Show Notes for TWS107: Is There No Eye In Truth?
On the show this week:
- Belief It Or Not!?!
- Bio-licious!
- By Any Other Name (It Still Has Thorns)
- Offal (But not that bad!) (EXTRA)
This week’s Challenge Question:
Should alternative, “fringe” ideas ever be covered seriously by mainstream media — or are they just “slow news day” items?
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 The WEIRD Show, 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: Comedy4Cast — Short comedy which is often too clever for its own good – but no to clever for mine! 😉
- Belief It Or Not!?!
- The scariest thing to happen at Halloween is when someone can’t separate fantasy from reality; even worse when it’s the cops. – The UK Daily Mail: Students in ‘Weird Science’ Halloween party arrested under anti-terror laws
- When they really are watching you, how can you *not* be paranoid? – Las Vegas Sun/AP: Paranoia on the rise, experts say
- I’d like to sue computer makers in general for making me a nerd. – National Post: Judge allows $2B lawsuit claiming mind control
- Examining those who examine outrageous claims to discover that they make outrageous claims.. But what makes them tick (off)? – paranormalia: SPR Study Day – The Psychology of the Sceptic
- How can we ever really come to the truth if we refuse to even consider the possibilities? – public parapsychology: A Catch-22: Psi and Explanation
- No, this isn’t a case of “you see what you want to”, but rather “experience changes perception”. Perhaps we should learn from religion how we can see the world differently. – New Scientist: Religion alters visual perception
- EXTRA: It seems normal (and depressing) that we use the most parallel (and shallow) of senses when making quick dating decisions… So.. is there a “slow dating” service? – New Scientist: Speed daters go for crowd-pleasing looks
- One does have to wonder if “it’s all in her mind” really is a sufficient explanation.. – El Rincon Del Misterio: Impressive video of an exorcism performed by an Italian priest
- The thieves who carried it away brick-by-brick were more dedicated than the priests who hadn’t been there in months.. – Yahoo!/Reuters: Clergyman says church has vanished
- The technical requirement of store staff to check the things people leaving have “in their arms” might be to blame.. – Ananova: Armless thief steals TV
- I suppose they reached enlightenment at the surprise of a short, sharp prick of a wasp… – The Rochester Post-Bulletin: Monks see Buddha in wasp nest
- First rule when facing opposing faiths: there is no anti-violence clause, only anti-murder.. – BBC: Monks brawl at Jerusalem shrine
- Not every church-based initiative is necessarily a bad thing — well, except for the “being married” part.. – Metro: Pastor issues seven-day sex challenge
- After being away for a while, the most they can say is that his hair is longer.. – Reuters: Thousands flock to see Nepal’s mystery “Buddha” boy
- I’m sure that they will have a brief, happy elderly. – Metro: Mexico to give out free Viagra
- EXTRA: Is it any surprise that bullies get off on beating people up? – Yahoo!/Reuters: Bullies may get kick out of seeing others in pain
- EXTRA: I’m amazed at first that the cat came back, but more amazed that it was chipped. We’ve been doing it that long? And now we think nothing of it.. Slippery slope, or march of technological progress? – NY Times/AP: Cat Missing for Over 13 Years Back With Owners
- EXTRA: Everybody needs to take a stroll from time to time… If *I* were 150, you think *I’d* stick around home all the time? Heck no! – San Francisco Chronicle: Missing 150-year-old tortoise is back home
- EXTRA: Turns out, they weren’t footprints so much as… holes.. – ScienceDaily: Paleontologists Doubt ‘Dinosaur Dance Floor’
- EXTRA: The frogs are still dying, but it may not be linked to climate change. Also: smog may not be linked to car exhaust, and sarcasm may not be linked to my humour. – ScienceDaily: Global Warming Link To Amphibian Declines In Doubt
- EXTRA: Oh, I guess we can just carry on as we are, then, because we’re really doing God’s work.. – New Scientist: Humans may have prevented super ice age
- EXTRA: Calling the questions “dumb” is really just… dumb! – New Scientist: Dumb eco-questions you were afraid to ask
- EXTRA: Will the ability to artificially create a thing devalue it? This is why they had no money in Star Trek, isn’t it? – New Scientist: Artificial diamonds – now available in extra large
- EXTRA: Why does allowing my computer to read my thoughts seem like a bad idea? It’s bad enough that I’m scatterbrained on this side of the keyboard.. – New Scientist: Voice recognition software reads your brain waves
- EXTRA: Some very smart, very stable people believe in time travel as a reality. Have they been visited, or do they just see something that the rest of us can’t even conceive of? – The Boston Phoenix: Space cowboy
- EXTRA: If one takes the current rate of technological progress as constant (it isn’t) and the focus of development and interest as constant (it isn’t), one could conceivably indicate that we should have flying cars and personal rocketships by now.. (Be wary of grand predictions of success..) Still, I remain cautiously optimistic. – Universe Today: Less Than 20 Years Until First Contact?
- EXTRA: After all, one can point to the current pace of technology and say, “Look! See? Look how far we come so fast!”. (Or, one can point at the bureacratic blunders.) – ABC Australia News: Fridge-sized tape recorder could crack lunar mysteries
- EXTRA: It looks kinda fuzzy, like a knit button. Don’t see anyone waving back, though.. – New Scientist: First images captured of alien solar system
- EXTRA: No one likes to be “taken” (for granted). I’m impressed when someone is willing to put themselves out there to speak on stuff that seems, well, “out there”.. – PRLog: UFO contactee abducted from 100 Mile House to speak in Nelson, Canada
- EXTRA: Open Letter to all Open Letter writers: Do these things really work, or are they the equivalent of shouting in a crowded room because they won’t let you talk at the podium? – UFODigest: Open Letter to President Elect Obama
- EXTRA: There is a lot of hope for Change with Obama, but something tells me that UFO disclosure isn’t really any more likely to be taken seriously (sadly). – IndyBay: Will there be disclosure of UFO files under the Obama administration?
- Bio-licious!
- Healthy living; not just for red wine snobs any longer! – Discovery News: ‘Bio-Beer’ Designed to Extend Life
- Turns out, your food might taste the best when partially digested for you. 😉 – New Scientist: For tastier food, just add bacteria
- Note to self: don’t eat the mail. Especially if I’m a dog. – Ananova: Dog glues jaws together
- Tee-hee: imagining little cells with backpacks, which is a more fitting metaphor than I would have imagined. – BBC: Cells made to haul custom payload
- Putting a weakened heart to work for it’s own salvation seems strangely Tony Stark.. – Yahoo!/Reuters: Heartbeats may power future pacemakers
- Also available: human-ized bacon. Yum! 🙂 – The UK Times: Pig organs “available to patients in a decade”
- So, here’s your choice: put up with bio-engineered beasts to provide additional needed organs or live in fear of tales of waking up in a bathtub full of ice with a nasty scar and the phone number of the emergency room next to you.. – Medical News Today: Organ Trafficking Discussed By Transplant Experts At ASN Renal Week 2008
- Sometimes, in order to feel normal you have to be abnormal. – News.com.au/The Daily Mail/AAP: Cutting off healthy limbs OK, says Dr Christopher Ryan
- EXTRA: An amazing child who seems to read before she can properly walk. Although the idea that she understands both English and Spanish is more imposed interpretation than likely reality; to her, all language is of one group, most likely. – Today Show/MSNBC: Baby’s got book!
- EXTRA: A great example of how a child should be supported in their endeavour to learn anything. – MSNBC/LiveScience: 14-year-old helps dad solve avian mystery
- EXTRA: Living longer *and* healthier might be around the corner. (How may corners has this been so far?) – New Scientist: ‘Elixir of youth’ drug could fight HIV and ageing
- EXTRA: Turns out, neither muffins nor muffin-tops are particularly healthy.. (At least, not this week..) – New Scientist: Growing waistline poses weighty risk to health
- EXTRA: Turns out, it was all the fault of the birds.. Not sure if I buy the whole “hair as claws” idea, though.. – Yahoo!/LiveScience: Origin of Bad Hair Discovered
- EXTRA: Not so much “living with” as “living beside”. – MSNBC/AP: Police: 90-year-old living with 3 siblings’ bodies
- EXTRA: Eventually, it’s just a fact that the dead outnumber the living, and grow too large for every graveyard. It seems we need to learn a larger lesson of recycling. – Ananova: Double-decker graves set for go-ahead
- EXTRA: I never thought of coral reefs as pets before. Or of having a garden shed. – Ananova: Great Barrier Reef in garden shed
- EXTRA: Speculation that sightings of something might be the birth of a new round of speculations of something.. But at least someone is investigating (even if it is TV..) – Canada.com/The Vancouver Province: Could unknown Okanagan creature be baby Ogopogo?
- EXTRA: More on the scientific invetigation being undertaken (for ratings). – 680 News: The search for Ogo-Pogo
- EXTRA: The original “something in the water” – at least in the modern era. – BBC: Nessie mystery turns 75
- EXTRA: Since evolution is a (relatively) slow process and populations can grow homogenized over time, is it surprising that diseases might win the race? – MSNBC/Discovery: How disease can wipe out an entire species
- EXTRA: I thought *only* sharks hung out at singles bars.. – The UK Telegraph: Great white sharks look for girlfriends in underwater singles bar, scientists believe
- EXTRA: A great way to cure the rat problem: bring on the gulls! – The UK Times: Rat kebab makes a change from fish for hungry heron
- EXTRA: Amazing things come in small packages, too. – Yahoo!/AP: French scientists discover new species of gecko
- EXTRA: Despite the fact that they are neither fliers *nor* actually lemurs, they are still 100% cool. – MSNBC/LiveScience: Two new ‘flying lemur’ species identified
- EXTRA: I really wish that we could find some confirmation of any kind of life in space, because it strikes me that we always find new life (or variations) to be utterly amazing.. – Yahoo!/LiveScience: Incredible Deep-Sea Discoveries Announced
- EXTRA: Is Mars farting? Or does some other biological entity claim responsibility for clouds of methane? – The Daily Galaxy: Has Mars Science Laboratory Made the Discovery of the Decade?
- EXTRA: I imagine this become part of a new tanning sensation, where you paint solar cell battery lines toward embedded or worn light jewelry.. – MSNBC/LiveScience: New spray-on solar cells invented
- EXTRA: This goes nicely with the spray-on solar cells, methinks.. – New Scientist: DNA strands become fibre optic cables
- EXTRA: Mixed blessings: alive but miserable. – Yahoo!/Reuters: Migraines cut breast cancer risk 30 percent: study
- By Any Other Name (It Still Has Thorns)
- And here I was, just taking my name real estate for granted! – Ananova: Woman changes name to Pudsey Bear
- Oh, for charity… Ok.. – Ananova: Mum sells her name on eBay
- Also suing: on behalf of the woodland creature, Fox is being sued. (not) – Variety: Mayor of Batman sues WB, Nolan
- No, they do not have Hot Coffee. (I’d sue.) – National Geographic: (O) 39428 Hot Coffee, Mississippi
- I can sympathise: here in Canada, I cringe whenever the term America is thrown around.. – Ananova: Welsh council bans ‘British’
- Uh-oh.. it’s like a new wave of political correctness! Language carries baggage and colour; eliminating that should be offensive to everyone. – Ananova: Council bans phrase to protect atheists
- The implication here, of course, is that all “foreigners” have brain damage, which is why they speak that way.. – ABC News: Foreign Accent Syndrome Gives Sufferers an International Sound
- EXTRA: Since Santa is fictional, this must not have happened.. – Ananova: Secret Santa’s £9m donation
- EXTRA: Turns out, the Pythons were just hacks with history degrees.. (Doesn’t make it any less funny!) – Ananova: Ancient Greeks wrote parrot sketch
- EXTRA: I would rather personally have gargoyles, but now that the have called them “unnatural”, I want some.. – The UK Telegraph: Garden gnomes banned from church cemetery because they are ‘unnatural creatures’
- EXTRA: Mayhaps the painting was a little *too* abstract… – The UK Telegraph: Rothko art hung ‘wrong way round’ in exhibition
- EXTRA: “How much for stamps?” “How heavy?” “Uh, about my size.” – Ananova: Prisoner mails himself to freedom
- EXTRA: If someone is trying to send a message, they’d better start adding a note.. – Canada.com/The Victoria Times Colonist/Vancouver Sun: Sixth severed foot washes up on B.C. shore
- EXTRA: Calling it a book on “sex positions” sounds a bit like over-simplification. It’s much like calling daytime soaps “hardcore pornography”… – Ananova: Book on sex positions given to primary pupils
- EXTRA: Personally, I think it has to do with the extra limbs.. 4 Limbs Good! 6 Limbs Bad (and Creepy)! – New Scientist: Why we love to hate the spider
- EXTRA: The end of an era. We (won’t) miss you, ugly dog. – The UK Telegraph: World’s ugliest dog dies after cancer battle
- EXTRA: As if rings weren’t enough, now Saturn has a real aur(or)a of mystery.. – ScienceDaily: Cassini Finds Mysterious New Aurora On Saturn
- EXTRA: The craftsmanship looks as good as anything made today. Well, it does to me, but I don’t know anything about jewelry. – News24/SA/AP: 2 000-yr-old gold earring found
- EXTRA: Sounds like a very interesting “research project”: go out on a boat for a long time. (My studies are suddenly seeming even *more* sedentary!) – Astigan: 6,000km trip to reveal clues to ancient migration
- EXTRA: I believe the “baby mama” reference may also have been a criticism of the film.. – CBS4 Denver: Babysitter: Parrot Saved Girl’s Life With Warning
- EXTRA: Next: programming it to drive. – ScienceDaily: Pond Snail Programmed To Be Left Or Right ‘Handed’
- Offal (But not that bad!) (EXTRA)
- EXTRA: Have you smelled some of those cheeses? I advocate the use of aged cheese for self-defence. I wonder if they’ll make a stink gun out of this.. – Ananova: Gun raiders flee cheese
- EXTRA: Looks like we’re going to shoot for Mars next, rather than the Moon — because the Moon is just so “been there, done that” retro… – New Scientist: Moon takes a backseat in new space plan
- EXTRA: It’s suddenly sounding like a World of Warcraft plotline: “discover why the water have been tainted by an ancient evil.” – BBC: Radioactive legacy of ‘lost bomb’
- EXTRA: I’m not sure if I’m more surprised by the fact that we are still discovering pyramids or the fact that we’ve found 118 of them.. Just how much history is out there, anyway? – CNN/AP: Egypt: 4,300-year-old pyramid discovered
- EXTRA: Did he know the mysteries of the ancient builders? Or did he have dozens of demonic minions? I wonder if you could take that time today.. – Environmental Graffiti: The Mysterious Coral Castle
- EXTRA: The odds of making that are… bet-worthy. – Yahoo!/AP: On a roll: Golfer records 5 holes-in-one in a week
- EXTRA: Fortunately, he wasn’t trying to get away from everything.. – Ananova: Climber meets long lost bro on top of Snowdon
- EXTRA: How do *you* get your groceries? – Ananova: Chopper shocks shoppers
- EXTRA: They don’t look like they are cooked, and that’s the part I find most disturbing.. – Metro: New testicle eating champion crowned
- EXTRA: Turns out, the legends his buddies warned him against were true. I hate to hear of such things.. – Ananova: Man granted divorce for mother-in-law’s nagging
- EXTRA: Now *that* is community spirit! – Ananova: Villagers tunnel through mountain
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