‘I was recently talking with a colleague who was a fellow theoretical physics graduate student at Princeton University back in the early 1980s. He had been thinking about an obscure academic physics journal he would occasionally skim in the library during those years. This journal was filled with bizarre extra-dimensional models of particles and forces, esoteric ideas about cosmology, and a slew of highly speculative theorising, with little in common other than a lack of any solid evidence for a connection with reality.
“You know,” he said, “at the time I thought these things were a joke, but now when I look at mainstream physics papers, they remind me a lot of what was in that journal.”
Why is it that central parts of mainstream physics have started to take on aspects that used to characterise the outer fringes of the subject? At the very centre of the physics establishment, things have been getting more and more peculiar.’
‘An asteroid similar to the one that flattened forests in Siberia in 1908 could plow into Mars next month, scientists said Thursday.
Researchers attached to NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program, who sometimes jokingly call themselves the Solar System Defense Team, have been tracking the asteroid since its discovery in late November.
The scientists, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, put the chances that it will hit the Red Planet on Jan. 30 at about 1 in 75.
A 1-in-75 shot is “wildly unusual,” said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near-Earth Object office, which routinely tracks about 5,000 objects in Earth’s neighborhood.
“We’re used to dealing with odds like one-in-a-million,” Chesley said. “Something with a one-in-a-hundred chance makes us sit up straight in our chairs.”‘
’44-year-old man presented to his local emergency department wearing a baseball cap and complaining of headaches that had progressively worsened over the preceding 11 weeks. After we provided generous analgesia and performed simple investigations that failed to identify a diagnosis, the patient removed his cap to reveal an assortment of metallic objects embedded in his scalp. Plain radiographs showed 11 nails penetrating into his brain. A detailed history revealed a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, and the patient confirmed that he had hammered a nail into his head each week for the past 11 weeks to rid him of evil. The nails were removed with the patient under general anesthesia, and he made an uncomplicated recovery with no neurological deficits.’
‘Radioactive sample of uranium ore. Useful for testing Geiger Counters. License exempt. Uranium ore sample sizes vary. Shipped in labeled metal container as shown.’
Apparently, people who bought uranium ore also bought the Bender’s Big Score movie DVD. :)
‘A cat piano or Katzenklavier (German) is a hypothetical musical instrument consisting of a line of cats fixed in place with their tails stretched out underneath a keyboard. Nails would be placed under the keys, causing the cats to cry out in pain when a key was pressed. The cats would be arranged according to the natural tone of their voices.
The instrument was described by German physician Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813) for the purpose of treating patients who had lost the ability to focus their attention. Reil believed that if they were forced to see and listen to this instrument, it would inevitably capture their attention and they would be cured (Richards, 1998).’
‘Two teenagers believed to be imitating the Mortal Kombat video game have been arrested and charged in the death of a 7-year- old Johnstown girl – a sister of one of the suspects. [..]
They began wrestling and enacting a game of Mortal Kombat, court affidavits say. Zoe lost consciousness after being hit, kicked and body-slammed to the floor. [..]
A witness quoted in an affidavit said Roberts told her he had kicked the girl and that his hands were “lethal weapons.”
The witness said Roberts performed a back kick and the girl didn’t get up. He said he and Trujillo “cracked an egg in her mouth . . . in an attempt to see if she was messing around with them” by faking unconsciousness.
The witness said she asked Roberts whether Zoe had asked them to stop. “Yeah, she told me to stop,” he said. Asked why he didn’t stop, he said, “I don’t know; I was drunk.”‘
Children’s chemistry sets suck these days.
(24.1meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘The woman who sat on Santa’s lap was naughty, not nice.
Police say a woman has been charged with sexual assault after a Santa at the Danbury Fair mall in Danbury, Connecticut, complained the woman groped him.
Police did not give the name of the disconcerted Santa, but they said he is 65 and felt badly because children were waiting to see him.
Police quickly found and identified the suspect, described as a woman on crutches.’
‘It’s not makeup or paint that makes Paul Karason’s skin a bluish color.
The 57-year-old started making the transition from fair skin and freckles to what he looks like today 14 years ago.
“The change was so gradual that I didn’t perceive it and for people around me, likewise,” Karason said. “It was just so gradual that no one really noticed. It wasn’t until a friend that I hadn’t seen in several months came by my parents’ place to see me and he asked me ‘what did you do?'” [..]
Karason moved to Madera, California about six months ago after living in Oregon. He said too many people in Oregon were unkind to him and he hopes Californians will be different. [..]
Karason said he has not sought medical attention for the condition and he is prepared to live with it for the rest of his life.’
‘Your spirit animal is the Grizzly Bear. No other spirit animal matches it’s size and strength. This creature is among the noblest and most respectable, and you are truly fortunate. It is both fearsome and awesome to behold. It will serve you well, and shows that you have a deeper understanding than most. It is quite rare indeed to have a Grizzly as a spirit animal!’
That means I can bite your face off with my spirit. Better watch out.
‘A new species of giant rat has been discovered in a remote region of New Guinea by a team of totally freaked-out zoologists.
The scientists from Conservation International spotted the ‘absolutely mental thing’ during a five-day trek through the hazardous Foja mountains.
Expedition leader Professor Wayne Hayes said: “I was filling my water bottle when I saw this huge fucking thing and I shouted to my mate Dave, I said, ‘Dave, look at the size of that fucker!’ and Dave was like, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s a fucking monster!
“I shouted over to Stevie and Ben, I said, ‘get a look at this bastard’ and they’re like ‘no way, man, that’s mental’ – they were totally freaking out.”‘
‘The UK, the United States and Canada are facing growing fears over a drug-resistant ‘superbug’ being brought back by wounded soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq that threatens to contaminate civilian hospitals.
The intensified concern comes amid sharply rising infection rates in the US and fresh worries in Canada that the bug could be imported into its civilian healthcare system. Military health officials who have studied the bacterium in Afghanistan believe the infection of wounded British soldiers in field hospitals there is probably inevitable. [..]
The bacterium, Acinetobacter baumannii, first emerged as a ‘mystery infection’ afflicting US service personnel returning from the war in Iraq in 2003-04. It was described by a scientific journal specialising in hospital epidemiology as the ‘most important emerging hospital-acquired pathogen worldwide’. The journal added that it was potentially a ‘major threat to public health’ due to its ability to mutate rapidly and develop a resistance to all known drugs.’
‘A convicted criminal has moved in with a married couple against their wishes after giving their address in court as his home.
Shane Sims, 19, has spent the last few days living with Brenda and Robert Cole after he was sentenced to a week’s curfew for breaching a supervision order.
But the couple claim the first they knew about it was when Sims, a friend of their daughter, moved in on Thursday – followed by security contractors who put a box in a bedroom to monitor his movements with an ankle tag.
Mrs Cole, 47, said: ‘It’s turned our lives upside down. He’s taken over the whole place. He sprawls across the sofa and he’s always in the bathroom when you need it. It’s an absolute disgrace. They’ve let a criminal come into our home and there is nothing we can do about it.”
‘You are bidding on a rare chance to traumatize a treasured friend or relative with baffling, mind-numbing, mystery correspondence from abroad.
Here is the arrangement:
I will be spending the Christmas holiday in Poland in a tiny village that has one church with no bell because angry Germans stole it. Aside from vodka, there is not a lot for me to do.
During the course of my holiday I will send three postcards to one person of your choosing.
These postcards will be rant-ravingly insane, yet they will be peppered with unmistakable personal details about the addressee. Details you will provide me.
The postcards will not be coherently signed, leaving your mark confused, guessing wildly, crying out in anguish.’
This guy plays the guitar better than I can, that’s for sure. :)
(2.7meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘I walk out to the table. It’s a family of four.
The father’s a no nonsense military looking kind of guy. Seated across from him in the usual soccer mom getup is his wife. Next to her, facing me, a mass of black curls and inexpertly applied makeup, is her teenage daughter. She smiles at me toothily.
The other daughter sits facing away from me – face obscured by a hanging mane of heavy black hair. Her bejeweled fingers tap impatiently on the table top. Probably embarrassed to be seen eating out with her parents.
“Can I get anyone something to drink?” I ask cheerfully.’
‘In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom on opinion entitlement, a study conducted by the University of Chicago’s School for Behavioral Science concluded that more than one-third of the U.S. population is neither entitled nor qualified to have opinions.
“On topics from evolution to the environment to gay marriage to immigration reform, we found that many of the opinions expressed were so off-base and ill-informed that they actually hurt society by being voiced,” said chief researcher Professor Mark Fultz, who based the findings on hundreds of telephone, office, and dinner-party conversations compiled over a three-year period. “While people have long asserted that it takes all kinds, our research shows that American society currently has a drastic oversupply of the kinds who don’t have any good or worthwhile thoughts whatsoever. We could actually do just fine without them.”‘
‘God wants me dead. I pissed him off. Pissed him off good. I don’t know what sent him over the edge. Maybe it was my off-colour, sacreligious sense of humour. Maybe it was the bilby I drowned in a duffel bag. Whatever it was, one thing is clear – the great skyfairy wants hardcore vengeance, and he wants it now. Let’s educate you on whats happened so far. If you don’t want to read, I’ll summarise it for you in the next two words.
Get lost.’
It’s a long story, but read it all the way to the end if you’re gonna read it. Or you’ll miss this bit:
“AIE YE DEMONS, I DELIVER THEE UNTO HELL! …BURN IN ETERNAL DAMNATION!” :)
From when chemistry was more like some sort of crazy magic. Let’s all eat mercury! Hooray.
[sigh] :)
‘Smoking during a brain scan is not easy. Why would you want to? Because functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allows researchers to observe activity in the brain, and doing so while smoking tobacco or pot could enhance our understanding of addiction and how to treat it.
But during an MRI, the head must remain completely still. In the narrow bore of a superconducting magnet, there isn’t much room to maneuver a cigarette or eat a pot brownie either. Smoke raises a second set of concerns. At the very least, it will stink up the lab. Perhaps, it could even damage the expensive machine.
So Blaise Frederick at Harvard Medical School built a device that delivers smoke into the narrow confines of a scanner. His colleagues, Kim Lindsey and Liz Ryan, tested it out on nine volunteers at McLean Hospital. They described their work in the May issue of Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior.’
‘(+ware) I rear-ended a car this morning. So there we are alongside the road and
(+ware) slowly the driver gets out of the car . . . and you know how you just get sooo
(+ware) stressed and life seems to get funny?
(+ware) Well, I could NOT believe it . . he was a DWARF! He storms over to my car,
(+ware) looks up at me and says, “I AM NOT HAPPY!”
(+ware) So, I look down at him and say, “Well, which one are you then?”… and
(+ware) THAT’S when the fight started . .’
‘A fruit-picking trip to southern New South Wales ended in the death of a Scottish backpacker who became embroiled in a bizarre row about creationism and evolution.
English backpacker Alexander Christian York, 33, was today sentenced to a maximum of five years jail for the manslaughter of Scotsman Rudi Boa in January last year. [..]
The Scottish couple and York, neighbours at the caravan park, were becoming friends and spent the night of January 27 drinking at the Star Hotel in Tumut.
However, towards the end of the night, an argument between York and the pair about creationism versus evolution escalated into a shouting match at the pub.
The couple, both biomedical scientists, had been arguing the case of evolution, while York had taken a more biblical view of history. [..]
According to Ms Brown, York was making dinner when he attacked the couple outside his tent, stabbing Mr Boa with a kitchen knife as the argument escalated.’
‘A middle-aged man was beaten up by his drinking buddies after being caught gratifying himself in front of school children camping at a popular Manawatu reserve.
The unemployed man, 48, from Palmerston North, suffered a “substantial” head injury and was admitted to Palmerston North Hospital.
Police have since arrested and charged him with committing an indecent act. [..]
The offender was seen sitting and watching a number of teenage girls camping at the site, along with children from Dannevirke Primary School, for nearly an hour.
He is then alleged to have stood up, exposed himself and performed an indecent act in plain view of all present.
“His associates, who he had been drinking with since before lunch time, obviously didn’t approve of his behaviour and they’ve dealt to him themselves, giving him a pretty nasty head injury,” Ms Ross said.’
‘Some physicists are uncomfortable with the idea that all individual quantum events are innately random. This is why many have proposed more complete theories, which suggest that events are at least partially governed by extra “hidden variables”. Now physicists from Austria claim to have performed an experiment that rules out a broad class of hidden-variables theories that focus on realism — giving the uneasy consequence that reality does not exist when we are not observing it (Nature 446 871).’
‘On the slaughterhouse floor at Quality Pork Processors Inc. is an area known as the “head table,” but not because it is the place of honor. It is where workers cut up pigs’ heads and then shoot compressed air into the skulls until the brains come spilling out.
But now the grisly practice has come under suspicion from health authorities.
Over eight months from last December through July, 11 workers at the plant in Austin, Minn. — all of them employed at the head table — developed numbness, tingling or other neurological symptoms, and some scientists suspect inhaled airborne brain matter may have somehow triggered the illnesses.
The use of compressed air to remove pig brains was suspended at Quality Pork earlier this week while authorities try to get to the bottom of the mystery. [..]
Five of the workers — including Kruse, who has been told she may never work again — have been diagnosed with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, or CIDP, a rare immune disorder that attacks the nerves and produces tingling, numbness and weakness in the arms and legs, sometimes causing lasting damage.’
