Octopuses have been discovered tip-toeing with coconut-shell halves suctioned to their undersides, then reassembling the halves and disappearing inside for protection or deception, a new study says. The coconut-carrying behavior makes the veined octopus the newest member of the elite club of tool-using animals—and the first member without a backbone, researchers say.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091214-octopus-carries-coconuts-coconut-carrying.html

Transcript of Wide Ranging Three Hour Interview with Al Gore
Jose Antonio Vargas, Technology and Innovations editor, Huffington Post: "This is the transcript of a wide-ranging, two-part, three-hour interview with Al Gore, touching on the impact of technology and the Internet in politics, both in the U.S. and abroad; the state of the mainstream media and the left and right blogosphere; the role of the Web in spreading the facts about global warming, among others topics. The interviews were held in early and late October, first in the San Francisco offices of Current TV, then in his geothermal system-powered home in Nashville, which is certified as Gold LEED, one of the highest ratings for green design. An excerpt of the Q&A appeared in the Dec. 10, 2009 issue of Rolling Stone."

T.J. Wisner used to buy a small Christmas tree for the downstairs floor of his home in Grand Blanc, Mich. Four years ago, though, after getting the idea from an art fair, he opted for something different: a "beer tree," bottles of holiday brews stacked on a terraced mound of inverted metal buckets. While the family has a separate artificial tree upstairs, the "beer tree" has become the real Christmas tree. Each year, the Wisners decorate the structure with Christmas cards and pile gifts around it. "This is actually where we have Christmas morning," says Mr. Wisner, a 59-year-old life coach and speaker. "The day after Christmas, we blind taste the beers."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704825504574585861970052566.html

Deep Web Research 2010: Marcus P. Zillman is a an internet search expert whose extensive knowledge of how to leverage the "invisible" or "deep" web is exemplified in this guide. The Deep Web covers somewhere in the vicinity of 1 trillion pages of information located through the world wide web in various files and formats. Current search engines are able to locate around 200 billion pages. Marcus identifies sources to mitigate the odds on behalf of serious searchers.

The Yale Book of Quotations Most Notable Quotes 2009 by Fred Shapiro
1. "Keep your government hands off my Medicare." Speaker at health care reform town hall meeting in Simpsonville, S.C., commenting on the government-created Medicare program, quoted by The Washington Post on July 28
2. "We're going to be in the Hudson." Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, responding to air traffic controllers asking on which runway he preferred to land US Airways Flight 1549 on Jan. 15 before he landed in the Hudson River.
See article and other quotes at: http://www.thestate.com/politics/story/1074336.html

Ode to soy
Studies have long shown that adding soy to a low-fat diet may help reduce your risk of heart disease. According to The American Heart Association, 25 grams of soy protein per day is needed to show significant cholesterol-lowering effects. See more health tips and also recipes at: http://www.dole.com/nutritioninstitute//DNIPUBNEWSLETTERS/DNI_NL20040419.htm

Breakfast is your first meal of the day, whether you eat it at 9 a.m. or 4 p.m. To my mind, you can't "skip breakfast," because the word comes from "break the fast."
Breakfast around the world Culinary imports to the breakfast table in the heartland of America are often of German or Scandinavian origin, and many of these involve a sensible hashing together of various ingredients (especially meat) to use up leftovers and create a delicious meal. For example, scrapple, a Pennsylvania Dutch side dish, is made by cooking a mixture of pork scraps, cornmeal, and herbs into a mush, pressing it into a mold, then cutting the loaf into slices and frying them before serving. The good old-fashioned, pre-healthfood breakfast is alive and well in the South. Many people still start their days with grits slathered with butter or red-eye gravy (which is, essentially, bacon grease mixed with the active "red-eye" ingredient, coffee); biscuits made with lard; a thick slice of country ham, as big around as the plate it is served on (or bacon, or a few slices of spicy pork sausage); crisp, fried hash brown potatoes; and a bottomless cup of coffee. In the western states one can still find hearty frontier "grub" in the form of the Irish-influenced corned beef hash and eggs breakfast (originally the eggs would always have been fried, but now, to class the dish up a bit, they might be poached). Hearty omelets, with plenty of eggs and lots of filling, are also characteristic frontier food. And home fries, chunks of potatoes skillet-fried with onion and bell pepper, are the western equivalent of hash browns. Baked goods have proven particularly attractive to Americans in search of breakfast items. Many of these, like the waffle (relative of the French gaufre and the Dutch wafel) are snack foods or desserts in their native countries. The doughnut has its origins in the Dutch olykoek and the French beignet, both of which are little nut-shaped hunks of deep-fried yeast dough. It didn't acquire its un-nutlike but definitive doughnut shape (that is, the "torus") until the early 19th century in America, when it was decided that having a hole in the middle of the dough would increase the surface frying area and improve the texture.
Find much more information on other countries at:
http://ravenclawgirl.veoc.net/HouseElves/he_breakfast.htm

On December 17, 1798, the US Senate began its first impeachment trial. Senator William Blount of Tennessee, a land speculator, was accused of plotting with England to wrest control of Florida from Spain. The Senate ultimately dismissed the charges for lack of jurisdiction - and, perhaps incidentally, lack of Blount, who had gone to Tennessee and had refused to return to the Senate for trial. Read more on the attempted arrest of William Blount. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/thisday/