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Most of us know Ricky Gervais as that rather amusing man who used to star in The Office, the acerbic former host of the Golden Globes, one of the world's greatest standup comedians, or even as the entertainment world's most outspoken atheist.
It turns out that he's also an animal lover. In the video above, he makes a pitch for stopping the use of animal tests in cosmetics.
You have to agree with him—it's pretty stupid to kill a creature just so people can have a slightly better aroma in their shampoo.
Adding fuel to an argument that will never, ever end, the Journal of British Medicine has published a Canadian study this week concluding that bike helmet laws do roughly fuck all to reduce head injuries.
That’s not to say that the helmet itself doesn’t reduce the risk of head injury, as noted by researchers at the University of Toronto.
“… in the Canadian context of existing safety campaigns, improvements to the cycling infrastructure, and the passive uptake of helmets, the incremental contribution of provincial helmet legislation to reduce hospital admissions for head injuries seems to have been minimal.”
Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut–turned–Internet superstar, returned to Earth Monday (May 13) after five months aboard the International Space Station.
Sadly, this brings to an end his series of entertaining and educational videos about life in space. We are, however, left with a rich archive, thanks to the Canadian Space Agency’s YouTube page.
Here’s a selection of Hadfield’s best clips.
Exercising
Without gravity and daily exercise such as walking, astronauts need to work out for about two hours every day to keep their muscles and bones healthy. While strapped in, Hadfield runs on a treadmill and works his muscles.
Angelina Jolie was already a role model for many women for her humanitarian work in the developing world.
Not long ago, the film star was visiting Syrian refugees who had crossed the border to flee a civil war.
Now, she's gaining praise around the world for her courageous decision to go public with her preventive double mastectomy.
In an article in today's New York Times, Jolie writes that her doctors estimated her breast-cancer risk at 87 percent and her risk of ovarian cancer at 50 percent.
For a man who commandeers the stage at major fashion shows and then boldly proclaims himself a diety in the vein of Vishnu, Allah, Jehovah, and Raluvhimba, Kanye West doesn't exactly seem like anyone's idea of all-seeing.
Earlier this week, he was entertaining the masses at the Met Ball in New York for the high-profile Punk: Chaos to Coutoure gala. West debuted a song that, while it didn't have a name, did contain a line that some would consider minor blasphemy. As a backing track made a sound like Skrillex caught in a Nine Inch Nails meat-grinder, West stood there bellowing "I am God".
NDP leaks memos The NDP has obtained memos showing that staff in the premier's office worked during government hours to enhance the B.C. Liberals' electoral chance in the Port Moody-Coquitlam by-election.
The Vancouver International Children’s Festival presents PEP Talks, a new speaker series aimed at giving parents solutions for raising millennial children. Vancouver-based Deborah MacNamara is the third speaker in the series, and on May 15, she will be giving a talk titled, “The Lost Art of Play” at the Vancouver Playhouse (600 Hamilton Street).
The Lost Art of Play looks at the importance of play and discusses how playtime helps develop a child’s brain. “Children who lack environments that foster play actually have brains that are 20 to 30 percent less developed in capacity,” MacNamara states in a news release.
AIDS Vancouver announced on Tuesday (May 7) that for its 30th anniversary, it will launch an extensive video campaign that will provide a retrospective of the past 30 years of the HIV movement in Vancouver.
The videos will feature 38 community leaders. Doctors, nurses, scientists, advocates, families, and more will talk about their experiences and memories to tell the story of the battle against AIDS and HIV in Vancouver, from the onset of the epidemic to where we are now.
Among the participants are Dr. Julio Montaner of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, AIDS Vancouver founding member and former city councillor Gordon Price, and former City of Vancouver Chief Public Health Office Dr. John Blatherwick.
Asian Heritage Month is just around the corner.
So for all those Chinese Canadians who don't speak much or any Mandarin or Cantonese but are thinking of delving into their own family heritage, you might want to consider how complicated things can trying to simply learn the proper terms for different relatives.
Here's the Mandarin version.
And here it is in Cantonese.
Now that is one complicated family tree.
In this world of shrinking newspapers, it seems almost anything is possible.
Case in point: journalism whistle-blower Jim Romanesko has revealed that a former fake Thomson Reuters reporter has re-emerged after being killed by her editors.
Michelle Boatley was once a prolific writer in Australian Legal Business, according to Romanesko.
She was, in fact, an invention of the editors because the bosses wanted to convey that the publication had more staff members.
