Yes … Now Even Your Houseplants can Twitter

Pothos has thousands of followers and gives regular updates. Pothos … is also a plant. A built-in moisture meter relays messages about the plant’s current state in order to remind its owner when it needs watering. This is, one has to admit, a potentially wonderful innovation for those of us with thumbs that are anything but green. Still, Twitter is all the rage these days, sure, but plants Twittering? Has this fad gone too far?

Are you slowly killing your houseplants? Is it because you’re too busy Twittering? THEN HAS THE INTERNET GOT THE SOLUTION FOR YOU!

Delectable But Deadly Cupcakes

Craftster user Lethargic made these back in October for the season premiere of Dexter, but other clever Craftsters immediately came up with lots of other uses for them (divorce party). The actual cake is red velvet (my favorite, yum) with butter cream icing tinted to look like a skin tone, and the little knives are made out of piped white chocolate. Genius.

And Crafter member Choleblack made these simple yet brilliant cupcakes for Halloween. You could also use them for a Twilight party (not my thing, but have at it if it’s yours) or a True Blood premiere party. Or just for fun if you’re kind of creepy like me.

A Chicken in Every Pothole

Is this a great way to save public funds or a step down the slippery slope? KFC wants to fix potholes in city roads, then paint the company’s name on top. They’ve already begun work in Louisville, and have offered the service to other cities.

But Brian Steele, a spokesman for the Chicago Department of Transportation, which is charged with repairing the city’s potholes, said “We don’t allow any type of printing or advertising placed on a city street or sidewalk.”

He said the city was looking to promote and seek support for its own pothole repair program, and said they’ve been “in discussion” with an advertising firm for more than months about the idea.

As for the KFC offer, Steele said the city first learned of it Wednesday. “Were looking into it [the KFC offer]…..Until we learn more we don’t know how it stacks up.”

The KFC offer is part of its “Fresh Tastes Best” advertising campaign

Jane Elliott’s Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Experiment on Racism

Photo: Charlotte Button

After Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, school teacher Jane Elliott wanted to teach her third-grade class about racism. Rather than a lengthy discussion about it, she decided to show the 8-year-olds what racism is all about in a famous “experiment”:

With King shot just the day before in Memphis, Elliott encouraged her third-graders to discuss how something so horrible could happen.

“I finally said, ‘Do you kids have any idea how it feels to be something other than white in this country?’ ”

The children shook their heads and said they wanted to learn, so Elliott set the rules. Blue-eyed children must use a cup to drink from the fountain. Blue-eyed children must leave late to lunch and to recess. Blue-eyed children were not to speak to brown-eyed children. Blue-eyed children were troublemakers and slow learners.

Within 15 minutes, Elliott says, she observed her brown-eyed students morph into youthful supremacists and blue-eyed children become uncertain and intimidated.

Brown-eyed children “became domineering and arrogant and judgmental and cool,” she says. “And smart! Smart! All of a sudden, disabled readers were reading. I thought, ‘This is not possible, this is my imagination.’ And I watched bright, blue-eyed kids become stupid and frightened and frustrated and angry and resentful and distrustful. It was absolutely the strangest thing I’d ever experienced.”

One Small Leap For Owl

…One Giant Leap For Owlkind!

Steven Waterhouse of Plympton, Devon was walking along a nature trail near his home when he spotted this tawny owl on a fence post. He grabbed his camera and clicked just as the owl levitated off the post and into the air.

This photo, along with other wildlife photos by Mr. Waterhouse, will be used by the UK’s National Trust as part of an exhibition of his work.

“It was just one of those very rare moments when you capture the essence of a beautiful creature.”
– Steven Waterhouse

130-year-old Woman?

Sakhan Dosova of Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan has documents that say she will celebrate her 130th birthday on Friday. Census officials discovered that her documents all agree that her birthdate is March 27, 1879. Records show she was on the books as 47 years old when a census was taken under the Stalinist regime in 1926.

Nailya Dosayeva, head of social and demographical department of Karaganga regional statistics bureau, said there is no doubt that her claim is authentic.

‘Sakhan Dosova was found during our census held in February and March. She has an old passport and documents which are genuine, and based on these we can judge her age as being correct.’

The local mayor Islam Togaybayev went to visit her ‘to personally congratulate her on such an achievement and show his respect’, said his spokesman.

Other officials are not so sure.

Some Kazakh bureaucrats want more checks to be done to ascertain the accuracy of her claim, pointing out that birth records in Kazakhstan in the 19th century are notoriously unreliable.

‘We can see that this is turning into a big story and for the sake of our country, we need to be sure her claim is correct,’ said one official.

According to one version of her life, she must have given birth to several children over the age of 60, he said.

‘There is no doubt she is very old. But is she really 130? Or was there a white lie long ago which was never corrected? We need to find out.’

‘Spider-Man’ Rescues Autistic Thai boy

A fireman in Bangkok, Thailand used an interesting approach to reaching out to an autistic boy. Fearful of his first day at school, the boy climbed out on a third-story ledge and refused to come inside.

Despite teachers’ efforts to beckon the boy inside, he refused to budge until his mother mentioned her son’s love of superheroes, prompting fireman Sonchai Yoosabai to take a novel approach to the problem.

The rescuer dashed back to his fire station and made a quick change into a Spider-Man costume before returning to the boy, he said.

“I told him Spider-Man is here to rescue you, no monsters are going to attack you and I told him to walk slowly towards me as running could be dangerous,” Somchai told local television.

The young boy immediately stood up and walked into his rescuer’s arms, police said.

Octomom Sculpture

Daniel Edwards {wiki}, the sculptor who brought you Pregnant Britney Spears and Dead Paris Hilton, has a new work out featuring “Octomom” Nadya Suleman. The statue is made of pink rubber and is entitled String of Babies. You can have one of your own for just $199.

Why dogs chase their own tails: High Cholesterol

Veterinarians have discovered an interesting connection between dogs who chase their own tails and their blood cholesterol levels. In a study published in the Journal of Small Animal Practice, researchers took blood samples from 15 healthy dogs that were compulsive tail chasers, along with samples from 15 healthy dogs that did not chase their tails. When their samples were analyzed, the tail chasers were found to have significantly higher levels of blood cholesterol

Researchers theorize that cholesterol affects the cell membranes which control the flow of brain hormones. Previous studies have shown a correlation between high cholesterol levels and certain behavioral problems in humans.

Mysterious Celebrity Tattoos

It’s bad enough when someone gets a celebrity tattoo, but it’s even worse when no one can figure out who it’s supposed to be!