Some housekeeping.....
1. These 3D adverts came through my inbox last year but I managed to find them on a slideshow. Go Youtube.
1. These 3D adverts came through my inbox last year but I managed to find them on a slideshow. Go Youtube.
2. Longhorn tattoo shop in Oshawa closed by health officials. Up to 2,000 clients may have been exposed to HIV/Hepatitis.
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
From The Toronto Star:
Durham Region health authorities are urging as many as 2,000 people to get a blood test for HIV and hepatitis B and C over concerns they may have been exposed to unsterile equipment at an Oshawa body art studio.
The health department said yesterday that possible use of non-sterile equipment at Longhorn Custom Bodyart Studio could lead to transmission of infectious diseases. Anyone who received a tattoo or body piercing between Nov. 17, 2006, and Aug. 1 should see a doctor and be tested, said Ross MacEachern, manager of environmental health.
However, the risk of infection was "relatively low" and there was no evidence that anyone had been infected, he said.
Health inspectors closed the shop Aug. 1 after a routine visit led to "a more detailed investigation of the sterilization procedures," MacEachern said. Lab tests showed the machine used to sterilize multi-use instruments was malfunctioning on and off since November.
The store re-opened around 6 p.m. yesterday after a public health inspector gave the go-ahead, said Kim Towie, wife of owner Hugh Towie. She said five tests they were required to do last Friday all passed.
Towie said they were only aware of the machine malfunctioning early last month and a technician came out to fix it. "It was just a screw that needed adjustment. The temperature was supposed to reach 132 but it only got to 128."
She said the studio has never had a problem during 16 years in business. "We are a very clean shop. We scrub our tools thoroughly and sterilize everything. Our customers are number one."
It was the first time Durham authorities had closed a tattoo shop, MacEachern said, adding that such establishments are inspected at least once a year and usually more often. "Anything we deem to be an immediate risk to the public ... we close the place."
The owner is responsible for testing sterilizers monthly and keeping records to show health inspectors, according to MacEachern.
Tattooing and body piercing shops are not regulated or licensed.
The health department is working with the studio's owner to contact an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 clients, who will be urged to see a doctor "even if you are well."
MacEachern said anyone who received services from the Centre St. N. studio should call the health department "so we can provide information on the recommended follow-up tests required to help rule out any blood-borne diseases."
The Durham Region health department can be reached at 905-666-6241 or 1-800-841-2729.
From The Toronto Star:
Durham Region health authorities are urging as many as 2,000 people to get a blood test for HIV and hepatitis B and C over concerns they may have been exposed to unsterile equipment at an Oshawa body art studio.
The health department said yesterday that possible use of non-sterile equipment at Longhorn Custom Bodyart Studio could lead to transmission of infectious diseases. Anyone who received a tattoo or body piercing between Nov. 17, 2006, and Aug. 1 should see a doctor and be tested, said Ross MacEachern, manager of environmental health.
However, the risk of infection was "relatively low" and there was no evidence that anyone had been infected, he said.
Health inspectors closed the shop Aug. 1 after a routine visit led to "a more detailed investigation of the sterilization procedures," MacEachern said. Lab tests showed the machine used to sterilize multi-use instruments was malfunctioning on and off since November.
The store re-opened around 6 p.m. yesterday after a public health inspector gave the go-ahead, said Kim Towie, wife of owner Hugh Towie. She said five tests they were required to do last Friday all passed.
Towie said they were only aware of the machine malfunctioning early last month and a technician came out to fix it. "It was just a screw that needed adjustment. The temperature was supposed to reach 132 but it only got to 128."
She said the studio has never had a problem during 16 years in business. "We are a very clean shop. We scrub our tools thoroughly and sterilize everything. Our customers are number one."
It was the first time Durham authorities had closed a tattoo shop, MacEachern said, adding that such establishments are inspected at least once a year and usually more often. "Anything we deem to be an immediate risk to the public ... we close the place."
The owner is responsible for testing sterilizers monthly and keeping records to show health inspectors, according to MacEachern.
Tattooing and body piercing shops are not regulated or licensed.
The health department is working with the studio's owner to contact an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 clients, who will be urged to see a doctor "even if you are well."
MacEachern said anyone who received services from the Centre St. N. studio should call the health department "so we can provide information on the recommended follow-up tests required to help rule out any blood-borne diseases."
The Durham Region health department can be reached at 905-666-6241 or 1-800-841-2729.
3. Here's a neat video....lions vs. buffalo vs. crocodiles!
From Time Magazine and Youtube, video and article....
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Not that you ever planned to mess with a cape buffalo, but if you did, here's a thought: Don't - especially if the way you were going to do it was by picking on one of his kids.
Cape buffalo aren't usually the stuff of news, but in the last month they've become the heroes of blogs, newsgroups and fan sites, ever since YouTube posted a video that may be the hottest upload in web history that doesn't include a naked famous person or a politician saying something career-ending. The 8-min., 23-sec. clip is a three-act play of attack, counterattack and rescue shot three summers ago in Kruger National Park in South Africa and posted only this May. Since then, it has been viewed more than 3.8 million times_200,000 times in a single day this week_drawn more than 6,000 comments and been bookmarked as a fan favorite more than 20,000 times. And a single viewing of the thriller in Kruger (though you're unlikely to watch it just once) shows why.
The smackdown took place at an ordinary watering hole where a small herd of cape buffalo were drinking and idling, wandering dangerously close to a pack of concealed lions that either did not smell very lion-like or, more probably, were crouching deliberately upwind. On the other side of the hole, six tourists and a guide watched in a parked range vehicle. The lions waited until the buffalo got close enough and then pounced, seizing the baby and scattering the adults. That's usually a game-ender for a baby buffalo, but things got even worse for this one as he struggled backwards, splashed part way into the water, and got his hind legs snagged by a pair of crocodiles. He somehow yanked free of them, but remained in the jaws of the lions until suddenly the adult cape buffalos stormed back in much greater numbers, dispersed the lions and made off with the remarkably unharmed baby.
"The guide told us that in his 15 years of doing this he'd never seen anything like it," American tourist Jason Schlosberg tells TIME. Schlosberg shot still pictures of the battle while a travelling companion, Dave Budzinski, shot the now-famous video.
The response from the YouTubers was less measured.
"Mess with one bean, you get the whole burrito," one posted.
"This is a disgrace for the lion family! Beaten by a cow!" said another.
Still others saw a larger message in the encounter. "A democratically elected government formed the LEMA (Lion Emergency Management Agency) which takes a little time to organize, but seems to come through in the end. We could learn something here."
"Majority rule, plain and simple," was how another put it.
Human geopolitics aside, what many wanted to know was just how common this kind of gang war is among species. Does such comparatively organized thrust and counterthrust occur routinely in nature, or were these unusually clever critters?
Certainly the battle for dinner between the lions and crocs was nothing unusual. Plenty of animals subscribe to the are-you-going-to-finish-that? school of eating, rarely waiting for the answer before trying to help themselves to someone else's meal. Even top predators like big jungle cats may spend as much time defending a kill as eating it, one of the reasons some of them will carry a carcass up into a tree before tucking in.
"It's common for two species to fight over a third. That's not unusual," says veterinarian and animal behaviorist Katherine Houpt of Cornell University.
What really surprised and delighted web viewers was the cavalry charge of the returning buffalos, who put themselves in the path of the predators to save the good-as-gone baby. Cape buffalo, after all, are not the MacArthur Fellows of the animal world. They're lumbering, quarrelsome and predictable in their movements and, says Houpt, "40% of them wind of them up in the belly of lions." But that means 60% don't, and the rescue that the Kruger group pulled off was actually nothing particularly special among herding species.
"These kinds of animals collaborate all the time," says the University of Pennsylvania's Sue McDonnell, also an animal behaviorist and vet. "The larger herd is broken down into smaller harems, with a domanant male and several females and their babies. If a youngster is threatened, both the harem males and bachelor males_which usually fight with one another_will get together to try to rescue it." You don't even have to travel to Africa to see such herbivorous first-responders at work. McDonnell specializes in studying wild horses and has occasionally seen the rough_sometimes lethal_treatment feral dogs receive when they're foolish enough to spook the group. Huzzahs for the heroism of the Kruger buffalos are fine for the web crowd, but for the herding males themselves, it's just part of the job description.
One question that's not answered_and probably not answerable_by either the video or the scientists is how well the beaten-up baby fared after the cameras stopped rolling. Certainly the right bite to the neck would have caused the baby to bleed out fast_which did not appear to happen_and the right hold on its hind legs would have broken them, making it impossible for him to trot back to the herd as he did. Buffalo hide is tough, and perhaps this baby was even tougher and scrappier than most_or perhaps the crocs and lions simply had their B-teams out that day. Whatever the answer, one of the best thing about the alternate-reality, user-driven world of the Web is the freedom it provides_in the absence of alternative evidence_to invent the endings we'd like to see. Judging by the 6,000-plus responses, in the YouTube world at least, the baby's doing just fine.
Not that you ever planned to mess with a cape buffalo, but if you did, here's a thought: Don't - especially if the way you were going to do it was by picking on one of his kids.
Cape buffalo aren't usually the stuff of news, but in the last month they've become the heroes of blogs, newsgroups and fan sites, ever since YouTube posted a video that may be the hottest upload in web history that doesn't include a naked famous person or a politician saying something career-ending. The 8-min., 23-sec. clip is a three-act play of attack, counterattack and rescue shot three summers ago in Kruger National Park in South Africa and posted only this May. Since then, it has been viewed more than 3.8 million times_200,000 times in a single day this week_drawn more than 6,000 comments and been bookmarked as a fan favorite more than 20,000 times. And a single viewing of the thriller in Kruger (though you're unlikely to watch it just once) shows why.
The smackdown took place at an ordinary watering hole where a small herd of cape buffalo were drinking and idling, wandering dangerously close to a pack of concealed lions that either did not smell very lion-like or, more probably, were crouching deliberately upwind. On the other side of the hole, six tourists and a guide watched in a parked range vehicle. The lions waited until the buffalo got close enough and then pounced, seizing the baby and scattering the adults. That's usually a game-ender for a baby buffalo, but things got even worse for this one as he struggled backwards, splashed part way into the water, and got his hind legs snagged by a pair of crocodiles. He somehow yanked free of them, but remained in the jaws of the lions until suddenly the adult cape buffalos stormed back in much greater numbers, dispersed the lions and made off with the remarkably unharmed baby.
"The guide told us that in his 15 years of doing this he'd never seen anything like it," American tourist Jason Schlosberg tells TIME. Schlosberg shot still pictures of the battle while a travelling companion, Dave Budzinski, shot the now-famous video.
The response from the YouTubers was less measured.
"Mess with one bean, you get the whole burrito," one posted.
"This is a disgrace for the lion family! Beaten by a cow!" said another.
Still others saw a larger message in the encounter. "A democratically elected government formed the LEMA (Lion Emergency Management Agency) which takes a little time to organize, but seems to come through in the end. We could learn something here."
"Majority rule, plain and simple," was how another put it.
Human geopolitics aside, what many wanted to know was just how common this kind of gang war is among species. Does such comparatively organized thrust and counterthrust occur routinely in nature, or were these unusually clever critters?
Certainly the battle for dinner between the lions and crocs was nothing unusual. Plenty of animals subscribe to the are-you-going-to-finish-that? school of eating, rarely waiting for the answer before trying to help themselves to someone else's meal. Even top predators like big jungle cats may spend as much time defending a kill as eating it, one of the reasons some of them will carry a carcass up into a tree before tucking in.
"It's common for two species to fight over a third. That's not unusual," says veterinarian and animal behaviorist Katherine Houpt of Cornell University.
What really surprised and delighted web viewers was the cavalry charge of the returning buffalos, who put themselves in the path of the predators to save the good-as-gone baby. Cape buffalo, after all, are not the MacArthur Fellows of the animal world. They're lumbering, quarrelsome and predictable in their movements and, says Houpt, "40% of them wind of them up in the belly of lions." But that means 60% don't, and the rescue that the Kruger group pulled off was actually nothing particularly special among herding species.
"These kinds of animals collaborate all the time," says the University of Pennsylvania's Sue McDonnell, also an animal behaviorist and vet. "The larger herd is broken down into smaller harems, with a domanant male and several females and their babies. If a youngster is threatened, both the harem males and bachelor males_which usually fight with one another_will get together to try to rescue it." You don't even have to travel to Africa to see such herbivorous first-responders at work. McDonnell specializes in studying wild horses and has occasionally seen the rough_sometimes lethal_treatment feral dogs receive when they're foolish enough to spook the group. Huzzahs for the heroism of the Kruger buffalos are fine for the web crowd, but for the herding males themselves, it's just part of the job description.
One question that's not answered_and probably not answerable_by either the video or the scientists is how well the beaten-up baby fared after the cameras stopped rolling. Certainly the right bite to the neck would have caused the baby to bleed out fast_which did not appear to happen_and the right hold on its hind legs would have broken them, making it impossible for him to trot back to the herd as he did. Buffalo hide is tough, and perhaps this baby was even tougher and scrappier than most_or perhaps the crocs and lions simply had their B-teams out that day. Whatever the answer, one of the best thing about the alternate-reality, user-driven world of the Web is the freedom it provides_in the absence of alternative evidence_to invent the endings we'd like to see. Judging by the 6,000-plus responses, in the YouTube world at least, the baby's doing just fine.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
WHATS CRACKIN, CRACKER??!?!?!?