Word: odds
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...country and the methods being used to curb the grackle population. In order to discourage roosting, city administrators in Tempe, Ariz., tried lathering their downtown trees with a concord grape coating that made the birds throw up. Other solutions are more violent. A few years ago, in an odd reversal of stereotypes, the University of Texas in Austin bought shotguns to scare off the grackles, while A&M, famed for its Corps of Cadets, opted for a recording of a shotgun blast echoing through the barracks' courtyards periodically, Gayle recalled...
...What's odd is that, back in the 1930s, when each major studio had enough star quality to stock up to 50 films a year, the top audience favorites were kids. Cinemoppet Shirley Temple was the #1 star in 1936, 37 and 38; the third year of her reign, she turned 10. Temple was followed by three years (1939-41) when Mickey Rooney, then in and out of his teens, was the #1 attraction. (Both stars are largely forgotten, but not gone. They're, respectively...
Some philosophers maintain that solving the problem of consciousness is beyond the reach of human intelligence. This is very odd and, I believe, untrue. It fits a sensible intuition that the mind is something special and different, separable from the brain, but the fact that the intuition is sensible does not make it right...
...aside from such odd cases, virtually no expert doubts the connection between the hormones of emotion and memory--and nobody doubts that memory can be enhanced artificially. It's not necessarily a good idea, though. Give someone a shot of adrenaline, and memory temporarily improves. But it also drives up the heart rate, so it could be dangerous for the elderly. Other memory enhancers, like Ritalin or amphetamines, used by college students to cram for exams, are highly addictive. And some of the experimental drugs McGaugh is testing in rats can cause seizures. Unfortunately, he says, for people with truly...
...sheer aplomb, the Golden Globe for best Golden Globe speech has to go to... Hugh Laurie! His comments deserve to be reprinted in near-fullness: "I am speechless. I'm literally without a speech. It seems odd to me that in the weeks leading up to this event, when people are falling over themselves to send you free shoes and free cufflinks and free colonic irrigations for two, nobody offers you a free acceptance speech. It just seems to me to be a gap in the market. I would love to be able to pull out a speech by Dolce...