Credit swiped

There are many ways to pay for students to pay their fees at a Canadian university but some universities are removing the option of using credit cards to pay for fees. The reason behind this is due to the credit crunch universities are cutting costs in other areas in order to keep the same number of scholarships and bursaries. By eliminating credit cards as a payment option they are saving themselves the processing fee. Dalhousie University plans to save $1 million this way.

It's a dog's tale

I still check some British news websites everyday just to see what is going on in the old country. Things haven't changed much, children are rude and illiterate, old people are not respected and soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. One primary school has come up with a novel way of correcting the problem of illiterate children. Teachers at one school in Bournemouth have discovered that if children read aloud to dogs they learned to read much faster than if they read aloud to adults. The teachers think this is because dogs don't laugh at mistakes.

But what if you're scared of dogs?

56 Nationalities

China is a country with a population of over 1 billion but this population is not homogeneous. There are 56 nationalities within China. Across China there has been a resurgence of local ethnicity and culture. The 56 nationalities are made up of one majority, the Han and 55 minorities. Yet the Han themselves speak 8 mutually unintelligible languages.

The truth will out

I was chatting to a friend, one I have known for some time, when they let slip that they had been to band camp as a teenager. You think you know someone and then you discover something like this.

I'm still giggling as I write this.

All Good Things...

So my program of studies at the University of Toronto is coming to an end. This means that I and my friends from my course are now beginning to go our separate ways. It is a gradual process of finding out what everyone else is doing and where they are going to be doing it. A few are staying in Toronto, but far too many are leaving. Today I had a coffee with a friend and he told me that he was moving back to Montreal permanently come the end of July. I have another friend who is going back to England come August, and yet another who is returning to Germany.

I guess I'll just have to visit them.

The Smell of Fear

My favourite people the scientific researchers have been at it again. This time researchers at the University of Dusseldorf have discovered that our subconscious mind can tell the difference between sweat produced from fear and sweat produced from exertion. They took sweat samples from students just before an exam and then just after they finished a workout. Volunteers could not tell the difference between the samples but yet their brain lit up in different areas for each sample. The sweat produced from panic lit up areas of the brain associated with emotional and social signals and empathy.

Bad Hair Day, eh?

When I was younger my father was against me having long hair. This might strike you as odd given that most fathers like their daughters to have long hair. Whenever my hair got long he would threaten to cut it off. Perhaps he would have done better had he told me about St Zoe of Rome, coincidentally her feast day is today. I had not heard of her either but apparently she was a Roman noblewoman who was greatly devoted to St Peter. One day she was praying by his tomb when she was arrested for her Christian faith. She was hung from a tree by her hair while a fire was lit at her feet to burn her to death.

Another reason not to have long hair.