Ten reasons why your dog’s grooming cost more than your haircut.

10. Your hairdresser doesn’t wash and clean your rear end.

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9. You don’t go for eight weeks without washing or brushing your hair.

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8. Your hairdresser doesn’t have to give you a sanitary trim.

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7. Your hairdresser doesn’t have to clean your ears.

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6. Your hairdresser doesn’t have to remove the boogies from your eyes.

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5. You sit still for your hairdresser.

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4. Your haircut doesn’t include a manicure or pedicure.

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3. Your hairdresser only washes and cuts the hair on your head.

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2. You don’t bite or scratch your hairdresser.

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1. The likelihood of you pooping on the hairdresser is pretty slim.

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Source: MyFitnessPal

20 Reasons Why Dogs Are Man’s Best Friend

Washing your hands makes you HAPPIER: Cleaning boosts our confidence and washes away feelings of failure

• Study found that the ritual of cleaning makes us more optimistic after failure
• People were also more confident they could complete the task the next time
• Previous research found hand washing made people feel more comfortable about decisions they had made

By ANNA HODGEKISS

PUBLISHED: 16:29, 25 October 2013 | UPDATED: 17:02, 25 October 2013

It seems you really can wash away your pain, as the song lyrics go.

A new study has found that the ritual of cleaning makes us more optimistic after failure.

Dr Kai Kaspar, from the University of Cologne, examined how physical cleansing affects us after a bad event. 

Does hand washing boost self esteem? People who cleaned their hands after failing a task were more confident they could complete it the next time

He found that people who washed their hands after failing a task were more confident they could complete it the next time.

Dr Kaspar divided 98 people into three groups. In the first part of the experiment, participants from two groups had to solve an impossible task.

 

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• 'I'll have what he's having': How our friends make us FAT because we feel pressured to order what they do

When both the groups failed, one group then washed their hands.

Both groups were optimistic that they would better at the task next time but the ‘clean hands’ group were much more optimistic.

But while hand washers felt better, they were also less likely to complete the task successfully next time

But there was a twist. While people who washed their hands felt better afterwards, they were also less likely to complete the task successfully next time.

Dr Kaspar explained: 'While physical cleansing after failure may eliminate negative feelings, it reduces the motivation to try harder in a new test situation.'

Meanwhile, the non-hand washers performed better on the next occasion. 

The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. 

Previous research from the University of Michigan found that handwashing is physically and emotionally cleansing.

A team of psychologists reported that the simple act of washing hands made people feel more comfortable about the decisions they had made.

They found that people who washed immediately after making a difficult decision were happier with their choice compared with those who didn't.

The researchers suggested that the act seems to help people mentally draw a line under the decision.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2476507/How-washing-hands-makes-HAPPIER-Cleaning-boosts-confidence-washes-away-feelings-failure.html#ixzz2ix7hZeQO
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Barking Blondes: Would you clone your dog?

• By Joanne Good and Anna Webb
• Notebook
• Last updated: Saturday, 26 October 2013 at 3:35 pm

We all remember the headlines in 1996 surrounding the arrival Dolly, the first British cloned sheep. Hailed as one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs, Dolly was considered highly controversial.

Now it seems some British dog owners are desperate to immortalize their precious pooch. So they can take comfort that thanks to a South Korean firm due to launch in the UK it may well be possible.

Claiming to have successfully used advances in biotechnology to clone dozens of dogs for wealthy Americans and for the South Korean Police Force, the firm is offering a competition for one lucky British dog owner to win the chance to clone their dog.

This competition and subsequent creation of Britain’s first cloned dog, will be filmed and broadcast in a documentary on Channel 4 next year.

But the financial price is high at £63,000, and could the emotional price be even higher? Critics of cloning technology maintain that owners hoping to create a carbon copy of their beloved dog could well be disappointed, like identical twins the clone will not produce a perfect replica of the original dog.

There are ethical issues to consider too, and the concerns about meddling with nature… it also raises the question is it disrespectful to your beloved pet? Would your precious ‘Fido” like to look down from the ‘rainbow bridge’ in the sky at a ‘shadow’ of their former self?

Contrary to the cloning company’s claims, another concern is that UK scientists maintain cloning animals is extremely unreliable. A healthy specimen sometimes only results after over 100 attempts. Even if the embryo shares the exact genetic code of your dog, scientists warn that a myriad of factors like differing conditions in the surrogate mother’s womb, and the environment the new born is exposed to at birth, will dramatically change some of the characteristics, including aspects of the dog’s appearance and behaviour.

Even if a healthy pup is born, cloning technologies cannot overcome that its ‘phenotype’ will not be identical. There’s also the worry that the owner will treat the pup differently with high expectations and face massive disappointment when their “Fido” materializes into a pooch they do not have any affinity with. What would happen then? Would the owner reject this dog and hand it into a rescue centre already bursting at the seams with abandoned hounds?

Also, there are the concerns to be considered for the surrogate mum. She will go through all the emotional and physical pressures of a pregnancy with a strong likelihood that the procedure may fail, or the puppies born with defects or worse stillborn. Unquestionably, the strength of the emotional bond between an owner and their dog is sometimes greater than that between a fellow human, but does that give us the right to ‘artificially’ create a dog?

Should we not simply resign ourselves that dogs just aren’t genetically programmed to live as long as us. As painful as it is, there’s an important lesson to be learnt in coming to terms with the pain of letting go.

‘Barking Blondes’ by Anna Webb & Jo Good, published by Hamlyn, £12.99

Amateur photographers piece together Jupiter-bound Juno probe’s snapshots to create incredible images of planet Earth

• Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo have assemble the latest raw imagery 
• The show the coast of South America and clouds over the South Atlantic
• These are expected to be the last of planetary images from Juno until it arrives at Jupiter in 2016 

By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD

PUBLISHED: 17:11, 25 October 2013 | UPDATED: 17:12, 25 October 2013

Incredible images of the Earth have emerged following Juno’s slingshot manoeuvre around the planet.

Juno flew past Earth at 78,000 mph two weeks ago - enough momentum to cruise past the asteroid belt to Jupiter, where it should arrive in 2016.

When it arrives, the $1.1 billion spacecraft will use nine instruments to probe deep inside Jupiter and reveal glimpses into the planet's origin.

Scroll down for video…

Ken Kremer has been working with colleague, Marco Di Lorenzo, to assemble the latest raw imagery from the Juno to produce false-colour portraits of Earth. The false-blue has been added to reflect a view provided by a near-infrared filter that is typically used to detect methane

The probe was able to send an early image of Earth following the launch despite unexpectedly going into ‘safe mode’.

While Nasa is now pulling together the raw data sent back from the probe, amateur image processers have also had a go at filling in the gaps.

 

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Ken Kremer has been working with colleague, Marco Di Lorenzo, to assemble the latest raw imagery from the Juno to produce false-colour portraits of Earth.

The images show half of Earth's disk, including the coast of South America and clouds over the South Atlantic.

Enlarge 

Enlarge 

The images show half of Earth's disk, including the coast of South America and clouds over the South Atlantic

The Juno mission will use nine instruments to probe inside Jupiter and reveal glimpses into the planet's origin

NASA'S JUNO ORBITER

Juno is a Nasa New Frontiers mission to the planet Jupiter.

The probe cost $1.1 billion and was launched in 2011.

The windmill-shaped spacecraft travels at 78,000 mph.

It has nine instruments to investigate Jupiter’s gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere.

Juno will also search for clues about how Jupiter formed, including whether the planet has a rocky core.

It will also study Jupiter's deep winds, which can reach speeds of 384 mph.

The spacecraft's name comes from Greco-Roman mythology.

The god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, but his wife, the goddess Juno, was able to peer through the clouds and see Jupiter's true nature.

The false-color blue has been added to show a view provided by a near-infrared filter that is often used to detect methane

‘The raw images are transmitted from Juno in strips - like a push broom,’ Kremer told MailOnline.

‘The matchups aren’t always perfect because the Juno spacecraft is constantly rotating and moving.’

But according to Kremer, that inconsistency is what makes these images so fascinating with the Earth’s surface changing as the spacecraft flies over the planet.

‘It’s rare to get such views since only a few spacecraft have flown by Earth in this manner on there way to distant destinations,’ said Kremer.

These are expected to be among the last of planetary images from Juno until it arrives at Jupiter in 2016.

Here it will take the first ever images of the gas giant’s north and south poles.

Launched in 2011, Juno flew beyond the orbit of Mars, Earth's closest planetary neighbour, before looping back toward our home planet for a quick visit.

This reconstructed image of Earth is one of the first snapshots transmitted back home by the Juno spacecraft

NASA Juno spacecraft Earth flyby animation

By space mission standards, Juno's Earth rendezvous was low-key compared with the Curiosity rover's nail-biting landing on Mars last year, which drew crowds.

Like Juno, previous missions to the outer solar system have used Earth as a gravity slingshot since there's no rocket powerful enough to make a direct flight.

The Galileo spacecraft buzzed by Earth twice in the 1990s en route to Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet located 484 million miles from the sun.

Juno's trajectory has carried it beyond the orbit of Mars and then back into the inner solar system where it did a velocity boosting Earth flyby to weeks ago to gain the energy needed to reach Jupiter

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2476937/Amateur-photographers-piece-Jupiter-bound-Juno-probes-snapshots-create-incredible-images-planet-Earth.html#ixzz2ix79sHnJ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Turning the clocks back.....

Turning the clocks back.....

In hustle and bustle of our busy lives we find there are never enough hours in the day. We rush around frantically trying to play 'catch up'. Free time is at a premium and so what could be more of a beautiful gift than one hour of pure unadulterated free time? The seasons have changed, sadly summer is long past and now the nights will draw in and the days will get shorter.
But for now, rejoice in that extra 60 minutes of time we gain this Sunday as we turn the clocks back, we can enjoy another hour of well deserved rest!

Top 5: Scariest Novels for Halloween!

Posted on October 22, 2013 by thenovelettesblog

1. House of Leaves – Mark Z Danielewski

House of Leaves is the tale of a family whose house is expanding on the inside, but not on the outside. What makes this book so disturbing is not the subject matter exactly, but the convoluted way that the story is told. Danielewski paints a portrait of unravelling sanity, but it’s not like anything you’ve ever experienced before. House of Leaves is a book that must be read in print, as there is simply no way to transcribe its format to an e-reader or tablet. It will have you frantically flipping pages, turning the book upside-down and scribbling notes. You’ll sit down to read a few pages one morning, and the first time you look up from the book, it’ll be midnight. In short, House of Leaves will consume you.

What it looks like in your head when you’re trying to read HoL.

2. The Shining and Doctor Sleep – Stephen King

Alright, so it’s a bit of a cop-out to include The Shining in a list of scariest books. The Shining was published in 1977, so surely, it’s a given that it’s one of the top picks for Halloween?
Be that as it may, The Shining deserves special mention this year. Thirty-six years after its publication, Stephen King has released a sequel to his infamous novel – Doctor Sleep. Centring on the son of the protagonist of The Shining, Doctor Sleep is already gathering critical acclaim. I am yet to read it, but I think it will be my go-to on Halloween night!

NOPENOPENOPENOPE.

3. The Descent – Jeff Long

I’m only halfway through The Descent, but I’m calling this one early – this book is scary as hell. Literally. And let me tell you, the 2005 film is but a mere teaser of the horrors that await you in Jeff Long’s original novel. When some unsuspecting hikers are trapped in a cave in remote Tibet, they inadvertently make the biggest discovery in known history. Underneath the surface of the earth is a sub-planet, populated with a species known as “hadals”. The world is rocked by the scientific revelation that should never have been – Hell is a real place, and it is beneath our feet. More detailed review to come, but suffice it to say, since I started this book, I haven’t been sleeping so well…

Well said, Austin, well said.

4. The Silence of the Lambs – Thomas Harris

Although it’s not your traditional spooky Halloween novel, The Silence of the Lambs remains the most frightening novel that I have ever read. I don’t think that there is anything that scares me more than the sheer inescapability of Hannibal Lecter’s will. If he wants something from you, he will find a way to obtain it, and there is very little chance that you will be able to outsmart him in the process. He’s one of the most terrifying characters you will ever encounter. The fact that Hannibal is human (rather than supernatural) makes him all the more monstrous – especially given that he is an amalgamation of real-life serial killers. Side note: The Silence of the Lambs is the exception to the rule that the book is better than the film. In my opinion, the two are equally excellent.

If this scene doesn’t scare you, nothing will.

5. World War Z – Max Brooks

Are you concerned about the possibility of a zombie apocalypse? No? Read World War Z and I guarantee, you will be. This is the story of the breakdown of global society, told through the eyes of the UN Postwar Commision in the form of documents from all over the world. Beginning with “patient zero” in rural China, World War Z tracks the transmission of the virus that rapidly decimates the world’s population. Author and zombie aficionado Max Brooks takes the story of the apocalyptic epidemic and traces the environmental, social and political effect it has on the world. World War Z scared me half to death because it’s all so official. It’s easy to remember that other zombie stories are fiction because they’re told to us in a more familiar format. However, when you read governmental reports and WHO press releases detailing the way the international community is going to cope with the end of the world, the actuality of it begins to affect you.
Now, who’s ready to start planning their zombie apocalypse strategies?

Gotta admit, this scene in the film was AWESOME.

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