Offbeat Article

Boldly going where no beer has gone before

Written By Unknown on Senin, 29 April 2013 | 22.55

It's a beer set to boldly go where no beer has gone before — and it's launching in Calgary this weekend.

Vulcan Ale is the brainchild of two Star Trek superfans from Calgary and Airdrie who also happen to own a beer distribution business. It's the first Star Trek beer to be licenced in Canada by the franchise and it will officially launch Saturday in Calgary.

"I think I was 14 when the show first aired," says Paul Carreau, a Calgarian and trekkie with DeLancey Direct, the company behind Vulcan Ale. "I watched it and watched it and even before then I was into science fiction so that was something that really appealed to me."

The Irish red ale, brewed by Harvest Moon Brewery in Montana, will officially launch at Beer Revolution on Saturday.

"Vulcan is supposedly a very hot planet and most Irish people I know can be very hot-tempered, so it seemed appropriate," Carreau says.

Vulcan Ale should be on liquor store shelves on May 17th, coinciding with the release of the new Star Trek movie.

All proceeds will go to The One Fund to support those affected by the Boston Marathon bombings.

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St. John's 1st professional wingman helps newcomers socialize

For $25 an hour plus the cost of cover, Terry Bursey will go with you for a night out on the town and do his best to make you look good and meet new friends.

"If they're shy, they kind of want someone there with them to show them the ropes, give them the heads up, show them what spots are sketchy what ones aren't," said Bursey of his clients. "And also just help them enjoy their night."

"It's for people who are new to the city, especially baymen coming into St. John's," Bursey added, referring to rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Provider of professional buddy support

Bursey said he learned the tricks of the trade from a friend, who works as a professional wingman in Toronto.

"He kind of threw the idea at me and I've done it before just with friends in general, something the guys will do for each other every now and then, especially if they're kind of new to the scene, kind of shy," said Bursey.

Bursey said a professional wingman's job is to help his client socialize and stand out in a crowd by talking to other bar patrons or partygoers about his client in a positive way.

"They want the attention, they want the praise, they want to come into a group or a social situation and excel," said Bursey.

"I don't really put a big storyline behind it or a big fictional thing, I'm just more or less myself."

Bursey said professional wingmanship requires being a people person, and the ability to keep a calm and humourous demeanor.

Business is good

He added that with so many new people travelling in and out of St. John's, business has been good, which has proved there is a demand for this kind of service.

"It's pretty cool, actually, I didn't expect this much of a following to come from it, but like I said, people are there and they're interested."

Bursey did admit there have been a couple of times on the job when a woman his client was interested in was more interested in Bursey, the wingman.

"It was when I knew there was no hope for the guy anyway," said Bursey.

"If there was an end chance for that guy and that particular girl to begin with, well, it wouldn't have worked out that way."

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Monkeys succumb to peer pressure, study suggests

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 26 April 2013 | 22.55

You don't have to be a teenager to want to fit in at the school lunchroom. Some wild animals seem to follow similar monkey-see, monkey-do behavior to follow the crowd and find the best eats, new research finds.

South African monkeys switched foods purely because of peer pressure, suggest the results of a study in Thursday's journal Science.

"We're not as unique as we would like to think," said lead author Erica van de Waal, of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. "We can find many of the roots of our behaviors in animals."

For her study, 109 vervet monkeys living in groups in the wild were given a choice of food tinted pink or blue by the researchers. One color for each group was tainted with aloe to give it a harmless yucky flavor. After a few meals, the food was no longer tainted, but the monkeys still wouldn't eat the color they figured was bad.

But that changed when some of them tried to fit in with a new group of monkeys. Blue-food eaters instantly switch when they moved to an area full of pink-food eaters, even though they shunned pink food before. Pink eaters also changed when they moved to a blue-food area.

The social pressure may be like "teenagers with a desperate need to be just like the other guys," said co-author Andrew Whiten, also of St. Andrews. Or it could be that the monkeys are learning to adapt to local custom — think restaurant reviews or the old saying "when in Rome, do as the Romans do," he said.

Not original goal of study

The researchers were surprised by the finding: They were only aiming to find out if mothers taught their young the same color food preference they learned, Whiten said. The next generation automatically ate the same as their mother, showing how food choice is learned.

Just by sheer luck, some blue-eating monkeys went to the pink-eating tribes and some pink-eating males went to blue tribes. And that's when the researchers saw peer pressure in action

Of the 10 migrating males, nine instantly ate what everyone else ate. The only hold out was an alpha male, who stuck to his previous diet.

Van de Waal said it could be the eat-what-locals-eat idea, but she favors the social conformity, peer pressure concept. She figures the other males were trying to get in good with females, while the dominant male acted as "if he's already in charge, why does he need to do like the others."

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Take a video cycling tour up the hill that trained Olympian Clara Hughes

Cyclist Clara Hughes trained on the Dundas, Ont hill from 1991 to 1998

By Adam Carter, CBC News

Posted: Apr 26, 2013 7:10 AM ET

Last Updated: Apr 26, 2013 10:12 AM ET

It's surprising what a 116-metre climb on a bike will do to strengthen your legs.

That's the incline on Dundas' Sydenham Hill — and from 1991 to 1998, Olympic great Clara Hughes trained on it before becoming an 18-time Canadian national cycling champion and one of only five people ever to snag medals in the winter and summer Olympic games.

Hughes returns to Hamilton this weekend to be recognized for her accomplishments and commitment to cycling.

Sydenham Hill — which rises more than 100 meters from central Dundas to the top of the escarpment — was a central part of her training. Hughes has often talked of the role the tough climb played in her development as a cyclist.

Click on the video in the player above to see local competitive cyclist Mandy Dreyer (winner of this year's Paris to Ancaster race) take you on a narrated video climb up Sydenham Hill. Dreyer is also a member of the Tough Rock Racing team.

"It's nice to have athletes that aren't just athletes," Dreyer told CBC Hamilton. "She's an inspirational person for sure."

Saturday, a plaque will be unveiled at the top of the hill to commemorate Hughes' accomplishments.

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Bill Gates offends South Koreans with unusual handshake

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 25 April 2013 | 22.55

CBC News Community team, from left to right: Andrew Yates, Lauren O'Neil, Andrea Bellamare, John Bowman (Not shown: Andrea Lee-Greenberg, on leave)

If you're part of the CBC News community, you're likely to meet one of us: we're the folks working to produce and promote your stories. Read more about us.

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Giant egg cracks $100K at Christie's auction

A massive, partly fossilized egg laid by a now extinct elephant bird has sold for more than double its estimate at a London auction.

Christie's auction house said Wednesday that the 30-centimetre long, 23-centimetre diameter egg fetched £66,675 ($104,475). It had been valued at £20,000 to £30,000 pre-sale, and was sold to an anonymous buyer over the telephone after about 10 minutes of competitive bidding.

Elephant birds were wiped out several hundred years ago. The oversized ovum, laid on the island of Madagascar, is believed to date back before the 17th century.

Flightless, fruit-gobbling elephant birds resembled giant ostriches and could grow to be 3½ metres. Christie's says their eggs are 100 times the size of an average chicken's.

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Leafs fan takes aim at CN Tower goal light

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 24 April 2013 | 22.55

A Toronto Maple Leafs fan wants to celebrate his team's return to the NHL playoffs by turning the CN Tower into the world largest goal light.

Scott Booth has started a petition at change.org, imploring tower officials to add a goal light to Toronto's iconic tower as the Leafs get set to begin their first playoff run since 2004.

"I want to turn the CN Tower into a goal light," he said Tuesday during an interview on CBC Toronto's Metro Morning. "The kind of light you'd see on top of a fire engine … red, spinning. I'm hoping to do that so the whole city could see it, not just the people in the arena."

Booth, who arrived in the studio wearing a Leafs jersey, had 40 signatures on Monday, a figure that jumped to 1,800 by Tuesday morning.

Booth estimates that about 50,000 signatures would be enough to catch the attention of CN Tower officials.

The CN Tower's lights are often changed for special events and tributes. They turned green for St. Patrick's Day and orange in the days after the funeral of Jack Layton, the late NDP leader.

'It would be amazing'

"Imagine how incredible it would be to see The CN Tower light up red every time Toronto scored a goal!" Booth writes on his change.org petition page. "It would be amazing!"

Booth's push for the goal light is likely influenced by a Budweiser ad campaign that sells in-home, Internet-connected goal lights. They light up automatically the instant your favourite team scores.

Booth makes mention of Budweiser's campaign at the bottom of his petition page.

"P.S. Budweiser, you should have already thought about this. If you got room on your marketing team, I just graduated :)"

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Rare, $26,000 bottle of scotch stolen from Toronto shop

Toronto police are looking for an alleged thief with a taste for the finer, and more expensive, things in life.

According to police, a man went into a downtown Toronto LCBO store earlier this month and pulled a rare 50-year-old Glenfiddich Single Malt scotch out of a glass case in the vintage section.

Toronto police released this image showing the man they allege stole a rare $26,000 bottle of scotch from a downtown LCBO earlier this month. (Toronto Police Service)

The 700-millilitre bottle worth $26,000 is extremely rare, with only 15 bottles available in Ontario, and 50 worldwide.

Police said the man also selected a bottle of wine, which he took the counter and paid for, but left the store without settling up for the scotch.

A still image captured by a security camera shows the suspect leaving the store, wine bottle gripped in his left hand, with a trench coat oddly draped across the right side of his body.

Police describe the man as white, 35 to 45 years old, 5'10", clean-shaven with black-framed glasses. He was last seen leaving the store wearing a Burberry plaid shirt, brown hat, brown trench coat, and black jeans.

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Korean pop wannabes seek perfect dance steps, noses

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 23 April 2013 | 22.55

Pop is South Korea's biggest musical export, typified by sugary looks, slick choreography and catchy tunes, CBC's Catherine Mercier reports.

K-pop is popular throughout most of Asia and leads many teens to rehearse dance moves, for perfect synchronization, and to consider plastic surgery, for a perfect face.

Despite the notable exception of Gangnam Style singer PSY, Koreans need to be thin and beautiful if they hope to make it, those in the business say.

To see Mercier's full report, click the above link.

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Leafs fan takes aim at CN Tower goal light

A Toronto Maple Leafs fan wants to celebrate his team's return to the NHL playoffs by turning the CN Tower into the world largest goal light.

Scott Booth has started a petition at change.org, imploring tower officials to add a goal light to Toronto's iconic tower as the Leafs get set to begin their first playoff run since 2004.

Booth, who arrived in the studio wearing a Leafs jersey, had 40 signatures on Monday, a figure that jumped to 1,800 by Tuesday morning.

Booth estimates that about 50,000 signatures would be enough to catch the attention of CN Tower officials.

The CN Tower's lights are often changed for special events and tributes. They turned green for St. Patrick's Day and orange in the days after the funeral of Jack Layton, the late NDP leader.

'It would be amazing'

"Imagine how incredible it would be to see The CN Tower light up red every time Toronto scored a goal!" Booth writes on his change.org petition page. "It would be amazing!"

Booth's push for the goal light is likely influenced by a Budweiser ad campaign that sells in-home, Internet-connected goal lights. They light up automatically the instant your favourite team scores.

Booth makes mention of Budweiser's campaign at the bottom of his petition page.

"P.S. Budweiser, you should have already thought about this. If you got room on your marketing team, I just graduated :)"

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8,000 suspected pot cookies found in White Rock, B.C. home

Written By Unknown on Senin, 22 April 2013 | 22.55

An armed home invasion in White Rock on Thursday led to the discovery of thousands of cookies believed to be laced with marijuana.

Just before noon, RCMP were called to a house near Earl Marriot Secondary School on North Bluff Road after reports two males were trying to break into a home. Police say the intruders fled by foot, forcing the school into a brief lockdown.

While officers were at the home, they discovered 8,000 cookies believed to contain marijuana.

White Rock RCMP Const. Janelle Shoihet said it was a shocking discovery.

"I've never seen anything like it before. It's an unprecedented number of cookies," she said. "It was a bit like a bakery in there. So it was surprising to me."

A male and two females were arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking.

The two male intruders have not yet been found.

On Saturday, thousands are expected to gather in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery for the annual marijuana smoking event known as "4/20."

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The last time the Toronto Maple Leafs made the playoffs...

Toronto's NHL playoff drought has been fodder for Leafs haters for nearly a decade. But the wait is now over.

No, seriously. The Toronto Maple Leafs are back in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Trust me, this has been cross-referenced, verified, and triple checked.

Never mind the 46-year Cup drought. Leafs Nation is just happy to be invited to the dance at this point.

To put the length of time since the Leafs' last post-season appearance into context, consider the following list of either entertaining or excruciating facts, depending on which side of the Buds fence you sit on:

The last playoff game featuring the blue and white took place on May 4, 2004 at the Air Canada Centre and ended in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 6 of the second round.

Ed Belfour was the starting goalie for the Leafs in that game. He played his last NHL game six years ago and is now in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

You won't see a photo of Belfour making a save in Game 6 posted on Instagram, because it was still six years away from being invented. In fact, Instagram started as an iPhone app, and the first-generation iPhone was still three years away from introduction.

No one has ever tweeted about a Leafs playoff game. Twitter was still almost two years away from launch when the Leafs were eliminated by the Flyers.

The last Maple Leaf to score a playoff goal was Mats Sundin, who's been retired long enough to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, which he was in November. He buried a third-period goal to tie Game 6 against the Flyers, with assists by Gary Roberts and Alexander Mogilny.

You wouldn't have read about that goal on Facebook unless you were enrolled at Harvard, where the social network launched three months — to the day — earlier. Or maybe if you were one of the early adopters at Columbia, Yale or Stanford, where Facebook expanded two months earlier. And it was still called The Facebook back then.

Be-Leafers have been around longer than Beliebers. Justin Bieber may not have even been allowed to stay up to see the end of a hockey game on a school night. He was only 10 year old and just another kid in Stratford, Ont., not yet a mega pop star.

When Pat Quinn coached the Leafs to that last post-season appearance, a certain man representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate had yet to give his famous speech at the Democratic National Convention that thrust him into the U.S. political spotlight. In fact, he hadn't yet been elected a U.S. Senator. Though, as a supporter of Chicago teams, Barack Obama was unlikely to be a Maple Leafs fan.

More unlikely, but possible, viewers include the now deceased Ronald Reagan, Marlon Brando and Christopher Reeve. All were still alive that night when Jeremy Roenick drove the overtime nail into the Leafs' playoff coffin.

But now the Leafs are back in the playoffs, trying to end one of the most talked about championship droughts in North American sports.

Better yet, you can follow their post-season run on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. And you can do it all on your iPhone. Belieb it.

Steven Bull is a CBC News reporter based in Windsor. Follow him on Twitter @BullCBC.

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8,000 suspected pot cookies found in White Rock, B.C. home

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 21 April 2013 | 22.55

An armed home invasion in White Rock on Thursday led to the discovery of thousands of cookies believed to be laced with marijuana.

While officers were at the home, they discovered 8,000 cookies believed to contain marijuana.

White Rock RCMP Const. Janelle Shoihet said it was a shocking discovery.

"I've never seen anything like it before. It's an unprecedented number of cookies," she said. "It was a bit like a bakery in there. So it was surprising to me."

A male and two females were arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking.

The two male intruders have not yet been found.

On Saturday, thousands are expected to gather in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery for the annual marijuana smoking event known as "4/20."

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Restaurateurs shame rude patrons in growing 'culture war'

When a diner has an unpleasant experience eating out, it's not uncommon to find their grievances online — from Facebook and Twitter to blogs and restaurant review websites.

But now, the tables are turning as more restaurateurs are taking to social media to complain about rude and unruly customers.

Last month, Jen Agg caused a small stir when she went on Twitter to vent her frustrations over unruly patrons at her trendy Toronto restaurant The Black Hoof.

Food writer Chris Nuttall-Smith says there has been a rise of dining aggression between restauraters and rude patrons. (iStock)

"Dear (almost) everyone in here right now," she tweeted. "Please, please stop being such a douche."

One Twitter user replied: "Wow. Talk about customer appreciation gone wrong. Yikes."

The Globe and Mail's food writer, Chris Nuttall-Smith, says there is a growing "culture war" between restaurant owners and their patrons. In an article last month, Nuttall-Smith wrote that we are seeing a "rise of dining aggression."

"Restaurants are not the same today as they were five years ago or 10 years ago," he told CBC host Matt Galloway on Friday's edition of The Current. "Everybody's trying to figure things out. It can be frustrating; it can be confusing."

Nuttall-Smith says that, in general, diners have a great time when they go out for a meal.

"But when there is a problem, they get cycled almost out of control via social media — and often face-to-face as well," he said, adding that he has seen restaurant owners share sharp words with customers.

Today's restaurants don't play 'the long game'

Nuttall-Smith said one of the reasons is economics. In the past, he said, restaurants would open, build a reliable base of regular customers and change very little over the years.

"Restaurateurs would play the long game in which the customer was always right," he said.

But today, Nuttall-Smith says, there is a new crop of eateries that are "more fun, more interesting, are constantly changing, and frankly, they don't have the resources behind them to play a 10-year game."

Instead, businesses now rely on turning tables quickly and keeping things interesting enough to keep customers coming through the doors.

Still, Nuttall-Smith thinks that publicly shaming or criticizing rude patrons is a bad strategy.

"I think it's destructive for restaurateurs to do that to their businesses," he said. "I think restaurateurs who criticize their customers publicly really risk alienating good customers."

Customer not always right

Agg, whose hugely popular restaurant has no trouble attracting customers and where hour-long waits for a table are not unusual, isn't worried about losing customers.

"At the end of the day, it's a niche restaurant with a niche market. It isn't for everyone," Agg said of her restaurant, which specializes in charcuterie and a "head to tail" style menu of meat offerings such as horse tartare and sweetbreads. "You can't be all things to all people, and you shouldn't try."

Agg says that the notion that the customer is always right is "a crazy idea."

Just because her business relies on paying customers, "that doesn't mean they're allowed to abuse my staff or be rude to me … Once that stuff starts to happen, I don't want their money anymore."

To hear more about why the customer isn't always right, listen to the full conversation at The Current.

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Stressed moms give babies a boost, squirrel study suggests

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 20 April 2013 | 22.56

Having a stressed-out mom may give baby squirrels a competitive edge, a new study suggests.

Red squirrels who were stressed out during pregnancy had babies that out-competed their peers by growing significantly faster without any extra food, reported the study, published online in Science Express.

"What that suggests is that they're first able to predict what sort of environment their offspring will encounter… and they're preparing them for what their offspring are going to face," said Ben Dantzer, lead author of the study he worked on while he was a Ph.D. student at Michigan State University under the supervision of Guelph University biologist Andrew McAdam.

'The hardest part of the study was spending hundreds of hours grinding up fecal samples.'—Ben Dantzer, researcher

Further investigation uncovered a link between faster growth among the baby squirrels and higher levels of stress hormones in their mothers during the pregnancies.

That link may explain how environmental conditions cue the animals to respond and adapt.

Canadian researchers, including Stan Boutin at the University of Alberta, Murray Humphreys at McGill University in Montreal and McAdam at the University of Guelph, had been studying red squirrels near Kluane Lake, Yukon, for 22 years to find out how they are affected by changes in resources such as food over time.

They had noticed that in the years when food such as white spruce seeds were more widely available, there was a much higher population density of squirrels — crowded conditions that the territorial squirrels find stressful. Among the babies born in those years, only the fastest growing ones survived.

That left researchers wondering whether it was the higher population density that prompted the baby squirrels to grow faster. The tricky part was being able to show that any changes in growth rates weren't caused by greater availability of food.

Squirrels tricked with recordings

To tackle that problem, Dantzer played recordings of calls that squirrels use to defend their territories, tricking the squirrels into thinking their forest was more crowded than it actually was. For these squirrels, the growth rates of their offspring were compared to the growth rates of those whose mothers didn't hear the extra audio recordings.

Researcher Ben Dantzer, shown here removing a baby squirrel from its nest, tricked squirrels into thinking they were living in crowded conditions by playing recordings of squirrels defending their territory. (Ben Dantzer)To confirm whether the recordings stressed the squirrels out, Dantzer, with the help of University of Toronto researcher Rudy Boonstra, collected squirrel feces and analyzed them for the stress hormone cortisol.

"I would say the hardest part of the study was spending hundreds of hours grinding up fecal samples," recalled Dantzer, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge.

As expected, squirrels who thought they were living in crowded conditions had higher levels of cortisol in their feces.

The researchers also fed peanut butter laced with cortisol to some pregnant squirrels to boost their levels of the hormone, and found that their babies grew 41 per cent faster than the babies of squirrels that were fed plain peanut butter.

That bolstered the evidence that it was the increased cortisol levels that had caused the offspring of the stressed mother squirrels to grow faster.

Dantzer said the results came as something of a surprise because researchers had previously thought baby animals always grow as fast as they can according to the amount of food available. The data suggest that baby animals usually aren't growing as fast as they possibly can, but only do that when they really have to.

He added that researchers aren't sure why that is the case, but the results suggest that the faster growth rate may have a cost to either the mother or the babies. For example, there is some evidence that reproducing more often can cause some physiological stress to mother squirrels, and that offspring born in years when the squirrel density is high don't live as long.

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Restaurateurs shame rude patrons in growing 'culture war'

When a diner has an unpleasant experience eating out, it's not uncommon to find their grievances online — from Facebook and Twitter to blogs and restaurant review websites.

But now, the tables are turning as more restaurateurs are taking to social media to complain about rude and unruly customers.

Last month, Jen Agg caused a small stir when she went on Twitter to vent her frustrations over unruly patrons at her trendy Toronto restaurant The Black Hoof.

Food writer Chris Nuttall-Smith says there has been a rise of dining aggression between restauraters and rude patrons. (iStock)

"Dear (almost) everyone in here right now," she tweeted. "Please, please stop being such a douche."

One Twitter user replied: "Wow. Talk about customer appreciation gone wrong. Yikes."

Nuttall-Smith says that, in general, diners have a great time when they go out for a meal.

Today's restaurants don't play 'the long game'

Nuttall-Smith said one of the reasons is economics. In the past, he said, restaurants would open, build a reliable base of regular customers and change very little over the years.

"Restaurateurs would play the long game in which the customer was always right," he said.

Instead, businesses now rely on turning tables quickly and keeping things interesting enough to keep customers coming through the doors.

Still, Nuttall-Smith thinks that publicly shaming or criticizing rude patrons is a bad strategy.

"I think it's destructive for restaurateurs to do that to their businesses," he said. "I think restaurateurs who criticize their customers publicly really risk alienating good customers."

Customer not always right

Agg, whose hugely popular restaurant has no trouble attracting customers and where hour-long waits for a table are not unusual, isn't worried about losing customers.

Agg says that the notion that the customer is always right is "a crazy idea."

Just because her business relies on paying customers, "that doesn't mean they're allowed to abuse my staff or be rude to me … Once that stuff starts to happen, I don't want their money anymore."

To hear more about why the customer isn't always right, listen to the full conversation at The Current.

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Kissing cousins? Icelandic app warns if your date is a relative

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 19 April 2013 | 22.55

You meet someone, there's chemistry, and then come the introductory questions: What's your name? Come here often? Are you my cousin?

In Iceland, a country with a population of 320,000 where most everyone is distantly related, inadvertently kissing cousins is a real risk.

A new smartphone app is on hand to help Icelanders avoid accidental incest. The app lets users "bump" phones, and emits a warning alarm if they are closely related. "Bump the app before you bump in bed," says the catchy slogan.

Some are hailing it as a welcome solution to a very Icelandic form of social embarrassment.

"Everyone has heard the story of going to a family event and running into a girl you hooked up with some time ago," said Einar Magnusson, a graphic designer in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik.

"It's not a good feeling when you realize that girl is a second cousin. People may think it's funny, but (the app) is a necessity."

'Incest Prevention Alarm'

The Islendiga-App — "App of Icelanders" — is an idea that may only be possible in Iceland, where most of the population shares descent from a group of 9th-century Viking settlers, and where an online database holds genealogical details of almost the entire population.

'Bump the app before you bump in bed.'—Islendiga-App slogan

The app was created by three University of Iceland software engineering students for a contest calling for "new creative uses" of the Islendingabok, or Book of Icelanders, an online database of residents and their family trees stretching back 1,200 years.

Arnar Freyr Adalsteinsson, one of the trio, said it allows any two Icelanders to see how closely related they are, simply by touching phones.

"A small but much talked about feature is the loosely translated 'Incest Prevention Alarm' that users can enable through the options menu which notifies the user if the person he's bumping with is too closely related," Adalsteinsson said.

It's the latest twist on a long-standing passion for genealogy in Iceland, a volcanically active island in the North Atlantic that was largely unpopulated before Norse settlers arrived in A.D. 874. Their descendants built a small, relatively homogenous and — crucially — well-organized country, home to the world's oldest parliament and devoted to thorough record-keeping.

"The Icelandic sagas, written about 1,000 years ago, all begin with page after page of genealogy. It was the common man documenting his own history," said Kari Stefansson, chief executive of Icelandic biotech company deCODE Genetics, which ran the contest behind the app.

Icelandic love of genealogy

The Book of Icelanders database was developed in 1997 by deCODE and software entrepreneur Fridrik Skulason. Compiled using census data, church records, family archives and a host of other information sources, it claims to have information on 95 per cent of all Icelanders who have lived in the last 300 years.

The database can be scoured online by any Icelandic citizen or legal resident. The app makes the data available to Icelanders on their mobile phones — and adds the anti-incest feature.

Currently available for Android phones, it has been downloaded almost 4,000 times since it was launched earlier this month. The creators also hope to develop an iPhone version.

Stefansson says the "bump" feature is an attention-grabbing but relatively minor aspect of an app that brings Icelanders' love of genealogy into the 21st century.

He also hopes it won't convey the wrong impression about Iceland.

"The Icelandic nation is not inbred," he said. "This app is interesting. It makes the data much more available. But the idea that it will be used by young people to make sure they don't marry their cousins is of much more interest to the press than a reflection of reality."

It may also be of limited use. Currently the alarm only alerts users if they and their new acquaintance have a common grandparent, and most people already know who their first cousins are.

Adalsteinsson stresses that the app has other, less sexual uses.

"We added a birthday calendar to make sure you don't forget your relatives' birthdays," he said.

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Canadian glow-in-the-dark toilet seats to light the way

An entrepreneur in southern Ontario claims to have built a better toilet seat.

Tim Fittler of Fittler Sales & Marketing is the man behind NightGlow Toilet Seats, a line of glow-in-the-dark toilet seats developed and manufactured in Windsor, Ont.

The seats are traditional white during the day but glow blue or green in the dark.

Fittler hopes to market the seats to hotels, nursing homes and hospitals.

Fittler originally founded Pottyglow Inc. in the fall of 2000. By 2004 he had sold more than 50,000 Pottyglow toilet seats.

The early version of his seats were primarily a novelty and had a relatively short "glow time."

Fittler now claims his NightGlow toilet seat will glow for more than eight hours and "require very little light source to charge the glow seat."

The seats can use sunlight, incandescent light bulbs, florescent lights and black lights to charge.

Fittler worked with St. Clair College's director of applied research and development, Scott O'Neil, in developing a brighter and longer-lasting glow resin.

The seats retail for $49.99.

Fittler also worked with a group of six marketing students from St. Clair College to launch, promote and market his toilet seat.

The partnership was part of the Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation. The program provides funding to entrepreneurs and inventors, as well as students and instructors, in design, development and marketing of the products.

"This project has given them a tremendous opportunity to be involved in the launch of a unique and fun new product for the home décor category," marketing professor Steve Janisse said. "The students have put together a number of reports including target market analysis and marketing strategies."

Students also set up a Facebook site as well as a Pinterest page for the product.

22.55 | 0 komentar | Read More

Florida frog hops ride to Regina

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 18 April 2013 | 22.55

A tree frog from Florida has found a new home in Saskatchewan after hopping on a semi along with a load of either lumber or greenery. (CBC)

After hopping onto a shipment from Florida, a tree frog has found a new home in snow-covered Saskatchewan.

The green amphibian — about five centimetres long with its legs folded up — was found by staff at the Rona Home & Garden centre on the east side of Regina.

It's believed it came in with a shipment of either lumber or greenery from the southern U.S. state.

Regina's Jim Elliott, a wildlife rehabilitator, was contacted and is now caring for the critter, which is not native to the province.

"I've determined it's a Cuban tree frog," Elliott said. "I'm feeding it live crickets."

What happens next is an open question.

The frog is considered an invasive species in Florida and likely wouldn't be welcomed back, Elliott says.

The Saskatchewan climate is another concern. There's still a metre of snow on the ground in Regina, a Prairie city where every tree has been planted by hand.

Elliott says he has contacted Environment Canada to make sure the frog isn't a protected species.

For the time being, the frog is being kept in a Tupperware container as a precaution.

If it is indeed a Cuban tree frog, its skin would be covered with a slightly toxic mucus, Elliott said.

What should become of Rona, the Cuban tree frog in Regina?

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Tiny robots shoot documentary film

BlabDroids — small, cardboard robots equipped with high-definition cameras — are filming interviews and working on a documentary that examines how humans interact with artificial intelligence.

Filmmaker Brent Hoff says the tiny robots are making the "world's first documentary made by robots."

Hoff and his colleague, Blabdroid creator and roboticist Alexander Reben, are sending them out to interview people and ask them questions about their life.

The tiny robots have a smiling face and are programmed with the voice of a seven-year-old boy, who bartered his services in exchange for his very own Blabdroid, Hoff said in an interview with CBC's As It Happens.

CBC's Helen Mann talks to Hoff about the film project, and lets the robot turn the tables and ask a few questions of its own.

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Florida's giant snail infestation leaves trail of terrified tweets

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 17 April 2013 | 22.55

[View the story "Florida's giant snail infestation slithers back into the headlines" on Storify]

Storified by CBC News Community· Mon, Apr 15 2013 13:45:25

Freshfromflorida

It may sound like the plotof a B movie, but Floridians really are battling an infestation of Giant African Land Snails - aninvasive species that can grow up to 20 centimetres in length and live as longas nine years.

The slow moving story, whichslithered its way into the spotlight in 2011, has sparked fresh reaction onlinefollowing alocal update from Reuters reporter Barbara Liston.

Liston reported that roughly 1,000 snails - which are often referredto by their acronym, GALS -are being caught each week in Miami-Dade County.

Since the snails lurched their way back into the headlines, many social media users have been sharing details that may make your skin crawl.

GALS Video Footage September 2011fdacsdpi

YUCK!! Snails the size of rats invading Flordia! "Giant, slimy African snails invade South Florida" yhoo.it/ZWoyWO@@Majell Murphy

Florida's invading giant snails also can cause meningitis & puncture a car tire. Breed faster than rabbits. New state motto: #HereBeMonstersMark Reilly

Giant African land snails have invaded Florida. Up to 8 inches long. Eating thru plastic and stucco. Both sex organs and can lay 1000 eggs!Jeffrey Stoltzfus

Giant, hermaphroditic, 200-egg-laying, plaster-wall-eating snails invade Florida. "No solution" on their advance: bbc.in/ZsNc2tScott Lincicome

(To be clear, each snail can can produce 100 to 400 eggs in a single mating season, but in a typical year, every mated adult lays about 1,200 eggs.)

But it isn't just online observers who are being dramatic about the infestation.

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has released public service announcements about the snails using music and fonts normally found in vintage horror movies, like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978).

Giant African Land Snail Theater PSAfdacsdpi

Some other videos released to raise public awareness have been more lighthearted -- like the following spot enlisting area kids as junior detectives.

Giant African Land Snail Junior Detectivesfdacsdpi

The department, which first identified a population of the snails in Miami-Dade County in 2011,described them as "one of the most damaging snails in the world." Since then, roughly 117,000 snails have been caught, a department spokeswoman told Reuters.

The snails, the department explained, "consume at least 500different types of plants, can cause structural damage to plaster and stucco,and can carry a parasitic nematode that can lead to meningitis in humans."

Giant African Land Snail, DPI - FDACSFlorida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Division of Plant Industry safeguards the public and supports Florida's agricultu...

International observers just learning about the infestation were quick to express bemusement and disgust.

Florida is being invaded by giant African land snails. In real lifeLexi

It's real: Attack of the giant African land snails in Florida - CNNnilfred

Just read there are Giant African Land snails now in Fla. I'd worry about this but it will be roughly 2082 by the time they make it to MO.Kid Icthus

Liston's story follows on the heels of an expert symposiumin Gainesville, Fla., which was set up to discuss a long-term plan for gettingrid of the mollusks.

And in March, the state was promised $6 million in federal funding to combatepests in the state, including Giant African Land Snails.

The money will also help fund the "Don't Pack a PestOutreach Program."

Don't Pack a Pest!fdacsdpi

Have you ever experienced an infestation in your area? Or have you heard about one elsewhere that stands out to you? Tell us your stories in the comments below.

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After 50 years, Toronto couple quits knit-wear business

Leonard and Mae Fine are retiring this week after running their knitting business together for more than 50 years. (CBC)

Partners in business and in life, Leonard and Mae Fine are retiring this week after running their Toronto-based knit-wear business together for more than 50 years.

The couple, both in their 90s, ran Marni Knits, a shop that specialized in high-end knitted garments sold at some of the country's top retailers, including Goodman's and Holt Renfrew.

The couple met in New York during the Depression-era and built a life and a business together in Toronto.

"We've been working so many years, and we enjoy it," said Leonard. "And if you enjoy what you're doing, you don't want to stop."

But the couple were urged to retire by their son, who was also keen to retire himself.

"We had a life," said Mae. "We're still going to have a life, without the business. I may get a job, volunteering or something. "

Click on the video link above to watch Amanda Margison's full story about this remarkable couple.

With files from Amanda Margison

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Florida's giant snail infestation leaves trail of terrified tweets

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 16 April 2013 | 22.55