Mark H

"According to the 2010 Census, about 6% of Brazil's population live in favelas or shanty-towns - around 11.25 million people across the country, roughly the population of Portugal. However, there could be even more living in these communities. Rocinha is Brazil's largest favela and unofficial estimates say it has up to 180,000, compared to the census figure of just 70,000. The expansion of the favelas - and their irregular and unregulated nature - means that these areas often lack basic services and public investment. But even among favelas there can be big social contrasts." - Mark H

"Favelas with a privileged location like Rocinha have relatively better standards than other shanty towns further away from jobs and services; and even within Rocinha there are richer and much poorer communities. The poorer areas are usually higher on the hilltop, with many houses only accessible on foot. In Rio's favelas, most homes are made from brick and cement, a majority have running water and about 99% have electricity. Sanitation is often a big problem - in Rocinha sewage flows down a large channel in the middle of houses. Recent reports suggest 65% of favela residents are a part of Brazil's new middle classes. And despite these people's relatively low incomes, many of these communities are a long way from being "slums" as they are often portrayed." - Mark H

Adam Lallana on favela children: "To be around players like us may be a life-changing experience for them." Long form: "I didn't really know what to expect. People said there were 100,000 people living in the favelas. That's a lot of people. But looking at this backdrop, you can see exactly why ... They get on with their lives. It's probably normal for them. To be around players like us may be a life-changing experience for them." http://www.theguardian.com/footbal... - Eivind

"One night I played cards with Ben [Elton] and Rik [Mayall] (Ben insisted on giving me money for a taxi home. I insisted on refusing it. I walked the three miles home in the rain. What an idiot student.) Another night we sat chatting with Rik in the bar at The Contact Theatre (the theatre connected to the drama department). He gave us lots of advice and he even gave us his phone number (before mobiles… this was Rik’s home phone number!) and told us to phone him whenever we wanted. He also gave us a quote to use on our publicity for our first Edinburgh show. He told us to use, “My favourite act!”" - Mark H

"British comedian and actor Rik Mayall has died aged 56, according to his manager. He played the obnoxious, poetry-writing anarchist Rick in The Young Ones alongside his friend, Adrian Edmonson. The duo later went on to star in Bottom and he was also known for appearances in shows including Blackadder and The New Statesman." - Mark H

An American Werewolf in London 2nd Chess Player :o - Halil

"I got to meet someone in Seattle who is working on an evolution book for four year olds — this is a great idea, because I remember shopping for kids’ books and their usual idea for introducing zoology was something about Noah’s Ark. But the real story is so much more interesting!" - Mark H

Well worth clicking through to view the PDF of the rough outline and sketches of the book. It looks fantastic and is exactly the sort of thing we'd probably buy children of friends. - Mark H

That's a cute book :) - Eivind

#placebo - Halil

"...nobody in Belgium currently meets or is ever likely to meet the criteria." <---Let's hope it stays that way. - Jenny H.

"Clinical homeopathy" LOL - Eivind

I laughed. Sorry. - Jenny H.

Vagina digiti! The legend is true! - Eivind

:) - Zulema ❧ spicy cocoa tart

"Where did the sexbot come from? Humans have been using sex toys of various sorts for tens of thousands of years. The oldest known dildo is more than 20,000 years old, dating back to the Upper Paleolithic era. Unlike Roxxxy, it is made of siltstone. Dildos, vibrators, penis rings, anal beads: these have been with us, and in us, for a good long time. Computer-driven sex toys and teledildonics – those that combine telepresence and sex – date back to the mid 1970s, but they serve the same purpose as previous sex tech. They provide intimate pleasure and exploration, sexual stimulation, and in some cases, a window into one’s identity. Before they were called ‘sex toys’, doctors used vibrators as medical devices. Midwives and occasionally physicians treated female illnesses such as hysteria through a type of masturbation referred to euphemistically as ‘pelvic massage’. For centuries, they performed this massage by manual stimulation. The first vibrator was introduced in France in 1734 but it was not until the late 1800s, with the steam-powered and electromechanical vibrators, that doctors had any mechanical alternative to using their hands. As difficult and cumbersome as the steam-powered machine was to use, many doctors were grateful for it just the same, given the effort manual stimulation required." - Mark H

"Some of the newest and most intriguing sex technology veers away from traditional sex toys in a particular way: it is based around sharing and connecting. A vibrator is an individual’s device that can be shared, but some of the newest forms of sex tech were created with the express intent of sharing. By and large, teledildonics and sexbots are made for and marketed either to couples or to men. Almost none are marketed directly to women, which means that the way we create and view sex technology is being filtered through a very particular perspective: a heterosexual male one." - Mark H

"If women are the model on which most sexbots are based, we run the risk of recreating essentialised gender roles, especially around sex. And that would be too bad, because sex technology has the potential to alleviate longstanding human problems, for both men and women. Sex tech can help us take on sexual dysfunction and profound loneliness, but if we simply create a new variety of second-class citizen, a sexual creature to be owned, we risk alienating ourselves from each other all over again." - Mark H

"In the latest episode of ‘Gwyneth Paltrow states the absolute ridiculous’, the actress has claimed that saying negative things to water can hurt its feelings. The ‘consciously uncoupled’ star revealed that she follows the work of Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto, whose experiments attempt to investigate whether human consciousness has a direct effect on the molecular structure of water. His theories go as far as to claim that shouting at rice – as one so frequently does – could turn it bad." - Mark H

Eivind ++ - Yolanda

"When Prohibition came to D.C. in 1917, three years before it was enacted into law nationwide, all legal bars in the District were shutdown. But Prohibition didn't succeed in eradicating alcohol from the nation's capital. Instead, the 267 licensed saloons became nearly 3,000 speakeasies, disguised in a variety of forms, from a candy shop in the shadow of the Capitol dome to a jazz club in a drugstore basement." - Mark H

"Today, visitors can sample D.C.'s vintage cocktails at several speakeasy-inspired bars, including the The Gibson, Harold Black, and The Columbia Room, a ten-seat, reservation-only cocktail bar located behind an unmarked door in the back of another bar, The Passenger. All feature low lights, '20s-era decor and plenty of strong booze. But for those looking to truly venture into D.C.'s illicit past, the sites of a few authentic speakeasies can still be tracked down. Although most were located in private homes in the city's downtown, many of which have been torn down, a few have since converted into fully-legal restaurants and bars, where visitors can grab a drink and remember D.C.'s roaring past." - Mark H

:) - Zulema ❧ spicy cocoa tart

"In a paper published today in Scientific Reports, a team of researchers from Tunghai University and the Endemic Species Research Institute in Taiwan argue that Cyclosa ginnaga spiders’ body color and web designs are part of a strategy to masquerade as bird droppings and cut its chances of dying in a predator attack. “We provide empirical evidence for the first time that bird dropping masquerading can effectively reduce the predation risk of an organism,” says I-Min Tso, a co-author on the study and an ecologist at Tunghai University in Taiwan." - Mark H

"Scientists had previously observed that young C. ginnaga spiders have silvery white body coloration, and often build beautiful spirals on their webs sprinkled with leaf debris. However, it has been unclear whether these structures serve primarily to attract prey or camouflage the bugs from predators. Some have hypothesized that C. ginnaga webs might be attracting prey for the spiders to munch on, and in the forest, decorated webs do appear to lure in more unsuspecting prey. But something about the appearance of the webs caught the eye of researchers on the Taiwan-based team. “To the naked eye the visual appearance of the spiders on their decorations resembles a bird dropping,” says co-author Sean Blamires, a biologist at Tunghai University. And if it looks like a bird dropping, perhaps it’s supposed to look like a bird dropping." - Mark H

"So every day for 13 days, the authors set up video cameras in front of 12 C. ginnaga webs and videotaped the action on each web. Again, they covered some spider’s bodies with black ink, concealed other spiders’ web decorations with black powder, concealed both in some cases, and left others untouched. At the beginning of each day of filming, they measured the size of the spider, the size of the web decoration, and the size of nearby bird droppings. In both the visual tests and observations in the wild, predators could more readily see darkened spiders on normal webs, as well as normal spiders against dark webs. Wasps were much more likely to attack a web if the spider’s body or decorations were stood out thanks to powder and ink, while wasps couldn’t distinguish unaltered spiders from their unaltered backdrops. Wasps also went after dark spiders on dark webs, indicating that similarly colored spiders and webs weren't enough to confuse the predators—for that, spiders and webs both needed to blend in to the background of the forest." - Mark H

"An online archive of films showing snapshots of typical life in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s has been completed. The final 25 movies in the collection have been digitised and loaded onto the British Council's website. Scenes include the pubs of England, Sheffield's steel industry, London's preparations for war and a mystery for Scotland Yard's Flying Squad. British Council director of film Briony Hanson said the movies gave a glimpse of what had changed and what had not." - Mark H

"A viscount in the Armoured Cavalry Branch of the French Army left behind a collection of hundreds of glass plates taken during World War I that have never before been published. The images, by an unknown photographer, show the daily life of soldiers in the trenches, destruction of towns and military leaders. This summer marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the WWI" - Mark H

"A vast peatland has been discovered in a remote part of Congo-Brazzaville. The bog covers an area the size of England and is thought to contain billions of tonnes of peat. Scientists say investigating the carbon-rich material could shed light on 10,000 years of environmental change in this little-studied region." - Mark H

"Because the area holds so much organic matter it means a large amount of carbon is locked into the ground. The scientists say analysing this material, which is thousands of years old, will help them to learn more about the Congo Basin's role in the world's past and present climate." - Mark H

"In a slight twist of fate, we might have been traveling between London and Paris in one of these thing-a-majigs– or more accurately, a propeller-driven ‘Flying Railplane‘. This fancy futurist contraption was invented by George Bennie and launched in 1930 as a prototype, designed for a more economical and rapid transport system between the two European capitals." - Mark H

"When the media was invited to take a ride on the rail plane in July of 1930, they were quite taken with it, and hailed it a ‘wonderful product of British brains’. Compared to the bumps and whistling of a conventional train, traveling in Bennie’s railplane coach was luxuriously smooth and quiet. There was only one problem. No one wanted to fund it." - Mark H

It's worth clicking through to the chocolate or fudge products on this site just to read the descriptions. E.g. for Spice Trail fudge: "Whilst hunting for Emeralds in darkest Peru, I was introduced to a remarkably warm and aromatic little berry. Once we'd established quite what the invitation to 'view the pink buds' was all about from my guides, it turned out to be the berries of the Pink Peppercorn or Baie Rose tree. Although it has a gentle warmth, like black or white pepper, it has none of the harshness, making it as close to cheap Boarding House pepper as lamp oil is to champagne. Fragrant and almost sweet, it pairs beautifully with the underlying Cocoa in the fudge to make a warming and surprisingly refreshing little delight." - Mark H

"A man who dressed up in a pig mask, toy bobby’s helmet and hi-vis jacket was arrested on suspicion of impersonating a police officer. Steven Peers said he has often donned the mock outfit to perform ‘comical parodies’ of Greater Manchester Police after becoming unhappy with how officers behaved during the Barton Moss anti-fracking protests. He wore it around Manchester city centre while filming sketches yesterday but was stopped by an officer near Bootle Street police station." - Mark H

I'd hate to be their self-image therapist. - Math Charlton

That is a great way to celebrate! #wanderlust - Eivind

Been listening to some Euro music to get me in the mood for voting when I get home from work. Happened upon Stakka Bo who I hadn't heard in ages and I remembered this video/song with fondness. I had something of a crush on the model lip synching to the track. Thought I'd track her down online to see what she's up to these days. Yeah, late diagnosis of Asperger's, hanged herself years ago. So that was pretty depressing and I wish I'd kept my creepy online stalker ways in check. - Mark H

*snort* 'Basal Fawlty ganglia'. - Anika

If only UKIP were just a joke. If we don't take the increasing influence of these dangerous people seriously we will sleepwalk into a fascist state. - Son of Groucho

In he English? I hear English people say it like that so often, I assumed that was their pronunciation. - Anika

And then there's "draaaww-ring" :-) - Nils Sandin