Show Notes for TWS115: Life Will Be What We Make It

On the show this week:

• DOOM is MOOD reversed
• Self-Deterministic Meat Machines
• _____ To A Different Tune
• Extra Appendages (EXTRA)

This week’s Challenge Question:
What is your swan song, memorial, legacy, remembrance?
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: The House Of Grey — An exclusive highschool, a mysterious boy with a missing past who sees things no one else does, children with powers — or is that all in his mind? Magic? Technology? Drama? Tension? Mystery? This free podiobook has it all. This book is hitting its home stretch right now, and deserves to be heard by more people. Check it out, and tell a friend! I don’t think you’ll be sorry..
• Promo: Bells In The Batfry — Wacky comedy from a truly talented multi-voice artist and comedian and a few of his equally talented friends. Nothing is normal at The Batfry Studios — including the fans..
• DOOM is MOOD reversed
  • Don’t worry: if it *does* go wrong, it’ll all be over quick(-ish).. – Fox News: Scientists Not So Sure ‘Doomsday Machine’ Won’t Destroy World
  • This will send the calendar industry into a tailspin, In These Troubled Economic Times (ITTET). – ScienceDaily: All Earth’s Seasons Now Arrive Two Days Earlier, Researchers Report
  • Did you realize that selfish people who insist on such luxuries as food and heat are killing the world? It has nothing to do with industrial waste or pollution, greed, indifference, ignorance or environmental collapse — it’s those damn warm, fed people! – New Scientist: Cooking hearths largely to blame for Asian haze
  • Ok, this is your final warning! I’m telling ya to burn all your waste! – New Scientist: One last chance to save mankind
  • Uh, scratch that: we’re doomed. – BBC: Global warming is ‘irreversible’
  • EXTRA: “Warning: this textbook may contain knowledge, especially that nasty stuff which makes you question the absolute authority of some other things we can’t name here but which are really, really right, without question, and come from.. well, nevermind where they come from, you aren’t allowed to question them. Oh, and don’t take anything in this book as gospel, because it ain’t.” – The Christian Post: Evolution Disclaimer Proposed for Miss. Textbooks
  • EXTRA: Soon, the treants will rise to defend their forests, and we’ll pretty much all screwed. Granted, the entmoot will take at least 3 years.. – New Scientist: Tree deaths double across western US
  • IN PASSING: I teleported this article into this section, where it did not exist… BEFORE! – New Scientist: Teleporter sends ions on fantastic journey
• Self-Deterministic Meat Machines
  • Did stiff fronds evolve on land, on water (where they weren’t needed) — or both? How often does the same pattern repeat in nature, and can it evolve independantly over and over again? – ScienceDaily: Billion-year Revision Of Plant Evolution Timeline May Stem From Discovery Of Lignin In Seaweed
  • EXTRA: Draw Darwin’s tree of life. Now take that paper and crumple it up. It’s closer to reality now.. – New Scientist: Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life
  • Forget the “chicken-and-egg” problem: they are looking far enough back that it’s *both* chicken *and* egg.. – LiveScience: Scientists Zero In on Earth’s Original Animal
  • Yeah, but does it taste better? I’m wondering if scared cows produce adrenaline-laced milk.. – Ananova: Happy cows yield more milk
  • To name a thing is to associate a lot of baggage with a thing.. – Live Science: Boys With Unpopular Names More Likely to Break Law
  • EXTRA: It all comes from being a kid and wandering through a store, claiming everything as “mine”. – MSNBC/LiveScience: Study: If you touch it, you will buy it
  • EXTRA: Well, they are all made of the same stuff, after all.. – CNN: Why so many minds think alike
  • EXTRA: How strange would it be if you could be a neuter child, an immature male and a mature female, just depending on how old you are? Kinda throws into question what we take as “normal”, doesn’t it? – Yahoo!/AP: Scientists solve mystery: 3 fish are all the same
  • EXTRA: I’m reminded of “Bit” from TRON… – BBC: Single cell ‘can store memories’
  • EXTRA: I wonder if there will be a hormone-based men’s cologne in the future.. – New Scientist: Hormones help women spot supercute babies
  • EXTRA: So, uh, my brain really *is* sorta leaking out my ears? – New Scientist: Leaky brain cells linked to ageing
  • EXTRA: So, will we have drugs to turn this on and off depending on geopolitical climate change? – ScienceDaily: ‘Warrior Gene’ Predicts Aggressive Behavior After Provocation
  • EXTRA: Will we have gene therapy for this? Or to turn this off? – News Daily: Surrounded by friends? It’s all in your genes
  • EXTRA: There is an enormous amount of trust placed in media, in authority conferred by news reporters. But we need to improve that delivery. – ScienceDaily: Trust Me, I’m A Journalist: Trust In The Media Promotes Health
  • EXTRA: *Achoo!* Oh, sorry — didn’t mean to give you those pounds. You should have covered your stomach. – Yahoo!/LiveScience: Obesity Caught Like Common Cold
  • EXTRA: Interesting idea: bond the bad stuff to magnet-loving metals, then scoop them out with powerful magnets.. – New Scientist: Innovation: Magnetic blood detox
  • EXTRA: I fully support holistic examinations of things, including not only the bits but the pieces.. – New Scientist: Dalai Lama to fund ‘neuroscience of compassion’
  • EXTRA: Hey, if *you* collected crap for a living, then realized you could just *eat meat* instead, wouldn’t that turn *your* evolutionary crank, too? – BBC: Little dung beetle is big chopper
  • EXTRA: Random mutation also has it’s part to play.. Anything else? – Science Daily: Natural Selection Not The Only Process That Drives Evolution?
  • EXTRA: Turns out, Tolkein was a prophet. Not sure on the hairy feet thing, tho’. – Cryptomundo: Hobbit: Definitely New Species
  • EXTRA: There’s something rather intimidating about a fish that will climb up out of the water.. I dub thee: Clint Eastwood fish, because you’re tougher than nails. – ScienceDaily: Fish Out Of Water: New Species of Climbing Fish from Remote Venezuela Shakes the Catfish Family Tree
  • EXTRA: Turns out, the best way to get your male to perform better is to cheat on them.. What? – ScienceDaily: Infidelity Produces Faster Sperm, Swedish Fish Study Finds
  • EXTRA: I wonder if the researchers would object to their own ancestors being dug up for research. (They shouldn’t.) – BBC: Druids in row over boy’s skeleton
  • EXTRA: Apparently, they weren’t expecting them.. Especially not the bowl-fashioned ones.. – Yahoo!/Reuters: Police recover human skulls
  • EXTRA: Who you gonna call? Exorcisors! – The UK Telegraph: Hospital calls in exorcist after ghost spotted
  • EXTRA: I wonder if the child will ever know.. Probably once they read the Stephen King book based on the idea… – Today Show/MSNBC: Miracle baby born two days after mother’s ‘death’
  • EXTRA: Um.. I don’t think she can say “I Do”. Isn’t that sorta necessary? – The London Paper: London News: A grieving London groom is set to wed his deceased fiancée
  • EXTRA: Sad story. She didn’t wake up. Not entirely a smart kid, but self-sufficient. Also likely to turn into a Stephen King novel.. – MSNBC/AP: Boy, 8, spent 10 days at home with dead mom
  • EXTRA: Status: crazy. – BBC: Wife murdered for Facebook status
  • EXTRA: Spontaneous human combustion? Alien green lasers? Really spicy food? – Yahoo!/AP: Man found burned in apartment with no sign of fire
  • EXTRA: Attempting to eliminate the unprovable, in favour of the expensive… – BBC: Alternative therapy ‘crackdown’
  • EXTRA: Whoops! Maybe some of those ancient medicines actually *work*.. – BBC: Acupuncture ‘works for headaches’
  • EXTRA: Turns out, denial is not always the best route to happiness and health. – LiveScience: Longevity from Calorie-Restriction Diet Questioned
  • EXTRA: Soon, we will implant these permanently into our bodies, and be able to do wondrous things like regrow limbs or chop onions really, really fine. – Medical News Today: Medical “Mini-Submarine” To Blast Diseased Cells In The Body: A Fantastic Voyage Brought To Life
  • EXTRA: Also fake: button-pusher’s elbow. – BBC: Peer reveals ‘cello scrotum’ hoax
  • EXTRA: Hmm.. Where does the scientific world put behaviour changes with regards to evolution? There are physical changes here, too, so that’s clear — but behaviour isn’t (generally) inherited.. – ScienceDaily: Evolution In Action: Native U.S. Lizards Are Adapting To Escape Attacks By Fire Ants
  • EXTRA: I believe this addresses (in part) the loud cry of anti-evolutionists about “missing links” and such.. – ScienceDaily: Dinosaur Fossils Fit Perfectly Into The Evolutionary Tree Of Life, Study Finds
  • EXTRA: Has the image of the sasquatch been dominated by masculinity? I always thought that the majority of claimed sighting described female sasquatch.. – CP24/The Canadian Press: Sasquatch symbolizes female sexuality: Hamilton museum
  • EXTRA: I know we are all interested in finding exactly the same thing as Earth up in space, but really, we’re only one possible, viable solution to the problem of life.. – New Scientist: Smallest known exoplanet may actually be Earth-mass
• _____ To A Different Tune
  • What makes the most expensive violins in the world sound so good? Apparently, it’s has to do with chemicals (perhaps including the adrenaline of someone playing the most expensive violin in the world). – ScienceDaily: Secrets Of Stradivarius’ Unique Violin Sound Revealed, Professor Says
  • Can something so associated with lewdness be reformed? Did it come from the lewd to begin with? And don’t highschool students also practice acrobatics? – Ananova: Row over pole dancing display for pupils
  • I wonder if they also examined whether the couple had issues with each other, so they can improve their ratings.. – Ananova: Couple go on display in hotel room
  • Is it now offensive to even mention that someone is ill? That’s ridiculous! – Ananova: ADHD number plate ‘offensive’
  • If you can have a soundtrack to your life, why not your death? – Ananova: Monty Python tune top for funerals
  • EXTRA: Is it illegal to carry ridiculous simulacrums? – Ananova: Schoolgirl’s inflatable doll prank
  • EXTRA: I thought all these “extreme XYZ” things died out a while ago… – Ananova: Silly mid-on Everest
  • EXTRA: Considering that it takes me a long time to say anything, does this mean I’m just a perpetual bullsh*tter? – LiveScience: Lies Take Longer Than Truths
  • EXTRA: The trouble with the insane are that its all on the inside.. – New Scientist: Cunning psychopaths manipulate their way out of jail
  • It’s a really thought-provoking article. At least, the first couple of paragraphs are ok, but then my twitter went off and I drifted away without finish — *beep* Oooh, shiney! – ScienceDaily: Is Technology Producing A Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis?
  • EXTRA: Is this an innocent little ceremony, or is there something rather sinister behind the amphibian nuptuals? Does *everything* have to make sense? – The UK Telegraph: Seven-year-old Indian girls ‘marry’ frogs
  • EXTRA: They believed it to be a transformed human robber. Oh, if only that were true. – Yahoo!/Reuters: Nigerian police detain goat over armed robbery
  • EXTRA: The saddest part is the predatory nature toward albinos. – BBC: Tanzania ‘healers’ flout ban
  • EXTRA: Even if they don’t find them, they can probably scare them.. – Yahoo!/AP: Lithuanian firm hires witch to hunt debt dodgers
  • EXTRA: I’m sure the politicians and environmentalists will huff and puff about this… – Ananova: First straw council houses to be built
  • EXTRA: A speedboat that runs on biofuel derived from fat — including the pilot’s own body fat. Finally: a cruise that will actually slim you down! – ABC Australia: Fastest fatty fuel boat docks in Melbourne
  • EXTRA: I just hope they also have flying gas stations. On balloons. Screw flying cars, I just want the balloons! – Discovery: ‘Flying Car’ Goes to Market
  • EXTRA: Apparently, while you can’t observe something without fixing its state, you can at least just glance slyly at it.. – Science Daily: Physicists Resolve Confounding Paradox Of Quantum Theory
  • EXTRA: Apparently, gold doesn’t have to be a soft metal. However, it will likely always be expensive. I keep thinking: gold armour! – ScienceDaily: Gold Can Get Harder, Not Softer, When Heated To High Temperatures
  • EXTRA: Re-examining Galileo’s corpse to see if he was just seeing things after all.. – NewsDaily: Is that two moons around Saturn I see?
  • EXTRA: Did the global mind go “ping” when Obama said his vows? (to the country, not his wife) – Entangled Minds blog: Collective consciousness and the inauguration
  • EXTRA: As if advanced aliens wouldn’t also appreciate a sweet, cherry ride? Shee-yeah, right! – Northern Territory: ‘Muscle car’ UFO hoons over Darwin
  • EXTRA: As long as they aren’t those same firefighter types who set fire to their own firestation, intentionally or not.. – All News Web: China: Dazzling UFO seen and flimed by eight firefighters
  • EXTRA: Turns out: not so breaking, not so news, not so seen. Or was it? – All News Web: Breaking News: Millions see UFO crash, Saudi Arabia
  • EXTRA: Will Obama’s policy of openness finally release UFO files? Will Roswell and Aurora secret-mongers finally meet their match? – The Examiner: UFO files to be released under Obama Open Government Memoranda
  • EXTRA: Finally: the secret of the Danish UFO invasion can be told! And we thought they were just invading Northern Canada! – Jyllands-Posten/The Copenhagen Post: Secret UFO archives opened
  • EXTRA: The UFO spotted on (apparently) only one camera at a time earlier than the main event and universally blogged about looked a lot like a bird to me — not in shape, as it is just a blur — but in motion. Still, it could have been a rod. I wonder if someone will use this as a justification to have 24/7 high definition cameras watching over us all.. – UFO Disclosure Countdown Clock blog: Was Obama’s Inauguration Ufo – Predicted?
  • EXTRA: “Yes, we managed to identify something we could not identify,” seems to be a general summary. While there is something weird going on here, I wonder if similar incidents aren’t really reported continuously. – Austrian Times: UFO over Germany official – says air traffic control
• Extra Appendages (EXTRA)
  • EXTRA: I’d rush out and protest this ban, but I haven’t made it all the way to the Angry Protestor pose. I’m considering doing the Star Wars yoga instead. – BBC: Indonesian clerics issue yoga ban
  • EXTRA: Turns out, when you make something academic, you threaten to suck the life out of it. – Public Parapscyhology: Online Parapsychology Course Reviewed
  • EXTRA: Next: it begins to compose poetry… – Ananova: Sea lion learns to write Chinese
  • EXTRA: Forget 3D — it’s 5D! – PR Newswire: An Experience for All Six Senses…the PARAPLEX Observatory, Lab and Museum Opens in New Orleans January 24, 2009
  • EXTRA: And here I thought it was a smooth, vanilla/cherry or even a crunchy center.. – MSNBC: Rock reveals moon had liquid metal core
  • EXTRA: Losing through inferiour firepower.. – MSNBC/Discovery: Neanderthals lacked projectile weapons
  • EXTRA: Who wrote the words, and why? And who is “The Doctor”? 😉 – The UK Telegraph: Ancient rock art baffles experts
  • EXTRA: Apparently, stuff falls outta the sky all the time. Um.. Yeah? So? – Miramachi Leader: Fireballs not as rare as people think — professor
  • EXTRA: It’s all well and fine to teach your kids to dial — just make sure the police don’t use that as an excuse to raid your home.. – Yahoo Australia/AAP: Baby’s accidental call lands dad in jail
  • EXTRA: There are plenty of holes in the Swiss woods. – Fox News/AP: German Woman Missing 12 Years Found Alive in Swiss Woods
  • EXTRA: Are ice circles formed by whirling water currents? – The UK Times: Weather Eye: uncovering the mystery of ice circles
  • EXTRA: Fascinating! How were the Nazca lines created? By years (decades? centuries?) of repeated walking.. – New Scientist: Peruvians walked their prayers into the earth
  • EXTRA: Frightening! This is a level of disturbing that cries out “I’M CRAZY!” – Ananova: How much is that doggy wig in the window?

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