Firstborns smarter than younger siblings

Firstborn children are smarter than their younger brothers and sisters, according to a Norwegian study published in Science. In families with two or more children, the IQ of the oldest child is, on average, two points higher than that of the second child (103.2 versus 101.2). Children with two older siblings score an average of 100 points on an IQ test. The scientists who performed the study think that the elder children get an intelligence boost from helping and caring for their younger kin.

In other news, an American couple seems to have fallen off a roof while having sex. A taxi driver found them dead and naked, and a quick search revealed their clothes on the roof of a nearby building. They must both have had a lot of older brothers and sisters.

Gorilla breaks free, wreaks havoc

Next time you’re in the zoo looking at the gorillas, you may want to refrain from looking into their eyes. Also, make sure there are no kids nearby throwing pebbles at the gorillas. The combinations of those two events probably got an adult male gorilla greatly enraged last Friday in a Rotterdam zoo. He escaped from his den to assault the woman looking at him, injuring her severely.

From CNN:

A 400-pound gorilla escaped from his enclosure and ran amok in a Rotterdam zoo Friday, biting one woman, dragging her around, and causing panic among dozens of visitors before he was finally subdued, officials and a witness said.

The Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo was evacuated and the 11-year-old gorilla, named Bokito, was eventually contained in a restaurant within the park, police spokeswoman Yvette de Rave said.

Four people were injured, including the woman who was bitten, zoo director Ton Dorrestijn said.

Bokito was shot with a sedative dart and recaptured, said zoo spokeswoman Lilian Jonkers, but she couldn’t say what his condition was. It was not immediately clear how he managed to climb the high stone walls surrounding his enclosure.

“He got over the moat, which in itself is remarkable, because gorillas can’t swim,” Dorrestijn said. “He got onto a path for visitors and started running and went at full speed through tables and diners at the Oranje restaurant.”

A witness, Robert de Jonge, told NOS radio that he didn’t see the gorilla escape but began following it and tried to help after he saw people running and screaming that the animal had grabbed a woman.

“I saw the beast running through the park with a woman behind him, him grabbing her forearm,” De Jonge said.

At a distance of around 30 yards, he saw the gorilla lie down near the woman and then heard her scream.

“He bit her, or I think he bit her, because when he stood up his mouth was covered in blood,” De Jonge said.

He said he then stopped to tell arriving police what had happened and ran with them as they traced the gorilla to a nearby restaurant terrace.

The zoo was packed with visitors as many Dutch took advantage of a national holiday Thursday to make a long weekend.

“Everyone was in panic, running away, screaming, wailing, screaming kids running around, I don’t know what all, kids without parents — it was a total drama,” De Jonge said.

Children cowered in their parents’ arms as the gorilla loped past.

People tried to hide inside the restaurant and were trying to bar the door, but fled as the gorilla approached, De Jonge said. Bokito then punched through the glass door and ran inside.

“They were all in panic — the animal, too, I mean — and all the people ran outside the restaurant, and zoo personnel were running up and they were able to keep the animal inside by barricading the doors with garden furniture and things,” he said.

De Jonge said he later saw the woman “covered in blood,” but walking unaided.

As horrible as all of that is, the woman did have it coming. She was a very frequent visitor of the zoo, and claimed to have a special bond with Bokito in particular. She often looked and smiled at him, and the ape would “smile” back at her. Unfortunately, gorillas don’t smile–they snarl. To Bokito, the looks and smiles were threatening and in his own way, he’d warned the woman numerous times to stop. He can’t really be blamed for her not understanding.

The Dutch weblog GeenStijl.nl has a video of the woman interacting with Bokito some time ago. Watching that, it’s no surprise the gorilla did what he did.

Canal car

As I got home from baseball practice tonight, I was surprised to find a rather large crowd gathered in my street, pretty much right in front of my house. Parked amongst the people were two tow trucks, a police motorcycle and a van from the fire brigade. Before I could get worried, though, I noticed the collective attention was focused on the canal across the street from my neighbours’ place. A car had gotten into the canal from the other side and had floated over to my side before settling on the bottom. The two truck people and some divers from the fire brigade were just busy pulling it out again.

No one was inside when the car went down. Most likely the owner had forgotten to apply the hand brake, or it had somehow failed. The parking spaces across the canal face the water, are slightly slanted, and there’s no fence or anything. Gravity, apparently, was happy to do the rest.

The owner watched quietly as his vehicle slowly resurfaced and was lifted onto one of the tow trucks. He didn’t seem too upset at his loss. In fact, when one of the onlookers thanked him for letting something happen on an otherwise quiet night, he managed to maintain a sense of humour. I hope someone also thanked him for a reminder to us all to always check the hand brake when parking on an inclination.

[Update (April 13th, 2007): The picture below, copied from news site nu.nl, shows the situation some time prior to my arrival. A police officer makes a valiant attempt to keep the car from submerging. His efforts were in vain, though, since the car was completely drowned when I got there.

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Master criminal in Leiden

Master criminal Willem Holleeder is in Leiden’s university hospital (Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum) for surgery on a leaking heart valve. The police have erected tight security measures to keep him in and unwanted visitors out. The former kidnapper of Freddy Heineken (then president of the Heineken beer breweries) is currently on trial for extortion, leadership of a criminal organization, money laundering, five cases of physical assault, involvement in an attempted murder, and probably a bunch of smaller charges. However, due to Holleeder’s acute heart problems, the court proceedings have been put on hold until further notice.

The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. I’m glad I’m not one of his doctors… I’m not sure I could treat someone who has done such awful things.

411

I was reading a book yesterday where the protagonist arrives in London with only 4 shillings and 11 pence in his pocket. Later on, he notices an address: 411, South Tower Street. Later still, he gets in a car and finds the odometer standing at 10,411 miles. Obviously, he begins to ponder the significance of the number 411, but being unable to find any logical connection between the coins in his pocket, an address and a car’s mileage, he chalks the occurences up to mere coincidence.

Of course this is a book, so there is no coincidence whatsoever. The writer just put those numbers in to amuse the readers. Or did he? Might there be some hidden significance to this number after all?

I woke up last night to go to the bathroom. As I turned over to check the time, I was stunned to see my alarm clock reading 4.11am. And guess what date it is today? Right: April 11th, or 4/11 in the US notation.

It’s a weird place we live in.

Javelin toss

US vs. Europe

A common belief among Europeans is that Americans know very little of Europe and its countries, and what they know is probably wrong. As the popular Dutch weblog GeenStijl put it, Americans think that the Netherlands is a part of Sweden, inhabited by wooden-shoes-wearing, German-talking, French-fries-eating Danes. Europeans, on the other hand, know everything about the US. They know all the former presidents (in chronological order) and can list the names and capitals of the fifty states.

Right? Ehm… nope.

GeenStijl linked to a website where you get ten minutes to name all fifty US states. I got 27 of them, not because I ran out of time, but because I couldn’t remember the other 23. (Even though I had seen the full list a few months ago.)

Of course, we can do the same for European countries. There are fifty-two of them, so I’ll give you an extra 24 seconds. Good luck! (And be sure to put your score for both games in the comments below.)

A bridge too far

A girl on a cell phone: “No, I’m already in Leiden. I’m right at this bridge.” Well, there are only a hundred or so bridges in Leiden, so I’m sure that’s a helpful comment.

On another topic, what happened to all the canned mandarin oranges? I need a can for a witloof (a.k.a. Belgian endive or chicon) salad I’m making tomorrow, but both of the nearby supermarkets were sold out.

Birdies

There was a huge flock of birds over my house as I got home from work… and they lingered around just long enough for me to grab my camera and shoot two pictures.

I’m not sure what they were doing. If birds come by in these numbers, it’s typically because they are migrating. Given the time of year, that would mean they were on their way back home from the south. The thing is, though, they took off towards the south.

Slanted

Just taking advantage of a video my brother found…