Gangnam Style passes 1 Billion views

Haters of Justin Bieber, rejoice! First came the overtaking, now PSY's hugely (and somewhat strangely) popular 'Gangnam Style' has become the first video in YouTube history to pass the sacred one billion mark. This comes less than a month after it became the most watched YouTube video ever.

As of December 22nd, 2012, it has received 1.01 billion hits and has been viewed at the rate of 8-10 million views per day. The song has topped the charts in over 30 countries and continues to do exceptionally well. Gangnam Style was predicted by analysts to reach the billion mark in December, proving not all predictions are entirely false. (December 21st, we're looking at you...)

It is estimated that Gangnam Style has generated £5 million through online success alone. This figure is only going to increase until the song is exhausted to its last legs and put to rest - a day many are praying for.

Labrador Saves Owners Life.

Paul McKenzie, who has diabetes and a condition that affects his nervous system, owes his life to his assistance dog Millie after the animal alerted paramedics when she found her owner collapsed at home in Derrington, Staffs. His blood sugars had plummeted to dangerously low levels.

The 47-year old has an emergency button installed at home, which Millie will press on command if he needs help. But amazingly, the black Labrador pressed the button of her own accord when she found her owner unconscious - incredibly, seeming to understand that pushing the button meant help would arrive. Paramedics rushed Mr McKenzie to Stafford hospital, where doctors battled to get his sugar levels back up. He has since made a full recovery but credits Millie with saving his life.

"Millie is my very own Lassie. She saved my life and if it wasn't for her I wouldn't be here now," he said.

Shop Worker Attacks Armed Robber!

Footage captured on the surveillance cameras of G&B Grocery Store in Spokane, Washington shows an armed man entering the shop with his face covered, then pointing a gun at customers.

Kulwant Singh, who was behind the register, began taking money out of the till, but his brother Bittu Singh, who also works in the shop, ran towards the man. The armed man fired a shot, which hit the floor, then attempted to flee the shop, but Bittu Singh tackled him to the ground, then held him down, with the help of his brother and a customer, until police arrived. The man has been charged with one count of robbery and six counts of assault.

What? You're Still Reading This? So Much For 2012...

The people of this very planet, breathe a sigh of relief (or for some embarrassment). The cataclysmic, apocalyptic day that was the 21st of December, 2012 turned out to be a load of hot air, much to the benefit of humankind. Clearly though, fear clenched much of the population as uncertainty lead many to believe there was something we were not being told.

December 21st signifies the end of the Mayan calendar; marking the end of an era. Unfortunately, something must have got lost in translation as immediately panic arose. This was despite the fact that the end of the world has been predicted on numerous occasions since the dawn of time - needless to say none were correct. Theories on how the earth could have met it's inevitable doom included a collision with a meteor or planet, a solar storm, switching of the poles and countless other arguments mainly created by people wanting to get themselves famous.

The human race lives on for another year - at least until the next 'end of the world' drives more into a unnecessary state of insomnia. A dark glimpse into the future suggests this may be as early as May 19th, 2013, according to Ronald Weinland, although this is much less supported than 2012. A more scientific and positive approach may be the year 5,000,000,000. At this time the sun will stop it's development and swell into a red giant - never good news for a planet. Human life is a different story, earth will apparently be uninhabitable by the year 1,000,000,000 due to the intense heat. As for the fate of the universe, that lies in the year 10 to the power of 100. This is known as heat death, widely accepted as the end of the universe. It will put the universe into a state where it would be impossible to sustain any life.

So, on a more positive note, the end of the world shouldn't happen in our lifetimes. Or even somebody else's lifetime. Stop worrying and get on with your lives!

Carrots this Christmas.

Factories are worried that most people's Christmas dinners will be ruined because carrots, one of the main vegetables are not plentiful because of this year's weather.

The carrots have been either frozen, had too much water or not enough fertiliser. So, you may not have a proper Christmas dinner.

McDonald's Waitress Wins £3,000 Compensation For Being Fired.

Sarah Finch, 19, was fired for giving extra chocolate topping to a workmate on a 99p McFlurry.

Miss Finch took the McDonald's restaurant to an employment tribunal after her bosses accused her of giving away food without payment. The unfair dismissal claim was settled out of court and she was awarded more than £3,000 in compensation. Miss Finch said in a statement: "I was dismissed on the grounds of gross misconduct. I was accused of stealing food.

"The matter was trivial, in that I provided a fellow employee, who was purchasing a dessert, a generous sprinkling of chocolate pieces."

Lucky British Students Get To Test Super Cool Interactive Desks!

A group of lucky 8-10 year olds have been involved in a super-exciting experiment - To see if replacing traditional pencil and paper with hi-tech interactive desks would help improve their math skills! The children have been using the interesting technology for 3 years.  But before we tell you the result, let’s talk about the new desks…

 Britain’s Durham University and SynergyNet research projects thought of the product and aimed at enhancing classroom learning through technology, it involved 400 students across 12 schools in North East Britain. The interactive desks were fitted with interesting software that responded to touch-based commands enabled by vision systems that could detect infrared light. The teacher obviously needs to see the work that the children have done so, the desks were wired to a Smart Board, which allowed the teacher to assign math problems for the students to solve solo or as a group.

 

That’s not all; the interactive board gets better... The educator could interactively assign different problems to different groups and send one group's answer to another, to see if they agreed. Also, a smart feed provided the educator with instant feedback, which enabled him/her to assist students that were struggling with a concept, while allowing the rest of the group to continue forging ahead. Plus, if the whole class are having problems…  The teacher could simply post it on the whiteboard and explain it to them at the same time. Though the study was used exclusively for math, the desks could easily be used to teach other subjects as well.
 

As a result after looking at the desks, they revealed what most of you could have predicted by simply looking at the desks - 45% of the test students improved their math skills as opposed to just 16% when the same lessons were taught using traditional methods.

But don’t throw your pen and pencil away just yet because… these desks are not about to come to your school anytime soon. This is because it’s new and cool, also they are currently too expensive to go mainstream and they take a lot of time to set up. Even though 400 lucky students were able to keep theirs as a reward for taking part in this rather 'grueling' study!