Buzz

My parents have 2 border collies. Holly the female is the first one they have, and they have had her for over a year. They got her when she was a puppy. She was perfect but they wanted another collie, so they got Colin, who is a 4 year old rescue dog. He is lovely. Holly is dominant, and they play together and seem to get on fine except occasionally she will push him around and sometimes he appears a bit frightened of her.

When Colin first came, my mam fell and broke her right limbs and this has really upset Holly, who is a sensitive dog. Mam was always the boss, so her world has turned upside down. Holly has started peeing and pooing in the house. She's a smart, complex dog so whether this is because of Colin (she was a bit spoilt before and now she has to share my mam and dad), because of mam, because she thinks mam's injuries are Colin's fault or a combination I don't know. But it really stresses dad out that Holly is making a habit out of relieving herself on the floor, and it's not too good for her because he freaks out and overreacts and yells at her when she does it. So, we need a plan to stop her from doing it, for her sake as well as theirs! (I don't live here all the time, just here for a short time)

A friend of mine keeps emus and is really cut up about a recent event, in which 4 of them died. She thinks this is because a ragwort plant was in their water - they weren't supposed to be in that field but they were put there by someone else who works on the farm.

I'm not so sure though - I know birds have a faster metabolism, but is ragwort really toxic to them? Common sense would suggest that its poison would only affect animals likely to graze on it. It takes a lot of ragwort to kill a horse, how much would it take to kill an emu - and would the ragwort being in its water enough to kill it?

I'd appreciate any help from anyone with experience or knowledge about this - I know everyone makes mistakes and you just have to chalk it up to experience, but I don't want her blaming herself for something that may not have been her fault.

I have a friend in his late 60s who lives by himself. He has a very active lifestyle and occasionally injures himself. He has gone on for many years like this, and every time he is injured he just gets up and walks on, suffering in silence. I'm talking really bad injuries - broken bones, falling on fences, deep cuts that won't stop bleeding. I'm worried one day he'll fall and break his legs and be unable to do anything about it, just die slowly. He has a mobile phone but it's run out of charge and he has refused to use it for years.

I'm able to reach a town near where he lives by bus, but it would take a while for me to get to him if he was in trouble - that's if I managed to find out somehow. He doesn't have any neighbours and he's very content to be on his own.

Does anyone have experience with this, or have any ideas how I can help either improve the communication between him and me by a simple, cheap means (just had a thought - involving pagers...) or convince him he needs to go to hospital if he is hurt? Or am I just a meddling fusspot who should stop worrying about him?

Well, I'm in for a rough couple of months and while life is good, it's easy to get bogged down by the small stuff. When that happens you can lift yourself up with small stuff too like good songs. I have a good list of them but I think I need some fresh ones now, in preparation! What are your favourites? If you want, you could also share what you like to do to cheer yourself up when you're down. But that's extra!

I will also share some of my favourite feel good songs:

Sweet Child of Mine - Tracy Guns

Higher - Creed

Whiskey in the Jar - Metallica

Prayer - Disturbed

Love in an Elevator - Aerosmith

Traveller in Time - Uriah Heep

Accidentally in Love - Counting Crows

The Galway Farmer - Show of Hands

Put your Hands Up - Reef

Permanent Vacation - Aerosmith

So...those are mine, what are yours?

I have no idea how to analyse my data! I have tried using the silly pretend statistical analysis software Minitab but it just gives me a load of asterisks and I have no idea what to do with that.

I would like to do a chi squared test as it is quite simple. However I have no idea how to work out expected values as one set of values just has to be higher than the other set for my null hypothesis to be rejected. It's obvious that they are but the uni still wants me to do a stat test. Is it possible for me to do the expected values as what they would be if the null hypothesis was true, then if chi squared is more than 0.05 then the null hypothesis can be rejected?

In case you can't guess, I'm not famously good at statistics.

I will be working in New Zealand for longer than 12 months, therefore I will need a medical including a chest X ray to prove I haven't got TB. This is fine...but I went on the immigration website about it and it said my whole family needs to be X rayed as well. It didn't mention whether they would have to do this whether or not they were actually going to NZ with me. I'm hoping they don't have to be X rayed as well as this would be a major hassle for them and as I don't live with any of them, rather pointless as well! Does anyone here have any experience with visas for working in NZ and getting X rays for them?

I need a wee bit of advice from the experienced travellers on here...I went to the travel agents to see about prices to go to NZ via Uganda and they said it would be 830 quid, one way. Judging by the fact my brother pays about 600 pounds return when he goes to Uganda from Heathrow and usually a one way ticket to NZ costs about the same...I think it's quite good, but does anyone know if that is the case? I tend to be a sucker for "quite good" prices, then the week after I book it the price drops down a couple of hundred quid, and I don't want to do that this time!

I have built a very basic moth trap using egg boxes and a candle in a jam jar. Will a candle emit the right kind of light to attract moths? Has anyone used one before? I was told what kind of light moths are attracted to on a field course but can't for the life of me remember. PLEASE only answer if you have used a moth trap or know about moths - no sarky comments about moths being annoying etc.

I weigh myself at the same time every day - first thing in the morning (well...maybe second), no clothes. I have usually been 10 stone 11 and I'm trying to get back to 9 stone which is what I used to be. Yesterday I think I was 10 stone 12 (despite having been eating super-healthy for about a month) but this morning I was 10 stone 1. It happened before too, when I became 10 stone 2 suddenly - then the next day I was 10 st 7. How can it fluctate like this so much? I hear people straining to lose 2 pounds in a week then when they've done that it's a steady slope downwards in weight - my weight just goes up and down like a yoyo in unfathomable timescales. It's not my scale either - I have weighed myself on several different scales and they all read the same.

I believe this is a little different to the normal sink problem. It appears to have built up over a while and it seems nothing will budge it. When we moved into this flat the sink was extremely slow to non-moving, the previous tenants didn't think anything was wrong with it. We notified the landlord but there were a lot of other things we notified him of as well and...well, to cut a long story off, we kind of ticked him off. He sent around the repair guy who poured a load of bleach down the sink (we had done that already but never mind) and it seemed to run a little faster after that but perhaps it was my imagination. I told the landlord that it was all fixed because I didn't want to annoy him again but now this sink really bugs me. I think if we leave it too long it'll get worse but the landlord said it was our responsibility to keep it unblocked which is fair enough given that I told him it was all fine. He's a good landlord but I told him the wrong thing so it's completely my fault. The problem is the sink flows very slowly, occasionally bubbles come up from the pipe. We have taken apart the U bend and it was clear, poured boiling water, vinegar, bicarb and vinegar, drain cleaner (haven't tried the foaming kind, it's expensive). Does anyone know what we can do next? We have negligible money, it's hard enough to make end meet without having to pay for a plumber as well so if we can do it ourselves it would be great...we're on the ground floor.

Diomedes: a Greek hero.

Diomedea: the Great Albatrosses.

Sources on the Internet are misleading, and whilst I will look this up at the library on Monday it would be nice to know if there are any experts on here who believe they know the relationship.

There are 2 theories on Wikipedia: one states that Diomedes was blown by a storm to Italy and his friends turned into birds. The other states that albatrosses lamented his death.

I'd rather the answers were from your head rather than the internet but feel free to use the internet to back them up.

Thanks in advance.

My lecturer and his slides explained it in ten syllable words so that my main revision apparatus is a dictionary.

Is it possible to explain it to me as if I am not a doctor of physics, even using analogies to help? I am at my wit's end here, I don't normally go on Answers to find out these things...I'll be very grateful if anyone can help me.

It's a Chinese carnivore, not feline at all, and has vertical bands around its belly. Fur is very thick with strong guard hairs. About 40 inches long.

Any ideas?

I love reading but buying books takes money and space in my tramping pack. Libraries in the high street are good but you have to get to them and there is a limited selection, also I am a slow reader so late fees are pretty rubbish for me.

LoveFiLM lets you rent one DVD at a time with no late fees for a monthly rate. Are there any online libraries like this? Thanks for any and all responses!

I am a student in Glasgow, so at the moment I am immersed in the city. I grew up in the countryside, and last year I lived in the middle of nowhere on my own, with a wood burning stove getting covered in mud, breeding falcons and riding horses - it was the best year of my life so far.

Now I am plunged into city life, and to be honest I feel like a fish out of water. I feel surrounded by people all of a sudden and in a cage: everything is big and towering, and there is noise all the time. I've tried to do things to feel better: I hung a bird feeder up which is working, and I tried to make friends but the vast majority of people I meet have a very different attitude. They just like to go out and get drunk in clubs, which I hate - I've been a few times and tried to like it but it's horrible. Could somebody pelase tell me a few good points, or give me some advice? I know I'll eventually get used to it. But at the moment I just feel lonely, out of place, inadequate, trapped...I'm pretty sure my flat mates all think I am boring and weird. I must have the wrong attitude but I don't want to change my personality cos I'm not going to be here forever, I want to end up living in the countryside again where I am useful and happy.

Thanks!

I'm trying to work out the concentration of a chemical reactant at a given time. It has come down to the equation 1/ the concentration = 11.341. So how do I work out from this what the concentration is? I can't for the life of me remember!

I have always had this problem, ever since I was little. When I was very young I didn't understand much about how people got pregnant, and was constantly scared of becoming so. It was pretty horrible.

Now I do understand about being pregnant, but I still have this fear. Taking pregnancy tests relieves it for a while, but then something will trigger the fear again - if I hear about pregnancy on TV for example.

For example...right now I haven't had sex for 3 months. I don't get periods very often because I have an implant, but I have had 2 since I last had sex (although 1 only lasted a day). I also have IBS which makes me feel quite nauseous sometimes. I recently took 2 pregnancy tests, both negative.

Yet I still have this fear. It is because implants, condoms, pregnancy tests are not 100% effective; the most common cause for a skipped period is pregnancy; I am in no situation to get pregnant. It terrifies me! I can't concentrate or think about anything else. I've had this feeling on and off since I was 10.

Does anyone feel the same way, or know if there's any way I can sort it out? I'm skint at the moment, and although I could go to a psychologist or something I don't want my parents to find out (they will make it much worse) and I don't have much time on my hands cos I'm at university.

Please help!

I recently moved into University campus accommodation. All my flatmates are best friends with each other, and love going out clubbing. I get along reasonably well with them and they are nice people on the surface, although they can be very bitchy and I don't trust them at all.

I study a lot and really appreciate a good night's sleep - I never go clubbing because I can't stand it. All week long, however, the girls go out and come back at the early hours of the morning. They are then very inconsiderate, in my opinion - running up and down the corridor screaming, or talking ust outside my door where I can hear them. It always wakes me up: lack of sleep is affecting my studies and character.

I have tried to drop hints that they are too noisy, but they are very defensive about it and blame me - saying I'll just have to get used to it and it's because I'm from the country. I really don't want to annoy them or give them any reason to hate me because there are 11 of them and they could easily gang up on me and make my life awkward. At the same time I feel like shooting them.

What should I do?

I'm studying biology and gonna major in zoology. I have never had an issue with blood or the heart or anything to do with things that normally make people squeamish - I have had some nasty injuries, treated some nasty injuries and killed various animals to feed to others with no problems. I also used to never have a problem having injections, I found them fascinating, and I used to watch hospital dramas with no problem.

But I have started learning in more detail about the heart, and blood vessels, and it's making me feel squeamish. The tips of my fingers go numb and I start feeling lightheaded and sick. It's not a very strong feeling, but it's unpleasant and I don't want it to get in the way bcause the heart is very interesting. I think it's the sound of the words blood, pump, capillaries and vessels that make me squirm.

Has anyone had a problem with this, and does anyone know how to overcome it? Is it just a matter of changing the way that I think about it?

Thanks!

I have never been lonely before, always preferring my own company and scoffing at the thought that some people need other humans to live. Now I have met someone who I love, and who loves me back, we lived and worked together for 24 hours a day for 6 months. At the beginning of September we went to Rome together and it was so much fun, although he got really sick towards the end but that just made the bond between us stronger.

In mid-september I went to university, where I am now, and he went back to New Zealand. We both think we aren't where we're supposed to be, but this is what we had planned before meeting each other. I want to be in New Zealand with him. I don't want to be here. In 17 months he will hopefully come back, that's the plan. But until then...how do I deal with this loneliness? I've never had it before, so I wasn't prepared for it. It's like if I let my guard down and stop trying really hard not to cry for 2 seconds this overwhelming feeling of being alone and not being in the right place and doom and gloom just hits me like a wall and I can't stop crying. I've been told to keep myself busy, but it's really hard because I can't stop thinking about him.

If I'd read this before I experienced it, I would have thought pah! That pathetic person needs to get a grip on life. I know how pathetic this must sound. That's why I haven't asked till now, but I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't think about anything apart from how I should not be here and I don't want to be here and how far away he is.