Making Science More Better For You on 09/28/07

Does he know something we should know?
Tom Cruise is building million dollar bunker to protect against alien attack

Hollywood star Tom Cruise is planning to build a bunker at his Colorado home to protect his family in the event of an intergalactic alien attack, according to new reports.

The Mission Impossible actor, who is a dedicated follower of Scientology, is reportedly fearful that deposed galactic ruler 'Xenu' is plotting an evil revenge attack on Earth.

Bunker down: Tom Cruise, on set of his latest movie with wife Katie and daughter Suri, is reportely fearful of an alien attack

According to American magazine Star, a source said: "Tom is planning to build a US$10 million bunker under his Telluride estate."

"It's a self-contained underground shelter with a high tech air purifying shelter."

The facility is said to have enough room for ten people - including wife Katie Holmes, 17-month-old daughter Suri and his adopted children Isabella, 14, and Connor, 12.


A spokesperson for the actor has denied the reports, saying: "This is completely untrue. He is not building on his property at all."

The 45-year-old is currently filming World War II movie Rubicon (formerly known as Valkyrie) in Germany, where he is regularly joined on set by Katie and Suri.

Tom plays German hero Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg in the wartime thriller surrounding a failed plot by high-ranking military officers to blow up Hitler and has come under attack for his decision to do so as well as his religious beliefs. (thisislondon.co.uk)

William Burroughs always said the most dangerous words in the English language were“Wouldn’t you?” Maybe it's really to protect him from the bombs he’s been making.

They must know something too
Alabama City Reopening Fallout Shelters

By JAY REEVES

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — In an age of al-Qaida, sleeper cells and the threat of nuclear terrorism, Huntsville is dusting off its Cold War manual to create the nation's most ambitious fallout-shelter plan, featuring an abandoned mine big enough for 20,000 people to take cover underground.

Others would hunker down in college dorms, churches, libraries and research halls that planners hope will bring the community's shelter capacity to 300,000, or space for every man, woman and child in Huntsville and the surrounding county.

Emergency planners in Huntsville — an out-of-the-way city best known as the home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center — say the idea makes sense because radioactive fallout could be scattered for hundreds of miles if terrorists detonated a nuclear bomb.

"If Huntsville is in the blast zone, there's not much we can do. But if it's just fallout ... shelters would absorb 90 percent of the radiation," said longtime emergency management planner Kirk Paradise, whose Cold War expertise with fallout shelters led local leaders to renew Huntsville's program.

Huntsville's project, developed using $70,000 from a Homeland Security grant, goes against the grain because the United States essentially scrapped its national plan for fallout shelters after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Congress cut off funding and the government published its last list of approved shelters at the end of 1992.

After Sept. 11, Homeland Security created a metropolitan protection program that includes nuclear-attack preparation and mass shelters. But no other city has taken the idea as far as Huntsville has, officials said.

Many cities advise residents to stay at home and seal up a room with plastic and duct tape during a biological, chemical or nuclear attack. Huntsville does too, in certain cases.

Local officials agree the "shelter-in-place" method would be best for a "dirty bomb" that scattered nuclear contamination through conventional explosives. But they say full-fledged shelters would be needed to protect from the fallout of a nuclear bomb.

Program leaders recently briefed members of Congress, including Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., who called the shelter plan an example of the "all-hazards" approach needed for emergency preparedness.

"Al-Qaida, we know, is interested in a nuclear capability. It's our nation's fear that a nuclear weapon could get into terrorists' hands," Dent said.

As fallout shelters go, the Three Caves Quarry just outside downtown offers the kind of protection that would make Dr. Strangelove proud, with space for an arena-size crowd of some 20,000 people.

Last mined in the early '50s, the limestone quarry is dug 300 yards into the side of the mountain, with ceilings as high as 60 feet and 10 acres of floor space covered with jagged rocks. Jet-black in places with a year-round temperature of about 60 degrees, it has a colony of bats living in its highest reaches and baby stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

"It would be a little trying, but it's better than the alternative," said Andy Prewett, a manager with The Land Trust of Huntsville and North Alabama, a nonprofit preservation group that owns the mine and is making it available for free.

In all, the Huntsville-Madison County Emergency Management Agency has identified 105 places that can be used as fallout shelters for about 210,000 people. They are still looking for about 50 more shelters that would hold an additional 100,000 people.

While officials have yet to launch a campaign to inform people of the shelters, a local access TV channel showed a video about the program, which also is explained on a county Web site.

If a bomb went off tomorrow, Paradise said, officials would tell people where to find shelter through emergency alerts on TV and radio stations. "We're pretty much ready to go because we have a list of shelters," he said.

Most of the shelters would offer more comfort than the abandoned mine, such as buildings at the University of Alabama in Huntsville that would house 37,643. A single research hall could hold more than 8,100.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Alexandra Kirin said of Huntsville's wide-ranging plan: "We're not aware of any other cities that are doing that."

Plans call for staying inside for as long as two weeks after a bomb blast, though shelters might be needed for only a few hours in a less dire emergency.

Unlike the fallout shelters set up during the Cold War, the new ones will not be stocked with water, food or other supplies. For survivors of a nuclear attack, it would be strictly "BYOE" — bring your own everything. Just throw down a sleeping bag on the courthouse floor — or move some of the rocks on the mine floor — and make yourself at home.

"We do not guarantee them comfort, just protection," said Paradise, who is coordinating the shelter plans for the local emergency management agency.

Convenience store owner Tandi Prince said she cannot imagine living in the cavern after a bombing.

"That would probably not be very fun," she said.

I hear they’re dedicating one to Bear Bryant. Roll Tide!

That’s what the computer said, it must be right
Microsoft Excel fails math test
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp.'s Excel 2007 spreadsheet program is going to have to relearn part of its multiplication table.

In a blog post, Microsoft employee David Gainer said that when computer users tried to get Excel 2007 to multiply some pairs of numbers and the result was 65,535, Excel would incorrectly display 100,000 as the answer.

Gainer said Excel makes mistakes multiplying 77.1 by 850, 10.2 by 6,425 and 20.4 by 3,212.5, but the program appears to be able to handle 16,383.75 times 4.
"Further testing showed a similar phenomenon with 65,536 as well," Gainer wrote Tuesday.

He said Excel was actually performing the calculations correctly, but when it comes time to show the answer on the screen, it messes up.

Gainer said the bug is limited to six numbers from 65,534.99999999995 to 65,535, and six numbers from 65,535.99999999995 to 65,536, and that Microsoft is working hard to fix the problem.

So it’s ‘performing all the calculations correctly?’ Well, maybe it could get partial credit if it showed all its work.

No, really. Is called lightening rod.

Biker's penis struck by lightning

From News Nine in the U.K

They say the odds of being struck by lightning are one in a million, but a Croatian motorcyclist has beaten those odds — and then some.

The last thing Ante Djindjic could remember was stopping to take a quick toilet break while out on a ride.

The 29-year-old then awoke in hospital to be told that lightning had struck his penis.

"I don't remember what happened: one minute I was taking a leak, and the next thing I knew I was in hospital," Djindjic told Metro.co.uk.

"Doctors said the lightning went through my body and because I was wearing rubber boots it earthed itself through my penis."

Despite the strike, the motorcyclist received only minor burns to his arms and chest and was assured that his penis would function normally … eventually.

I sing song now. "Born to be Yeeeow."

This just in from our “No Kidding” Department
Aggression In Adolescents Is Influenced By Siblings

Science Daily — Sibling order and gender have effects on children's and adolescents' aggression. Having a brother or highly aggressive sibling of either gender was linked to greater increases in aggression over time. Older siblings with younger brothers had fairly stable aggression levels over time.

In addition to age differences, the researchers considered parenting styles and family economics in their analysis. The research suggests that interventions related to aggression should include both siblings and parents.

Children who have older brothers become more aggressive over time, on average, than those who have older sisters. Older siblings with younger sisters become less aggressive.

Children with older sisters who are very aggressive become more aggressive and older siblings with younger brothers showed fairly stable levels of aggression over time.

In sum, the presence of both older and younger siblings influences the development of aggressive behavior in adolescence. Having a brother or a highly aggressive sibling of either gender can lead to greater increases in aggression over time.

Researchers looked at 451 sibling pairs, ages 9 through 18, and their parents. The adolescent siblings each rated their own aggressive behaviors, and parents described economic pressures on the family, such as difficulty paying bills. Trained observers assessed the hostility the parents directed toward each adolescent during family interactions. In their work, the researchers took into consideration the age difference between the siblings as well as such factors as parenting styles and family economics.

The study also found that older siblings who were aggressive tended to have younger siblings who were also aggressive, and vice versa. This association was found for sibling pairs with two boys, two girls, and one boy and one girl. Aggression in younger siblings also predicted increases in aggression in older siblings over time, and vice versa, though the extent varied according to each sibling's gender.

Parents' hostility also played a role in the development of aggression in their children. Family economic pressure predicted increased aggression indirectly, through its association with parental hostility.

"Understanding the factors associated with the development of aggression is essential to the design and implementation of effective intervention efforts aimed at decreasing aggression and its negative consequences," notes Shannon Tierney Williams, a researcher at the University of California, Davis, and the study's lead author. "These findings suggest that such interventions may benefit from including both siblings and parents in these efforts."

The study was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Mental Health.

These findings are from researchers at the University of California, Davis, and are published in the journal Child Development, Vol. 78, Issue 5, The Development of Interpersonal Aggression during Adolescence: The Importance of Parents, Siblings, and Family Economics by Williams, ST, Conger, KJ, and Blozis, SA (University of California, Davis).

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Society for Research in Child Development.

So, the behavior of the parents and the older and younger kids in a family can affect the behavior of the other kids. Wow, that’s groundbreaking stuff.
Rule number one: Until a social scientist has measured it, it hasn’t really happened.

One last thought...
How about a remake of "Gilligan's Island" with Ahmadinejad as Gilligan, Hugo Chavez as The Skipper, George Soros as Mr. Howell, Steven Hawking as The Professor, Katie Couric as Mary Anne and Christiane Amanpour as Ginger?

Making Science More Better For You on 09/27/07

Somebody needs to warn Britney Spears about this. There’s a brain-eating amoeba around that enters through the nasal cavity.

PHOENIX – KPHO reports that a 14-year-old boy has become the sixth victim to die nationwide this year of a microscopic organism that attacks the body through the nasal cavity, quickly eating its way to the brain. It’s called Naegleria fowleri

“In addition to the Arizona case, health officials reported two cases in Texas and three more in central Florida this year. In response, central Florida authorities started an amoeba telephone hot line advising people to avoid warm, standing water, or any areas with obvious algae blooms.”

According to the Centers For Disease Control, Naegleria infected 23 people from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials said they've noticed a spike in cases, with six Naegleria-related cases so far -- all of them fatal.

Such attacks are extremely rare, though some health officials have put their communities on high alert, telling people to stay away from warm, standing water.

"According to the CDC, this is a heat-loving amoeba. It’s experts predict that as water temperatures go up, it does better "In future decades, as temperatures rise, we'd expect to see more cases."

The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up to the brain.

People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers, Beach said. In the later stages, they'll show signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes.

Then again, since it attacks the brain, she might not have much to worry about. Kind of reminds one of Mr. Burroughs’ description of the candiru.


Breaking news from our “Hey How you doin’?” department

“Men With Deeper Voices Have More Children, In Hunter-gatherer Society Studied”

Science Daily — Deeper voice pitch predicts reproductive success in male hunter-gatherers, according to a new study from researchers with Harvard University, McMaster University and Florida State University. This is the first study to examine the correlation between voice pitch and child bearing success, and the results point to the role of voice pitch in Darwinian fitness in humans.

The study, published online recently in the journal Biology Letters, was led by Coren Apicella, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, with David Feinberg of McMaster University and Frank Marlowe of Florida State University.

"The results of this study have implications for the evolution of vocal dimorphism," says Apicella. "While we don't know the exact reason that these men with deeper voices have fathered more children, it may be that they have increased access to mates, begin reproducing at an earlier age or their wives have shorter inter-birth intervals because they provide more food to them."

"While we find in this new study that voice pitch is not related to offspring mortality rates," says Feinberg," we find that men with low voice pitch have higher reproductive success and more children born to them."

The anthropologists studied the reproductive patterns of the Hadza, a Tanzanian hunter-gatherer tribe that lives much the same way that human beings did 200,000 years ago. According to the Apicella, the Hadza were chosen because they provide a window to our past. The females gather berries and dig for tubers, while the males hunt animals and collect honey.

Marriages are not arranged, so that men and women choose their own spouses. The Hadza are monogamous, but extra-marital affairs are common, and the divorce rate is high.

For the study, voice recordings were collected from 49 men and 52 women between the ages of 18 and 55, in nine different Hadza camps. Participants provided the names of children born to them, whether surviving or deceased, and were then recorded speaking the Swahili word for "hello" into a microphone. These vocal recordings were analyzed for fundamental frequency.

It was previously known that women find deeper male voices more attractive, especially during the more fertile phase of their menstrual cycle, but understanding the relationship between mate preferences and fertility is difficult in most modern populations, because of the widespread use of birth control methods. The Hadza, however, do not employ birth control methods, and therefore reproductive success corresponds directly with natural fertility.

Hadza females may choose mates with deeper voices because they are perceived to be better providers, according to the researchers. Previous studies have also shown a relationship between testosterone and deeper vocal pitch, and so increased testosterone may contribute to the male's ability to hunt. Because of their similarity to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of our ancestors, the reproductive success of the Hadza could be indicative the way that human beings evolved.

"It's possible that vocal dimorphism has evolved over thousands of years, partly due to mate selection," says Apicella. "Perhaps at one time, men and women's voices were closer in pitch than they are today."

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University.

Oh, I don’t know. If you go to a Clinton fund raiser I bet you’d find that the men and women’s voices are pretty close in pitch there as well.

Headline of the day
“Drunken golf-cart joyriders crash into police car”
(Once again, courtesy of The Obscure Store)
According to the Trenton Times
“Two Princeton University students have been arrested in connection with a golf cart crash on Roper Lane in which the driver of the vehicle was allegedly intoxicated, police said.

Martin Jancik, 21, was at the wheel of the cart at about 2:20 a.m. Sunday when it crashed in front of borough Police Officer Daniel Chitren's police car, the police department said. Ariel Rogers, 21, fled the scene on foot”

I bet they had Bruce on the boom box.

“At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin out over the line”

“God, Ariel, said Martin, "I’ve never felt so alive.”


This guy just can’t help himself. It must have something to do with impulse control.

Joint Chiefs chairman again says gay sex immoral


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, caused a stir at a Senate hearing this week when he repeated his view that gay sex is immoral and should not be condoned by the military.

Pace, who retires next week, said he was seeking to clarify similar remarks he made in spring, which he said were misreported.

"Are there wonderful Americans who happen to be homosexual serving in the military? Yes," he told the Senate Appropriations Committee during a hearing Wednesday focused on the Pentagon's 2008 war spending request.

"We need to be very precise then, about what I said wearing my stars and being very conscious of it," he added. "And that is, very simply, that we should respect those who want to serve the nation but not through the law of the land, condone activity that, in my upbringing, is counter to God's law."

Anti-war protesters sitting behind Pace jeered the four-star general's remarks with some shouting, "Bigot!" That led Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Byrd, D- West Virginia., to adjourn the hearing abruptly and seal off the doors.

The hearing resumed about five minutes later in which Pace said he would be supportive of efforts to revisit the Pentagon's policy so long as it didn't violate his belief that sex should be restricted to a married heterosexual couple.


"I would be very willing and able and supportive" to changes to the policy "to continue to allow the homosexual community to contribute to the nation without condoning what I believe to be activity -- whether it to be heterosexual or homosexual -- that in my upbringing is not right," Pace said.

Pace's lengthy answer on gays was prodded by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who said he found Pace's previous remarks as "very hurtful" and "very demoralizing" to homosexuals serving in the military.

In March, the Chicago Tribune reported that Pace said in a wide-ranging interview: "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way."

Harkin said he wanted to give Pace a chance to amend his remarks in light of his retirement.

"It's a matter of leadership, and we have to be careful what we say," Harkin said.

Pace noted that the U.S. Military Code of Justice prohibits homosexual activity as well as adultery. Harkin said, "Well, then, maybe we should change that."

Somebody should tell him ”moral” is the one without the “e.” He’s supposed to be concerned about “morale” What with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, all the other Stans, Putin walking around without his shirt on, Bob Denver addressing the U.N., Narco-terrorism in Latin America, Special Ops in the Horn of Africa and the deployments we haven’t been told about, it’s really comforting to know that he has time to opine about this.

So, will it be covered by insurance? Will I have to get a referral first?

Study supports physician-aided suicide

SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- A U.S. study has determined legalization of doctor-assisted suicide does not result in a disproportionate number of deaths among specific groups.

The University of Utah-led study contradicts arguments by assisted suicide critics such legalization would result in disproportionate deaths among the elderly, poor or chronically ill, women, minorities, uninsured, minors, mentally ill and less educated patients.

The study focused on Oregon and the Netherlands, where doctor-assisted suicide is legal. It found only AIDS patients use doctor-assisted suicide at elevated rates, researchers reported.

"Fears about the impact on vulnerable people have dominated debate about physician-assisted suicide," said the study's lead author, bioethicist Professor Margaret Battin. "We find no evidence to support those fears where this practice already is legal."

Oregon is the only U.S. state in which physicians are allowed to prescribe lethal medications to terminally ill patients.

The Netherlands allows doctors to prescribe medication for suicide or perform euthanasia for patients facing intolerable suffering.

The research is reported in the October issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

That’s right doc. Dead men tell no tales.

One last thought...
How about a remake of "Gilligan's Island" with Ahmadinejad as Gilligan, Hugo Chavez as The Skipper, George Soros as Mr. Howell, Steven Hawking as The Professor, Katie Couric as Mary Anne and Christiane Amanpour as Ginger?

Making Science More Better For You on 09/26/07

Date night in monkey land—are they really so different?

"Randy monkeys wash hands, feet in urine
Scientists believe waste-bathing might also calm the primates"

MSNBC reports that tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) wash their feet and hands in urine to get comfort or sex, research now suggests.

"Explanations put forward for such urine-washing have included everything from helping the primates cool down to improving their grip on branches.

Primatologist Kimran Miller at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls and her colleagues focused on tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) for 10 months at the National Institutes of Health Animal Center in Maryland.


The alpha male of the group of roughly two dozen monkeys doubled how often he washed in urine when solicited by females.

"So we think the alpha males might use urine-washing to convey warm, fuzzy feelings to females, that their solicitation is working and that there's no need to run away," Miller said. "Or they could be doing it because they're excited."


"The leading explanations for urine-washing were either keeping cool or territoriality," Miller said. "Our findings suggest we should rethink why urine-washing happens."
The researchers will detail their findings in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Primatology."

So that's why alpha males smell like that. The story does bring to mind the old joke about the Harvard student in the Men’s Room during the Yale-Harvard football game. He notices that the Yale student in front of him is leaving without washing his hands. The Harvard guy stops him and says, “At Harvard, we’re taught to wash our hands after taking a leak.” “Really,” says the Yale guy. “At Yale we’re taught to not piss on our hands.”

Clearly, the monkeys are headed to Dartmouth.

Its like a roofie, only it's supposed to be good for you.

"Hormone Therapy Boosts Sexual Interest But Not Memory, Study Suggests"

"Science Daily — Hormone therapy in early post-menopause increases sexual interest, but does not improve memory, according to a new study. "Contrary to what we predicted, hormone therapy did not have a positive affect on memory performance in younger mid-life women," said Pauline Maki, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who led the study.

"If women want to improve hot flashes and night sweats -- the primary reason most women seek menopausal relief -- and they want to improve their sexual focus and interest, then this may be a formulation for them."

Maki and her colleagues enrolled 180 women between the ages of 45 and 55 whose last menstrual cycle was in the past one to three years. The women were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo or a combination of estrogen and progesterone, also known as Prempro, for four months.

The study evaluated memory, attention, cognitive function, emotional status, sexuality and sleep.

No significant changes in cognitive function were identified in the newly menopausal women taking hormone therapy compared to the placebo group."

Pretty soon some bartender will be serving it with Bailey's, on ice.


Staring into the abyss known as cranky old-cootism

In article posted on MSNBC (Why Grandpa Says Inappropriate Things 9/25) Sharon Begley executes a rather complicated conceptual arabesque as she attempts to explain why older folks feel free to say things that are often inappropriate or politically incorrect.

While trying to waltz carefully through this social mine field she sites an article in the October issue of the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science that claims the loss of inhibition may be tied to the brain’s tendency to shrink as we age. "The frontal lobes in particular atrophy. The result is educed ability to inhibit irrelevant or unwanted thoughts. This loss of inhibition might explain other behaviors that crop up in many elderly, including “social inappropriateness.”

“It might be that older adults have greater difficulty inhibiting these stereotypic thoughts despite their efforts to avoid being prejudiced,” writes psychologist William von Hippel of Australia’s University of Queensland. Older adults might be "more prejudiced than younger adults because they can no longer inhibit their unintentionally activated stereotypes.”

To be fair, Begley is careful to point out that there other factors at play. Personally, I subscribe to a simpler explanation. People—this includes cranky old coots— tend to speak their mind when they care little for the consequences. You got a problem with that?

Your tax dollars are no longer at work
"Accused duck killer suspended from job"
By Kieran Nicholson, Denver Post Staff Writer

"A Denver man accused of ripping off a duck's head in a St. Paul, Minn., hotel lobby was cited last year for illegally killing a turkey in Missouri.

In April 2006 Scott D. Clark, 26, was cited in Powersville, Mo., by a state conservation agent for "possession of a turkey illegally - untagged."

Clark pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge and paid a fine and court costs of $168, according to court records.

Clark could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

He was charged Monday with a felony count of cruelty to animals for allegedly killing a tame duck early Saturday at an Embassy Suites Hotel.

Clark, who works as an auditor for the federal government, was in Minnesota on a business assignment, said Don White, a spokesman for the U.S. Inspector General's Office.

Clark's direct supervisor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Denver was unavailable for comment.

White said Clark has worked for the Inspector General's Office for about a year. White could not say Tuesday how long Clark has been assigned to the Denver office.

Clark has been suspended with pay from his $56,000-a-year job, pending the outcome of the animal-cruelty case, White said.

If convicted of the felony cruelty-to-animals count in Minnesota, Clark faces a $5,000 fine and a possible two-year jail sentence.

The Embassy Suites owns a number of tame ducks, which roam the pond area and walkways in the hotel atrium, to entertain guests and visitors.

A police report said the duck incident happened about 2:30 a.m. Clark reportedly told astonished onlookers that he was hungry.

Clark then took the body of the duck up to the fifth floor, where hotel security officers held him until police arrived.

The police report says Clark told police that he worked for the federal government and "when this was over, he would have the officers' jobs," according to the complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court."

So, that's how it starts. First turkeys, then ducks. Sounds like Jeffrey Dahmer's recipe for turducken.


Headline of the day
"Man's lost amputated leg found in a barbeque smoker"
(From the folks at The Obscure Store)

"S.C. amputee's lost leg found in barbecue smoker
'There were no macabre intentions'"
CLEVE R. WOOTSON JR. AND MARCIE YOUNG
cwootson@charlotteobserver.com

"John Wood is trying to get from South Carolina to Catawba County today to retrieve his leg.

On Tuesday, a Maiden man found the lost appendage in a barbecue smoker he'd bought from a storage facility.

The man took the smoker home, looked inside, and saw something wrapped in paper. Inside, said Maiden Police Chief Troy Church, was Wood's leg -- the foot and most of the calf. Police are keeping it for Wood.

Doctors amputated Wood's leg after a 2004 plane crash in Wilkes County that killed Wood's father and injured two other family members, Wood said.

"When it was amputated, he told (the hospital) that he wanted that leg saved," said his sister, Marin Wood-Lytle. "He wanted to keep the bone because he wanted to be buried as a full man." Instead of a bone, a funeral home delivered the whole leg.

Wood put it in his freezer, his sister said. It became something of a joke when she came over. "I wouldn't even get a Pepsi out of his refrigerator."

But it stopped being funny when Wood got behind on his power bill and his electricity was shut off, the sister said.

Despite his family's protests, Wood-Lytle said, her brother took the screen off his front porch, wrapped the leg inside and "tied it to two posts to let it dry.""

No, I said leg of lamb, not leg of man.

One last thought...
How about a remake of "Gilligan's Island" with Ahmadinejad as Gilligan, Hugo Chavez as The Skipper, George Soros as Mr. Howell, Steven Hawking as The Professor, Katie Couric as Mary Anne and Christiane Amanpour as Ginger?

Making Science More Better For You on 09/25/07

Not only that, they’re nasty, they refuse to bathe and they eat everything they see.

Bacteria sent to space come back more infectious

Microbes that cause salmonella came back from spaceflight even more virulent and dangerous in an experiment aboard the US space shuttle Atlantis, according to a study published on Monday.

The experiment by microbiologists at Arizona State University sent tubes with salmonella bacteria on a shuttle flight in September 2006 to measure how space flight might affect disease-causing microbes.

The salmonella sample that travelled millions of kilometers (miles) in orbit changed their pattern of certain genes compared to identical bacteria back on Earth, said the study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Following the shuttle flight, studies using mice showed the salmonella bacteria aboard the shuttle were "almost three times as likely to cause disease when compared with control bacteria grown on the ground," said a university statement outlining the study.

After about three weeks, 40 percent of mice fed the salmonella from Earth were still alive while only 10 percent of those given the bacteria from space survived, according to the study.

Salmonella and other related bacterial pathogens are a leading cause of food-borne illness and infectious disease, particularly in developing countries. No vaccine exists for salmonella and it has become increasingly resistant to antibiotic treatment, the study said.

The scientists plan to carry out more experiments on the same theme possibly on space shuttle flights in 2008.(Breitbart/AFP)

Rule number one: No church picnics in space.


Let’s see, four and twenty blackbirds, a nice ripe brie, a good red and to start…

France Cracks Down on Poaching Tasty Songbirds


PARIS (AP) — On the world's list of weird foods, ortolan — a bite-size songbird roasted and gulped down whole — can claim a place of distinction. It's an illegal place, though, since the ortolan is a protected species and hunting it is banned in France. Now the government is out to get poachers of the coveted fowl.

Thought to represent the soul of France, ortolan was reportedly on the menu at late French President Francois Mitterrand's legendary “last supper” on New Year's Eve 1995, eight days before he died. Though cancer had diminished his appetite, Mitterrand saved room for the piece de resistance — roasted ortolan — downing the 2-ounce bird, according to a detailed account in Esquire magazine and Georges-Marc Benamou, a journalist who was a Mitterrand confidant.

Some of the late president's associates, however, insist the bird-eating never took place.

According to tradition, the French shroud their head in a napkin to eat ortolan: Tucking into the bite-sized bird — which is killed by being drowned in Armagnac, plucked and roasted with its yellow skin and skeleton intact — can be a messy business. It's also an illicit one.

A 1998 law banned hunting the ortolan, a copper-breasted bird that migrates from Africa to Europe, because of its endangered status. Ortolan hunters — who trap the birds alive and keep them in cages for several weeks to fatten them up — face fines of up to $12,460 and six months in prison, if caught and convicted. But environmentalists complain the law is rarely enforced.

Earlier this month, the minister in charge of the environment, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, pledged to step up inspections of the ortolan's habitat in the Landes region in southwestern France. The increased inspections have already born fruit, she said.

What a tasty dish to set before a socialist with a Vichy past. How can you resist something that's usually eaten with a napkin on your head. It's so European, n'cest pa?

So if some is good, more has to be better, right? Just like more better. And so good for you

Frog Deformities May Be Fueled By Excess Nutrients

From LiveScience.com
The excess nitrogen and phosphorus found in farm runoff causes more algae to grow, which increases snail populations that host microscopic parasites called trematodes, said Pieter Johnson, a water scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder.


Johnson noted that he and his colleagues' work, which is detailed in the Sept. 24 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could also explain "a wide array of diseases potentially linked to nutrient pollution."

Frog species also are vanishing from Earth in the past few decades for reasons that are difficult to tease apart, including habitat loss, global warming and emerging diseases such as one caused by chytrid fungus. Nutrient pollution and limb malformations also contribute, Johnson said.

A worldwide study of more than 6,000 species of amphibians recently concluded that 32 percent were threatened and 43 percent were declining in population.


Deformed frogs first gained international attention in the mid-1990s, when a group of schoolchildren discovered a pond where more than half of the leopard frogs had missing or extra limbs, Johnson said. Since then, widespread reports of deformed amphibians have led to speculation that the abnormalities were being caused by pesticides, increased ultraviolet radiation or parasitic infection.

Parasite infection is now recognized as a major cause of such deformities, but the environmental factors responsible for increases in parasite abundance have largely remained a mystery.

"What we found is that nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from agriculture, cattle grazing and domestic runoff have the potential to significantly promote parasitic infection and deformities in frogs," Johnson said.

Really Mr. Bonds, an extra head means you will be able to see the ball twice as quickly


Your tax dollars at work

More On The Man Charged With Killing St. Paul Hotel's Pet Duck

The defendant was belligerent to officers and told them, "It's just a ... duck," the complaint said.

Star Tribune/The Obscure Store

Scott D. Clark allegedly stalked and cornered one of the ducks against a brick wall early Saturday, then wrenched off its head. He told astonished onlookers that he was hungry, police said.

Scott, 26, of Denver, was charged Monday with felony animal cruelty. He made his first court appearance, posted bail and was released. The charge is not ranked by state sentencing guidelines. It is up to a judge to decide on suitable punishment if Clark is convicted.

According to the complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court, Clark became belligerent with officers when they arrested him at the hotel on E. 10th Street about 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

"Mr. Clark stated to police that he worked for the federal government and when this was over he would have the officers' jobs," the complaint said. Records show that Clark is an auditor in the Office of Inspector General in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Denver. He could not be reached to comment Monday.

The complaint said Clark asked officers if he was in trouble.

"Yes," they told him.

"Why, because I killed it out of season?" the complaint quotes Clark as saying. "Big deal, it's just a [expletive] duck."

Police Sgt. John Wuorinen said, "It sounds like there was quite a bit of alcohol involved."

Rosco Larson, general manager of the Embassy Suites, said Monday, "These animals have been a part of our hotel's family for many years and we are deeply saddened by this incident."

The hotel has about seven ducks that swim in the pond and wander the plant-filled walkways. Each is valued at about $400.

Clearly, the guy suffers from some kind of psychological mallard-dy.


Haven't you ever heard of consultants?

Judge admits to looking to elfs for advice.
According to an article in today's WSJ by JAMES HOOKWAY, trial-court judge, Florentino V. Floro Jr. acknowledged that he regularly sought the counsel of three elves only he could see. The Supreme Court in the Philippines deemed him unfit to serve and fired him last year.

Helping him, he says, are his three invisible companions. "Angel" is the neutral force, he says. "Armand" is a benign influence. "Luis," whom Mr. Floro describes as the "king of kings," is an avenger.

Mr. Floro says he is not suffering from psychosis, and that he's not to blame for the incidents. He points the finger squarely at "king of kings" elf Luis, who Mr. Floro says is bent on cleaning up what he says is the Philippines' corrupt legal system.

He could have said he was just praying on it. But no...

Making Science More Better For You on 09/24/07

How you gonna keep’em down on the farm once they’ve tasted that special sauce?

Apes Blamed For Crime Spree

South Africa's crime problem has taken a new twist.
A gang of baboons is being blamed for a series of break-ins.

The chacma baboons, which live wild in the Cape peninsula, have been raiding people's homes for food and causing thousands of pounds in damage.

"People here are getting very angry," Dr Peter Kirsh said, as a baboon strutted along the street beneath his balcony.

"They get into the kitchens, they know where the fridge is, they open it and take everything, and then they defecate everywhere."

"I put these bars on my windows," John Lourens says, gripping the metal. "But still, the next thing I knew I had a baboon in my living room."

The residents say the "invasions" happen almost daily and claim the baboons are aggressive as they search for food. (Sky News)

Next thing you know, they'll be surfing the Internet for chimp porn.

Headline of the day
“Saying "I'm hungry," man rips off duck's head inside hotel lobby”
(Pioneer Press/The Obscure Store)

The Police described him as “allegedly drunk.”

BY DAVE ORRICK/ Pioneer Press

He ripped the head off a live duck inside a hotel lobby.

That's the accusation St. Paul police made early Saturday against a 26-year-old Denver man staying at the Embassy Suites Hotel in downtown St. Paul.

The hotel's spacious lobby atrium features an ornamental pond that at one point contained eight domesticated ducks.

Shortly before 2:35 a.m., Scott D. Clark, who had told hotel employees he was in town on business, chased a duck across the area and cornered it, according to St. Paul police Sgt. John Wuorinen.

"He was allegedly drunk," Wuorinen said Saturday as he read a police report of the incident.

As a hotel security guard and others watched, Clark grabbed the bird and "ripped its head from its body," the police report said.

Clark turned to onlookers and said: "I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat it," said Wuorinen, quoting from the report.

Security guards detained Clark until police arrived. He spent Saturday night in the Ramsey County Jail on suspicion of felony cruelty to animal and was scheduled to appear before a judge Monday morning. Police said they were not aware of Clark having any criminal record.

Clark declined a request for a jailhouse interview Saturday.

An assistant manager at the hotel, at 175 E. 10th St., said the hotel was conducting its own investigation of the incident and declined to comment further.

In town on business? And just what kind of business would that be? And will the hotel send him a duck bill?


Wait until you get this baby on the highway…

According to the BBC, broadband speeds in the UK are much slower than advertised by internet service providers, a study by Computeractive magazine has found.

Some 3,000 readers took part in speed tests and 62% found they routinely got less than half of the top speed advertised by their provider.

It is the latest in a series of questions over the way net firms advertise broadband services.

Regulator Ofcom said it was aware of the issue and was "investigating".

Testing times

The figures were gathered from more than 100,000 speed tests that the 3,000 respondents carried out to build up a picture of their average net-browsing speed on ADSL lines.

Statistics about net users in the UK show that half of current broadband users receive ADSL services that should run at speeds between one and four megabits per second (mbps).

The other 50% are on deals offering up to eight mbps but the tests revealed that, in reality, very few achieve the top speeds.

"This problem has been building for a while with a growing gulf between what is advertised and what is delivered," said Paul Allen, editor of Computeractive.

"The adverts often have super-fast broadband in huge lettering with the "up to" clause in very small print," he said.

"Users who have taken the test were surprised at the size of the gulf," he added.

Some 28% of the 3,000 respondents who took the ADSL speed test found that they received less than a quarter of their maximum advertised bandwidth.

While consumers may currently not notice their sluggish connections, this could change thinks Mr Allen.

"Previously it has not been a massive issue but in the coming year we are entering the net TV age and video content is bandwidth-hungry," he said.

Mr Allen called on regulator Ofcom to provide an independent speed test to anyone who has signed up to receive broadband.

Speaking for the telecommunications watchdog, a spokesman said: "We are looking at this issue. It is not a huge driver of complaints but it has come on to our radar screen."

"It's about the difference between the headline rate and the rate received," he said.

The spokesman said Ofcom was working with the net industry and other organisations such as Which to investigate the extent of the problem and what can be done about it.

"Once we have carried out this work we will assess what options might be available to tackle it," he said. The results of the investigation would be made available in the "near future", said the spokesman.

You mean consumers are getting techno-speak instead of what they pay for? Shocking.



Natural selection is based on shiny things. That's why God invented the Corvette.

Biologists Expose Hidden Costs Of Firefly Flashes: Risky Balance Between Sex And Death

Science Daily — A new study by biologists at Tufts University has discovered a dark side lurking behind the magical light shows put on by fireflies each summer. Using both laboratory and field experiments to explore the potential costs of firefly courtship displays, the biologists have uncovered some surprising answers.


The research, to be published in the November 2007 issue of American Naturalist revealed that it's energetically cheap for fireflies to produce their distinctive flash signals, but that flashier males are more likely to end up on the dinner table.

On summer evenings, male Photinus fireflies lift off into the air to broadcast their bioluminescent flashes in search of females. Females perched in the grass sit and admire passing males and, if they're interested, will flash in response. Previous research on many different firefly species has shown that females respond more readily to males that give longer flashes, as well as those with faster flash rhythms. This female choice favors firefly males that produce more conspicuous flashes.

"Since females so clearly prefer the flashier males, one thing that's been puzzling scientists is what's keeping these males from evolving longer and longer, faster and faster flashes," says Sara Lewis, professor of biology at Tufts and leader of the research team that included postdoctoral researcher William Woods and two undergraduate students. In theory, there might be some hidden costs to more conspicuous flashes, but what are they"

In the field, predatory fireflies were attracted significantly more often to the fake firefly signals compared with non-flashing but otherwise identical controls. In addition, when flash signals were more frequent, they were much more likely to attract predators. So even though more conspicuous flash signals provide male fireflies with an evolutionary leg up in terms of attracting females, they also have a potentially fatal downside because they are more likely to attract predators in search of their next meal.

You know the type. Shirt open at the thorax, gold chains, bad rug.

Making Science More Better For You on 09/21/07

Her parents must be so proud

MIT Student Arrested For Fake Bomb At Logan
Police Say She Had Circuit Board, Wiring, and Play-Doh

(WBZ) BOSTON An MIT student with a fake bomb strapped to her chest was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said.

Star Simpson, 19, had a computer circuit board and wiring in plain view over a black hooded sweat shirt she was wearing, said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the commanding officer at the airport.

"She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day," Pare said at a news conference. "She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it." The battery-powered rectangular device had nine flashing lights, he said. Simpson also had Play-Doh in her hands, he said. The phrases "Socket to me" and "Course VI" were written on the back of sweat shirt, which authorities displayed to the media. Course VI appears to be a reference to MIT's major of electrical engineering and computer science.

Just what school of art would that be? Loose wire?
This is what you get when you go to a school without a football team.

Breaking news
STUDY: Steroids Increase Home Runs By MAGGIE FOX from the New York Post
September 21, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Steroids can help batters hit 50 percent more home runs by boosting their muscle mass by just 10 percent, a U.S. physicist said yesterday.

Calculations show that, by putting on 10 percent more muscle mass, a batter can swing about 5 percent faster, increasing the ball's speed by 4 percent as it leaves the bat.

Depending on the ball's trajectory, this added speed could take it into home run territory 50 percent more often, said Roger Tobin of Tufts University in Boston.

"A 4 percent increase in ball speed, which can reasonably be expected from steroid use, can increase home run production by anywhere from 50 percent to 100 percent," said Tobin, whose study will be published in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Physics.

Tobin read reports about steroids that said they could add about 10 percent to an athlete's total muscle mass. An extra 10 pounds of muscle, he said, could add just enough extra to a batter's swing to send the ball out of the park.

Could this be enough to help the Giants' Barry Bonds, dogged by allegations of past steroid use, hit his record-breaking 756th career home run last month?

"I haven't tried to look at Barry Bonds specifically so I haven't looked at his weight numbers," Tobin said. – Reuters

Really? And all this time I thought these guys just liked the taste of the nougat center.


This is what happens when all of your missiles are toy missiles

Mattel apologizes to China over recalls

BEIJING - U.S.-based toy giant Mattel Inc. issued an extraordinary apology to China on Friday over the recall of Chinese-made toys, taking the blame for design flaws and saying it had recalled more lead-tainted toys than justified.

The gesture by Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president for worldwide operations, came in a meeting with Chinese product safety chief Li Changjiang, at which Li upbraided the company for maintaining weak safety controls.

"Our reputation has been damaged lately by these recalls," Debrowski told Li in a meeting at Li's office at which reporters were allowed to be present.

The carefully worded apology, delivered with company lawyers present, underscores China's central role in Mattel's business. The world's largest toy maker has been in China for 25 years and about 65 percent of its products are made in China.

China has become a center for the world's toy-making industry, exporting $7.5 billion worth of toys last year.

kow·tow (kou-tou, koutou)
intr.v. kow·towed, kow·tow·ing, kow·tows
1. To kneel and touch the forehead to the ground in expression of deep respect, worship, or submission, as formerly done in China.
2. To show servile deference. See Synonyms at fawn1.(The online dictionary)

From Wikipedia: “Despite common conceptions, an Imperial Courtier only has to kowtow to the Emperor once, not nine times as often described. Current Chinese etiquette does not contain any situations in which the kowtow is regularly performed in front of a living human being, although it may occur in rare and extreme cases where one is begging for forgiveness or offering an extreme apology, or showing respect in traditional funerals.”

Or when someone threatens to pull the plug on 65 percent of your manufacturing.

Frodo lives

According to the BBC, careful study of the "Hobbit" fossil's wrist bones supports the idea that the creature was a distinct species and not a diseased modern human, it is claimed. The 18,000-year-old bones of the Hobbit were unearthed on the Indonesian island of Flores, in a limestone cave at a site called Liang Bua.

Matthew Tocheri and colleagues tell Science magazine that the bones look nothing like those of Homo sapiens; they look ape-like.

The announcement in 2004 detailing the discovery of Homo floresiensis caused a sensation.

Some researchers, though, have doubted the interpretation of the find.

These individuals - including the Indonesian palaeoanthropologist Teuku Jacob - have argued that the remains are probably those of a pygmy with the brain defect known as microcephaly.

But the new analysis by Tocheri, from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, US, and co-authors will add further weight to the original assessment.

Their study shows that the wrist bones of the Hobbit are primitive and shaped differently from the bones of both modern humans and even their near-evolutionary cousins, the now extinct Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis).

The creature's wrist lacks a modern innovation seen in both these other human species - a wrist that distributes forces away from the base of the thumb and across the wrist for better shock-absorbing abilities.

"What was very clear from my perspective looking at the Hobbit's wrist bones is that it does not belong in the group that includes modern humans and Neanderthals. It basically has the same type of wrist that we see in [the ancient hominid] Homo habilis, that we see in Australopithecus (the famous 'Lucy' fossil) and that we see in living chimps and gorillas today," Matthew Tocheri told BBC News.

So being human really is “all in the wrist.”

Making Science More Better For You on 09/20/07

“Is brown, just like dirt at home. Taste like home too.”

Russians plan to present evidence to United Nations
that the Arctic should be theirs. They say the proof is in the soil.

According to a Reuters report on MSNBC, Russia says it has the scientific evidence to prove that the Arctic is really Russian.

"We have received preliminary data from an analysis of models of the earth's crust from Arctic 2007 which confirms that the Lomonosov Ridge ... is part of the adjoining continental shelf of the Russian Federation." the statement said.

The Lomonosov Ridge, named after 18th century Russian writer and scientist Mikhail Lomonosov, runs hundreds of kilometers along the bottom of the Arctic seabed below the icy North Pole and is key to claiming the region's untapped resources. (Reuters/MSNBC)

The report, however, made no claim as to the ownership of the Arctic Monkeys.


From a cluster of bone fragments the size of my finger, we can safely surmise that Psittacosaurus had a pleasant voice, green eyes and would have liked Bach, creamed spinach and voted Libertarian.

Dinosaur find shows early social behavior
Discovery sheds light on the life of the beaked dinosaur Psittacosaurus

The fossilized remains of six young dinosaurs found together in a "nursery" at a site in China show these animals had started forming social groups much earlier than previously thought, scientists said on Thursday.

The find sheds light on the life of the beaked dinosaur Psittacosaurus and on the origins of social behavior in its descendents, including the horned Triceratops, said Paul Barrett, a paleontologist at Britain's Natural History Museum, who led the study.

"We don't know very much about the early behavior of dinosaurs in general," he said in a telephone interview. "This discovery shows the early relatives were already social and living in groups." (MSNBC/Reuters)

Translation: they all died in the same spot at the same time under the same rock.



You didn’t hear it from me, but…

Most Science Studies Appear to Be Tainted By Sloppy Analysis

According to a SCIENCE JOURNAL article in today’s WSJ by
Robert Lee Hotz, medical scholar John Ioannidis contends that most published research findings are wrong.

Dr. Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece and Tufts University in Medford, Mass., says the flawed findings, for the most part, result from: “miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis.” Says Ioannidis, "There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims," Dr. Ioannidis said. "A new claim about a research finding is more likely to be false than true."


Says Hotz, in the U. S., research is a $55-billion-a-year enterprise that stakes its credibility on the reliability of evidence and the work of Dr. Ioannidis strikes a raw nerve. In fact, his 2005 essay "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" remains the most downloaded technical paper that the journal PLoS Medicine has ever published.

Earlier this year, informatics expert Murat Cokol and his colleagues at Columbia University sorted through 9.4 million research papers at the U.S. National Library of Medicine published from 1950 through 2004 in 4,000 journals. By raw count, just 596 had been formally retracted, Dr. Cokol reported. (WSJ)/Thanks to The Daily Grail

Hey, how you doin' ?

Headline of the day

Man has sex at spa multiple times to help cops build their case

During his first visit to the spa, the man allegedly was so upset about a woman offering sex that he reported it to state police. He returned four more times and engaged in hanky-panky while cops listened and laughed outside. (Allentown, PA Morning Call)/The Obscure Store)

Taking more than one for the team?

Making Science More Better For You on 09/19/07

Here's what’s passing for science this week: understated British division

The number of people left-handed may vary

LONDON, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Using evidence from the classic films, British researchers said that the number of left-handed people suffered something of a setback in Victorian England.

"Left-handedness is important because more than 10 percent of people have their brains organized in a qualitatively different way to other people," Ian Christopher McManus of the University College London said in a statement. "That has to be interesting. When the rate of a -- variable trait -- changes, then there have to be causes and they are interesting as well."

Although left-handers currently form about 11 percent of the population, earlier studies showed that about 3 percent of those born in 1900 were left-handed but the precise reasons for why the rate varies remains murky, the researchers said.

The researchers examined classic films and identified 391 arm-wavers and compared them to a modern control group.

The study, published in Current Biology, found that the earlier Victorian rates of left-handedness are broadly equivalent to modern rates, whereas rates then decline, with the lowest values for those born between about 1890 and 1910.(science daily)

As the peoples of the earth breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Who knows where the time goes? No really, who knows and when did they know it?

L.A. has worst traffic; drivers lose 72 hrs a year

By Joan Gralla

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Los Angeles metropolitan area led the nation in traffic jams in 2005, with rush-hour drivers spending an extra 72 hours a year on average stuck in traffic, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The metropolitan areas of San Francisco-0akland, Washington, D.C.-Virginia-Maryland, and Atlanta were tied for the second most gridlocked areas, according to the study by the Texas Transportation Institute.

Drivers in those three areas spent an extra 60 hours on average during peak periods, defined as 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., the study found.

But drivers in other regions around the country were not much luckier. The report (http://mobility.tamu.edu) found traffic gridlock worsened in all 437 large, medium and small urban centers in 2005.

"What causes congestion? In a word, 'you.' Most of the Mojave Desert is not congested," wrote report authors David Schrank, associate research scientist, and Tim Lomax, research engineer.
The study found that drivers in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, area had average delays of 58 hours.

Yeah, fine, but did you ever try to get a decent pizza in the Mojave?

Dueling headlines of the day—both from today’s Obscure Store

Car wreck saves choking driver's life

UPPER DEERFIELD --Hunger pains turned quickly into real pain for Bryan Rocco on Tuesday afternoon. The 43-year-old Vine-land man wasn't badly injured in the one-car crash on Landis Avenue near Morton Avenue, but instead walked away with one heck of a story.

"I was on my way back to the office and stopped at Burger King and bought a chicken sandwich and onion rings," the foreman for DJ's Painting in Vineland said Tuesday evening. "I started to choke on one of the onion rings and then I guess I just blacked out."
The air bag apparently dislodged the bite of onion ring stuck in Rocco's throat.

"The whole thing caught me by surprise," he said. "I was going out, blacking out and then I'm awake."

Aside from a cut on his head, a few bumps and bruises and a swollen chin, Rocco made it out relatively unscathed.

His dignity, though, might take a hit when he gets back to work.

"Oh, I know I'm going to hear it," Rocco said. "It's OK. It is kind of strange." (Daily Journal/The Obscure Store)

Class, the successful execution of the self-administered Heimlich requires the following: onion rings, a car and a tree.

and

Man with live chicken in his trunk gets tasered by cops

For those keeping score at home, Richard D. Brown has now been tasered at least five times in three separate incidents in which he fought with police. (In the latest incident, it was drugs -- not the bird -- that got him in trouble.) (Sheboygan Press)



Man, your orbital space station's so ugly...

Nobel laureate calls international space station an 'orbital turkey'

According to a story by Ker Than posted on MSNBC- A physics Nobel Laureate named Steven Weinberg says nothing of value has come out of NASA's manned spaceflight program and questions the scientific usefulness of the international space station.

"The international space station is an orbital turkey," said Steven Weinberg, a particle physicist at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics. "No important science has come out of it. I could almost say no science has come out of it. And I would go beyond that and say that the whole manned spaceflight program, which is so enormously expensive, has produced nothing of scientific value."

Weinberg was speaking at a workshop on dark energy at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. (MSNBC)

Well, besides that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?


Like Missile Command, only for real
Air Force activates provisional Cyber Command

By Ana Radelat
Gannett News Service
ARLINGTON, Va. — At a celebration of the Air Force's 60th birthday Tuesday, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne moved forward on the service's Cyber Command, officially activating it as a provisional unit with its headquarters, for now, at Barksdale Air Force Base.

In a speech to airmen and officers, Wynne said the Air Force must "defeat emerging threats," especially enemy attacks on U.S. communications and computer systems.

The new command's mission will be to protect the nation from attacks on its electronic and informational systems. The command would also develop the capability to attack enemy computer and communications systems.

"We dominate the air, we dominate space, we want to dominate cyberspace, but I don't think we do that right now," Wynne told reporters at the anniversary celebration. (The Shreveport Times)

So Flash Gordon and William Gibson walk into a bar.

Making Science More Better For You on 09/18/07

A man walks into a hotel room with a mongoose, a small leopard and a flamingo

Jack Hanna, flamingo trapped in airport turnstile

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Animal expert Jack Hanna and an 11-month-old flamingo became trapped while trying to squeeze through an airport security turnstile. It took firefighters three hours to finally get the flamingo out.

Hanna, 60, pushed the flamingo's 2-foot-by-3-foot compartment into the turnstile, then continued pushing while straddling the crate. "I was stuck like a worm. My eyes were as big as grapefruits," he said. "I can't describe the feeling in my stomach. I can't move up or down. The bars are on your face."
Hanna joked that the next time he flies through the airport, the biggest animal he'll bring is a gerbil. The Associated Press

The little bit of good taste I have left prevents me from making any gerbil jokes. Hey, how about that Marlin Perkins?


Klatu Barata, uh-oh

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village

LIMA (AFP) - Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday. Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP. Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said. Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache. "Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

“We said we come in peace. We didn’t say anything about your health.”



Down at the Eddie Izzard factory, they’re just cranking 'em out.

Brain surgery leaves Yorkshire boy speaking like the Queen

With her nine-year-old son William lying desperately ill in hospital following emergency brain surgery, Ruth McCartney-Moore prayed that she would one day hear his voice again.

But when he did speak weeks later, she was in for a shock.

He had lost his strong Yorkshire accent and was now speaking the Queen's English.

"We noticed that he had started to elongate his vowels in words like 'bath' which he never did before," said Mrs McCartney-Moore, 45, a music teacher from York. "He no longer has short vowel sounds - they are all long. It's bizarre." William was taken to hospital after suffering a fit in March last year.
Doctors discovered he had an abscess on his brain, known as a subdural empyema, which is caused by a rare strain of meningitis. He needed a lifethreatening operation to remove the fluid. Following the operation William, a pupil at Hempland Primary School in York, was in hospital for more than four weeks. He lost the ability to read and write and his memory was also affected.

But remarkably he was able to play the piano and trumpet much better than before.

After he came out of hospital William went on a family holiday to Northumberland with his parents and brothers Alex, 16, and Edward, 15.

"William was playing on the beach," said Mrs McCartney-Moore.

"He suddenly said, 'Look, I've made a sand castle' but really stretched the vowels out, which made him sound really posh.

"We all just stared back at him - we couldn't believe what we had just heard because he had a northern accent before his illness.

"But the strange thing was that he had no idea why we were staring at him - he just thought he was speaking normally."


William has since returned to normal in everything but the way he speaks.

Brain surgeon Paul Eldridge, who works at the specialist Walton Neurological Centre, Liverpool, said it was possible that the infection and abscess had affected the area of the brain which controls language skills, forcing William to learn how to speak again.
(this is London)

Talking like the Queen is caused by an infection? All this time I thought it was inbreeding.



Headline of the morning
Police Question Armless Man In Neighbor's Death


SNELLVILLE, Ga. -- Police questioned an armless man Monday about the death of his neighbor.

Relatives of Charles Keith Teer, 47, claim he died after the armless man head-butted and kicked Teer during a fight.

The two men lived across the street from each other on Pine Street in the Atlanta suburb.

“Paging Dr. Richard Kimble, Dr. Richard Kimble”


It’s good to keep things flexible

Oldest man marks 112th birthday, wants to live "indefinitely"

The world's oldest man, who is celebrating his 112th birthday in south-western Japan, has said he wants to live "indefinitely".

Tomoji Tanabe, who was born in 1895, says avoiding alcohol is the secret of his longevity. He drinks milk, does not smoke, keeps a diary and reads the newspaper daily.

He was declared the oldest man in January by Guinness World Records after the death of Emiliano Mercado Del Toro, of Puerto Rico, at 115.

Mr Tanabe received 100,000 yen ($900, £440) and flowers from the local mayor in the town of Miyakonojo.

"I want to live indefinitely. I don't want to die," he said as he marked his birthday, Kyodo News agency reported.

Japan is said to have the largest population of centenarians in the world, with some 30,000 citizens aged 100 and over.(BBC)

If he wasn't in that wacky tontine he might have given up long ago.


You know, that tragedy about the Greek tailor: Euripidees, Imendadees

Ancient Greek Amphitheater: Why You Can Hear From Back Row

Science Daily — As the ancient Greeks were placing the last few stones on the magnificent theater at Epidaurus in the fourth century B.C., they couldn’t have known that they had unwittingly created a sophisticated acoustic filter. But when audiences in the back row were able to hear music and voices with amazing clarity (well before any theater had the luxury of a sound system), the Greeks must have known that they had done something very right because they made many attempts to duplicate Epidaurus’ design, but never with the same success.

The research, done by acoustician and ultrasonics expert Nico Declercq, an assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Georgia Tech Lorraine in France, and Cindy Dekeyser, an engineer who is fascinated by the history of ancient Greece, appears in the April issue of the Journal of the Acoustics Society of America.

While many experts speculated on the possible causes for Epidaurus’ acoustics, few guessed that the seats themselves were the secret of its acoustics success. There were theories that the site’s wind — which blows primarily from the stage to the audience — was the cause, while others credited masks that may have acted as primitive loudspeakers or the rhythm of Greek speech. Other more technical theories took into account the slope of the seat rows.



So that’s where Dr. Moreau’s island is

Disgraced cloning scientist flees to Thailand

Disgraced South Korean cloning scientist Hwang Woo-Suk has fled to Thailand to escape controversy and continue his research, associates said Tuesday.

Hwang and some 10 other researchers have been in Thailand for two months, focusing on research into the cloning of pet animals and the production of stemcells that could be used for cell treatment, they said.

The South Korean government banned Hwang from research using human eggs after his claims that he created the first human stem cells through cloning were ruled to be bogus last year.

Hwang was stripped of all government honours and funds, including his title of "Supreme Scientist," after Seoul National University concluded that his claims -- first made public in a 2004 science journal -- were fake.

"Dr. Hwang and his team moved into Thailand to continue with their study free from ethical controversy over their research here," said Park Se-Pill, also a cloning scientist, told AFP.

Hwang's former lawyer, Lee Geon-Haeng, confirmed Hwang and his team had been in Thailand for the past two months.

Aside from the cloning of pets, Hwang's team has also been working on "trans-species" cloning in which, for example, human DNA are inserted into eggs of a cow to produce hybrid embryos.

From this embryos, stemcells could be produced for cell treatment to cure chronic and difficult diseases such as Alzheimer's and diabetes.

South Korea's law on bioethics prohibits the production of hybrid embryos amid continuing controversy over whether research into hybrid embryos should be permitted as well.

Late last year, Hwang and his team made a quiet comeback to research and opened a new laboratory outside Seoul.

Hwang remains on trial for embezzlement and fake research but has insisted in court that he could still prove he created the first cloned human stem cells.

He claimed to have paved the way for treatment of incurable diseases by creating stem cells through cloning which would not be rejected when inserted into a patient's body.

But his successes could not be repeated by others, a key test for the scientific method. (AFP)

Dr. Moreau: What is the law?
Sayer of the Law: Not to eat meat, that is the law. Are we not men?
Beasts (in unison): Are we not men?
Dr. Moreau: What is the law?
Sayer of the Law: Not to go on all fours, that is the law. Are we not men?
Beasts (in unison): Are we not men?
Dr. Moreau: What is the law?
Sayer of the Law: Not to spill blood, that is the law. Are we not men?
Beasts (in unison): Are we not men?
(The Island of Lost Souls)

Making Science More Better For You on 09/17/07

Somewhere in Beijing, “The Third Man” is running on a continuous loop

China Recalls Two Leukemia Drugs

The Chinese government has recalled yet another group of products because of possible adverse medical reactions—this time drugs designed to fight leukemia.

The Associated Press reports that the drugs — methotrexate and cytarabin hydrochloride were causing leg pains and other problems. China's news agency said that most of the tainted drugs had been recovered but did not say whether any of the medications had been exported, the A.P.said.

The drugs were manufactured by the Shanghai Hualian Pharmaceutical Co., the wire service reported. It said China's State Food and Drug Administration and Health Ministry banned the two leukemia drugs after receiving reports that several children with leukemia who were taking them complained of leg pains and difficulty walking.

A number of products exported from China have had to be recalled during the past two years, ranging from millions of toys that had too much lead content to millions of pounds of pet food additives. (Washington Post)

Wouldn’t it be easier if we just assumed there’s lead in everything they send us?

Game over
Man dies after 3-day gaming binge

BEIJING, China (AP) -- A man in southern China appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge, state media said Monday. The 30-year-old man fainted at a cyber cafe in the city of Guangzhou Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days, the Beijing News reported.

Paramedics tried to revive him but failed and he was declared dead at the cafe, it said. The paper said that he may have died from exhaustion brought on by too many hours on the Internet.

The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing.

The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death."

China has 140 million Internet users, second only to the U.S. It is one of the world's biggest markets for online games, with tens of millions of players, many of whom hunker down for hours in front of PCs in public Internet cafes.

Several cities have clinics to treat what psychiatrists have dubbed "Internet addiction" in users, many of them children and teenagers, who play online games or surf the Web for days at a time. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend. The Associated Press/CNN

I would have thought they’d try an emergency thumbectomy first.


No, the grande is the small

Famed '$100 laptop' now $188
Price hike could make it harder for governments to sign up as customers

The vaunted "$100 laptop" that Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers dreamed up for international schoolchildren is becoming a slightly more distant concept.

Leaders of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child that was spun out of MIT acknowledged Friday that the devices would cost $188 if mass production, expected to begin this fall, were to start now. The last price the nonprofit had announced was $176; it described $100 as a long-term goal. MSNBC

Sounds like a project for Mr. Gates.


“I don’t want to go where there is going to be a lot of foreigners.”

By Nicola Clark

There are already several dozen space tourism ventures in various stages of development worldwide, analysts say, offering experiences ranging from a brief trip to the outer limits of the Earth's atmosphere to an extended stay in a zero-gravity space hotel. Public and private investors in places as far flung as Dubai, New Mexico and Singapore are preparing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to develop full-blown "spaceports," complete with hotels, museums, Imax theaters and other space-themed diversions.

With the first paying passengers expected to take flight sometime in late 2009, Futon, a market research firm, predicts that as many as 14,000 space tourists will be heading into space each year by 2021, generating annual revenue of more than $700 million.

"There is quite a contest going on at the moment between a number of companies," said Walter Peeters, dean of the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. "I think people underestimate how fast this is developing. For the companies who succeed, it could be very, very lucrative." The leading entrepreneurs driving this recreational space race include several household names, including the British billionaire Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com. But major corporations, including European Aeronautic Defense & Space, the parent company of Airbus, are also investing significant sums in projects designed to deliver well-heeled adventurers into space.

For their $200,000, these individuals will receive four days of specialized training followed by a three-hour flight involving just five minutes of weightlessness at an altitude of 70 miles, or 110 kilometers, above sea level. From there, the company says, passengers will be able to see 1,000 miles in any direction, as well as the curved blue line of the Earth's atmosphere against the black sky of space. If all goes according to plan, Virgin Galactic says it expects to fly its first passengers in late 2009 or early 2010.International Herald Tribune

Yeah, but will you still be able to get a nice tan?


A Web site filled with cheesy goodness

1.5 million people log on to pay their respects to Wedginald, the big cheese

WWW.CHEDDARVISION.TV It must rank as one of the weirdest spectator sports, having attracted a global audience of more than 1.5 million in less than a year, and it involves, literally, nothing happening. People across the globe have been logging on to a website in huge numbers to watch a 44lb handmade cheddar cheese from Shepton Mallet slowly mature. Addicted surfers have, over the last nine months, been able to admire the Somerset-based cheese, named Wedginald by its creators. So far, 1,525,548 are registered as having logged on.

Along with a huge picture of the prized cheese, the website’s only other noticeable feature is a chronicle of how long it has been maturing: in days, hours, minutes and seconds. By yesterday, the number of days had reached 268.

Wedginald also appears on MySpace, Facebook and YouTube sites. Another huge influx of interest is expected this week when, for the first time since the project got under way, something actually happens. Viewers will be able to see Wedginald undergo a nine-month grading test. At the end of the year the matured cheese, valued at around £400, will be auctioned for charity. (Times OnLIne)

It's killing the paint drying channel in the ratings.




Headline of the day

Cities Cracking Down on Saggy Pants
By MATTHEW VERRINDER

(AP) - Proposals to ban saggy pants are starting to ride up in several places. At the extreme end, wearing pants low enough to show boxers or bare buttocks in one small Louisiana town means six months in jail and a $500 fine. A crackdown also is being pushed in Atlanta. And in Trenton, getting caught with your pants down may soon result in not only a fine, but a city worker assessing where your life is headed.

At least they’re not being distracted by silly things like literacy, test scores or graduation rates.

Making Science More Better For You on 09/14/07

And away we go

Jackie Gleason’s occult library is on display at the University of Miami. The exhibit includes over 1,7000 books, journals, pamphlets, and publications on such topics as witchcraft, folklore, the occult, ghosts and voodoo. (The Daily Grail)

It’s long been rumored, by those who traffic in such rumors, that in 1974 President Richard Nixon made it possible for Gleason to go to Homestead Air force base in Florida so he could view the bodies of the dead extraterrestrials that are kept there. But, you knew that.

To the moon, Alice...and beyond

Sounds fishy
Salmon parents spawn baby trout
By Lauran Neergaard (MSNBC)

Japanese researchers put a new spin on surrogate parenting as they engineered one fish species to produce another, in a quest to preserve endangered fish.

Idaho scientists begin the next big step next month, trying to produce a type of salmon highly endangered in that state — the sockeye — this time using more plentiful trout as surrogate parents.
The new method is "one of the best things that has happened in a long time in bringing something new into conservation biology," said University of Idaho zoology professor Joseph Cloud, who is leading the U.S. government-funded sockeye project.(MSNBC)

When interviewed, foster parents Gill and Dorsal Fin say they love the little guy and will raise him as if he were their own.


Headline of the day
Man steals car to turn himself in for another charge

Vincent Estrada Jr. is accused of stealing a car in Canandaigua, NY to turn himself in in nearby Geneva. (Rochester Democrat & Chronicle courtesy of the Obscure Store)
It has a nice kind of symmetry

Now you know
Curly hair tangles less than straight hair
Some think the findings could lead to advances 'in Velcro-like technology.’To learn which kind of hair truly is the snarliest, biophysicist Jean-Baptiste Masson at the Ecole Polytechnique in France had hairdressers count tangles for a week in the hair of 212 people — 123 with straight hair and 89 with curls. Counting was conducted between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., so that hair had a chance to snag during the day.

Masson found straight hair got tangled nearly twice as much as curly hair — the average number of tangles was 5.3 per head of straight hair and 2.9 per head of curly hair. To investigate further, Masson devised a geometrical model of hair that might explain the results. Although straight hairs interact less often with each other than curly hairs do, his math suggests that when straight hairs do rub against each other, they often do so at steep angles that cause tangles.

Masson noted that Velcro essentially involves hairy fibers getting tangled up with each other, and that his findings could lead to advances "in Velcro-like technology," he told LiveScience. For instance, researchers could try increasing the tension of Velcro fibers, essentially making them straighter. (MSNBC)

It’s a French research project, so I’m sure there will be some post-modern fractals involved as well.

Making Science More Better For You 09/13

It turns out; it’s not your dealer’s fault
Official prototype of kilogram mysteriously losing weight

PARIS, France (AP) -- A kilogram just isn't what it used to be.
The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight -- if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.
The kilogram's uncertainty could affect even countries that don't use the metric system -- it is the ultimate weight standard for the U.S. customary system, where it equals 2.2 pounds. For scientists, the inconstant metric constant is a nuisance, threatening calculation of things like electricity generation. (CNN)

Not only are things moving faster, but now we find out that we’ve all been getting a short count. The universe, it seems, has its thumb on the scale.

You call it pollution, I call it profits

'Worst Polluted Places' list unveiled
China, India, Russia each have two sites among Top 10 for 2007

Conservation groups on Wednesday issued their second annual "Worst Polluted Places" list, adding four sites — two in India and one each in Azerbaijan and China — to the top 10.

Overall, the 10 sites lie in seven countries and affect more than 12 million people, according to the Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland.
Sites added since the 2006 list are marked with an asterisk:
Sumgayit, Azerbaijan*;
Linfen, China;
Tianying, China*;
Sukinda, India*;
Vapi, India*;
La Oroya, Peru;
Dzerzhinsk, Russia;
Norilsk, Russia;
Chernobyl, Ukraine;
Kabwe, Zambia.


A report accompanying the list said the scoring methodology was refined "to place more weight on the scale and toxicity of the pollution and on the numbers of people at risk."

It also identified three key factors: mining, Cold War era pollution and unregulated industries. (MSNBC)

Rule number one is to locate the factory in a place, the name of which you can neither spell nor pronounce.



At least texting just makes your thumbs big—JK

Hint of cancer risk after 10 years mobile phone use, say researchers

Mobile phones do not pose health problems to adults in the short term but there is a "slight hint" of a cancer risk for long-term users, according to the results of a study which could not rule out risks of brain or ear cancer for those who have used mobiles for more than 10 years.

"We found no association between incidence and exposure for people who have used their phones for less than 10 years," said Lawrie Challis, chair of the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research programme. "But we cannot rule out the possibility [of] an association for exposures for more than 10 years. The numbers appeared to show some slight hint ... it's a faint suggestion that needs to be followed up."

The researchers involved in the six-year study said they would further investigate in the next phase of their work, which would also examine the effects of mobile phones on children's health. (Guardian.co.uk)

Are they dangerous? Hey it’s your call.

Feel so lonely, want to die
Robot Maker Builds Artificial Boy

RICHARDSON, Texas (AP) - David Hanson has two little Zenos to care for these days. There's his 18-month-old son Zeno, who prattles and smiles as he bounds through his father's cramped office. Then there's the robotic Zeno. It can't speak or walk yet, but has blinking eyes that can track people and a face that captivates with a range of expressions.

At 17 inches tall and 6 pounds, the artificial Zeno is the culmination of five years of work by Hanson and a small group of engineers, designers and programmers at his company, Hanson Robotics. They believe there's an emerging business in the design and sale of lifelike robotic companions, or social robots. And they'll be showing off the robot boy to students in grades 3-12 at the Wired NextFest technology conference Thursday in Los Angeles.

Unlike clearly artificial robotic toys, Hanson says he envisions Zeno as an interactive learning companion, a synthetic pal who can engage in conversation and convey human emotion through a face made of a skin-like, patented material Hanson calls frubber.

Can Robot Protective Services be far behind?

Well, it will be easier to find an apartment

Earth Might Survive Sun’s Explosion
By DENNIS OVERBYE—NYT

What happens to planets when their stars age and die?

That’s not an academic question. About five billion years from now, astronomers say, the Sun will run out of hydrogen fuel and swell temporarily more than 100 times in diameter into a so-called red giant, swallowing Mercury and Venus and dooming life on Earth, but perhaps not Earth itself.

Astronomers are announcing that they have discovered a planet that seems to have survived the puffing up of its home star, suggesting there is some hope that Earth could survive the aging and swelling of the Sun.

No more of that pesky global warming.


Bingo is feeling so much better…and he can type now, too.

Stem Cell Therapy Goes to the Dogs—and Horses
Newsweek/ By Jamie Reno
Sept. 13, 2007 - Mike Zaremba, an operations manager for a software company in Denver, was desperate and searching. His dog Nakota, a three-year-old Siberian Husky, was in severe and chronic pain and could barely walk after an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery in February failed to achieve the desired result. The dog would hide in different parts of the house, he always had his head down, and he couldn’t walk without limping severely. “The surgery went as well as it could have, so another surgery wasn’t an option,” says Zaremba. “But Nakota just wasn’t healing. He was really suffering. I wanted so badly to help him, but I had run out of options.” When Zaremba’s veterinarian told him about a new procedure in which Nakota’s own fat-derived stem cells could be used to expedite the ligament’s healing, Zaremba was skeptical but willing to try it. Within a few weeks after the minimally invasive procedure, Nakota was back to running long distances and jumping into the car with no visible sign of pain. “He’s just like his old self again,” Zaremba says. “It’s unbelievable.”

And to think the administration believes researchers are barking up the wrong tree…