FROM THE WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY BLUR OF A SHOW
Australian school makes sunglasses compulsory for pupils
SYDNEY (AFP) - There was a time when wearing sunglasses would have been seen as too cool for school, but for pupils at a pioneering primary in Australia they are now a compulsory part of the uniform.
The move is aimed at protecting young eyes from the sun's dangerous ultraviolet rays, and education authorities say they are considering adopting the plan at all state schools.
The headmaster of Sydney's Arncliffe Public School, where sunglasses are now compulsory for children from kindergarten through Year 6, said they had no problems wearing the glasses in the playground.
The "sunnies" as they are called in Australia, would soon become "routine" for the pupils, Stephan Vrachas told commercial radio.
The education minister of New South Wales state, of which Sydney is the capital, said the government would consider making sunglasses compulsory in all public school playgrounds.
"It is conceivable that in certain environments it might be appropriate to wear sunglasses when they are playing in the sun," John Della Bosca told reporters.
Excessive exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays, already blamed for skin cancers, can also lead to cataracts, experts say.
A specialist at Sydney Eye Hospital told the national AAP news agency that wraparound glasses were the best for eye protection and children should be encouraged to wear them from the age of three or four.
Sunglasses were particularly important in summer, when ultraviolet exposure was up to five times higher than in winter, said Con Petsoglou.
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Cell phones light up operating room during blackout
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - The light from the cell phone screens allowed surgeons to complete an emergency appendix operation during a blackout in a city in central Argentina, reports said on Saturday.
Leonardo Molina, 29, was on the operating table on July 21, when the power went out in the Policlinico Juan D. Peron, the main hospital in Villa Mercedes, a small city in San Luis province.
"The generator, which should have been working correctly, didn't work," a hospital spokesman, whose name was not given, told TN television news station.
"The surgeons and anesthetists were in the dark... A family member got some cell phones together from people in the hallway and took them in to provide light," he said.
Ricardo Molina, 39, Leonardo's brother, told La Nacion newspaper that the lights were out for an hour and his brother's anesthesia was wearing off.
Hospital Director Dario Maurer told La Nacion the surgery was without light a maximum of 20 minutes.
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Meditators predict Dow 17,000, near U.S. utopia
By Ayesha Rascoe
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks had a tough week with the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffering its worst one-week point drop in five years, but a group of meditators promise their good vibrations will send the index past 17,000 within a year.
A group called the Invincible America Assembly made that claim and more on Friday, insisting they have America's prosperity under control and their positive vibes will bring fewer hurricanes and better U.S.-North Korean relations.
Through group transcendental meditation the assembly -- which has 1,800 people meditating daily in Iowa since it was formed in July 2006 -- releases harmonious waves which benefit all aspects of U.S. life, spokesman Bob Roth told Reuters.
And the group's leader, John Hagelin, said when that number reaches 2,500 within the next 12 months, America will see a major drop in crime and the virtual elimination of all major social and political woes.
Asked what it would take to achieve world peace, Hagelin said such a utopia would need 8,000 meditators.
The group takes credit for, among other things: the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaching a record high of 14,022 last week, unemployment rates falling to a six-year low at 4.5 percent, and North Korea shutting down its nuclear reactor.
It operates two facilities in Iowa, where followers practice several hours of transcendental meditation each day.
"This is not praying for peace, this is not sending out positive thoughts for peace," Roth said. "This is diving deep into one's own consciousness."
Hagelin compared the Assembly's use of transcendental meditation to the invention of electricity and other advances.
"We have control over things we didn't have control over before. That's the progress of science," Hagelin said.
And while most people may be skeptical of the ability of meditation to bring such change, Roth said the Assembly was not going to try to change people's opinions.
"We're not trying to convince anyone of anything," Roth said. "We're just doing it."
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Panda poop to be recycled into souvenirs
By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - Nothing says "I love you" like a photo frame made from panda poop.
The Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base has come up with a dung-for-profit scheme that turns droppings from the endangered species into odor-free souvenirs ranging from bookmarks to Olympic-themed statues of the animals, state media and base officials said Monday.
The facility in the southwestern province of Sichuan houses about 40 bamboo-fed pandas who produce less than a ton of excrement a day.
"We used to spend at least 6,000 yuan ($770) a month to get rid of the droppings but now they can be lucrative," Jing Shimin, assistant to the base director, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.
The products will be made at a local handicraft company mostly from undigested bamboo culled from the panda waste through a special process, Xinhua said.
An official who answered the phone at the Chengdu facility said the dung is "carefully selected, smashed, dried and sterilized at 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit)." He refused to give his name but said the products will be of all colors because they will be dyed.
"They don't smell too bad because 70 percent of the dung is just remains of the bamboo that the pandas are unable to digest," Jing said.
While no price has been set, he said the most expensive souvenirs will contain a panda hair — collected from the wild — in each package.
The 2008 Olympic statues will feature "athletic pandas performing various Olympic sports," Xinhua said.
In March, base officials said they were looking into making high-quality paper from the fiber-rich panda excrement, inspired by a trip to Thailand, where they found paper made from elephant dung.
The Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand already sells multicolored paper made from waste produced by its two resident pandas. Making paper there involves a daylong process of cleaning the ***, boiling it in a soda solution, bleaching it with chlorine and drying it under the sun.
The panda is one of the world's rarest and most beloved animals, with about 1,590 living in the wild in China, mostly in Sichuan and the western province of Shaanxi. Another 180 have been bred in captivity.
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According to a survey released yesterday, the boom in cell phones and portable devices that store reams of personal information has created a generation incapable of memorizing simple things. A quarter of those polled said they couldn't remember their landline number, while two-thirds couldn't recall the birthdays of more than three friends or family members.
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Remember the big steam pipe explosion in Manhattan last week? A woman is suing ConEd because it scared her. Francine Dorf, who says she was a victim of the explosion, is seeking punitive damages. She's now suffering symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to her lawyer. It should be noted that her sister died in the 9/11 attacks.
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www.whereihadmyfirstkiss.com
Our very first kiss is one of those special moments in life, a rite of passage that we will always remember. This amorous site maps the world’s “early romance” by using Google Earth to let users plot the geographic location of their first smooch.
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Boy Swallows ‘Grillz’
A 7-year-old boy in Sanford, Florida, was rushed to a local ER last week after swallowing a pair of “grillz” his mother had purchased for him at a local flea market. Officials say Bobby Tedesco was
wearing a pair of $10 knockoff “grillz,” which are commonly sold in flea markets and malls across the country. Tedesco’s mother, Dawn, said the grill popped off the boy’s teeth and he started to choke on
the piece of metal. She was trying to clear his throat when Bobby somehow managed to swallow the mouthpiece. The grillz have been in Bobby’s stomach for over four days and doctors say there is
only one way to pass them.
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