer, obesity, and diabetes. Now, a new study shows that screen glow can cause mood-related changes in the brain. For weeks, researchers exposed hamsters […]
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■ A World War II veteran was able to hear a symphony he wrote 67 years ago for the first time, when the U.S. Army Orchestra premiered it in Washington, D.C. Retired Col. Harold Van Heuvelen, 93, was inspired by his experiences as a soldier to write a symphony in 1945, but it languished on the shelf for decades and […]
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Kindergartner’s ABCs Help Save Dad’s Life A New Jersey kindergartner is being credited for saving his father’s life — and it’s because he knows the alphabet. Five-year-old Nathaniel Darcy Jr., who attends Newark’s North Star Public School, was on his way home from buying new school shoes when his father got violently ill behind the wheel of their car. Nathaniel’s […]
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A year ago, 37-year-old Australian truck driver Bill Morgan was crushed in a car accident and came close to dying. When his luck finally changed after winning a car on a scratch-off lottery ticket, the local media wanted to air his story. Well, it was during that reenactment that he got another surprise. The ticket he was scratching was yet […]
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■ Alec Baldwin has vowed to retreat from public life in a new article in which he denounces his gay critics, and calls former colleagues at MSNBC “boring” and “full of s—.” In an “as told to” screed in New York magazine, the actor insists he “never wanted” to host the ill-fated MSNBC show Up Late With Alec Baldwin, which […]
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Meet “Pepper,” said Richard Lawler in Engadget.com. Japanese telecom firm SoftBank unveiled a new, robot last week that it claims “can recognize human emotion” thanks to technology that allows it to “communicate through emotion, speech, or body language.” Pepper is also equipped with microphones and proximity sensors, and will feature upgradable software, allowing users to install apps and updates to […]
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■ A Good Samaritan from Macomb County, Mich., saved a baby’s life in a dramatic roadside rescue. Ryan Cornelissen, 21, was flagged down in his car by a man whose wife had just given birth on the way to the hospital. The man did not speak English well, but Cornelissen quickly saw that the baby wasn’t breathing. He dialed 911, […]
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The Antikythera Mechanism: The original mechanism apparently came out of the Mediterranean as a single encrusted piece. Soon afterward it fractured into three major pieces. Other small pieces have broken off in the interim from cleaning and handling, and still others were found on the sea floor by the Cousteau expedition. Other fragments may still be in storage, undiscovered […]
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