Woman gives boss her kidney
Woman gives boss her kidney
A Tyneside woman has saved the life of her boss by donating a kidney.
Angela Dawson, 44, put herself forward after tests had ruled out Alma Caldwell’s mother and sister.
Mrs Caldwell was diagnosed with polycystic kidneys four years ago and put on dialysis, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Doctors had warned her that there was only a 30% chance a non-relative would be a match. However, the transplant was successful.
Mrs Caldwell, who is chief executive of North Tyneside Age Concern, is making an excellent recovery.
“She has given me the gift of life. All I can say is she is Angela by name and Angel by nature,” the 49-year-old from Whitley Bay said.
Mrs Dawson, who lives with her husband Malcolm and daughter Amanda in Wallsend, is her second in command at Age Concern.
“I’ve watched her go through so much over the 12 years I’ve known her and just wanted to be able to do something,” she said.
Mrs Caldwell, who has also survived a brain aneurysm, added: “Thanks to Angela I have a quality of life I could never have anticipated.”
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From Ananova
Dig discovery is oldest ‘pet cat’
Dig discovery is oldest ‘pet cat’
The oldest known evidence of people keeping cats as pets may have been found by archaeologists.
The discovery of a cat buried with what could be its owner in a Neolithic grave on Cyprus suggests domestication of cats had begun 9,500 years ago.
It was thought the Egyptians were first to domesticate cats, with the earliest evidence dating to 2,000-1,900 BC.
How Many Ways Can You Spell V1@gra?
How Many Ways Can You Spell V1@gra?
The spam we see today is shaped in many ways by our own efforts to combat it. The process is often likened to an arms race, with threats met by countermeasures, which then bring countercountermeasures, and so on. I prefer an immunological metaphor, where the contest is between a host organism and pathogens or parasites, and where both sides have to adapt and evolve in order to survive. In the case of bacteria and viruses, the vast majority never make it, but nature is profligate and can afford such high attrition; likewise spammers find it worth their while to send a million e-mails for a handful of responses.
Some organisms have “hard-wired” resistance to infection; they produce molecules—natural antibiotics—that inhibit the growth of certain bacteria. The mammalian immune system works differently; we are not born with specific defenses against Salmonella or measles. Instead, a random shuffling mechanism generates a vast array of defensive molecules, which have the potential to attack virtually anything they might encounter in the environment. Before going into action, however, the system must learn to distinguish friend from foe. This strategy has a cost: Because learning is a slow process, you may well get sick the first time you are exposed to an infectious agent. But the alternative of relying on a predetermined list of potential threats would be even more perilous, since any novel pathogen would meet no resistance at all.
Dogs suffer stress and burn-out
Dogs suffer stress and burn-out
Swiss vets claim more and more dogs are suffering from stress and burn-out caused by demanding owners.
Linda Hornisberger from the Bern Animal Clinic said: “Dogs are suffering increasingly from tension, stomach aches and headaches caused by stress.
“There are a number of factors behind it but in most cases stressed or demanding owners are to blame.
“It can also be because so many dogs live in such a small space in cities. They are kept on a lead, unable to run free, and there are too many other dogs around that also causes them stress.”
Andreas Loehrer, from the Interlaken Animal Clinic who has also researched stress in dogs, said: “In some cases an owner’s burnout syndrome can even be transferred to the dog.”
Hornisberger added that the burnout showed itself in dogs in much the same way as it did in humans.
She said: “They often lick themselves until they wear a patch in their fur. Their behaviour is similar to humans biting their fingernails.”
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From Ananova
Judge drops pants from suit against dry cleaners
Judge drops pants from suit against dry cleaners
Roy L. Pearson, who filed a $67 million lawsuit against the dry cleaning business that lost his pants, has lowered his demand. Now, he’s only asking for $54 million.
The District of Columbia administrative law judge first sued Custom Cleaners over a pair of pants that went missing two years ago. He was seeking about $65 million under the D.C. consumer protection act and almost $2 million in common law claims.
He is now focusing his claims on signs in the shop that have since been removed. The suit alleges that the three defendants, Jin Nam Chung, Soo Chung and their son, Ki Chung, committed fraud and misled consumers with signs that claimed “Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “Same Day Service.”
Steam-Driven Dreams
Steam-Driven Dreams: The Wondrously Whimsical World of Steampunk
Retro-futurism is all the rage these days: antique computers, 8-bit game art, classic cases for modern gear, anything to make the onslaught of new technology less disposable. The yearning for timelessness in a constantly renewing tech culture has led to a spike in interest in the steam-powered, brass-encrusted world of steampunk.
The ideas behind the steampunk sci-fi subgenre have been around since Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, but it was given its moniker in the late ’80s as a speculative-fiction genre, alongside cyberpunk, ribofunk and splatterpunk. While the others peer 15 minutes into the future, steampunk envisions a future that has collapsed onto a re-imagined Victorian past. Steam and clockworks replace silicon logic, brass and copper stand in for titanium and plastic, and airships replace spaceships.
If you went to last year’s Burning Man, you may have seen this “art car” crawling across the playa. It and its pith-helmeted and corseted crew also made an appearance at the 2007 Maker Faire.
Space station in shut-down scare
Space station in shut-down scare as record nears for woman astronaut
Astronaut Suni Williams will today become the woman who has spent most time in orbit. But in a day of high drama aboard the International Space Station yesterday, she may have wondered whether her six-month odyssey was about to meet a sticky end.
An unprecedented computer crash aboard the £50 billion laboratory left Williams, her two Russian crewmates and scores of engineers on opposite sides of the world scrambling as critical life support and navigation systems went into meltdown.
As the ISS switched to back-up oxygen supplies, the space shuttle Atlantis – docked to the station – fired its thrusters to maintain position, while mission managers in Moscow and Houston held troubleshooting talks.