Cucumber in rear was "failed suicide bid."

Oldest excuse in the book, next to "I was only trying to help the sheep over the fence." From News.com.au:

A Hong Kong man, taken to the hospital to have a cucumber removed from his bottom, told doctors he inserted it in a suicide attempt.

The Sun reported Chin Wei, 62, said the method was a variation of the Japanese ritual suicide hara-kiri - usually carried out with a sword plunged into one's own stomach.

He was found in a pool of blood by his daughter before being rushed to receive medical health.

Medics said a severe tear to the man's anus was not life-threatening.

Drunk man tried to revive roadkill.

From Ananova:

A US man has been charged with public drunkenness after he tried to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to roadkill.

Police arrested Donald Wolfe, 55, after witnesses reported seeing him trying to revive a long dead possum, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

One reported seeing Mr Wolfe kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance.

Another reported seeing him give mouth to mouth resuscitation to the carcass on a highway north-east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

State police trooper Jamie Levier said the animal had been dead a while.

Trooper Levier says the Brookville man was "extremely intoxicated" and "did have his mouth in the area of the animal's mouth, I guess".

A possum is about the size of a domestic cat. The animals are known for feigning death when threatened, hence the phrase "playing possum".

Toyota recall might be caused by cosmic rays.

From Live Science:

It may not lessen Toyota's woes to hear that the problems the company has been having with faulty gas pedals could be blamed on cosmic rays from space. Sound unbelievable? The concept is actually a lot more plausible than you might think.

Toyota's sticky gas pedals caused sudden and unintended acceleration in several of the automaker's top-selling Toyota and Lexus-brand cars, which led to a massive recall of more than 9 million vehicles worldwide, beginning in November. While ongoing inquiries attempt to locate the source of the problem and figure out a fix, investigators might find it useful to examine a far-out culprit: cosmic ray radiation from deep in the cosmos, which has been known to plague vulnerable data and memory chips in electronics.

Cosmic rays could be at least partially to blame for Toyota's mechanical defects, scientists now say. And the problem could get worse in the future, as the increasing use of tiny computer chips — replacing mechanical parts — makes cars more and more vulnerable to space radiation.

Tourist dies after falling into active volcano.

From FOX News:

A Swedish tourist was killed Wednesday when he fell 490 feet into the crater of Mount Batur, an active volcano on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, local police said.

The 25-year-old man slipped as he tried to peer into the crater after a dawn trek to the summit, which climbs to 5,600 feet, on the northeastern side of the island, police added.

"He was looking into the crater, slipped and fell," local police chief Made Oka told AFP.

He said emergency responders were at the scene and were trying to recover the tourist's body using ropes. Police were unable to provide the man's name.

Mount Batur is easy to climb compared to some other volcanoes in Indonesia and is popular with day-trippers on Bali.

NYC restaurant unleashes the Bacon Donut.

From Consumerist:

Perhaps taking advantage of the whole bacon = cocaine thing, a restaurant in New York has unleashed what may simultaneously be the worst and best idea in the history of food: bacon donuts.

Yes, two of the essential food groups have been combined into a dessert at NYC's Wildwood BBQ, where last Friday Chef "Big Lou" Elrose added a new offering -- glazed cinnamon donuts bedazzled (bacon-dazzled?) with bits of candied bacon.

Man plunges to death from Empire State Building observation deck.

Luckily, this jerk didn't hit any pedestrians. The area around the ESB has heavy foot traffic, especially during rush hour. From NY Post:

A man jumped to his death from the 86th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building tonight, police sources said.

The jumper, who was in his 20s, landed on the sidewalk by a bank branch on W. 34th Street near Fifth Avenue at about 6:30 p.m.

Police believe he was able to get over the barriers because there weren’t too many people on the deck due to rainy weather.

Jason Beck, 28, of Brooklyn was walking with a friend on the street when the tragedy occurred.

"My friend heard this really loud weird sound," he said. "He turned around and saw someone splattered on the ground."

Large Hadron Collider smashes collision record.

Yay, we're getting closer to destroying all matter in the universe! From Huffington Post:

The world's largest atom smasher conducted its first experiments at conditions nearing those after the Big Bang, breaking its own record for high-energy collisions with proton beams crashing into each other Tuesday at three times more force than ever before.

In a milestone for the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider's ambitious bid to reveal details about theoretical particles and microforces, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, collided the beams and took measurements at a combined energy level of 7 trillion electron volts.

The collisions herald a new era for researchers working on the machine in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel below the Swiss-French border at Geneva.

"That's it! They've had a collision," said Oliver Buchmueller from Imperial College in London as people closely watched monitors.

In a control room, scientists erupted with applause when the first successful collisions were confirmed. Their colleagues from around the world were tuning in by remote links to witness the new record, which surpasses the 2.36 TeV CERN recorded last year.

Oklahoma anti-gay bill accidentally becomes anti-church bill.

From Raw Story:

They meant to make it easier to discriminate against gays, but instead they passed a bill making it easier to discriminate against Christians and other religious groups.

The Oklahoma Senate two weeks ago voted in favor of a bill that it thought was going to reduce protections for gay people by allowing local law enforcement agencies to ignore the expanded hate crimes law passed by the US Congress last year.

But, as the University of Oklahoma's Oklahoma Daily reported last week, the Oklahoma bill cited the wrong clause in the federal code, and instead prevented law enforcement from upholding laws against hate crimes based on religion, race or ethnicity.

Eliminating protection for religious groups is pretty much the exact opposite of what the bill's supporters had intended.

"The bill in its current form doesn't take away rights from gays and lesbians," state Senate Minority Leader Andrew Rice told Oklahoma Daily. "It takes away rights for religion and race."

Grandmother arrested, tagged for selling goldfish to 14-year-old.

Meanwhile, rapists get off scot-free in the UK. From the Daily Mail:

A pet shop owner has been ordered to wear an electronic tag for selling a goldfish to a 14-year-old boy.

Great-grandmother Joan Higgins, 66, was caught by council bosses in an undercover investigation after she unwittingly sold the fish to the boy, breaching new animal welfare laws.

She was subjected to an eight-month court ordeal and threatened with jail before being fined £1,000 and ordered to abide by a nightime curfew and wear the tag so the authorities can monitor her movements.
The court ruling has now prevented Joan from babysitting her one-month-old great-grandson at his mother's home and attending weekly Bingo sessions with her sister.

Mrs Higgins was also forced her to cancel plans to attend a Rod Stewart concert after tickets were bought for her by her TV actor nephew Will Mellor.

Today, Joan's 47-year-old son son Mark, who was also fined £750 and ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work, labelled the prosecution a 'judicial joke'.

Mr Higgins, of Sale, Greater Manchester said: 'I think it's a farce and legal lunacy and I told the council that.

'What gets me so cross is that they put my Mum on a tag - she's nearly 70, for goodness sake.

'Once it's fitted she'll be on a curfew from 7pm until 7am until June. She won't be able to go out with her sister to bingo every week, and she's been bought tickets to see Rod Stewart by her nephew Will Mellor, so she won't be able to go to that.

'She's a great-grandmother - so she won't be able to babysit a newborn baby, all because of this tag. You would think they have better things to do with their time and money.'

The prosecution has cost the taxpayer an estimated £20,000.

Mrs Higgins and her son were caught out by a new bill passed in 2005 which makes it illegal to sell goldfish to under 16s and threatens offenders with up to 12 months in prison.

In July 2009, Trafford council sent a 14-year-old boy to the shop to do a test purchase and after failing to ask the boy for identification, the pair were summoned to court.

Mr Higgins labelled the incident 'entrapment', saying the boy looked older than 14.

He added: 'The council sent the 14-year-old into us - in my book that's entrapment.

'And besides which is it hard to tell how old a lad is these days. He looked much older than 14.'

Mrs Higgins, a grandmother of three and great-grandmother to one, has been running the shop for 28 years.

Coozer-Bits.

Film: Battlefield Earth's screenwriter pens hilarious apology.

List: 10 big rules of small talk.

Religion: Colbert Report guest (and not Colbert himself) is secretly the messiah.

Creepy: Exotic plant takes over dunes in southern Spain.

Robot Uprising Watch: Researchers equip robot sub with wacky sensory system.

Prophesy: Underwater volcano may destroy Italy.

Zombie Watch: Ancient Egyptian door to the afterlife found.

It's official: NY pizza better than Chicago "pizza."

Spotted this on Larissa's FB page. Thanks! From Gothamist:

Michelle Obama took her mother, daughters, and three of their friends to acclaimed Brooklyn pizzeria Grimaldi's yesterday, and what started out as a casual lunch is now reigniting longstanding tensions between two bitterly warring factions: the Chicago-style pizza crowd vs. NYC.

The Grimaldi's waiter who served the family, Rafal Harajda, told City Room that after they finished their meal of four pies—a plain, a pepperoni, a sausage and one with mushrooms, peppers and onions—the First Lady of the United States of America declared, "It was better than Chicago pizza." Which must cut like a pizza slicer for Chicago, seeing as Obama is from their hometown. Harajda later clarified the First Lady's statement, but did not contradict it.

When asked by the Chicago Tribune about his quote to City Room, Harajda clarified: "No, what she said was, 'It's the best pizza, and I'm from Chicago.'" Which is essentially the same thing, and it's just the kind of Biden-esque remark that could cost the President the support of Illinois Democrats and derail the completion of health care reform.

World of Warcraft predicts the future.

From New Scientist:

In his new book The Warcraft Civilization, sociologist William Sims Bainbridge argues that the online game World of Warcraft portends the future of the real world. I spoke with him to find out more.

You've spent 2300 hours in World of Warcraft (WoW). Is it more than a game?

Like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung, WoW isn't just escapist fantasy. It's posing alternatives to the world we actually have today. It raises questions about environmentalism and colonialism; it asks how people are going to be respectful of each other in a world in which there aren't enough resources.

Tolkien believed that all good people could come together on the same side. This is one of the biggest questions that humanity faces: can we have a world consensus by which we're all partners in finding a solution? Or, like the Hoarde vs Alliance situation in WoW, are we doomed to be in separate factions competing ultimately to the death? It touches on very serious issues but in a playful way.

Children left traumatized after teachers stage shooting hoax.

From the Daily Mail:

Schoolchildren were left in tears after their teacher was gunned down by a crazed hoodie in the playground - in a 'sick' role-playing stunt.

Terrified children - aged from 10 to 13 years old - watched as the supposed gunman strolled into the playground, took aim and shot the teacher, before running into the school's science lab.

Other staff in on the stunt rushed to the popular teacher's aid and appeared to give CPR in an attempt to save his life.

It was 10 minutes before the shocked pupils of Blackminster Middle School in Evesham, Worcestershire, were rounded up and taken into the school hall where teachers explained that the scenario had been mocked up as part of a forthcoming science lesson.

But pupils were left traumatised, with one having a panic attack and others being sick.

The 'shooting' happened on Tuesday after pupils were originally told there was a gun somewhere in the school.

Five minutes later, the alarm bell went and over 300 pupils were sent to the playground where three teachers could be seen running across the field before a loud sound, like gunfire, was heard and science and RE teacher Mr Kent fell to the ground and played dead.

Parents said their children were then sent back to their form rooms and called to the assembly hall ten minutes later, when the truth and a fit and healthy teacher was revealed.

However, the damage had already been done to a selection of pupils - and apparently included one girl whose father had been shot dead a few years ago.

Parents, with children at the school reacted angrily to the stunt and branded it 'inappropriate and beyond belief'.

Light can bend matter.

From LiveScience:

Light can twist matter, according to a new study that observed ribbons of nanoparticles twisting in response to light.

Scientists knew matter can cause light to bend – prisms and glasses prove this easily enough. But the reverse phenomenon was not shown to occur until recently.

The researchers assembled strings of nanoparticles, which are tiny clumps of matter on the scale of nanometers (one nanometer is one billionth of a meter). In a darkened lab, the scientists linked nanoparticles together into ribbons. At first the nano ribbons were flat, but when a light was shone on them, they curled up into spirals.

The discovery was so novel, the researchers were skeptical of their own results at first.

"I didn't believe it at the beginning," Kotov said. "To be honest, it took us three and a half years to really figure out how photons of light can lead to such a remarkable change in rigid structures a thousand times bigger than molecules."

Airline passenger protections to go into effect in April.

From NY Times:

The federal government is about to take a larger role in protecting airline passengers, starting with a new rule allowing travelers to get off a plane stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours.

That rule, which passenger advocates have long wanted, and others adopted by the Transportation Department signal a shift from a grass-roots fight for passenger rights to an era of stronger government-enforced consumer protections. The rules, officially labeled Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections, take effect April 29.

Although tarmac delays of three or more hours are increasingly rare, they still occur and leave misery in their wake, as a diverted Virgin America flight demonstrated on March 13, when passengers were stuck on a plane for more than four hours at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh/New Windsor, N.Y.

Other policies may affect far more travelers, including one that requires more disclosure about airline delays before a ticket purchase so customers can avoid flights that perform poorly. That marketplace pressure could provide an incentive for the industry to address the causes of delays.

Airlines will have to publish within their search results the on-time record for each flight and how often it has arrived more than 30 minutes late, highlighting flights that have arrived more than a half hour late more than half the time. Airlines will also have to note the cancellation rate for any flight canceled more than 5 percent of the time.

Ninjas swoop into high-end Manhattan boutique, swiping expensive dresses.

From the NY Post:

A gang of Ninja-style crooks staged a daring Fifth Avenue smash-and-grab in Midtown early yesterday, swiping $100,000 worth of pricey goodies from the boutique of high-end Italian designer Emilio Pucci, police sources said.

The crooks were dressed head to toe in basic black -- not at all like Emilio Pucci's styles, which are a riot of color. Cops believe there were at least three thieves at work.

Around 3:48 a.m., the crew smashed a glass door of the store -- which is down the street from Trump Tower -- and ran inside, authorities said.

Security video shows that within two minutes, they snatched dresses, T-shirts, handbags, belts, sunglasses, shoes and scarves, said a store spokesperson. The thieves stuffed the goods into a large plastic bag and fled.

The break-in triggered an alarm system -- but the thieves were gone by the time police arrived, said the sources.

Elusive monkey romps in Tampa Bay.

From FOX News:

In the hours after a monkey on the lam fell into a woman's pool and then swiped some fruit from her backyard tree, fans of the wily primate cheered it for avoiding capture.

"Go little monkey, go! No cages for you," wrote a guy named Jack on the "Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay" Facebook fan page. (There were more than 16,000 fans of the elusive monkey as of Wednesday morning.)

"I sure hope 'they' don't catch you!" wrote a woman named Kathleen. "Why can't 'they' just leave you alone?"

Why, indeed?

The rhesus macaque monkey has avoided capture for nearly a year. Authorities don't know where the animal came from, but some believe it could have gotten separated from a troupe of wild monkeys in an Ocala-area state park, some 118 miles north of St. Petersburg. Another possibility: the animal could have escaped from an unpermitted owner.

The creature has captivated people in Tampa Bay and beyond -- possibly because of his ability to outwit the humans trying to catch him.

"It's something that you can kind of cheer for," said Amy Ellis, a Pasco County employee who has become a fan of the monkey on Facebook. "Every day there's so much bad news. He's kind of like a little hero."

The monkey was even featured two weeks ago on "The Colbert Report" with host Stephen Colbert poking fun at the creature, who has been shot numerous times with tranquilizers, apparently unfazed. One trapper claimed the monkey was becoming a "drug addict" because of all the shots.

Protest cancels Ann Coulter speech.

No arrests, no injuries, no incidents. Coulter is a coward. From ABC News:

A protest by hundreds of students led organizers to cancel a Tuesday night speech by American conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa.

A spokesman for the organizers said Coulter was advised against appearing after about 2,000 "threatening" students crowded the entrance to Marion Hall, posing a security threat.

"It would be physically dangerous for Ann Coulter to proceed with this event," said conservative political activist Ezra Levant inside the hall. "This is an embarrassing day for the University of Ottawa and their student body . . . who chose to silence her through threats and intimidation."

A protest organizer, international studies student Mike Fancie, said he was pleased they were able to stop Coulter from speaking.

"What Ann Coulter is practicing is not free speech, it's hate speech," he said. "She's targeted the Jews, she's targeted the Muslims, she's targeted Canadians, homosexuals, women, almost everybody you could imagine."

Police win PR award for how they handled death of schoolgirl... killed by cop.

This is the definition of balls. From Daily Mail:

A police force nominated themselves and won a public relations award for the way they handled a tragedy - of a schoolgirl knocked down and killed by a speeding patrol car.

The family of Hayley Adamson have reacted with anger that Northumbria Police put themselves forward for the prize after the horrifying smash.

Hayley, 16, was killed when a speeding patrol car with no blue light or sirens on smashed into her in May 2008.

After a five-day trial at Newcastle Crown Court, PC John Dougal was jailed for three years after being convicted of driving at 94mph moments before he ploughed into her in the late-night tragedy.

His flashing blue lights and siren were switched off as he followed what he thought was a stolen car in Newcastle's West End.

Hayley's mother Yvonne Adamson, of the Fenham area of the city branded the move as ‘sick’.

Police officers have since visited the family and apologised saying the nomination, for which the won a 'gold' award, was never intended to cause offence.

Tomorrow would have been Hayley's 18th birthday.

Coozer-Bits.

Health: Michael Moore: Health care reform will save Republican lives, too.

Lame: Officials chop down 6,000 trees to prevent public sex.

Lame: JetBlue gets $30 million bribe to stay in NY.

Awesome: Britain department store launches divorce registry.

Tech: Why are keyboards QWERTY?

Science: Some galaxies snack on each other.

Games: Nintendo announces 3-D system to replace DS.

Russian roulette shock as wedding guest shoots himself in party trick gone wrong.

From the Daily Mail:

A wedding guest was arrested by police after a man was seriously wounded playing 'Russian roulette' in front of a horrified bride and groom.

The guest had been giving a toast when he pretended he was playing the deadly game with a gun that he claimed he thought was entirely empty.

But then he gave the gun to another guest - and it turned out that he had been tragically wrong.

The second guest also fired the handgun against his head - and dropped to ground as a rubber bullet exploded into his skull.

The first guest can be seen standing in shock for a split second after the shot is fired.

The film of the incident has sparked horror after being posted on the web.

Math genius turns down $1m prize, prefers company of cockroaches.

From Ananova:

A Russian said to be the world's cleverest man has turned down a $1 million prize for solving one of mathematics' toughest puzzles.

Dr Grigory Perelman, 44, who lives as a recluse in a cockroach-infested flat in St Petersburg, said through the closed door: "I have all I want."

The prize, the equivalent of £660,000, was given by the US Clay Mathematics Institute for solving the Poincare Conjecture, reports the Daily Mail.

Dr Perelman posted his solution on the internet but failed to turn up to receive his prestigious Fields Medal from the International Mathematical Union in Madrid four years ago.

At the time he stated: "I'm not interested in money or fame. I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo.

"I'm not a hero of mathematics. I'm not even that successful, that is why I don't want to have everybody looking at me."

Neighbour Vera Petrovna said: "I was once in his flat and I was astounded. He only has a table, a stool and a bed with a dirty mattress which was left by previous owners - alcoholics who sold the flat to him.

"We are trying to get rid of cockroaches in our block, but they hide in his flat."

The Poincare Conjecture was more than 100 years old when Perelman solved it - and could help determine the shape of the universe.

Last Supper to blame for our fattening culture.

From FOX News:

The food in famous paintings of the meal has grown by biblical proportions over the last millennium, researchers report in a medical journal Tuesday.

Using a computer, they compared the size of the food to the size of the heads in 52 paintings of Jesus Christ and his disciples at their final meal before his death.

If art imitates life, we're in trouble, the researchers conclude. The size of the main dish grew 69 percent; the size of the plate, 66 percent, and the bread, 23 percent, between the years 1000 and 2000.

Supersizing is considered a modern phenomenon, but "what we see recently may be just a more noticeable part of a very long trend," said Brian Wansink, a food behavior scientist at Cornell University.

Right-wing death squads kill ACORN.

Ha, take that, nonprofit that helped the underprivileged! Let this be a lesson to anyone who tries to improve their community. From CNN:

The community organizing group ACORN announced Monday it is closing its operations amid falling revenues.

The announcement came a day after the board of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now met and approved the steps required "to responsibly manage the process of bringing its operations to a close over the coming months," an ACORN statement read.

The group's remaining state affiliates and field offices will close by April 1, and a plan will be developed to pay its debts, the statement said.

"ACORN's members have a great deal to be proud of -- from promoting homeownership to helping rebuild New Orleans, from raising wages to winning safer streets, from training community leaders to promoting voter participation -- ACORN members have worked hard to create stronger communities, a more inclusive democracy and a more just nation," it said.

The 40-year-old liberal group was crippled by scandal six months ago when a pair of conservative activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute secretly videotaped two ACORN employees appearing to give them advice about setting up a prostitution ring and evading the IRS.

The video led to the employees being fired.

Afterward, Congress halted Housing and Urban Development grants to ACORN.

In a news release issued Saturday, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said the group had faced "a series of well-orchestrated, relentless, well-funded, right-wing attacks that are unprecedented since the McCarthy era. Our effective work empowering African-American and low-income voters made us a target. The videos were a manufactured, sensational story that led to rush to judgment and an unconstitutional act by Congress.

"For ACORN as a national organization, our vindication on the facts doesn't necessarily pay the bills. I know that ACORN's dedicated community members will continue to speak out for justice and organize in their communities."

ACORN's announcement was welcomed by Matthew Vadum, senior editor of the Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank based in Washington. "I won't be shedding any tears," said Vadum, who said he has been studying the organization for years and written extensively on the organization. "ACORN is a thoroughly corrupt organization that abuses taxpayer dollars and breaks the law at every opportunity. To suggest that it was set up is laughable."

He added in a telephone interview, "For ACORN to claim that it's a victim of McCarthyism, as I've seen CEO Bertha Lewis do repeatedly, doesn't even pass the laugh test. It can't be taken seriously."

On March 1, prosecutors cleared the group of criminal wrongdoing related to the videos. And on March 10, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon declared unconstitutional the law blacklisting ACORN and allied organizations from receiving federal funds, according to ACORN.

In 2008, Republican groups seized on allegations of voter registration fraud by the group in Florida and several other states, claiming its workers were trying to push the election in Barack Obama's favor.

Founded in 1970, ACORN called itself "the nation's largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people." The group said it had more than 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities.

Besides voter registration, the group focused on issues such as predatory lending, the minimum wage and funding for public schools, according to its Web site. It also provided free tax return preparation for low-income people and screening for state and federal benefit programs.

What does the health care bill mean to you?

Washington Post has a neat interactive feature that quickly tells you how health care reform will affect your coverage and taxes.

Check it out here.

For most of us, it'll have no affect. Except in turning us Communist.

Switching off single gene can allow humans to regenerate limbs.

Talk about health care reform! From PopSci:

Scientists have long been stymied by human regenerative healing -- that is, wholesale regrowth of, say, a severed limb -- an ability inherent in some species but lost on humans. But new research suggests the ability to regenerate isn't based on something newts and flatworms have that we don't; rather, it's something we do have that's keeping us from regenerating tissues. Researchers think a gene called p21 may control regenerative healing, and that by switching it off, humans could perform our own regeneration.

The new research suggests that the potential to heal without scarring -- or possibly even to regrow a limb, albeit in a limited manner -- may lie dormant in human cells, kept in check by the p21 gene. A group of lab mice engineered to lack p21 were able to regenerate surgically removed tissue to the point that no evidence of the surgery remained. Holes punched in their ears -- a standard procedure for tagging lab animals -- also healed perfectly, leaving behind no traces of scar tissue or previous damage.

Essentially, switching off the p21 gene allows adult cells to behave like pluripotent stem cells, reorienting themselves into whatever kind of tissue they need to be. But naturally there is a give-and-take; p21 is closely intertwined with another gene, p53, a cell-division regulator that, if allowed to run amok, can lead to many types of cancers. The p21 gene acts as a safety valve for p53, stopping cell division in the case of DNA damage. So switching off p21 can allow cells to engage in regenerative healing, but the risks of doing so include rampant cell division (read: cancer).

Rat sightings in hotels up 30%.

From USA Today:

Have you seen a truly unwanted guest - I'm talking about a rat - scurrying about your hotel lately?

Chances are you have, if TripAdvisor.com's unscientific "rat" analysis conducted for USA TODAY's Hotel Check-In at all resembles reality. By analyzing its January and February U.S. hotel reviews, TripAdvisor found that reviewers mentioned the word "rat" 31% more times vs. a year ago.

The analysis, of course, is not scientific. The uptick could easily be explained by an increase in the number of reviewers writing about escaping "the rat race" or partying at hotels favored by "the Rat Pack."

But it could also hint at a slight uptick in rat sightings this year vs. last year.

House passes huge college aid bill.

Almost lost in the health care coverage, the House also passed the biggest education legislation since No Child Left Behind. From Huffington Post:

Riding the coattails of a historic health care vote, the House on Sunday also passed a broad reorganization of college aid that affects millions of students and moves President Barack Obama closer to winning yet another of his top domestic policies.

The bill rewrites a four-decades-old student loan program, eliminating its reliance on private lenders and uses the savings to direct $36 billion in new spending to Pell Grants for students in financial need.

In the biggest piece of education legislation since No Child Left Behind nine years ago, the bill would also provide more than $4 billion to historically black colleges and community colleges.

The bill was paired with the expedited health care bill, a marriage of convenience that helped the prospects of each measure. That combined measure passed 220-211.

"We are pairing this historic health reform with another opportunity that cannot be missed – the chance to make the single largest investment in college affordability ever at no cost to the taxpayers," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.

Rusty, we love you.

Dear friends,

Rusty went peacefully yesterday at 5 pm. He had just turned 4 ½ years old.

The first time we met Rusty, we knew he was special. Jen knew it first: we went to a breeder on the Lower East Side to pick out a cat from a new litter. I had my eyes set on a slightly older, spunky bluish-grey boy with wild eyes who looked like he was on a constant catnip high. A family had taken him in and promptly returned him for being a handful.

While I was amusingly considering names for him (he looked like a Sammy or Psychobutt), Jen noticed a little red fluffy guy with a big pink nose who was trying to nurse from his mom. He was a little too old for that; the mom had already weaned off his siblings. To drive the point home, she sharply pushed his face away with her hind leg. He looked up at Jen with watery eyes and a hurt expression. Jen fell in love.

Born on September 5, 2005, that year’s Labor Day, the new litter of kittens was given trade union-related names. The original name of this little fluffy red guy was Jimmy Hoffa. Jen wisely renamed him Rusty. (My suggestion for “Doktor Otto von Fluffybutt” got overruled.)

Immediately, there was a connection. When it was time four weeks later to pick him up, the breeder told me I should hurry – Rusty was sitting on the carrier, staring at the door. He was ready for his new home.

While people give us credit for his friendly, mellow, and happy demeanor, I have to admit he was like that from the beginning. Expecting him to hide in fear or uncertainty, I was shocked when he strutted out of his carrier and calmly checked out his new digs. He used his new litterbox with no prodding or direction, then jumped on my lap as if we were old friends, and then slept in his cat tree, knowing it was for him. Rusty required no training, and in fact, he ended up training us to accommodate his amazing energy, playfulness, affection, and curiosity.

There are so many stories that illustrate what a special and unique creature he was. He always had to be in the same room as Jen and me. If he was asleep in one room and we moved to another, he’d sense it, get up, and move closer to us. He had a different position for everyone’s lap – stretched out across my belly and chest with his nose in my armpit; squished up along Jen’s side; straight down our friend Lou’s legs with his butt in Lou’s face; sprawled across our friend Rhea’s feet.

He had a special bond with humans, more so than with other animals. At dinner parties, he had to join in, sitting in his favorite chair when our chairs were in a circle, looking at people as they talked, and eating when we ate. When a friend or neighbor would leave, he’d stare at the door, hoping they’d come back. He didn’t meow much but had big, expressive, intelligent eyes and you always knew what he was thinking. Likewise, he’d pay close attention to people as they spoke to try to understand them.

Rusty didn’t mind being picked up or hugged or kissed. He loved bellyrubs and would roll around on his back like a puppy. He greeted us at the door, begging for bellyrubs. In the morning, he waited patiently for us outside our door – not for breakfast, but for a morning cuddle on our laps.

He was a long-bodied, long-haired tabby who could perform amazing acts of acrobatics. Chasing after a feather on a wand, he could do a 6-foot-high triple Lutz. Bouncing a mouse toy high off the hallway wall, he would jump close to the ceiling, propel himself off one wall onto another one, finishing off with a backflip. He had amazing accuracy and reflexes. A common game was “Rusty Baseball”: he would sit in his favorite chair and I’d toss a mouse toy toward him. Instead of catching it, he’d whack it right back at me with incredible aim and velocity, always making perfect contact no matter how bad my throw.

He loved his toys. If he spotted a mouse toy being scooted across the floor, his eyes would get big and bright, his body close to the ground and tense. Tossing the mouse, he was a heat-seeking missile. He loved this round toy that had an inset ball that spun around. It was continuously novel for him - if we spun it, even years later, he would stop whatever he was doing to stalk it out. When he wasn’t playful, he’d sometimes stroll by it and give it a forceful whack, just to show it who’s boss.

No matter how much we played and how wild he got, he never bit or clawed. He was always extremely careful about his claws, even though I was sometimes negligent in trimming them. Not that he minded – he liked having his paws massaged.

He loved his various perches and high areas so he could survey everyone and everything from that vantage point. Ironically, brilliant as he was, he could never figure out his cat bed and would sleep under it. He was silly and sometimes would stick his tongue out or sleep in ergonomically impossible positions.

In many ways he embodied “cat-ness,” but there were some cat-like things he never did. He didn’t go after shoelaces or strings (except for the tails on mouse toys). He didn’t bump heads or “make biscuits” or rub his body against legs or furniture. It seemed he never felt the need to mark his territory. He respectfully maneuvered around our clutter and was careful not to knock anything over. For a long time as a kitten, he cooed like a pigeon instead of purred.

He was never greedy with food, grazing when hungry and stopping when sated (one of the few things we didn’t have in common!). He preferred eating socially and would wait until Jen and I were having dinner. If we left the vicinity while he was chowing down, he would stop and follow us. Many evenings were spent sitting on the floor next to his food dish.

Rusty never complained, held a grudge, or showed resentment. Instead of giving us the cold shoulder upon returning from a lengthy trip, he treated us as if we never left. He splashed around happily during baths. As much as he hated medicine and pills, he never blamed us for such unpleasantries.

When he got sick and had to be taken to the vet often, Rusty never put up a fight or cried. He went into his carrier with only gentle direction. He was so calm and curious that he won the hearts of every doctor, technician, and staff member. His biggest worry was deciding whose marriage proposal to accept from the female staff.

Rusty was diagnosed with aggressive, high-grade lymphoma in October. There was no reason or trigger – it was simply bad luck. There was hope that we had caught it early and the chemotherapy would succeed. That seemed to be the case, thanks to Rusty -- he treated the cancer like one of his mousies and battled it valiantly. He quickly went into remission and had a few great months where he was spoiled rotten and was showered with love.

The cancer relapsed and Rusty quickly lost weight. We tried again with a different chemo and Rusty was bravely hanging on without complaint. But we could clearly see that he was uncomfortable and his best days were behind him. He loved us and everyone he has ever met and was fighting to stay here with us. He was such an amazing boy, though, that he deserved to be in peace and not struggle any more. Throughout his treatment, Rusty was extraordinarily brave and noble. I am so proud of him and I wish I could be more like him.

I’ve been saying goodbye to him the past five months, but I was never done saying goodbye to him. I don’t know if I ever will be. He went peacefully on my lap with Jen and me petting him. In one second, he was sleeping; in two seconds, he was gone.

He was such a huge part of our lives and there is an irreplaceable vacuum now. If feels like there are black holes in our apartment, in every space that he would occupy. I see his afterimage in the corners of my eyes and it’ll be awhile before I no longer carefully open a door or watch where I step to avoid his tail. He was never a very vocal cat, but the apartment has never been so quiet.

If you’ve met Rusty, you knew what a remarkable, funny, loving guy he was. If you never met him, I hope I imparted an approximate if incomplete sketch of him. Volumes could be written about him.

If you have pets, take them in for regular check-ups, even if they seem fine. Enjoy every day with them – they deserve our fullest attention. Listen to them if they want to play or cuddle or eat or want to be walked. Animals ask us for the simplest things from us and it makes them the happiest to know we care about them. They will love you forever.

Many animals struggle before they find loving homes. Many need to be rescued and rehabilitated from cruelty, violence, and pain. To honor Rusty’s memory, please consider a donation to Animal Haven (animalhavenshelter.org) or the ASPCA (aspca.org).

People have said that Rusty was lucky to have us; the opposite is truer. It was the greatest gift to have spent these years with such an amazing and sweet little boy. Rusty, we love you and appreciate you. You will always be in our thoughts.

PS – View our slideshow tribute here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28820146@N05/sets/72157623640106890

Love, Adam and Jen

Trend Spotting: 12-year-olds love inhalants!

Huffing glue is the new pogs! From CNN:

When their kids turn 12, parents are concerned about peers pressuring them to smoke cigarettes, drink and use drugs, but it turns out 12-year-olds are doing something else: getting high on inhalants.

A new national survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report finds that they're using inhalants more than marijuana, hallucinogens and cocaine combined.

Some young people are sniffing -- inhaling -- a wide variety of products to get high. Inhalants are legal, cheap and everywhere. They can easily be found in most homes: spray paint, shoe polish, glue, air fresheners, hair spray, nail polish, gasoline, aerosols, computer cleaners, even the refrigerant from air conditioners.

"We continue to face the challenge of increasing experimentation and intentional misuse of common household products among the youngest and most vulnerable segments of our population: 12-year-olds," said Harvey Weiss, executive director of the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition.

"The data are ominous, and their implications are frightening because of the toxic, chemical effects of these legal products on growing minds and bodies."

According to the survey, 6.9 percent of 12-year-olds have "huffed," while 1.4 percent have used pot, 0.7 percent hallucinogens and 0.1 percent cocaine. The report found 5.2 percent smoked cigarettes.

Huffing can be fatal, leading to "sudden sniffing death."

Einstein was right: general relativity confirmed.

I don't care what Einstein thinks - I still believe the universe is one giant stroopwafel. From Space.com:

Score one more for Einstein. A new study has confirmed his theory of general relativity works on extremely large scales.

The study was one of the first rigorous tests of this theory of gravity beyond our solar system. The research found that even over vast scales of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, the equations of general relativity predict the way that mass pulls on other mass in the universe.

The new work also helps rule out a competing theory of gravity that seeks to do away with the need for bizarre concepts like dark matter and dark energy that have irked some scientists. This research indicates those pesky ideas may be here to stay.

Longtime smoking cuts Parkinson's risk in half.

It makes you look cool, too! From CNN:

It's a catchy headline – smoking cuts Parkinson's risk dramatically – and it appears to be true, but researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Science don't want you to start smoking.

"Nobody should advocate smoking to prevent Parkinson's disease," said Dr. Honglei Chen, a tenure-track investigator at the Institute. "It’s important to make that very, very clear."

The study, released today in the journal Neurology looked at the lifetime smoking history of more than 300,000 people, and confirmed the inverse relationship between smoking and Parkinson's disease, established in earlier scientific studies. But, researchers say they've found a critical new piece to the puzzle: It appears to be the length of time one has been a smoker – not the number of cigarettes smoked – that has the most effect on disease risk reduction.

"People who smoked more than 40 years had a 46 percent decrease in Parkinson's disease risk," said Chen. "Whereas people who smoked between one and nine years had only an 8 percent decrease in risk."

Chen, the lead study author, and his colleagues cannot yet identify the reasons behind this staggering link, but say when they are able to determine which chemicals in the cigarettes seem to be have a protective effect, they hope to be able to develop a drug that can mimic the effects of smoking, without the harmful risks.

Dead: Corey Haim.

His soul went straight to video. From CNN:

Actor Corey Haim, who appeared in a number of movies during the 1980s, died early Wednesday of a possible drug overdose after being taken to a hospital, Los Angeles police said.

Haim, 38, was taken to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, where he was pronounced dead at about 3:30 a.m. PT Wednesday (6:30 a.m. ET), police Sgt. Frank Albarran said.

The death appears to be accidental, possibly an overdose, Albarran said.

Haim's most famous role was in the 1987 movie "The Lost Boys" in which he appeared with his frequent co-star, Corey Feldman.

In later years, the two friends -- who appeared in eight movies together -- both struggled with drug abuse and went their separate ways. They reunited for a reality show, "The Two Coreys," in 2007, but A&E Network canceled the program after slightly more than a year.

TX man gets 35 years for marijuana possession.

Well, at least they didn't execute him. From Raw Story:

For being caught with just over a quarter pound of pot, 54-year-old Henry Walter Wooten will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars, thanks to a jury in Tyler, Texas.

His prosecutor, Smith County Assistant District Attorney Richard Vance, originally sought a sentence of 99 years over the 4.6 ounces of marijuana police found in Wooten's vehicle, according to published reports.

Wooten was reportedly caught smoking pot within 1,000 feet of a day care center, within the radius of a so-called "drug free zone." Tipped off by the smell, police would later search the man's vehicle, only to discover his cannabis stash and a digital scale, according to The Tyler Morning Telegraph.

Sleeping too little or too much will make you fat.

From New Scientist:

Sleep's effect on fat is becoming clearer. Having too much or too little piles on the worst kind of fat.

Kristen Hairston and colleagues at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, monitored 1100 African and Hispanic Americans for five years. Both groups are at a high risk of obesity-related disorders.

People under 40 gained 1.8 kilograms more on average if they got less than 5 hours of sleep per night than if they slept for 6 or 7 hours. Those regularly sleeping for more than 8 hours gained 0.8 kilograms more than the medium-sleep group (Sleep, vol 33, p 289).

CAT scans revealed increases in visceral fat, which accumulates around the internal organs and is particularly dangerous to health.

Sarah Palin compares herself to God.

I hope she tries walking on water next. From NY Daily News:

Sarah Palin has offered up a new excuse for using her hand to scribble crib notes – God did it, too.

The former Alaskan governor was speaking at an Ohio Right to Life fund-raiser last week when she addressed the palm-writing incident that occurred at a Tea Party convention last month and earned her so much media mockery.

"I didn't [at the time] have a good answer to that criticism because I thought it was so ridiculous," Palin told the nearly 3,000 people at the event.

But now the 46-year-old GOP star has her response:

"If it was good enough for God, scribbling on the palm of his hand, it's good enough for me," Palin said to cheers from the crowd, who laughed along with her.

She cited a line from the Bible as part of her remarks, which she said a supporter had sent her.

The passage, Isaiah 49:16, says, "See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."

"I’m in good company," Palin said.

North Korea ready to "blow up" the US.

From FOX News:

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea's army said Monday it is ready to "blow up" South Korea and the U.S., hours after the allies kicked off annual military drills that Pyongyang has slammed as a rehearsal for attack.

South Korea and the U.S. — which normally dismiss such threats as rhetoric — began 11 days of drills across South Korea on Monday morning to rehearse how the U.S. would deploy in time of emergency on the Korean peninsula.

The U.S. and South Korea argue the drills — which include live firing by U.S. Marines, aerial attack drills and urban warfare training — are purely defensive. North Korea claims they amount to attack preparations and has demanded they be canceled.

The North's People's Army issued a statement Monday, warning the drills created a tense situation and that its troops are "fully ready" to "blow up" the allies once the order is issued.

The North also put all its soldiers and reservists on high alert to "mercilessly crush the aggressors" should they encroach upon the North's territory even slightly, said the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Japan Airline uniforms sold to sex industry.

Coming soon to your local Japanese vending machine... From News.com.au:

Japan Airlines flight attendant uniforms are being sold to the local sex industry after becoming highly sought after by fetishists.

While several shops have created credible imitations, uniforms worn by air stewardesses have become worth their weight in gold for customers keen on role-playing fantasies.

Since announcing bankruptcy in January cabin crew face mass layoffs and an increased temptation to sell their outfits for a profit.

The airline expects a flood of uniforms on to the black market.

Yu Teramoto, the owner of a specialist costumier in the Akihabara district of Tokyo, told The Times in the UK real Japan Airlines (JAL) outfits have been virtually impossible for buyers to lay their hands on.

The airline has gone to great lengths to ensure uniforms stay off the black market, including inserting a serial number into each item of clothing, and keeping meticulous records of the exact whereabouts of garments all around the world.

This airline may also follow All Nippon Airways, who were forced to sew computer chips into its stewardess uniforms after suffering a similar problem.

College campus offers pr0n for Bibles.

From FOX News, dispensers of much Bible porn:

A Texas college campus is locked in a fierce debate after a group of students launched the "smut for smut" campaign, trading bibles and other religious texts for porn, MyFoxSanAntonio.com reported.

Atheist students at the University of Texas at San Antonio announced that any student over the age of 18 will receive pornographic materials if they trade in religious materials, according to MyFoxSanAntonio.com.

Leaders of this atheist campaign allege that porn is no worse than what's written in religious texts.

A university spokesman says that this controversial cause is completely legal, though he admits a majority of the students on campus do not agree with it, according to MyFoxSanAntonio.com.

The group will continue its activities on campus through the middle of the week, according to the site.

Investigation reveals that ACORN were set up.

Small, buried item today. From NY Post, item in full:

The video that unleashed a firestorm of criticism on the activist group ACORN was a "heavily edited" splice job that only made it appear as though the organization's workers were advising a pimp and prostitute on how to get a mortgage, sources said yesterday.

The findings by the Brooklyn DA, following a 5½-month probe into the video, secretly recorded by conservative provocateurs James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, means that no charges will be filed.

Many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister, sources said.

Hella way to describe massive numbers!

From New Scientist:

We need a way to describe super-high numbers. So says an online petition with over 20,000 supporters, advocating the prefix "hella" for 10²⁷.

Yotta (10²⁴) is the largest prefix in the International System of Units (SI), followed by zeta (10²¹), exa (10¹⁸) and peta (10¹⁵), according to Physics World

Hella units could prove handy for numbers such as the sun's wattage, according to physics student Austin Sendek of the University of California, Davis, who set up the webpage on Facebook. He writes:

"Designating a prefix for 1027 is of critical importance for scientists in all fields. This number is significant in many crucial calculations, including the wattage of the sun, distances between galaxies, or the number of atoms in a large sample."

Sendek argues that the prefix "hella" would be an appropriate way to honour the science of North California, where he is based.

New gadget turns your arm into touchscreen.

From Daily Mail:

Those who find the touchscreens on their ever shrinking gadgets too fiddly to handle, will be glad to hear scientists are developing a new touch surface... your own arm.

Developers at Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University are working together to create an armband that projects an interface directly on to your skin.

They have combined a mini projector which creates a changing display with a sophisticated sensor that can tell which part of your arm is being tapped.

The researchers showed Skinput can be used to control audio devices, play simple games like Tetris, make phone calls and navigate simple browsing systems.

The gadget effectively turns your arm into a touchscreen surface by picking up various ultra-low sounds produced when you tap different areas.

Zombie Watch: Family misinformed about grandmother's death.

Or were they?? From ABC:

A local family got quite a surprise after they were told their grandmother had died at a hospital in Brooklyn. They began making funeral arrangements and notifying relatives.

But when they showed up at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, they found out 93-year-old Ella Abrams was very much alive.

"Jasmine went in there, and Jasmine started hollering, crying, she says, "Oh my God, she's alive, she's alive," Abrams' daughter Martha Covington said.

Great-granddaughter Jasmine Goodwin says a hospital staffer told her on the phone Wednesday that her family's matriarch had passed away. But when the family went to the ICU to gather her things, they saw her name on the door and Ella inside.

[...] With the family horrified in the hall, Jasmine ventured in the room, saw the ventilator still on and felt Ella's hand.

"She was warm, and she moved her head," Goodwin said. "So I started screaming. I screamed and ran out, and I was like, 'Mommy, Mommy, she's alive!"

Some iPhones, iPods made with child labor.

Maybe this is why they no longer make iPod Minis? From NY Daily News:

Parts of your iPod or iPhone could have been manufactured by a child.

At least eleven 15-year-old kids were working in three factories that supply Apple, according to the Telegraph.

Apple, which has factories in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the Czech Republic, the United States, Taiwan and Singapore, would not release information about the specific factories using child labor. It did, however, say that it no longer employs children in its factories.

“In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment,” Apple said, in an annual report on its suppliers.

This is not the first controversy to surround Apple factories. Last week, 62 workers were poisoned by n-hexane at a factory that supplies Apple and Nokia. Last year, a worker at one of Apple's main suppliers in Taiwan committed suicide after accusations emerged that he stole the iPhone prototype.

Spider-Man joins unemployment line.

From NY Post:

Even a résumé that boasts of saving the city from Doctor Octopus and sparkling references from the likes of Captain America can't keep Spider-Man off the unemployment line.

The wall-crawler's hard-luck alter ego, Peter Parker, will get canned by boss J. Jonah Jameson and join the country's out-of-work millions in a storyline that starts in this Wednesday's "Amazing Spider-Man" No. 623.

"He couldn't have lost his job at a worse time," said "Spider-Man" editor Steve Wacker.

"He's going to struggle with unemployment and trying to save the city while he can barely afford to keep a roof over his head," Wacker said.

While the Queens native has been jobless before -- he's been a personal assistant and teacher and has tried to get a hack license in the past couple of years -- he's always been able to fall back on freelance photography, selling shots of himself in action as Spider-Man.

Disabled AC/DC fan impaled in mosh pit.

From News.com.au:

A quadriplegic man was seriously hurt at an AC/DC concert after his friend accidentally hit the joystick of his motorised wheelchair and catapulted him into the mosh pit.

Witnesses said a metal pin used by the 31-year-old man to manoeuvre objects became a spear and imbedded in his eye as his chair crashed more than a metre to the Brisbane centre's floor.

Queensland Sport and Athletic Centre, where the concert was held, faces criticism for not placing a proper barrier in front of the special wheelchair podium.

[...] The man was last night in a serious, but stable condition.

Sex-crazed elephant ruins wedding.

From News.com.au:

An elephant ran amok at a lavish wedding ceremony in India, causing $303,000 worth of damage.

The elephant, one of three hired for the wedding reception of two politicians' children in New Delhi, went on the rampage after trying to reach an in-heat female elephant.

According to Bangkok-based Thaindian News, the elephant charged a lawn full of wedding guests before flipping over about 20 cars in a nearby parking lot.

It was finally brought under control by a tranquilizer around six hours later, after ramming a police truck and narrowly avoiding injuring two officers within.

Wildlife Trust of India said that the elephant was in "mast", or rutting stage, which happens once a year.

Lottery winner eats $15,000 winning ticket.

From FOX News:

One airline passenger became so irate that he could not claim his $15,000 winning scratch card while on board a flight that he took rather odd action — he ate his ticket.

Cabin crew on a Thursday flight from Krakow, Poland, to the U.K.'s East Midlands airport congratulated the winner and advised him to claim his prize directly from the company which runs the lottery, according to TheAustralian.com.

But he apparently became so upset that he was not able to collect the prize mid-flight that he decided to digest his winning scratch card ... invalidating his claim.

The airline was asking visitors to its website to decide which charity should get the $15,000 prize.

"Passengers have always been delighted to claim their large cash prizes after returning home," Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said.

"Unfortunately our latest winner felt that we should have his €10,000 prize kicking around on the aircraft."

US court: Zombies have right to free speech.

The judicial system has once again doomed us all. From Raw Story:

They're said to utter little more than an occasional groan, but zombies -- the blood-drenched monsters of Hollywood "B" movies -- still have a right to free speech, a US court ruled this week.

An appeals court in the northern US city of Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday allowed a group of zombies -- or rather, several protesters costumed as such -- to press ahead with their lawsuit against police who arrested them for disorderly conduct.

The appeals court overturned a lower court in finding that the group of seven "zombies" had been wrongfully detained during a 2006 shopping mall protest against consumerism.

The three-judge panel, by a two-to-one vote, ruled that Minneapolis police lacked probable cause to arrest the demonstrators for disorderly conduct.

At the time of the protest, the plaintiffs were wearing makeup that gave them a "living dead" look: white face powder, fake blood and black circles around their eyes.

They lurched stiff-legged through the halls of the mall urging shoppers to "get your brains here" and "brain cleanup in aisle five."

Study: Happy people are selfish assholes.

Jerks, all of them. From New Scientist:

The Founding Fathers liked happiness so much they considered pursuing it an inalienable right – but maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Happiness seems to make people more selfish, the latest in a series of revelations suggesting it changes how you think – and not in a good way.

Psychologist Joe Forgas at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who has led many of these studies, suggests that happiness's negative effects all stem from a cheery mood's tendency to lull you into feeling secure. This makes you look inwards and behave both more selfishly and more carelessly.

"People in a positive mood generally rely more on their own thoughts and preferences, and pay less attention to the outside world and social norms," says Forgas.

Supreme Court: Police can adlib Miranda warnings.

Now cops can shout your rights in your face, filled with colorful expletives. From Christian Science Monitor:

Police officers are not required to use exact, cookie-cutter phrasing while advising criminal suspects of their right to have a lawyer present with them throughout a police interrogation, the US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

In a 7-to-2 decision, the high court sought to clarify the rule requiring issuance of so-called Miranda warnings to suspects who are about to be questioned by police.

Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that police agencies need not repeat the precise wording used by federal agents in pre-interrogation warnings. The key, she said, is that the suspect be given adequate advice covering all the Miranda protections.

“The four warnings Miranda requires are invariable, but this court has not dictated the words in which the essential information must be conveyed,” Justice Ginsburg wrote.

She said that reviewing courts need not parse an officer’s Miranda warnings with the precision of construing a will or defining an easement. “The inquiry is simply whether the warnings reasonably convey to a suspect his rights as required by Miranda,” she wrote.

Wiimote robot drum circle makes hippies obsolete.

But can the robots emulate disappointing your parents by dropping out of school to live on Venice Beach? From PopSci:

A musician has harnessed the power of two Nintendo Wiimotes to become a cyborg percussionist with the robo-band Jazari. His playing of one drum machine can evoke an automated response from another, so that he can go around the drum circle in a beautiful display of human-robot improvisation.

The man behind the machine, Patrick Flanagan, is a composer who cites music theory, music cognition, and machine learning as the three "chin-stroking disciplines" that influence his work. He created Jazari with a nod to Al-Jazari, a polymath of the Arab world in the 13th century who supposedly created the world's first robot band.

Each of the Wiimote buttons can control higher or lower tones on certain drums, while tiling down or up controls volume. Tilting the Wiimote to the side and holding down a button can increase or decrease the repeating beat, ranging from quarter notes to 32nd notes.

Dually wielded Wiimotes also allows Flanagan to reverse the drum patterns on two drum machines, speed up one drum machine faster than the other, and do other neat tricks that alter the rhythm.

Star fattens planet and then devours it.

From New Scientist:

A Jupiter-like exoplanet is being fattened up by its star, which looks set to devour it.

Discovered in 2008, WASP-12b is a gas giant that is 1.4 times as massive as Jupiter, but is puffed up to about 1.8 times Jupiter's size. It orbits the host star in 26 hours.

Shu-lin Li of the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Beijing, China, and colleagues say that this bloat is caused by the star's gravity, which stirs up the planet's interior, generating heat that expands its gases (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature08715).

WASP-12b's bloated state means it can barely hold onto its outer atmosphere. This should allow the star to steal matter from the planet, consuming it completely in about 10 million years, the team estimates. "This may sound like a long time, but for astronomers it's nothing," says Li. Earth has been around for more than 4.5 billion years.

SeaWorld whale kills trainer during live show.

From Huffington Post:

A SeaWorld killer whale snatched a trainer from a poolside platform Wednesday in its jaws and thrashed the woman around underwater, killing her in front of a horrified audience. It marked the third time the animal had been involved in a human death.

Distraught audience members were hustled out of the stadium immediately, and the park was closed.

Trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40, was one of the park's most experienced. Her sister said Brancheau wouldn't want anything done to the whale that killed her because she loved the animals like children.

Brancheau was rubbing Tilikum after a noontime show when the 12,000-pound whale grabbed her and pulled her in, said Chuck Tompkins, head of animal training at all SeaWorld parks. It was not clear if she drowned or died from the thrashing.

Scientists distort laws of physics.

From last week, but just read it. Wowza! From NY Times:

Physicists said Monday that they had whacked a tiny region of space with enough energy to briefly distort the laws of physics, providing the first laboratory demonstration of the kind of process that scientists suspect has shaped cosmic history.

The blow was delivered in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, where, since 2000, physicists have been accelerating gold nuclei around a 2.4-mile underground ring to 99.995 percent of the speed of light and then colliding them in an effort to melt protons and neutrons and free their constituents — quarks and gluons. The goal has been a state of matter called a quark-gluon plasma, which theorists believe existed when the universe was only a microsecond old.

The departure from normal physics manifested itself in the apparent ability of the briefly freed quarks to tell right from left. That breaks one of the fundamental laws of nature, known as parity, which requires that the laws of physics remain unchanged if we view nature in a mirror.

Study: People will do anything to be fascinating.

From Open Forum:

I have just finished reading Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation, by Sally Hogshead. Sally is an award-winning advertising executive turned brand innovation consultant. In this book, she covers a wide swath of disciplines to weave a story-driven narrative that draws on her original research, a Kelton Study conducted specifically for the book, to look deeply into what captures our attention, and how we can create fascination in our lives and livelihoods.

Her goal in conducting a study of 1,059 Americans over the age of 18 was to define the role of fascination in our lives, and measure it in tangible terms. “Without fascination,” Sally says, “we can't sell products, persuade shareholders to invest, teach students to read, or convince our own kids to stay off drugs.”

Some of the more interesting results are these:

* When asked how far they would go for a fascinating life, 60% of people said they’d be willing to bend their morals, standards, or loyalties.

* Only 9% of employees say their bosses are “extremely fascinating,” but 96% of parents say they’re fascinated by their own children.

* A fascinating brand can charge up to four times as much as an un-fascinating one.

* On average people will pay $288 per month to be the most fascinating person in the room. Five percent will pay more than $1000 per month. (Women will spend more to be fascinating than they spend on food. In fact, women will spend more to be fascinating than they spend on food and clothes combined.)

Chuck Norris is destroying computer networks.

From ComputerWorld:

If you haven't changed the default password on your home router, you may be in for an unwanted visit from Chuck Norris -- the Chuck Norris botnet, that is.

Discovered by Czech researchers, the botnet has been spreading by taking advantage of poorly configured routers and DSL modems, according to Jan Vykopal, the head of the network security department with Masaryk University's Institute of Computer Science in Brno, Czech Republic.

The malware got the Chuck Norris moniker from a programmer's Italian comment in its source code: "in nome di Chuck Norris," which means "in the name of Chuck Norris." Norris is a U.S. actor best known for his martial arts films such as "The Way of the Dragon" and "Missing in Action."

Security experts say that various types of botnets have infected millions of computers worldwide to date, but Chuck Norris is unusual in that it infects DSL modems and routers rather than PCs.

Canada accepts genetically mutated pig-mice in food supply.

Canadian bacon just got weird(er). From UPI:

A Canadian government department is poised to approve genetically modified pigs for the food supply, the Canwest News Service reported Friday.

Sources told the agency Environment Canada will announce approval of the strain known as "enviropigs" Saturday.

The strain would then need approval from Health Canada before the pigs enter the food market.

The Yorkshire pigs were developed by researchers in Ontario at the University of Guelph, who spliced in genes from mice to decrease the amount of phosphorus produced in the pigs' dung, the report said.

Study: More liquor stores mean more violence.

Wow, really, researchers? How's that cure for cancer coming? From LiveScience:

The more bars and liquor stores in an area, the more violence there will be, a new study finds.

Researchers compared crime statistics and listings of liquor licenses in Cincinnati to determine the connection. Convenience stores and carry-out sites that sold alcohol were the most strongly associated with assaults, but bars and restaurants that serve alcohol are also correlated with violence.

In fact, the statistics showed that adding one more liquor store per square mile would lead to 2.3 more simple assaults and 0.6 more aggravated assaults in the area.

California town charges $300 per 911 call.

Worst idea ever. It's hard enough to get someone to call 911 for you if you're in trouble.... Item here.

Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 9-1-1 for a medical emergency.

But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year which allows them to call 9-1-1 as many times as necessary.

Or, there's the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead, they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.

"A $300 fee and you don't even want to be thinking about that when somebody is in need of assistance," said Tracy resident Greg Bidlack.

Residents will soon receive the form in the mail where they'll be able to make their selection. No date has been set for when the charges will go into effect.

Man fatally burned after dropping cigarette in vodka.

From the NY Post:

A central New Jersey man who was severely burned when he accidentally ignited vodka he had spilled on himself has died from his injuries.

Toms River police had to force their way in to Paul MacClymont’s home early Friday after he called 911 to report his injuries. He told officers he had burned himself the night before when he dropped a lit cigarette in his lap, igniting some vodka that had spilled on his legs.

After briefly rolling around on the floor, MacClymont said he passed out before waking up six hours later and calling police.

The 40-year-old man, who sustained third-degree burns over his entire body, was taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where he died later Friday.

Study: Vacations don't boost happiness.

From LiveScience:

We're happiest when looking forward to vacations, though once back in the office that level of glee is comparable to our non-vacationing cubicle mates, a new study finds. Essentially, vacations may not be the restorative respites they are chocked up to be.

The researchers surveyed 1,530 Dutch adults, 974 of whom took a vacation during the 40-plus week study period. At certain time points both before and after trips, participants answered questions related to their happiness levels.

Those in the planning phase of a vacation had higher happiness scores than those not going away, which the researchers say, is likely due to holiday anticipation. Following the trip, vacationers and non-vacationers showed no difference in their happiness levels, that is unless the time off was considered very relaxing. In that case, there was a slight happiness boost for vacationers noticeable during the first two weeks back. After eight weeks, that slight increase had faded completely, the scientists found.

The research team isn't surprised by the short shelf-life for this vacation boost. Most vacationers go right back to the daily grind pretty quickly upon return, according to Jeroen Nawijn of Erasmus University in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In addition, past research has shown that for many people, vacations are fully-wired, so they're just an e-mail or text-message away from the office and the relaxation potential is not fully realized.

Snack sausages used as iPhone stylus.

From the Food Section:

The electronics blog engadget has reported that snack sausages are being used as a meat stylus by South Koreans to operate their iPhones in inclement weather:

"Apparently snack sausages from the CJ Corporation are electrostatically compatible with the iPhone's capacitive touchscreen, leading many to use them as a 'meat stylus' in the cold weather, rather than remove a glove. And it's not just a joke; apparently South Korean snack sausage sales are soaring."

12 convicted for fake Pinot Noir scheme.

From FOX News:

TOULOUSE, France — A French court has convicted a dozen wine merchants and wine growers for selling and exporting fake Pinot Noir in a lucrative fraud scheme. A leading U.S. wine merchant in the case says he may appeal.

Among others, the fraud victimized California-based giant E. & J. Gallo Winery.

Claude Corset, head of the wine merchant company Ducasse and a leading defendant in the case, told The Associated Press on Thursday that his wine was "irreproachable" and reserves the right to appeal.

A court in Carcassonne, in southwest France, handed him a six-month suspended prison sentence and a $61,000 fine.

Prosecutor Francis Battut said Thursday that Merlot and Syrah grapes were passed off as Pinot Noir in a scheme dating from January 2006 to March 2008.

US army enlists nuke-hunting robo-roaches.

What could go wrong? From Wired:

America’s rapidly expanding cyborg-animal army could soon add a new crawler to its ranks. National Defense magazine reports that scientists in Texas have turned the near-indestructible cockroach into a remote-controlled nuke detector.

A team of nuclear engineers at Texas A&M’s Nuclear Science and Policy Institute attached radioactivity sensors to the backs of cockroaches, meant to scope out different kinds of nuclear material. The cockroaches are remote-controlled, so officials could unleash them into potentially contaminated areas that might not be safe for humans.

The roaches would join an array of non-human war-fighters the Department of Defense seems keen on assembling: already, they’ve floated plans for cyborg spy beetles, flying robo-moths and even killer dolphins, allegedly.

But when it comes to nuke-detection, roaches are ideal candidates - for every reason everyone already hates them: the critters can survive for weeks without food, are nearly impossible to kill, and have invaded every continent except for Antarctica. They can also run non-stop for 35 minutes, and are resilient enough to carry a three-gram back-pod for several months. Oh, and somehow the things are radiation-resistant, too.

Coozer-Bits.

Funny: Pelican attacks weatherman.

Politics: Falkland War 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Cthulhu Watch: Why an octopus is more awesome than your mom.

Hero: Stranger saves woman who fainted on subway tracks.

D'oh: Always spell check your tattoos.

Gross: Garbage collector sues after swallowing medical waste at clinic.

Duh: Human genome mess ruins the case for a caring, intelligent God.

Sebastian Bach saves Axl Rose from knife attack.

From the NY Post:

Chaos was narrowly averted at an intimate Guns N' Roses concert when a man with a knife was tackled by ex-Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach.

The mystery man casually pulled out what appeared to be a switchblade knife as he walked into the packed and uber-exclusive "Nur Khan's Rose Bar Sessions" at the Gramercy Park Hotel on Sunday.

But Bach, who was standing near the door, immediately got the stranger thrown out of the bash, which was attended by a host of stars including Mickey Rourke.

A witness reports, "The man walked in while Guns N' Roses was onstage and pulled out a knife and flicked the blade out. Sebastian, who was standing on a banquette said: 'Nobody is getting anywhere near my man Axl Rose with a knife,' and went after him. Security then immediately threw him out. The man appeared to be drunk. It was dealt with so quickly that none of the other guests or the band were aware of it."

[...] Guns N' Roses played for two hours for 150 guests, finishing up at 3 a.m. before moving the party upstairs with a group of model and rocker friends until 6 a.m.

When earlier asked by The Post's Brian Niemietz if long metal hair will come back in fashion, Bach said, "If it does, people better start now because it takes seven [bleep]ing years to get it this length." Flaunting his golden locks, Bach added, "And this isn't some Jessica [bleep]ing Simpson hair extensions -- this is the real deal." A rep for the Rose Bar declined to comment.

Ranger fan proposes on the big screen, gets shot down.

Article from NY Post, video of the V-Day humiliation can be seen here (thanks Matt K!):

Talk about a blocked shot!

A hockey-rink Romeo used today's Rangers game to pop the big question -- only to see his would-be bride storm out in front of thousands booing fans.

"Melissa, will you be my Blueshirt bride? Love, Nick," read the message on the scoreboard, bordered by little hearts. With the stadium -- and Nick -- watching Melissa put her hand over her mouth in apparent horror, picked up her bag and walked out, shaking her head.

Melissa was showered with boos as she left and the Rangers went on to blow away the Tampa Bay Lightning, 5-2.

BBC scriptwriters admit using Doctor Who to bring down Margaret Thatcher.

"EXTERMINATE (the Falkand Islands)." From the Daily Mail:

She famously battled the Argentine army abroad and the trade unions at home, but she never knew she was also under attack from outer space.

Left wing scriptwriters hired by the BBC during the 1980s tried to inspire a 'Tardis revolution' by using Doctor Who as propaganda to undermine Baroness Thatcher.

In one series they caricatured the then Prime Minister as a vicious and egotistical alien ruler who banned outward displays of unhappiness among her downtrodden people and used a secret police to oppress dissidents.

Other Doctor Who plots set in distant planets included thinly veiled support for the miners' strike and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, former actors and writers on the show have admitted.

The revelations appear to confirm complaints at the time that the BBC opposed the then Mrs Thatcher's government which prompted the Tory party chairman, Norman Tebbit, to claim that the corporation was in the hands of a 'Marxist mafia'.

But so lacklustre was the extraterrestrial satire that even those who produced it admit that it had no impact on the Conservative government and nobody at the time even 'noticed or cared'.

Sylvester McCoy, the actor who played the Time Lord for two years in the 1980s, said: 'Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered.'