Watch this fellow make a grand entrance – and then look surprised at his own strength. In the end, he does the gentlemanly thing and keeps on a walkin'.
Via Digg Read the rest
China's central bank is now sterilizing — and even destroying — cash as a way to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, or COVID-19.
According to a press release by the Chinese government, banks are deep-cleaning all the cash that comes in by using "ultraviolet disinfection or high temperatures," and "stored for more than 14 days" before being recirculated.
And if the money is coming from a highly infected area, they're destroying it.
From CNN:
And in the central bank's Guangzhou branch, these high-risk banknotes may be destroyed instead of merely disinfected, according to state-run tabloid Global Times.
To make up for the supply, the bank will issue large amounts of new, uninfected cash; in January, the bank allocated 4 billion yuan (about $573.5 million) in new banknotes to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak began, said the government press release.
But can you even catch a virus from cash? Probably not, but germs can last for hours on surfaces, so...maybe?
According to CNN:
The list of things found on US dollar bills includes DNA from our pets, traces of drugs, and bacteria and viruses, according to a 2017 study in New York.
That doesn't mean cash is actually dangerous for our health; disease transmission linked to money is rare, and no major disease outbreaks have started from our ATMs. But with new cases being reported every day in China, the country's officials are taking no chances.
Prosecutors released one of the make-believe athletic resumes that Lori Loughlin, aka Aunt Becky, manufactured to get her daughters into USC. Although neither daughter ever rowed a boat for any team, both pretended to be on crew teams when applying to college. The resume (below) says that one of her daughters (whose name is blacked out) had won many a medals, two gold, dating back to 2014. And her impressive coxswain skill-set includes "awareness, organization, direction, and steering." Check out Loughlin's (and husband Mossimo Giannulli's) handiwork:
Source: Insider
Top image: pxhere Resume image: District of Massachusetts/DocumentCloud Read the rest
Dogs traveling through the Osaka Itami airport in Japan will soon be able to kick up their paws before boarding their flight. The domestic-only airport is setting up an outdoor canine lounge where pups can take a shower, have a drink, and find relief at the flushable pee pole. It isn't clear when their grand opening will take place.
Although rare for dogs to get the spa treatment at an airport, New York's John F. Kennedy has Itami beat with a "pet oasis" for all kinds of animals (birds, cats, dogs, horses...) called ARK. Started three years ago, ARK, which takes in animals, including those needing to be quarantined, for a longer amount of time, will take pets on a walk, feed them, give them a bath, and even perform vet services.
Source: Reuters
The night sky looked like day for a few moments at Colorado's Steamboat Springs Annual Carnival Saturday night with the world's largest firework on record.
From The Denver Post:
Read the restAt 7:56 p.m., fireworks expert Tim Borden successfully captured the world record for the largest single firework when the 2,797-pound behemoth illuminated the crowd during the Night Extravaganza at the annual Steamboat Springs Winter Carnival.
The 62-inch shell was launched from a 26-foot long mortar from atop Howelsen Hill, reaching nearly a mile in the air when it detonated, putting on quite the show.
If you dined at Gibson's Gourmet Burgers and Ribs every Saturday night, it would take four years (minus one weekend) to try every milkshake flavor on the menu. So it's for obvious reasons that this burger and milkshake joint in Cape Town, South Africa, that offers 207 different milkshakes, earned the Guinness World Record for "Most Varieties of Milkshakes Commercially Available." Read the rest
Mitt Romney doesn't have to feel completely alone after his courageous vote to convict Trump during the impeachment trial. Vermont Governor Phil Scott, one of the first republicans to support the impeachment inquiry last year, also spoke his conscience yesterday at a news conference:
“I believe that the president abused his powers. It’s hard, in some respects for me, because I’m not a supporter," Scott said. “I didn’t vote for the president, and I don’t believe that he should be in office...I think it’s for the voters to decide in November whether he should continue in that role.
"I believe he abused his position of power; withholding those funds is inappropriate..I believe, as Sen. Romney did, that he shouldn’t be in office."
From ABC:
Romney announced his decision Wednesday two hours before the GOP-dominated Senate voted to absolve Trump. He said the impeachment oath required him to render “impartial justice.”
Since he took office in 2017, Scott has been a frequent critic of Trump, has repeatedly called for an end to the divisiveness in American politics, and has criticized many of the president's policies, including on climate change and immigration.
Not surprisingly, Scott was voted one of the most liked governors in the United States in 2017 (while Chris Christie, of course, was voted the most disliked).
Image: By US Embassy Canada - Flickr, Public Domain, Link Read the rest
Still seething from the impeachment trial (and if it wasn't that, it would be something else), Trump had a hard time containing himself the following morning at the National Prayer Breakfast. His morning speech was full of his usual narcissistic vitriol. What makes it even more amusing is the comparison between him and Barack Obama in Jimmy Kimmel's montage above. Read the rest
[UPDATE 2/6/20 12:09pm PT: According to the CNN, the doctor is alive but in critical condition. "Hours earlier the same state media organizations reported that he had died."
"Wuhan Central Hospital said on its official Weibo account that Li Wenliang, 34, had become seriously ill. 'In the fight against the pneumonia epidemic of the new coronavirus infection, our hospital's ophthalmologist Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected. He is currently in critical condition and we are trying our best to resuscitate him,' the statement read."]
A Chinese ophthalmologist in Wuhan who tried to warn his colleagues on December 30 about seven patients who had come down with a SARS-like virus but was censored by the Chinese government – and and then detained two days later for "rumor mongering" – has died from the disease.
After being detained for two days, Li Wenliang, age 34, helped patients with the novel coronavirus who streamed into his overrun hospital, until he himself became infected with the coronavirus and was hospitalized.
From The Washington Post:
Read the restThe full outlines of his story, which came to light in recent weeks as the Wuhan outbreak exploded into an international emergency, set off a swell of outrage in China, where citizens have long chafed at the government’s penchant for relentlessly snuffing out any speech deemed threatening to social stability.
Many, including China’s judicial authorities in a rare rebuke of the police, have wondered whether the epidemic could have unfolded differently had Li not been silenced at a critical juncture ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in late January...
After the CEO of Agroplasma, an Arizona fertilizer company, is told to sit in the back seat by a black driver, the CEO is greatly offended and argues relentlessly. The driver, an Arizona State University student, remains calm and polite and also firm about his no-front-seat-passengers policy. The CEO, Hans Berglund, 72, asks, "Is that because I'm white?" And then, finally calls him the N-- word. (Watch the exchange below.)
Agroplasma has suspended Berglund while they investigate what happened, and Uber has banned him from the app.
From NBC:
“In light of the events of this past Friday, Agroplasma CEO Hans Berglund has been relieved of his duties while the company performs a full internal investigation,” the firm said, adding, "The incident is not at all reflective of Agroplasma’s values and ethics.”
Uber told KPNX that it would ban Berglund from using its app, saying, “Discrimination has no place on the Uber app or anywhere.”
Berglund in a telephone interview with KPNX said he had been drinking and regrets his comments. “I apologize to the guy. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
The driver has had a strict policy of not allowing anyone to sit in the front seat unless it's a party of 3 or more since someone sexually assaulted him last year.
Here's the Uber exchange, starting at (:30):
From 1965 to 2003 the BBC aired a series called Tomorrow's World, and the segment above, predicting homes in 2020, describes Nest, Alexa, and other IoT conveniences to a tee.
The futurist in the video, Christine MacNulty, is founder and CEO of Applied Futures. Some of her predictions are yet to be seen, so I'll just have to wait for my window to turn into a wall. Read the rest
Two gentlemen in Florida couldn't have been more accommodating in pointing police to their massive stash of narcotics. When an officer stopped the duo – Ian Simmons and Joshua Reinhardt, both 34 years old – for speeding at a mere 95mph, he easily spotted two bags in their Kia that were labeled "Bag Full of Drugs."
From The Washington Post:
And police say it led to a jackpot: 75 grams (2.6 ounces) of methamphetamine, more than a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of the date-rape drug GHB, 3.6 grams (0.12 ounces) of fentanyl, plus ecstasy, cocaine and assorted paraphernalia. The driver and passenger were both booked on multiple felony drug charges, according to the Florida Highway Patrol, with a hand from Prince [the drug-sniffing pooch] of the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office.
Image: pxfuel Read the rest
Coyotes in my neighborhood usually kill unsupervised smaller animals like cats and dogs (or in my case, chickens), so it's fascinating to see this frisky coyote buddy up with a badger. It looks genuinely excited as it waits for its friend to catch up so that they could trot through a pipe together.
Apparently badgers and coyotes have been known to hunt together. From Peninsula Open Space Trust on YouTube:
Read the restWe know from scientific studies and Native American records that coyotes and badgers have been known to hunt together. But this is the first documentation (that we know of) where a coyote and badger use a human-made structure to travel together safely.
This video was captured recently as part of our research to better understand how wildlife moves across the southern Santa Cruz Mountains. We have more than 50-remote sensor cameras helping us capture scenes like this which we use to inform our land conservation work.
Last night, Trump snubbed Nancy Pelosi by ignoring her gesture to shake his hand before his State of the Union address. At the end of the address, she snubbed him back by ripping up her copy of the speech. "It was the courteous thing to do considering the alternative," she later told reporters. And then later added, “It was a manifesto of mistruths.” Read the rest
Until the latter part of the 1900s, vibrators were big industrial-looking objects that might have scared off many a humans back in the day. Sexologist and curator of the Good Vibrations Antique Vibrator Museum Dr. Carol Queen shows us some of these beauties as she answers questions from Atlas Obscura about vibrators of the late 1800s to the 1970s. Read the rest
Robotic employees such as hotel concierges and English teachers are nothing new in Japan, but here is its first robotic bartender. QBIT Robotics created this chatty robot that works in one of Tokyo's Yoronotaki izakaya restaurants. Read the rest
As the novel coronavirus in China was picking up speed in January, its epicenter in Wuhan needed more beds, fast. So they built a hospital with almost 800 beds (two per room) in a mere ten days. Now ready to admit patients (even though, according to this video, some showers still need to be installed and glue is still drying), here is a quick peek inside.
And for the actual build, here's am amazing time lapse video of the construction. Read the rest
