CaaC (John)

True, going to put it into the Transfer Rumours, won't bother with the Tevez one though.

The Mysterious Reason Why Cats Are Afraid of Cucumbers There's a perplexing phobia that seems to have run rampant in the cat community in recent years—the feline fear of cucumbers. Search YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Vimeo, or literally any place where videos live on the internet, and you'll be bombarded by countless instances of cats who, when confronted with cucumbers, act as though they've just seen a ghost. FULL REPORT

This is taking the piss surely if true Manchester United could make a surprise move to re-sign Boca Juniors' 35-year-old Argentina forward Carlos Tevez. (Tuttosport)

Inter Milan have opened talks with Napoli over a deal to sign 34-year-old Spanish striker Fernando Llorente, which could see the club end their interest in Chelsea's France forward Olivier Giroud, 33. (Sky Sports)

Conte & Inter can have this guy if they want for a packet of peanuts.

Done Deal, Conte IS nuts

The wife spotted that news and told me, worrying times all over the world I would imagine.

Mount Vesuvius eruption: Extreme heat 'turned man's brain to glass' Extreme heat from the Mount Vesuvius eruption in Italy was so immense it turned one victim's brain into glass, a study has suggested. The volcano erupted in 79 AD, killing thousands and destroying Roman settlements near modern-day Naples. The town of Herculaneum was buried by volcanic matter, entombing some of its residents. A team of researchers has been studying the remains of one victim, unearthed at the town in the 1960s. A study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, said fragments of a glassy, black material were extracted from the victim's skull. Researchers behind the study believe the black material is the vitrified remains of the man's brain. Vitrification, the study says, is the process by which material is burned at high heat and cooled rapidly, turning it into glass or a glaze. "The preservation of ancient brain remains is an extremely rare find," said Dr Pier Paola Petrone, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Naples Federico II and lead author of the study. "This is the first-ever discovery of ancient human brain remains vitrified by heat." The victim, believed to be a man in his mid-20s, was "found lying on a wooden bed, buried by volcanic ash" at Herculaneum. He was probably killed instantly by the eruption, Dr Petrone said. Analysis of charred wood found near the body showed a maximum temperature of 520C was reached. This suggests "extreme radiant heat was able to ignite body fat and vaporise soft tissues", before a "rapid drop in temperature", the report says. "The detection of glassy material from the victim's head, of proteins expressed in the human brain, and of fatty acids found in human hair indicates the thermally induced preservation of vitrified human brain tissue," the study says. The glassy material was not found in other locations at the archaeological site. Narcissus fresco uncovered by archaeologists in Pompeii Vesuvius eruption may have been later than thought Italy stops UK tourist with Pompeii mosaic tiles During the eruption of Vesuvius, Herculaneum was buried by pyroclastic flows, fast-moving currents of rock fragments, ash and hot gases. That volcanic matter carbonised and preserved parts of the town, including the skeletons of residents who were unable to flee. Archaeologists have been investigating the remains of Herculaneum, and Pompeii - the other famous Roman settlement destroyed by Vesuvius - for centuries. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51221334

I worry a bit now about Australia as I have family out there and they do get a lot of Asian visitors or emigrants arriving.

That's is the closest I have ever been to China is Singapore many moons ago, glad I am not near that part of the world now.

That and these fuckers... VUVUZELA'S I can remember the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Sth. Africa and I was watching a game on tv and I turned my volume down as I thought it was satellite interference making the noise until I was speaking to my son on the phone and he told me what that was, it was just a continuous blasting noise that did my head in and still does, I think FIFA was going to ban them.

Dogs & Cats @nudge

A space mission to reveal 'truths' about climate change The UK is going to lead a space mission to get an absolute measurement of the light reflected off Earth's surface. The information will be used to calibrate the observations of other satellites, allowing their data to be compared more easily. Called Truths, the new spacecraft was approved for development by European Space Agency member states in November. Proponents of the mission expect its data to help reduce the uncertainty in projections of future climate change. Scientists and engineers met on Tuesday to begin planning the project. Industry representatives from Britain, Switzerland, Greece, the Czech Republic and Romania gathered at Esa's technical centre in Harwell, Oxfordshire. The agency has allocated €32.4m (£27.7m) for the initial design phase, with the scientific lead on the mission to be taken by Britain's National Physical Laboratory. The satellite will gain a hi-res view of the greenhouse effect Europe's new space budget to enable CO2 mapping Weather forecasters start using space laser data NPL is the UK's "keeper of standards". It holds references for the kilogram, the metre, the second and all other units used in the international system (SI) of measurement. The lab is the place you go, for example, if you want a precise description of the intensity of a light source - something it's able to gauge using a device called a cryogenic radiometer. And the aim of the Truths mission is to get one of these instruments into orbit. Working in tandem with a hyperspectral camera, the radiometer will make a detailed map of the sunlight reflected off Earth's surface - off its deserts, snowfields, forests and oceans. The map should be of such exquisite quality that it's expected to become the standard reference against which all other imaging spacecraft will want to adjust and correct their own observations. This ought to make it a much simpler task to compare the pictures from different satellites, not just from those missions flying today but also from the ones that have long since been retired and whose data now sits in archives. One of the other big goals of Truths is that in measuring the complete reflectance of the Earth globally, and doing it with such precision, it will establish a kind of "climate fingerprint" that a future version of the satellite, 10 to 15 years' later, can then resample. "By doing that we'll be able to detect subtle changes much earlier than we can with our current observing system," explained NPL's Prof Nigel Fox. "This will allow us to constrain and test the climate forecast models. So we'll know earlier whether the predicted temperatures that the models are giving us are consistent or not with the observations." Invitations to tender for the design work will be sent out to industry shortly. A grand plan for how to implement Truths must be ready for when the research ministers of Esa's member states gather for their next major policy meeting in 2022. The feasibility work will also need to produce a full costing for the project, likely to be in the region of €250-300m (£210-260m). Barring technical showstoppers, the ministers should then green-light the mission for a targeted launch in 2026. Britain will almost certainly bear the majority of the cost of implementing Truths. The UK has been its leading advocate. "It plays to our strengths," said Beth Greenaway, the head of Earth observations and climate at the UK Space Agency. "NPL is remarkable. It does the standard time for the world; it does the standard metre. We like to think of ourselves leading on climate change so we should be providing the standard reference for Earth's radiation budget." Truths is an acronym for Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial- and Helio- Studies. It will be sensitive to light in the visible and near-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Esa recently agreed to implement another UK-led mission called Forum which will map Earth's radiation at longer wavelengths in the far-infrared. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51197453

Saracens: Premiership Rugby to release the report into salary cap breaches Premiership Rugby will release the report into Saracens' breaches of the league's salary cap. The move comes after the defending champions said they were "keen" for the report to be published in full. The north London club will be relegated to the Championship at the end of the season for persistently breaking the Premiership's regulations. Sarries had already been deducted 35 points and fined £5.4m in November for the three previous seasons' spending. In a statement published on the club website, Saracens chairman Neil Golding said the release of the report will "provide much-needed context and clarity" to the situation. Sarries, winners of four of the past five Premiership titles and three of the past four European Champions Cups, accepted relegation after being asked to prove they complied with the £7m cap for the 2019-20 campaign. Premiership Rugby urge Saracens to be more transparent on relegation Saracens' relegation 'is the most remarkable scandal in the domestic game' Saracens Q&A: Why are they being relegated and what happens next? Golding, who took over from Nigel Wray as Saracens chairman earlier this month, said another audit of the club would have involved a "long period of more financial and emotional strain", which was "not a viable option". "We agreed with PRL on relegation in the hope that we could draw a line under the mistakes made by Saracens with respect to compliance with the regulations and concentrate on putting new robust procedures in place," he added. "We know our path will not be a smooth one in the short term. We must face that challenge together; be resilient, united and open in order to move forward." On Tuesday, Premiership Rugby chief executive Darren Childs called on Saracens to "take ownership" of the process which led to their unprecedented punishment, and the league's governing body has now begun preparations to release the decision document. "Premiership Rugby welcomes Saracens' decision to withdraw its previous objection to the publication of Lord Dyson's decision," a spokesperson said. "These objections were stated in the strongest terms and in writing on behalf of the club by its lawyers. "We believe that publication of the decision in respect of Saracens' past breaches of the salary cap is an important step towards upholding trust in our enforcement of the regulations and the disciplinary process." Farrell: Six Nations build-up 'different' after Saracens relegation Saracens: England squad to address any anger over salary cap scandal Saracens: Players who move abroad may still represent England https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/51209973

Any of you Chelsea mob vegans or tried this vegan kiosk out? @Cicero, @True Blue, @carefreeluke, @Bluewolf and others. The new vegan menu at Stamford Bridge Chelsea become first Premier League club to introduce a fully vegan kiosk The new vegan kiosk at Stamford Bridge "Who ate all the... buffalo cauliflower wings?" Not your standard football ground chant. But when Chelsea hosted Arsenal at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday home supporters were able to sample such delicacies at the Premier League's first fully vegan kiosk. "Healthy eating is being linked more and more with the health of the planet," Jon Davies, managing director of Levy UK - the catering company that serves Stamford Bridge - told BBC Sport. "More and more, young fans are environmentally aware and they're looking for more options." According to the latest research by the Vegan Society, conducted in 2018, there are 600,000 vegans in Britain - up from an estimated 150,000 in 2006. League Two club Forest Green Rovers was officially recognised as the world's first vegan football club in 2017, and an increasing number of footballers - including Barcelona great Lionel Messi - have adopted a solely plant-based diet. FULL REPORT

Earth's oldest asteroid impact 'may have ended ice age' Scientists have identified the world's oldest asteroid crater in Australia, adding it may explain how the planet was lifted from an ice age. The asteroid hit Yarrabubba in Western Australia about 2.2 billion years ago - making the crater about half the age of Earth, researchers say. Their conclusion was reached by testing minerals found in rocks at the site. The scientists say the find is exciting because it could account for a warming event during that era. The Curtin University research was published in the journal Nature Communications on Wednesday. How did they date it? The crater was discovered in the dry outback in 1979, but geologists had not previously tested how old it was. Dinosaur extinction: 'Asteroid strike was culprit' Splosh! How to make a giant impact crater Due to billions of years of erosion, the crater is not visible to the eye. Scientists mapped scars in the area's magnetic field to determine its 70km (43 miles) diameter. "The landscape is actually very flat because it's so old, but the rocks there are distinctive," researcher Prof Chris Kirkland told the BBC. To determine when the asteroid hit Earth, the team examined tiny zircon and monazite crystals in the rocks. They were "shocked" in the strike and now can be read like "tree rings", Prof Kirkland said. These crystals hold tiny amounts of uranium. Because uranium decays into lead at a consistent pace, the researchers were able to calculate how much time had passed. It is at least 200 million years older than the next most ancient impact structure - the Vredefort Dome in South Africa. "We were interested in the area because the Western Australian landscape is very old but we didn't expect [the crater] to be as old as this," Prof Kirkland said. "It's absolutely possible that there's an older crater out there just waiting to be discovered, but the difficulty is in finding the crust before it erodes and you lose that early Earth history". Could it have ended an ice age? The timing of the impact could also explain why the world warmed around this time, according to the researchers. Scientists believe the planet was previously in one of its "Snowball Earth" periods when it was largely covered in ice. At some point, the ice sheets melted and the planet began to rapidly warm. The ancient memories trapped in the world's glaciers "The age of the [crater] corresponds pretty precisely with the end of a potential global glacial period," Prof Kirkland said. "So the impact may have had significant changes to our planetary climate." Using computer modelling, the team calculated that the asteroid struck a kilometres-thick ice sheet covering the Earth. The event would have released huge volumes of water vapour, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. This could have helped the planet's warming during the Proterozoic era - a stage when oxygen had just appeared in the atmosphere and complex life had not yet formed. "Obviously we were very excited just with the age itself," Prof Kirkland said. "But placing that right with the context of Earth's other events makes it become really very interesting." There is not enough modelling from the time to comprehensively test the theory, but "the rocks tell a story about the massive impact into the planet". Another theory for the warming event is that volcanic eruptions may have pushed carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-51201168

Wonderkid my arse, he has an arse of an agent that's about it. Inter Milan hold new talks with Tahith Chong's representatives but Manchester United wonderkid is also wanted by Barcelona and Juventus. (MailOnline)

Only says Goldfish but this might help... Black patches on a goldfish sometimes signify that his tank water was overdue for a change. Fish waste, uneaten food and plant debris create ammonia, a toxic chemical. If tank water isn't changed frequently enough, ammonia builds up and burns fish skin. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR GOLDFISH GETS BIG BLACK DOTS ON HIM?

You pervert

I can remember back when our daughter was at primary school and her teacher went on holiday and asked Denise to look after her fish until she finished her holidays, we had the fish for about 3 weeks, named Goldie and Flash, in a medium-sized tank. When I cleaned the tank out and replaced it with some fresh water I would fill up the bath and put Goldie and Flash in it and I would put some fish tank ornaments in the bath and a few Denise's small ceramic figures or toys, they loved it and would shoot up and down chasing each other and darting between the figures, I would leave them in it for a good hour or so and let them get the freedom of moving around in a bigger space.