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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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intelligent seats
Airline seats designed by a UK defence lab may automatically alert cabin crew to nervous passengers who might be terrorists. They could also warn if passengers have been sitting still so long that they risk developing deep-vein thrombosis. Using a thicket of pressure sensors in the seats linked to a central computer, the seat “notifies” crew of the occupant’s behaviour, thus giving them an idea of who may be the terrorist or the passenger who is sitting still for too long.
dead man sitting
Two women in Brazil were on their way to their uncle’s funeral when they saw him sitting on a park bench. They took him along to the service, where some mourners fainted at seeing him alive. The man’s brother misidentified a body as being his missing brother.
wrapped!
A new plastic food wrapper that oozes anti-microbial chemicals extracted from the herb basil has been shown to improve the shelf life of meat and cheese and decrease the risk of food poisoning. The food industry is hopeful that it may one day become a major weapon in the battle against dangerous food bugs such as E coli and Listeria.
crime of the week
A 42-year-old man has been arrested in the Philippines as he returned to a house to get the electric cable for a kettle he’d stolen earlier. Security spotted him as he was about to flee a second time.
all-size hospitality
A world first “size-friendly” resort in Mexico has been built to benefit the size-challenged (larger person). The beach-side resort has reinforced furniture and a specially trained staff to cope with the ample frames of guests. The resort motto is: “Live large, live free.”
religion–
state divide
When Franklin Graham (below), CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, spoke at the Pentagon’s Good Friday service, April 18, 2003, the Defense Department was forced to defend itself against criticism by Muslim groups over his appearance. The groups noted the Christian evangelist’s criticism of Islam, having characterised it as a wicked and violent religion. The Pentagon has a policy of religious inclusiveness, the top Defense Department spokeswoman said.
rich ’n’ famous
The earnings of Australia’s richest 5 per cent jumped a whopping 28 per cent over the five years to 2000, an average increase of $A148,843. Their total earnings exceeded that of the country’s welfare bill. Media magnate Kerry Packer is Aussie’s richest person, with assets in excess of $A5 billion
super swat
A German academic has invented a huge, 10,000-volt flyswatter that runs on solar power. He claims it will turn the average person into an insect’s worst nightmare, killing swarms of insects in milliseconds.
going to higher ground
This picturesque, ancient Buddhist temple on the waterline in Qutang Gorge, one of the gorges that make up China’s famed Three Gorges on the Yangtze River, in south-west China’s one of more than 30 places of worship that will be submerged in the world's largest hydro-electric project. Worshippers were relocated with the aid of millions of dollars of government compensation.
The following appeared in the Signs of the Times of September 5, 1910.
A storm of persecution has again broken out from St Petersburg and swept down upon Kief. The Jews are to be ruthlessly expelled from that “holy city” of the Czar. Yet Kief is included in that territory anciently constituting the kingdom of Poland, and later made the national Ghetto of Russia. . . . There are 1250 Jewish families resident there, only 170 of whom will be allowed, as “privileged classes,” to remain. Thus some 5000 souls are to make an exodus more difficult than that led by Moses. . . . It seems that the Russian Imperial family, including, of course, many people besides the actual sovereigns, are strongly anti-Semitic.
Extract from Signs of the Times, September 2003.
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