Show Notes for TWS082: Outer Sight, Outta Mind

On the show this week:

• UFOney
• Cray Matter
• Stories covered at 30000 ft (and falling fast)

This week’s Challenge Question:
Can you truly have mind over matter? Or do you really just shut off senses?
Leave your answer in the comments, send your email to weirdshow[[at]]gmail.com, record your message via the MobaTalk client on the right hand side of Encaffeinated!, leave an answer on Facebook or call in at 206-203-2292.

Full links to all stories covered and many more after the jump!

• Theme Song: Caffeine by Grubspoon from The Podsafe Music Network
• Responses
  • Thanks to: Haavoc, Arkle and Bruce..
• UFOney
  • I believe that there is no intelligent life in the universe. Including here. (But Hawking’s less skeptical.) – MSNBC/AP: Stephen Hawking: Alien but primitive life likely
  • Moondust! NomNomNom I can haz marigolds? – BBC: Plants ‘thrive’ on Moon rock diet
  • EXTRA: Moonsoons? Thunder and Lunaring? What do you call a storm on our satellite? – NASA: The Moon and the Magnetotail
  • 11 years and one month after the first sighting — can it be a coincidence? – KOLD13 News: Mystery Lights Seen Over Phoenix
  • Another report of the lights, from a different angle. – NBC 12 News/The Arizona Republic: Strange lights reported in north Valley sky
  • Apparently, it was a hoax.. But does that mean it was a coincidence? – Frank Warren’s Blog/KTVK-TV: Man Admits Launching Flares Monday Night, Says Phoenix Lights Was Something Similar
  • More declarations of how fake this was. Silly world — actually *believing* the visual evidence! – LiveScience: Mysterious Phoenix Lights a UFO Hoax
  • So, was it a coincidence, or too coincidental to be a coincidence? Is a campaign of misinformation afoot? Or do we stick our foot in our mouth when talking about misinformation? – UFO Disclosure Countdown Clock: This Weeks UFO `Hoax’ Too Convenient To Be Chance?
  • Bah! Yet another report on the — Waitaminute: this *isn’t* from Phoenix! – Palm Beach Post: Mystery lights flying in formation over Florida
  • Oh, whew! It was all just a hoax.. But.. this is in the UK, not Florida! – Cambs Times: EXCLUSIVE: Unidentified lights were sky lanterns released at wedding reception!
  • Looks like a good season, another circle of (extraterrestrial?) life. – Crop Circle Science: Crop Circles have begun for 2008
  • EXTRA: Drifters often cause folks to get nervous and start asking questions.. – Science Daily: Drifting Star Discovered: Implications For Star And Planet Formation Theory
• Cray Matter
  • Favourite headline! But I’m drawing a blank on the details.. – MSNBC/LiveScience: Scientists decode brain farts
  • I nevr make the same mistake twice. Nevr ever. (I prefer to be more creative and really foul things up the second time.) – LiveScience: Why You Make the Same Mistake Twice
  • I’ve been saying it for years: just because you are miniscule in relative power and the universe is busy, huge and powerful, it doesn’t mean that the universe *isn’t* affecting you.. – New Scientist: Does the Earth’s magnetic field cause suicides?
  • I wonder if photos would help, too? – New Scientist: Memories of your last meal can help you stay thin
  • EXTRA: The Robot Labour Union will have something to say about this! Robot Worker’s Comp! – New Scientist: Mars rover’s robotic arm seizes up
  • EXTRA: Did it transmit the world’s smallest Pac-Man game? – The UK Telegraph: World’s smallest transistor is the size of a molecule
  • Just like a bong, we can make a computer out of anything.. – New Scientist: Ten weirdest computers
  • Don’t do this to me! I mean, really.. it’s hard enough being single without attractive computers responding to my every word.. – ScienceDaily: Computer System Can Carry On Conversations With Humans By Reacting To Voice, Facial Signals
  • EXTRA: Beware the nervous twitch and nver, EVER, crack your knuckles, or your computer will crash. – New Scientist: High-tech armband puts your fingers in control
  • Well, I guess she’ll just have to walk around naked and with blinders on, all day long. No, wait.. that’s *my* phobia! – The UK Sun: Gillian is terrified of buttons
  • “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it people can’t hurt me *when they are cutting out my bones*.” – BBC: Man hypnotises himself before op
  • Creativity from repetition; it’s the smoke that comes when you spin your tires a lot? – The New York Times: A Disease That Allowed Torrents of Creativity
  • EXTRA: As with all these stories, I’m waiting for the products to take healthy people farther, rather than just make everyone on par. – BBC: Bionic eye ‘blindness cure hope’
• Stories covered at 30000 ft (and falling fast)
  • EXTRA: Ancient technology or modern humanoid? If they could fix his teeth, why has no one reported seeing hobbits? – Scientific American: Did the Flores Hobbit Have a Root Canal?
  • EXTRA: Over 1000 years older than the last pathetic, scraggly bush. I wouldn’t exactly call it “living”.. – ScienceDaily: World’s Oldest Living Tree — 9550 years old — Discovered In Sweden
  • EXTRA: Maybe there was no ice. Maybe it all has to do with poor workers being kept down by the MAN. Or lowest bidder theory for supplies. – Yahoo!/AP: Book by metallurgists blames rivets for Titanic tragedy
  • EXTRA: I’m sure there’s a patent troll ready to exploit this.. – ScienceDaily: Ancient Buddhist Paintings From Bamiyan Were Made Of Oil, Hundreds Of Years Before Technique Was ‘Invented’ In Europe
  • EXTRA: It would also make for a awesome set for a Bond villian. – New Scientist: ‘Flammable ice’ could be mined for fuel
• Lost Signal (EXTRA)
  • EXTRA: The UK reeks of Europe? – BBC: Pong in the air is ‘Euro-whiff’
  • EXTRA: Shaking up the heartland, and not just with gay marriage. – MSNBC/AP: Midwest quakes remain a mystery
  • EXTRA: I always blame all my hot weather on the cold… Wait.. huh? – New Scientist: Arctic currents may be warming the world
  • EXTRA: “The operation was a complete success, doctor, except for one small thing: we killed the patient.” – New Scientist: ‘Planetary sunshade’ could strip ozone layer by 76%
  • EXTRA: Is somebody burning it? Or is there an alien with a *really* big magnifying glass (and a chip on his shoulder). – New Scientist: North Pole could be ice free in 2008
  • EXTRA: Well, of *course* they use inter-plant-ary communication! You ever here an ant yell? – LiveScience: Bugs Use Plants as Telephones
  • EXTRA: I always though that pigeons looked like they were inspecting troops half the time.. Are they the sargeants, then, dealing out the poop to everyone? – BBC: Birds ‘can behave like soldiers’
  • Nothing like solving an ecological disaster by replacing what you took — of course, it never works. – BBC: Moose back on the loose
  • EXTRA: Maybe they can serve as the canaries in the space ships.. – ScienceDaily: Mice Can Sense Oxygen Through Their Skin
  • EXTRA: And there names are: Snifferr, Snifferrr, Snniffer, Sniffffer, … (Star Wars book reference. I’m too geeky for you.) – BBC: S Korea trains sniffer-dog clones
  • EXTRA: At first, I thought: “Well, if the cats want to go that bad, stop fighting them.” Then I realized that her cats are unmotivated, and weren’t trying to leave on their own. – Orlando Local 6 News: Woman Fights To Keep Nearly 150 Cats At Home
  • EXTRA: I bet it tastes like chicken, too.. – New Scientist: T. rex kinship with chickens confirmed
  • EXTRA: Hey, if you were a statue, wouldn’t you cry? Who can blame him? – Catholic News Agency: Church custodian on trial in Italy for weeping statue hoax
  • EXTRA: Ah, ancestor worship.. It’s so delightfully pagan. – BBC: Italy’s Padre Pio goes on display
  • EXTRA: They’ve found the balloons; I guess the priest ascended to heaven on his own. – MSNBC/AP: Brazil priest carried aloft by balloons missing
  • EXTRA: Wait.. last week, vitamins culd kill you, and this week food dyes can save you? Has the world gone nuts? – New Scientist: Food dyes may protect against cancer
  • EXTRA: I know I kept wearing shoes out much faster than I outgrew them.. – Ananova: Shoes that grow with your feet
  • EXTRA: *yawn* No sharks. – GoldCoast: Daredevil bike jump from plane
  • EXTRA: Voids most health insurance, however. – Ananova: Burger King launches £85 burger
  • EXTRA: Always hire a reliable house-sitter. – NOVOSTI: Police in southern Russia say house stealing ‘normal practice’
  • EXTRA: Sorry, no news here. Move along. – New Scientist: Happy spamiversary! Spam reaches 30
  • EXTRA: Like returning to Mount Doom to dump the One Ring, you return to the scene of the crime to dump This Ring. – Ananova: Saying ‘I don’t’ in church
  • EXTRA: … and by “sexual harassment” they mean anything, including name-calling and sexual suggestion. Wait.. isn’t that what highschool is *for*? – New Scientist: Sexual harassment at school ‘worse than bullying’
  • EXTRA: Somehow, seeing Spiderman outside the windows was meant to be *less* disturbing? – Ananova: Is it a bird…? No, it’s a window cleaner

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