hehe

WESTMORELAND, N.H. – Mary Josephine Ray, the New Hampshire woman who was certified as the oldest person living in the United States, has died at age 114 years, 294 days.
She died Sunday at a nursing home in Westmoreland but was active until about two weeks before her death, her granddaughter Katherine Ray said.
"She just enjoyed life. She never thought of dying at all," Katherine Ray said. "She was planning for her birthday party."
Even with her recent decline, Ray managed an interview with a reporter last week, her granddaughter said.
Ray was the oldest person in the United States and the second-oldest in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group. She was also recorded as the oldest person ever to live in New Hampshire.
The oldest living American is now Neva Morris, of Ames, Iowa, at age 114 years, 216 days. The oldest person in the world is Japan's Kama Chinen at age 114 years, 301 days.
Ray was born May 17, 1895, in Bloomfield, Prince Edward Island, Canada. She moved to the United States at age 3.
She lived for 60 years in Anson, Maine. She lived in Florida, Massachusetts and elsewhere in New Hampshire before she moved to Westmoreland in 2002 to be near her children.
Ray's husband, Walter, died in 1967. Survivors include two sons, eight grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and five great-great grandchildren.
Morris, the Iowa woman now believed to be the oldest U.S. resident, lives at a care center. Only one of her four children, a son in Sioux City, is still alive.
"She has some hearing deficiencies and a visual deficiency, but mentally she is quite alert and will respond when she feels like it and isn't too tired," said her 90-year-old son-in-law Tom Wickersham, who lives the same care center.
Wickersham said he visits his mother-in-law — who plays bingo and enjoys singing "You Are My Sunshine" — nearly every day.
"You can put aside any of those typical mother-in-law jokes," Wickersham said. "When I visit her, I spend probably at least a half an hour with her on a daily basis that involves as much conversation as you'd share, the usual things, the weather."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmd_g-k6A88&NR=1

Processes of Development

Developmental processes are influenced by many factors--some inherited and some not. Furthermore, these factors act in different ways, some enabling a process to occur, some initiating the developmental change, others merely facilitating the process and yet others maintaining a character once it has developed. The influences on development may have outcomes that range from the highly specific to those that are general. Glossary Brian stem The central trunk of the mammalian brain, consisting of the medulla oblongata, pons and midbrain. Cerebellum The part of the brain at the back of the skull that coordinates and regulates muscular activity. Cerebrum The principal part of the brain, located in the front area of the skull and consisting of left and right hemispheres. Cortex The outer, folded layer of the cerebrum. It plays an important role in consciousness. Genotype The genetic constitution of an individual organism. Ontogeny The branch of biology concerned with the development of an individual organism, or anatomical or behavioural feature, from the earliest stage to maturity. Phenotype The observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment. The variety of factors influencing the course of development is well illustrated by the age at which kittens open their eyes. Under normal rearing conditions, the time of eye-opening varies considerably between individuals, ranging between two and 16 days after birth. A considerable amount of this variation was explained by four factors: the father's identity (paternity), exposure to light, the kitten's sex and the age of the mother. Dark-reared kittens opened their eyes earlier than normally-reared kittens; kittens of young mothers opened their eyes earlier than those of older mothers; and female kittens opened their eyes earlier than males. The number of siblings (litter size) and kittens' growth rate were not related to the time of eye-opening. Of all the factors influencing eye-opening, the one which explained most variance was paternity, indicating a strong genetic effect. The expression of many genes depends upon prevailing conditions, and the conditions necessary for the expression of a particular gene may not occur in the case of any one individual possessing them. On the other hand, under most conditions of the environment and with most background genotypes, the actions of certain genes may invariably be detectable in the adult phenotype. Examples of both types are found in the genes affecting coat coloration in domestic cats, about which much is known. Relatively little research has been done on genetic influences on the behaviour of domestic cats. Some strains of cats, bred for particular coat characteristics, have developed other peculiarities. Blue-eyed white cats, for example, are usually deaf, while in some lines females display unusual timidity and abnormal sexual behaviour. In Siamese cats, the visual system develops abnormally, with a disrupted pattern of crossing-over of neural projections from the retina to the lateral geniculate nuclei. Although the Siamese cat's deficit is a single enzyme (tyrosinase), the effects on its nervous system are non-specific, even though the adaptive plasticity of the cat's visual system allows the Siamese to develop almost normal visual abilities. Cat breeders regard temperament as important and have successfully selected for good nature in a relatively small number of generations. Friendliness to humans is affected in part by the characteristics of the father, whom the kittens may never encounter. This aspect of their behaviour must, therefore, be inherited, but further details of the mechanism have not yet been worked out. Friendliness to humans is also greatly affected by early socialisation. Siamese cats In 1884 the departing British Consul-General Gould was given a Siamese cat by the Siamese king as a farewell gift, and considered it a great honour as the cat came from those bred in the palace by the royal family. This cat's progeny were so unusual that they received masses of attention back in Britain, and they quickly became popular. The Traditional Siamese cat is a large cat with a stocky body and round or apple-shaped head, large eyes, strong, sturdy legs and a medium length tail. Its coat is short but thick and plush like velvet. In the 1960s this type began to lose favour and breeders developed the strain known as Modern Siamese. Moderns have fine bones, a long tubular body, long tail, long neck, long head, long legs and a wedge-shaped head. The body is covered by a short silky coat that is relatively thin and does not provide much insulation outdoors. Modern Siamese are more prone to illness and shorter lived than the Traditional variety. A third type, the Classic Siamese, is a blend of the two extremes. Socialisation and other long-term influences on behaviour are often restricted to early stages in the life-cycle, usually referred to as 'sensitive periods'. Within a limited age range during which particular events are especially likely to have long-term effects on the individual's development (Bateson P. & Martin P., Design for a Life: How Behaviour Develops, 1999). An older term, 'critical period', was abandoned because it implied a sharply defined phase of susceptibility preceded and followed by a complete lack of susceptibility. The supposition was that if the relevant experiences were provided before or after the period, no long-term effects would be detectable. Experimental studies of imprinting in birds showed that the period was not so sharply defined and the term 'sensitive period' or 'sensitive phase' is therefore preferred by most behavioural biologists. The sensitive period concept implies a stage of greater susceptibility preceded and followed by lower sensitivity with gradual transitions. An example of a sensitive period that has been studied in depth is the development of visual cells in the cat's cortex. The response properties of neurons in the visual cortex are modified by visual experience during early development. Thus, certain types of visual deprivation--such as exposing kittens only to visual contours of one orientation--can exert long-term effects on the properties of the visual system. Undoubtedly, the brain shows plasticity early in life which is not found later. Armand & Kably ('Critical timing of sensorimotor cortex lesions for the recovery of motor-skills in the ceveloping cat,' in Experimental Brain Research, vol. 93, pp. 73-88, 1993) studied forelimb movements and motor skills in adult cats to determine the effects of damage inflicted to one side of the brain at different postnatal ages. In complex tasks, the ability to achieve the goal with the affected limb decreased with increasing age at lesion. Recovery of skills involving grasping and wrist rotation, for example, did not occur in animals operated on after the 23rd postnatal day. The age of brain damage after which recovery remains possible depends on the skills involved. It is likely to be linked to the stage at which the critical systems involved in the skill normally develop. Early handling has a number of effects on the behavioural and physical development of cats, the handled animals tending on the whole to develop more rapidly. In one study, Siamese kittens that were held and lightly stroked daily for the first few week of life were precocious in their physical and behavioural development compared with unhandled littermates. They opened their eyes earlier, emerged from their nest box for the first time earlier and even developed the characteristic Siamese coat coloration earlier than their littermates. In another study, kittens handled for five minutes per day from birth to 45 days of age approached strange toys and humans more readily, but were slower to learn an avoidance task than unhandled kittens. Both results were attributed to a general reduction in fearfulness resulting from the early handling. The precise effects of early handling on kittens' development are likely to depend on a variety of factors, including the number of different people who handle the kitten, and the frequency and duration of handling. The quality of early nutrition is another factor with general effects on development. Several studies have found that kittens of undernourished mothers subsequently exhibit a variety of behavioural and growth abnormalities. In one case, mother cats were fed 50 percent of their ad libitum intake during the second half of the gestation period and the first six weeks after birth (Smith, B.A. & Jansen, G.R. 'Brain development in the feline,' in Nutrition Reports International, vol. 16, pp. 487-95, 1977). These undernourished mothers showed less active mothering than normal and were more irritable towards their kittens. Their kittens showed growth deficits in some brain regions (cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem), although their overall brain composition was not affected. The undernourished kittens were 'rehabilitated' with ad libitum access to food from six weeks of onwards, and eventually achieved normal body size. However, they showed a number of behavioural abnormalities and differences in brain development later in ontogeny. At four months, for example, they had more accidents during free play and performed poorly on several behavioural tests. Males showed more aggressive social play than controls, while females did less climbing and more random running. A wide variety of behavioural and physical abnormalities are found in kittens whose mothers have been restricted to 50 percent of normal food intake throughout gestation. Delays were apparent in many measures of early behavioural development, including posture, crawling, suckling, eye-opening, walking, running, play and climbing. Predatory and exploratory behaviour were also delayed in development. In terms of both physical growth and behaviour the greatest effects of early undernutrition tended to show up later in ontogeny. Growth stunting, for example, did not become apparent until well after weaning, while the greatest delays in behavioural development tended to be in late-appearing behaviour patterns, particularly those requiring a high degree of motor coordination. Kittens of undernourished mothers showed poorer learning ability, antisocial behaviour towards other cats and heightened emotionality, characterised by abnormal levels of fear and aggression. Despite nutritional rehabilitation, some of these developmental delays, learning deficits and emotional abnormalities persisted into the next generation, albeit in a less severe form. A related factor producing comparable general effects on development is maternal malnutrition. Kittens of mothers fed on a low-protein diet during late gestation and lactation showed a variety of behavioural abnormalities (Gallo, P.V., Werboff, J. & Knox, R., 'Development of home orientation of protein-restricted cats,' in Developmental Psychobiology, vol. 17, pp. 437-49, 1984). The kittens lost balance more often, indicating possible abnormalities in their motor development. Not surprisingly, social interactions between mothers and kittens were also affected by maternal malnutrition, with kittens generally showing fewer social interactions with their mothers and poorer attachment, as assessed by separation experiments.

Can everyone please submit your answers ?

This is partly why this contest is running slowly, for all of you who say it's my fault -- submit your answers and then we'll get moving.

The deadline is March 12th; I'm sick and tired of people taking forever on their submissions.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f87/13/67/77/07/fm_rev11.png

feat. Christina Aguilera

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THESE ARE THE UNKOWN USERS
ROLL,OVA,AND,BEG
SPAKY
MASTER4EVA
DIDI 476

http://www.fujiplanet.net/other-games-f24/stunt-dirt-bike-t4083.htm#118836

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxRX4zUwmjA

boldboldbold

If you could spend one night with any man or woman, real or imaginary, dead or alive, who would it be and why? Where would you be? What would you do? =)

http://www.fujiplanet.net/other-games-f24/mini-putt-t4115.htm#119274

I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them fall away Mildewed and smoldering Fundamental differing Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers souls in motion Disintegrating as it goes testing our communication The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us So We cannot seem to reach an end crippling our communication I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them tumble down No fault, none to blame it doesn't mean I don't desire to Point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication The poetry that comes from the squaring off between, And the circling is worth it Finding beauty in the dissonance There was a time that the pieces fit, but I watched them fall Away Mildewed and smoldering, strangled by our coveting I've done the math enough to know the dangers of our second Guessing Doomed to crumble unless we grow, and strengthen our Communication Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion Between supposed lovers Between supposed lovers I know the pieces fit I know the pieces fit I know the pieces fit I know the pieces fit I know the pieces fit I know the pieces fit I know the pieces fit I know the pieces fit

https://s410.photobucket.com/albums/pp181/Skweekers/?action=view&current=eye.jpg

if youre not a MILF disconnect now

- Look Up in Da Stars

A fat lady eating pudding spaghetti

http://www.fujiplanet.net/off-topic-f31/it-s-rainin-bloodagain-t4118.htm#119458

I'M NOT ASL GODDAMMIT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW4oIU_JJZ8