'Purse dude' makes girlfriend's bag internet famous

[View the story "'Purse dude' takes girlfriend's bag on an adventure" on Storify]

Storified by CBC News Community· Fri, Jun 21 2013 17:41:24

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When it comes to holding a woman's purse for her, some men are more reluctant than others. There are boyfriends who will carry a tote around the mall for hours, while others draw the line at ten minutes of dancing -- or flat out refuse to clasp a clutch at all.

And then there's 28-year-old Nate Daniels.

After a girl he'd been dating left her purse behind in his car, he decided not only to take care of it, but to bring it out on the town with him for a series of dates, activities, and tender moments.

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Daniels is a brand strategist from Los Angeles who goes by the handle iheartkickball on Imgur. This is where he first posted a screenshot of the conversation that inspired his now-viral photo series.

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Taking his date Jacquelyn's offer to borrow the purse at face value, Daniels immediately began chumming around town with his new squeeze and a camera in tow.

He took her small black purse to the beach...

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To a soccer game...

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To perform...

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To the hot tub...

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And even out for ice cream.

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In total, he had the purse for two days before Jacquelyn returned to claim it.

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"Jacquelyn had no clue I was doing this until I showed it to her when she came over yesterday afternoon," Daniels told Yahoo! Shine Thursday. "I had sent her the ice cream picture while she was gone, but she didn't think anything of it other than a that's just "Nate being Nate" sort of thing..'"

Meanwhile, the images were exploding in popularity on Imgur and Reddit.

he took the puse bowling. he didnt even buy it a beer or rent it shoes!kraang

You have done more in two days than I have in the last month.Watermelonin

I was thinking this. It was kinda funny, then it was like, "...how much dedication and effort is he putting into this very slight joke?"Rerellison

Dude's been friendzoned and doesn't even know it.iamtehsnarf

Does anyone know where to buy this purse??ZeroDarkFliirty

At least one member of the Imgur community felt compelled to insert his own face into Daniels' images.

Purse Guy Are Me - ImgurImgur is used to share photos with social networks and online communities, and has the funniest pictures from all over the Internet.

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That purse leads a life 20 times more exciting than mine.Mom-said-its-wrong

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Pigeon travels from Japan to Vancouver Island

No one is sure exactly how a Japanese racing pigeon ended up on Vancouver Island.

The bird was found near Comox, and has been recovering at a rescue centre in Courtenay for the past two weeks.

An electronic tag clasped on the pigeon's foot is proof the bird came from Japan, nearly 8,000 kilometres away.

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Scientists fool veggies into being more nutritious

Researchers have found they can boost levels of nutritious, cancer-fighting compounds in vegetables such as cabbage by fooling the vegetables into thinking it's a certain time of day.

Janet Braam, a biologist at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and her colleagues discovered in 2012 that Arabidopsis thaliana, a plant related to cabbages and broccoli, uses its internal biological clock or "circadian rhythm" to ramp up production of insect-fighting chemicals at the times of day when the insects are most likely to attack and feed on them.

'We understood that crops don't die as soon as you take them away from their roots ... But they're much more responsive and active than I think we were aware.'—Janet Braam, biologist

"That way, the plant prepares for the attack before it actually happens," Braam told Bob McDonald, host of CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks, in an interview that airs Saturday.

Plants keep their internal clocks synchronized to the environment by detecting the light and temperature conditions around them.

Braam was interested to find out if plants can maintain those rhythms, after they're harvested and waiting to be purchased and eaten, since some of the insect-fighting chemicals also have anti-cancer properties.

They discovered that cabbages, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, blueberries and even root vegetables such as carrots and sweet potatoes all maintained their internal clocks after being harvested if exposed to controlled lighting in a sealed chamber. The results came as a bit of a surprise, Braam said.

"We understood that crops don't die as soon as you take them away from their roots or dig them up from the soil," she said. "But they're much more responsive and active than I think we were aware."

The researchers also found they could make cabbage leaves increase their production of an anti-insect, anti-cancer compound called gluoraphanin at certain times of the day by manipulating the light conditions to trick the cabbage's internal clock.

The researchers found that if cabbage was exposed to regular light and day cycles after harvest, it remained more resistant to insect attacks. (iStock)

Typically, Braam said, cabbages produce more of the compound during the day than at night, and more of it later in the day than in the morning.

The researchers also found that if cabbage was exposed to regular light and day cycles after harvest, it remained more resistant to insect attacks during storage.

"It's beneficial to keep the clock running even after harvest," Bram said.

The findings were published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

Son's comments sparked idea

Braam said the study was inspired by a conversation with her teenage son, after she told him about her earlier discovery of the link between the time of day and a plant's production of anti-insect chemicals. He commented that he now knew what time of day to eat his vegetables.

Knowing about the plants' rhythms may indeed make it possible to eat or preserve fruits and veggies at the time of day when the accumulation of healthy compounds peaks, Braam said.

On the other hand, storing vegetables in dark trucks, boxes and refrigerators may interfere with their ability to maintain their daily biological rhythms. However, Braam said plants are very sensitive to stimuli such as light and temperature, so it may not take very much to keep their clocks ticking.

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New brain map makes neurosurgeons, biologists 'ecstatic'

A new human brain model offers neurosurgeons and researchers a sophisticated and detailed three-dimensional tool, experts say.

Current reference brains just look at the visible parts of the brain based on simple drawings. Thursday's new online atlas, called BigBrain, shows brain anatomy in microscopic detail down to a level that's smaller than the size of a fine strand of hair — 50 times more detailed than before.

Researchers use a special tool called a microtome to cut more than 7,400 sections from a brain preserved in paraffin wax into tiny slivers. (Courtesy Science)

"Our neuroanatomists and neurosurgeons in particular at the Montreal Neurological Institute are absolutely ecstatic," said senior author Alan Evans, a professor at the McGill University institute.

"The surgeons are all running in and out of the room right now trying to get at the data on the very, very big screen that we have on the wall," he told reporters.

Evans said the BigBrain offers a completely new level of insight into the brain's organization. That's important for biologists who seek to relate structure and function of an organ as complex as the brain when probing normal human childhood development and how illnesses like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or epilepsy occur.

"This allows us to further to examine the interaction between different brain regions, the organization of the brain and how it subserves behaviour," said Evans.

"So we've raised the level of insight orders of magnitude beyond what was possible at the turn of the 20th century."

To build the model, researchers took thin slices from a brain donated by a 65-year-old woman who is anonymous. She had no neurological or psychotic history, said Katrin Amunts, director of the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine at Research Centre Jülich in Germany and a corresponding author of the study, published in the journal Science.

The 20-micrometre thick sections were stained and prepared in a lab, digitized with a high-resolution flatbed scanner and MRI then painstakingly reconstructed in multiple dimensions with advanced computing techniques for a data set that was on the order of 100,000 times larger than a typical MRI scan that in contrast doesn't offer more information after zooming in.

Atlas for neurosurgeons

The BigBrain offers the ability for doctors and researchers to plug in information such as patient MRI or PET scans.

When patients with Parkinson's for instance have electrodes placed in their brains to control symptoms, surgeons rely on 2D drawings, said Amunts.

"In our BigBrain, this can serve as a new atlas for neurosurgery as well on a much higher spatial resolution and also with much more precision."

Dr. Mojgan Hodaie, a neurosurgeon at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre at University Health Network in Toronto, applauded the researchers for the meticulous work.

"Comparing this to the geography of the Earth, it would be like having one map that includes significant amount of detail of every street and neighborhood, and at the same time and with the same level of precision, tells us where the land masses are arranged and when do we get to the ocean," Hodaie said in an email to CBC News.

Hodaie said the atlas allows comparisons of the detailed arrangement of fine structures in the brain to understand questions such as where lobes begin and end with more accuracy. "The BigBrain atlas is free and available to all researchers. Allowing others to benefit from this work is in itself an immense value and a large service to the scientific community."

The BigBrain also provides a common basis for scientific discussions, said study co-author Prof. Karl Zilles from the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in Jülich, Germany.

In April, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a related North American project to record and map the interaction of brain cells. A similar billion Euro initiative is underway in Europe.

The atlas is available at https://bigbrain.loris.ca/main.php.

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Airport worker's sloppy loading goes viral

An airplane passenger who captured a freight handler's carelessness on camera has seen his year-old YouTube video rack up millions of fresh views in the past few days.

In the roughly four minute video, which went viral after resurfacing on Reddit, Mark Bridgman watches from his window seat as a man tosses boxes toward the airplane's conveyor belt.

Many bounce off and fall to the floor. And at one point the man swats boxes toward the moving belt with one hand while holding his cellphone.

Airport worker chucks boxes at the conveyor belt. (Mark Bridgman/YouTube) "More of them are going on the ground than on the conveyor," Bridgman exclaims during the video, which was shot at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in Guangzhou, China.

"Goodness knows what's in there. I hope it's not fragile but there's a good chance it is."

Afterward, Bridgman posted more of his thoughts on YouTube.

"This was amazing to watch. I think I was the only one noticing what was happening outside the window of the plane, and this time I captured it, " he wrote, referencing a previous incident during which he witnessed handlers throwing boxes labelled "this way up" and "fragile" onto a conveyor belt.

"Lesson: Pack it well, because it won't be treated well."

The video generated renewed interest in recent days after the post spread to other popular sites like Gawker and China's Sina Weibo social network.

The video has hit a nerve with those who know what it's like to receive a broken package or open their luggage only to discover its contents in bad shape -- a feeling Bridgman himself knows all too well.

"I have had freight damaged numerous times myself and this type of treatment of other's property is unacceptable."

Do you feel nervous when your luggage is out of your sight during trips? Has your property ever been handled without care and broken en route?

Share your stories below.

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Albino python found slithering near Chilliwack, B.C.

An illegal albino Burmese python has been caught in the wilderness near Chilliwack, B.C., after the owner apparently dumped him to avoid getting into trouble.

The two-metre snake, which is native to South Asia and Southeast Asia, didn't take well to the B.C. backcountry and is reportedly in bad shape.

Veterinarian Adrian Walton is currently nursing the reptile back to health at his clinic in Maple Ridge.

The python is being cared for by Maple Ridge vet Adrian Walton (CBC/Emily Elias)

"He is this absolutely beautiful yellow snake," Walton said. "He's extremely friendly. This kind of snake is what I call the Great Dane of the snake world."

Walton said new legislation means a permit is required to to own any of these animals.

"A lot of people never pursued their permits, and so when they decide they want to get rid of them, there's really no where to give them."

Walton is hoping the authorities will be able to find a loving home for the as yet unnamed snake.

In the wild, Burmese pythons can grow as long as almost six metres, and once fully grown, can weigh as much as almost 70 kilograms.

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4 Vancouver men aim to row the Northwest Passage

Four Vancouver adventurers say they hope to spark discussion about climate change by attempting to become the first people to row the Northwest Passage this summer.

On July 1, the four men will begin their journey in a specially designed 25-foot boat, starting from Inuvik and ending in Pond Inlet, Nunavut on the east coast of Baffin Island in the early fall.

The modern-day explorers say the Northwest Passage has become semi-navigable due to the deterioration of arctic ice from climate change.

Crew member Kevin Vallely told Rick Cluff on The Early Edition he hopes the journey will help show the world how climate change is affecting the arctic.

Climate science

During their trip, the team will also gather scientific data for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Vancouver Aquarium and others to provide "early warnings" of how the Arctic is changing.

They'll lower a device called a CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, Depth) sampler, to measure how salty and cold the water is at different depths.

"For how important the Arctic is, and how much it's changing, it's amazing how little we know about it," said Eric Solomon, Director of Arctic Programs at the Vancouver Aquarium.

Basic information like temperature and salinity matters, said Solomon, because it affects the entire food web, from microscopic phytoplankton up to seals and whales.

The rowers' data will be combined with other readings collected by military reservists in four of Canada's most northern Inuit communities.

With files from the CBC's Lisa Johnson. You can follow her on twitter @lisasj

You can join Rick Cluff on The Early Edition every weekday from 5:30 a.m to 8:37 a.m on CBC Radio One, 88.1FM/690AM.

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'Tweet' gets new entries in Oxford dictionary

Tweeting in the social-networking sense has become so pervasive that the Oxford English Dictionary has broken one of its own rules to add new meanings for "tweet" as both a noun and a verb.

"It seems to be catching on," wrote John Simpson, chief editor of the dictionary that bills itself as "the definitive record of the English language."

Traditionally, a new word needs to be in use for 10 years before the dictionary will consider it for inclusion, Simpson acknowledged in his online commentary for the dictionary's June 2013 update.

Nevertheless, both the noun that means "a posting made on the social networking service Twitter" and the verb that means "to post on Twitter" have just been added to the dictionary, Simpson wrote under the subhead "Quiet announcement." The social networking service Twitter launched less than seven years ago, in July 2006.

"Tweet" was not included in the official full list of new word entries, sub-entries or new senses for June 2013. However, a large number of other terms pertaining to technology were, including live blog, mouseover, interoperability. Other new words this month include flash mob, fracking, headfuck, mochaccino and kombucha.

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Huge ancient city at Angkor Wat revealed by lasers

Airborne laser technology has uncovered a network of roadways and canals, illustrating a bustling ancient city linking Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temple complex.

The discovery was announced late Monday in a peer-reviewed paper released early by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The laser scanning revealed a previously undocumented formally planned urban landscape integrating the 1,200-year-old temples.

The Angkor temple complex, Cambodia's top tourist destination and one of Asia's most famous landmarks, was constructed in the 12th century during the mighty Khmer empire. Angkor Wat is a point of deep pride for Cambodians, appearing on the national flag, and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Archaeologists had long suspected that the city of Mahendraparvata lay hidden beneath a canopy of dense vegetation atop Phnom Kulen mountain in Siem Reap province. But the airborne lasers produced the first detailed map of a vast cityscape, including highways and previously undiscovered temples.

"No one had ever mapped the city in any kind of detail before, and so it was a real revelation to see the city revealed in such clarity," University of Sydney archaeologist Damian Evans, the study's lead author, said by phone from Cambodia. "It's really remarkable to see these traces of human activity still inscribed into the forest floor many, many centuries after the city ceased to function and was overgrown."

The laser technology, known as lidar, works by firing laser pulses from an aircraft to the ground and measuring the distance to create a detailed, three-dimensional map of the area. It's a useful tool for archaeologists because the lasers can penetrate thick vegetation and cover swaths of ground far faster than they could be analyzed on foot. Lidar has been used to explore other archaeological sites, such as Stonehenge.

In April 2012, researchers loaded the equipment onto a helicopter, which spent days crisscrossing the dense forests from 800 metres above the ground. A team of Australian and French archaeologists then confirmed the findings with an on-foot expedition through the jungle.

Archaeologists had already spent years doing ground research to map a 9-square-kilometre section of the city's downtown area. But the lidar revealed the downtown was much more expansive — at least 35 square kilometres — and more heavily populated than once believed.

"The real revelation is to find that the downtown area is densely inhabited, formally-planned and bigger than previously thought," Evans said. "To see the extent of things we missed before has completely changed our understanding of how these cities were structured."

Researchers don't yet know why the civilization at Mahendraparvata collapsed. But Evans said one current theory is that possible problems with the city's water management system may have driven people out.

The next step for researchers involves excavating the site, which Evans hopes will reveal clues about how many people once called the city home.

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Has the lost bell of Batoche been found in Manitoba?

A decades-old mystery of the whereabouts of the bell of Batoche may be solved later this week.

The bell was taken from Batoche, Sask., to Millbrook, Ont., by soldiers during the Louis Riel-led North West Rebellion in 1885. Batoche served as the capital of Riel's provisional government of Saskatchewan at the time.

There have been reported rumours over the years of people claiming the bell was hidden in Saskatchewan or Manitoba.

The 20-pound silver bell was taken as a war trophy from the parish church of Batoche and hung for decades in Millbrook, which was home to many of the Riel's soldiers.

It was last kept in the Royal Canadian Legion hall when it disappeared in 1991.

There were reports at the time that a pickup truck with a Saskatchewan licence plate was seen speeding off from the scene.

A media event this Friday, hosted by the Union Nationale Metisse Saint-Joseph du Manitoba, promises more information about the bell.

Phillipe Mailhot, of the St. Boniface Museum, said if the bell has indeed been found, he'd like to see it displayed in a number of places.

"The Métis community here in Manitoba is also quite strong … so I think it would be kind of neat if it could be shared," he said.

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