Mother goose expecting babies

Campus news: mother goose expecting new babies on the ledge of the Middlesex College. Due soon. The only remaining question is how the new babies will survive on the ledge.

Picture taken from the window on the second floor. And the close-up:

Update: May 14.  The father would stay on the ground, but would protect the family-to-be by trying to scare anyone who enters the building. The staff had to put a special sign:

The thrilling story was followed by the whole building for several weeks. Apparently, the mother does not have to sit on the eggs all the time. Every morning she would fly down from the ledge to get some fresh grass. The eggs would be left open:

After the breakfast the mother would return to her nest:

The eggs should be turned around several times a day:

And the new babies are here! Only three made it.

The first steps are the most difficult ones:

And here's the happy family together:

But how are they going to get down? Well, the babies managed to get on the rim of the ledge about 16 hours after they were born.

Apparently, the mother pushed the first baby down, and the other two followed their sibling on their own. All three landed fairly safely. And now they are gone...

P.S. Photos is the courtesy of the Middlesex College staff.

Curious detective story about theoretical physicist Paul Frampton, distinguished professor at UNC.

I was wondering which 9 countries voted against Palestine's non-member observer status. So here's this glorious list (in alphabetical order):  

Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Panama, United States.

[As reported on Huffingtonpost.]

It is getting increasingly difficult to publish math papers, partially, because of the increased competition. However, it's not all that bad. A computer generated math paper has been recently accepted for publication by a real math journal (called Advances in Pure Mathematics, it is open access, but it is peer reviewed). The brilliant paper can be found on

That's Mathematics!

P.S. The journal is not yet indexed by MathSciNet, but given that the

database already contains over 2,000 items, it's only the matter of time...

Curious statistics: apparently, scientific papers published after having first been rejected elsewhere receive significantly more citations on average than ones accepted on first submission. That's according to an article in Nature. I wonder
if this article was rejected somewhere else before being published there...

Art book with no art...

I always thought that the first year calculus textbook is the worst deal possible. But this textbook beats any calculus text (or any textbook for that matter) hands down: Global Visual and Material Culture: Prehistory to 1800 — doesn't contain any images of art. Nevertheless, it costs $180 is a required textbook at Toronto's Ontario College of Art and Design. More about it here.

Israel's claim that Iran is the biggest thread to peace should be put into historical perspective. So how about identifying the military conflicts initiated by Iran/Persia in the last 400 year? Let's see:

• 1980-1988: Iran -Iraq war. Initiated by Iraq
• World War II: Iran was invaded by Germany and the Allies.
• World War I: Persia maintained neutrality.
• 1826-1828: Russo-Persian War. Formally, this was initiated by Persia, however, the roots of the conflict lie in the Treaty of Gulistan (see below).
• 1806-1813: Russo-Persian War. Initiated by the Russian Empire. The war resulted in signing the Treaty of Gulistan, which confirmed the inclusion of modern day Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Eastern Georgia and other territories into the Russian Empire.
• 1796: Persian Expedition. Initiated by Catherine the Great.
• 1722-1723: Russo-Persian War, Initiated by Peter the Great. All the annexed territories were returned to Persia in 1735.
• 1649-1653: Mughal–Safavid War. This was initiated by the Safavid Empire (Persia), but the military action was localized to Kandahar. 
• 16th century: Ottomans vs Safavids: neither side can be held solely accountable.

Well, if history teaches us anything, Iran has never been an aggressive player on the political arena...