California cows start passing gas to the grid

By Nichola Groom, Tue Mar 4, 2008 6:30pm EST

RIVERDALE, California (Reuters) – Imagine a vat of liquid cow manure covering the area of five football fields and 33 feet deep. Meet California’s most alternative new energy.

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Man drowns after falling into manure pit

By Ben Winslow Deseret Morning News Published: January 19, 2008

A man apparently drowned after falling into an iced-over manure pit at a Cache County dairy, authorities said….Deputies said the pit is about 8 feet deep and is filled with cow manure, moisture and ammonia from the urine, giving it a “soupy consistency.” “It is loose quicksand is what it is,” Bilodeau said. “You can’t swim in it. You’re almost completely incapacitated in it.”

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We all know about the placebo effect. Well, here’s its ugly brother.

nocebo (no-SEE-bo) noun: A substance producing harmful effects in someone because it is believed to be harmful, but which in reality is harmless. [From Latin nocebo (I will harm), from nocere (to harm). Modeled after placebo (I will please).]

Both groups who received nocebos showed elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood.” James Morgan; Is Your Pain a Trick of the Mind? The Herald (Glasgow, UK); Jan 12, 2007.

An article with many interesting examples of nocebo effect.

From words at wordsmith.org

Emotion…

Zing!

P.S. This is one thing I love about English–it’s alive and growing, stealing from any language it can.

This from a gal I know who’s been touring Spain…

I ate a quarter of a suckling pig today. I feel like a monster for eating such a young animal; a rotund, content, sleepily sluggish, well fed monster.

If you’re going to kill an animal, kill it when it’s young. It so much more barbaric that way…

And she sends along these pictures.

Is that not the voice of a character speaking to you?

Zing, Baby!