Show Notes for TWS117: Be still my bleeding heart

On the show this week:

• Body of Evidence
• Illegal or Just Plain Wrong?
• The End of It All
• Wishy-washy out-of-timey-wimey stuff (EXTRA)

This week’s Challenge Question:
Should love be eliminated in a totally rational world?
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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 — When you don’t remember who you are, the world is not that stable, either. A tale of mystery and magic in a slightly alternate present.
• Body of Evidence
  • Sure, honour his work — but do so by questioning it, not by putting it on a shrine. – Cryptomundo: Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin!!
  • Can’t we just all evolve to a higher state of understanding? – Cryptomundo: Creationists & Evolutionists Should Declare Peace
  • All these stories about how the full moon doesn’t drive you crazy are starting to drive me crazy. And I’m already a hairy guy who growls.. – Scientific American: Lunacy and the Full Moon
  • EXTRA: It’s pretty clever.. but I wonder if it means we could supersaturate our brains and make them glow… – University of Toronto: Canadian scientists read minds with infrared scan
  • EXTRA: Turns out, the long-term effects include: wasted youth and forgotten times that you’re probably better off forgetting. – New Scientist: Ecstasy’s long-term effects revealed
  • we = [sum of part(i) for all i ] + X, where X is unknown and unquantifiable – ScienceDaily: Mathematical Models Reveal How Organisms Transcend The Sum Of Their Genes
  • EXTRA: If bacteria and larger beings can learn to live together, is there hope for the rest of us? – New Scientist: Squid symbiosis may shed light on disease
  • So, really: I’m playing Rock Band 2 for my health! – BBC: Can our natural rhythm heal us?
  • EXTRA: It stands to reason that even primitive beings would be capable of warbling out some sort of tune — after all, *I* can. – BBC: Composer’s Neanderthal recreation
  • Nothing about the words “urine injection” fills me with happiness and joy. – MSNBC/AP: Urine injection kills Bolivian woman
  • Note to self: ice is slippery, cars are heavy, and gravity is *not* your friend. – Ananova: Motorist’s wee mistake
  • I wonder if the ad campaign will show a cow in a field with the caption: “Plop, plop! Fizz, fizz! Oh, what a relief it is!” – Ananova: New fizzy drink – made from cow urine
  • Next time you go that local coffee dive, just be happy it isn’t this crappy hole.. – Ananova: Cafe loo-ses the plot
  • So, does that mean they *won* or *lost* the genetic lotto? – BBC: Genes fuel financial risk-taking
  • Sorry, but you’d better put your best face forward.. – New Scientist: How your looks betray your personality
  • Maybe he should have bought some of the more fancier bricks to prove his point; I created better simulations when I was 5. Well, mine had rocket boots and transformed, too.. – New Scientist: Lego ‘walker’ disarms assumptions about human gait
  • Calling it “walking” is like calling a turtle a very low-flying bird. – New Scientist: Why sand is a walking robot’s nightmare
  • Why do we view the body through such distorted lenses? Where does “good looking”, beyond health, really fit in? – New Scientist: Why do we need bras for babies?
  • EXTRA: Turns out, fish is only one of the smells – and maybe not even the most important. Maybe they need to clean the kitchens more often.. – Ananova: Scientists unravel smell of chips
  • EXTRA: Don’t think genes can affect the real world? They are the direct cause of the toothbrush.. – ScienceDaily: Biologists Find Gene Network That Gave Rise To First Tooth
  • EXTRA: To some degree, it’s like a typist developing carpal tunnel.. – Ananova: Florist’s fatal addiction
  • EXTRA: Turns out, we’re not related. No paternity suit! – New Scientist: First draft of Neanderthal genome is unveiled
  • EXTRA: Eventually, they’ll just realize that there is an entire layer of the earth which is made up of mummies. And vampires. – Yahoo!/AP: Mummies found in newly discovered tomb in Egypt
  • EXTRA: While they proclaim it an “underwater Stonehenge”, the picture accompanying the article was very underwhelming.. – The Chicago Tribune: Underwater stones puzzle archeologists
  • EXTRA: Hey, if beautiful music or a painting can inspire love and children, why not a statue? – Ananova: Fertility god does the trick
  • EXTRA: So, it’s not just all in your head, then? I wonder if it will turn out to be a benevolent mutation.. – CNN: Seeing color in sounds has genetic link
• Illegal or Just Plain Wrong?
  • Whatever you do, never sing anything that can, and will!, be used against you.. – CBC/CP: Woman who sang tune about fire charged with seven arsons near Philadelphia
  • Warning: when choosing targets, always do a full background check first. This follows from last year’s “retired boxing champian foiling robbery” story.. – Ananova: Teen thief picks on wrong pensioner
  • He thinks it was a mistake — but what if it was a subtle psychological test? – Ananova: Man had tag fitted to false leg
  • Is this some sort of universal symbol I’m not familiar with? Or some sort of LARP stance? – Ananova: Bum bid for freedom
  • EXTRA: If Old Man Sedgewick doesn’t want to sell his property, he might be able to drive down the price by staging a haunting — as long as those pesky kids with the dog don’t show up (and he can afford the rubber mask). – The Independent: How being haunted affects a house’s value
  • Which is worse: botched implants or implants for “entertainment” work? (A little of both?) – Ananova: Woman bares breasts in implant protest
  • EXTRA: I’m all for the removal of ancient, backwards customs which deny a woman to be just as free as any man — and panties. – Ananova: Pink underwear protest
  • Warning: that hot chick might be a spy! Go in for a “debriefing”.. – Ananova: ‘Pretty, blonde spies’ target EU
  • Tragedies such as these must be avoided in the future, if mankind is to survive! – Ananova: Man called 911 after Burger King ran out of lemonade
  • EXTRA: A new version of a shotgun wedding? – Ananova: Armed police raid wild west party
  • It is entirely too easy to change your name for entirely the wrong reasons in Britian. I feel so happy. – Ananova: Christine Hamilton changes name
  • It was all fun and games until she asked for some rent money… – Ananova: Students reports mum to police for torture
  • EXTRA: Dude! I figured the DL got wimax! – Ananova: Fake Dalai Lama on Twitter
  • EXTRA: The sphere did not appear dangerous, although perhaps a cop attached to the flashlight might seems so.. Or maybe some other kind of phenomenon? – UFO Examiner.com: Sphere Of Light Approaches Pennsylvania Motorists
  • EXTRA: Which is more disturbing: that this kind of satellite accident happened, or that there is *so* much debris in space to make it look like a cloud? – AOL News/AP: Satellite Collision Creates Debris Clouds
  • EXTRA: It’s not like it was an elephant or hippo or rabid fighting weasel or something… – The UK Telegraph: Giant bird goes on Rod Hull and Emu rampage
  • EXTRA: I was sympathetic right up until it urinated on its dead friend. That’s just not cool. – News24/Beeld/SA: Elephant’s sad farewell to friend
  • EXTRA: Angry, angry hippo… – News24/SA/SAPA: Hippo in sewerage works
  • EXTRA: Yeah, you were expecting rabid weasels, weren’t you? – Ananova: Injured deer finds vet
  • EXTRA: Turns out, families that do it together, live longer. But.. do they want to live longer? – ScienceDaily: Inbreeding Insects Cast Light On Longer Female Lifespans
  • EXTRA: For his next trick, he’ll teach people how to catch their own Jane. – The UK Telegraph: Self-styled Tarzan teaches cheetahs in Namibia how to hunt
  • EXTRA: Apparently, no one recently crossed the Atlantic by swimming. So, that dumb record is still out there.. – Yahoo! Sports/Fourth Place Medal Blog: The great Atlantic Ocean swimming hoax
  • EXTRA: Some people are apparently useless beyond words. Or too rich to really be worth much. – Ananova: Record fingernails broken
  • EXTRA: Apparently, the universes crossed over briefly. – Ananova: TV station reports ‘Bush dead’
  • EXTRA: The boy who cried “snow!”. – The UK Press and Journal: Hoax message on mountain triggers full-scale rescue bid
  • EXTRA: Nothing like holding up the moral character of a reality TV show.. – Irish Times/Guardian: Reality TV contestant quits show after it was revealed he killed parents
  • EXTRA: I want to have that kind of money-bending power.. – The Scotsman: Mystical force stirs spoon-bender Geller to splash out on ‘pyramid of the Forth’
  • EXTRA: If you buy the DVD, you might get a golden ticket to ride.. – Ananova: Pot luck for film fans
  • EXTRA: “The first one sank. The next one fell over and sank. The next one caught on fire, fell over and sank. But the fifth one stayed up!” – Ananova: Pensioner wins licence to build submarines
• The End of It All
  • EXTRA: What’s sadder than a pub with no beer? A pub with no beer-drinkers? Personally, the idea of a “local pub” is one of those social ideas I wish I had experienced; there are vast differences, I suspect, between a “pub” and a “bar”.. – Ananova: Publican advertises for regulars
  • What you can’t see wlll WIPE YOU OUT. – New Scientist: ‘Dark’ comets may pose threat to Earth
  • Are greener practices possibly counter to public safety? Shouldn’t “green” also be “smart”? – The Sydney Morning Herald: Green ideas must take blame for deaths
  • WARNING! THE WORLD MAY NOT BE ENDING! – New Scientist: Beware Earth-shattering headlines
  • “When ya plays in the sea, ya get the goblins!” — Ringu 3 (or was it 0?) – The Examiner: Dangers of the paranormal: a cautionary tale for ghost hunters
  • When public perception of words like “very likely” sound more like “well, it *might* happen”, *stop* using the words! – New Scientist: Scientists losing war of words over climate change
  • If we do this, we will be overrun with cows. Stop irresponsible vegetarians from creating a wandering animal apocalypse! – New Scientist: Eating less meat could cut climate costs
  • Want to be called “Dr Spook”? – Public Parapsychology: Two PhD Opportunities at University of Northampton
  • EXTRA: Uh-oh.. Is there some sort of sign of the apocalypse or societal disquiet when we start building large, useless statues? – Ananova: Giant horse will be ‘Angel of the South’
  • EXTRA: Apparently, England had a little snowstorm and they are having difficulty coping with things like walking without getting buried in snowbanks. – Oldham Evening Chronicle: Pub snow man’s miracle survival
  • EXTRA: I wonder if people from the future (or aliens) keep sabotaging it to prevent the collapse of the galaxy.. – The UK Telegraph: Large Hadron Collider to restart
  • EXTRA: Will the tiniest creatures on Earth save us from our self-created devastation? (No, probably not..) – ScienceDaily: How An Antarctic Worm Makes Antifreeze And What That Has To Do With Climate Change
  • EXTRA: Hence the Monty Python saying: “You may be on top today, but tomorrow you are just so much [crocodile] poop.” – CafeTerra/ANI: Oldest human hair discovered in fossilized hyena poop
• Wishy-washy out-of-timey-wimey stuff (EXTRA)
  • EXTRA: Turns out, the US President Barack Obama is a GROWN-UP HUMAN… which is more than I can say of the snickering, childish public.. – Ananova: Potty-mouthed president
  • EXTRA: It’s sort of distorted or squished, just like real love.. – Ananova: Lovers’ Island discovered on Google Earth
  • EXTRA: Turns out, you can still make a living delivering milk in Britain. I didn’t know they even still did that.. – Ananova: Britain’s oldest milkman
  • EXTRA: Turns out, we love to order things. (I mean, “put things in order” and not “get me a sammich”. Well, we may like that too..) – Scientific American: Finding Control in Chaos
  • EXTRA: Perpetual marketing machine? Do most frauds really try this hard to come back from such a public failure? I say: give them a chance to demonstrate. – OhMyNews: Steorn Raises the Magnetic Curtain
  • EXTRA: Bonus points for mentioning HAARP, trying to justify its existence for the last several decades by claiming it fixes a problem we are having now. – New Scientist: Twisted radio beams could untangle the airwaves
  • EXTRA: The prints are very large, very distinct and kinda fishy. (Not that fish have cat feet, tho’.) – The UK Daily Mail: Do huge paw prints found in snow provide evidence of big cats roaming the British countryside?
  • EXTRA: Hmm.. maybe Earth is really like one of those carnival rides, the funhouse or haunted house.. – Oldham Evening Chronicle: Brief encounter of the scary kind
  • EXTRA: About as sparse as possible, and the picture does, indeed, look like a dead fish.. – Highland News: Mystery over new ‘Nessie’ sighting

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