The girl who gets gifts from birds

Image copyright Lisa Mann Lots of people love the birds in their garden, but it's rare for that affection to be reciprocated. One young girl in Seattle is luckier than most. She feeds the crows in her garden - and they bring her gifts in return. Eight-year-old Gabi Mann sets a bead storage container on the dining room table, and clicks the lid open. This is her most precious collection. "You may take a few close looks," she says, "but don't touch." Inside the box are rows of small objects in clear plastic bags. Each item is individually wrapped and categorised. There's a miniature silver ball, a black button, a blue paper clip, a yellow bead, a faded black piece of foam, a blue Lego piece, and the list goes on. Image copyright Katy Sewall She didn't gather this collection. She holds up a pearl coloured heart. Gabi's relationship with the neighbourhood crows began accidentally in 2011. As she got older, she rewarded their attention, by sharing her packed lunch on the way to the bus stop.

Bionic feet for amputee cat A cat that had its back feet severed by a combine harvester has been given two prosthetic limbs in a pioneering operation by a UK vet. The new feet are custom-made implants that "peg" the ankle to the foot. They are bioengineered to mimic the way deer antler bone grows through the skin. The operation - a world first - was carried out by Noel Fitzpatrick, a veterinary surgeon based in Surrey. His work is explored in a BBC documentary called The Bionic Vet. The cat, named Oscar, was referred to Mr Fitzpatrick by his local vet in Jersey, following the accident last October. The prosthetic pegs, called intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (Itaps) were developed by a team from University College London led by Professor Gordon Blunn, who is head of UCL's Centre for Biomedical Engineering. Professor Blunn and his team have worked in partnership with Mr Fitzpatrick to develop these weight-bearing implants, combining engineering mechanics with biology.

Secrets Of Legendary Viking Crystal Sunstones And The Mysterious Uunartoq Artifact Unraveled -... AncientPages.com – Over one thousand years ago, in open, hand-built wooden ships equipped with massive, hand-loomed sails, the Vikings navigated the extremely challenging waters of the North Atlantic. While voyaging on the seas, how did the Vikings know where they were going? According to sagas from the Viking era, the Vikings used whales, swells, birds, the stars and the wind as clues to aid in navigation. The Norse sagas mention a mysterious “sunstone” – a magical stone which showed sailors road when the sun disappeared. In Viking times the magical Sun Stone showed sailors road when the sun went down. Now researchers say the stone is real and it’s a special crystal. However, this has changed and now. Archaeologists have discovered a special crystal that suggests legendary Viking sunstones did exists in reality. The crystal uncovered in the 1592 sunken Elizabethan shipwreck near the Channel Islands, between England and France is shown to be an Iceland spar. The Uunartoq disc.

Fox News Officially Freaking Out About Google's Plan To Rank Sites By 'Accuracy' Watching how Fox News covers a news story is sort of like doing dream analysis on the conservative movement’s subconscious, you start to see what really terrifies them. So it was with great interest that I sat down to watch Fox’s latest coverage of Google’s plan to someday rank search engine results not by “popularity” but “accuracy.” The network did not disappoint. In a recent edition of Fox News’ Happening Now, the conservative network hastily put together an out-and-out hit piece on Google. “They say you’re entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. If you’re wondering who they could possibly mean by that, the answer is quickly revealed: Climate deniers. Fox asks regular guest Marc Morano how he feels about Google’s proposal. “Let the public decide what’s the truth,” Morano tells a Fox reporter. Watch the segment below via Media Matters: All of this plays into a recurring nightmare constantly running through the heads of conservatives.

Judge strikes down Prop. 8, allows gay marriage in California SAN FRANCISCO AND LOS ANGELES — A federal judge declared California's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional Wednesday, saying that no legitimate state interest justified treating gay and lesbian couples differently from others and that "moral disapproval" was not enough to save the voter-passed Proposition 8. California "has no interest in differentiating between same-sex and opposite-sex unions," U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker said in his 136-page ruling. The ruling was the first in the country to strike down a marriage ban on federal constitutional grounds. Previous cases have cited state constitutions. Lawyers on both sides expect the ruling to be appealed and ultimately reach the U.S. It is unclear whether California will conduct any same-sex weddings during that time. In striking down Proposition 8, Walker said the ban violated the federal constitutional guarantees of equal protection and of due process. Edward E. "That time has passed," he wrote.