samhexum

Radcliffe was on THE VIEW today promoting it. Joy & Sunny said they'd seen it & loved it.

To survive in the Mesozoic era, dinosaurs had to do a lot of running. Whether it was to get some dinner or to not become lunch, they had to be able to break into a sprint at a moment’s notice. Supposedly, dinosaurs like the Velociraptor could run as fast as 40 miles per hour. New research suggests that dinosaurs may have had an ultra-sophisticated, bird-like respiratory system that helped them run at high speeds. Led by Robert Brocklehurst from School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester, the researchers used CT scans to compare dinosaur lung cavities to those of crocodiles and alligators (crocodilians and dinosaurs have a common ancestor) and modern birds, who are the dinosaurs’ descendants. The team studied the cavities of four modern-day crocodilians and 29 birds, comparing their structure with those of 16 dinosaur species. After comparing the scans, they found that the dinosaurs’ vertebrae were more similar to those of birds than crocodilians. A lot of the dinosaurs, which included the Velociraptor and Spinosaurus, had a costovertebral joint as well as the same “ceiling” of vertebra and ribs that birds share. To double check, the team also physically removed the lungs of an alligator and ostrich. The lung cavity of the alligator was smooth, which allowed for the alligator to breathe as it swam. However, like the dinosaurs studied, the lung cavity of the ostrich was furrowed. According to the study, this would suggest that dinosaurs had the same kind of respiratory system that modern-day birds have, which means their lungs were highly effective at pumping in oxygen. These lungs would have kept a continuous stream of oxygen coming in while at the same time using less energy to inflate and deflate the lungs. The dinosaurs needed this oxygen too, as some studies indicate that their air was only 10 to 15 percent oxygen. For comparison, the Earth’s air is 20 percent oxygen today. Dr. Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist with the University of Edinburgh, believes the research provides new insight on how the ultra-efficient and “very weird” lungs of modern birds evolved. “Today’s birds have a sophisticated lung that can take in oxygen during both inhalation and exhalation,” Brusatte, who did not take part in the study, told Fox News. “On the face of it, it seems to make no sense that a bird can take in oxygen while it’s breathing out, but this is enabled by a rigid, unidirectional lung that connects to a series of air sacs, which hold oxygen-rich air. [This] study has identified the marks the lungs and air sacs left on the bones, which show that many dinosaurs had these telltale marks, and hence the bird-style lungs.” It was also recently reported that the first fossilized lung of a Cretaceous-era bird was found in northeastern China. Living 120 million years ago, the bird was killed by volcanic ash that reportedly preserved the lung. “In the vast majority of cases, lungs do not fossilize,” Brusatte explained. “They are far too flimsy and fragile to endure millions of years of being buried in rock.” If the preserved organs are truly lungs, it could help solve the mystery of the bird/dinosaur lung connection once and for all. “This other study does something stunning: it reports the first evidence of an actual fossilized lung in a fossil bird,” Brusatte said. “These [two] new studies together show that many dinosaurs probably possessed this lung.” Brusatte notes that while other teams of researchers will have to verify the fossilized lung if it pans out, he thinks it’s “one of the most unexpected and incredible fossil finds of recent years.”

Joy Behar told a story the other day that she's told before... she was working on a cruise and at one point after she'd performed she heard somebody say "How can they afford Bette Midler on this cruise?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEiEdhdpErM

AND DOES IT COME IN CHOCOLATE?

https://www.nationalcatday.com/

Didn't that happen with "ain't"?

DEAR ABBY: My daughter recently celebrated her 20th birthday. She's a good kid with a decent job who happens to like tattoos. For her birthday, my in-laws sent her a birthday card. Usually their card includes a gift card, check or cash. This year, there was no gift but a note stating that they were not sending money as they felt she would use it toward more tattoos. I understand their beliefs may be different, but their approach to the situation was not nice. When she read their note, my daughter broke down and cried. My question is: Should I ignore their rudeness and ignorance, or should I (or my husband) call them and stick up for our daughter? — TRYING TO BE NONJUDGMENTAL DEAR TRYING: I don't think what happened should be ignored. What your in-laws did was uncalled for, and the person who should tell them that is your daughter because she's an adult. If they were really concerned that she would spend their gift money on a tattoo, they could have sent her a tangible gift — an item of clothing or a gift card from a specific retailer. Shame on them.

DEAR ABBY: My daughter recently celebrated her 20th birthday. She's a good kid with a decent job who happens to like tattoos. For her birthday, my in-laws sent her a birthday card. Usually their card includes a gift card, check or cash. This year, there was no gift but a note stating that they were not sending money as they felt she would use it toward more tattoos. I understand their beliefs may be different, but their approach to the situation was not nice. When she read their note, my daughter broke down and cried. My question is: Should I ignore their rudeness and ignorance, or should I (or my husband) call them and stick up for our daughter? — TRYING TO BE NONJUDGMENTAL DEAR TRYING: I don't think what happened should be ignored. What your in-laws did was uncalled for, and the person who should tell them that is your daughter because she's an adult. If they were really concerned that she would spend their gift money on a tattoo, they could have sent her a tangible gift — an item of clothing or a gift card from a specific retailer. Shame on them.

How an explorer’s obsession with crossing Antarctica solo led to his death Alone in the vast expanse of ice and snow, where temperatures drop to minus-30 degrees, dragging 300 pounds of supplies, feet blistered, body ravaged by fatigue — who would choose this? One man did. Henry Worsley is hailed today as “one of the greatest polar explorers of our time.” His perilous — and ultimately deadly — trek across Antarctica in 2015 is the subject of a pocket-sized book by New Yorker writer David Grann. “The White Darkness” has already been optioned for the big screen — and no wonder. Worsley’s story is almost too astounding to believe. On Nov. 13, 2015, 55-year-old Worsley, a retired British Army officer, embarked on coast-to-coast tour of Antarctica alone and without aid. There would be no food buried along his path, no outside assistance, no sled dogs — all for a distance of more than 1,000 miles over a period of 2¹/₂ months. No one else had ever even tried such a feat. “As is true of many adventurers, he seemed to be on an inward quest as much as an outward one — the journey was a way to subject himself to an ultimate test of character,” Grann writes. Worsley was in his teens when he first read a copy of “The Heart of the Antarctic,” written by British explorer Ernest Shackleton. When Worsley realized that his relative, Frank Worsley, was in Shackleton’s expedition party, he became obsessed. Then, in 2008, Alexandra Shackleton invited Worsley to retrace her grandfather’s doomed mission to the South Pole, a grueling 66-day trek. Though Shackleton and his expedition never made it that far, Worsley and his two-man crew completed the journey. Worsley was hooked. Five years later, he returned again, this time armed with a satellite phone and an iPod loaded with songs by David Bowie, Johnny Cash and Meat Loaf. His sled, weighing 325 pounds, was filled with the food he would eat on his journey — freeze-dried dinners and protein bars. He wore cross-country skis and held poles to propel himself across the ice cap more than 10 miles a day. He was entirely alone. “He pushed off and heard a familiar symphony: the poles crunching on the ice, the sled creaking over ridges, the skis swishing back and forth. When he paused, he was greeted by that silence which seemed unlike any other,” writes Grann. The threat of death was constant. “One misstep and he’d vanish into a hidden chasm,” writes Grann. Get wet and Worsley had four minutes, tops, to dry off before hypothermia did him in. He had left behind wife Joanna, 21-year-old son Max and 19-year-old daughter Alicia, who had scrawled this message on his skis: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” By his 10th day — Nov. 22 — things started to turn. Worsley hit a whiteout that trapped him in his tent for days. One brutal day followed the next. “It was a real physical battle with fatigue,” Worsley wrote in his journal. “I was stopping literally every minute or so to catch my breath or just get ready for the next exertion required.” By mid-January, Worsley had traveled more than 800 miles. He reached the South Pole on Jan. 2 and ignored the offers of help from well-wishers there. His goal was to get to the coast unaided, so he trucked on. By the time he reached the Titan Dome five days later, he had lost more than 40 pounds. “I felt pretty awful,” he said in his audio messages, which he had been routinely updating for people following his journey. “The weakest I felt in the entire expedition.” Wife Joanna recognized the fear and fatigue in her husband’s voice and tried to deploy a rescue team, but they insisted that Worsley be the one to make the call. “Virtually every part of him was in agony. His arms and legs throbbed. His back ached. His feet were blistered and his toenails discolored. His fingers started to become numb with frostbite,” wrote Grann. “One of his front teeth had broken off, and the wind whistled through the gap.” To keep his spirits up — by now his iPod had broken — he listed his favorite foods: “Fish pie, brown bread, double cream, steaks and chips, more chips . . . Ahhhhh!” During yet another whiteout, Worsley noted that his body “seemed to be eating itself” and called his son in the middle of the night to say: “I just want to hear your voice. I just want to hear your voice.” On Jan. 22, after 71 days and more than 900 miles, Worsley pushed his panic button and called for rescue. “My journey is at an end. I’ve run out of time, physical endurance and the simple sheer ability to slide one ski after the other to travel the distance required to reach my goal. My summit is just out of reach.” The rescue planes arrived, rushing Worsley to the city of Punta Arenas in southern Chile. But soon after he arrived, his liver and kidneys failed. Worsley was posthumously awarded the Polar Medal, which was also bestowed upon his hero Shackleton. In 2017, Worsley’s wife and two children flew to icy South Georgia Island to bury his ashes on a peak that overlooks the cemetery where Shackleton is buried. “He was always the invincible man — not physically but mentally — and I still expect him to come back,” Max told Grann. “If I’m even half the man Dad turned out to be, I’d be so pleased.”

The only thing my parents gave me was shpilkes. Where are you buying your condoms? At the dollar store? She always mentions this? Has the woman nothing else to talk about, other than her son's lack of responsibility vis-a-vis his sex life?

You'd think that people would've had enough of silly love songs. I look around me and I see it isn't so. Oh No. :D

Veteran Broadway, TV and film actor James Karen was encouraged as a young man to take up an acting career by U.S. Congressman Daniel J. Flood, who was an amateur actor himself. In 1947 Karen made his Broadway debut in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, which led to appearances in over 20 Broadway productions. His television work began in 1948 with the telecast of “A Christmas Carol”, directed by pioneer television producer/director Fred Coe. Since then he has acted in over 100 television shows, including a stint as as Chief Justice Michael Bancroft on First Monday (2002) for CBS. In 1965 he began his film work in the low-budget sci-fi “epic” Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster (1965) and now has an impressive resume of over 80 movies to his credit. He has also filmed a record-breaking 5,000+ television commercials, most while a spokesperson for the Pathmark Supermarket chain in the northeast U.S. He has been honored with the Saturn Award for Lifetime Achievement given by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. He has also been presented the Buster Award by The International Buster Keaton Society. This award is given to the person who has demonstrated professional excellence in the tradition of Buster Keaton. Source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0439170/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

The saga continues?

Last night's episode wasn't a laugh riot, but I liked it.

Janney will portray a pencil pusher who catches her husband in bed with another woman, which causes him to die of a heart attack. So she buries his body and takes advantage of the growing celebrity status that comes from having a missing husband — but finds herself in over her head, dodging cops and criminals, all while trying to keep the truth from her sister (Dern), a local news anchor who’s desperate for a story.

A woman high on methamphetamine and heroin allegedly tried to bite off her lover’s penis during a depraved threesome in South Carolina, police said Friday. The unnamed gal allegedly chomped down on the man’s junk midway through the ménage à trois with another gent at an apartment in Hanahan on Monday, Police Chief Dennis Turner told The Post. When police arrived at the home, the woman — who was naked and covered in blood — lunged at them on all fours, Turner said, according to Live5news.com. “It honestly reminded me of something you would see off of a horror movie,” he told the local station. “It’s one of the most disturbing body cam videos I have seen in my career.” Officers zapped the woman with a Taser to get her under control then used the narcotic overdose-preventing spray Narcan to revive her, according to police. She was rushed to a hospital. It’s unclear if the man was treated — or if he lost his penis. Cops on Friday were probing whether there was any wrongdoing on the part of the men involved in the threesome, Turner said. The case is still under investigation and woman had not been charged with a crime. Turner declined to release bodycam footage of the woman’s alleged attack on cops, citing South Carolina law.

The Floreks The Golds The Marshalls

Yup, Raymond. When Dorothy let Sophia keep tagging along on their dates because she thought Sophia was lonely. P.S. note the signature on my posts.