' Willie received the award Friday for his actions in November, when he and owner Megan Howard were baby-sitting a toddler. Willie repeatedly yelled "Mama, baby" when Howard went to the bathroom and the toddler started to choke on her breakfast. '
' Police say a woman found lost and disoriented 14 years ago at a Woodbridge, N.J., mall has been identified as Elba Leonor Diaz Soccarras. When found, Soccarras was well-dressed and clean but carried no identification and couldn't remember who she was or how she got to the mall. '
' When the Indian industrialist Ratan Tata announced plans to produce the world's cheapest car last January, he said he hoped to fulfil a dream of bringing motoring to the Indian masses. But by the time the £1,350 Nano was launched yesterday in Mumbai, his dream had become more ambitious: to go head-to- head with the world's biggest carmakers and bring low-cost motoring to the cash-strapped masses of Europe and US. Yesterday, the group announced ambitions to challenge the gas-guzzling car culture of the west with plans to sell the Nano, which is priced in India at 100,000 rupees plus tax, to the US as well as Europe. '
' No one is more fond of his own name than Stephen Colbert. For weeks, the Comedy Central faux pundit has urged members of his “Colbert Nation” to bombard NASA’s online contest to name a new room at the international space station with…you guessed it… “Colbert.” And – of course – he won, the AP reports. NASA listed four other options, but foolishly allowed voters to write-in, leading Colbert to bury the agency’s number two suggestion – Serenity. The comedian won by more than 40,000 votes. '
' Jeffs pointed out that debris can litter space for decades after the break up of a rocket or satellite. For instance in January 2007, China shot down one of its own satellites as part of an antisatellite test, said Jeffs. Debris from that could easily be problematic for the space station one day, even though the satellite was destroyed two years ago. The piece of debris that forced the maneuvering of the shuttle and station yesterday was from a Chinese satellite that was launched in 1999 and broke up in 2000, NASA said. "There's just more debris up there," said Jeffs, adding that the U.S. Strategic Command is constantly tracking it. '
' Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut to live on the International Space Station, is testing the clothes, called J-ware and created by textile experts at Japan Women's University in Tokyo. "He can wear his trunks (underwear) more than a week," said Koji Yanagawa, an official with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. Wakata's clothes, developed by researcher Yoshiko Taya, are designed to kill bacteria, absorb water, insulate the body and dry quickly. They also are flame-resistant and anti-static, not to mention comfortable and stylish. '
' A teenager in America has been suspended from travelling on his school bus, after being accused of breaking wind. This is not the first, nor even the most severe, disciplinary action taken against a farting student in Florida. In November 2008, a 12-year-old boy was actually arrested by police after reportedly passing gas in the classroom. '
' The Oakland-based chemical company deployed a "potty patrol" team in the city Friday to make residents aware of its offer marrying marketing and community service. Since November, more than two dozen construction site toilets have been set on fire in the city, causing an estimated $50,000 in property damage and leaving a trail of foul-smelling evidence. '
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' Nebraska just passed the law in July after years of lawmakers' attempts making it the last state that allows parents to legally abandon their children in hospital or police department without prosecution. Gary Staton dropped five boys and four girls ages 20 months to 17 years at Creighton University Medical Center's Emergency room and then walked away. The man still keeps his tenth child, an 18 year-old daughter, according to the Associated Press. '
' Welcome to Japan's online social scene, where you're unlikely to meet anyone you don't know already. The early promises of a new, open social frontier, akin to the identity-centric world of Facebook and MySpace in the U.S., have been replaced by a realm where people stay safely within their circles of friends and few reveal themselves to strangers. "There is the sense that, `My face just isn't that interesting, or I'm not attractive — there is nothing special about me to show people,'" says Tetsuya Shibui, a writer who has long followed the Internet in Japan. Indeed, the Japanese virtual world has turned out just like the real one. People rarely give their first names to those they don't know well. Spontaneous exchanges are uncommon even on the tightly packed trains and streets of Tokyo. TV news shows often blur the faces of those caught in background footage and photos to protect their privacy. '
' Sheep farmers in remote northwest Scotland are furious about a sea eagle reintroduction programme, saying the huge birds of prey are damaging their livelihoods by killing 200 lambs in the past year. Fraser said the sea eagles -- which have a wing span of eight feet (2.4 metres) and can weigh eight kgs (18 lbs) when fully grown -- will snatch even year-old sheep. Reynolds said that last week an RSPB team in Scotland examined a sea eagle nest on Gairloch and found their diet consisted largely of Fulmars, a sea bird, and quite large lamb bones, suggesting they were scavenged. '
' ""It's a beautiful male pig but he's just so big and so pushy," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It started getting very pushy, started pushing me around, so I started to get a bit frightened, until the stage that it started knocking on my door at four o'clock in the morning, actually head-butting my door," she said. "This morning, I wanted to go to my toilet, which is outside. I opened up the door and the pig pushed me that hard, it pushed me back into my room, where I fell over," she said. '
' Bacon won the crown over as she started her hog call with a few loud snorts and a long, drawn-out "sooey." She has raised several champion pigs for 4-H contests. Bacon says she calls pigs every morning and night with her 9-year-old daughter, Jacey. The northern Idaho woman took first place Saturday in the competition at the Nez Perce County Fair. '
' Paul McCartney's ex-wife is donating $1 million worth of soy hamburgers, soy hot dogs and soy chicken cutlets to one of the poorest neighborhoods in the Bronx. Heather Mills is set to announce the donation just before the Hunts Point Back to School Fair kicks off Saturday afternoon. The vegan animal rights campaigner is an honorary chairwoman of the nonprofit that organizes the event. She tells the New York Post that she wants to make sure children in the neighborhood "have as many nutritional advantages as anyone else." '
' Dog excrement used to be merely a nuisance to pedestrians, now it could be used as evidence against pet owners and may lead to fines. A town in northern Italy plans to create a DNA database of all registered dogs and then test droppings left on pavements and in parks to identify the culprit and fine owners who fail to clean up after their pets, La Stampa daily reported Tuesday. '
' Scientists have traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas 380 million years ago, according to a new study. "What we have shown is that the hand and the foot emerge from pre-existing bits of the fin skeleton that were just reshaped, rather than being entirely new bits that were bolted onto the existing fin skeleton," said co-author Per Ahlberg, a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden. But recent research in genetics had suggested that rudimentary digits might have emerged further back along the evolutionary tree than once suspected. The image shows stubby bones at the end of the fin skeleton clearly arrayed like four fingers, called distal radials. There are no joints, and the bones are quite short, but there could be no doubt as to what they were. '
' Aspirin is among the most popular remedies used by people. Turns out some plants like it, too. Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research were surprised to discover that stressed plants produce an aspirin-like chemical that can be detected in the air above the plants. The chemical may be a sort of immune response that helps protect the plants, the scientists speculated. "Our measurements show that significant amounts of the chemical can be detected in the atmosphere as plants respond to drought, unseasonable temperatures or other stresses." While researchers had known that plants in the laboratory produce a form of aspirin known as methyl salicylate, they had never looked for it in the forest. But when they set up measuring devices in a walnut grove near Davis, Calif., to monitor plant emissions that can affect pollution, they discovered measurable amounts of methyl salicylate. Previous studies have shown that plants being eaten by animals also produce chemicals that can be sensed by other plants nearby. In addition to having an immune-like function, the chemical may be a means for plants to communicate to neighboring plants, warning them of the threat. "These findings show tangible proof that plant-to-plant communication occurs on the ecosystem level," says NCAR scientist Alex Guenther, a co-author of the study. "It appears that plants have the ability to communicate through the atmosphere." '
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