Health & Lifestyle

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What's the state of the states of the union? Let's see ... New Yorkers mock Southern drawls. Southerners don't cotton to West Coast hippies, who in turn can't understand why Midwesterners live so far from the ocean breeze. And Midwesterners? They wonder who could survive New York-the city that never sleeps. Yes, the U.S.A. is one big, happy dysfunctional family. And to prove there are no hard feelings, every state gets a handpicked potshot all its own.

Alabama
When a visitor to a town in Alabama spotted a dog attacking a boy, he grabbed the animal and throttled it with his bare hands. An impressed reporter saw the incident and told him the next day's headline would scream "Valiant Local Man Saves Child by Killing Vicious Animal."
"I'm not from this town," said the hero.
"Then," the reporter said, "it will say 'Alabama Man Saves Child by Killing Dog.'"
"Actually," said the man, "I'm from New Hampshire."
"In that case," the reporter grumbled, "the headline will be 'Yankee Kills Family Pet.'"

Alaska
An Alaskan was on trial in Anchorage. The prosecutor leaned menacingly toward him and asked, "Where were you on the night of October to April?"

Arizona
It's so hot in Arizona, cows are giving evaporated milk and the trees are whistling for dogs.

Arkansas
An Arkansas state trooper pulls over a pickup truck on I-40.
He says to the driver, "Got any ID?" The driver asks, "'Bout what?"

California
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the FBI, and the CIA want to see who is best at catching perps. So a rabbit is released into the forest, and each of them has to catch it.  read more »

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The military tracks about 18,000 pieces of orbital debris. On Tuesday, the census of space-garbage suddenly jumped by 600, the initial estimate of the number of fragments from a stunning collision of two satellites high above Siberia.

Space is now polluted with the flotsam of a satellite-dependent civilization. The debris is increasingly a hazard for astronauts and has put crafts such as the Hubble Space Telescope and communications satellites at risk of being struck by an object moving at high speed.

The military's radar can spot objects about four inches in diameter - roughly the size of a baseball - or larger. This collision, however, may have produced many thousands of small, undetectable pieces of debris that would still carry enough kinetic punch at orbital velocities to damage or destroy a spacecraft.  read more »

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Marine biologists say the jellyfish numbers are rocketing because they need not die. Dr Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute said: "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion."

The jellyfish are originally from the Caribbean but have spread all over the world. Found in warm tropical waters Turritopsis is believed to be spreading across the world as ships’ ballast water is discharged in ports.

Turritopsis Nutricula is technically known as a hydrozoan and is the only known animal that is capable of reverting completely to its younger self. It does this through the cell development process of transdiff- erentiation. Scientists believe the cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it potentially immortal.

Though solitary, they are predatory creatures and evolve asexually from a polyp stage. While most members of the jellyfish family usually die after propagating, the Turritopsis nutricula has developed the unique ability to return to a polyp state.  read more »

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Nepal became the world's newest republic in 2006, and in May 2008 ended the country's 240-year monarchy. However, the centuries-old Hindu-Buddhist tradition of worshipping a young virgin as the living embodiment of a powerful goddess has survived, and the Nepalese president now receives blessings from the girl - “living goddess”.

The three-year-old daughter of a Nepalese watch repairer became a "living goddess" after being approved by the country's new atheist government. Despite Nepal being a Maoist republic after the monarchy was unseated in May, the centuries-old tradition of worshipping a young virgin as the living embodiment of a powerful Hindu goddess has survived.  read more »