A biker named Zhang Bo rode into an open manhole and ended up in hospital. Bo, 28 - from Changchun, Jilin province, eastern China - hadn't spotted the missing cover and was sent flying over the handlebars when the front half of his bike disappeared into the hole. He sustained a broken jaw and fractured skull. "The manhole cover had been stolen to melt down for scrap. It's an increasing problem," said a police spokesman.Found at the Telegraph. Photo credit: CEN
The U.S. Census first collected data on librarians in 1880, four years after the founding of the American Library Association. They only counted 636 librarians nationwide... The number of librarians grew over the next hundred years, peaking at 307,273 in 1990. Then, the profession began to shrink, and as of 2009, it had dropped by nearly a third to 212,742. The data enable us to measure the growth, the gender split in this profession known to be mostly female, and to explore other divides in income and education, as they changed over time.At the link there are also data regarding librarians' income over time (it has consistently been above the median for all workers), the sex distribution of librarians (they were predominantly male in 1880), the racial distribution ("In 2009, 89 percent of librarians were white while the whole population was 82 percent white"), age, education, and marriage rates ("Today, the marriage rate among librarians is the highest it has ever been with 62 percent of librarians married in 2009.")
A bird disease which can leave great tits riddled with lesions, stopping them feeding and leaving them vulnerable to predators, is spreading across the UK, researchers have warned. Members of the public are being asked to look out for garden birds that have signs of avian pox, a virus which could be transmitted through contaminated bird feeders as well as direct bird-to-bird contact and through biting insects.This was one of 33 pictures of the day at the Telegraph. Credit: Liz Cutting/Zoological Society of London/PA
The memorial includes a row of 13 vertical steel I-beams, each engraved with the name of someone who died in the collapse and a personal tribute written by relatives.Within two days of the unveiling of the memorial, some scumbag vandalized it by removing letters. Of interest, the letters removed were noncontiguous, suggesting that the malefactor was not taking them for the metal value of the stainless steel, but to spell a message - probably his name.
The names of 171 survivors of the collapse are engraved on a stone wall, which has a sheet of water flowing over it. The wall featured this message -- the one damaged by vandals -- written by survivors of the collapse:
"Our lives are not only defined by what happens, but by how we act in the face of it, not only by what life brings us, but by what we bring to life. Selfless actions and compassion create enduring community out of tragic events."
The missing letters, in the order they took in the message: u, l, n, t, d, w, a, i, n, y, a, w, g, e, a, s, r, m, m, o, g, e. [a single comma was also removed, and the dot over the i).I couldn't come up with anything. "Stan awed uglier gym woman" certainly isn't relevant. Perhaps you can do better.
"It is more than 25 million years old, a thousand times older than any other lake. At over a mile, it is the deepest lake in the world. If you emptied it, it would take every river in the world flowing into it a year to fill. It contains more water than the five US great lakes combined.More photos via here.
