Waiting Room News 17, July 1 by Nick Moore

H FRES

Waiting Room News

World CANYON WALK: US tightrope daredevil Nik Wallenda walked across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope more than 450m aboveground. The 34-year-old wore no safety harness for the stunt, which took him 22 minutes and 54 seconds to cross the 426m wire in gusty conditions.

Australia WORKPLACE TOPS: A Dutch-owned algorithmic trader, Optiver, had been named Australia’s top workplace by BRW magazine in its annual Best Places to Work study. Part of Optiver’s approach included ensuring new recruits were teamed with a buddy, giving ethics training and cutting “red tape” and bureaucracy.

Volume 17 July 1

Entertainment KYLIE GONG: Kylie Minogue would be honoured for her contribution to the Australian live entertainment scene with the industry’s top award for performers. Minogue would be presented with the JC Williamson Award at the 2013 Helpmann Awards in July, News Ltd reported.

Northern Life GENIUS, 2: A boy of two with an IQ of 141 had become Mensa’s youngest member. Parents Dean and Kerry-Ann said 29month-old Adam Kirby potty-trained himself after reading a book on the subject when he was one. He can spell 100 words, knows his 10 times tables and the planets of the solar system, Mirror.co.uk reported.

Odd Spot AS at June 15, at least 5109 Americans had died by shooting in the US in the past six months, compared with 4409 US soldiers killed in Iraq. Source: Online magazine Slate

MEGA-RICH TEEN: A UK schoolboy aged 18 became the lotto’s biggest teen winner by scooping $A36 million in EuroMillions jackpot, The Daily Mirror reported. A pal said: “He’s given a lot to charity. He doesn’t need the money, he doesn’t really spend any.”

FINE VOICE: The Voice winner Harrison Craig announced a national tour and released a debut album, More Than A Dream. The 18-year-old Victorian would tour the nation from September to November. Before that, he would perform at shopping centres in all states and the ACT, Yahoo 7 News reported. The Voice winner Harrison Craig thrills fans, Westfield Chermside, Friday, June 28. DEAD SHOTS: Dead men aren’t supposed to have guns. Except in WA, where almost 1000 firearms belonging to people who’ve died were unaccounted for. An audit of the state’s weapons found flaws in gun control, with police having no way of knowing exactly how many legal and illegal guns there are, News Ltd reported. STORM RULING: The Federal Court in Brisbane ordered that a trial go ahead against the former directors of Storm Financial, Emanuel and Julie Cassimatis, ABC News reported. The Townsvillebased investment company collapsed five years ago wiping more than $1 billion from the portfolios of thousands of investors.

Did You Know? TALK show queen Oprah Winfrey made an estimated $US77 million from June 2012 to June 2013. Pop star Lady Gaga earned $US80 million in the same period. Source: Forbes.com

AGE GAP: Actor James Woods stepped out for the first time with his girlfriend who is almost 50 years younger than him. The Any Given Sunday actor, 66, brought girlfriend Kristen Bauguess, 20, to the premiere of his new film White House Down, PerthNow.com.au reported.

C Visit issuu.com/waiting-room-news and read Waiting Room News for FREE anytime you like. World DANCE DISGRACE: Video emerged of a circus worker dancing on a dying elephant while it bathed in a river. The film showed Madi - a 48-year-old Indian elephant drowning as the circus owner’s brother jumped around on her as she sunk under the surface, Coolum News reported.

Australia KING HIT: Welsh rugby union prop Craig Mitchell was ordered to pay Aussie Cian Barry $3000 after knocking him out while celebrating the British and Irish Lions’ first-match win over the Wallabies at Brisbane’s Normanby Hotel. Mr Barry received stitches under his eye and to his cheek, and has damaged vision as a result of the unprovoked attack, Fairfax reported.

ENGLISH IRE: A disgruntled viewer was suing Japan’s national broadcaster for “mental distress” caused by an excessive use of words borrowed from English. Hoji Takahashi, 71, is seeking about $15,000. Examples of English words often used in Japanese include terebi (TV), rajio (radio), and konpuraiansu (compliance).

Entertainment GANDOLFINI GOODBYE: Family, friends and fans united in grief in an emotional send-off for James Gandolfini, star of The Sopranos. Gandolfini, a three-time Emmy winner for his portrayal of New Jersey mobster Tony Soprano, died on June 19 after a heart attack on holiday in Italy. VIOLENCE REGRET: US actor Jim Carrey said he regretted involvement in upcoming film Kick-Ass 2 following the shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School last year. The 51year-old star denounced the film’s violence in a series of tweets to his more than 10 million followers.

A PANDA named Haizi gave birth to twins, the first pair of the endangered species born in the world this year, according to a wildlife centre in China’s Sichuan province, Telegraph.co.uk reported.

LUNA TRICK: A supermoon shone on Sunday, June 23, when the moon reached perigee (the point of its elliptical orbit when it is closest to Earth) while at full moon. It was 356,991km from Earth, and will be 406,490km away on July 7 for its apogee, the point it is furthest from the Earth. During perigee it appears 14% bigger than the usual full moon.

YOTHU Yindi frontman Mandawuy Yunupingu, 56, who died at home last month after a battle with renal disease, was the first Aboriginal person from Arnhem Land to gain a university degree.

ROYAL FORTUNE: Government spending on the UK monarchy rose by almost £1m to £33.3m last financial year, Buckingham Palace accounts revealed. The Queen’s official expenditure increased by £900,000 in 2012-13, compared with the previous 12 months.

CHINA FEAR: A survey found 41% of respondents believed China would become a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years. On a ranking of feelings towards 19 countries China came in 14th position, with Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, the US, Singapore and Japan on the top of the table and Indonesia, Israel, Myanmar, Iran and North Korea at the bottom.

HUGH POWER: Hugh Jackman was Australia’s most powerful celebrity, according to Forbes.com, with the Wolverine hunk just missing the top 10 at No.11. The only other Australian on the list was Miranda Kerr, who was last placed at 100, Nine News reported.

Odd Spot

Fun Fact

Did You Know?

Odd Spot

BRITISH women spent 59 days of their lives shaving their legs, a study found. And 35% of women polled said it was their least favourite beauty chore. The second most detested was hairstyling, with eyebrow plucking third.

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$US6 BILLION - that’s how much tax the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, says he’s paid in total. He has given $28 billion to charity and was still worth $56 billion. His three kids will inherit ‘just’ $10 million each. Source: Guardian, Fairfax

He comes running in from 10m away on the side and smashes me off my feet ... It was unprovoked violence, everyone’s had enough of it.”

Did You Know

ACCORDING to Aboriginal legend, there is a cave on the Wessel Islands off Australia’s north filled with doubloons and weaponry of an ancient era. African 1000-year-old coins had been found on the islands, News Ltd reported.

— Cian Barry, to reporters after Welsh rugby prop Craig Mitchell fronted court for an unprovoked attack on him outside the Normanby Hotel.

C BE KIND: Please place me back neatly for the next person to enjoy. THANK YOU! Technology

Health BUG BEATER: Adding silver to antibiotics made them 10 to 1000 times more effective at fighting infections, US research suggested. Experiments in mice showed the metal disrupted the biological processes of bacteria, making them more permeable to antibiotics, BBC News reported.

GLOVE CALL: Britain’s Designworks had produced a Bluetooth glove that functioned like a phone. As the smartphone in their pocket rings, the user was able to answer the call via a button on the glove and take the call by using the timeless phone gesture. A speaker is placed in the glove and a mic within the pinky.

Business SUPER EFFORT: Super funds were on track to deliver their second-best result for a financial year in the past 16 years, as a weaker Aussie dollar boosted returns from international shares. Returns for median growth funds for the 11 months of the financial year to date stood at 16.3%.

Northern Life FINANCE FAILINGS: Future Fund chairman David Gonski slammed the finance industry’s short-term focus, warning Australia was falling behind Asian counterparts who planned investments over the long-term. Mr Gonski urged the financial sector to shift from its unhealthy focus on monthly and quarterly results.

BLOOD TEARS: Chilean woman Yaritza Oliva, 20, said she was in “indescribable” pain since she started crying tears of blood this month, The Huffington Post reported. Doctors had been unable to diagnose the condition but bleeding from the eyes was a symptom of haemolacria.

Did You Know? ANXIETY, or excessive worrying, is the most common psychological problem in Australia and affects 14% of the population, according to the Bureau of Statistics. ASTHMA DANGER: Children were more likely to get asthma living in a damp home than one full of dust mites, an international study found. The research was part of a study of 46,000 kids in 20 countries. Damp or mouldy homes were linked to asthma, allergies, hay fever and eczema.

Odd Spot

MOST LIKED: The top three Facebook pages ‘Liked’ by Australians were: Australia, Bananas in Pyjamas, and Hamish and Andy, the Australian Facebook Performance Report, for quarter one 2013, said. Bananas in Pyjamas held over two million Likes, more than popular brands JB Hi-Fi and Cadbury combined. ANDROID ATTACKS: A new study on smartphone malware found 92% of nefarious mobile software was targeted at Google’s Android platform, and the amount of attacks were growing. In the last year alone, the total number of malicious apps had grown 614% to 276,259, AppleInsider.com reported.

Fun Fact

THE average Australian household paid $8.94 a week in bank fees, a reduction of 19c a week compared with the previous year. Customers paid a record $11.3 billion in fees last year, the Australian Bankers Association admitted.

THE sun’s core is so hot that a piece of it the size of a pinhead would give off enough heat to kill a person 160km away. Source: QI television show

Did You Know? AT some point, genes from at least eight retroviruses became incorporated into human DNA. They now perform important functions in reproduction, yet are entirely alien to our genetic ancestry. INVESTORS HIT: Aussie banks said they were issuing more margin calls to investors after recent falls in the sharemarket wiped most of the bourse’s gains for the year. The S&P/ASX200 fell on the US flagging it would wind back stimulus and over fears of a credit bubble in China.

Did You Know? THE antioxidant concentration in hot cocoa was almost twice as strong as red wine, two to three times stronger than green tea and four to five times stronger than black tea, a study at Cornell University determined.

MORE than 23,000 Northsiders a week are within arm’s reach of a Waiting Room News. Call Nick Moore on (07) 3359 0797 to discuss advertising for less than $10 a day.

Q: Via lactea is the classical Latin name for which celestial body?

Q: In grammar, ‘the slimy snake slithered slowly’ is an example of what? Q: Is Helsinki the capital city of Norway, Sweden or Finland? A: Finland

A: The Milky Way

A: Yazz

Q: What is the highest Australian mountain?

Q: Is Eimeo a seaside suburb of Mackay, Cairns or Bundaberg? A: Mackay

Q: Which singer had a hit with the 1988 dance track The Only Way is Up?

A: Alliteration

Fun Fact:

7th Brigade Park, Chermside, Friday, June 28.

A: Mawson Peak, on Heard Island, stands 2750m

C BE KIND: Please place me back neatly for the next person to enjoy. THANK YOU! Health TEEN DEMENTIA: Doctors reported a surge in cases of ‘digital dementia’ among young people. South Korean experts said teenagers had become so reliant on digital technology they were no longer able to remember everyday details such as their phone numbers, DailyMail.co.uk reported.

Science CLONED FROM BLOOD: Scientists in Japan cloned a mouse from a drop of blood from the tail of a donor mouse, a team at the Riken BioResource Center reported in the journal Biology of Reproduction. The female mouse lived a normal lifespan and could give birth to young, the researchers said.

Business NET BOOM: There was a 200% jump in the rate of new online stores opening in Australia from 2010 to 2012, research showed. Aussie shoppers shelled out close to $142 per order last year - up from $118 in 2011 - compared with the global average of $116, News Ltd reported.

Northern Life ROBOTS HELP: Robotic animals could improve the quality of life for people with dementia. A study found interacting with a therapeutic robot companion made people with mid-tolate-stage dementia less anxious and also had a positive influence on their quality of life, News-Medical.net reported.

Fun Fact THERE are 200-400 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, and a German supercomputer calculated there were 500 billion galaxies in the universe. Source: BBC Schools online

BREAST BOOST: Breastfeeding improved a child’s chance of climbing the social ladder and becoming successful, according to a long-term study. The analysis found those who had been breastfed were 24% more likely to be upwardly mobile, Independent.co.uk reported.

Odd Spot PEOPLE’S closest friendships were formed with their colleagues – particularly if their workplace environment was stressful, research conducted by the Lancaster University in the UK concluded.

JOBS VICE: There were five unemployed people for every vacant job in Australia, as two economic forces work in opposition: the number of job vacancies had fallen in the past year, while the number of unemployed had increased by 50,000. There were 138,700 vacancies in May, down from 177,800 a year earlier, Fairfax reported. Heading in the right direction, travelling north, Newman Rd, Wavell Heights, Friday, June 28. COCKY CONTROL: US scientists used video game technology to put cockroaches on autopilot, directing them on a pre-designed path. They hope that one day the technology could be used to send the bugs into areas unsafe for humans to enter, such as collapsed buildings or other disaster areas, USNews.com reported. PLANTS COUNT: Plants did division equations at the night to ration their stores of starch until the sun reappeared, Telegraph.co.uk reported. By counting their starch and dividing it by the number of hours until morning they ensured they did not run out until dawn, and could even adjust their calculations during the night.

Fun Fact IF YOU drilled a tunnel straight through the Earth and jumped in, it would take 42 minutes and 12 seconds to get to the other side. Source: QI television show

Did You Know? AT the Santa Rita do Sapucaí jail in Brazil, inmates can pedal to generate electricity in return for a cut in their sentences - a day off for every 16 hours of effort on bikes hooked up to batteries. COAL PAIN: The drastic reversal of fortunes in the coal sector claimed a further 450 jobs, with global mining and commodities giant Glencore Xstrata flagging deep cuts to its Queensland workforce, taking jobs lost from the industry last week to more than 1000.

Did You Know? AN original Apple-1 sold for $US640,000 at an auction in Germany in November. The computer was priced at $US666.66 (about $US2700 in current money) when made in 1976, The New York Times reported.

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Q: Which sea captain commanded the First Fleet to Australia?

Q: Which is the only state in the US that begins with the letter ‘P’? Q: Is jujitsu a Japanese martial art or paperfolding craft? A: Martial art

A: Wilbur Smith A: Arthur Phillip

A: Paul Newman

Q: Cut, clarity. colour, and carat set the value of which gemstone?

Q: Who wrote the novels Rage, Monsoon, Warlock, and Men of Men?

A: Pennsylvania

Q: Who starred in movies The Hustler, Hud, Harper, and Harry and Son?

A: A diamond