Want a good Valentine's Day present? Don't date a German man as study show they are the stingiest

Want a good Valentine's Day present? Don't date a German man as study show they are the stingiest - As more and more shops deck their windows with heart-themed displays, now is the time to start getting excited about what gift you will get from your beau next Tuesday.

But if you are dating a German, don't get your hopes up.

A survey has found German men to be the least generous when buying presents in the run up to February 14 - closely followed by Italians.

What's in the box? Earrings are the most popular Valentine's Day gifts according to a study

Jewellery website Boticca.com found that men in Far East countries including China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore spend more than any other country or region for Valentine’s Day at £173 per order.

Spain and France came in second and third places respectively, at £151 and £120 per order.

The UK and the U.S.A. were next, with men spending around £118 and £107 on gifts.

But German men came in last with a spend of £59 per order - closely followed closely Italians who spent an average of £62.

But of course, that is not accounting for those who buy nothing - and don't even send a card.

A QVC study has revealed that British men are shying away from romantic gestures with 38 per cent of them admitting they have never even sent a love letter.

These are a few of my favourite things: This chart shows what men tend to buy their girlfriends and wives on Valentine's Day

In terms of what the men chose to buy online, earrings were the most popular, representing nearly a third of the purchases (31 per cent).

Bracelets and necklaces were next on the list, accounting for at 26 per cent and 21 per cent respectively.

A reluctance to give the wrong idea (and a struggle to commit) to might account for the fact that only 14 per cent of the buys were rings. Or maybe men were just unsure of their other halves' ring size?

Kiyan Foroughi, Boticca.com's SEO, said: 'The results of the data were quite surprising, but as one of my Italian team members says: "It’s not about how much you spend but what you spend it on that counts!".'

Hey big spenders: This chart shows what men from different countries tend to spend on Valentine's Day gifts ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Want a good Valentine's Day present? Don't date a German man as study show they are the stingiest

which carries deadly West Nile virus disease living in Kent marshes more than 70 years after vanishing from UK

which carries deadly West Nile virus disease living in Kent marshes more than 70 years after vanishing from UK - Mosquito species may have arrived via international shipping - 663 cases of the virus in the U.S in 2009

A species of mosquito capable of transmitting the deadly West Nile virus to humans has been discovered breeding in Britain for the first time since 1945.

West Nile virus mostly infects birds but can be transmitted from birds to humans by the bites of mosquitoes.

While symptoms usually include fever, skin rash or swollen lymph glands in can prove fatal if it enters the brain.

Blood sucker: The species has been found breeding in the marshes of north Kent and south Essex over the past two years

'It's not clear how long this species of mosquito (Culex modestus) has been in the UK,' said Nick Golding of Britain's Oxford University and the Center for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), who conducted the research.

He added that although the mosquitoes have been found at sites in the marshes of north Kent and south Essex in 2010 and 2011.

'It's something to watch,' he said.

The disease first appeared in the U.S in 1999 after circulating in Israel and Tunisia. There were 663 cases of the virus in America in 2009.

Mr Golding suggested the new population had arrived fairly recently, possibly via international shipping. This is because other insects such as the Asian tiger mosquito have spread in this manner.

'The records are patchy but we have evidence that the furthest north this mosquito lives is the Netherlands, which has strong shipping links with the UK,' he told Mail Online.

'However, this is all speculation at this time.'

He added that the West Nile virus could only spread if the mosquitoes came into contact with infected birds. Although humans can be infected the disease is not transmitted between them.

Disease surveillance experts suspect the Culex modestus species may be behind recent sporadic epidemics outbreaks of West Nile virus in southern Europe.

The virus, which survives in nature in a cycle involving transmission between birds and mosquitoes, is commonly found in Africa, the Middle East, North America and West Asia and can cause neurological disease and death in people.

West Nile virus can cause encephalitis or meningitis if it enters the brain

Miles Nunn, a molecular parasitologist at CEH who reviewed the findings, said that in continental Europe Culex modestus mosquitoes are able to transmit West Nile virus because the virus can reproduce inside them, and then gets passed on when the mosquito feeds on both humans and birds.

'However, in the UK the mosquitoes biting habits and ability to transmit West Nile virus have yet to be investigated,' he said.

A team from Oxford University and the Health Protection Agency are now conducting more studies to see how widespread the mosquitoes are and whether there is any risk to human health.

The Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the European Union, said that as of January 13, 96 confirmed human cases of West Nile virus had been reported in the EU.

More than two-thirds of them were in Greece with others in Hungary, Italy and Romania.

A handful of Culex modestus were collected on the southern coast of Britain and recorded more than 60 years ago, but didn't appear then to be an established population. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - which carries deadly West Nile virus disease living in Kent marshes more than 70 years after vanishing from UK

If You Think Your Facebook “Friends” Don’t Like You, They Probably Don’t

If You Think Your Facebook “Friends” Don’t Like You, They Probably Don’t - Here’s some grist for your paranoia: The more you value Facebook as a social outlet, the more your Facebook friends probably just wish you’d shut up. A study on confidence, emotional expression, and Facebook curation found that people likely to see Zuckerberg’s virtual community as a haven are also more likely to annoy their contacts.

In the study designed by University of Waterloo graduate student Amanda Forest and her adviser, Joanne Wood, undergraduates were assessed with a standard self-esteem test and placed on a spectrum from more to less confident. When asked what they thought of Facebook, those with lower confidence were likelier to describe a safe space in which friendships were unencumbered by awkward face-to-face interactions. Forest and Wood then collected the students’ 10 most recent status updates. Less secure students tended to post negative updates ( “[Name] is upset b/c her phone got stolen :@”), while self-assured ones tended to gush ( “[Name] is lucky to have such terrific friends and is looking forward to a great day tomorrow!”)

Girls show their Facebook walls on their mobile devices in Jakarta on February 2, 2012.

Undergraduate volunteers read the batches of updates and rated how much they liked the strangers who wrote them. It turns out that, on Facebook, impatience for whining trounces sympathy: Raters said they liked students posting negative updates less. (I asked Forest about the possibility of volunteers reading cheerful posts ironically, or interpreting the phone update, for instance, not as a gripe but as a PSA that the posting student was unable to receive texts or calls. Since the raters also assigned each status a positive or negative score, Forest said, the researchers were able to correlate the perceived tone of an update to the favorability of its response.)

It’s not hard to imagine how the less confident students, despite moving in a forum that promised connections galore, might grow more isolated, revving the cycle all over again.

I find these results oddly heartbreaking. It seems an irony typical of the Internet that the people who feel safest expressing themselves online actually damage their social standing when they do so. Not because they’re somehow opting out of the real world, as Facebook critics like to insist, but because they are lulled into relaxing their facades. Cheery icons and a shiny, sanitized format make it easy to project the friendliness of a diary onto the Facebook community. Yet the site doesn’t “change” your audience so much as disguise it. Those with low self-esteem may treasure Facebook because it eliminates situations in which social feedback is inevitable (whereas you can’t help seeing your friend’s aggrieved expression when you slip up in person). But you need live feedback to teach you to navigate relationships with grace.

We’ve heard how Internet anonymity—or the illusion of it—can give people license to act like boors. Yet it seems we’re less attuned to the dangers of seeing other Internet users as anonymous or unreal. Social networking sites, with their endlessly personalized apps, can sometimes feel less like meeting places than giant mirrors (Facebook for me has always had the echoey effect of a mansion that a crowd of partiers has just vacated.) Amanda Forest’s study should remind us that when we’re online, for better or for worse, we’re not alone. ( slate.com )

READ MORE - If You Think Your Facebook “Friends” Don’t Like You, They Probably Don’t

What If All the Cats in the World Suddenly Died?

What If All the Cats in the World Suddenly Died? - Perhaps you're a cat lover. Perhaps you abhor the lazy critters. Either way, when you see a cat lounging on an armchair, napping all day but for the occasional stretch or window gaze, "useless" is by no means the last word that comes to mind. Cats, beloved or otherwise, don't radiate the message that they're indispensable, hard-working members of the household, or the world.

But, in fact, they're just playing it cool (as usual). Experts say that if all the world's cats suddenly died, things would quickly go to hell in a handbasket.

Cats, both pets and strays, may fool us into thinking that they depend on our food and trash for survival, but according to Alan Beck, professor of veterinary medicine and director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University, they're expert predators with adaptablehunting behaviors. "They are a significant predator of small animals, and can survive as almost solitary animals when the prey is scarce, while thriving in high density when the prey is abundant," Beck told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.

And that's just why we'd miss them. By killing mice and rats in barns and grain storage areas, cats are vital for keeping those pests in check. In India, Beck said, cats are believed to play a significant role in lessening the amount of grain loss caused by consumption or contamination by rodents. In other words, it may be true that humans feed cats, but without cats, humans would have less food in the first place.

So, how dramatically would the rodent population increase if cats suddenly vanished? It just so happens that several scientific studies have been conducted that paint a vivid picture. A 1997 study in Great Britain found that the average house cat brought home more than 11 dead animals (including mice, birds, frogs and more) in the course of six months. That meant the 9 million cats of Britain were collectively killing close to 200 million wild specimens per year — not including all those they did not offer up to their owners. A study in New Zealand in 1979 found that, when cats were nearly eradicated from a small island, the local rat population quickly quadrupled.

And if the rodent population shot up, this would of course trigger a cascade of other ecological effects. On that same island in New Zealand, for instance, ecologists observed that, as rat numbers increased in the absence of cats, the population of seabirds whose eggs rats preyed upon declined. If the approximately 220 million domestic cats in the world all bit the dust, seabird populations would likely fall worldwide, while the populations of non-cat predators that prey on rats would be expected to increase.

"All species have an impact," Beck said.

And let's not forget the emotional toll that a mass cat death would take on us humans: "In this country, cats are much loved by many. While there are more dog-owning households (38 percent) than cat- owning households (34 percent), there are actually more domestic cats than dogs because cat owners own more of them. Cats as pets have always been appreciated for the contact, relatively low maintenance, and pedomorphic (child-like) face and general morphology." ( LiveScience.com )

READ MORE - What If All the Cats in the World Suddenly Died?

Aussie to invest in cattle breeding

Aussie to invest in cattle breeding – Australians are interested in investing their money in Indonesian cattle breeding. They plan to pour the investment in the near future.

Cattle in Pasar Tumpang, Malang, East Java (illustration).

The Minister of Agriculture of Indonesia, Suswono, said, the interest of Australians investing in Indonesia started in 2010. “Seven companies commits to invest their money in this sector,” he said.

He added, Indonesia has offered the investment to Australia since long ago. “The two countries are not only close, but also we know what kind of possible diseases that threat the cattle,” he explained.

He added, the cooperation with local breeders must be conducted. It is important so that the investment can promote local entrepreneur. In the longer term, he hopes the investment will improve the quality and quantity of Indonesian living stock.

Based on the Ministry of Agriculture, there are several regions in Indonesia potential to be a new cattle breeding. They are Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB), Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT), and West Papua. ( republika.co.id )

READ MORE - Aussie to invest in cattle breeding