Yummy Wakame Weblog

Superbugs found in British chickens

Significant numbers of chickens sold in British shops are infected with antibiotic-resistant “superbugs”. In a survey commissioned by the BBC, more than half of the chickens examined were infected with a form of E. coli that was resistant to at least one antibiotic. The Health Protection Agency scientits also found that 12 chickens, from a total sample of 147, had antibiotic resistant Campylobacter. A third bug, Vancomycin Resistant Enterococco, was found in one in 25 of the samples.

In most cases the the bacteria would be killed off during the cooking process. But if the meat were not cooked thoroughly, the bugs could cause serious illnesses. None of the chickens sampled was organic, and nearly half were reared in Britain. Dr Mike Millar, a microbiologist at St Barts Hospital in London, believes the findings could explain the rise in the number of women whose bladder infections don’t respond to the standard antibiotic treatment. “Potentially this is very worrying,” he told BBC Online.

So… do you want to know all the reasons I don’t each chicken? Are you sure you want to know? (more…)

The weatherproof Vidstone is available with a 7-, 15- or 22 inch screen and fits into a pre-cut slot on a tombstone or mausoleum. It’s solar-powered “serenity panel” features a slideshow of the deceased accompanied by music.

The BBC’s TV channels could be made available on the internet according to a story on its website. The proposed plan would include a simulcast of BBC One or BBC Two, letting UK viewers see programmes on the web at the same time as they go out on TV. Proposals to make clips available on mobile phones are also being speeded up, director of TV Jana Bennett said following an announcement earlier in the week that a classic episodes of Doctor Who and Red Dwarf are being made available. A player to let viewers watch shows on the internet for a week after they have been broadcast on TV is also in development.

You may or may not realize that I can probably find out where you live, if not by simply typing phonebook:your name & city, then by spending ten or fifteen minutes Googlizing your life.

But what happens when you Google the CEO of Google? Well…

“[Google's PR Director] called back to announce that the company would not speak to any reporter from CNET for a year.”

Read this hilarious article from the New York Times on kicking feet and taking your toys home.

Russia and China have staged joint war games for the first time in their history.

The eight-day excercise, which involved around 10,000 military personnel and large numbers of ships, submarines and aircraft, began in Vladivostok and ended in the Shandong Peninsula. According to Chinese Maj-Gen Peng Guanglian, its purpose was to “frighten the three evil forces of ethnic separatism, religious extremism and international terrorism”.

Read about it in BBC News and check out the photos.

Next: Russia and India to stage anti-terrorist military exercise.

Wired News:

A splinter faction of Flickr photo-sharing community members is threatening a symbolic “mass suicide” to protest closer integration with the website’s new owner, Yahoo.

The portal giant bought Flickr’s developer, Ludicorp, for an undisclosed sum in March and took ownership of the site when it moved from Vancouver, Canada, to Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, California, campus this summer. Now, angered by a new requirement to tie their member profiles with Yahoo accounts, some Flickrites say they plan to kill off their identities before they can be moved into the new family next year.

“If Flickr really forces me to join Yahoo in 2006 in order to still use my account, I will quit 24 hours before the deadline,” wrote Thomas Müller, a Hamburg, Germany-based artist who shows more than 1,400 photos at the site. On Wednesday, Müller created a protest group, Flick Off, that has attracted almost 400 members.

At stake is a new user-profile stipulation that reads: “We will be migrating all independent Flickr accounts to Yahoo’s network in 2006. At that time, if you have not done so already, you will be asked to create a Yahoo ID (or link your account to your Yahoo ID if you already have one) in order to continue using your account.”

“This comes after many of us have invested so much time and effort; it makes it a chore to do anything except bend over, grab our ankles and smile,” said Dana Smith, a San Francisco-based Flick Off supporter whose photographs rank among Flickr’s most interesting material.

Read the whole article on Wired News…

SimplySwitch is a free and impartial comparison service that could save you a fortune on your household bills.

You could save £££s by changing to cheaper gas, electricity, credit card, broadband, mortgage and homephone providers. And if you decide to switch they will take care of all the paperwork for you.

They also tell you who the greenest and most competitive renewable energy supplier is in your area.

But how does this help the Big Issue? (more…)