Waiting Room News 21, July 29 by Nick Moore

H FRES

Waiting Room News

World KILLER CARPARK ROW: A toddler died in a Chinese hospital after being wounded in a row between her mother and a man over a parking space, state media reported. The girl, 2, was critically injured when the man pulled her out of her pram and threw her to the ground, BBC News reported.

Australia SMACK BAN URGED: Physical punishment increased the future risk of a child suffering mental health problems, including depression and antisocial or aggressive behaviour, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians said. As such they wanted the law changed to make any physical punishment of children illegal, ABC News reported.

Volume 21 July 29

Entertainment FINAL SCENE: Dennis Farina, the former Chicago cop turned film and TV actor best known for his role as wise-cracking detective Joe Fontana on the hit Channel Ten police drama Law & Order, died in the US aged 69 after suffering a blood clot in his lung, ABC News reported.

Northern Life ROYALLY RIGHT: A Swiss businessman registered the name of the royal baby as a website address before it was announced to the public. Luc-Andre Biggs registered georgealexanderlouis.com hours before the announcement of the infant prince’s name, after consulting a list of possible combinations used by UK bookmakers.

Odd Spot GERMAN police seized an open-top car that had been converted into a travelling swimming pool, with water and wooden decking, after it was seen driving with four men aboard, Nine News reported. MASS BREAK-OUT: Hundreds of inmates escaped from two Iraqi prisons after gunmen stormed two jails near Baghdad. Fighting raged for several hours after the jails - Abu Ghraib to the west of the capital and Taji to the north - came under attack, BBC News reported.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: A sequel to the hit Superman film Man of Steel would feature two of DC Comic’s best-known caped crusaders - Superman and Batman facing off, director Zack Snyder said. DC hoped to copy the success of Marvel’s superhero ensemble The Avengers in 2012, which made $1.5 billion at the box office. PARK fun, Virginia, Saturday, July 27. PIGS MUST GO: A Tasmanian couple were ordered to get rid of more than 40 pigs that had been living in their east coast home for the past year. Some were in pens that were once bedrooms and others roamed free in the main living area, where the wooden floor was covered in pig feed and mud, ABC News reported. BOOT CAMPS: Young job seekers would be forced into tough army-style boot camps to qualify for the dole, under an election policy being considered by the Rudd Government, Fairfax reported. The camps were designed to impose strict disciplinary regimes. Early school leavers aged between 15 and 21 were the target.

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

WINTER HOT: Selling Houses Australia cleaned up the major popular categories at this year’s ASTRA Awards. Host Andrew Winter beat former Gold Logie winner Rove McManus to snatch the Favourite Personality - Male award in subscription TV’s annual gong night.

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World BEAR ATTACKS: An American camping in Canada was seriously injured after being gored by a polar bear, hospital authorities said. He was attacked in Torngat Mountains National Park, known for polar bears, ABC News reported. Guns are banned in Canada’s national parks. CIGARETTE SCHEME: Documents leaked to The Guardian revealed how the world’s largest tobacco company, Philip Morris International, sought to kill the UK Government’s plans to introduce standard packs for cigarettes, using a sophisticated lobbying campaign that targeted key politicians and civil servants.

Odd Spot DALE Irby, a teacher in Dallas, Texas, wore the same polyester shirt and vest for his yearbook photo for 40 years, Telegraph.co.uk reported. It started as a mistake but became a running joke.

Australia PUBS BOUGHT UP: A surge in receivership sales had helped boost hotel sales in Queensland, with Brisbane proving fertile ground for the next generation of pub barons. A total of 23 pubs sold for $154 million last year, according to a new industry report from Jones Lang LaSalle, representing an increase of 77% on results for the 2011-12 financial year, Fairfax reported.

Well Said:

“Life is only froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone, Kindness in another’s trouble, Courage in your own.” – Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon CLUSTER FEAR: Former students and teachers of a NSW high school had raised fears of a cancer cluster after dozens became ill and some died. The old Camden High School in Sydney’s west was closed in 2001 after contamination was found in soil underneath classrooms. The school was built on the site of a gasworks that had been in operation since 1911, ABC News reported.

Entertainment BYNES HELD: Hairspray actress Amanda Bynes was not getting out of a psychiatric hospital anytime soon, after a judge’s decision last week to allow her to be held there for two more weeks. Her parents were trying to take legal control of the troubled actress’s life, People.com reported. ‘LIBBY’ WANTS BACK: Ex-Neighbours star Kym Valentine was suing the longrunning soap, alleging they subjected her to sex and disability discrimination. She was demanding they rehire her as Libby Kennedy, which she played from 1994 to 2011. Valentine took sick leave two years ago, Fairfax reported.

Did You Know THE Good Reverend Pow Jackson, Pipitty L. Jackson, and Mutley P. Gore Jackson the 3rd – those are the names pop singer Mariah Carey has given to her new dogs, according to PeoplePets.com.

LUNCH ARREST: Police in India arrested the head teacher of a school where 23 children died after eating food tainted with insecticide this month. In all, 47 primary school children fell ill after consuming the meal of rice and soybeans, BBC News reported.

DINO A GOER: Queensland resources billionaire Clive Palmer was given council approval to build the world’s biggest dinosaur park on the Sunshine Coast at his Coolum resort. The exhibit would house up to 160 animated replica dinosaurs, adding to the two already on display at the resort. The project also included a vintage car museum, ABC News reported.

FOOTY MARTIN: The Voice coach Ricky Martin would headline the entertainment at the NRL grand final. The pop icon, who has sold more than 70 million albums worldwide and performed at the 1998 World Cup soccer final, would perform at the October 6 decider, Fairfax reported.

Odd Spot

Fun Fact

Did You Know?

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

The universe is simply too large for there not to be another intelligent civilisation out there.”

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.

— Famed US planet hunter Geoff Marcy, who has $US200,000 from the Templeton Foundation to look for alien civilisations.

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

Health MOZZIE MENACE: The NT’s Centre for Disease Control warned people holidaying in Bali to protect themselves from a fastspreading mosquito-borne virus called chikungunya, which is often mistaken for dengue fever or the Ross River virus but is more debilitating, 7 News reported.

BUG BEATER: Researchers had developed a patch that made humans invisible to mosquitoes. The patch, which could be worn on clothing, blocked mosquitoes ability to detect carbon dioxide - their primary mode of tracking down their next meal. It also blocked their ability to track people for up to 48 hours, News Corp reported.

Business MOST TRUSTED: Bunnings was the nation’s most trusted retailer, while Toyota topped the car category. Dettol retained the most trusted brand followed by BandAid and then Panadol, which have kept the same footing for the second year in a row, according to a survey from Reader’s Digest.

Northern Life BUBBLES BENEFIT: Drinking one to three glasses of champagne a week might counteract the memory loss associated with ageing and could help delay the onset of degenerative brain disorders such as dementia, a UK study revealed, Fairfax reported. Champagne contains phenolic acids, which are antioxidants.

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. CANCER HOPE: US scientists found the spread of a breast cancer and the risk of death were cut when the function of a gene, HGMA2, was limited, The Indian Express reported online. They found only a subset of cancer cells in the primary tumour was potentially metastatic.

Odd Spot

FAST MONEY: Chattanooga, Tennessee, was reaping the benefits of being the US’s first “Gig City”, with internet speeds of one gigabyte a second - 100 times faster than commonplace. Hi-tech businesses had moved in, bringing thousands of new jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, ABC News reported. FOSSIL PHASE-OUT: Australia could phase out almost all its fossil-fuel sourced electricity by 2040 if it doubled the current rate of take-up of solar energy and wind energy maintained its current growth pace, said Professor Ken Baldwin, director of ANU’s Energy Change Institute, Fairfax reported.

Fun Fact

THE 2014 Mercedes S-Class offers a $350 option that wafts perfume through the car. There are four scents: Nightlife, Sports, Downtown and Fireside. The system atomises the perfume and distributes it throughout the passenger area.

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. WRECKAGE: Two companies a day in the construction and building-related sector were collapsing, as late payments from creditors worsened, activity dried up and banks squeezed funding. From June 1 to July 18 almost 100 companies in the sector collapsed, Fairfax reported.

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.

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

Q: Which is the only number in English with its letters in alphabetical order? 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: What did baseballer Babe Ruth keep under his hat to stay cool? A: A cabbage leaf

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

A: Forty

Fun Fact:

NBN rolls out, Wavell Heights, Tuesday, July 23.

SUPER YEAR: Superannuation accounts recorded the best returns in 16 years last financial year, with equity market strength pushing the median growth fund’s result to 15.6%. BT Super for Life topped the league tables with a 18.6% gain, as part of a broader domination by retail super schemes, a Chant West survey showed.

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 PLAINLY WORKING: Plain pack smokers said they were more likely to think their cigarettes were poorer in quality, less satisfying and to rate quitting as a higher priority in their lives, according to the first study released since plain packaging was introduced in December, Fairfax reported.

Science LIGHT STOPPED: Scientists at the University of Darmstadt in Germany stopped light inside a crystal for a minute. Light is the fastest thing in the known universe and travels at 300 million metres a second. They created a “light memory”, where the image carried by the light was stored in crystals, ExtremeTech.com reported.

Business BULL’S EYE: Facebook’s decision last year to bet big on mobile software was paying off, with sales of ads on wireless devices on track to surpass revenue from desktop computers. Surging demand for mobile ads helped profit and revenue top analysts’ estimates in the second quarter.

Northern Life MENTHOL MENACE: Menthol cigarettes were more harmful than others, the US Food and Drug Administration said. The agency said mint-flavoured smokes might be as toxic as others but they were easier to start smoking and harder to quit, BBC News reported. Menthol was one of the few growth areas of the tobacco industry.

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

LOW POINTS: Life satisfaction peaked at 23 and 69. People in their early 20s faced decades of declining expectation before hitting a low point in their mid-50s, when regrets over unrealised dreams were at their greatest. Satisfaction levels started to rise again after 55, a UK study shows.

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.

ON a roll, Virginia State School sports day, Friday, July 26. SWEAT DRINK: A machine that took sweatladen clothes and turned the moisture into drinking water had been launched in Sweden. The device spun and heated the material to remove the sweat and then passed the vapour through a special membrane designed to only let water molecules get through, BBC reported. ARCTIC BILL: The release of large amounts of methane from thawing permafrost in the Arctic could cost $US60 trillion, roughly the size of the global economy in 2012. The impacts were most likely to be felt in developing countries they say. The research was published in the journal Nature, BBC News reported.

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

WOMEN SHUNNED: A large number of Australian businesses preferred male employees without children or relationships, a survey by workplace management consultancy Kronos showed. The research found 38% believed men were better employees than women, while 19% of employers preferred female workers.

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. APPLE LOSES LEAD: Apple had lost its status as the world’s most profitable maker of mobile phones, with strong demand for Samsung’s Galaxy handsets pushing the South Korean multinational into the financial lead for the first time, Guardian.co.uk reported.

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: Navel gazing A: Arthur Phillip

A: Paul Newman

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

Q: If you indulge in some omphaloskepsis, what are you doing?

A: Pennsylvania

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

A: A diamond