"Live Science" magazine reports that scientists have discovered a female sex hormone in a tree. ('Makes you want to read further, right?)
Until now, scientists thought that only animals could make the hormone "progesterone".
It's actually a steroid hormone secreted by the ovaries in humans, which prepares the uterus for pregnancy and maintains pregnancy.
The scientists are quoted in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Natural Products as saying, "While the biological role of progesterone has been extensively studied in mammals, the reason for its presence in plants is less apparent."
They used two complicated-sounding laboratory techniques - nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectroscopy - to detect the progesterone in leaves of the English Walnut tree.
Female hormones from a tree of nuts. Go figure!
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Men At Work`s Kookaburragate will be back in court on February 25 to discuss the court findings and the settlement.
Your heard about this right? The music publisher of an old 1930's kiddie tune, Kookaburra ("Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. Merry, merry king of the bush is he...") sued the Australian rock group, Men At Work for using what the judge and publisher considered to be a “substantial portion” of the tune in the classic Men At Work song ‘Down Under’.
Men At Work songwriter, Colin Hay, does admit that Greg Ham played a bit of the old song in his flute solo, he considers the legal action against them to be nothing more the “opportunistic greed”.
By the way, the publisher suing Men At Work for hundreds of thousand of dollars bought the rights from the original 1930's songwriter's estate for $6,000.
I guess there's nothing to be said, except to leave you with the last verse:
"Kookaburra sits on a rusty nail
Gets a boo-boo in his tail
Cry, Kookaburra! Cry, kookaburra!
Oh how life can be"
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And to wrap things UP...
The Burj Khalifa's owner said today that the observation deck of the world's tallest tower (2,717-feet, 160-stories) has been unexpectedly shut down - disappointing thousands of tourists and spoiling the spire's image just a month after it opened.
The precise cause of the Dubai skyscraper's closure is unknown. In a brief statement responding to questions, the building owner blamed the closure on "unexpected high traffic".
"Unexpected...High...Traffic" That's a quote. From the P.R. flacks for the tallest building in the world.
Monday, February 8, 2010
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