Tuesday, May 22, 2007
There's been a lot of talk about genes lately, so here's more...
Approximately 1/12 of our genome consists of stretches of DNA from viruses that infected our ancestors millions of years ago. According to epidemiologist Prescott Deininger of Tulane University, these and other parasitical, self-replicating pieces of DNA have evolved with us and can insert copies of...
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Monday, May 21, 2007
'Less Gas, More Ass'
You may want to mark June 9 on your calender! It's World Naked Bike Ride Day, to protest oil dependency in the Northern Hemisphere. Scheduled cities include London, Paris, Moscow, New York and San Francisco. What you see in the headline is the favorite slogan. The mayor of Tehran has asked if...
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Sunday, May 20, 2007
Josie, sometimes you’re telling me more than I want to know...
Josie Glausiusz tells us all about Demodex mites. ‘It’s a little arthropod that lives most likely in the follicles of your eyelashes, eating, mating, breeding and rarely leaving – except perhaps for a sporadic nighttime walk around your face. Demodex mites – cigar-shaped, stumpy-legged parasites...
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Friday, May 18, 2007
Today, Something about Nothing...
Empty space, right? Well, it may be ‘empty’ by normal standards, but it contains ‘dark’, i.e. invisible energy that pushes the Universe apart at ever increasing speeds. And there is no such thing as an absolute vacuum, since even a vacuum contains virtual particles and antiparticles that pop in and...
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Thursday, May 17, 2007
Snotty robots are becoming more discerning...
It’s another step toward duplicating human qualities in robots, albeit a drippy one. To help robots smell things the way humans do, researchers have created synthetic mucus. This polymer-based snot helps conduct odours to electronic sensors located in cyber noses. Because mucus helps conduct scent,...
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Plutonium? Maybe Check the Flea Markets...
Nuclear authorities in Pakistan, opting on the side of caution, have run newspaper ads asking readers to help locate “lost or stolen” radioactive material. Officials say there was a “very remote chance” that nuclear material imported into the country as much as five decades ago has vanished. In...
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Monday, May 14, 2007
Adolf Hitler???
This information is as useless as the rest of the stuff that appears in this blog, but I thought I’d share with you something I discovered by accident recently, namely that TIME magazine’s “Man of the Year” in 1938 was none other than Adolf Hitler… Maybe that's why I prefer Maclean's...
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Friday, May 11, 2007
Long-legged, long-necked, two-humped beauties...
Saudi Arabia ’s Qahtani tribesmen last week welcomed contestants to the ‘Mazayen-al-Ibi’ competition, a gathering of the desert’s most beautiful camels. Judges looked for drooping noses, long necks and high humps. The competition was rich, with US$2.7 million in prizes and 72 SUVs to be won by...
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Thursday, May 10, 2007
I wonder if Whacko Jacko, the burka-boy, is behind this...
Its new play didn't have long to run, but for sheer audacity, few theatre companies in the West can match the Ajoka Theatre in Lahore, Pakistan. Its satire, Burkavaganza, is a call for moderation, said company head Madeeha Gohar. The play, about enforcing the wearing of burkas is aimed, Gohar says,...
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Tuesday, May 8, 2007
And while we are on the topic of 'Woman Town' in Chongqing...
Tang Meirong of Chongqing, China [we knew that], was minding her own business when she was knocked out cold by a falling cat. "I was walking on the footpath under the building," Tang recalls, "and suddenly a heavy object hit my head." But finding the cat's owner proved impossible, according to the...
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