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POPSVenetia Phair dies at 90; as a girl, she named Pluto Her grandfather was Falconer Madan, the retired librarian of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. He relayed the suggestion to his friend Herbert Hall Turner, professor of astronomy at Oxford, who on that day was at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, where possible names for the planet were being discussed. Turner then passed on the suggestion to Clyde W. Tombaugh, who made the discovery at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. When the name was publicly announced May 1, 1930, Phair said her grandfather rewarded her with a five-pound note. (The same purchasing power today would be about 230 pounds, or $350.) "This was unheard of then. As a grandfather, he liked to have an excuse for generosity," she told the BBC in 2006.
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POPS"The Run For The Roses"
Because the winner gets a blanket of 554 red roses after the race. Whether a horse would rather receive a more practical gift, like some oats or a lump of delicious sugar, is up for debate, but the garland has become a beloved tradition. The practice springs from Derby parties Louisville's socialites threw in the early days of the race. Each lady would receive a red rose at the parties, and when Churchill Downs' president Colonel Lewis Clark saw their popularity, he made the rose the race's official flower. According to the Derby's organizers, 1896 Derby winner Ben Brush received the first garland of roses, and in 1925 journalist Bill Corum coined the term "Run for the Roses." The first blanket of roses like the one used today was awarded to the victorious Burgoo King in 1932. The modern garland is topped with a "crown," a single upturned rose that signifies the struggle a winner must endure. Since 1996, each winner's garland has been immediately freeze-dried for posterity.
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POPS Suffragettes: 90th anniversary of voting rights Emily Davison died after she stepped out in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby of 1913. Many of her fellow suffragettes were imprisoned and went on hunger strikes, during which they were restrained and forcibly fed (see Force-feeding) and had reached the height of their campaign by 1912. Political movement towards women's suffrage began during the war and in 1918, the UK Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act 1918 granting the vote to women over 30 who were: householders; the wives of householders; occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5; and graduates of British universities. The right to vote of American women was codified in the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920. In 1928, women finally achieved suffrage on the same terms as men in the UK.
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POPSChristian Academy Science Fair Winners Named Christian Academies shouldn't have science fairs. Can you tell me with a straight face that these kids are getting a quality education? It's one thing for this to be an entry in the fair, but it's completely absurd that it won! I think we found a future president.
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POPSDIY Massage First of all there is something strangely erotic about this whole diy massage. Second I don't know if I'm comfortable giving myself a nude massage. I'm sure I'll have to insist that I wear some clothing so that I don't get uncomfortable with myself.
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POPSElephants Have An Achilles' Heel, And It's Their Feet
"An elephant foot looks stumpy, but, as one expert has written, it is "a masterful piece of evolutionary development." Elephants, in fact, walk on tiptoe, with soft, wedgie soles for support. In zoos, though, elephants stand around a lot. They get fat. Their nails grow. When a fat, long-nailed elephant takes a step on concrete, its nails can crack. Water or waste seeping into the cracks can infect the toes. If the infection reaches bone, the elephant is done for. Twenty years ago, in Atlanta, Mr. Theison briefly had charge of an elephant whose feet were so diseased that the only comfort he could offer was an epsom-salts soak. "That was neglect," he says. "If an elephant Tash's age has foot problems, then that elephant's in the care of somebody who doesn't know about elephants." But on foot-care know-how, aficionados hotly disagree. The call for a federal elephant-foot regulation first came from a California group called In Defense of Animals (also active on fur coats and foie gra
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POPSWandering River For decades, or even centuries, rivers can seem a permanent fixture in the landscape. In reality, they are very dynamic and can wander off course. Many of the problems in Lousiana have come from the fact that the Mississippi is artificially trapped and cannot move to replenish the marshes.
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