The Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) is North America’s only marsupial. Should you ever come across one that is homeless, orphaned or otherwise in need of help and could not be taken care of by a professional wildlife rehabilitation center, ME Pearl presents ‘The Practical Opossum Series’. Here is part 1, titled ‘Proper opossum massage’. Tomorrow: […]
Month: July 2010
Signs in London, part 1
Some business signs in London, from Western Druggist magazine, March 1887: I must give you a few selections from my note book of some of the business signs in London that struck me as curious. Several signs of artists draping the real figure, otherwise tailors, were noticed; then again another was ;’A professed trousers maker”; […]
Towards a Boredom Recognition Engine
Although boredom very rarely escapes the notice of those suffering from it, constructing a purely technical instrument for reliably recognising boredom in humans is currently rated as a non-trivial task. But recently, a team from George Mason University, the University of North Carolina, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Naval Research Lab, Washington, DC […]
Monkey flossing
Monkey flossing became a formal practice, at least experimentally, in the late 1970s, thanks to a dentist named Jack Caton. Twenty years later, a physician, David C Sokal, inspired by the monkey flossing, patented a top/bottom flossing-reminder and floss-dispensing device for humans. Monkeys themselves apparently began unassistedly flossing not long afterwards. But in all probability […]