Planets, Planes and Potter News

I apparently missed this...one of the papers has done a review of 2006 in today's issue, and around August, Pluto was demoted. 70 years after it was discovered, Pluto has lost its planethood.

In other news, for those of you Harry Potter fans, check out her website, jkrowling.com to find out the title of the upcoming 7th and last book in the series.

As reported by MSN, "If you go to her home page, click on the eraser and you will be taken to a room — you'll see a window, a door and a mirror.

In the mirror, you'll see a hallway. Click on the farthest doorknob and look for the Christmas tree. They click on the center of the door next to the mirror and a reef appears. Then click on the top of the mirror and you'll see a garland.

Look for a cobweb next to the door. Click on it, and it will disappear. Now, look at the chimes in the window. Click on the second chime to the right, and hold it down. The chime will turn into the key, which opens the door. Click on the wrapped gift behind the door, then click on it again and figure out the title yourself by playing a game of hangman."

However, you have to do all these things in the order listed, or they don't work. Yes, I've tried it, I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a kid at heart!!

And finally, no, Heathrow is not closed, and no, I don't expect to be stranded here for Christmas. Whilst we are in the midst of a pea soup fog that apparently will not lift until Sunday, it is domestic and some European flights that are being affected. Heathrow was operating at about 60% of its normal flight volume today, according to news reports here, and I have it on good authority (the sister of a colleague for works for the airlines) that thus far, flights to the US are doing just fine. :-)

Fun Facts

from London's various free newspapers. There is a new study out claiming that women get a natural "high" from talking and shopping, because that's how our brains are structured. Some of the figures quoted:

A woman will speak 20,000 words in an average day; a man will speak 7,000.

Men think about sex every 52 seconds, whereas it crosses a woman's brain only once a day, on average.

British women will spend an average of 8+ years of their lives shopping.

And one that will amuse many of you-- "Women have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion, men have a small country road."

Dr. Louann Brizendine claims that women have larger cortexes in their brains than do men, and conversation stimulates a rush of a dopamine, therefore talking is a natural "high" for women. Men on the other hand, don't get a response from their pleasure centers from talking, and therefore are less social. However, their brains are set up to think about sex more regularly.

Now, I don't know about you all, but I have known some guys in my time who loved to hear themselves talk...so I'm not sure what conclusions I should be drawing here ;)