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That’s Odd
36 the Erie County executive, said at a news conference on Monday morning. “But this is not the end yet. We are not there.” The Jewish Home | DECEMBER 29, 2022 Poloncarz said that officials in Erie County, which includes Buffalo, had identified 12 more deaths since Sunday that they had linked to the storm. The deaths included people found trapped in their cars and those who had “cardiac-related events” while removing snow from outside homes and businesses. At least one death in Niagara County was caused by carbon monoxide poisoning, officials said. Strong winds took down power lines in the central, eastern and northern United States, and the weather upended holiday travel plans for much of last week. In Maine, more than 20,000 homes and businesses remained without power on Monday morning, according to the utility company’s maps. Snow continued to fall through Monday, although there was less wind. Still, authorities begged residents to stay indoors and not to drive on the roads. The Weather Service said on Monday that more than 49 inches of snow was recorded over three days at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, the highest total in Erie County. Jefferson County received between 22 and 41 inches of snow, Niagara County recorded up to 24 inches of snow, and Lewis County saw up to 30 inches of snow over the same time period, according to the Weather Service.
Adnan Syed, who was freed in September after he spent 23 years in prison fighting a murder conviction that was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial,” has been hired by Georgetown University as an associate for an organization whose work mirrors the efforts that led to his release, the university has announced.
Syed, the subject of the 2014 podcast and pop-culture sensation that raised questions about whether he had received a fair trial after being convicted of strangling his high school classmate and onetime girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999, will
Syed, who was 17 at the time of Lee’s death in Baltimore, has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
The university said Syed, now 41, will help support programs at the organization, such as a class in which students reinvestigate wrongful convictions and seek to “bring innocent people home” by creating short documentaries about their findings. The program, founded in 2016, “brings together leading scholars, practitioners, students and those affected by the criminal justice system to tackle the problem of mass incarceration,” according to its website.
Georgetown University, which is in Washington, said that in the year leading up to his release, Syed was enrolled in the university’s bachelor of liberal arts program at the Maryland prison where he was incarcerated.
“To go from prison to being a Georgetown student and then to actually be on campus on a pathway to work for Georgetown at the Prisons and Justice Initiative, it’s a full circle moment,” Syed said in a statement. “PJI changed my life. It changed my family’s life. Hopefully I can have the same kind of impact on others.”
He added that he hoped to continue his education at Georgetown and go to law school.
In October, prosecutors in Baltimore dropped the charges against Syed after DNA testing on items that had never been fully examined proved Syed’s innocence, officials said.
Lee’s family filed an appeal with the Maryland Court of Special Appeals after prosecutors dropped the charges.
On November 4, the court said in an order that the appeal could be heard in court in February. (© The New York Times) big. That’s because mom, dad, and baby celebrate the same day as their birthday.
Parents Cassidy and Dylan Scott welcomed their firstborn on Sunday, December 18, which also happens to be their shared birthday.
“This is an exciting time for any family, but it’s extra special for this family because they all share the same birthday,” the hospital’s Facebook page says.
“That’s right! On Sunday, Dec. 18, a chance that’s one in 133,000 occurred when their daughter Lennon was born,” the Alabama hospital continued. “She held on until 12:30 a.m., just in time for the celebration. Please join us in wishing this sweet family a very happy birthday.”
The odds of sharing a birthday with one parent is 1 in 365. The odds of these parents ever forgetting their child’s birthday?
Probably zero.
Glass Frogs
Scientists are now discovering why some frogs have the ability to appear transparent.
These special frogs are generally found in South and Central America. During the day, they sleep hanging underneath tree leaves. Because they are transparent, they don’t cast shadows and are almost invisible to predators.
But at night, they change color and look more opaque, with reddish-brown hues. It is at those times that they search for insects to eat.
“When they’re transparent, it’s for their safety,” noted Junjie Yao, a Duke University biomedical engineer and study co-author. When they’re awake, they can actively evade predators, but when they’re sleeping and most vulnerable, “they have adapted to remain hidden.”
How do these frogs turn this invisibleness on and off? While asleep, the frogs concentrate, or “hide,” nearly 90% of their red blood cells in their liver, researchers say.
Because they have transparent skin and other tissues, it’s the blood circulating through their bodies that would otherwise give them away. The frogs also shrink and pack together most of their internal organs, Yao said.
For most other frogs, concentrating their blood for such a long time would lead to death. For these frogs, it’s a matter of life.
Only a few animals, mostly ocean dwellers, are naturally transparent, said Oxford University biologist Richard White, who was not involved in the study. “Transparency is super rare in nature, and in land animals, it’s essentially unheard of outside of the glass frog,” White said.
As clear as day.
Messi Moment
Lionel Messi is a real winner. No, we’re not referring to his record-breaking World Cup win last week. The Argentinian soccer player set another record last Tuesday after his Instagram post celebrating Argentina’s World Cup win became the most-liked on the platform.
Messi’s Instagram accomplishment breaks a nearly four-year-old record held by a photo of an egg. His post racked up more than 65 million likes in just a few days.
The previous record-holder was a stock image of an egg on a white background with 55.7 million likes, posted by the account @world_record_egg in January 2019 in an intentional bid to become the most-liked Instagram post of all time.
“Champions of the world! So many times, I dreamed it, so much I wanted it that I still don’t fall, I can’t believe it,” Messi, 35, wrote alongside the post that included 10 photos of him hoisting the trophy aloft and celebrating with his team mates.
“Thank you so much to my family, to
all who support me and also to all who believed in us. We prove once again that Argentinians when we fight together and united, we are able to achieve what we aim.
“The merit is of this group, which is above individuals, is the strength of all fighting for the same dream that was also the one of all Argentinians... We did it!”
Just one more record for this champion.
Better Late Than Never
Never be scared to return late library books. Librarians are always ready to receive them with open arms.
That’s what a headteacher of a local school in Cheshire, England, found out last week. He had returned the book on the Dewey decimal system a bit late – almost five decades late.
The Nantwich Library said in a Facebook post that the book, Introduction to Dewey Decimal Classification for British Schools, was checked out in late 1972 and had been due back January 30, 1973.
It was returned to the library last week.
“Some of the information in this volume may be slightly outdated,” the library said in a comment on the post.
You think?
Bat Attack
As temperatures in Texas plunged into freezing digits last week, hundreds of bats felt the frigid air.
Mexican free-tailed bats had been hanging from under Waugh Bridge in Houston when hundreds of them plunged to the pavement after going into hypothermic shock during the city’s recent cold snap, according to wildlife rescuers.
The rescuers went to bat for the winged animals and resuscitated them by administering fluids and keeping them warm in incubators.
The Houston Humane Society rescued scores of bats from beneath the bridge, along with another group of bats elsewhere in the Houston area that also went into hypothermic shock, said center director Mary Warwick. She said some were recuperating in dog kennels in the attic of her home. They won’t be sheltered there long. Nearly 700 of the estimated 1,500 rescued bats are set to be released back into the wild on Wednesday.
The humane society is now working to raise money for facility upgrades that would include a bat room, Warwick added.
“That would really help in these situations where we continue to see these strange weather patterns come through,” she said. “We could really use more space to rehabilitate the bats.”
We hope they won’t be right “bat.”
Did you know? The Jewish year can be between 353 to 385 days long You Win Some, You Lose Some
Karl Baxter loves soccer, and he is a huge fan of England’s Three Lions team. So much so, that the businessman bet big that his team would win the World Cup. Baxter had t-shirts with the words, “England, Cup Winners 2022, It’s Finally Home,” and “The Day It Came Home,” emblazoned on the shirts. He had them printed before the quarter-finals.
“We had a load of blank football shirts that we bought a couple of years ago, which we had not done a great deal with, so I decided to take a gamble on the crest of the wave England were riding and get some shirts printed in anticipation of success,” Baxter, 46, explained.
But Baxter’s gamble went south, when England lost to France, 2-1.
“Well, over and above the shirts we have, as an England fan, I am absolutely gutted we went out in the way we did,” the managing director of Wholesale Clearance UK said.
What to do with all that losing merchandise?
In a message to customers on the website, Baxter wrote, “We have reduced the price of these unique items as we certainly won’t be getting any more.
“So wear it with pride, add it to your collection, use it to clean the windows... we don’t know.”
The father of three added that while the cost of making the shirts wasn’t too expensive, and he has already sold a few, there are still “some more to get rid of.”
The shirts are now being sold for $10. That’s a lot of money for a shmatteh.
