Boldly going where no beer has gone before

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

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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

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

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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

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

Related

External Links

Charge.org petition

(Note:CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.)

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 :)"

22.55 | 0 komentar | Read More