Tidbits of Grand Forks - October 6, 2022

If two people, or two creatures, are connected by an elastic band, and one of them shakes it or lets it go, the other one feels the difference. They may not understand the exact circum stances of the event, but they definitely know that something has changed. People and their pets are often connected by just such a psychic rubber band. Author Rupert Sheldrake studied this phenomenon extensively and wrote a book called “Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home.”

COMING HOME

• A dog sitter was caring for a friend’s dog when the dog went to stand at the front door, remain ing there for three hours. The dog sitter thought the dog needed to relieve himself, but that wasn’t the case. Three hours later, the dog’s owner showed up – two days before he was due to return home. “I had no idea the owner would return early, and I have no idea how the dog knew that,” the dog sitter remarked.

• When Louise set off for home from her place of work, her husband at home noted that their dog BJ always went to the door to wait for her, regardless of the time she left, and regardless of what

she used: her car, her hus band’s

for “curly-haired lap dog”? What breed is generally consid ered to be the most intelligent? Name Scooby-Doo’s nephew.

How many times are

mentioned in the Bible — 0, 15, 25 or 35 times?

What’s the name of the Big Red Dog in the children’s book series?

In the movie “Dumb and Dumber,” what sign hung on the dog-mobile?

What year did Snoopy first appear in the “Peanuts” comic strip?

COMING HOME (continued):

• One dog’s propensity for knowing when his peo ple were coming home was so striking that the couple who owned him started taking notes on his behavior. One day the wife went into town to do some shopping while the husband stayed home with the dog. The husband noted that the dog went and stood at his post by the window at 4:15, waited there for a few minutes, and then took a nap on the living room rug. An hour later, he resumed his post at the window, and the wife returned home shortly after. When she walked in the door, her husband said, “You decided to come home at 4:15, changed your mind, and left for home at 5:15 instead, didn’t you?” She confirmed that was true.

• During WWII, one dog had an uncanny ability to know when his master, a pilot, was returning to the airfield. The dog would go out as soon as he sensed the correct plane was returning. The pi lot’s comrades thought the dog was reacting to the particular whine of the specific plane that his master customarily flew. But then one day, the pilot left in the morning flying his usual plane, but returned that afternoon – from the opposite direction – in a different plane. The entire com pany was flabbergasted when the dog completely ignored the usual plane, and went out instead to greet his master when he stepped out of the sec ond “wrong” plane.

MIND READER

• One dog owner told about the time when she had the thought that she should get her dog’s big blue ball and go out into the yard for a game of fetch. To her surprise, the dog showed up in her room with the blue ball a few minutes later. On another occasion, she thought to herself, “I wish my dog wouldn’t leave his toys strewn all over the house; I’m likely to trip and fall.” Within the hour, the dog had collected every one of his toys and de posited them neatly in his toy box.

I WILL FIND YOU

• One woman went to work in town six miles from her home, leaving her terrier behind. The dog had never been to her place of work. One day, the dog escaped from yard. She was surprised to find him sitting on the front steps of her workplace sever al hours later. She had no idea how he found her there.

• A boy adopted a greyhound, and although his en tire family loved the dog, they lived in an apart ment that was too small to accommodate him. They arranged for a family in the country to adopt the dog. Arriving at the farm, they tied the dog up in the back yard of the house, and then they all went to eat at the local pub a few miles away. Just as they were finishing, the greyhound showed up at the door of the pub, a piece of gnawed rope dangling from his neck.

RANDOM ACTS OF ESP

• A woman was out for a ramble in the country with her German shepherd. After they had walked a good ways, the dog sat down and refused to go any further. He could not be dragged or cajoled to continue on the walk. Discouraged, the woman turned towards home with the dog eagerly lead ing the way. Just then a horrendous storm quickly moved in. Just as they reached the safety of the doorstep, a torrential rainfall with dangerous hailstorms pelted the area. She was glad that the dog had sensed the approaching storm and had the sense to warn her in time.

• During WWII, the citizens of England were sub jected to ruthless German bombing raids. One citizen reported that their little black mongrel dog would bark to go out at the back door, and would bark up a storm while in the backyard. Without fail, the bombing raids would start almost exactly ten minutes later. The dog was so accurate in his predictions that his owners would go up and down the street warning the neighbors of the impending raid.

“I

I DON'T LIKE YOU

• Dogs sometimes also have a strong reaction to people they don’t like. In one instance, a guy had a friend who disliked dogs intensely, but came by to visit him and his German shepherd at regular intervals. On one occasion, the dog stood up at the door and growled intensely ten minutes before the dog-hating friend arrived. From that point forward, the German shepherd had to be shut in the garage whenever the friend came by, and the dog always knew ten or fifteen minutes prior to his arrival.

• A vet noted that his mother-in-law’s dog was always friendly to him whenever he stopped by on a social visit to his mother-in-law’s home. But whenever he visited in his capacity at a veterinarian, the dog went and hid. There was no way the dog could have known the difference, and the vet even kept his doctor bag out of sight, but the dog always knew when he was on duty and when he was not.

• A dog who was routinely taken in to the groomer’s once every six weeks or so would constantly intuit the due date, hiding under the bed until the threat had passed. “We nev er figured out how she knew which day and which hour,” said the owners.

MEDICAL ESP

• A woman was amazed to find that her dog, a beagle mix named Annie, was able to sense whenever she was about to suffer an epileptic seizure. The dog would leap on her lap and lick her face. She knew that this was the signal to lie down until the seizure passed. The dog had never been trained to do this.

• Some dogs are able to give diabetics a warning when their blood sugar drops to dangerously low levels. One guy’s dog wakes him up in the middle of the night when he is sound asleep to prevent him from slipping into a diabetic coma.

“They

“Our

Pekel

One woman said, “My husband died of a stroke in the hos pital and was buried in a churchyard near our home. His dog, Joe, suddenly started disappearing for hours at a time after his death. Following him one day, I found that he was going to the churchyard to sit by his master’s grave. I have no idea how he knew that my husband was dead, or how he knew where the grave was.”

caused concern among school officials and parents.

“It’s very concerning. At a time when RPD was appropriately focused on Lourdes, anything that diverts police or law enforcement resources away from that is a big deal,” Rochester Public Schools Superintendent Kent Pekel said Sept. 22.

“That’s a really precious resource that you do not want to have diverted at a moment when a crisis might have been happening.”

According to Department of Corrections representative John Melvin, the officer at the source of the Mayo lockdown was a St. Paulbased corrections officer

who was already in the Rochester area executing warrants. Although RPS’ statement from the day of the event said the student only reported seeing one person, Melvin said there were two officers together at the time.

Although they were in the area for other reasons, the DOC officers shifted their attention to help with the Lourdes situation. They responded to Mayo High School because of a miscommunication.

think they were closer to the Mayo school, and they (the radio) just said, ‘We’re responding to the high school,’ so that’s why they went there,” Melvin said of the officers who responded to Mayo.

were there for probably 30 seconds when they pulled in the parking lot.”

Pekel said the school’s surveillance footage showed the officer briefly getting out of the

car and that his firearm was visible from the footage. Melvin said the officers were in vests marked “Police.”

investigator had gotten out of the car, and that’s why I think the call went in to dispatch,” Melvin said. “But he was just transitioning his weapon so they were ready to respond to what the community needed at the time.”

Rochester Police Department spokesperson Amanda Grayson said RPD would conduct a review of the day’s response, both internally, as well as with other agencies “to identify and address opportunities to do better.”

said the School District would undertake a similar process, even though the school responded to the possible threat the way it was

supposed to. “From the RPS standpoint, things at Mayo, and actually at our other schools, worked exactly as they should,” he said. The incident prompted a multi-agency response, including RPD, the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources conservation officers, the Rice County Sheriff’s Office, Minnesota State troopers and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Grayson clarified that although the Mayo scare originated because of wrong information, local law enforcement is not limited to handling one crisis at a time.

also important to note that while

by Lucie Winbourne

• There are more people in Monaco's orchestra than in its army.

• While tanning remains popular despite the docu mented health risks, the CDC has estimated that if folks under the age of 18 stopped using tanning beds, over 60,000 melanomas and melanoma-re lated deaths could be prevented.

• In 1987, a man convinced 2.8 million people to send him a penny each for his college education.

• People who play videogames are less likely to have nightmares.

• Switzerland is the only country in the world that could fit more than its entire population into bun kers in case of an emergency.

• Eggo waffles were originally called Froffles upon their creation in 1953 -- a portmanteau of "frozen" and "waffles." Customers started calling them Eggos due to their egg flavor, and the company renamed the product two years later.

• Dubai is the most air-conditioned city in the world.

• Maggots and leeches are the first living creatures to be approved by the FDA as medical devices.

• A 1924 Arizona law made it illegal for donkeys to sleep in bathtubs.

• Crakow shoes, a pointy footwear popular in the 14th century, could get so long that the toe of the shoe had to be attached to the leg with a string so that it wouldn't drag.

• Ever noticed that all ads for the iPhone display a time of 9:41? That's because Steve Jobs first an nounced the device's launch in 2007 at 9:41 a.m.

• New employees at Google are called Nooglers, and on their first Friday of employment, have to wear a special hat bearing the Google colors and that distinctive moniker.

***

Thought for the Day: "Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." -- Booker T. Washington

Financial Solutions for the Military

Extension for Debt Hardship Relief Period

If you owe benefit debts to the Department of Veterans Affairs, your hardship relief period, previ ously set to expire on Sept. 30, has been extended to Dec. 31.

Those types of debts can include those for educa tion, disability compensation and non-service pen sion, and you might have been approved for either a waiver, a compromise or an extended repayment plan, as well as the hardship suspension of debt.

These debts impact half a million veterans and sometimes can be the result of a clerical error, the veteran not being able to understand the paperwork or a letter being lost in the mail. Worse is when the error occurred when the veteran didn't see the fine print and suddenly started receiving collection bills for debts he didn't know he owed.

By now you might have received a letter from the VA, if you have been making payments. Don't be afraid to open that letter. It's likely extension in formation for you. Consider using it to apply for a hardship extension that will carry you to the end of the year.

If you ever received an overpayment and were told you have to pay it back, give them a call at 800827-0648. If the money you owe results from either a pharmacy co-payment or medical care debt, in stead call 866-400-1238 and talk to them.

Get to the bottom of the actual source of the debt. Did a clerk make a mistake? Did you fail to verify dependents or write in a wrong number? Do you have the canceled checks to show that you actually paid? Find out what's wrong.

The VA has taken a number of steps over the years to help veterans saddled with VA-related debt. They canceled co-pays from April 2020 to Septem ber 2021. They changed the income to qualify for relief. They took away the Financial Status Report for hardship eligibility. And, a big deal: They cut nearly all the reports to credit agencies for medi cal debt. That can have a big impact on your future credit score.

Tidbits is Available at: All Grand Forks, East Grand Forks & Crookston locations of: Located on rackspublicationthe near the Exit doors!

by Freddy Groves

OUT OF

JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE

• The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is an orbit ing infrared observatory and the world’s most powerful telescope.

• Launched on Dec. 25, 2021, it successfully disengaged from the rocket that carried it into space; deployed its solar panels; traveled at 524 mph for a month for nearly a million miles (four times the distance of the Moon); and unfurled its mirrors and sunshield, all without a hitch.

• JWST orbits in the L2 Lagrange point, named for a mathematician who lived in the 1700s. Lagrange points are spots where the gravitational push-and-pull of two bodies, in this case the Sun and Earth, equalize. They are used by spacecraft to reduce fuel consumption needed to remain in position.

• Now in position, JWST is able to capture light that’s been traveling across space for up to 13.5 billion years, when the first stars and galaxies were formed. It is so sensitive it can detect the heat signature of a bumblebee at the distance of the Moon, and can see details the size of a penny at a distance of 25 miles.

• To preserve Webb’s heat-sensitive equipment, it has a ‘sunshield’ that’s the size of a tennis court which gives the telescope the equivalent of SPF protection of 1 mil lion. The difference in temperature between the hot side and the cold side of the sunshield is nearly 600 F.

• James Webb’s mirrors are the lightest large telescope mirrors ever made. They are constructed of beryllium, a metal which resists expanding and contracting during temperature changes. Each of the 18 mirrors is coated with a layer of pure gold so thin that a human hair is 1,000 times thicker. Then they are coated with a protec tive layer of silicon dioxide glass.

• The JWST is 100 times more powerful than the 30-year-old Hubble Space Telescope.

• While Hubble’s mirror stood at 7.8 ft in diameter, the James Webb telescope's mirror has the diameter of 21.3 feet, allowing it to capture six times more light than Hubble. While being much larger than Hubble, the James Webb weighs in at about 14,000 lbs. which is about half as much as Hubble.

• With Hubble, scientists were able to peek into galax ies that formed 400 million years after the Big Bang, but JWST can look back to just 250 million years after the Big Bang, and perhaps even earlier.

• Hubble collects images in mostly ultraviolet (visible) light, while James Webb collects infrared light, just beyond the visible spectrum. This reveals more de tail about the objects in those images. The JWST can see right through massive clouds of dust that limit the view of visible-light observatories like Hubble. These dusty nebulas are where stars and planetary systems form.

• Over the course of Hubble's life, five space shuttle crews made service calls to correct the telescope's problems, but Hubble is only 340 miles away, while the James Webb is 930,000,000 miles away, far be yond the reach of any repair crew. However, if the proper technology is developed, scientists could someday send a robot to refuel it, extending its life.

• The telescope is fueled by 240 liters of hydrazine fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide oxidizer, which is used to keep itself in the correct position and orient the mirrors to any particular point in the universe. It’s expected that the fuel will run out in about ten years. Yet, designers included a refueling port where a noz zle from some future space robot might be used to give it a second chance.

In an attempt to keep brain cells active this winter, I have signed up for a college course. The good news is that it's all online and it's free. The other good news is that it's sponsored by a major university.

It's called Open Courseware, and I found my class on the internet. Yale, Harvard, MIT, Stanford and many oth ers have "massive open online courses," also known as MOOCs, and their main purpose is to provide learning op portunities. You have to appreciate MIT especially. They make course material for their 2,600 classes "available on the web, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world."

Most of these open courseware classes are self-paced (do them when you want after downloading the lecture). Most don't get you a certificate or a degree, but then most don't cost anything either. Beware, of course, scammers who'd like to take your personal information and charge you for a class that's actually free and doesn't require you to sign up. Your best bet, until you're familiar with open courseware, is to stick to the big-name universities.

For a three-minute video showing an explanation of MIT's open courseware, see www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ICa_4xUr8BA.

Read the fine print on the website as you hunt for a class. Read the syllabus (description of the course) and the list of texts to be used. If you're required to read books, see if they're free to download online. (Some of the material downloads are huge.) Pay attention to the estimated time commitment for the course you want to take.

If you definitely want to attend in-person college but need financial help, see www.aseniorcitizenguideforcol lege.com. Click on "Find Your State Tuition Waivers" and see if any in your state are covered. Some colleges will have a link to an application for a tuition waiver for se niors; some will just have a website and phone number to call for information.

Note: The Great Courses (www.thegreatcourses.com) are not open courseware and will cost money.

by Matilda Charles

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota is seeking volunteers age 18 and older to provide a break for family caregivers. Share your skills and talents, meet new people and make a positive impact in your community by giving a few hours weekly. No prior experience required, and training is provided.

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota is seeking volunteers age 18 and older to provide a break for family caregivers. Share your skills and talents, meet new people and make a positive impact in your community by giving a few hours weekly. No prior experience required, and training is provided.

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota is seeking volunteers age 18 and older to provide a break for family caregivers. Share your skills and talents, meet new people and make a positive impact in your community by giving a few hours weekly. No prior experience required, and training is provided.

• On Oct. 16, 1793, Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France, is taken to the guillotine and beheaded nine months after her husband, the former King Louis XVI of France. Marie Antoinette and Louis, unpopular and accused of high treason due to France's financial woes, had been caught try ing to flee to Austria.

• On Oct. 10, 1845, the United States Naval Academy opens in Annapolis, Maryland. The curriculum for the 50 midship men students included French, English, gunnery and steam and chemistry. In 1850, the name was changed from the Na val School to the U.S. Naval Academy, and students were required to serve on ships during summers for four years.

• On Oct. 14, 1857, engineer and inventor Elwood Haynes is born in Portland, Indiana. Haynes designed one of the very first American automobiles using a gas engine he saw in use at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The finished product weighed 820 pounds and moved on 28-inch bicycle wheels.

• On Oct. 12, 1915, British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I. Cavell was honored with a statue in St. Martin's Place, just off Lon don's Trafalgar Square.

• On Oct. 11, 1925, novelist Elmore Leonard is born in New Orleans. After publishing numerous Western novels (including "Hombre"), Leonard turned to suspense and crime fiction. Best known of these are "Get Shorty" and "The Big Bounce."

• On Oct. 13, 1953, the 45-foot Artmobile, the world's first art museum on wheels, arrives in Vir ginia carrying 16 paintings by 15th- and 16th-cen tury masters. It attracted 5,000 visitors in the first few weeks. Art objects were loaned for exhibit by famous museums across the country until the Art mobile was canceled in 1994 due to budget cuts.

• On Oct. 15, 1965, in one of several identical events across the country, Catholic priest David Miller burns his draft card in New York. For vio lating the recent law banning the burnings, Miller was arrested and sentenced to two years in jail.

•

Grand Forks

• Dunlins are sandpiper-type shorebirds that flock together. When flying, they coordinate their move ments with precision, moving together in a single instant. Using high-tech photography, their move ments were slowed down so researchers could un derstand how the flocks managed to move as one.

• Analysis showed that the movement was not si multaneous, but instead started from an individual bird, or a few birds together. The initial movement could originate anywhere within the flock, radi ating outward in rapid waves. Researchers found that the movement took an average of 15 millisec onds to move from one bird to the next.

• In the lab, researchers tested captive dunlins to find out how quickly they responded to a sudden stimulus. The average startle time in reaction to a loud noise or a flash of light was 38 milliseconds, much longer than it takes to respond when they are surrounded by a flock.

• A boy adopted a lost homing pigeon. The pigeon was identified with a band on its leg with the num ber 167 engraved on it. Then the boy grew ill and went to the hospital 70 miles away where he had an operation and a lengthy stay. One night a week into his stay, he heard a fluttering at his window and recognized his bird. A nurse opened the win dow, and the pigeon flew in, identified by the band on its leg.

• One day at school, a magpie flew in an open win dow and perched on the shoulder of a boy in a classroom of about 40 students. “It’s our summer bird!” the boy exclaimed, explaining that they had rescued and raised a fledgling magpie that sum mer at their cottage some 50 miles away. They had left it behind when they returned to the city, never expecting it to be able to track them down in town, much less in the middle of a school day. His teach er dismissed him for the day so he could take the bird home.

• A large population of starlings hang out in the Baltic region of northern Europe all summer, migrating to Britain for the winter. Researchers caught around 11,000 starlings when they were in the middle of their migration in autumn, cap turing them mid-route in Holland. They were banded, and then separated into two groups.

• One group consisted of just the adults; the other group was only juveniles. Usually flocks are made up of both adults and juveniles, so the youngsters can get the hang of the migra tion route. 11,000 birds were flown nearly 400 miles off course, and released in Switzerland. First the adults were released, and then the ju veniles. Would the two groups be able to find their way?

• The adults adjusted their course and ended up where they intended to go in Britain, northwest of Switzerland. But the juveniles, which had been flying in a southwesterly direction when they were waylaid, continued in a southwest erly direction and ended up in Spain instead of Britain. When the juveniles returned to the Baltic region the next spring, the researchers wondered if they would follow the adults to the normal wintering grounds in Britain at the end of the summer. Surprisingly, many of the youngsters broke with tradition and returned to where they had been in Spain.

• Austrian sculptor Heinz Peteri lived in a small room in the tower of the police administration building in Germany. He noted that a group of pigeons that lived in the eaves of the roofs across the street would always leave their roosts exactly 30 minutes before a British bombing raid came in. He used this knowledge to warn his comrades. His predictions were so accurate that the Gestapo arrested him, suspecting him of communicating with the enemy, when all he was doing was observing the pigeons.

Quiz Answers

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Max Bella 45% Bichon Frise Border Collie

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Scrappy-Doo 35 times Clifford “Mutt Cutts” 1950

Sports Answers

1. 2. 3.

Rameses Welterweight, at 140-147 lbs. (bantam weight is 115-118 lbs). John Starks

4. 5. 6.

University of Tennessee Volunteers

Erin Andrews Atlana Thrashers in 2011.