From mephedrone to Benzo Fury: the new 'legal highs' | Society The profusion of legal highs is bewildering. Often sold online as "bath salts" or "plant food" because they are not permitted to be marketed for human consumption, legal highs may be legal or, confusingly, illegal. The active ingredients in similarly named drugs are also often completely different. "The legal highs market is flooded with scammers and people selling legal and illegal drugs," says Mike Power, author of a new book, Drugs 2.0: The Web Revolution that is Changing the Way the World Gets High, which is published in May. "The more new drugs are banned, the more new drugs are invented. It's like a game of Whack-a-Mole." According to Power, new drugs are commissioned based on an existing illegal drug such as ketamine, with globalised drug labs attaching a couple of additional molecules to an illegal drug to render their new variant legal in the UK. There are three broad families of "legal" highs or "new" drugs. Synthetic cannabinoids Mephedrone APB or Benzo Fury
Google Zeitgeist, Like TED, Focuses on Big Picture Kevin Lee | September 30, 2011 | 0 Comments inShare36 Five trends touched on at the Zeitgeist conference that will have a significant impact on SEM. This week, Google held its thought-provoking conference, Zeitgeist. Like TED, the Zeitgeist conference sessions are designed to inspire, educate, and broaden the horizons of the attendees while allowing some additional time for schmoozing and fun. In prior years, the event was strictly off the record, but with the proliferation of Twitter, there was a constant stream of observations, comments, and discussions flying around the Twittersphere throughout the conference. Cory Booker (Newark, NJ mayor) Adam Braun (founder, Pencils of Promise)Deepak Chopra (needs no introduction) Larry Page and Eric Schmidt Mark Cuban (chairman and CEO, HDNet) What do these videos have to do with paid search strategies? Also, if you don't love this stuff (PPC search, online advertising, social media, etc.), have someone else do it for you.
Twitter map finally reveals exactly where Manchester United fans live Their interactive results map highlights the historical east/west split between fans in Manchester, but also shows that United – despite perceptions – do not have huge waves of support in London and the south east. The grey areas show relative few United fans live in London The map also draws an interesting picture of Liverpool's vast support in Wales and Northern Ireland, a he small pocket of Arsenal fans among a vast area of Tottenham's dominance north of London and, whisper it, the masses of support Norwich in Ipswich postcodes. For information about how the data was sourced, and how the map was created, visit the Oxford Institute site here.
Tatler's Dog Dies In Door Disaster at Vogue House It's the kind of death that would suit the most dramatic of fashionistas - being killed by the revolving door at Vogue House. And yesterday, that grim fate befell Tatler magazine's in-house mascot, a young Dachsund named Alan, arguably the most well-connected dog in Britain. The revolving door through which generations of celebrities and stylists have walked into the offices of Vogue, GQ and Tatler was transformed into the jaws of death for Alan - or Alan TBH Plumptre to give him his full name - after the small beast bounded forwards into the revolving door when being taken out for a walk by a hapless staffer whose identity has not been revealed.
18 heads found at airport were sent for cremation | World news Associated Press= CHICAGO (AP) — It sounded ghoulish enough: a shipment of 18 frozen human heads discovered and seized by customs officials during routine X-ray screening of cargo arriving at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Turns out the heads were used for medical research in Italy and were being returned for cremation in Illinois. The holdup was due to a paperwork problem. It just so happens such shipments are commonplace, and heads — quite a few of them — crisscross the globe via airplane and delivery truck. "Just last week, we transported eight heads, unembalmed, to Rush University Medical Center for an ophthalmology program," said Paul Dudek, director of the Anatomical Gift Association of Illinois, which supplies cadavers and body parts to medical schools in the state for training students. His association sends about 450 whole cadavers to medical schools each year and also ships individual body parts, including about a dozen shipments of heads annually. U.S.
Immortalise your children's drawings as coloured 3D-printed sculptures | Art and design You can have your baby's shoes dipped in gold, your child's milk teeth turned into jewellery, and even your foetus scanned and cast in resin. And now you can have your children's scribbles immortalised in stone, thanks to a project by Spanish designer Bernat Cuni. Crayon Creatures is a new service that takes your child's drawings, transforms them into a digital model, then provides you with a 3D-printed version – in full colour. Cuni says the idea came from his children's interest in seeing 3D printing in action. "We have a small DIY 3D-printer at home, so my kids are used to seeing ideas turned into objects quite easily," he says. "Whenever I bring something home now, they ask if I made it or bought it. The first stage in the process is interpreting the drawing, to actually understand what it could be in three dimensions. Once the image is scanned, it is cut out and extruded using digital modelling software, "as if cut from a thick block of wood".
Whitby church under threat from landslips | UK news Human bones in a graveyard made famous by Bram Stoker's story of Dracula have been uncovered by the second landslip to hit a picturesque Yorkshire fishing port. Blocked and broken drainage is being blamed for increasingly serious problems on the cliff below St Mary's church in Whitby where the legendary vampire makes landfall in the classic Victorian horror story. Soil and crumbling rock started peeling away in November after torrential rain added to the problems and caused a row of five terraced cottages in Aelfleda Street to become potentially unstable. Left teetering above a steep slope after their gardens fell away in November, they were demolished shortly before Christmas. Now warning signs have been posted along a well-used pathway to the graveyard which features in Stoker's novel. Rev Canon David Smith, the rector of St Mary's which is a grade one listed building, said that repairs drainage pipe were due to start by the weekend.
Blizzard conditions expected to cause travel chaos across UK | UK news Blizzard conditions will wreak travel havoc across much of the UK on Friday, with heavy snow and driving wind expected. Worst hit will be parts of south Wales, where the Met Office has issued the highest-level red warning as up to 30cm (12in) of snow is predicted to fall from about 1am on Friday and continue throughout the day. Much of England, especially in the south, can expect up to 10cm of snow on lower ground and up to 20cm on higher ground, forecasters warned. In London, 5cm is expected to start falling from 9am, settling because daytime temperatures will barely rise above freezing after plunging to -5C at night. Train services throughout England and Wales are expected to be severely disrupted, with some flights at risk of cancellation and schools facing the threat of closure. South West Trains is operating a revised timetable on a number of routes on Friday, including London to Bournemouth and Weymouth, London to Salisbury and Portsmouth and London to Reading.
ashens.com ‘Strange Worlds’ photographer aims to trick the eye When Matthew Albanese began his Strange Worlds project in 2008, he says, it was very much about “tricking the eye.” “I would describe the photography that I do as small scale dioramas that I build by hand out of everyday, simple, mundane materials and transform them into an image through the lens of my camera making them look hyper-realistic,” he says in the accompanying video episode of The Weekly Flickr. “I’ve used ostrich feathers to create willow trees. By day, Matthew is a professional fashion photographer. He stumbled upon his Strange Worlds idea by accident one day while in the kitchen at work. “The first Strange World that I created was Paprika Mars,” Matthew details. Ever since he can remember, he has always been a “daydreamer.” “When I was young I was always very, very obsessed with movie miniatures and movie magic and things of small scale,” he says. Matthew began building his creations in the back of his father’s old warehouse. “I’ll make a change, and I’ll make a capture.
Most parents 'lie to their children' 23 January 2013Last updated at 09:51 ET By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent People share some of lies they have told, or been told while growing up Most parents tell lies to their children as a tactic to change their behaviour, suggests a study of families in the United States and China. The most frequent example was parents threatening to leave children alone in public unless they behaved. Persuasion ranged from invoking the support of the tooth fairy to telling children they would go blind unless they ate particular vegetables. Another strategic example was: "That was beautiful piano playing." The study, published in the International Journal of Psychology, examined the use of "instrumental lying" - and found that such tactically-deployed falsehoods were used by an overwhelming majority of parents in both the United States and China - based on interviews with about 200 families. 'I'll buy it next time' Continue reading the main story “Start Quote 'Broccoli makes you taller'
Menswear Dog: the top model who is best in show | Fashion Move over David Gandy, there's a new dog in town! Here is Bodhi, a shiba inu who lives in New York, and the face (or should that be snout?) of fashion blog Menswear Dog. Bodhi, or possibly his stylists, Dave Fung and Yena Kim, a fashion designer and graphic designer respectively, clearly knows how to work a look. Strangely, he seems, in the words of Tyra Banks on America's Next Top Model, to know how "to work his angles", adjusting his facial expression to suit each look: an erudite profile shot for the slightly professorial cardi, a cockier, open-jawed look for the randier open-collar and-tie combo. Some fashion detective work suggests that Bodhi's influences could lie in Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox or in Berluti's autumn/winter 2013 show, in which looks were displayed on mannequins with animal heads.
Scientology was inevitable: the lesson of Lawrence Wright's book, Going Clear | Hadley Freeman Some dairy-devoted Americans smuggle hunks of unpasteurised cheese back into their country after holidays in hedonistic ol' Europe. This American engaged in a similarly contraband importation when I returned to London on Monday from a trip to New York with a particular book in my suitcase. Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright is one of the most keenly awaited books of the year, but those in the UK will continue to wait in vain for it (or fork out exorbitant shipping fees from US-based online booksellers) as, owing to Britain's stiflingly archaic libel laws, Transworld, the book's British publisher, announced earlier this month that "legal advice" had convinced it not to publish Wright's study of the world's most controversial religion. To the fun stuff first. Recently, on a trip to LA, a friend and I walked across the street to check out the Scientology Celebrity Centre.