Geo Beats

Father's Day - 5 Gifts to Avoid - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.Sure, it's the thought that counts but if you really want to impress fathers, avoid these 5 gifts.Number 5 – A tie. Unless your dad is the casual type and just got a new job where he has to dress up, he probably has enough ties. This cliché father’s day gift is all tied up.Number 4 –A sweater or socks. Who likes getting clothes as a gift? More than half the time we never wear them, and then feel bad for not wearing them because they were a gift. Avoid this snafu by staying away from the Cosby sweaters and khakis.Number 3 –World’s Best Dad paraphernalia. It would take a sense of humor or fashion sense bordering on the insane to appreciate an ego inflating gift like the patronizing World’s Best Dad coffee mug or novelty t-shirt. He might just use it on Father’s Day and then forget about it.Number 2 – Picture frame. While Dad might like it if you sent him a picture of the two of you through your email, most picture frames don’t make it out of the box, and end up in the attic or basement until they are sold at a garage sale.Number 1 – Hygiene gifts: Even though Dad might truly need a nose hair clipper or some better smelling cologne, today is not the day to let him know. Hold back on buying the extra-strength toenail clipper, razor, athlete's foot spray and deodorant. No guy wants to be prompted on Father’s Day to spend some quality time in the bathroom.

How Did San Francisco Get Its Name? - as part of the news and politics series by GeoBeats.Ever wonder how did one of the world's greatest and most beautiful cities got its name?Spanish missionaries named the San Francisco Bay for Saint Francis Assisi in 1776. Located on the San Francisco Bay, the Mexican settlement of Yerba Buena was eventually claimed by the United States and renamed Francisca, before being officially ordained as San Francisco on January 30, 1847 in a rogue decision by the appointed Magistrate Washington Bartlett. In the following two years, the population of San Francisco would go from one thousand to 25 thousand with the explosion of the California gold rush peaking in 1849.Just don’t refer to San Francisco as Frisco. There is a local disdain for people who call their city Frisco, stemming from a San Francisco Chronicle columnist who even went so far as to publish a book in 1953 called “Don’t Call it Frisco.” Some locals might get offended, but Frisco is becoming more and more of a common parlance.San Francisco’s Bay Area is famous for their development of slang terms particularly in hip hop culture, where the Bay is known as the Yay Area and San Francisco is referred to as the SFC, or Sucka Free City.

World Record for Most Beach Balls in Air - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.How many beach balls have you seen together at the same time? Probably not more than a handful. Ever wonder how many of those colorful balls does it take to break a World Record? 1,355, according to Legoland in Winter Haven, Florida. To celebrate the opening of the park’s newest attraction, Legoland promoted the stunt to the first 400 people to arrive on May 24th.However, a larger than expected crowd meant that Legoland ended up with a record-breaking 1,355 beach ball bouncers.The countdown began and as the announcer reached 1, the sky became full of vibrant reds, blues, yellows, whites and greens. With staff cheering on the crowd to continuously throw the beach balls up in the air for over 10 seconds, the previous record held by a group of 401 people at Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH should be easily shattered. Evidence of the attempt has been handed over to Guinness to evaluate and verify.

Cop Accused of Using Neighor's Home for Laundry - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.When you need to do laundry outside of your house, you'd probably go to a laundromat. One police officer, however, seems to have gone with another option. A police officer in Pennsylvania who allegedly broke into his neighbor’s house to do laundry has been charged for trespassing and criminal mischief. Officer Jason Rocco’s clothes were found in the dryer of an empty house, after the homeowner noticed that his electric bills were unusually high, and contacted police. When questioned, he claimed that the back door to the house had been broken for some time, and he told police that he “just had to do some laundry,” and requested that the investigators return his clothes. In another case of a cop behaving badly, an officer in New Jersey was charged with trespassing and theft. After responding to a call at a woman’s house, the officer returned two days later to follow up. That’s when the woman reported to police that some of her rings were missing, and that the officer was the only other person who had been in the house recently.

Nearly Half of Vacationers Miss Their Pets the Most - as part of the travel series by GeoBeats.No matter how much we enjoy our vacation, most of us do miss family and friends back home.Interestingly, according to research conducted by TravelSupermarket, pet owners in England confessed to missing their pets more than their family members while away from home for extended periods of time. Research found that 47 percent of the 2,010 people that were polled admitted to missing their pets most of all, with family members and partners as the second and third runners up. 13 percent said they would prefer traveling with their pet than their partner. TravelSupermarket says 39 percent of people are choosing to take their pets with them when they travel, and 73 percent of those who took their pets with them on vacation thought that the animal enjoyed the trip. It is estimated that there are hundreds of millions of dogs and cats in the world. As the family unit size has generally decreased over time around the world, more people rely on pets for comfort and support. For many, pets are as important or even more important than family members.Who do you miss the most when you are on vacation?

Stunning Colorful Houses of Bermuda - as part of the travel series by GeoBeats.Mark Twain once said about Bermuda - "you go to heaven if you want to, I'd rather stay here"This paradise on earth has a lot going for itself - pink sand beaches, turquoise water, near-perfect climate, and its colorful houses. Bermuda will not be what it is today if it weren't for these white-roofed houses that have soothing pastel colors - which seem to blend in harmony with its natural surroundings.It seems residents have been using these colors since Bermuda was founded. Case in point - some of the earliest buildings in St. George's, a town which was settled all the way back in 1612 and is said to be the oldest continuously inhabited English town in the new World.The colors aren't just limited to St. George's though. Regardless of wherever you are in Bermuda, its houses seem to extend the welcoming atmosphere of this place. As you wander your way through, exploring Bermuda's landscape, you are always eager to see the next enchanting vista - complete with water, trees and colorful houses.

Are Days of Painful Needles Over? - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.If the thought of getting a flu shot evokes painful memories, there's good news for you.Research and development teams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with a painless injection device that could replace hypodermic needles. The device delivers a blast of medicine through a miniscule area of the skin in under a millisecond at almost the speed of sound. The jet-injection device can also extract blood from patients using the same painless method. A version of this new device will also have the ability to inject powdered substances. Ian Hunter, the lead scientist in this project says “a vaccine that can be administered in powder form requires no cooling,” so vaccines that are being imported will not be spoiled when the cooling system fails. This new technology could potentially save many lives.People have been experimenting with injections since the 17th century, but the first syringe wasn’t developed until 1853 when a French surgeon invented a calibrated syringe which allowed the administrator to measure how much of a substance was being injected or extracted.

Millions of Chinese Living in Caves - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.In China, it is estimated that nearly 30 million people call cave dwellings their home and these caves have been used as residences for thousands of years. Many of these dwellings are passed on from generation to generation and vary from one room hovels dug out of the earth, to multichamber rooms that even have power and running water. "It's like living in a villa. Caves in our villages are as comfortable as posh apartments in the city," Cheng Wei, a cave resident and Communist Party Official told the LA Times. The people who live in these caves enjoy the lifestyle, and one man who left to work in the city, plans to return to living in the caves when he is retired. There are many other regions around the world where people live in caves. One of the most ancient places where humans have been in continuous habitation is located in the Cappadocia region of Turkey. These unusually shaped rock formations are home to some 25 hundred people, and documents from the 6th century BC describe the region as one of the oldest parts of the Persian Empire.If you want to move into a cave, look no further than The Cave House in Arizona. No need to pay for heating or air conditioning because the cave stays relatively comfortable year round, and it has a natural spring.

Holy Men of Kumbh Mela in India - as part of the travel series by GeoBeats.Kumbh Mela means “pitcher festival”. It is the largest Hindu pilgrimage and possibly the largest gathering of human beings on planet earth for a single event. There are several types of such festivals and they take place every few years, rotating between four locations. Holy men, known as Sadhus, are an important part of Kumbh mela. They cover themselves in ashes before they bathe at different spots along the sacred Ganges River in India as they believe that bathing in the river cleanses them of their sins.Hindu holy men number in the millions in India. They are considered the monks or priests of Hinduism, and live a very unusual life including renouncing family and society for the religious purpose of gaining a form of enlightenment. They practice a variety of religious rites and customs, which vary according to the different sects that exist, but practices vary from fasting, to standing on one leg for extended periods of time, meditation and yogic practices, to vows of silence, to smoking cannabis or hashish. Sadhus are allowed to receive donations, but many live in hunger and poverty.Women are also allowed to become Saddhus, but they make up only a small percent of the Sadhu population.

Pizza Parlor Offers Free Pizza for Spanish Orders - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.A pizza parlor chain in Texas is stirring things up with its new promotion that offers a free pizza on June 5th if the customer places their order in Spanish. Pizza Patron should be used to the backlash; executives faced death threats for their promotional practices in 2007 when they started accepting Mexican Pesos. Pizza Patron is defending their new promotion from people who are criticizing it, by saying that 70 percent of their customer base are Spanish speakers and so that demographic are their target customers. After all, strange restaurant promotions have been a part of the business for a long time now.Back in the 1900s a hot dog stand in Coney Island faced rumors that they used unhealthy meat, so they paid actors to dress in lab coats and eat their hot dogs to show how healthy they were. In a twisted promotional ploy, one burger restaurant in Las Vegas bases its entire marketing campaign on how unhealthy their food is. The Heart Attack Grill offers a free meal to any of their customers that weigh over 350 pounds, and has had two customers rushed to the hospital after collapsing during a meal at the restaurant.

Stolen Van Church Driven to Jail - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.Two men stole a church van and drove themselves to jail, where police apprehended them. Dave Kendall provides a service giving rides to people who don’t have any other form of transportation, taking them where they need to go in a van owned by the Church of Christ Within in Stockton, California. The two carjackers had requested that Kendal take them to San Joaquin County Jail to visit an inmate, but the stops that he had to make first were taking too long, so the two men beat him up and stole the van before driving it directly to their stated destination: the county jail. “These criminals were not very smart…”, said Detective Joe Silva. A couple of other not so bright crooks in Colombia are under arrest after one of them forgot to log out of their Facebook account at an internet café before robbing it and making their getaway on motorbikes. And in a move straight out of ‘The Big Lebowski’ a suspected burglar left his homework at the scene of the crime. The 18 year old was tracked down and arrested after police found a USB hard drive in a backpack that had the suspect’s homework saved on it.

Woman Finds $1800 Dangling From ATM - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.A Florida woman who found 18 hundred dollars sticking out of an unsupervised Chase Bank ATM machine has reported the money to police, who have yet to find its rightful owner. She found the money on a Sunday, and the bank was closed so the woman called 911 and waited for police to arrive so she could hand over the money. “We're going through tough times and whoever lost that money, you don't know if they need it to pay their house or to pay their groceries. So you know I just wanted to get it to the right person,” said the woman, who works as a crossing guard for a local school.A man going through his deceased father’s storage unit came across savings bonds worth 40 thousand dollars. But they didn’t belong to his father, and the man is searching for the rightful owners.These two good samaritans bring up an interesting question. What would you do if you found money that wasn’t yours? A Philadelphia woman is under arrest after a man in front of her in line dropped 23 hundred dollars in cash and she picked it up without a word before exiting the store with the money.

Connection Between Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Health - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.Researchers in China seem to have proven a correlation between air pollution and poor cardiovascular health.Beijing is listed as having one of the worst air pollution problems in the world. But as part of their 2008 Summer Olympics bid, Beijing improved the city’s air quality by limiting vehicle traffic in the city and shutting down some factories for a period of time during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. During the city’s air quality controls, researchers from USC and several other universities collaborated on a study to find the effects of the air pollution reduction on a group of healthy resident doctors from a local Beijing hospital. The subjects were tested before, during and after the Olympic games in order to track the effects of the air quality changes on the human body. When tested during the Olympic games, the subjects measured healthier levels of blood pressure and lower levels of proteins in the blood that have been known to lead to cardiovascular issues. These levels were significantly increased in the subjects after the Olympic games, showing that exposure to air pollution can negatively effect certain aspects of our health. Jonathon Samet of the Environmental Protection Agency told University of Southern California: “We need to remember that large numbers of people in cities around the world are still exposed to high levels of air pollution as they are in Beijing.”

5 Memorial Day Camping Destinations - as part of the travel series by GeoBeats.Here are 5 national parks that are great camping destinations.Number 5 - North Cascades National Park, Washington – Nestled between Washington State and British Columbia, campers will find amazing views of the more than 300 glaciers in this conveniently accessible park. Rugged terrain, deep valleys and numerous waterfalls, camp in nature among the grey wolves, mountain goats, and bald eagles that call this park home.Number 4 - Assateague Island, Maryland – Pitch your tent in the sand as campsites are just steps away from the water on this barrier island. Hike the numerous trails or swim and collect shells on the 37 miles of beautiful beach. If you are lucky, maybe you will get a glimpse of the wild horses that roam the island.Number 3 - Joshua Tree National Park, California - Stretched out over the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, the near 800,000 acres is home to climbing boulders and the legendary trees. Open year-round with nine available camping sites, visitors should make sure to bring their camera to capture the surreal landscape.Number 2 - Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming – Named after the tallest mountain in the Teton Range, campers will find over 1000 drive-in sites to stay while they hike, fish, mountain climb and canoe the 310,000 acres. The Trumpeter Swan, the largest bird in North America, calls this park home.Number 1- Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina & Tennessee – America’s most visited national park offers a countless number of activities while camping. From hiking to horseback riding to an auto tour or spotting an elk in the wildflower fields, the Smokies will leave you in awe of its beauty.assateague - http://www.forvo.com/word/assateague/

5 New and Scary Theme Park Rides for 2012 - as part of the travel series by GeoBeats.Here are 5 of the Newest and Scariest Theme Park Rides Across the U.S. and CanadaNumber 5 – Six Flags Magic Mountain in Los Angeles is introducing ‘Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom’ for summer 2012. Adrenaline seekers drop from 400 feet elevation at a whopping 85 miles per hour: the brakes finally kick in while you’re just several feet from the ground!Number 4 –Tennessee is home to the beloved theme park, Dollywood, which recently introduced the ride called ‘Wild Eagle’. Thrill seekers ride on the side on the track, making them feel as though they are open air flying at 21 stories high over the Smokey Mountains.Number 3 – Canada’ Wonderland in Ontario is introducing the ‘Leviathan’ coaster. The track is more than a mile long and more than 300 feet high with the first drop plummeting roughly 90 miles an hour!Number 2 – SeaWorld San Diego has added ‘Manta’ for the 2012 season and while it is not sky high, it is stomach butterfly inducing in a very unique way. Constantly spinning and twisting, the ride gets scarily close to rocks while sideways skimming the waters and heading underground for some bat ray viewing.Number 1 – From Hershey Park in Pennsylvania, comes the highly anticipated ‘Skyrush’. With high points of 200 feet and a racing speed of 75 miles per hour: riders get ready for the twists and turns, climbs and drops and scream worthy fun!