Ninja slug discovered in Borneo.

Gotta love a scientist who names a slug after his girlfriend. From LiveScience:

An eccentric bunch of species have recently come out of hiding in the rainforests of Borneo, including the world's longest known stick insect — think two skinny pencils end-to-end, a slug that shoots "love darts," and a color-changing frog, scientists announce today.

[...] Ninja slug – This green and yellow slug (Ibycus rachelae) was discovered on leaves in a mountain forest at altitudes up to 6,233 feet (1,900 meters) in Sabah, Malaysia. The slug sports a tail that's three times the length of its head, which it wraps around its 1.6-inch-long (4 cm) body as if a pet cat. In fact, its discoverers initially planned to name the slug Ibycus felis, after its feline inspiration. Instead, they named it after the girlfriend of one of its discoverers, Menno Schilthuizen of the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity 'Naturalis.'

Maybe there's more to the name than meets the eye: The slug species makes use of so-called love darts. Made of calcium carbonate, the love dart is a harpoon-like structure that pierces and injects a hormone into a potential mate. The dart could increase the slug's chances of reproduction.

Crocodile shows up at water aerobics class.

This is precisely why I don't exercise. Item!

A water aerobics class in northern Australia had a good reason to skip the morning workout: a crocodile was busy using its pool.

The 5-foot-long invader was spotted by workers Tuesday at the Howard Spring Holiday Park, outside Darwin, while they were cleaning the trailer park's pool for a class frequented by tourists, Australia's Northern Territory News reported.

"I bent down to the water and there it was, staring at me, less than 3 meters (10 feet) away," the park's manager, Geoff Thompson, told the newspaper.

At least one person did manage a workout.

"The crocodile gave one of the crocodile management rangers a bit of a runaround, having to chase it around the pool," Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife senior ranger Tom Nichols said in a statement.

Rangers believe the croc slipped in under a fence.

Painting whale makes a splash in art world.

Some cuteness for your Monday morning. Item!

A Beluga whale is making a big splash as an artist after picking up a paintbrush at an oceanarium in China.

Keepers at the Qingdao Polar Ocean World say Xiao Qiang started out when he simply grabbed a paint brush left behind buy a visitor and started playing with it.

Now the seven year old star's paintings are changing hands for hundreds of pounds among fans.

"He showed a lot of interest in painting right from the start so now all we have to do is give him the brushes and hold the paper while he paints with his mouth," said trainer Zhang Yong.

"His favourite colour seems to be blue and he's best of all at seascapes. His people always look like seals."

Experts say that dolphin-like Belugas - known as the sea canary because of their high pitched squeaks and twitters - have more soft tissue around their mouths than other whales which allows Xiao Qiang to manipulate a brush.

"He enjoys what he does and this turning of the head to paint is a natural movement that these whales perform in the wild when they are cleaning their food of sand," added Yong.

"They are brighter than other whales and he loves to play jokes on his keepers. Sometimes he deliberately paints them instead of the paper."

Outrage over cookbook's "black people" typo.

From Orange:

An Australian publisher has been forced to reprint thousands of cookery books after a pasta recipe calling for "salt and freshly ground black people" prompted outrage.

Bob Sessions, Penguin Group Australia's head of publishing, acknowledged the proofreader for the Pasta Bible should have picked up the error, but said it was nothing more than a "silly mistake".

The Pasta Bible recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto was supposed to call for black pepper.

"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," he told The Sydney Morning Herald.

"We've said to bookstores that if anyone is small-minded enough to complain about this... silly mistake, we will happily replace (the book) for them."

Penguin has said it would reprint 7,000 books, at a cost of £12,000, but books already in stores would not be recalled because doing so would be "extremely hard," Mr Sessions said.

Why we can't do three things at once.

From LiveScience:

For those who find it tough to juggle more than a couple things at once, don't despair. The brain is set up to manage two tasks, but not more, a new study suggests.

That's because, when faced with two tasks, a part of the brain known as the medial prefrontal cortex (MFC) divides so that half of the region focuses on one task and the other half on the other task. This division of labor allows a person to keep track of two tasks pretty readily, but if you throw in a third, things get a bit muddled.

"What really the results show is that we can readily divide tasking. We can cook, and at the same time talk on the phone, and switch back and forth between these two activities," said study researcher Etienne Koechlin of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France. "However, we cannot multitask with more than two tasks."

Dead: Peter Steele of Type O Negative.

From NY Daily News:

Peter Steele, the frontman for the heavy metal band Type O Negative, has died.

After a morning of speculation, the band's spokesperson confirmed Thursday afternoon that Steele had died Wednesday at age 48.

"Peter passed away last night. As of now it appears to have been heart failure," Mike Renault wrote in an email to CBSNews.com. "That's all the details we have right now."

The official type O Negative Web site posted the following message to its fans this morning, "The forums have been re-opened. Please play nice and expect statements from the band and family later today. Thank you for your understanding and support."

Steele had a history of medical problems since 2004. That year the band announced they were cancelling their U.S. tour so that the singer could be tested for "undisclosed anomalies" found during a medical exam.

NYC to charge homeless people for rent.

From NY Daily News:

Nothing's free in New York - not even a stint in a city shelter.

Homeless people with jobs are going to have to start paying the city rent to stay in shelters, officials said Tuesday.

"Open-ended handouts, we know, don't work," Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs said. "This is not a moneymaker. We're not doing this to close budget gaps. It's really the principles ... involved."

A 1997 state law requires New York to charge rent to the homeless who can afford it. The city never did, but has been pressed to do it since a state audit last year.

Shelter residents would have to pay as much as 44% of their income in their first year in the program.

Critics say the plan penalizes people who are struggling.

"It makes far more sense to allow those families to save their meager funds in order to be able to get out of the shelter system sooner," said Steven Banks, chief attorney of the Legal Aid Society, which may sue to block the plan.

"This is an extreme policy that has no discernible benefit, that will end up hurting the families and costing the taxpayers money," Banks said. "If necessary, we'll certainly go to court."

Coozer-Bits.

List: 30 ways you can spot fake online reviews.

Gross: HIV-like virus found in illegally imported meat.

Awesome: Escaped convicts disguised as sheep. (Not a baaa'd idea!)

Yipes: Southern Iceland evacuated due to volcanic activity.

Eats: Why many people hate cilantro (and its soapy bug smell).

Man creates evil clown business.

I would kill my parents in their sleep if they did this to me. Item!

A Swiss actor is carving out a new career as a sinister-looking clown - terrifying children's birthday parties.

Dominic Deville had the brainwave after watching his favourite horror movies and set up his Evil Clown service in Lucerne.

And he says his unlikely new venture is going so well that he's laughing all the way to the bank.

After he is hired to scare a birthday boy or girl, he first contacts his 'victims' to tell them they're being watched.

Then he taunts them with texts, phone calls and booby-trapped letters warning them that at sometime in their party he's going to smash a cake into their face.

"It's all in fun and if at any point the kids get scared or their parents are concerned we stop right there," he explained.

"But most kids absolutely love being scared senseless."

Drunk horseman rides into crowd on Mule Day.

From AOL News:

COLUMBIA, Tenn. -A Middle Tennessee horseback rider was jailed after being charged with running into a crowd of people at the Mule Day festivities in Columbia. The man, 32, was charged with two counts of reckless endangerment and public intoxication.

According to The Daily Herald of Columbia, witnesses told investigators that the man rode the horse Saturday into a restricted area that had been closed to animal traffic at the county park and was asking pedestrians for beer. A Maury County sheriff's report said the man dismounted and then attempted to get back on, spooking it.

Two people were then hit by the horse, and one required hospital treatment.

Bond was set at $10,500.

Climategate scientists cleared of any wrongdoing.

From Daily Mail:

The scientists embroiled in the Climategate email scandal have been cleared of 'deliberate scientific malpractice' by an independent review.

The University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has been under attack since hacked emails were leaked online last year, which sceptics claimed showed scientists were manipulating data to support a theory of man-made global warming.

But a detailed review of 11 scientific papers from CRU published over 20 years found 'absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatsoever', according to Lord Oxburgh, who headed up the inquiry.

Lord Oxburgh said the scientists at the research unit arrived at their conclusions 'honestly and sensibly'.

The review did not analyse whether those conclusions were correct, but gave the scientific processes at CRU a 'clean bill of health', he said.

He said the reviewers found that the scientists could have used better statistical methods in analysing some of their data, but that it was unlikely to have made much difference to their results.

Man drove drunk to prison for DUI sentence.

From Breitbart:

SPRINGFIELD, Vt. (AP) - Police said a Massachusetts man headed to a Vermont prison to serve a two-day sentence for driving under the influence was intoxicated when he drove himself to prison.

Vermont State Police say that staff at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield noticed that a 42-year-old man was intoxicated when he arrived late Tuesday afternoon and that he had driven himself there.

So prison staff called police.

Police said the man was then processed for DUI second offense and released back into the custody of the Department of Corrections.

The man was due to appear in court later this month on the latest charge.

Stronger magnetic material discovered, may overturn laws of physics.

From Minnesota Daily:

Iron cobalt is known as the most magnetic material on Earth today, but a professor at the University of Minnesota was able to show that this may no longer be true.

Dr. Jianping Wang, a graduate faculty member in the department of physics, said he was able to show an iron and nitrogen compound is 18 percent more magnetic than iron cobalt. The claim may disprove the accepted physics limits set for magnetization in a substance.

“We found there is a new physics behind the materials we study right now,” Wang said.

In his iron and nitrogen compound material, Wang said he found electrons in a form that have never been addressed in traditional theories behind magnetization — localized electrons, which differ from the free-flowing electrons that are typically seen in magnetic moments.

“With the presence of localized electrons, you have to throw out all traditional understanding [of magnetism],” Wang said.

It is these localized electrons that lead to the high magnetization, according to Wang.

Wang said his study goes against traditional theories found in textbooks that set limits on how magnetic a substance can be.

Burglar mailed himself to victims.

From Orange:

Police in Poland have arrested a man for a series of raids in which he allegedly climbed into large parcels and posted himself to businesses.

Stanislaw Muchy, 39, would then apparently climb out at night after staff had clocked off and burgle the premises, reports Metro.

He made his getaway by sealing both himself and his loot into another box addressed to his Warsaw home, say police.

His scheme came to an end after he fell out with an accomplice, whose job was to deliver him to courier firms, who contacted police.

After being tipped off, police said: "We arranged a special delivery of our own."

Brewery workers strike for more on-the-job drinking.

From Orange:

Warehouse staff at Carlsberg are on strike in protest at a company decision to limit beer drinking at work to lunch breaks.

Workers claim they're entitled to three beers a day - on top of any drinks they consume at lunch, reports Sky News.

The strike in Denmark follows a move last week to change the rules for on-site drinking at the world's fourth-largest brewer.

Carlsberg spokesman Jens Bekke said: "We think times have changed and we need an alcohol policy that is accepted by society - 93% of Danish companies have an alcohol policy.

"There has been free beer, water and soft drinks everywhere. Beers were removed from all refrigerators. The only place you can get a beer in future is in the canteen, at lunch."

Mr Bekke said Carlsberg drivers claim a "very old right" to have up to three beers per day outside lunch hours.

The warehouse workers say they share that entitlement - a claim the brewer disputes.

"Because of that, the warehouse staff went on strike yesterday, with other staff striking in sympathy," Mr Bekke said.

50,000 British women warned that their breasts may explode.

From Daily Mail:

Nearly fifty thousand women in the UK have been warned by health chiefs that their breast implants could explode.

The best-selling silicone implant made by the French firm Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), are thought to be twice as likely to rupture.

A government health agency is urging women with this type of implant to contact their plastic surgeons to consider having the implants removed.

They run the risk of developing toxic shock syndrome or gangrene if the implants explode.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has also ordered cosmetic surgeons to stop using these implants.

It follows a nation-wide ban in France of the best-selling implant after it found the implants had been filled with a silicone gel with a composition different from that approved since 2001.

They are now carrying out urgent testing to see if the unapproved material is safe.

Inkjet device prints cells over burns.

Cool, maybe soon dentistry can be done via fax! From the National Post:

Inspired by a standard office inkjet printer, U.S. researchers have rigged up a device that can spray skin cells directly onto burn victims, quickly protecting and healing their wounds as an alternative to skin grafts.

They have mounted the device, which has so far only been tested on mice, in a frame that can be wheeled over a patient in a hospital bed, they reported on Wednesday.

A laser can take a reading of the wound's size and shape so that a layer of healing skin cells can be precisely applied, said the team at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

"We literally print the cells directly onto the wound," said student Kyle Binder, who helped design the device. "We can put specific cells where they need to go."

Tests on mice showed the spray system, called bioprinting, could heal wounds quickly and safely, the researchers reported at the Translational Regenerative Medicine Forum.

Rush announces 2010 tour, will perform Moving Pictures in its entirety!

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG.

More info and tour dates here. OMG.

Rush - Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart - is without question one of the most inventive and compelling groups in rock history, equally famed for both its virtuoso musicianship and provocative songwriting.

Announced today, The Time Machine Tour is an evening with Rush, where they will perform their classics, give a taste of the future - and for the first time ever - feature the Moving Pictures album live in its entirety.

The band is currently working on their 20th studio album with producer Nick Raskulinecz (co-producer from 2007's Snakes & Arrows) and in addition to their classics plan to showcase a few new tunes live this summer.

"We were off for a year and a half, and now it's just pouring. Everything is totally crazy and there's not a minute left in the day. We've got these half-dozen songs, and we'll probably go in the studio and work on a couple of them and see how it goes, perhaps release something - and I say perhaps - and then we plan on being on the road," says guitarist, Alex Lifeson.

This summer's Live Nation promoted tour will visit approximately 40 cities throughout North America beginning June 29th in Albuquerque, NM and finishing October 2nd in West Palm Beach, FL with stops along the way in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Holmdel, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, and more along the way (complete tour itinerary follows).

Rush has sold more than 40 million records worldwide and garnered untold legions of devoted and admiring fans. According to the RIAA, Rush's sales statistics place RUSH third after The Beatles and The Rolling Stones for the most consecutive gold or platinum studio albums by a rock band.

Released in 1981, Moving Pictures was their most successful album, certified 4x Platinum and features some of Rush's most well known songs and perennial radio favourites Tom Sawyer, Limelight and the Grammy-nominated instrumental YYZ.

Ryanair going ahead with on-flight pay toilets.

From the Consumerist:

Almost a year after announcing their plans to charge passengers for using toilets on their planes, discount airline Ryanair is finally pushing ahead with not only installing the pay potties on their jets, but cutting down the number of toilets available to passengers.

Or as the very British Daily Mail puts it: "Spending a penny on a flight will soon cost as much as a pound."

Ryanair is currently redesigning their cabins to install the pay toilets on 168 of their planes, which will cost about $1.40 per trip to the loo. Additionally, they are cutting the number of toilets on the plane to make room for extra seats.

Venomous purple jellyfish invading Britain.

From Daily Mail:

Swarms of a highly venomous jellyfish that turns beaches into no-go areas are invading Britain's coastal waters for the first time, scientists said.

The growing number of mauve stingers - fist-sized creature that packs a hefty sting - is being linked to the rise in sea temperatures over the last few years.

The pink and purple jellyfish may be small, but they can cover hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean in a single 'bloom'.

Until a few years ago, they were rarely seen in British waters, preferring the warmer conditions of the Mediterranean and Mid Atlantic.

But over the last three years, hundreds of millions of them have appeared in the north east Atlantic -and they are getting closer to our shores.

However, in 2007 a 10-mile square bloom of mauve stingers killed 100,000 salmon at a fish farm in Northern Ireland causing damage estimated at £1million.

Baker hacks off apprentice's arm for "bad apples."

How do you like them apples? From News.com.au:

A baker almost severed the arm of a trainee during a "blind rage", hacking him with a meat cleaver during an argument over apples, an Australian court was told today.

The Brisbane District Court was told Vietnamese national Hoe Thai Nguyen attacked his uncle, who he was training, with such force he severed through the largest bone in his forearm. The incident occurred at a Maryborough bakery, 250km north of Brisbane, on April 4 last year.

The court was told Nguyen, who had been in Australia on a work visa since late 2007, attacked Cuong Ngoc Pham, aged in his 30s, for choosing the "wrong apples" for use in pastries.

Nguyen, 31, was today jailed for eight years after pleading guilty to one count of causing Mr Pham grievous bodily harm during an intentional malicious act.

Court rules against net neutrality.

From the NY Times:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a sharp blow to the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to set the rules of the road for the Internet, ruling that the agency lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

The decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, specifically concerned the efforts of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, to slow down customers’ access to a service called BitTorrent, which is used to exchange large video files, most often pirated copies of movies.

After Comcast’s blocking was exposed, the F.C.C. told Comcast to stop discriminating against BitTorrent traffic and in 2008 issued broader rules for the industry regarding “net neutrality,” the principle that all Internet content should be treated equally by network providers. Comcast challenged the F.C.C.’s authority to issue such rules and argued that its throttling of BitTorrent was necessary to ensure that a few customers didn’t unfairly hog the capacity of the network, slowing down Internet access for all of its customers.

But Tuesday’s court ruling has far larger implications than just the Comcast case.

The ruling would allow Comcast and other Internet service providers to restrict consumers’ ability to access certain kinds of Internet content, such as video sites like Hulu.com or Google’s YouTube service, or charge certain heavy users of their networks more money for access.

Scrabble to allow proper nouns.

Awesome, now I can use "Jay-Z" to get rid of crappy letters! From BBC:

The rules of word game Scrabble are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns, games company Mattel has said.

Place names, people's names and company names or brands will now count.

Mattel, which brings out a new version of the game containing amended rules in July, hopes the change will encourage younger people to play.

Until now a few proper nouns had been allowed which were determined by a word list based on the Collins dictionary.

Coozer-Bits.

Eats: The most and least sustainable fish to eat.

Hero: Inventor of box wine dies at 92.

WTF: Secret video shows US troops laughing as they kill unarmed journalists, children in Iraq.

Cthulhu Watch: Giant undersea bug terrorizes robo-sub, Internet.

Creepy: Two women try smuggling dead guy onto plane, a la Weekend at Bernie's.

Pizza delivery man fights off armed robbers, still makes delivery.

From Huffington Post:

A New York City pizza deliveryman outwitted an armed robber trying to make off with his pies and still managed to deliver them to his customer.

Assami Semde, 19, a student from Burkina Faso who has been in the U.S. six months, was working at Famous Famiglia 125 pizza in East Harlem and was making a delivery to an apartment Friday evening when the robbery attempt occurred, his boss said.

"He's just the greatest, most polite guy you'll ever meet," said his boss, Frank Grecco, who owns the pizza shop. "He wasn't expecting this, he was just doing his job."

As Semde headed to the 27th floor, he came across two men in a hallway who started harassing him, saying they wanted a slice of pizza. Semde said no, that he had a delivery to make. But one of the men pulled out a gun and told him and Semde dropped the pies on the ground. As gunman reached down, Semde said he lunged at him, and toppled him off balance. The 6-foot-4 Semde scuffled with the men as building security making a routine check came by and the two fled.

[...] The security officers called the police who responded within minutes. But before Semde went to the precinct to file the report, he delivered the pizzas.

British couple jailed in Dubai for public kiss.

From Daily Mail:

Two Britons today lost their appeal against a conviction for kissing in public in Dubai.

Ayman Najafi, 24, and Charlotte Adams, 25, were given a one-month prison sentence by the Gulf resort's authorities.

They were allegedly seen kissing on the mouth in a restaurant, breaching Dubai's strict decency laws.

They were arrested by police in November last year and appeared in court last month.
According to reports, a judge at Dubai's Misdemeanours Court heard written evidence from the 38-year-old mother who complained to police.

She said she was offended by their behaviour at the Jumeirah Beach Residence, where she was dining with her daughter.

The judge dismissed Mr Najafi's claim he had merely kissed Miss Adams on the cheek and sentenced both to a month in jail followed by deportation.

The pair were bailed pending today's appeal against the sentence and have now said they will appeal again.

It is understood the Dubai authorities are holding their passports so they cannot leave the country.

Employee suicides spike at Disneyland Paris.

From The Independent:

Disneyland Paris is investigating after two park employees committed suicide in the past six weeks, under working conditions which a trade union described as "humiliating".

A Eurodisney chef hanged himself at his home near Paris last Friday, on the same day he was due to return to work after a period of sick leave. According to the Disneyland branch of the trade union federation, Force Ouvrière, the worker, in his 40s, had told colleagues he wanted to leave his job because he was struggling with demands to "increase figures with fewer resources".

Disneyland Paris directors have denied the suicide was work-related and said that it should not be made "a symbol of something it isn't." It added that the chef had been "highly appreciated by his managers" and well-integrated with fellow employees.

The company has organised a meeting with the chef's fellow employees to discuss the suicide and its possible causes.

Trade union representative, Mary Lyn Lesueur, acknowledged the man's personal problems contributed to his death but insisted that, "it's certain that there is a real management problem at Disney".

The worker was not the first Disneyland chef to commit suicide in recent weeks. On 21 February a 30-year-old chef de partie (line cook) from the park threw himself in front of a train after working in conditions which a trade union spokesman called "humiliating".

Physics professor writes open letter to Hot Tub Time Machine.

Great letter from a real professor. Click here to read the whole thing.

Dear Sirs:

As a noted time-travel expert, I looked forward to your new film, "Hot Tub Time Machine" with great anticipation. Of course, one expects a fair amount of artistic license in movies. For example, even in 1985, the most energy efficient flux capacitors could be powered at far less than 1.21 Gigawatts of electricity. It is also wholly understandable that you have ignored (or are perhaps ignorant of) the vast literature on time machine design and have therefore built yours around a hot tub, which has been shown to be unstable, rather than around the more conventional wormhole. Further, you exhibit an admirable attention to detail on many particulars. Following on the Terminator model, you correctly realize that time travel may only be undertaken while in the nude.

However, I cannot stand idly by as you subject your characters to a number of inviolable paradoxes. Considered from least to most egregious:

1. Predestination Paradoxes. In models of time travel with a single timeline, a traveler who has already experienced the past has no choice but to repeat his/her actions. It is troubling to me that you address predestination in matters of only the most trifling detail, such as whether John Cusack is destined to get a fork in the eye or the fate of Crispin Glover's arm, all while allowing gross details of history to be changed with impunity. Tinkering with history isn't a matter of "close enough." Once things are changed, however slightly, they're changed for good.

Your characters, showing better temporal intuition than you, yourselves, comment on this point, and warn of the "Butterfly Effect." A couple of observations are in order. First, the movie of that name was unspeakably terribly, and you do yourself and your characters a disservice to speak of it approvingly. Secondly, the changes wrought in the past would have so changed the future that any foreknowledge would quickly become worthless. If you don't make your fortune in the first couple of days, it's already too late. The alternate future you will have created will likely have everyone running around in goatees and building doomsday devices.

Adorable laundry-folding robot to kill us all.

Just wait until it starts folding our fleshy bodies. From PopSci:

This laundry-folding robot may not find many fans at the local laundromat, but only because it takes so long in holding up each towel for scrutiny before folding. Still, its fussiness speaks to a special care for laundry -- or painstaking programming routines -- that has won our hearts. You see, folding isn't a chore for this robot. It's an art.

The special PR2 bot is the result of a collaboration between University of California-Berkeley researchers and the gadget guys at Willow Garage. A first video shows the robot very carefully inspecting and then folding a pile of five unfamiliar towels of various sizes on a table, sped up 50 times.

Federal judge: Bush wiretapping program was illegal.

From Raw Story:

In a repudiation of the Bush administration's now-defunct terrorist surveillance effort, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that government investigators illegally wiretapped the phone conversations of an Islamic charity and two American lawyers without a search warrant.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker said the plaintiffs provided enough evidence to show "they were subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance" by the National Security Agency.

The judge's 45-page ruling focused narrowly on the case involving the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, touching vaguely on the larger question of the program's legality.

Nonetheless, Al-Haramain lawyer Jon Eisenberg said the ruling had larger implications.

"By virtue of finding what the Bush administration did to our clients was illegal, he found that the Terrorist Surveillance Program was unlawful," Eisenberg said.

Sugar gliders at the mercy of stupid Americans.

From News.com.au:

Australia's iconic sugar gliders are being bred and traded as domestic pets in the US where they sell for about $US220 ($A240) each.

Vets are treating malnourished gliders for broken bones and chronic lethargy as clueless owners feed the creatures classic American fare - soft drink and hotdogs - instead of insects.

Companies are charging a small fortune for glider accessories and spruiking the tiny marsupials as Easter pets.

"Sugar gliders are exploding right now but wild animals generally are not recommended as pets," Humane Society captive wildlife specialist Beth Preiss said.

"It's difficult caring for wild animals in captivity."

Florida is the commercial breeding hub, fueling a sophisticated trade that is booming online.

News Limited found dozens of examples of caged gliders being fed unusual foods such as ham, hotdogs and soft drinks.

Feds probe 2nd report of Mexican military helicopters in US airspace.

From the Houston Chronicle:

The U.S. Department of Defense said it was investigating the second sighting within three weeks of a Mexican military helicopter flying in U.S. airspace over rural Zapata County.

“The incident did occur and it's still under investigation,” department spokeswoman Maj. Tanya Bradsher said, confirming that the copter, believed to belong to the Mexican navy, was seen Sunday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rick Pauza earlier in March confirmed a Mexican military helicopter hovered as long as 20 minutes on March 9 over a residential area near Falcon Lake, a reservoir on the Rio Grande.

He said CBP officials who lived in the neighborhood were among those who saw it.

Pauza said the helicopter crossed back without incident and that once the sighting was reported up the chain of the command “that was the extent of it.”

Man nabs burglar by sealing door with nailgun.

From the Daily Mail:

A DIY hero stopped a burglar from robbing a disused factory by sealing the only exit with a nailgun.

Night watchman Simon Jayne noticed someone lurking inside the former textile mill while he carried out a routine check on the premises.

But when the thief attempted to run away, Mr Jayne used his nail fun to fire 12 nails into a wooden door to seal it firmly shut.

As the door was the only way out of Albion Mill in Ewood, Blackburn, Iulian Mihociu, 29, was trapped in the factory until police arrived to arrest him just minutes later.

Mr Jayne, whose quick thinking was praised by local officers, said: 'I only acted on instinct and thought nothing about it as I trapped him.

'I had my nail gun with me to do some maintenance tasks on the building but never believed I would need it to catch a burglar.'

April Fools "news" items across the web...

The Guardian: Labour Party to rebrand Gordon Brown as tough alpha male.

PC World: Sudden PC acceleration causing injuries.

Starbucks: Responding to consumer demand, Starbucks introducing two new sizes: the Plenta and Micra.

ThinkGeek: Some funny new products. (I would totally buy "My First Bacon")

ReadJunk: James Cameron to helm Batman 3.

Marvel: Introducing... Hulkpool.

SF Chronicle: Obama clears way for oil drilling off US coasts. Oh wait, that's true.

Cigarettes may contain pig blood.

I wonder if cloves contain cloven hoofs. From News.com.au:

Cigarettes may contain traces of pigs' blood, an Australian academic says with a warning that religious groups could find its undisclosed presence "very offensive".

University of Sydney Professor in Public Health Simon Chapman points to recent Dutch research which identified 185 different industrial uses of a pig - including the use of its haemoglobin in cigarette filters.

Prof Chapman said the research offered an insight into the otherwise secretive world of cigarette manufacture, and it was likely to raise concerns for devout Muslims and Jews.

Religious texts at the core of both of these faiths specifically ban the consumption of pork.

"I think that there would be some particularly devout groups who would find the idea that there were pig products in cigarettes to be very offensive," Prof Chapman said today.

"The Jewish community certainly takes these matters extremely seriously and the Islamic community certainly do as well, as would many vegetarians.

"It just puts into hard relief the problem that the tobacco industry is not required to declare the ingredients of cigarettes ... they say 'that's our business' and a trade secret."

The Dutch research found pig haemoglobin - a blood protein - was being used to make cigarette filters more effective at trapping harmful chemicals before they could enter a smoker's lungs.

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