Show Notes for TWS104: Brain Drain

On the show this week:

• BRAINS!
• Unexpected Results from Unusual Places
• Unholy leftovers (EXTRA)

This week’s Challenge Question:
What is the scariest movie, book, short story or music that you’ve ever experienced? Why is it scary?
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: The House of Grey — The House of Grey is a podiobook following the young Monson Grey as he explores the most exclusive (and perhaps unusual) high school in the world — as well as his own mysterious missing memories! I’m not finished it yet, and I hate spoilers, but here’s a teaser: while this is set in the modern day, there seem to be some ancient and mystical powers stirring.
• BRAINS!
  • A rose by any other name is just as verbose… – New Scientist: Why a gift speaks a thousand words
  • Not quite so much Nero fiddling as Rome burned as the Fiddler on the Roof.. – BBC: Banjo used in brain surgery
  • Also: good for pulling needles out of your head. – BBC: Magnetic field ‘aids coma victim’
  • AHA! All through the power of MAGNETISM! – New Scientist: Magnetic brain therapy gets US green light
  • I forget enough as it is, can’t really see why I’d want to forget even more.. – Yahoo!/HealthDay: Scientists Erase Specific Memories in Mice
  • People should be encouraged to share their genes; it’s like the Salvation Army of scientific knowledge. – New Scientist: Thousands volunteer to expose DNA secrets to the world
  • We can rebuild it. We can make it stronger, faster, more accurate. We can make it suck less. – New Scientist: Computer circuit built from brain cells
  • The presumption here is that the humans aren’t just dumb. – BBC: Test explores if robots can think
  • Are you smarter than an average person? – ScienceDaily: What Do You Know? Not As Much As You Think
  • In short: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, at least when you do conventional sums. – New Scientist: Why nature can’t be reduced to mathematical laws
  • This might explain why I can’t seem to get to sleep at night.. – ScienceDaily: Human Brain Still Awake, Even During Deep Sleep
  • If they keep this up, their going to split the brain in half! – New Scientist: Creationists declare war over the brain
  • EXTRA: Naturally, I left out this article when going through the brain stuff. My brain must’ve refused to accept it. – BBC: Internet use ‘good for the brain’
  • EXTRA: The real currency of the Internet turns out to be: “ego”. – New Scientist: Web content contributors seek attention not altruism
  • EXTRA: So, the question remains: could he roll before he could walk, this ancient man? – The UK Telegraph: Stone Age man took drugs, say scientists
  • EXTRA: Why does an ancient dinosaur who used whistes to communicate excite more than a bird’s song? – ScienceDaily: Brain Structure Provides Key To Unraveling Function Of Bizarre Dinosaur Crests
  • EXTRA: This article caused someone I know to really get angry, and then we argued about it. If there truly was nothing to dowsing, how would the idea persist that strongly? – The New York Times: On Parched Farms, Using Intuition to Find Water
  • EXTRA: I was doomed long before I was born, apparently. – Medical News Today: Is Dancing Ability Dictated In The Womb?
• Unexpected Results from Unusual Places
  • Space apparently smells like a barbeque gone horribly, horribly wrong… – The Register: Brit chemist conjures smell of outer space
  • Oh, and more importantly: no huge, easy source of water to drink, either.. (Sheesh! Priorities, people! Besides, with skates you’d glide right off the moon.. Think!) – New Scientist: No ice rinks on the Moon after all
  • I could make some really bad joke about setting up a curry stand, but dagnabit! I *want* a lunar curry stand! – New Scientist: Indian space ambitions soar with lunar launch
  • Hm.. some clever kid is going to use this to scan their presents.. – Nature: Sticky tape generates X-rays
  • “Ok, does anyone remember where we parked the house? And Billy: did you remember to tie it up? You remember last time it ran after a shed.” – Ananova: Walking house
  • The museum 4000 years in the making. So, is this just fleecing the curious public, converting the fence-sitters, or really just a lark where skeptics go to get a belly laugh (or re-invigorated)? – MSNBC: Creation Museum draws big crowds
  • Well, doesn’t that just get your goat. – BBC: ‘Yeti hairs’ belong to a goat
  • What this world needs, apparently, is more ninjas. – ScienceDaily: Did Pirates Create The Credit Crunch?
  • The term “Spaceship Earth” comes to mind.. Not really any need for hotshot pilots, though. “Course correction in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 year..” – New Scientist: Moving the Earth: a planetary survival guide
  • The real collapse of the economy can similarly be based on termites, I suspect.. – ScienceDaily: Did Termites Help Katrina Destroy New Orleans Floodwalls And Levees?
  • Transitional forms are suddenly everywhere… – The University of Chicago: “Fishapod” reveals origins of head and neck structures of first land animals
  • Old dogs teach us new tricks. – MSNBC/Discovery Channel: World’s first dog lived 31,700 years ago, ate big
  • EXTRA: I just hope they don’t do it half-way: do it right or go home!” – The Portage Daily Graphic/CP: Film crew sets its sights on Ogopogo
  • EXTRA: “Tie a yellow ribbon (feather) to that ol’ dino..” – Yahoo!/LiveScience: Bird-Like Dinosaur Sported Bizarre Tail Feathers
  • EXTRA: And even a stopped watch is right twice a day.. – New Scientist: ‘Blind’ mole can still tell night from day
  • Even the slopes of Nepal don’t compare with the chilly atmosphere of Bigfoot research following this summer’s fiasco.. – Yahoo!/AFP: Japanese team finds ‘yeti footprints’ in Nepal
  • EXTRA: Using the longest-running lab experiments to determine how to make biobatteries. (Perhaps for subcutaneous implants!) – MSNBC/Discovery: Eels’ shocking secrets could power devices
  • EXTRA: Probably sounds like Blue. – ScienceDaily: Listening To Dark Matter: New Clues From Lab Deep Underground
  • EXTRA: Thinking about waves within waves makes my stomach turn in knots. – New Scientist: Mysterious ‘dead water’ effect caught on film
  • EXTRA: WANT. – ScienceDaily: New Gene Found That Helps Plants Beat The Heat
  • EXTRA: Much better than some stupid anti-heat gene.. And, it comes with croutons! Yummy croutons.. – University of Washington: Scientists develop new cancer-killing compound from salad plant
  • EXTRA: It gets better and better.. – ScienceDaily: Better Beer: College Team Creating Anticancer Brew
  • EXTRA: Now they can insert those anti-heat genes and give it a whirl.. – MSNBC/Reuters: Scientists sequence giant panda’s genome
  • EXTRA: That’s a mighty big spark.. – ScienceDaily: Volcanoes May Have Provided Sparks Of First Life
  • EXTRA: They named this new state of matter “confused”. – ScienceDaily: Physicists Find New State Of Matter In ‘Transistor’: Huge Implications For New Electronic Devices
  • EXTRA: Soon, they’ll have individual radio broadcast tailors to each podcar.. They’ll call them “podcasts”.. – CNN/AP: City hopes to shuttle people in futuristic ‘podcars’
  • EXTRA: Blossom Goodchild was pure fantasy suggests much more reliable Prophet Yahweh, who suggests that Halloween (or some time after) is when you’ll see the big, bad aliens eat your house.. – The Herald Tribune: A deadline for sanity
  • EXTRA: It’s like a religious Rosetta Stone, perhaps.. Or a museum of confusion. – ScienceDaily: Archaeological Dig Uncovers Roman Mystery
  • EXTRA: Once they’ve deciphered the hieroglyphs, they’ll find out why the Egyptians built the stargates.. – Pocono Record: Researcher believes he’s found key that unlocks Egypt’s advanced scientific knowledge
  • EXTRA: Whoa.. do you think that popular fiction might have been *unfair* or *inaccurate* in its depiction of something? Groundbreaking! – Astigan: Nazi Germany in movies – media myth or reality?
  • EXTRA: I’m sure they aren’t trying to say that the kebabs were *made* from the corpse, so it’s not *that* bad.. ‘Sides, I’m more worried about the worker who doesn’t get a pee break.. – BBC: Kebabs made as corpse lay nearby
  • EXTRA: Is this one of the most ancient sites in the world? And why aren’t more people talking about it? – The Daily Grail: Unveiling Gobekli Tepe
  • EXTRA: More on Gobekli Tepe.. – Archaeology: The World’s First Temple
  • EXTRA: When you can’t trust the verifiers of information, who can you trust? – The UFO Chronicles: Brookhaven Lab Report is a Hoax!
  • EXTRA: That’s it: there gone! Oh well.. – The Worthing Herald: UFOs ‘seemed to leave Earth’
  • EXTRA: I wonder if all those Missile Command games were really training/testing systems for people who would be needed to really fend off the alien menace.. – The UK Times: US airman Milton Torres told to shoot down UFO when based at RAF Manston
  • EXTRA: I always figured that she was a little alien.. They say lasers caused UFO sightings, but *I* say it was a signalling device.. 😉 – The UK Telegraph: UFOs, alien abductions and Tina Turner feature in Close Encounters secret files
  • EXTRA: Is ET a snob? Or are we going to have to do something phenomenally huge (and likely really dumb) to have them pay attention to us? – The UK Times: ET may be out there, but would he talk to us?
  • EXTRA: Dissecting alien news reports often just leaves you with goo on your mental shoes. – The Herald Tribune: The UFOs of ABC
  • EXTRA: In space, everyone can see you scream. – New Scientist: Visual distress beacon lets screams be heard in space
  • EXTRA: I’m sure they’ve got a GPS receiver in there somewhere, too.. – New Scientist: Seals’ muscles hide a built-in scuba tank
  • EXTRA: Some records just don’t need to be set.. – Cincinnati.com: Man sets cockroach record
  • EXTRA: Again, what’s this fascination with silly records? And also: EWW! – Ananova: Schoolgirl braves snail trail
  • EXTRA: Measure twice, eat once. – Ananova: Record bid fails as evidence is eaten
  • EXTRA: Hey, it’s not as bad as some of the celebrity kids names out there.. – CNN/AP: In dissection protest, teen’s name is now Cutout Dissection.com
  • EXTRA: Is this a silly record or really, really, cool? – BBC: Supersonic car targets 1,000mph
  • EXTRA: He *wasn’t* driving an experimental car.. Or plummetting from the sky.. – Ananova: Man gets ticket for driving at 310mph
  • EXTRA: Doesn’t suck to be him. Across the world, kids are refusing to do housework on the grounds that they aren’t qualified. Most are getting cuffed in the ear or sent to their ear. – Ananova: Boy, 16, too young to Hoover
  • EXTRA: Which is stranger: a tramp finding a wax head, or Paul McCartney being referred to as “Macca”? – Ananova: Tramp finds Macca’s head
  • EXTRA: It’s a ruse: he doesn’t just blink fast, he blows air through his eyes. – Ananova: Kung fu fan blows out candles with eyes
  • EXTRA: “The gun will be your voice, now.” – Nobody in DEAD MAN – Ananova: Violinist’s right to bear arms
  • EXTRA: “Ma’am, you don’t have the right to drive that pencil, let alone an automobile.” – Ananova: Woman fails driving test – after four gins
  • EXTRA: Maybe he was just looking for marital advice to dispence to his flock.. – Ananova: Porn-surfing padre quits
  • EXTRA: See, I don’t need to make this stuff up… I wonder if they advocate Catholic school girl fetishes? Probably not the nun fetish, however.. – Ananova: Christian wives set up sex wesbite
  • EXTRA: And, as we know, the church does not advocate any sort of action on yourself, but only if someone else is doing it to you.. – UPI: Vicar accused of threatening herself
  • EXTRA: Small print on ownership papers: “you can own it, but you can’t there”. – Ananova: Bargain home needs helicopter
  • EXTRA: Hmm.. nuts are stored in POISONOUS GAS.. Does this not bother anyone else? – Yahoo!/Reuters: Don’t eat those nuts, German police warn thieves
  • EXTRA: Now *that’s* laid back, to not notice someone stealing your beach. – BBC: Jamaica puzzled by theft of beach
  • EXTRA: It’s the “part of the skull turned into jewelry” part that really makes this story creepy to me.. – LA Times: Woman’s body cremated in culvert, officials say
  • EXTRA: In one part of the world, the theft of non-material, non-exclusively owned goods gets a minor sentence.. – News24/SA/AP: Teens convicted of virtual theft
  • EXTRA: … and in another part of the world, virtual death can lead to 5 years in prison. – Ananova: Woman arrested for killing virtual husband
  • EXTRA: I wonder if he threatened to get pictures of the makers of the product up on the dart board.. And really: how much do you own your own image? – Ananova: Sarkozy threatens action over voodoo doll
  • EXTRA: If you are going to threaten someone, do it in a way that really matters to them. This… didn’t. – Ananova: Jackass mobsters
  • EXTRA: Revenge is a dish best served f**king cold.. with cold, hard cash. – Ananova: Potty-mouth pay-out
  • EXTRA: When did we completely fail to be able to negotiate with our grouchy neighbours? Or start taking our grouchy neighbours to court instead of having a Hallmark movie moment? – Ananova: Woman, 89, arrested for refusing to return ball
  • EXTRA: Killing rabbits in the name of celebrating peaceful people. – Yahoo!/Reuters: Rabbit invasion shuts Mandela museum
• Unholy leftovers (EXTRA)
  • It’s back! – UK Sun: ‘Creepy gnome’ back on prowl
  • Sometimes, just by bringing up a subject you have already lost the argument. – Ananova: Buses to carry atheist ads
  • The secret is in the space-steak smell, I’m sure.. – Ananova: World’s most relaxing room
  • Yes, most people are inspired just before they go to bed.. – Ananova: 10.04pm – the moment of inspiration
  • EXTRA: “Help, help, I’m been surpressed!” – MSNBC/LiveScience: When injured, plants cry for help
  • EXTRA: I don’t know what the secret weapon was, but if the other competitors end up dead.. – BBC: Secret weapon wins porridge title
  • EXTRA: “Dear diary: Today I felt pain. I called out, but all of my friends seem to be busy.” – BBC: Japanese plant writes blog
  • EXTRA: The first step in fixing a problem is identifying it. I saw: go bald with pride! – ScienceDaily: Baldness Gene Discovered: 1 In 7 Men At Risk
  • EXTRA: Death was in the plot! *groan* – CBC: Man dies in Quebec cemetery after tombstone falls on him
  • EXTRA: Like a pack of wolves, they descend on their weak and vulnerable. I blame all the red they wear.. And the gold. (Pirate gold?) – MSNBC/Reuters: Pontiff wounded by priest a year after being shot, documentary reveals
  • EXTRA: It’s a lot like saying “do we need to burn down the forest in order to save it”, and also may be just as right.. – New Scientist: Do we need to go nuclear to stay green?
  • EXTRA: A case of an “uncorruptable” corpse; I’m glad we aren’t all that way, because we’d be screwed climatically. Even World of Warcraft fades linkdead corpses.. – CBC: Grave of B.C. First Nations woman draws pilgrims seeking miracles
  • EXTRA: “How much is that vision in the window?” (Ya know, I could see a brisk sales in windows with pre-added apparitions..) – The Massachussets Republican: Workers remove apparition window
  • Frankly, not finding a place to serve papers to sounds lame — he’s got houses all over the place! – BBC: Legal case against God dismissed
  • EXTRA: I always thought this was an urban myth, or a really mean rumour.. – Ananova: Woman’s fishy problem
  • EXTRA: 4000 years ago. It was a Tuesday. – New Scientist: When did the Earth turn green?
  • EXTRA: Apparently, the fangs and claws and big, strong hairy arms are not just used in the animal world to hug each other.. – Reuters: Hippie apes make war as well as love, study finds
  • EXTRA: Wait… is there *anything* in history that we got right? – BBC: Earliest confirmed TB case found
  • EXTRA: Next: spam messages sent by millions of newly-employed gazelle.. – The News Star/AP: Kenya’s elephants send text messages to rangers
  • EXTRA: This sounds better than it is — they’re really talking about eating an alien *plant*. Hmm.. yet another Japanese creeping plant taking over, eh? – Building UK: Plan hatched to eat alien invaders
  • EXTRA: “And here we see a horrible plant in the wild, the toxicodendron cellphicus..” – News24/SA/Reuters: Doctors warn of cellphone rash
  • EXTRA: By the time aliens reach us, will we even be “us” anymore? – About SETI: Children of the Singularity
  • EXTRA: The implications of this could be astronomical. – University of Calgary: Comet discovered
  • EXTRA: Somehow, I thought it would be… bigger. – Yahoo!/AP: Scientists say stick bug is world’s longest insect
  • EXTRA: I think this means that by now the universe is nothing but one black hole. Oh, and we’re doomed! – Space Fellowship: Colliding galaxies reveal colossal black holes were common in early Universe
  • EXTRA: The more you want something, perhaps, the more you save yourself for it.. – ScienceDaily: Why Starving Cells Prolong Life
  • EXTRA: As long as the rescuer doesn’t have to sing the song, or the rescued doesn’t have to hear it.. – CNN: ‘Stayin’ Alive’ has near-perfect rhythm to help jump-start heart
  • EXTRA: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and where there’s a recent snake skin shedding there’s, uh.. this family. – Lancashire Evening Post: Family lives in fear of hidden snake in attic
  • EXTRA: I’m sure the Shiva-shaped vitamins had more to do with it.. – New York Daily News: Elephant-shaped Ganesh growth cured my ills, Queens man says

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