moonbuggy

Apparently they need some seat belts.

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‘Scientists have converted an organism into an entirely different species by performing the world’s first genome transplant, a breakthrough that paves the way for the creation of synthetic forms of life.

The team, led by Craig Venter, the man who raced to sequence the human genome, wants to build new microbes to produce environmentally friendly fuels.

The group’s study, details of which were revealed in the US journal Science yesterday, proves it is possible to transplant a complete set of genetic instructions into an organism, in effect turning it into the same species the DNA was taken from.’

‘A Holly Hill woman said a cross-dressing prostitute assumed her look and stole her identity.

Brittany Ossenfort said her old roommate, who was identified as Richard Phillips, is pretending to be her as he sits in the Orange County Jail on a prostitution charge under her name.

“We had gotten a phone call while I was at work that he was in jail, and he was asking my boss to go bail him out,” Ossenfort said.

Ossenfort said she did some checking online.

“There it was, my name, my address, my birthdate, his picture looking like a girl,” Ossenfort said.’

‘A parasite common in Asian bees has spread to Europe and the Americas and is behind the mass disappearance of honeybees in many countries, says a Spanish scientist who has been studying the phenomenon for years.

The culprit is a microscopic parasite called nosema ceranae said Mariano Higes, who leads a team of researchers at a government-funded apiculture centre in Guadalajara, the province east of Madrid that is the heartland of Spain’s honey industry.

He and his colleagues have analyzed thousands of samples from stricken hives in many countries.’

Followup to Mystery of the dying bees.

‘A seagull has turned shoplifter by wandering into a shop and helping itself to crisps.

The bird walks into the RS McColl newsagents in Aberdeen when the door is open and makes off with cheese Doritos.

The seagull, nicknamed Sam, has now become so popular that locals have started paying for his crisps.

Shop assistant Sriaram Nagarajan said: “Everyone is amazed by the seagull. For some reason he only takes that one particular kind of crisps.”

The bird first swooped in Aberdeen’s Castlegate earlier this month and made off with the 55p crisps, and is now a regular.

Once outside, the crisps are ripped open and the seagull is joined by other birds.’

‘Some stupid rich kid ruins a BMW 740i while attempting a burn out. Its ok you can just drive it home backwards, daddy will never know.’

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‘A chubby-faced tearaway nicknamed Chucky after the demonic horror movie doll has been issued with an Asbo after using up 85 per cent of the local police time.

Oliver Clinch, 12, brought chaos and fear to his neighbourhood as he went on an alcohol-fuelled crime spree, smashing windows, stealing, abusing residents in the street and leading other youths ‘like the Pied Piper’.

Clinch’s victims are looking forward to their first peaceful night in more than a year after he was given a two-year anti-social behaviour order.

They hope it will bring to an end the 12-month reign of terror during which

4ft 5in Clinch committed at least 60 offences in Little Lever near Bolton.

PC Graham Westwell told Bolton magistrates that he had spent 85 per cent of his working life dealing with Clinch’s crimes. He said: ‘In my view, these 60 offences in the last year represent only half of the crimes he has committed.’

‘Vice President Dick Cheney will serve as acting president briefly Saturday while President Bush is anesthetized for a routine colonoscopy, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday.

Bush is scheduled to have the medical procedure, expected to take about 2 1/2 hours, at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, Snow said.

Bush’s last colonoscopy was in June 2002, and no abnormalities were found, Snow said.’

I just like the headline. :)

‘Jock Doubleday, director of the California non-profit corporation Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc., has offered $75,000 to the first medical doctor or pharmaceutical company CEO who publicly drinks a mixture of standard vaccine additives.

The additives would be the same as those contained in the vaccines recommended for a 6-year-old according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, and the dose would be body-weight calibrated. It would include, but not be limited to:

* Thimerosal (a mercury derivative)
* Ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
* Phenol (a disinfectant dye)
* Aluminum
* Benzethonium chloride (a disinfectant)
* Formaldehyde (a preservative and disinfectant)

On August 1, 2007, if no one has taken the challenge, the offer will be increased to $90,000 and will increase at a rate of $5,000 per month until someone accepts.’

‘Nigerian schoolchildren who received laptops from a U.S. aid organisation have used them to explore pornographic sites on the Internet, the official News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported on Thursday.

NAN said its reporter had seen pornographic images stored on several of the children’s laptops.

“Efforts to promote learning with laptops in a primary school in Abuja have gone awry as the pupils freely browse adult sites with explicit sexual materials,” NAN said.

A representative of the One Laptop Per Child aid group was quoted as saying that the computers, part of a pilot scheme, would now be fitted with filters.’

This fellow was challenged to draw 200 bad comics. These are them.

‘School project, huh?’

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‘Peruvian authorities discovered more than 200 plants of marijuana growing in the grassy median of a residential street in Lima this week – just a few meters from a school and community center.

On Friday, according to the El Comercio newspaper, two city workers watering green areas in the La Victoria district of Lima, Peru found an explosive device in the median of the 800 block of San Eugene Avenue. They immediately contacted the Peruvian National police who located the military-style grenade and summoned a bomb squad to remove it.

As the workers moved further down the median they made a second discovery – several hundred marijuana plants thriving in the knee-high grass. The police then removed the plants. Officials with the Peruvian National Police say they are continuing to investigate both incidents.’

‘She sits on the lookout in a lawn chair on their front porch, her forehead glossy with sweat, Bible next to her left foot, wind chimes clinking at her back. Her husband of 24 years is by her side, German shepherd at his knee, handgun tucked beneath the belt on his jeans.

High in these humid hills, Ed and Elaine Brown have been holed up in their home for six months, refusing to serve a five-year prison sentence for tax evasion. They all but dared law officials to come and get them. This, they say, is a fight they’re ready to die for. [..]

“There’s no more America,” Ed says. “It’s already gone.”

“I’ll die fighting, rather than live in slavery,” Elaine says. “I’ll tell you that.” [..]

“There’s two freight trains going just like this toward each other,” Ed says. “So you better take a side, buddy, because when they hit, it’s going to be hellacious.

“And,” he says, “it all could start right here.”‘

‘Police are trying to trace the owner of 65,400 euros (£44,000) mistakenly sent to a 16-year-old boy who bought a Playstation Two for £95 on eBay.

The cash arrived in a box at the house in Aylsham, Norfolk, with the games console, but minus two games.

Police are holding the money under the Proceeds of Crime Act while the matter is investigated.

An eBay spokesman said the parcel’s contents were “somewhat unusual” and it would help police with their inquiries. [..]

But, if the money remains unclaimed the family could potentially apply for it to be returned to them under the Police Property Act.’

‘Checkers is solved. From the starting position, black to play can only draw against a perfect opponent. This is the largest non-trivial game of skill to be solved — it is more than one million times bigger than Connect Four and Awari (the previously biggest games that have been solved).

To achieve this results, we had to solve 19 of the 3-move openings. We will continue our computations to eventually solve all the 3-move openings.’

This is a bit of a followup to Random Acts Of Reality from the other day.

I’ve been reading blogs by emergency medical people all day, and they’re very interesting. Some of the stuff they do [and shit they put up with] is amazing.

Another story that I liked on a different site is called T’was the night before the night before Christmas.

I signed up for something that apparently turns the posts on the site into mp3s that are suitable for podcasting, for those who don’t like to read I s’pose. :)

Anyways, I’m not really sure how well it works, but you can allegedly get to it via this little button:

Alternatively, if you sign up you can view it on the web here.

‘Doctors thought the strange, bleeding bumps on Aaron Dallas’ head might be from gnat bites or shingles. Then the bumps started moving.

A doctor found five active bot fly larvae living beneath the skin atop Dallas’ head.

“I’d put my hand back there and feel them moving. I thought it was blood coursing through my head,” Dallas told the (Glenwood Springs) Post Independent.

“I could hear them. I actually thought I was going crazy.” [..]

Dallas’ wife, Midge Dallas, teased him about it.

“I told him, ‘I will love you through your maggots,'” she told the newspaper.

But Dallas saw little to laugh about.

“It’s much funnier to everyone else,” he said. “It makes my stomach turn over. It was cruel.”‘

‘Armed police went into action in the German city of Wuppertal after a woman reported seeing a masked criminal — but having rushed to the scene, they were surprised to find not a crook, but a large stuffed toy.

The woman was returning late at night to her car in an indoor car park when she saw the suspected brigand through the window of a parked van, police said Thursday.

Though she later admitted to only catching a glimpse in the darkness, she was sufficiently alarmed to alert the authorities.

Armed officers arrived in three cars and surrounded the van. What they found was a large toy beaver, strapped into the passenger seat.

A police spokesman said he struggled to see how the toy, which has two oversized front teeth, could have been mistaken for a person.’

‘The co-founder of semiconductor maker Broadcom Corp., under scrutiny in a federal stock options probe, was accused seven years ago of building an underground hideaway at his estate to indulge in drugs and sex with prostitutes, according to court documents.

In a draft complaint made against Henry T. Nicholas III, a construction crew claimed the billionaire failed to pay them millions of dollars for work performed between 1998 and 2002, and used “manipulation, lies, intimidation, and even death threats” when anyone threatened to quit.

The illegal network of tunnels and rooms underneath Nicholas’ Laguna Hills estate was kept secret from his wife and city officials, the documents said.

The purpose of one secret room was to allow Nicholas to “indulge his appetite for illegal drugs and sex with prostitutes,” the crew claimed.’

‘A Cincinnati couple was arrested Wednesday after their 3-year-old daughter was found alone with a rope around her neck, police said.

A social worker saw the girl on the side of a road in Sedamsville, Ohio, while on her way to another home and called police.

Police said they responded and waited more than an hour to see if the girl’s parents would come out of their home to check on her. When they didn’t, police went inside and arrested them.

Rose Seibert and Kermit Martin are facing charges of child endangering. It was not clear how the rope got around the girl’s neck.’

‘The Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world’s oldest and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in Kazakhstan, about 200 km east of the Aral Sea, on the north bank of the Syr Darya, near the town of Tyuratam.’

‘Traffic police in Switzerland have been handing out sweet rewards during a 24-hour “thank you” to safe drivers.

Motorists in the western region of Fribourg can expect a traditional gift of Swiss chocolate – but only if they pass roadside checks.

The aim is to reward good drivers, many of whom may have been pulled over more than once during a six-month campaign in the wake of a number of accidents.

The 100g chocolate bars are embossed with the police force coat of arms.’

I once did a massive belly flop that bruised my stomach on one of these things.

Apparently, that was also hilarious to watch. :)

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‘A judge ruled that a teenager will be tried as an adult for the death of an 18-month old boy he is accused of repeatedly swinging against a wall because he was frustrated with the child’s toilet training.

Derris Smith, 18, the live-in boyfriend of the child’s mother, has been charged with murder. He was 17 on June 27, when authorities say he delivered the beating that led to Malakai Glenn’s death four days later.

The boy’s mother, 20-year-old Sasha Glenn, testified Wednesday that the impact of the child hitting the wall left drywall stuck to his head and cracked a wooden door.’

‘The Kansas City Zoo plans to press charges against two teenage boys who allegedly climbed into the hippo exhibit and threw rocks at the two-ton mammals, zoo officials said.

A 14-year-old witness spotted the boys Monday as the hippos were becoming angry and charging. The boys, whose identities were not released, survived the encounter without injuries.

Randy Wisthoff, the zoo director, said the boys, both 14, are from St. Louis and were apparently trying to impress a girl.

The massive hippos, which spend much of their days submerged in water, are often considered one of the most dangerous animals in the world.’

‘A man with a needle sticking out of his arm crashed Wednesday afternoon into a Clifton Heights drug treatment center, witnesses said.

The driver, whose name has not been released, was arrested and taken to a hospital for treatment of unspecified injuries.

Police said the man was unconscious and had overdosed on a drug, possibly heroin.’

‘For a country of about 50 million people, there are a lot of protests in South Korea. With a national average of 11,000 public protests a year, the average South Korean riot policeman is mobilized to contain 85 demonstrations a year.

While the majority of such protests are probably pretty standard affairs involving marching, shouting, and possibly some violent clashes between protesters and police, there are also some far more interesting protests going on. Here are a few particularly uniquely interesting/crazy South Korean protest photos we’ve stumbled upon [..]’

‘A woman accused of killing her daughter by microwaving the newborn in an oven told police she was drunk, but couldn’t recall doing anything that caused the child’s burns, according to testimony Thursday.

China Arnold, 26, is charged with aggravated murder in the Aug. 30, 2005, death of her month-old daughter, Paris Talley. She has pleaded not guilty.

At a pretrial hearing, detective Michael Galbraith testified that Arnold told him during questioning then: “If I hadn’t gotten so drunk, I guess my baby wouldn’t have died.”

But questioned by defense attorney Jon Paul Rion, Galbraith acknowledged that Arnold told him she didn’t know how the baby suffered the burns, and that she had nothing to do with it that she could recall.’