Duchess The Orangutan Turns 50

The Phoenix Zoo is used to hosting birthday parties, but this one was a little different.

Duchess the orangutan turned 50 on Saturday, and the zoo treated her to gifts, an ice cake filled with fruit and a rendition of “Happy Birthday” by hundreds of zoo visitors.

Her keeper, Bob Keesecker, said Duchess didn’t seem too stressed about the milestone.

“I told her it was her birthday today and she didn’t seem to be overly concerned about it,” he said. “I made sure her hair looked good before she went out.”

Keesecker said Duchess has quite a sweet tooth and worked pretty hard to get to the fruit in the ice cake.

Zoo officials say Duchess is the nation’s oldest captive Bornean orangutan, and is now 10 years older than the 40-year life expectancy of orangutans in the wild.

Today’s Top Eurotastic Song By Eden

Here’s the Israeli quartet Eden singing Happy Birthday:

Happy Birthday is an up-tempo number, heralding the increasingly dance-oriented outlook of the Eurovision Song Contest, with the band singing about the simple joy of having a birthday and celebrating it with a party. Significantly, the somewhat American sound of the song was provided in part by two of the vocalists (Eddie Butler and Gabriel Butler) being black Israelis, the first black participants on the Eurovision stage for Israel.

Eden was not able to capitalise on their Eurovision appearance, and disbanded in 2001. Member Eddie Butler would go on to represent Israel as a solo artist in the 2006 Eurovision.

You can see Butler’s 2006 Eurovision performance here.

Birth Month May Influence Athletic Success

Could you be the next David Beckham or Michael Jordan?

An Australian researcher has found your chances of becoming a professional sportsperson could depend on your birthday.

Senior research fellow Adrian Barnett from Queensland University of Technology’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation found that a person’s birth month could determine their health and fitness.

The results of the study are published in a book, “Analysing Seasonal Health Data,” which Barnett co-authored with researcher Annette Dobson from the University of Queensland.

Barnett analysed the birthdays of professional Australian Football League (AFL) players and found a disproportionate number had their birthdays in the early months of the year, while a fewer number were born in the later months, especially December.

The Australian school year begins in January.

“Children who are taller have an obvious advantage when playing the football code of AFL,” Barnett said in a statement issued by the book’s publishers, Springer.

“If you were born in January, you have almost 12 months’ growth ahead of your classmates born late in the year, so whether you were born on December 31st or January 1st could have a huge effect on your life.”

Barnett found there were 33 percent more professional AFL players than expected with birthdays in January and 25 percent fewer in December.

He said the results mirrored other international studies which found a link between being born near the start of school year and the chances of becoming a professional player in the sports of ice hockey, football, volleyball and basketball.

“Research in the UK shows those born at the start of the school year also do better academically and have more confidence,” he said.

“And with physical activity being so important, it could also mean smaller children get disheartened and play less sport. If smaller children are missing out on sporting activity then this has potentially serious consequences for their health in adulthood.”

Barnett said this seasonal pattern could also result in wasted talent, with potential sports stars not being identified because they were competing against children who were much more physically advanced than them.

He said a possible solution was for one of the sporting codes in Australia to change the team entry date from January 1 to July 1.

Happy 40th Birthday Internet!

Now, even the Internet is too old to Twitter.

The technology that transformed the world in which we live just turned 40.

It was on Sept. 2, 1969, that scientists working in a lab at UCLA (or was it Al Gore) got two computers to talk to each other.

“What we were thinking about was machine-to-machine communication. We were not thinking about my 99-year-old mother being on the Internet,” said Len Kleinrock, who ran the lab.

Happy 450th Birthday Pensacola!

Long overlooked in favor of hot spots like Orlando and Miami, Pensacola hopes a yearlong 450th birthday bash will lure visitors to this city on the western edge of Florida’s Panhandle.

Festivals, parades, battle reenactments, art exhibits and other events will commemorate Spanish explorer Don Tristan de Luna’s 1559 arrival at Pensacola Bay.

King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain set the tone with a royal visit Feb. 19, touring the city of 60,000 and visiting Pensacola Naval Air Station, home of the world-famous U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels aerial demonstration team.

Sometimes derided as the gateway to Florida’s “Redneck Riviera,” — the stretch of Panhandle beaches and kitsch attractions long favored by Southern tourists — many native Pensacolans would rather play up the city’s history. Leaders dubbed Pensacola “The City of Five Flags” in the 1950s to recognize the Spanish, French, British, Confederate and American flags that have flown here.

Hurting Pensacola’s efforts to promote itself has been the difficulty in getting there. Pensacola Regional Airport now has six airlines offering service to Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, N.C., Houston, Memphis, Orlando and Tampa. But unlike other Florida tourists attractions, the city has never been an easy trip for visitors beyond the South.

Happy 25th Birthday to the Mac

Apple’s Macintosh debuted in 1984 and kicked off a product line that would be Apple’s flagship for years.  The Macintosh defined the combination of graphical interface and mouse that is standard today.

The Mac was unveiled using a $1.5 million TV advertisment, directed by film maker Ridley Scott and shown during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII  on January 22, 1984.

The commercial, called “1984″ concludes with text which reads:  “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”