An injured bat clung to the space shuttle Discovery’s external fuel tank during its launch Sunday.
He was spotted hanging on to the tank prior to liftoff and an analysis was done to determine if he could damage the heat shields if he banged into them during the launch. The NASA folks determined it would be safe to take off with the critter still on board and did so.
The astro-bat was still visible on the shuttle when it passed the tower on the way up.
The tiny critter likely didn’t last too long after that though.
A new study shows that if you doodle while you listen, you are more likely to retain the boring information the yappers are yakking at you. Yada, yada, yada, yada.
Apparently the doodling activity keeps you focused just enough to deter you from actually wandering off into a daydream in lala land. Thus you hear and retain a bit more of the info.
If this is all true, Badger must never let anything slip by her during a conversation.
So the dogs woke me up at 3:45 a.m. to go out for a urinary jaunt.
Upon opening the door and getting a face full of cold air as I let them out and back in, I was immediately wide awake.
Trying to find something on the TV to knock me back out again, I watched the end of a MacGyver episode. (For the big finale, he used two silver candlesticks wrapped in bare wires to conduct electricity and defibrillated a man’s heart to bring him back to life. So what did you do at work today? Top that.)
When the mulleted magician was done, I was still wide awake. Surfing the channels, I found a show on the grid entitled “Humanzee” on the Science network. I thought to myself, that will do the trick. I’ll be conked out in 8 minutes.
Instead I was fascinated by the story of this chimpanzee brought from Africa in 1960. It turned out to act differently from all other chimps. Oliver preferred to walk upright. His cranial features were more humanoid than the average Zippy the Chimp. The animal trainers it lived with said it was capable of doing tasks and that other chimps shunned it.
Strange indeed.
At around the age of 16, Oliver’s libido took over and resulted in his being sold by his original owners, beginning an odyssey around the globe. There was talk that Oliver was a hybrid between a chimp and a human.
I still can’t believe I fell back to sleep with this animal mystery on the TV screen, but I did.
So, thanks to Youtube, I tracked down the rest of the episode in six parts.
Here is the first of the videos, so you can see why I wanted to know more.
Wolverine did a bang-up job of singing and dancing his way through the Oscars’ opening number Sunday night.
Overall, I felt there was something lacking from this year’s Oscar telecast. I did feel there was some improvisational humor missing that you get when a comedian hosts the show.
Did anyone expect Slumdog Millionaire to win that many Oscars? I didn’t expect them to take home 8.
A new study shows that if you 
So the dogs woke me up at 3:45 a.m. to go out for a urinary jaunt.
