Show Notes for TWS120: I Better Think We May Think Better

On the show this week:

• There’s Something In The Air..
• Mental, Minimal, Criminal
• Technophobophilophobia
• After the End Of It All (EXTRA)

This week’s Challenge Question:
Can we be plugged in too much? Or is that just old-fashioned, pre-telecom-ubiquity thinking?
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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.
• Promo: Geek Survival Guide — Everything a geek will need to know to survive in the unlikely event that you need to know how to survive being a geek.
• There’s Something In The Air..
  • New: the perfume that will totally drive ’em wild! “Oeuf du Bête!” – Ananova: Rotten eggs? Cor!
  • And I thought *I* had problems finding a date! – BBC: Indian village paves way to love
  • Apparently, there’s a lucrative science in finding all the things that aren’t there… In the normal world, that’s either forensics, invention or delusion.. – MSNBC/Space.com: Missing asteroids reveal planet-sized mystery
  • If we can do panspermia, why couldn’t it be done to us? – Discovery Channel: Earth Critters Hitch Ride to Martian Moon and Back
  • Hope (and life!) springs eternal… -ish. – MSNBC/Space.com: A sliver of chance for life on Mars
  • EXTRA: It also might reveal an amorphous shape-shifter alien being, but these are the risks you take for SCIENCE! – The UK Telegraph: Buried Antarctica lake ‘could provide clues to life on Mars’
  • TLPs: proving that you don’t need intricate cover-ups to hide mysterious goings-on, you just need acronyms.. – National Geographic News: Mysterious Moon Flashes Signs of “Last Gasps”?
  • WHAM! It could have been over just that fast.. I wonder if that was a warning shot, fired across the bow…? – BBC: Space rock makes close approach
  • We stand at the end of a shattered glass walkway, but we’re staring straight ahead.. – NewsDaily: World faces last chance to avoid fatal warming: EU
  • Yeah, we really fixed that problem. We suck. – New Scientist: Parts of Amazon close to tipping point
  • We, the people of Earth, are real slobs.. – New Scientist: Time to tax space litterbugs?
  • If they ever add moving elemens to the display, that’s when people will *really* freak out.. – NewsDaily: “Bodies” exhibition probed in Poland
  • EXTRA: I’m thinking of proposing my own theory: the Big Broccoli. – The Future Of Things blog: New Galaxy Formation Theory Proposed
  • EXTRA: The real amusing part of the story is that they made a prototype out of a pop can and a pop bottle — two technologies that really shouldn’t exist side-by-side.. – MIT news: New rocket aims for cheaper nudges in space
  • Solar observatories of many kinds can be found all over the world, but to build an entire place designed to capture just 4 minutes of action requires quite a bit of thought. – EDP24: Solar calendar secret revealed in Suffolk church
  • EXTRA: The biggest story I didn’t get to this wee: the miracle of our process of creating lint. – The UK Telegraph: Revealed: The secrets of belly button fluff
  • EXTRA: When everyone is named the same, shouldn’t that mean you can just pick one at random to blame? – Ananova: Team is ref’s nightmare
• Mental, Minimal, Criminal
  • There are costs to being a top performer. And stupid. – Novosti: Man dies after pancake-eating contest in west Russia
  • Some studies just make me want to drink… – New Scientist: Boozy films and ads make viewers drink more
  • Turns out: faith makes you calmer. Well, they don’t refer to them as “flocks of sheep” for no reason.. – ScienceDaily: Brain Differences Found Between Believers In God And Non-believers
  • Next: James Randi and Uri Geller make TV together.. – BBC: Vatican hosts Darwin conference
  • Somehow I think he missed the application question: “Are you a criminal?” or the one “Are you stupid?”. – The San Diego Union-Tribune: Robbery suspect turns out to be police applicant
  • The law demonstrates its own form of stupidity… – The Sydney Morning Herald: Man jailed for taking 80 cents 24 years ago
  • … and humans top it with a food emergency. The real food emergenc is that THAT ISN’T FOOD. – The UK Telegraph: Florida woman calls 911 three times over McDonald’s Chicken McNugget shortage
  • … and truly, what can be of more dire importance than a broken heart? Well, how about CRIME. – Ananova: Divorcee rang 999 to find new boyfriend
  • There’s something strangely admirable about someone whose is very specific in their rage.. Way to defeat randomness! – MSNBC/AP: Ore. arsonist targets 1990s green Ford Escorts
  • “Are you laughin’ at me? You laughin’ at me?!? You must be laughin’ at me, cuz I’m the only one around!” – Ananova: Motorist stopped by police for laughing
  • … or maybe it was the world’s worst floor plans.. – Ananova: Britain’s worst burglars
  • “I promise to love, honor and steal for you.” – Ananova: Groom robbed banks to pay for wedding
  • “It’s nothing personal,” they claim. It’s just neighbourly to sue your neighbour’s insurance company after a tragedy.. – Ananova: Flood-hit family sued by neighbours
  • EXTRA: Turns out, the bottles were in the fridge, apparenlty. – Ananova: Vimto police probe cost £200,000
  • In the the land of the naked, the one-trousered man is.. a riot. – Ananova: Clothed man sparks riot at orgy
  • At least they were *open* about their beauty-discrimination policy; most people just quietly discourage ugly people.. – Ananova: Job applicants have to show ears
  • EXTRA: They’re just made that the “Barbie Lawmaker” doll was rejected.. – MSNBC/Today Show: Ditch the doll? Lawmaker out to outlaw Barbie
  • EXTRA: Finally, a real story of injustice! I’m all for superstitions and beliefs, but when they involve hunting other people I draw a line. – BBC: Tanzanians to name albino killers
  • EXTRA: … and yet, this is the closest to a tragic story most people will ever hear, which is a tragedy onto itself. – KYW NewsRadio: South Jersey Woman Rescued After Being Trapped for 3 Days in Trash Can
  • EXTRA: I’ll tell you how animals smell: they sweat, and that sweat really stinks. – ScienceDaily: New Theory On How Animals Smell: Brain Encodes Complex Plumes Of Odors With A Simple Code
  • EXTRA: There are some really needy people out there, and this is just leading to ignorance.. – BBC: Hospital hand gels ‘being drunk’
  • EXTRA: Mad science? And the placenta is a temporary *organ*? Really?!? – io9: Several Mysterious Human Placentas Found in Illinois Sewer System
  • EXTRA: A case of “bird over mind over matter”? – BBC: Parrots help owner to talk again
  • EXTRA: Instead of just saying “bonus!”, he apparently got quite upset. What was that wallet made of? – Cape Cod Times: Man discovers human teeth in new wallet
  • EXTRA: There’s a point proved by the poster, but it wasn’t the one that they meant to make.. – The UK Telegraph: BNP uses Polish Spitfire in anti-immigration poster
• Technophobophilophobia
  • EXTRA: … and that marked the beginning of the 5th Dalek Invasion of Earth, children. – The UK Telegraph: Dr Who Dalek found in pond
  • The fear of losing touch with their cell phones seems like a symptom, not a disease.. – CafeTerra/Bureau Report: ‘Nomophobia’ scaring medical students
  • Maybe it’s also caused by the MILLION OTHER CAMERAS that make him nervous? Again: symptom, not disease.. – EDP24: Man has speed camera phobia
  • Clever use of pun: 2 points. Use of societal trend against itself: 2 points Denying the possibility of creating a reality TV show: a MILLION points. Opening Pandora’s box by mentioning it: -10 points.. – News Daily/Reuters: Filmmaker plans “Eyeborg” eye-socket camera
  • Not so useful in snowy environments.. Then again, neither are touch-screens.. – Ananova: Boffin cobbles together shoe phone
  • I’m still waiting for these to be fully autonomous, then rove the battlefield, then rove downtown streets looking for random people to “fix”.. I’m telling ya: i have a million script ideas.. – New Scientist: ER 2.0: Robots team up for surgery
  • And you thought some of your teachers were robotic as it was! – Ananova: Robot teacher launched in Japan
  • EXTRA: Might as well print solar cells, because soon the money isn’t going to be worth printing.. In fact: let’s use solar cells *as* money! – CafeTerra/ANI: Solar power cells printed like money
  • EXTRA: Turns out, the person doing the drawing just made it all up.. Maybe. – ScienceDaily: Scientists Reconstruct An Ancient Greek Musical Instrument, The Epigonion
  • EXTRA: 2D video made from 3D animation printed in 1D (layer-by-layer) from 0D (computer-generated) diagrams? – New Scientist: 3D printer brings animated movie stars to life
  • EXTRA: I wonder if anyone, while putting on the gel-shirt, complained about it being “squishy”? And does it make a noise like embarassing moments on leather couches? – The UK Telegraph: Military to use new gel that stops bullets
  • “For the Lord sayeth onto you: let thy SMS not exceed 10 per rising of the sun..” – The Sydney Morning Herald: Faithful told to abstain from text
• After the End Of It All (EXTRAS)
  • EXTRA: I still prefer Eat The Rich. – ScienceDaily: Self-digestion As A Means Of Survival
  • EXTRA: No need for rotten eggs for this guy.. – Ananova: A father again – at 75
  • EXTRA: Further notes on the search for Yeti. – Novosti: Russian priest to investigate bigfoot sighting in Siberia
  • EXTRA: Stare into its eyes… get lost.. fall inside.. – BBC: Psychedelic fish ‘is new species’
  • EXTRA: Octopi are acting up all over the world. Has Cthulhu sent a signal? – MSNBC/AP: Octopus sets off flood at aquarium
  • EXTRA: Did they call it Flapper? – The UK Telegraph: Pink dolphin appears in US lake
  • EXTRA: Ah, the old “you wouldn’t hit me! I’m a girl!” trick.. – Phenomenica/Bureau Report: Lizards Use Transvestite Trickery
  • EXTRA: There is something very disturbing about this. It would be even more disturbing if it were a mask made of human flesh… – The UK Telegraph: Fish with human faces spotted in South Korea
  • EXTRA: I’ve always kinda wondered about those breeding programs.. – New Scientist: Inbreeding sabotages rare species’ sperm
  • EXTRA: “Hidden” as in, “didn’t look closely”. – The UK Telegraph: Leonado da Vinci self-portrait discovered hidden in manuscript
  • EXTRA: OW! OW OW OW OW! – Ananova: Man pulled car by eyelids
  • EXTRA: Sometimes, you have to follow your heart, even if that breaks the system you want to join. – Novosti: Italian gay man wants sex change, become nun
  • EXTRA: Austin Powers was right (finally). – Ananova: Female athlete was really a man

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