The dog in the middle is a labradoodle, which is an emerging new breed of dog that is very popular in America, because most of them don't shed as much as labradors, and because poodles and labradors are both highly intelligent, they are able to be trained easily.
So another word enters the English language, "Labradoodle".
In my daily Writer's Almanac, this morning there was a piece on John Milton, who apparently "coined more than 600 words, including the adjectives dreary, flowery, jubilant, satanic, saintly, terrific, ethereal, sublime, impassive, unprincipled, dismissive, and feverish; as well as the nouns fragrance, adventurer, anarchy, and many more." Amazing - beautiful, powerful words.
The very awful Sarah Palin, like George Bush, is fond of inventing words, like "refudiate", which she apparently used in a recent tweet (another new word-meaning) to stir up anti-Muslim sentiment. She clearly didn't know it wasn't a real word, although later she compared her invention with that of Shakespeare, another developer of words, which is ludicrous in the extreme, but also has an element of truth to it, as the language does grow by taking words new and old and either swallowing them or spitting them out.
Astronomers have discovered that there are three times as many stars as previously thought, which would also mean a greater probability for life somewhere else. Titan, one of Saturn's moons, has liquid lakes of ethane. Although how they know what it is composed of I have no idea.
Japan's little box-shaped space-probe, Akatsuki, which was planned so as to enter Venus' orbit, has shot right past it, missing its chance at taking a ride on the gravitational pull, but the Japanese scientists in charge of it are positive they will have another chance to succeed in six years time, when it will come close to Venus again.
The Milky Way is called different things in different cultures. In China, a country where they do not generally drink a lot of milk, it is called "The Silver River" which is much more beautiful. In Wales, it was known as "The Way of Gwydion", who was a mythical trickster and hero. The name means "born of trees". How wonderful is that? A man born from trees, striding across the starry road of heaven with his long limbs waving like branches. If I wasn't so tired I would draw it right now!
Meandering thoughts, just like my run in the biting cold of this morning (-4C), a cold which seeps into your very bones if you don't keep moving. I ran just 3.40 km, at 7.50 minutes per km, hard going with that freeze, but slow and steady does it, and after just over one km I even took off my gloves and my hands were glowing and warm, amazing, this body with its blood circulating so well, the heart pumping away, along with the feet, until I am even sweating in the frosty air!
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