Michael C. Hall is Dexter

A like-able Miami police forensics expert
moonlights as a serial killer of
criminals who he believes have escaped justice.

Official website from Showtime television, unavailable outside of the US.
Boooooo!

Beowulf & Grendel

Só para relembrar :)

Internet child abuse

www.lightamillioncandles.com/

The innocent victims of Internet child abuse cannot speak for themselves.

But you can.

With your help, we can eradicate this evil trade.

We do not need your money.

We need you to light a candle of support .

We're aiming to light at least One Million Candles by December 31, 2006.

This petition will be used to encourage governments, politicians, financial institutions, payment organisations, Internet service providers, technology companies and law enforcement agencies to eradicate the commercial viability of online child abuse.

They have the power to work together. You have the power to get them to take action.

Please light your candle at lightamillioncandles.com or send an email of support to light@lightamillioncandles.com.

Together, we can destroy the commercial viability of Internet child abuse sites that are destroying the lives of innocent children.

The Lake House

Gostei do muito do filme, neste Outono complicado foi uma alegre surpresa.
É uma comédia romântica com algo de teenager, mas sem a parte parva. :)
No site tem uma ideia muito engraçada...
http://www2.warnerbros.com/lakehouse/
Clickem na caixa de correio que diz "Tell it to the future", mandem uma mensagem a vós próprios.. para receberem daqui a uns anos.

First Evidence That Musical Training Affects Brain Development In Young Children

The findings, published today (20 September 2006) in the online edition of the journal Brain [1], show that not only do the brains of musically-trained children respond to music in a different way to those of the untrained children, but also that the training improves their memory as well. After one year the musically trained children performed better in a memory test that is correlated with general intelligence skills such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics and IQ.

The Canadian-based researchers reached these conclusions after measuring changes in brain responses to sounds in children aged between four and six. Over the period of a year they took four measurements in two groups of children -- those taking Suzuki music lessons and those taking no musical training outside school -- and found developmental changes over periods as short as four months. While previous studies have shown that older children given music lessons had greater improvements in IQ scores than children given drama lessons, this is the first study to identify these effects in brain-based measurements in young children.

Dr Laurel Trainor, Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University and Director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind, said: "This is the first study to show that brain responses in young, musically trained and untrained children change differently over the course of a year. These changes are likely to be related to the cognitive benefit that is seen with musical training." Prof Trainor led the study with Dr Takako Fujioka, a scientist at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute.

The research team designed their study to investigate (1) how auditory responses in children matured over the period of a year, (2) whether responses to meaningful sounds, such as musical tones, matured differently than responses to noises, and (3) how musical training affected normal brain development in young children.

At the beginning of the study, six of the children (five boys, one girl) had just started to attend a Suzuki music school; the other six children (four boys, two girls) had no music lessons outside school.

The researchers chose children being trained by the Suzuki method for several reasons: it ensured the children were all trained in the same way, were not selected for training according to their initial musical talent and had similar support from their families. In addition, because there was no early training in reading music, the Suzuki method provided the researchers with a good model of how training in auditory, sensory and motor activities induces changes in the cortex of the brain. Brain activity was measured by magnetoencephalography (MEG) while the children listened to two types of sounds: a violin tone and a white noise burst. MEG is a non-invasive brain scanning technology that measures the magnetic fields outside the head that are associated with the electrical fields generated when groups of neurons (nerve cells) fire in synchrony. When a sound is heard, the brain processes the information from the ears in a series of stages. MEG provides millisecond-by-millisecond information that tracks these stages of processing; the stages show up as positive or negative deflections (or peaks), called components, in the MEG waveform. Earlier peaks tend to reflect sensory processing and later peaks, perceptual or cognitive processing.

The researchers recorded the measurements four times during the year, and during the first and fourth session the children also completed a music test (in which they were asked to discriminate between same and different harmonies, rhythms and melodies) and a digit span memory test (in which they had to listen to a series of numbers, remember them and repeat them back to the experimenter).

Analysis of the MEG responses showed that across all children, larger responses were seen to the violin tones than to the white noise, indicating that more cortical resources were put to processing meaningful sounds. In addition, the time that it took for the brain to respond to the sounds (the latency of certain MEG components) decreased over the year. This means that as children matured, the electrical conduction between neurons in their brains worked faster.

Of most interest, the Suzuki children showed a greater change over the year in response to violin tones in an MEG component (N250m) related to attention and sound discrimination than did the children not taking music lessons.

Analysis of the music tasks showed greater improvement over the year in melody, harmony and rhythm processing in the children studying music compared to those not studying music. General memory capacity also improved more in the children studying music than in those not studying music.

Prof Trainor said: "That the children studying music for a year improved in musical listening skills more than children not studying music is perhaps not very surprising. On the other hand, it is very interesting that the children taking music lessons improved more over the year on general memory skills that are correlated with non-musical abilities such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics and IQ than did the children not taking lessons. The finding of very rapid maturation of the N250m component to violin sounds in children taking music lessons fits with their large improvement on the memory test. It suggests that musical training is having an effect on how the brain gets wired for general cognitive functioning related to memory and attention."

Dr Fujioka added: "Previous work has shown assignment to musical training is associated with improvements in IQ in school-aged children. Our work explores how musical training affects the way in which the brain develops. It is clear that music is good for children's cognitive development and that music should be part of the pre-school and primary school curriculum."

The next phase of the study will look at the benefits of musical training in older adults.

Cats III

Cats II

Cats

Postalinho da Lapónia :)

A character from artist Kaj Stenvall
Thanx, Kaisa :)

David e Golias

Real Life Adventures

cell yell

trolha :)

I don't like my baby bald

Só não lê quem não quiser

A 50 cêntimos 50, no Oceanário, os livrinhos do tempo da Expo 98, sobre os mares.

Ahh... Também há catálogos dos pavilhões da antiga Exposição, ao preço da uva mijona...
Francamente... :)

Postalinho de Forssa, Finlândia

Thanx, Marianne :)

Postalinho da Hungria

Thanx, Zsófi :)

Postalinho do Wisconsin, EUA

Thanx, Julie :)

Postalinho de Amesterdão

Thanx, Berbera :)

The Sweetest Thing

A panda approaches it's 4 week old cub at Changdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China

12 things about football ...

... that should cross over into life off the pitch

1. Boots with studs

Harder to walk in than heels, so destined for the catwalk surely.

2. Shorts

Not too long, not too short, not too baggy, not too tight, not Bermudas, not hot pants, not culottes, not pedal-pushers. Shorts.

3. Acrobatic celebrations

Got a pay rise? Do a hand stand

4. Away kit

If you are hosting an event you can make your guests change the colour of their clothes.

5. Substitutions

Dinner not going well? Bring in some reserve guests and send the bores for a shower.

6. Half-time

Everyone stop what you're doing, take a break, then change ends. Works everywhere from the boardroom to the bedroom.

7. Names on shirts

No more embarrassing 'I know we've met before but ...' moments.

8. Off side rule

Useful in domestic rows. For example: 'Your point might be a good one, but you were standing too far forwards when you made it, so it doesn't count.'

9. Shin pads

As a fashion accessory. And because banging your shins really hurts.

10. The magic injury spray

He's stretchered off the pitch clutching his leg and writhing in agony, a man in a tracksuit sprays something on him and the next minute he's running around like a five-year-old on Red Bull. Where do we get our hands on that spray?

11. Mass hugging

Congratulate your colleagues on their achievements by jumping on top of them.

12. Big socks

Because as a rule everybody should pull their socks up.

15 things no man wants to hear... from a woman

1 Any stories about ex-boyfriends, even ones told against the poor blokes. If your ex was a violent, brainless, tattooed ex-con, this will only make us feel boring and unmanly. And scared.

2 The phrase 'I'd say it's bang-on average, if not slightly bigger'. Best to steer clear of the size issue. Like us talking about your weight, it can only lead to misunderstanding and hurt.

3 Obsessive accounts of your diet and exercise regime. Men like skinny women, true. But they dislike being exposed to the borderline eating disorders and pathological obsessiveness that produce them. And curvy and sane always beats mad and thin. Eventually.

4 The accusing phrase, 'What's wrong with the blue dress, then?' after we have said we like the red one.

5 Any details of your day at work. Although men can find the most basic things endlessly fascinating - the number of buttons on their shirts, farting - they will suddenly develop ADD when it comes to your professional life. Unless you are a porn actress. No, actually, even then...

6 Any information about things you thought about buying. We are perfectly happy to admire actual purchases, but yearning for those phantom shoes/dress/bag exasperates us.

7 Stories about other men patronising you. This will give us an irresistible urge to ruffle your hair and say in a kids-TV voice, 'Awww, did dey? Did dey do dat to oo?' I know, sometimes we're asking for trouble.

8 The word 'Fine' as a stand-alone sentence. The scariest syllable in the female vocabulary.

9 The sound of weeping. It destroys us.

10 Any details of strife you may be having with your female friends. The endless round of hurt and rapprochement that constitutes girls' friendships mystifies us. If she's that much trouble just delete her from your bloody mobile.

11 The phrase, 'Hang on, I'll just reply to this text before we order'. We want first claim on your attention, woman.

12 The phrase, 'Can you turn over, you're snoring'. Great, that's both of us awake.

13 The words 'Am I special? Am I?' Especially if you are drawing a circle around our nipple with your finger at the time.

14 Anyone else's name, in your sleep.

15 Your dreams. Unless we're in them. And in a good light, too. If not, save 'em for the shrink.

Hooray for the Bidet!!!

The first step was easy: sit down and use the toilet as normal. The technology only kicks in when you are perched on the seat; which, incidentally, is gently heated to the temperature of a half-bled radiator. And then I had a choice: press "bidet" or "wash". Not knowing which was which, I threw caution to the wind and experimented. The former was a more gentle affair, as a mellow jet of warm water shot up towards my bottom. The latter involved an extended, shower-like spray head and was rather more ... bracing.
(...)

at Saki, a Japanese restaurant in Smithfields, London, was such a revelation.

Though Saki claims to be the first commercial establishment in these islands to install the paperless toilets so beloved of the Japanese (70% of households in Tokyo have one), it is probably a while before they will take the whole nation by storm. But could the mere fact that such a whizzy loo has been pioneered anywhere public in the UK be indicative of a wider social change? While investment in public conveniences has generally plummeted over the past decade - there are an estimated 6,000 public toilets in Britain now, compared with double that 10 years ago, and some places, even big cities such as Birmingham, now have no free public loos - there are signs that a quiet revolution is under way among the nation's cisterns and urinals.

"It's just like when mobile phones came in," says Iyako Watanabe, the Japanese-born managing director of Saki, of her futuristic loos. "For a while there were lots of refuseniks, but once you get one, there's no going back." Colin Davies, MD of Ascot Hygiene Ltd, the only UK distributor of Saki's Dutch-manufactured £400 toilet seats, agrees. "Once you've tried them, you can't live without them," he says. "Whenever we visit friends who don't have one, I can't wait to get home. It's such a joy."

(...)

Read on, 'tis British, but very good :)

Os Repositórios da Vagina

More on curry vs. Alzheimer's

Some of you may recall earlier posts about the possible health benefits of curry, specifically curcumin, a polyphenol found in turmeric. There have been studies suggesting that curcumin may help fight cancer and a host of other ailments. The New Scientist and the Daily Mail have recently reported on a new study linking the antioxidants in turmeric to healthy cognitive function in a group of over 1,000 elderly Asians. The study, from researchers at the National University of Singapore, found that curcumin may lower the build up of amyloid plaque and inflammation associated with Alzheimer's. Researchers call the evidence tentative in the study's abstract, saying that further investigation is required.

Mad about the soy

The soybean is native to China and has been cultivated there for more than 3,500 years. An astonishingly rich source of protein, it is fundamental to Chinese cookery and food culture, and has become one of the defining characteristics of the Chinese way of eating. Soy sauce is considered one of the seven household essentials (alongside salt, oil, vinegar, tea, rice and firewood), and it can be argued that bean curd, or tofu as it's often known in the West, has a place equivalent to dairy products in European food cultures.

No one is sure about the origins of bean curd. Legend says it was invented in the second century BC by Liu An, the king of Huainan; some argue that a stone relief excavated from a tomb of the same era depicts a bean-curd workshop. The earliest written reference to bean curd, however, is in a 10th-century text, and the Liu An legend only began a few hundred years ago, during the Ming dynasty. Some scholars have suggested that bean curd was first made by nomads who migrated south and hankered after their customary cheese; others that it was developed by a rural doctor who would have been familiar with soy milk and had gypsum in his medicine chest. All that is certain is that by the Song dynasty it had become a popular food.

'Flower' bean curd and firm white bean curd are just the most basic forms of this most versatile foodstuff. In the markets of Hunan, there are stalls piled high with a dozen different varieties. There are slices of golden smoked bean curd (la gan zi or xiang gan); treacly blocks of stewed aromatic bean curd of various kinds (lu dou fu or xiang gan); deep-fried bean curd puffs (you dou fu); 'hundred-leaves' sheets of leather-thin bean curd (bai ye); waffle-like 'dried orchids' that have been cut into trellis patterns and deep-fried (lan hua gan); and 'bound chickens' (kun ji), tightly tied rolls of thin bean curd that are used by Buddhists as a chicken substitute.

There is also fermented bean curd (dou fu ru), a chilli-laced relish that can be as sublimely rich and creamy as a high blue cheese. Fermented bean curd is eaten as a relish with rice congee or noodles for breakfast, or simply nibbled at the start of a meal, to whet the appetite - just a morsel on the tip of a chopstick is enough to send your taste buds wild with umami excitement. It is also used as an occasional seasoning in Hunanese cookery. Along with soy sauce, black fermented beans and winter-sacrifice beans, fermented bean curd brings to Chinese vegetarian food some of the rich and savoury tastes that one associates with meat and poultry.

Fire Rainbow

This is a fire rainbow - The rarest of all naturally occurring atmospheric phenomena.

The picture was captured on the Idaho/Washington border. The event lasted about 1 hour.
Clouds have to be cirrus, at least 6000 metres in the air, with just the right amount of ice crystals and the sun has to hit the clouds at precisely 58 degrees.

Tinham olhos azuis...

Baron e Empereur,
nascidos em 2005

Postalinho de Paris :D

Ainda a Feira do Livro

Do Pavilhão dos Pequenos Editores, que adoro :)

A postcard from Pennsylvania >'.'<

Thanx, Judy :D

A postcard from California

Thanx, Lori :D

A postcard from Pskov, Russia

Spassiba, Kseniya :D

Paraíso Filmes, quem s'alembra?

NÃO esquecer de ver o linquezinho logo ao lado do que foi posto no YouTube :D

What I know about women ...

Alice Cooper 58, rock musician, married

My kids always ask how you know when you're in love, and I tell them that you don't really have a say in it. When you fall in love you are completely helpless. And if you have to work at a relationship you're not really in love. When you meet that one person you're literally stunned. I met my wife Sheryl when I was 27, and she was 18,when she danced in my Welcome to my Nightmare show. She was the ballerina in Only Women Bleed, and she did all the parts which my daughter, who's 25 and looks identical to her, plays now. Sheryl looks like a cross between Jessica Lange and, at certain angles, Jennifer Lopez. She's a ballet teacher now, so she's very classy but a total rocker.

I was going out with a huge movie star when I met Sheryl. It was a chaotic time in my life - I had a lot of girls every night but never a girlfriend. I was dating Racquel Welch, at her prime. She was like a battleship, and then there was Sheryl - a 90-pound ballerina, and I was just in love with her, this little waif. One day I woke up and realised she was the girl I was going to marry. And there weren't any doubts in my mind. And there was never a thought that I'd still screw around. I've never cheated on her, because I'm a total romancer.

Women still throw themselves at me every day and every night, not because I'm handsome, but because I'm Alice Cooper, I'm a rock star. But the last thing I'd ever want to do is hurt her. I've learned something from women that's really important - that men are microwaves, and women are pressure cookers. Women love romance, while men love sex. And I'm sure women love sex too, but they need the stuff leading up to it... flowers, dating. Men don't get that. If guys really got it they would wait six dates before trying to get a girl into bed. It makes it more exciting for one thing. There's no mystery if you just click your fingers - there's no not being able to sleep at night, no losing your appetite. Romance is the missing element that most men don't understand. I still date my wife. We have three kids, but every once in a while I'll pick her up at her dance studio and take her to a motel.

Women are fascinating. I chose to be called Alice Cooper for shock value. Names like Black Sabbath or Death Patrol are just too obvious. Alice Cooper needed to be that thing that people couldn't figure out. It was Los Angeles, 1967, and we were five guys, who didn't mind wearing women's clothes, but were all very heterosexual. All the groupies loved the fact that we'd wear their slips with black leather pants and motorcycle boots, and all of a sudden we were this 'thing'. Glam, but rough, so the name Alice Cooper was something that was going to piss off every mother in America. They're expecting some blond folk singer, and they got us - a pre-Clockwork Orange Clockwork Orange. We were more of a gang than a band.

I'll never understand women. There's a joke - God sees this guy in San Francisco whom he really likes, and tells him: 'I'm going to give you anything you want'. So the guy says: 'I have a house in Maui. I'd like a bridge that goes from San Francisco to Maui.' So God says: 'OK, but I'm going to give you 24 hours to think about that. Tell me again tomorrow.' So he comes back the next day and the guy says: 'Forget the bridge - I want to understand women.' God says: 'Do you want that bridge four lanes, or two?' See? It's easier to build a bridge than understand women.

That's the great thing though. I've been married for 30 years and think I know everything there is to know about Sheryl but then, every once in a while, I get a surprise. It makes it interesting. Women's mystique is the greatest thing. That's why they should never bare it all - they're always sexier with something on.

Os Comics mais adoráveis :D

Already out of stock!

11 Examples of Unusual Mating Habits

1. PENGUINS
Penguins prefer to be `married', but they suffer long separations due to their migratory habits. When reunited, a pair will stand breast to breast, heads thrown back, singing loudly, with outstretched flippers trembling. Two weeks after a pair is formed, their union is consummated. The male makes his intentions known by laying his head across his partner's stomach. They go on a long trek to find privacy, but the actual process of intercourse takes only three minutes. Neither penguin will mate again that year.
The male Adele penguin must select his mate from a colony of more than a million, and he indicates his choice by rolling a stone at the female's feet. Stones are scarce at mating time because many are needed to build walls around nests. It becomes commonplace for penguins to steal them from one another. If she accepts this gift, they stand belly to belly and sing a mating song.

2. HIPPOPOTAMI
Hippos have their own form of aromatherapy. Hippos attract mates by marking territory, urinating and defecating at the same time. Then, an enamored hippo will twirl its tail like a propellor to spread this delicious slop in every direction. This attracts lovers, and a pair will begin foreplay, which consists of playing by splashing around in the water before settling down to business.

3. THE MALE UGANDA KOB
Exhaustion is the frequent fate of the male Uganda kob, an African antelope. Like many species of birds and mammals, the kob roams in a social group until the mating season, when the dominant male establishes a mating territory, or lek. But the females decide which territory they wish to enter and then pick the male they think most attractive. He then mates with all the females until he is too weak to continue (usually due to lack of food) and is replaced by another.

4. SQUID
Squid begin mating with a circling nuptial dance. Teams of squid revolve around across a `spawning bed' a 200 metres in diameter. At daybreak they begin having sex and continue all day long - they only take a break so the female can drive down and deposit eggs. When she returns to the circle, the two go at it again. As twilight falls, the pair go offshore to eat and rest. At the first sign of sunlight, they return to their spot and do it all over again. This routine can last up to two weeks, ensuring a healthy population of squid.

5. PORCUPINES
The answer to one of our oldest jokes: `How do porcupines do it?' `Veeery carefully!' is not quite true. The truth is more bizarre than dangerous. Females are only receptive for a few hours a year. As summer approaches, young females become nervous and very excited. Next, they go off their food, and stick close by the males and mope. Meanwhile the male becomes aggressive with other males, and begins a period of carefully sniffing every place the female of his choice urinates, smelling her all over. This is a tremendous aphrodisiac. While she is sulking by his side, he begins to `sing'.
When he is ready to make love, the female runs away if she's not ready. If she is in the mood, they both rear up and face each other, belly-to-belly. Then, males spray their ladies with a tremendous stream of urine, soaking their loved one from head to foot - the stream can shoot as far as 7 feet.
If they're not ready, females respond by 1) objecting verbally 2) hitting with front paws like boxers 3) trying to bite 4) shaking off the urine. When ready, they accept the bath. This routine can go on for weeks. Six months after the beginning of courtship, the female will accept any male she has been close to. The spines and quills of both go relaxed and flat, and the male enters from behind. Mating continues until the male is worn out. Every time he tries to stop, the female wants to continue. If he has given up, she chooses another partner, only now she acts out the male role. To `cool off', females engage in the same courtship series, step-by-step, in reverse order.
It is advised never to stand close to a cage that contains courting porcupines.

6. GEESE
Two male geese may form a homosexual bond and prefer each other's company to any female's. Sometimes, however, a female may interpose herself between them during such a courtship, and be quickly fertilised. They will accept her, and weeks later the happy family of three can be seen attending to its tiny newborn goslings.

7. WHITE-FRONTED PARROTS
These birds, native to Mexico and and Central America, are believed to be the only species besides humans to kiss. Before actually mating, male and female will lock their beaks and gently flick their tongues together. If kissing is satisfying for both parties, the male boldly takes the next step, by regurgitating his food for his girlfriend, to show his love. White-fronted parrots also share parenting, unlike many other species. When the female lays her one egg, both parents take turns incubating it. When the baby hatches, the couple feed and care for their offspring together.

8. GRASSHOPPERS
Why are grasshoppers so noisy? It's because they're singing to woo their partners. They have as many as 400 distinct songs, which they sing during their courtship and mating cycles. Some males have a different song for each distinct mating period - for example, there may be a flirting song, then a mating song.

9. SEAGULLS
Lesbian mating is practised by between 8% and 14% of the seagulls on the Santa Barbara islands, off the California coast. Lesbian gulls go through all the motions of mating, and they lay sterile eggs. Homosexual behaviour is also known in geese, ostriches, cichlid fish, squid, rats and monkeys.

10. RED-SIDED GARTER SNAKES
These snakes are small and poisonous, and live in Canada and the Northwestern United States. Their highly unusual mating takes place during an enormous orgy. Twenty-five thousand snakes slither together in a large den, eager to copulate. In that pile, one female may have as many as 100 males vying for her. These `nesting balls' grow as large as two feet high. Now and then a female is crushed under the heavy mound - and the males are so randy that they continue to copulate, becoming the only necrophiliac snakes!

11. LYNX SPIDERS
When a male lynx spider feels the urge, he will capture his beauty in his web and wrap her in silk. Offering her this elegant meal (the silken web) is his way of wooing. When the mood is right, the female, distracted by her feast, will allow her suitor to mount her and begin mating. Oblivious, she ignores him and enjoys her supper.

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