Scientists Say Woolly Mammoth Cloning Effort Underway
Scientists behind a groundbreaking resurrection project say the Woolly Mammoth could be making it's return from extinction in the years to come. World-renowned geneticist, Professor George Church, and his team at Harvard University have been working for the past two years on recreating the DNA blueprint of the mammoth.
Using DNA from mammoths preserved in Arctic permafrost, the scientists have been searching for the genes that separate mammoths from elephants. By splicing mammoth genes into the genome of an elephant embryo, the team believes they can recreate a mammoth-elephant hybrid.
Church, who is the head of the Harvard Woolly Mammoth Revival team, says “Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant/mammoth embryo...it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. We’re not there yet," he forecasted, "but it could happen in a couple of years.”
Source: The Telegraph
You Need To Clean Yo Your Facebook ASAP
If you thought Facebook was a safe place to keep crazy photos of yourself, you'd be wrong. It's no secret that employers look at your social media accounts before you get hired, and Facebook is especially not an exception.
Why? Well, there's now a jobs tab on Facebook and it's a great tool to get a job...if you've got a clean digital record.
"It's early days but we're excited to see how people use this simple tool to get the job they want and for businesses to get the help they need," said Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, VP of Business and Platform at Facebook. This makes cleaning up your act all the more important because your account is linked automatically when you do apply for these jobs through the platform.
You should also take a look at the pages you've liked and what you've selected as a profile photo. These are some of the first things employers will see if you do apply for a job through Facebook.
Don't count LinkedIn out just yet, though. Facebook is still a persona social media platform first, but it still can't hurt to clean things up!
Source: Refinery29
Today is Random Acts of Kindness Day
February 17th is Random Acts of Kindness Day! National Random Acts of Kindness Day has grown in popularity each year. Celebrated by individuals, groups and organizations nationwide to encourage acts of kindness, this is a day that’s not focused on quantity (though that would be SUPER cool of you!), but really, just caring enough to do something nice for your fellow man (or woman – duh!)
In New Zealand, where this day originated, Random Acts of Kindness Day is celebrated on September 1st. It’s also recognized by some on other celebrations throughout the year – but come on, doing random acts of kindness is something that can be done every single day of the year. Need some inspiration? Log on to RandomActsofKindness.org. In the meantime, here are a few quotes on the notion to get you going:
- “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” (Mark Twain)
- “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” (Aesop)
- “Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” (Scott Adams)
- “Kind words and actions can seem so small, but their effects are truly endless.” (Author Unknown)
‘Reverse Suspension’ Is Motivating Kids To Behave At School
Tweens and teens don’t always want to comply with the rules, but one middle school in West Virginia has come up with a new approach to dealing with bad behavior and it’s really making a difference. Huntington Middle School has started a something they’re calling ‘reverse suspension’ - where the parent of the suspended student comes to class and hangs out by their kid’s side all day long. Bad for the parent, but even worse for the student.
Think about it - kids in middle school are totally and completely embarrassed by old mom and dad. So imagine them coming to class and being next to their misbehaving middle schooler for a whole school day. That would mortify that kid. And this outside-the-box solution is actually working.
According to Principal Frank Barnett, this “creative method for addressing non-violent, non–verbally abusive behavior has helped the school reduce student suspensions by two-thirds.” And he says the number of bad behavior incidents has been cut in half. It seems a lot of students thought of suspensions as a break from class, but this new discipline method has changed all that.
And kids aren’t learning if they’re not in class, so with this approach, they’re still in class and getting the instruction they need. It sounds like a brilliant way to deal with behavior issues. There’s nothing like some parental embarrassment to motivate a kid.
Source: The Stir
You Can Now Remove All Political Posts From Facebook!
Facebook users can now take advantage of Social Fixer, an application that allows you to customize your feed by hiding topics that you don't want to see, including politics, according to Money. Through the app's features, you can enter a series of political keywords or topics you'd like to avoid, and voilà — posts with those words or phrases will be removed from your feed. (There's also an option to unhide posts and keywords too, just in case you want to plug back in.) What's more, Social Fixer includes a bonus feature that allows you to convert your newsfeed back to the reverse chronological timeline format, so that your friends' posts show up in the order they were shared, rather than in the order Facebook's algorithm prioritizes them.
Link: http://socialfixer.com
Experts Say Pregnant Women Should Pass On Licorice
The list of things expectant moms need to avoid keeps getting longer and longer. And the newest addition to the no-nos is licorice. It turns out that it could have a negative effect on baby’s brain.
A new study from Finland finds that eating licorice during pregnancy can affect the child’s cognitive abilities. Kids whose moms ate the most licorice while they were pregnant had lower IQs – an average of seven points lower – than the kids whose mothers ate little or none. And these children had triple the risk for attention deficit disorder issues.
The problem seems to be from glycyrrhizin [[Gly-sir-I-zin]] – a sweetener that comes from the root of the licorice plant. So it’s not just licorice that preggo women need to skip, it’s any candies, teas, and herbal remedies that contain this natural sweetener. And while the World Health Organization and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration don’t warn against eating it yet, last year the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland did add licorice to the “not recommended” category for pregnant women
So this is just another thing it’s probably better to avoid when you’re expecting, just like caffeine and sushi. But you probably won’t miss licorice as much as a nice glass of wine or a latte. And you can still eat red Twizzlers - they don’t contain the questionable sweetener - and the red ones are way better than black licorice anyway.
Source: She Knows
Dolphins May Get High Too
Young dolphins may be party animals.
Young porpoises might be passing around the blowfish. Researchers at Australia's Murdoch University observed the dolphin delinquents chewing on a blowfish for hours and then passing it to their buddies. Similar behavior has been seen in other dolphins over the years.
The blowfish contains a poison called tetrodoxin that's lethal to humans but can alter a dolphin's mood. Researchers haven't reached a consensus if the blowfish actually get the dolphins high or just comfortably numb.
The nautical creatures aren’t the only ones to go for a buzz in nature. Elephants eat fermented fruit to get drunk, Siberian reindeer munch on hallucinogenic mushrooms and wallabies like to get high off poppies. Source: New York Post