Sunday, December 18, 2022

Links - 18th December 2022 (1)

Dozens of major cancer studies can't be replicated - "After eight years, a project that tried to reproduce the results of key cancer biology studies has finally concluded. And its findings suggest that like research in the social sciences, cancer research has a replication problem.  Researchers with the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology aimed to replicate 193 experiments from 53 top cancer papers published from 2010 to 2012. But only a quarter of those experiments were able to be reproduced... The researchers couldn’t complete the majority of experiments because the team couldn’t gather enough information from the original papers or their authors about methods used, or obtain the necessary materials needed to attempt replication. What’s more, of the 50 experiments from 23 papers that were reproduced, effect sizes were, on average, 85 percent lower than those reported in the original experiments...   Some researchers were outright hostile to the idea that independent scientists wanted to attempt to replicate their work, says Brian Nosek, executive director at the Center for Open Science and a coauthor on both studies. That attitude is a product of a research culture that values innovation over replication, and that prizes the academic publish-or-perish system over cooperation and data sharing...   Even authors who wanted to help couldn’t always share their data for various reasons, including lost hard drives or intellectual property restrictions or data that only former graduate students had.  Calls from some experts about science’s “reproducibility crisis” have been growing for years, perhaps most notably in psychology (SN: 8/27/18). Then in 2011 and 2012, pharmaceutical companies Bayer and Amgen reported difficulties in replicating findings from preclinical biomedical research...   Ultimately, if science is to be a self-correcting discipline, there needs to be plenty of opportunities not only for making mistakes but also for discovering those mistakes, including by replicating experiments"

Jet suit paramedic tested in the Lake District 'could save lives' - "A jet suit for paramedics which would see patients reached in minutes by a "flying" medic has been tested by the Great North Air Ambulance Service... He said it meant a paramedic could "fly" to a fell top in 90 seconds rather than taking 30 minutes on foot"

Expats in Singapore opt for co-living as ‘red hot’ rents rise by up to 40 per cent - "In co-living spaces, multiple unrelated people share common facilities but have their own bedrooms"

Polish institute classifies cats as alien invasive species - "A respected Polish scientific institute has classified domestic cats as an “invasive alien species,” citing the damage they cause to birds and other wildlife.  Some cat lovers have reacted emotionally to this month’s decision and put the key scientist behind it on the defensive.  Wojciech Solarz, a biologist at the state-run Polish Academy of Sciences, wasn’t prepared for the disapproving public response when he entered “Felis catus,” the scientific name for the common house cat, into a national database run by the academy’s Institute of Nature Conservation.  The database already had 1,786 other species listed with no objections... Solarz described the growing scientific consensus that domestic cats have a harmful impact on biodiversity given the number of birds and mammals they hunt and kill... As far as categorizing cats as “alien,” the institute noted that “Felis catus” was domesticated probably around 10,000 years ago in the cradle of the great civilizations of the ancient Middle East, making the species alien to Europe from a strictly scientific point of view."
Some anti-woke guy was very upset about the fact that cats harm native wildlife, and had some marvelous cope about it, and almost everyone else was bashing him for his ignorance

A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal. - The New York Times - "Mark noticed something amiss with his toddler. His son’s penis looked swollen and was hurting him. Mark, a stay-at-home dad in San Francisco, grabbed his Android smartphone and took photos to document the problem so he could track its progression... With help from the photos, the doctor diagnosed the issue and prescribed antibiotics, which quickly cleared it up. But the episode left Mark with a much larger problem, one that would cost him more than a decade of contacts, emails and photos, and make him the target of a police investigation. Mark, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of potential reputational harm, had been caught in an algorithmic net designed to snare people exchanging child sexual abuse material... “There could be tens, hundreds, thousands more of these”... He filled out a form requesting a review of Google’s decision, explaining his son’s infection. At the same time, he discovered the domino effect of Google’s rejection. Not only did he lose emails, contact information for friends and former colleagues, and documentation of his son’s first years of life, his Google Fi account shut down, meaning he had to get a new phone number with another carrier. Without access to his old phone number and email address, he couldn’t get the security codes he needed to sign in to other internet accounts, locking him out of much of his digital life.  “The more eggs you have in one basket, the more likely the basket is to break,” he said... A few days after Mark filed the appeal, Google responded that it would not reinstate the account, with no further explanation.  Mark didn’t know it, but Google’s review team had also flagged a video he made and the San Francisco Police Department had already started to investigate him. The day after Mark’s troubles started, the same scenario was playing out in Texas. A toddler in Houston had an infection in his “intimal parts,” wrote his father in an online post that I stumbled upon while reporting out Mark’s story. At the pediatrician’s request, Cassio, who also asked to be identified only by his first name, used an Android to take photos, which were backed up automatically to Google Photos. He then sent them to his wife via Google’s chat service. Cassio was in the middle of buying a house, and signing countless digital documents, when his Gmail account was disabled. He asked his mortgage broker to switch his email address, which made the broker suspicious until Cassio’s real estate agent vouched for him.  “It was a headache”... When Mark’s and Cassio’s photos were automatically uploaded from their phones to Google’s servers, this technology flagged them. Jon Callas of the E.F.F. called the scanning intrusive, saying a family photo album on someone’s personal device should be a “private sphere.” (A Google spokeswoman said the company scans only when an “affirmative action” is taken by a user; that includes when the user’s phone backs up photos to the company’s cloud.)  “This is precisely the nightmare that we are all concerned about,” Mr. Callas said. “They’re going to scan my family album, and then I’m going to get into trouble.”... In 2021, the CyberTipline reported that it had alerted authorities to “over 4,260 potential new child victims.” The sons of Mark and Cassio were counted among them... “I determined that the incident did not meet the elements of a crime and that no crime occurred,” Mr. Hillard wrote in his report. The police had access to all the information Google had on Mark and decided it did not constitute child abuse or exploitation.  Mark asked if Mr. Hillard could tell Google that he was innocent so he could get his account back.  “You have to talk to Google,” Mr. Hillard said, according to Mark. “There’s nothing I can do.”  Mark appealed his case to Google again, providing the police report, but to no avail. After getting a notice two months ago that his account was being permanently deleted, Mark spoke with a lawyer about suing Google and how much it might cost.  “I decided it was probably not worth $7,000”... It could have been worse, she said, with a parent potentially losing custody of a child... After Cassio showed the detective his communications with the pediatrician, he was quickly cleared. But he, too, was unable to get his decade-old Google account back, despite being a paying user of Google’s web services. He now uses a Hotmail address for email, which people mock him for, and makes multiple backups of his data... A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions, even though law enforcement cleared the two men... “From Google’s perspective, it’s easier to just deny these people the use of their services,” she speculated. Otherwise, the company would have to resolve more difficult questions about “what’s appropriate behavior with kids and then what’s appropriate to photograph or not.”  Mark still has hope that he can get his information back. The San Francisco police have the contents of his Google account preserved on a thumb drive. Mark is now trying to get a copy. A police spokesman said the department is eager to help him."

Meme - northside Dairy Haven: "NOW HIRING NO WEIRDOS"
northside Dairy Haven: "NOW HIRING WEIRDOS OK NO CRYBABIES"

That's what he needs. : FunnyAnimals - *Orang Utan groping women's breasts*

Meme - "Yesterday I asked my 12-year-old son what other kids at school think about him having 2 dads. His response: They don't care but they don't like how I'm immune to "Yo Mama" jokes."
"Yo mama so ugly yo dad had to get a husband"

How TikTok users designed a better pill bottle for people with Parkinson's - "Choi's TikTok video, which shows his shaking hands trying to pluck a tiny pill from its bottle, has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. And it inspired an online community of tinkerers and designers to work together on a 3D-printed solution — an accessible, Parkinson's-friendly pill bottle."

Randi Weingarten admits to sharing fake list of 'banned' books: 'My bad' - "American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten admitted to sharing a false tweet claiming that certain books were banned in Florida on Sunday.   "I should have double checked before I retweeted this list. My bad. Looks like some of the books weren’t banned. Book bans are very real & dangerous," she said on Sunday. Weingarten included a screenshot of her original tweet, which said, "Books we have taught for generations!!!!!" The list, posted by an account called "Freesus Patriot," claimed that Florida has banned books such as, "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "A Wrinkle in Time." The account also tweeted that they would not reveal the source of the list."
Of course, only conservatives are uneducated and spread fake news, and teachers have no political agenda (despite loudly proclaiming that they do)

Bryan Griffin on Twitter - "The State of Florida has not banned To Kill a Mockingbird. In fact, Florida RECOMMENDS the book in 8th grade. (FL Standards linked, page 160). However, the book was banned by a progressive district in California, along with other classics, in 2020)... The best the left can do nowadays is try to make people think their own failures belong to someone else."

Meme - Abigail Howard @AbigalHoward: "So in my algebra class there was a student that decided to put an alt right meme on his assignment. This enraged me, I am looking to get him suspended" *Two Soyjaks Pointing*

Count Dankula on Twitter - "In discussions of reducing car dependency, one often hears, "What about people in remote rural areas?" And my gut instinct is -- people shouldn't be living there in the first place. The solution is to give them generous grants to relocate among other humans."
"I live in the countryside because I want to avoid people like this."

MPD whistleblower details alleged crime underreporting in the first interview - "A whistleblower from the D.C. Police Department is talking openly about the crime underreporting she says she’s witnessed inside the Metropolitan Police Department.  “I was surprised,” said MPD Sergeant Charlotte Djossou. “I didn’t want to believe it.”...   She claims D.C. police supervisors are ordering investigators to downgrade crime classifications form more serious crimes to less serious ones to make the city’s crime stats look better.   “The commanders and the captains get promoted, and they get awards, when the crime stats are low,” Djossou said...   At the time, Committee Chairman Charles Allen told the officers he was going to investigate their claims.  “My staff right here we’re going to make sure we get connected as well, so that we can follow up and get some information that you have, and we will have further conversations,” Councilmember Allen told Djossou at that meeting.  But almost two months later, Djossou said she hasn’t heard a word from Allen, or his office... Djossou says she first went to her supervisors to complain about crime underreporting in 2015 and claims she faced retaliation for coming forward, including poor reviews, longer shifts and missed promotions."
How to "prove" crime is going down

HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon:’ The One True King Wears a Cap, Not a Crown - WSJ - "Can George R.R. Martin help restore “Game of Thrones” to glory?   HBO is betting on the author as a guiding force as it finally launches a follow-up series to its biggest hit. The new show “House of the Dragon” is a test of the network’s high-stakes effort to establish its first bonafide franchise.   Mr. Martin, whose fantasy books established a mythology on par with J.R.R. Tolkien’s, is reasserting control of his material in the TV realm. Though he had a close hand in the formative seasons of “Game of Thrones,” people involved in the show said he grew frustrated by a lack of involvement in its final stretch. That’s when the plot of HBO’s eight-season adaptation passed the events published in his books, and headed toward a 2019 finale that left many viewers feeling as burned as Daenerys Targaryen’s victims in King’s Landing... The search for a “Game of Thrones” spinoff started in 2016 after the sixth season, when Messrs. Benioff and Weiss decided to close out the series, citing their plan to end it before the show passed its prime. HBO urged the showrunners to keep the blockbuster series rolling, but eventually agreed to finish with eight seasons. Mr. Martin, too, had fought the producers’ decision. “I was saying it needs to be 10 seasons at least and maybe 12, 13. I lost that one”...   “House of the Dragon” is derived from Mr. Martin’s 2018 book “Fire & Blood,” which is different from the main novels in his series. It’s an epoch-spanning history of the Targaryens, as recounted by various scribes.   That chronicle format gave “House of the Dragon” writers a detailed plot blueprint but with leeway to invent scenes and dialogue"

Woke Critics Don't Like New 'Game of Thrones,' 'House of the Dragon' - "The first season of the “Game of Thrones” prequel series “House of Dragon” earned a 68 out of 100 on Metacritic, an aggregator of film reviews.  For comparison, the panned final season of “Thrones” scored a 75. And the floor for a show of this magnitude is around 50. So, a 68 is every bit the D+ you received in high school.  There had been a time this poorest score would suggest a disappointing series. That’s hardly the case today. Aside from sports writers, no media group has a more prevalent disconnect with its audience than film/TV critics.  Reviewers allow their biases to blind them to the quality of a story. They rate a show based on the whiteness of the characters and subtle nods to modern American politics. “Yellowstone” is the most popular show on television, but critics say it’s not any good. These same critics rave about “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” a show that’s not any good...   A far-left outlet called Slant gave the season a failing grade of 38. The only positive Slant found is that the showrunners “[understood] that a prequel to Game of Thrones must be about the ruin that comes from following the sexist customs of male-led succession.”  How loathsome is that blurb?... An increased presence of Martin ensures less pandering to social media and focuses on historical fantasy tropes and patriarchy. Martin also serves as the EP of the series and handpicked showrunner, Ryan Condal, to follow his lead. “Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss — the true antagonist of “Game of Thrones” — aren’t around to tone down Martin’s vision this time.  There had been some signs HBO would woke up “House of the Dragon” by declaring disapproval of supposedly sexist scenes and recasting Martin’s characters to cut down on whiteness. But the shade from critics suggests the show kept the wokeness to a minimum."

This is what happened when an Australian city gave trees email addresses - "They provide shade and air to breathe. Not to mention an undeniable sense of grandeur. But would you ever write a letter to a tree?   Officials in Melbourne, Australia have discovered that for many, the answer is a resounding yes.   The Guardian's Oliver Milman reported that when they rolled out a program that assigned email addresses to trees. This was in a bid to help identify damage and issues. But what was discovered was that city residents preferred to write them love letters instead... instead of damage reports, people wrote fan mail to trees. The writers complimented their looks and leaves. Some told tales of how they'd helped them survive during inclement weather. Some trees even wrote back"

Why the Left can't meme : copypasta - "It's not the Left can't meme per se, it's that their viewpoints rely on a carefully constructed denial of reality, to a far greater extent than any of the cults or religions they seek to supplant. This doesn't lend itself to simple, easily conveyed messages, because if you rely on your viewers to see things as they are, without providing several layers of carefully selected context, they'll interpret it the wrong way. The left can't meme because memes are the antithesis of how they communicate."

Facebook - "Not sure why but I've been thinking about the "seven sins" popularized by Mahatma Ghandi, and how so many of these have been built into almost every foundation of modern life. Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principles. Later, his grandson would add to the list: Rights without responsibilities. Conservatives hail pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character as liberal sins. Liberals hit back with wealth without work and commerce without morality. Everyone scrambles for rights without responsibility. Somehow our public discourse has become dominated by binary, either-or approaches. If you complain about commerce without morality, you are accused of being against commerce. Suggest bringing humanity back into science, and you're anti-scientific. Attack the notion of wealth without work, and you are classist, pining for a revolution to overthrow capitalism. Murmur that worship might require sacrifice, and a segment of the faithful for whom belief alone is salvation, a get-out-of-hell-free card, pegs you as an enemy of religion. There is no better time than today, under these circumstances, to rethink our adherence to outworn shibboleths."

Nightclubs are hell. What's cool or fun about a thumping, sweaty dungeon full of posing idiots?

The Ramsey Loft — Let’s take a moment to talk Shit. - "You can tell a lot about the health of a pet by its poop.  Changes in its color or consistency are among the first warning signs that a pet may not be feeling well.  In birds, you will usually see changes in poop long before the changes in behavior that indicate illness, like irritability or lethargy.  When most people think of pigeon poop, This is what usually comes to mind... But this is what poop from a healthy, well fed pigeon looks like: A small, compact ball of the indigestible fiber left over from the hulls of the seeds they eat whole, with a tiny white cap of urate... That wet mess of solids on mostly urate, with a mucus-y shine and slimy texture, is indicative of a heavy gut load of intestinal parasites.   Not just most ferals, but most racing, performing, and exhibition pigeons (since there are often housed out doors) are infested with the nematode Capillaria, the round worm Strongyloides, or the protozoan Coccidia... Nearly all feral pigeons perpetually teeter on the brink of starvation, and it shows in their poop.  They are strict granivores, meaning that they can only digest seeds: the embryonic tissue of plants.  With cities being so carefully landscaped, often with the only plant life available being in the form of flower beds and trees, with grasses only in public parks and mowed too short to bloom and seed, the food they can actually digest is mighty hard for the average feral pigeon to find.  Barn ferals tend to be much more healthy for access to seed and animal feed.  But spilled garbage and the hand outs of the people that like them enough to feed them are literally all the food city ferals have access to.  Most of that is bread.  And while bread is made from grain, milling that grain and baking it into bread breaks it down, making it easier for a HUMAN to digest, but HARDER for a pigeon... I am all for wild animals living free in the environment for which they were adapted.  But pigeons are not wild life, and they were not adapted to cities.  ESPECIALLY not on the continent of North America... The pigeons that were brought here as military messengers, meat, and entertainment had been domesticated for thousands of years already.  When homers were no longer faster and more reliable messengers than phone lines or radio waves, they were no longer profitable to keep, pigeons were released... in Europe, Africa, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, where Rock Doves are native, there WAS natural habitat for the exclusively cliff nesting birds to relocate to, as well as open lofts that would welcome the boon of free livestock.   But there is nothing like their actual habitat: A high cliff near the sea, between desert and grass land, in north America... The problem of feral pigeon mess, from the structural damage caused by the pure uric acid they excrete on an empty stomach to their potential as vectors for zoonotic disease is one of our own making... We have done pigeons a terrible disservice by having entirely forgotten that they are domestic livestock.  And any one that calls a pigeon in north America a “wind animal that should be free” perpetuates and encourages that abandonment of responsibility."

Singaporean track and field athlete does backflip onto her starting block
"High lvl flexing"

All 25,000 candidates fail Liberian university entrance exam - "The University of Liberia. Number of applicants this year: nearly 25,000. Number gaining admission: zero.  The "epic fail" of every single candidate in the admission exam provoked bafflement, consternation and heated debate on Tuesday, with some convinced that flaws in Liberia's education system had been brutally exposed. A government minister likened it to "mass murder"... an intervention by president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf forced the university to back down and give places to a lucky 1,800.  According to university officials, the applicants lacked enthusiasm and did not have a basic grasp of English. Spokesman Momodu Getaweh told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that the university stood by its decision and would not be swayed by emotion. "In English, the mechanics of the language, they didn't know anything about it. So the government has to do something.""
Must be the fault of structural racism and/or colonialism

Nacho Vidal, Spanish porn star, charged with reckless homicide after toad venom death - "Spanish porn star Nacho Vidal has been charged with reckless homicide after a man died during a ceremony involving toad venom. Vidal, whose real name is Ignacio Jordà González, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter... the victim, a photographer, died after participating in a "spiritual or mystical" ceremony in July 2019 in the town of Enguera, near Valencia... The ritual, which took place in Vidal's home, involved inhaling venomous vapors from the burning of scales from a Bufo alvarius toad... Also known as the Colorado River toad or the Sonoran Desert toad, the amphibian releases a venom called 5-MeO-DMT, which is known to have hallucinogenic effects, according to the Addiction Center website. It is about four to six times more powerful than the better-known DMT or dimethyltryptamine, which "stimulates the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that causes feelings of happiness"... Vidal was "the director" of the ritual and had experience in taking the drug in question. He allegedly supplied the drug and failed to control properly the amount the victim inhaled"

Spain porn star held after man dies in toad venom ritual - "Investigators said they had discovered such rituals were being carried regularly on grounds they offered medicinal benefits.  But in reality, this "apparently harmless ancestral ritual" posed a "serious health risk", luring people who were "easily influenced, vulnerable or who were seeking help for illnesses or addictions using alternative methods"."

Facebook - "Hello my name is Adam Yahiya and welcome to McMansion Hell Malaysia : Episode 1"

Not Good Enough for Paul - ""If I told you that I work for a primarily Microsoft coding shop that hires on non-Microsoft developers, you'd think that it would be an unending, seething mass of WTF code," writes Hank, "but really, it isn't."  "The new hires that the company brings on are usually eager to learn and their diverse backgrounds and experiences make our team more well-rounded overall."  "Usually."  "From a technical perspective, Paul was alright. He came from a 'Jack of All Trades' background with a heavy lean toward Java and Oracle technologies, but that didn't make him stand out among his peers. I cut my post-college teeth on a J2EE system before jumping ship to my current employer."  "What set him apart from everybody else though was his attitude. Basically, if something wasn't perfect, it was a disaster. Also, he failed to mention his anti-Microsoft tendencies."  "Case in point: After he finally 'gave up' and left the company, I was given the task to review his most recent check-ins and the one below is representative of his final contributions, edited to make more safe for work.""

Brianna Wu To Helm New Gamergate TV Series Aimed At Showing "How The Tactics Of Gamergate Led To Christchurch and January 6th”
Imagine being so obsessed with beating the dead horse even after 7 years

Federalist Perspectives - Posts | Facebook - "We're at the "who wants to buy that anyway" stage of cope. Just 3 days ago we were at the "yes there are shortages and it's your fault" stage. Last week was "there are no shortages, just delays in fulfillment." How long before "akshulky, shortages are a good thing?""

Check Out these Costumes from Kyoto University’s Cosplay-themed Graduation - "  This trend began in the 80s and has its roots in students performing in costumes or drag at their commencement. Now, it has become a tradition at Kyoto University for graduating students to dress up as fun characters."
Facebook - "Kyoto University Graduation Ceremony"

Amazon changes app logo that 'resembles Adolf Hitler'/a> - "Hitler's face is so recognisable many people claim to "see" it in inanimate objects.  In 2011, an image of a Swansea house that resembled the dictator went viral.  A few years later, a man was "completely horrified" to find his new passport photo made him look like Hitler.  And brand errors related to the Nazis are also not unheard of.  In 2002, sports brand Umbro was criticised after one of its trainers was found to have the same name as the toxic gas the Nazis used to murder millions of people across Europe."
When you're primed to take offence...

Design firm takes responsibility for CPAC stage - "The company that was hired to set up the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida last weekend has taken full responsibility for the design of the stage that resembled a Nazi insignia... According to the terms of the contract signed with Design Foundry, and shared with the Forward, the ACU approved the design but had no rights to change the design or dismantle the stage. “The designs, renderings, drawings, specifications, materials and other documents used or created as part of the proposal are owned by Design Foundry,” the contract reads. Design Foundry has worked with CPAC for several years and has provided services to MSNBC and major corporations – including Google, Citibank and Target."

Hillary Clinton called 'war criminal' as she becomes Chancellor of Queen's University - "Hillary Clinton, the former US diplomat, has been chosen as the Chancellor of Northern Ireland’s Queen’s University in Belfast.  However, her entrance during her installation ceremony saw cheers, applause and chants of "war criminal"."

Meme - "Me: "I don't think 2021 could get any more weird"
2021: *Hillary Clinton walking in chancellor's robes of Queen's University Belfast, gesturing and with weird facial expression, while amused young boy carries train*

Health campaign in western Romania: 20 squats for a free bus ride - "The residents of Cluj-Napoca, a city in western Romania, can get a free bus ride by doing twenty squats as part of a health campaign initiated by sports event Sports Festival."

Humphrey the pet hippo kills owner in South Africa - "A farmer in South Africa has been killed by his pet hippopotamus, after repeated warnings that it was a wild animal that could never be tamed.  Marius Els, 40, an army major, was bitten to death by the 1.2 tonne hippo he christened Humphrey and tried to domesticate on a farm in Free State province.  Els's savaged body was found submerged in the river where, years earlier, the hippo had been rescued from a flood. It grew too big for the people who adopted it and was bought by Els at the age of five months, becoming a pet on his 400-acre farm and learning to swim with humans.  Earlier this year, Els was photographed riding on the five-year-old hippo's back. "Humphrey's like a son to me, he's just like a human," he said. "There's a relationship between me and Humphrey and that's what some people don't understand. "They think you can only have a relationship with dogs, cats and domestic animals. But I have a relationship with the most dangerous animal in Africa."  But Els's wife, Louise, a pharmacist, expressed misgivings, and the hippo had caused trouble before. South African media reported earlier this year that a 52-year-old man and his seven-year-old grandson spent two hours in a tree after being chased by Humphrey while canoeing on the river that passes through the farm. Els finally tempted the hippo away with an apple while the pair were rescued by paramedics. Humphrey was also blamed for killing calves belonging to Els's business partner. The animal also frequently broke out of its enclosure and chased golfers at a local golf club. Els, who also kept giraffe and rhino, claimed the sound of his voice would lure Humphrey back home. He regarded the hippo as "loveable" and a "gentle giant".  Armed with giant canine teeth, hippos are said to kill more people each year than lions, elephants, leopards, buffalo and rhinos combined. They can move at speeds of up to 30mph despite weighing up to three tonnes."

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