Show Notes for TWS086: little things

This week, all the little things seem to be on the collective news mind.

On the show this week:

• Small things of importance
• Importance of small things
• Important things that only look small (EXTRA)

This week’s Challenge Question:
What’s the societal “things” humanity no longer needs and should get rid of? What’s our vestigial societal norm?
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: Arkle, Vik, Bruce, anim5
• Promo: Buffy Between The Lines — A fan-created, amateur-as-in-not-getting-paid, excellent audio drama telling the stories of Buffy The Vampire Slayer that occured between the seasons. I’ve joined the cast in season 2 in a minor role, as well as taking on some editting duties. Oh, and the occasional announcer-type thing.
• Small things of importance
  • You were built, human, sculpted from the inside out. You were not made in God’s image: you were made to serve the microbe. – New Scientist: Gut bugs may have guided the evolution of life
  • Life finds a way, then distorts our theories on life, time and aging.. – New Scientist: Huge hidden biomass lives deep beneath the oceans
  • EXTRA: Siblings as vestigial organs: discuss.. – AJC/AP: 9-year-old girl’s twin is found inside her stomach
  • My list would probably have included war, poverty, greed… but I guess they were going for organs. Just don’t get rid of the Moog! – New Scientist: Five things humans no longer need
  • Humanity was once king of the hill.. But other animals are finding paths on the hill. However: just because an animal has brown hair and so do I, doesn’t put its haircut on my level.. – New Scientist: Six ‘uniquely’ human traits now found in animals
  • If genes can be said to “live”, then this makes sense. Show me a fully-grown thylacine (or woolly mammoth, for that matter) and then I’ll be rejoicing about immortal species having been achieved.. – The Age/AFP: Extinct Tasmanian tiger gene brought back to life: scientists
  • Small creatures, acting en masse can make a difference. That’s the positive side of this story. The negative side is: little buggers are going to ruin modern society — flee for your computers’ lives! – Yahoo!/AP: Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics
  • What’s so special about our Sun that gives us life? Turns out, maybe nothing at all.. – New Scientist: Sun’s properties not ‘fine-tuned’ for life
  • It’s time to stop thinking about ourselves as *threatened*, and start thinking of ourselves as *threatening*. – New Scientist: Do other star systems need protection from Earth life?
  • It’s like a Cthulhoid dream gone even more nuts: thousands of tiny tentacles reaching out to devour food, mostly blind, mindless, grappling.. *shiver* – Yahoo!/AP: Millions of tiny starfish inhabit undersea volcano
• Importance of small things
  • It really should have added “… capable of carrying a person”, because I’ve seen palm-sized ‘copters.. – Yahoo!/AFP: World’s smallest helicopter to fly in da Vinci birthplace
  • There are already too many d**ks flying around in politics, arent’t there? – National Post: Kasparov silenced by unidentified flying penis
  • Finally! It only took how many years after the movie _Aliens_ to get a real loader? – Yahoo!/AP: Robotic suit could usher in super soldier era
  • All the coolest villians will be wanting one of these by Christmas, to improve their standings in the collectible card series. – New Scientist: Strokable robot rabbit talks with touch
  • Now if only we could teach intelligence to kids.. and adults.. – Yahoo!/AP: Researchers teach ‘Second Life’ avatar to think
  • It’s about as self-repairing as a peanut-butter-and-jam sandwich, really, but it’s a good start… – ScienceDaily: Self-repairing Aircraft Could Revolutionize Aviation Safety
  • So, the only way to get a ride in a flying car might be to be severely injured? Rip-off! Or: finally, the med teams from Cyberpunk become a reality.. – Wired/Danger Room: Flying Car Could Become Israel’s Robotic Ambulance
  • He’s trying to create a time distortion with lasers. He’s calmly and rationally combining two of the coolest things in the universe! – The Boston Globe: He seeks a route through time
  • Soon, we’ll be able to exude coccons like catapillars, and finally take over the functions of the natural world. – New Scientist: ‘Grasshopper’ robot sets high-jump record
  • EXTRA: Is there a connection between genetically modified foods and sudden strange disease outbreaks? Or could there be a billion other things we’ve done wrong? – Nature: Health agency puts spotlight on mystery diseases
  • EXTRA: Pain is a pretty powerful motivator to destroy everything. Kinda explains The Hulk.. – New Scientist: Urge to kill doctors increased by pain
  • EXTRA: All I say is: smokers, get the flock outta here! – New Scientist: Quitting smokers act like flocks of birds
  • EXTRA: Hmm…. maybe the moon isn’t such a safe place to live after all.. – Space.com/NASA: 100 Explosions Recorded on the Moon
  • Step one: build a sophisticated artifical eye. Step two: use a cat brain to control it. Step three: wonder why the eye focusses so often on tasty fishes. (Step four: laugh maniacally.) – New Scientist: Cat brain could provide bionic eye firmware
  • A company thinks that it has invented a way to tell one bark (“I’m bored!”) from another (“Escaping prisoner at 4 o’clock!”), thinks they are “alone in this market”. TWS remembers the Bowlingual.. – News24/SA: Not your average bark…
  • EXTRA: At first, I thought it read “phones”, and I thought “Yeah, psychics could definitely beat phones.” I was disappointed. – The Ormskirk Advertiser: ‘How I would beat phonies’ by TV medium Derek Acorah
  • EXTRA: You can be sure that if I had a gift, I’d share it. And by “share”, I mean “use to my advantage”. – The Iowa Press-Citizen: Psychic enjoys sharing ‘the gift’
  • EXTRA: Next: someone will be sued for calling what Tom Cruise does “acting”… – The UK Guardian: Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology ‘cult’
  • EXTRA: Terrible, terrible murders of people for their beliefs, or for trumped-up reasons.. I mean, can’t they find money or oil or “liberty” to kill for? – The San Francisco Chronicle: Kenya mob kills 11 accused of being witches
  • EXTRA: While I can appreciate people who call this stuff bunkem, I would suggest that a) always investigate before dismissing, and b) the people who need this aren’t at the total rationality stage yet, and just telling them they are wrong won’t make it work. At least they aren’t killing people.. – The Times: Exorcists are summoned from abroad to drive the demons away
• Important things that only look small (EXTRA)
  • EXTRA: After having someone put shaving cream on my car, I understand that stupid people do stupid things when drunk.. But they aren’t so precise or quiet about it — and who would do this when *human*? Go ahead, apply Occam’s Razor and see what *you* come up with.. – Canada.com/Leader-Post: Cow found mutilated in Saskatchewan
  • EXTRA: Just before the recent big earthquake in China, thousands of frogs were seen migrating. A lot of people are thinking that it wasn’t a coincidence.. – News24/SA: Jittery Chinese follow the frogs
  • EXTRA: The Chinese government, on the other hand, wants to make sure that everyone follows their advice, and doesn’t listen to any other evidence. Are they being blind or being skeptical/scientific. – The New York Times: Superstitions About Quake Meet the Web, Irritating the Chinese Authorities
  • EXTRA: And now people are decided that it is safer to live outside than inside, hedging their bets. – New Scientist: Fear of huge aftershock keeps Chinese living outdoors
  • What’s more frightening: surviving through a massive cyclone, or having to deal with the massive number of dead (and possibly undead) left behind in its wake? – Mizzima: Ghosts shouting for ‘help’ among cyclone survivors
  • All they need now is for the invading force to cut off trade routes and make assistance from the rest of the world hampered by politics. Oh, wait.. they didn’t need a distaster for that part.. – New Scientist: Burma’s recovery could be hampered by salt
  • EXTRA: Apparently, nature doesn’t really care who you love or sleep with. No kidding. – LiveScience: Same Sex Couples Common in the Wild
  • EXTRA: A video to be seen (and not heard). I had always thought that “flying fish” were really just a misnomer, but this one is a fantastic effort.. – BBC: Fast flying fish glides by ferry
  • EXTRA: He’s been let out since he start braying for forgiveness.. – The Guardian UK: Donkey jailed in Mexico for violent behaviour
  • EXTRA: Practical tip: teach your animals (and kids) where home is. – Yahoo!/AP: Lost parrot tells veterinarian his address
  • EXTRA: Another stupid headline: “evolution” doesn’t happen “in reverse”, although something can appear to move to a different niche in the evoluationary timeline, one that seems counterintuitive for the present conditions. “Evolution” is *not* progress: evolution is *change* to meet *current needs*. Sheesh! – Fox/LiveScience/Imaginova: Bizarre Crustaceans Undergo Evolution in Reverse
  • EXTRA: I would have thought the oldest dog would have been more than 29 years old. I’m older than that! – Ananova: Bella claims oldest dog crown
  • EXTRA: A dog capable of walking across wire. He gets the best doggie treats that way, I suspect.. – Ananova: Acrobatic dog steals show
  • EXTRA: A dog gives birth to 20 pups. I’m sure that their owners will spend the next months finding cute names for them all, too.. Or maybe name them #1, #2, #3… – Ananova: Record-breaking delivery
  • EXTRA: If he’s only one of the three with this ability (perfect memory), and we had one last week, then we should only have one more to go… Unlike last week, however, this guy doesn’t seem to think of it as a bad thing.. – CNN: Man’s rare ability may unlock secret of memory
  • EXTRA: From the article, it seems that “Panda Lady” was the least interesting of her titles.. She’s the real Indiana Jones, only without the archaeologist stuff.. – Cryptomundo: First Panda Lady Has Died
  • EXTRA: A huge martini party among aliens and/or chupacabras? How else could this be explained? – News.com.au/The Daily Telegraph: Olive grove stripped in ‘eerie’ night raid
  • EXTRA: Feelin’ hot, hot, hot? Feelin’ nuts, nuts, nuts? – The Northern Territory News: Build-up DOES drive us crazy
  • EXTRA: I don’t think that the love between man (or woman) and machine should be considered illegal.. (Granted, maybe in public it should be a misdemeanor…) – Irvine Times: I Was Not Indecent With That Car
  • EXTRA: Well, that’s one way to handle the situation.. Why be embarassed? – Metro: Woman strips in anger at wolf whistles
  • EXTRA: Remember: *always* wash your vegetables! – The Lancashire Evening Post: Man sprayed urine on food at supermarkets
  • EXTRA: A little thing which is really much less significant that some would have it seem, I think.. – cnews/CP: Top court quashes damages for fly in bottle
  • EXTRA: Is James Randi being duplicitous, just out of touch, a sham, a showboat, a deal-breaker, a dodge, a swindler? Or does the magnetic man just have a fork stuck on his head? – Mind Energy: The true story about Mr. James Randi and me, Miroslaw MAGOLA, the “Magnetic Man”
  • EXTRA: Not everything works better in bulk! – Ananova: Bins ‘too heavy for binmen’
  • EXTRA: I’m sure we also spend nearly that much time on the crapper. Of course, I can *read* on the crapper.. Listen to podcasts and books on your commute! – Ananova: 18 years travelling to work
  • EXTRA: Ah, Japan. The happy-go-lucky, fun-and-friendly, wackiest country in the world. I am *so* glad you exist! I <3 Japan. ^_^ – Ananova: Hello Kitty to promote Japan
  • EXTRA: Too early, too much, too unsorted, to beige… someday all garbage will be banned. (Yay!) – Ananova: Fined for putting bin out early

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