Watercooler Sensation

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1,2,3,4 Everybody Learn To Speak Dinosaur

The Story

• If Dr. Dolittle lived in the early Mesozoic period, what language would he speak? [Live Science]
• Scientists believe that many species dinosaurs communicated with each other, and are finding clues in the fossil record and among modern reptiles to help them figure out how.
• Here are some theories:

• Grunt like crocodiles:

  Modern crocodiles, descendants of dinosaurs, lack vocal chords but make low-frequency sounds that “are known to travel great distances.”

• Sing like birds: Some believe that dinosaurs communicated like their feathered descendants (birds) with “song, dance and colorful plumage.”
• Shake, rattle and roll: Percussion fans? Maybe dinosaurs were too. Apparently, the “extremely long tails of Diplodocus and other sauropod dinosaurs could have been flicked at supersonic speeds, making bullwhip-like cracking sounds that may have traveled long distances.” Hot.
• Says Thomas Williamson, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, “the Mesozoic must have been an amazing place, made all the more noisy and colorful by the communications of dinosaurs.”

The Audio

• Incredibly, MicCheck has tracked down recordings of early dinosaur interaction. Listen in.
  Please log in to download this clip.

Boom boom, acka lacka boom boom.

Amazon Rain Forest Will Be Half Gone By 2030

• A vicious global warming cycle is eating away the Amazon rain forest. [Guardian]
• A new study from the World Wildlife Foundation (the WWF with fewer burly half-naked men involved), has a stunning conclusion: global warming and deforestation has brought the Amazon rain forest to a “point of no return” and 60% of it could be gone by 2030.
• Here’s what’s happening:
• Current trends in deforestation, logging, and ground clearing for cattle grazing will reduce the world’s largest rain forest by 55% by 2030.
• Meanwhile, global warming is reducing rainfall and increasing the risk of forest fires, likely destroying another 5% of the forest over the same period.
• But as the forest goes, the planet loses an important absorber of CO2, and a “key stabiliser of the global climate system.”
• Thus the vicious cycle: the more the forest is destroyed, the faster global warming occurs, which, in turn, speeds up deforestation.
• Scientists estimate that “deforestation in the tropics is responsible for about 20 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions.” [Reuters]

Mo logs, mo problems.

Diet Soda? Hardly.

• You know when you’re standing at the vending machine and you’re thinking “I really want that Coke...but it’s just got so many calories...so, you know, I’ll go with the Diet Coke.” And then you go back to your desk feeling all high and mighty for making the “right decision?” Think again, saddlebags. [Johns Hopkins]
• A recent study performed at the Johns Hopkins University has shown that people who drink diet soda still have a 41 percent chance of being overweight. How’s that for the taste of a new generation?
• Even more interesting? Diet-soda drinkers have a greater risk for obesity than do those who drink regular sodas.
• Why, you ask? Researchers are still trying to figure that out. Some experts believe that the problem with diet sodas is this: When people consume diet drinks, they think they’re doing something “good” for their body — and then they feel free to splurge on other, high-calorie items.
• There is also some research that suggests diet sodas may actually stimulate the appetite. So, basically, the overly sweet taste of diet drinks actually creates a craving for still more sweet things, thus upping calorie consumption.

Just for the taste of it? We’ll be the judge of that.

The Sweet Sounds Of Grammy Nominations

• Nominations for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards were announced yesterday. The big winner so far? Performer Kanye West, who led the pack with eight separate nominations.
• Here are some of the other nominees:

Album Of The Year:

• Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace — Foo Fighters
• These Days — Vince Gill
• River: The Joni Letters — Herbie Hancock
• Graduation — Kanye West
• Back To Black — Amy Winehouse

Best New Artist:

• Feist
• Ledisi
• Paramore
• Taylor Swift
• Amy Winehouse

Song Of The Year:

• “Before He Cheats” — Carrie Underwood
• “Hey There Delilah” — Plain White T’s
• “Like A Star” — Corinne Bailey Rae
• “Rehab” — Amy Winehouse
• “Umbrella” — Rihanna Featuring Jay-Z

Great. Now we’ve got that Rehab song stuck in our heads for the rest of the day...

What Would Jesus Watch?

• Well, we can certainly tell you what he wouldn’t watch: videos of dogs riding skateboards, news-reel bloopers, SNL’s Iran So Far Away. Or, maybe he would. Who can really tell. Regardless, a pious, entrepreneurial mind has come up with a YouTube alternative: GodTube. [USA Today]
• The site, created by Chris Wyatt, aims to “help the church get people back into the pews.” And it’s doing a pretty damn — sorry, darn — good job of it. According to comScore Inc., which tracks the growth of websites, GodTube grew nearly 1,000% in its first month, and had 1.6 million unique visitors every month. There are currently more than 38,000 videos on GodTube.
• And the Christians aren’t the only ones latching on to the Internet upswing. Though the two sites are considerably smaller — JewTube gets about 175,000 visitors per month and IslamicTube 23,000 — the two sites are similar to GodTube in their mission to promote their individual faiths and surrounding cultures.
• So what can you expect to find on YouTube? Try pastor Dan Smith’s spoof on Baby Got Back, appropriately entitled Baby Got Book. Though the spoof on the rap song has been viewed more than 603,000 (!) times on GodTube, Smith wonders how effective the site will be in reaching non-Christians.
• Wyatt, the site’s creator, sees GodTube as his ministry, a way “to bring as many people to Christ ... as possible.” He doesn’t think he is the reason for the site’s success. Rather, it’s the result of “God in GodTube.”
• “I’m not really the CEO,” Wyatt said. “I feel like I’m the CEO’s man on the ground.”

Basically, how Jesus wastes his time at work.

By the Numbers

Immigration: What People Are Saying

Here’s the good, the bad, and the down-right ugly of what the American public thinks about illegal immigration, according to a new LA Times/Bloomberg poll. [Los Angeles Times]

1 in 3

One in three Americans “want to deny social services, including public schooling and emergency room healthcare,” to undocumented immigrants. How’s that for holiday spirit?

46%

About 46% of respondents said that immigrants should be able to get emergency medical treatment.

40%

40% said they should have access to public schools.

15%

15% of the American voters say that immigration should be the top issue in the Presidential campaigns — the fifth-most mentioned topic behind the Iraq war, the economy, protecting the country from terrorist attacks and healthcare.

60%

This gives us hope: 60 percent still favor creating a pathway to citizenship for law-abiding individuals.

Celebrities: Unfiltered

“My husband, when he married me, married all the Spice Girls, and he has to look after us all.”

— Posh Spice (aka Victoria Beckham). Wow. And we thought they were kidding with that whole “if you wannabe my lover, you’ve gotta get with my friends” thing. [AP]

Speed Round

NO WORDS

“I’ve had a crush on you for two years.” — John Mayer to Ricki Lake. We swear. [Jossip]

CELEBRIDIRT

Jack Bauer isn’t put in jail. Jack Bauer puts jail in him. [Defamer]

TECHNOLOGY

Having perfected the art of making cars, Toyota moves on to violin-playing robots. [AP]

AMY WINEHOUSE IS A TRAINWRECK

The British popstar needs a shirt, some methadone, and a publicist that’s better at lying. With picture goodness. [People]

LOVE, REALITY STYLE

Bravo, lovebirds! Dale from the hit Bravo cooking show Top Chef is dating Jack from this season’s Project Runway. Now if only someone would fix up James Lipton… [OutZone]

HOLLY GOLIGHTLY WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD

Get your gold-digging shovels ready – Forbes has the newest list of the top 20 richest people under the age of 25. La Lohan, Malcolm in the Middle, the sisters Olsen and Ron Weasley all make the cut. [Forbes]

FLU SEASON

What’s worse than getting the flu and coming down with a drippy throat, fever, aches and sniffles? Getting the flu and coming down with a heart attack. [ABC News]

303,000 POUNDS

Amount of cocaine seized by the U.S. Coast Guard this year. [CBS News]

NOBEL HAPPINESS

The Nobel Prize winner for medicine says you need “happy genes” to succeed in science. [Raw Story]

WHOOPS

Britney Spears related items out-sold Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan stuff on eBay this year. Among the auctioned items: a toothbrush claimed to have been found in Paris Hilton’s trash. Stay classy, America. [AP]

EVERYONE CAN BE A SPY

More and more, U.S. spies rely on “publicly available” info “on the Web, in newspapers and in non-governmental reports.” Get spying, kids. [AP]

SPRING BREAK GOES TERRIBLY WRONG

Fisherman finds a bag of human body parts in a canal north of Daytona Beach. [Fox]

STEM CELLS

You know those stem cells created from skin cells? Well, they seem to be working: they were just used to treat sickle cell anemia in mice. [Reuters]