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By MIKE STARK,Associated Press Writer AP -
Wednesday, October 22
SALT LAKE CITY - Geologists say they have discovered prehistoric animal tracks so densely packed on a 3/4-acre site that they're calling it a "dinosaur dance floor."
The site along the Arizona-Utah state line offers a rich new set of clues about the lives of dinosaurs 190 million years ago.
Back then, large stretches of the West were a Sahara-like desert. More than 1,000 tracks were found in what would have been a watery oasis nestled among towering, wind-whipped sand dunes.
The footprints could provide fodder for researchers trying to understand dinosaurs that survived in what many considered a "vast, dry, uninhabitable desert," said Marjorie Chan, professor of geology at the University of Utah and one of the authors of a new study of the site.
"Maybe it really wasn't as lifeless as we think," Chan said Monday.
The discovery adds yet another site to the region's long list of dinosaur hot spots. The difference, though, is sheer numbers. Scientists estimate there are more than 1,000 tracks at the site, which is in a protected area of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.
In some places, there are a dozen footprints in a square yard.
"It was a place that attracted a crowd, kind of like a dance floor," Chan said.
Researchers identified four different kinds of tracks in the rock but haven't determined the specific species that left them behind.
Some of the footprints _ once thought to be potholes formed by erosion _ measure 16 inches across and have three toes and a heel. Others are smaller and more circular.
The area also includes what researchers think are rare tail drag marks.
Winston Seiler, who studied the site for a master's thesis, said the area might have been a popular gathering spot for adults and youngsters alike. It could have been one of many where Early Jurassic dinosaurs stopped for refreshment before moving along.
Seiler imagines dinosaurs were "happy to be at this place, having wandered up and down many a sand dune, exhausted from the heat and the blowing sand, relieved and happy to come to a place where there was water."
The study's findings were published in the October issue of the journal Palaios.
"It's an exciting site and deserving of a lot more work," said Jim Kirkland, Utah's state paleontologist, who was not involved with the study.
He hopes paleontologists begin a large-scale survey of the site to better understand what's there and what stories the tracks might tell.
Dinosaur tracks can provide important insight about dinosaur behavior and movements across the landscape, said Andrew Milner, paleontologist at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm in southwestern Utah.
The newly discovered site, about three miles from the nearest road, is part of a protected wilderness area that also includes a geologic formation called "The Wave" _ a gallery of striped, twisted sandstone.
Twenty permits are issued each day to enter the area. Linda Price, the monument's manager, expects interest in the area will jump with word of the dinosaur track site.
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On the Net:
http://www.utah.edu
Dinosaur Photos Slideshow
Source: Yahoo News
Flirting is a form of human interaction between two people, expressing a sexual and/or romantic interest. It can consist of conversation, body language, or brief physical contact. It may be one-sided or reciprocated.
The origin of the word flirt is obscure. The Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) associates it with such onomatopoeic words as flit and flick, emphasizing a lack of seriousness; on the other hand, it has been attributed to the old French "Conter fleurette", which means "to (try to) seduce" by the dropping of flower leaves, that is, "to speak sweet nothings". This expression is no longer used in French, but the English gallicism to flirt has made its way and has now become an anglicism.
Flirting is often used as a means of expressing interest and gauging the other person's interest in courtship, which can continue into long-term relationships. Alternatively, it may simply be a prelude to casual sex with no continuing relationship.
In other situations, it may be done simply for immediate entertainment, with no intention of developing any further relationship. This type of flirting sometimes faces disapproval from others, either because it can be misinterpreted as more serious, or it may be viewed as "cheating" if the person is already in a romantic relationship with someone else.
People who flirt may speak and act in a way that suggests greater intimacy than is generally considered appropriate to the relationship (or to the amount of time the two people have known each other), without actually saying or doing anything that breaches any serious social norms. One way they accomplish this is to communicate a sense of playfulness or irony. Double entendres, with one meaning more formally appropriate and another more suggestive, may be used.
Flirting may consist of stylized gestures, language, body language, postures, and physiologic signs. Among these, at least in Western society, are:
01) Eye contact, batting eyelashes, etc.
02) "Protean" signals, such as touching one's hair
03) Casual touches; such as a woman gently touching a man's arm during conversation
04) Smiling suggestively
05) Winking
06) Sending notes, poems, or small gifts
07) Flattery
08) Online chat is a common modern tactic, as well as other one-on-one and direct messaging services
09) Footsie, the "feet under the table" practice
10) Teasing
11) Chance meeting
While some of the subconscious signs are universal across cultures, flirting etiquette varies significantly across cultures which can lead to misunderstandings. There are differences in how closely people should stand (proxemics), how long to hold eye contact, and so forth.
During World War II, anthropologist Margaret Mead was working in Britain for the British Ministry of Information and later for the U.S. Office of War Information, delivering speeches and writing articles to help the American soldiers better understand the British civilians,and vice versa.
She observed in the flirtations between the American soldiers and British women a pattern of misunderstandings regarding who is supposed to take which initiative. She wrote of the Americans, "The boy learns to make advances and rely upon the girl to repulse them whenever they are inappropriate to the state of feeling between the pair.", as contrasted to the British, where "the girl is reared to depend upon a slight barrier of chilliness... which the boys learn to respect, and for the rest to rely upon the men to approach or advance, as warranted by the situation." This resulted, for example, in British women interpreting an American soldier's gregariousness as something more intimate or serious than he had intended.
Communications theorist Paul Watzlawick used this situation, where "both American soldiers and British girls accused one another of being sexually brash", as an example of differences in "punctuation" in interpersonal communications. He wrote that courtship in both cultures used approximately 30 steps from "first eye contact to the ultimate consummation", but that the sequence of the steps was different. For example, kissing might be an early step in the American pattern but a relatively intimate act in the English pattern.
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Since guys and gals are different so, are females usually the one getting emotional and took flirting serious? Well I guess it depends bah…
Labels: Knowledge
By Julie Steenhuysen
Tue May 6, 2:44 PM ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A type of fat that accumulates around the hips and bottom may actually offer some protection against diabetes, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
They said subcutaneous fat, or fat that collects under the skin, helped to improve sensitivity to the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar.
Mice that got transplants of this type of fat deep into their abdomens lost weight and their fat cells shrank, even though they made no changes in their diet or activity levels.
"It was a surprising result," said Dr. Ronald Kahn of Harvard Medical School in Boston, whose study appears in the journal Cell Metabolism.
"We actually found it had a beneficial effect, and it was especially true when you put it inside the abdomen," Kahn said in a telephone interview.
Kahn said he started the study to find out why fat located in different parts of the body seems to have different risks of metabolic disease such as diabetes.
Researchers have known for some time that fat that collects in the abdomen -- known as visceral fat -- can raise a person's risk of diabetes and heart disease, while people with pear-shaped bodies, with fat deposits in the buttocks and hips, are less prone to these disorders.
Now it turns out that subcutaneous fat -- fat found just under the skin -- may be actively protecting people from metabolic disease.
Kahn and colleagues conducted a series of experiments on mice where they transplanted subcutaneous fat from donor mice into the bellies and under the skin of mice.
Mice that got subcutaneous fat transplanted into their bellies started to slim down after several weeks, and they also showed improved blood sugar and insulin levels compared to mice that underwent a sham procedure.
"What we found was that when we put it in either place, there was some improvement in metabolism," Kahn said.
"I think it's an important result because not only does it say that not all fat is bad, but I think it points to a special aspect of fat where we need to do more research," he said.
Kahn's team is working to find the substances produced in subcutaneous fat that provide the benefit with the hope of developing a drug that might copy this effect. Although fat is known to produce several hormones, Kahn said none of the known hormones appeared to be involved in this process.
"If we can capture those (substances), we might have an opportunity to convert them into drugs or use them as guides to help develop drugs," he said.
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Doina Chiacu)
Labels: Knowledge
Msg title: Pass this to your daughters ,female friends and family
Please inform your Female friends !!!!!
A woman at a bar on a Saturday night was taken by 5 men, who, according to hospital and police reports, gang raped her before dumping her. Unable to remember the events of the evening, tests later confirmed the repeat rapes, along with traces of Rohypnol in her blood and Progesterex, essentially a small sterilization pill.
The drug is now being used by rapists at parties to rape AND sterilize their victims. Progesterex is available to vets to sterilize large animals. Progesterex is being used together with Rohypnol, the date rape drug.
As with Rohypnol, all they have to do is drop it into the girl's drink. The girl can't remember a thing the next morning, of all that had taken place the night before. Progesterex, which dissolves in drinks just as easily, is such that the victim doesn't get pregnant; she won't conceive from the rape and the rapist needn't worry about having a paternity test identifying him months later.
The drug's effects ARE NOT TEMPORARY - They are P*E*R*M*A*N* E*N*T!!! Progesterex was designed to sterilize horses.. Any female who takes it will
NEVER BE ABLE TO CONCEIVE... The weasels can get this drug from anyone who is in the vet school or any university.
It's that easy, and Progesterex is about to break out big on campuses everywhere. Believe it or not, there are even sites on the Internet telling people how to use it.
Please forward this to everyone you know, especially girls... Be careful when you're out and don't leave your drink unattended.
Please make the effort to forward this on to all you know... Guys, please inform all your female friends and relatives!
REPOST THIS MSG AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN to HELP SAVE THE NEXT VICTIM.....
Labels: Knowledge
Scientists proposed a new theory this week for how identical twins are formed as embryos, in a discovery that may improve a broad range of artificial reproduction techniques.
Using specialized computer software to take photos every two minutes of 33 embryos growing in a laboratory, Dr. Dianna Payne, a visiting research fellow at the Mio Fertility Clinic in Japan, and colleagues documented for the first time the early days of twin development.
The research was presented Monday at a meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology in Lyon, France.
Payne and colleagues found that identical twins are formed after an embryo essentially collapses, splitting the progenitor cells those that contain the body's fundamental genetic material in half. That leaves the same genetic material divided in two on opposite sides of the embryo. Eventually, two separate fetuses develop.
"This is very exciting because it explains the principle of how we get twins," said Dr. Soren Ziebe, an artificial reproduction expert at the University of Copenhagen, who was not connected to Payne's research.
"Until now, we have assumed that at some point when the embryo breaks out of its shell to adhere to the uterus, it somehow gets divided into two," Ziebe said. Payne's theory presents a plausible explanation of how that division occurs, according to Ziebe.
"This is an exciting paper because by watching the embryo growing continuously, it has given a new insight into the processes by which the embryo divides," said Dr. Alison Murdoch, a professor of reproductive medicine at Newcastle University's Fertility Centre. Murdoch was not connected to Payne's research.
While conducting the research, Payne also found a possible explanation for why in-vitro fertilization techniques are more likely to create twins. Only about three pairs of twins per thousand deliveries occur as a result of natural conception. But for IVF deliveries, there are nearly 21 pairs of twins for every thousand.
To date, scientists have been at a loss to explain the discrepancy. Payne suggests that the laboratory conditions in which embryos are grown in solutions that attempt to reproduce the uterus environment are different enough to somehow provoke the development of twins.
"There are a lot of very subtle effects in the body, like different gas concentrations, enzymes or salt solutions," said Payne. While scientists attempt to replicate an embryo's natural environment, they are still far off. "The difference between the lab conditions and what's present in the body is probably resulting in more twins," she said.
"We need to take careful account of this new information," Murdoch said, adding that growing embryos for longer periods in the laboratory may be adding to the likelihood of having twins.
Payne suggested that with more research, doctors could potentially devise a test to predict which embryos might be inclined to produce identical twins. Because carrying twins is more risky than carrying a single baby, experts think the success rates of artificial reproduction would increase if twins could be avoided.
In the photos from Payne's research, scientists were able to observe two distinct "inner cell masses" in the embryos that developed twins. Of the 26 embryos that developed enough for them to observe, two had these distinct internal cell masses that scientists think are characteristic of twins.
Experts think that Payne's discovery could be applied to a number of artificial reproduction techniques.
"If we can improve the laboratory conditions for embryos to minimize the development of twins, then we can optimize the conditions for all eggs and embryos in artificial reproduction," said Ziebe. "This research has the potential to help all IVF procedures."
Credits: Associated Press
Labels: Knowledge
How to control the green-eyed monster?
By Dr. Scott Haltzman
Question: Why do I get so jealous when my partner talks to other people?
Answer:
When you first connected with your partner and looked into their eyes, it felt like he or she was the only person in the room. As you get deeper into your relationship and call yourselves a couple, the realization hits you: You and your partner are not alone on this planet. There are others! Are they a threat?
When we are in a committed relationship, we assume the connection we have with each other will be strong enough to fend off outside threats. In some ways, this you-belong-to-me-and-I-belong-to-you mentality is sweet; it's the stuff of pop songs and poetry. But sometimes the intensity of that connection is too strong.
When one partner sees everyone whom his or her partner comes into contact with as a potential threat, it is a sign that jealousy has taken hold. Shakespeare called it "the green-eyed monster," and once it gets a hold of your relationship, it sinks its teeth in and can rip it apart.
What causes jealousy?
If you've got strong feelings of jealousy, it's probably a sign that you don't have enough trust in your partner that he or she is being faithful to you. That lack of trust may be prompted by one of four factors.
1) You may feel insecure about your self-worth. In these cases, either you've been raised to believe, or some part of your inner self feels, that you just don't measure up. Because you don't love yourself, you can't believe that others would love you, so you live in fear that your partner's "true" feelings will be revealed and she will leave.
2) You're prone to cheating on your partner -- maybe even have done so. Knowing what you're capable of, you project that behavior onto your partner.
3) You and your partner haven't yet figured out how to establish safe boundaries within the relationship. Having a tight bond is about building walls around your love with windows that allow others to be part of it -- not doors where competing lovers can walk right in and disrupt your home. Because you don't know what's permissible within the relationship and what's not, you're constantly on your toes.
4) Your mate is cheating on you. Cheating doesn't have to include sex; it often has to do with making emotional connections to others outside the relationship. If your partner is sharing things about your private life with attractive members of the opposite sex, it robs a sense of intimacy from your relationship and leaves you feeling vulnerable.
Knowing the factors that lead to jealousy is an important first step to getting things fixed. Put your focus on building trust. If you've got some growing up to do, therapy may help. Both of you have to learn how to set boundaries in the relationship. That requires respecting your mate's definition of limits of outside relationships from the start. Over time, as trust builds, you and your partner can redefine what feels safe for the relationship. After all, when you've got a great relationship, you want to share it with the world.
FiOh's Words:
1) SH's New Gf Seriously needs to Read this.
2) Don't get involve in a r/s if you have not yet 'really grown up'.
Labels: Knowledge
Name: FiOh Dadako
Title: Creative Services Assistant
Horoscope: Sagittarius
Location: Another World
Type: Mixed Blood Vampire
Daydreaming, Freedom, Music,
Fantansy World and Story Writting
Lies, Lies and Lies
* Enjoy Life to The Fullest Without Any Regrets *