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English Idioms

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:47:36 GMT

clipped by: mona
clipper's remarks: FAR FAR too many to clip. I only selected a few of my favourites from the "a" list.........ah, i could spend hours browsing this list!

Clip Source: www.usingenglish.com

An idiom is a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words, which can make idioms hard for ESL students and learners to understand. Here, we provide a dictionary of 2,437 English idiomatic expressions with definitions.

126 Idioms Beginning With 'A'

A bit much

A little bird told me

A rising tide lifts all boats

About as useful as a chocolate teapot

Age before beauty

Agony aunt

Albatross around your neck

All over the place

All the tea in China

As cool as a cucumber

At the drop of a hat

Tags: idioms, english, language

The Hormone That Helps You Read Minds

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:12:22 GMT

clipped by: Tommolo

Clip Source: blog.sciam.com

We've long accepted that hormones can make you amorous, aggressive, or erratic. But lately neuroscience has been abuzz with evidence that the hormone oxytocin -- which also acts as a neuromodulator -- can enhance at least one cognitive power: the ability to understand the gist of what others are thinking.

Oxytocin is a peptide hormone composed of nine amino acids. It is produced in the brain (specifically, in the magnocellular neurosecretory cells within the supraoptic nucleus and paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus) and is released into the blood stream

Research with rodents and non-human primates has shown that oxytocin, as well as the structurally similar peptide vasopressin, plays an important role in attachment and affiliative behaviors including pair-bond formation, maternal behavior, sexual behavior and separation distress.

researchers

have suggested that oxytocin

may be involved in autism's etiology -- and that oxytocin may have potential in treating it.

Tags: medicine, mind, autism, science, research

Why Aren't Humans Furry?

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:33:27 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: ALL my babies are very furry and I think they are the most beautiful kids in the whole wide world! (Should I mention, they are all cats?)

Clip Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com

Why Aren't Humans Furry? Stone-Age Moms Could Be The Answer

A prize-winning paper suggests that humans are hairless apes because Stone-Age mothers regarded furry babies as unattractive

Harris' paper describes Stone Age societies in which the mother of a newborn had to decide whether she had the resources to nurture her baby. The newborn's appearance probably influenced whether the mother kept or abandoned it. An attractive baby was more likely to be kept and reared.

Harris' theory is that this kind of parental selection may have been an important force in evolution. If Stone Age people believed that hairless babies were more attractive than hairy ones, this could explain why humans are the only apes lacking a coat of fur. Harris suggests that Neanderthals must have been furry in order to survive the Ice Age. Our species would have seen them as "animals" and potential prey. Harris' hypothesis continues that Neanderthals went extinct because human ancestors ate them.

Great Site - Check it Out!!

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:51:52 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: I stumbled upon this today. LMAO!

Clip Source: uncyclopedia.org

Religion

Religion is a mental illness.

The most common infection in the world, with over 90% of the populace infected with one or another strain. Religion is usually brought on by infection by the group VI Fatal Anginal-Infective Transcribing Hepatitis virus more often known by the acronym FAITH. Symptoms involve believing something that is not only unproven but also outrageously illogical simply because someone (or occasionally a book), somewhere, says it's true. In this respect, faith can be considered the chronic form of the lesser mental disorder gullibility. For synonyms, see How To Make a Million Dollars. The official catch phrase of religion is "Give us your money, and you will have a good afterlife!", known to critics as the "Pie In The Sky" allegory.

Tags: parady, satire, religion, atheist

Warren Buffett: Income tax rigged to benefit rich

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:48:05 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Billionaires pay tax at lower rates than their secretaries do

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

The very rich in America pay taxes at a lower rate than most working people, and, due to a wrinkle in the tax code, private-equity partners enjoy some of the lowest tax rates of all. At a Hillary Clinton fund-raiser in New York last month, Warren Buffett, no stranger to wealth, told an audience filled with bankers and real-estate developers the system was, in effect, rigged. "This is what Congress in its wisdom did: the 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter." Buffett (who is a director of NEWSWEEK's parent, The Washington Post Company) offered a million dollars to any fellow magnate who could prove he had higher tax rates than his secretary.

Tags: warren buffett, income, taxes, wealth, equities

Jim Carrey gets serious in video plea

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:29:18 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.mail.com

Jim Carrey has made a straight-to-YouTube video. And it's not funny at all.

The 45-year-old actor-comedian -- in rare serious mode -- appears in a new public service announcement on behalf of the Human Rights Action Center and the U.S. Campaign for Burma. The goal: To free Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been confined by the Burmese government for 11 of the last 17 years.

"Even though she's compared to a modern-day Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, most people in America still don't know about Aung San," Carrey says in the filmed message, posted Tuesday on YouTube.

Suu Kyi, who is under long-term house arrest in the city of Yangon, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her nonviolent efforts to bring down the oppressive military regime

led by General Than Shwe, has destroyed more than 3,000 villages in eastern Burma -- forcing more than a 1.5 million people to leave their homes -- and recruited more child soldiers than any other country in the world, Carrey says in his spot.

Tags: burma, aung san suu kyi, than shwei, detention, jim carrey, youtube

rainbow over vic falls

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:10:33 GMT

clipped by: kajimahiroshi37

Clip Source: hiroshi37.blogspot.com

Tags: http://hiroshi37.blogspot.com/

A Quest For Human Perfection

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:31:36 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

One is tall and one is short, and of course they are trying to create life — any fan of horror movies knows that. But this is no movie: it is quite true, a little-known piece of early-20th-century medical history that segues seamlessly into the living horror of World War II.

The tall man was Charles A. Lindbergh, the aviator, and the short man was Dr. Alexis Carrel, at one time probably the most famous physician in the world. A French surgeon transplanted to New York’s prestigious Rockefeller Institute, Carrel won a 1912 Nobel Prize for devising surgical techniques to cut and connect blood vessels.

Scientifically they were a good match: one with sophisticated medical ambitions and the other with the engineering skills to make them happen.

The scientific success only fueled Lindbergh and Carrel’s philosophic zeal: if immortality was indeed on the horizon, it certainly should not be for everyone

Tags: horrors, medical, history

Letters Reveal Mother Teresa's Secret

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 23:20:47 GMT

clipped by: Amergin
clipper's remarks: "What do I labor for?" she asked in one letter. "If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true."

"These are letters that were kept in the archbishop's house," the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk told Phillips.

The letters were gathered by Rev. Kolodiejchuk, the priest who's making the case to the Vatican for Mother Teresa's proposed sainthood. He said her obvious spiritual torment actually helps her case.

"Now we have this new understanding, this new window into her interior life, and for me this seems to be the most heroic," said Rev. Kolodiejchuk.

According to her letters, Mother Teresa died with her doubts. She had even stopped praying, she once said.

The church decided to keep her letters, even though one of her dying wishes was that they be destroyed. Perhaps now we know why.

Clip Source: www.cbsnews.com

(CBS) In life, Mother Teresa was an icon — for believers — of God's work on Earth. Her ministry to the poor of Calcutta was a world-renowned symbol of religious compassion. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In a rare interview in 1986, Mother Teresa told CBS News she had a calling, based on unquestioned faith.

But now, it has emerged that Mother Teresa was so doubtful of her own faith that she feared being a hypocrite, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.

Shortly after beginning work in Calcutta's slums, the spirit left Mother Teresa.

"Where is my faith?" she wrote. "Even deep down… there is nothing but emptiness and darkness... If there be God — please forgive me."

Eight years later, she was still looking to reclaim her lost faith.

"Such deep longing for God… Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal," she said.

As her fame increased, her faith refused to return. Her smile, she said, was a mask.

Tags: faith questioned doubt built through suffering

Asian Atlantis discovered?

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:07:39 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

A researcher investigating underwater rock formations off the coast of Japan believes they are the remnants of an Asian equivalent of Atlantis -- an ancient civilization swallowed up by the ocean.

Marine geologist Masaaki Kimura says he has identified the ruins of a city off the coast of Yonaguni Island on the southwestern tip of Japan.

He has worked for decades to prove the rocks found by scuba diving tourists in 1985 are from an ancient city, which he says may have sparked the fable of Mu -- a Pacific equivalent of the tale of the lost city of Atlantis.

Tags: asia, atlantis, japan, city, ocean

Are you entitled?

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 23:18:38 GMT

clipped by: pyrogyne
clipper's remarks: I love the Onion!

Clip Source: www.theonion.com

Study: 38 Percent Of People Not Actually Entitled To Their Opinion

CHICAGO—In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom on opinion entitlement, a study conducted by the University of Chicago's School for Behavioral Science concluded that more than one-third of the U.S. population is neither entitled nor qualified to have opinions.

"On topics from evolution to the environment to gay marriage to immigration reform, we found that many of the opinions expressed were so off-base and ill-informed that they actually hurt society by being voiced," said chief researcher Professor Mark Fultz,

Tags: satire, humor, funny