Show Notes for TWS101: Uberstocked Inventionory
On the show this week:
- Throwing Everything In, Including The Carbon Sink
- I Betcha It’s Nature’s Fault
- Whoosh! Headlines! (ALMOST EXTRA)
- Crime Never Really Happens That Way
- Fly, Ptery, Fly! (EXTRA)
- Marginaliens (EXTRA)
This week’s Challenge Question:
Do we spend too much time just amusing ourselves? Beyond work, should we do something “useful”?
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
- Promo: Technorama — One of my favourite shows. They haven’t been doing the regular weekly show for a while, but they’ve done special tours that are highly worth checking out!
- Throwing Everything In, Including The Carbon Sink
- If I held an awards show, this would be it. – New Scientist: ‘Coca-Cola douches’ scoop Ig Nobel prize
- Embrace your vintage! Don’t be ashamed of being human! – Ananova: Odourless underpants
- For less than $200 you could start to save the world. Too good to be true? – New Scientist: Fuel thinner turns diesel cars into greener machines
- Who knew that charcoal could also save the world? Ok, you in the back? Put your hand down! It was a rhetorical question. Sorta. – New Scientist: Microwave factory to act as carbon sink
- site:earth.planet AND “save the planet” AND “energy reduction” AND NOT Microsoft – New Scientist: Google announces plan to wean US off coal and oil
- Wait… *why* do they want to know this again? – New Scientist: Bomb-proof thermometer peeks inside big bangs
- “I work in molds, spores and fungus.” – Egon Spengler – BBC: Penicillin bug genome unravelled
- Why not just throw away the whole planet and move on, then? Sheesh! – New Scientist: Paper transistors make for disposable electronics
- What you can’t see, you can’t hit. I *love* cross-application of theory and practice! – New Scientist: Invisibility cloaks could take sting out of tsunamis
- I Betcha It’s Nature’s Fault
- When you vote, write down an check or an X — do not put down the Black Spot! – News24/SA/AP: Is voting bad for your health?
- How long before state-issued pills to combat the “meh, I just don’t feel like being around people”? – BBC: Antisocial behaviour hormone link
- Would you be willing to mess with you head magnetically? – Medical News Today: Unlocking The Inner-Savant In All Of Us
- EXTRA: There has to be something to a base level of synaesthic ability, simple by the expressions we have in language.. – New Scientist: Do we all have some synaesthetic ability?
- In this case, the effect of the real thing is perhaps no better than not at all — but nothing seems to work better than really nothing.. – New Scientist/Reuters: Arthritis supplements no better than placebo
- While I suspect that it is more just distraction or self-control rather than any sort of divine intervention — does that matter? Does it matter what way you get there? – Astigan: I have faith, therefore, I have less pain
- The video obviously doesn’t do the phenomenon justice, because all I saw was a stain.. – The Massachussetts Republican: Crowd again gathers where some see image of Virgin Mary
- They get downright biblical! – Ananova: Naked mass axed
- Let me see a bank statement and the rules of the game, and it’s on! – New Zealand Herald: Creationist issues $11 trillion challenge
- EXTRA: Evolution in action! – Ananova: Smoker’s mobile firework display
- EXTRA: I hope someone studies this girl and determines if this is a useful ability.. – The UK Telegraph: Girl who bleeds without being cut baffles doctors
- EXTRA: Promiscuous Survivalist’s Guide to Condom use? – Dave’s Daily Blog: A Plethora of Extraordinary Uses for Condoms
- EXTRA: LEFT BEHIND: 1 giant condom. I guess you could say they got safely screwed.. – News24/SA: MISSING: One condom-mobile
- EXTRA: They can’t really be spotted from the air — or from their carbon footprint, either, I suspect.. – The UK Daily Mail: Lost middle-class tribe’s ‘secret’ eco-village in Wales spotted in aerial photograph taken by plane
- EXTRA: “Watch me pull this rabbi out of a hat! Now, watch me pull wine out of this bread! Now, watch me defy death! – MSNBC/Discovery: Earliest reference describes Christ as ‘magician’
- EXTRA: Why do we want to make humanoid robots? God complex, practical reasons or just because we want to? – ScienceDaily: Your Robotic Friend, The Humanoid Robot
- Whoosh! Headlines! (ALMOST EXTRA)
- EXTRA: The most fascinating part of this story is the description of how the fish sauce was made. NOTE: do not read while eating. – MSNBC/Discovery: Fish sauce used to date Pompeii destruction
- EXTRA: I’m sure if something vaguely yeast-like is found on Mars, one of the first thoughts will be “how do I make beer from it?” followed by “how do I make bread from it?” Yumm.. deadly alien bread.. – ABC Australia/Discovery News: Ancient yeast reborn in modern beer
- EXTRA: Discovery of a little pyramid statue by the guy declaring *against* the larger pyramids is irony.. in stone. – Philip Coppens Blog: A small pyramid for science, a big discovery for the Bosnian Pyramids
- EXTRA: No! We all live in a yellow submarine! Or a petri dish.. – USA Today/Space.com: Do we live in a giant cosmic bubble?
- I hate it when local traditions give way to unnecessary cleanliness.. – Ananova: Pub bans carthorse
- Demeaning or just practical? – The UK Guardian: Indian railway employs ‘monkey-man’ to protect passengers
- Crime Never Really Happens That Way
- Pictures or it didn’t happen! – Ananova: Teen robbed by topless blondes
- Technically, this means that the kids were attacked with a 4-breasted woman, but that doesn’t really make sense.. – MNBC/WLWT5: Woman Wearing Cow Suit Charged With Disorderly Conduct
- EXTRA: “We don’t want your kind here,” says officlals to ducks. – Ananova: OAPs threatened with jail for feeding ducks
- EXTRA: I’ve been tired, and I’ve had some odd flavours of coffee, but I would *hope* that I wouldn’t make this mistake. – Yahoo!/AP: Woman wakes up, should have smelled the coffee
- EXTRA: At least he died as he lived: on fire! Wait.. – Sydney Morning Herald: Chef dies after eating ‘super hot’ chilli
- EXTRA: Scorpion vs. Canceria: FIGHT! – New Scientist: A taste for scorpion venom could be cancer’s undoing
- EXTRA: I though that there were *no* athiests in foxholes? Still, “not being bothered” really should be a universal right. Also applies to spammers and telemarketers. – AP: Atheist soldier alleges discrimination by military
- EXTRA: Is there some sort of offshore dogfight going on? – The Conneticut Day: Discovery On Ocean Beach Another ‘Montauk Monster’?
- EXTRA: There are two ways of thinking about this: a) let it be a local legend and be done with it, and b) let it be tested by scientist to see if it really *could* be real. I, naturally, take both thoughts. 😉 – The Press Republican: Lake Champlain expedition searches for Champy
- EXTRA: The oceon has it’s own spam.. – KOAA/NBC: Mystery meat washing ashore in New Jersey, Delaware
- EXTRA: I didn’t realize it was that old a problem.. and neither did they. – Medical News Today: HIV/AIDS Pandemic Started 100 Years Ago
- EXTRA: Redefining “conspicuous consumption” or perhaps “hide in plain sight” or maybe even “hideous art”.. – Ananova: Golden girl Kate
- EXTRA: A bike that you never ride is the ultimate in stupidity — and wealth. – Ananova: World’s most blinged-up bike
- EXTRA: Not made of gold, but pure gold nonetheless. – Ananova: Monster frog statue baffles town
- EXTRA: Who knew that garden gnomes had so much property? Or any property? – The Lancashire Evening Post: Garden gnomes among theft victims
- EXTRA: Man.. this really makes spies lazy these days.. – MSNBC: MI6 secrets found on camera sold on eBay
- EXTRA: … at least thieves are being more clever. This sounds *exactly* like a Joker/Riddler prank.. – Metro: Thief hires decoys with fake Craigslist ad
- EXTRA: Didn’t they see “The Italian Job”? – Ananova: Getaway car too small for haul
- EXTRA: Twins are dangerous; twins with legal skills even moreso! – Ananova: Double trouble
- EXTRA: That’s gotta be a little uncomfortable. I’m sure he’s forgiven him, tho’.. – Ananova: Judge locked up with man he jailed
- EXTRA: I like creative sentencing; and I don’t just mean loquatious and original grammar choices. – Ananova: Vandal granny to knit for victims
- EXTRA: Just remember: things can always get worse! – Ananova: Soldier sent to Siberia after protest rap
- EXTRA: McDonalds can be just like you remember it – and that’s *not* a good thing! – Best of Mother Earth: 1996 McDonalds Hamburger
- EXTRA: He’s slimming down so that he can fit into the tuxedo (van). – Dayton Daily News: World’s heaviest man is getting married
- EXTRA: A case of mistaken identity, a clever simulacra we’ll see in the pages of Fortean Times, no doubt.. – The UK Daily Mail: A 999 rescue for Woody, the iguana that branched out
- EXTRA: The fundamental differences between man, woman and transgendered get confusing when you have bathrooms. I say: ban the urinals and make everything private stalls! – Ananova: Uni loo signs take the ‘p’
- EXTRA: Since when does giving special treatment to redheads cause problems? Or were they requiring “proof” that they were natural redheads? – Ananova: Zoo upsets redheads
- EXTRA: Strangely enough, the article points out that 66.6 was more popular than 666. The decimal of the beast? – The Trucker/AP: ‘666’ road sign thefts bedeviling roadways
- EXTRA: Well, the region *is* sometimes called “Austral_asia_”, I guess.. – Brisbane Times: Could a dim sim be Australia’s Next Big Thing?
- Fly, Ptery, Fly! (EXTRA)
- EXTRA: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Superman? Oh, it’s a bird! A BIG FRAKKING BIRD! RUN! – ScienceDaily: Mother Of A Goose! Giant Ocean-going Geese With Bony-teeth Once Roamed Across SE England
- EXTRA: Once again, we draw inspiration from the amazing examples of the natural world’s million-year long experiments… – MSNBC/Discovery: Crested pterodactyl inspires aircraft design
- EXTRA: … although maybe we should check the results first. – News24/SA: Expert: Pterosaurs couldn’t fly
- EXTRA: Maybe they can, but do they *want* to? – LiveScience: Bees Can Count
- EXTRA: This isn’t the first private rocket, is it? And it figures: all the failures have been with payload, whereas this one had a mock payload. Score 1 for the Heisenbug! – New Scientist: Private rocket achieves orbit on fourth try
- EXTRA: This week, he made it. Maybe with a little help? – Yahoo!/AP: Swiss man flies over Channel on jet wing
- EXTRA: Are they curious or concerned about this development? Do we threaten their security with these rocket men (on the moon)? – The Sun: Rocket Man’s UFO encounter
- EXTRA: Do engineers have the balls to tackle Mars? – Popular Science: Inflatable Surveillance Balls for Mars
- EXTRA: MARTIAN FLORA AND FAUNA, Published 2115 AD: “The first of the robotic species native to Mars is this particularly strange little dragon-fly model here. Perhaps we should not have made them able to cross-breed..” – New Scientist: Fluttering robot could show Mars rovers the way
- EXTRA: Oh the weather up high is frightful… – The Register: Phoenix sees snow above Mars, but it’s not sticking
- EXTRA: But on ground, it’s so delightful.. – New Scientist: Phoenix finds evidence of past liquid water on Mars
- EXTRA: Good news: we’re making plans to go to space! Bad news: it’s going to be hard. Good news: it’s going to be hard. – New Scientist: Lunar endurance mission to act as ‘boot camp’ for Mars
- EXTRA: Who knows what lurks beyond the universe’s edge? The Shadow knows.. – The UK Telegraph: Scientists glimpse ‘dark flow’ lurking beyond the edge of the universe
- EXTRA: Do you really trust politicians and people who are high all day? (Yes, probably..) – The Irish Independant: We’re not alone . . . politician and pilot spot UFO
- EXTRA: “You keep using that word ‘amazing’; I do not think it means what you think it means.” Maybe we have found the druid’s team mascot — although more likely it was an animal to see the dead boy through the darkness of death.. – Life in the Fast Lane: Amazing Stone Henge-Hog Discovery at Stonehenge
- Marginaliens (EXTRA)
- EXTRA: You gotta have balls to cook these recipes.. – Ananova: World’s first testicle cookbook
- EXTRA: Is that how long she can bea to see the world? Has she tried coffee? – ABC Australia/AFP: Woman unable to open eyes 3 days a week: report
- EXTRA: … and, it killed him. (Not really.) – AOL News: Grandfather, 71, told he’s pregnant
- EXTRA: Arrr! The treasure be secur’d in accordance wif da environmental assessment and timely schedule.. Yarr! – Yahoo!/AFP: All gold from Portuguese shipwreck to be recovered by deadline: ministry
- EXTRA: I wonder if they could have used Frozen Caveman Lawyer’s services.. – BBC: ‘Iceman’ row ends after 17 years
- EXTRA: … soon after, they discover that the Rolling Stones were there first.. – BBC: Team finds Earth’s ‘oldest rocks’
- EXTRA: To some degree, this is really just “duh!”.. – MSNBC/Discovery: Elephants ‘phone’ friends with rumbles
- EXTRA: The interesting part is really the fact that we have multiple species with unique specializations. Evolution in action?!? – PhysOrg: Coral-killing starfish turns out to be four species, not one
- EXTRA: I’m curious about this one, as it is really a collection of oral history from Natives about various bigfoot-like creatures. Evidence for bigfoot not being a modern phenomena, or convenient re-purposing of fanciful moral tales? – The Union Democrat: Local woman publishes book about Bigfoot
- EXTRA: If the coroner couldn’t tell, doesn’t that call into question all the dismissal of evidence of bigfoot? – MSNBC/AP: Police: Severed foot was bear’s paw, not child’s
- EXTRA: Interesting thing: the organizer doesn’t seem to believe in bigfoot. Ghost, however… – The Tribune-Review: Bigfoot lore draws believers, skeptics
- EXTRA: From what I saw, it looks more like a dog, but cellphone footage does little to advance evidence gathering.. – ABC15: Arizona man claims to have caught the chupacabra on video
- EXTRA: I never tried the ghost argument to get out of class.. – The Daily Nation: Pupils living in fear as “ghosts” invade school
- EXTRA: We’ll see many more ghost (stories) this month, I reckon.. – Dunfermline Press: Rosyth family see ghost in Kelty woods
- EXTRA: An eBay auction of gaudy jewelry with a promise of influencing fate.. Although from the description, maybe it bring the pain with the good. – eBay: Best of Luck Pendant
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