Show Notes for TWS121: Life, Death and the Shocks In Between

On the show this week:

• “Let There Be Life!” said God to the Scientists
• Shocking Uses of Technology
• Death and Dangerous Apes
• Afterlife (EXTRAS)

This week’s Challenge Question:
Will we eliminate death as a certain, inevitable faite for mankind? Will it be possible for a human to live forever? Is that good — or bad?
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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: Shallow Thoughts — Christiana Ellis’ brilliant daily witticism.
• 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.
• “Let There Be Life!” said God to the Scientists
  • This is kinda like reading “Dog convention snubs poodles; predator cats allowed in.” – MSNBC/AP: Vatican-backed conference snubs creationism
  • Finally, they’re predicting doom for themselves, rather than everyone else.. – The Christian Science Monitor: The coming evangelical collapse
  • Jesus was an astronaut? – The UFO Examiner: First Christian UFO-alien symposium
  • EXTRA: Somewhat interesting case of something doing something. – UFO Examiner: Second PA low flying UFO reported
  • EXTRA: The story I didn’t mean to miss: God’s listening, he’s just backed up with calls; please leave a message and one of his representatives will get back to you as soon as they can… – BBC: Dutch leave messages on God phone
• Shocking Uses of Technology
  • Ok, maybe Edison will win this battle; but Tesla’s wireless power will win the next one! – New Scientist: From AC to DC: Going green with supergrids
  • The car industry will have to make up an entirely new excuse as to why no one will want an electric car.. – New Scientist: ‘Nanoball’ batteries could recharge car in minutes
  • Hrm… does that make people the meat inside which goes well with butter? – New Scientist: Crab chemical could give cars a self-healing ‘shell’
  • Every time we look closer at history, it seems to get longer; I’m almost wondering whether it actually is expanding backward as necessary.. – BBC: Horses tamed earlier than thought
  • EXTRA: Another story I hate to have missed; because, frankly, a girl might have been kissed. (Also, because I have this great memory of a film I saw at the 2008 Dragon*Con Cyberpunk film festival which was something like this. But now, that story is back on the shelf.) – Cafeterra/ANI: World’s earliest computer used for love poetry!
  • EXTRA: That lowdown, dirty rat is on the payroll of the coppers!?! – BBC: Indian police enrol rat recruits
  • Sounds like it should be written on a marquee: “Live! New’d Lifeforms!” – ScienceDaily: Live Evolution Witnessed In Controlled Environment Of Microbial Predator And Prey
  • EXTRA: All Internet traffic should be encrypted, because we can’t trust anyone. – New Scientist: Internet at risk from “wiretapping”, says web inventor
  • Wish I could say the same for anything I use.. – New Scientist: Mars Odyssey orbiter reboots for first time in five years
  • The potholes of space, really. – New Scientist: Debris threat prompts space station crew to evacuate
  • Even though they are wireless, I kinda think they should come with strings attached.. – New Scientist: Wireless Tasers extend the long arm of the law
  • EXTRA: I suppose you expect me to say something unholey like “a salt and then battery”, because the explosion came from an electric fire, don’t you? Well, I’m not fall into that pit! – The Times Union: Salt corrosion likely led to manhole blasts
  • EXTRA: It was basically the current-day version of “Dude! We’re pwned! ur mai only hope, Obi-wan KenLincoln”. – NewsDaily: Museum finds “secret” message in Lincoln’s watch
  • EXTRA: That’s some well-aimed udders.. – MSNBC/Discovery: St. Francis Basilica frescoes bound with milk
  • EXTRA: Did a painter achieve realism by using fancy tricks? And a “dried powder from crushed lightning bugs” makes me think that we should again be looking at alchemy seriously.. – BBC: Caravaggio was early ‘photographer’
  • EXTRA: Turns out, Scotty *can* change the laws of physics.. – STV: Scots could soon be blasting off into space
• Death and Dangerous Apes
  • A sad story of… wait; they played *hockey* on the ice that formed in the abandoned building? That’s kinda cool, all things considered.. – The Detroit News: Life goes on around body found frozen in vacant Detroit warehouse
  • Someone commented on the article: “isn’t that method acting?” – KRQE: Killer unknowingly cast
  • Was the guy’s name “Mr Fish Supplies”? Because then I could see the confusion. – The UK Telegraph: Pet shop receives delivery of dead man instead of tropical fish
  • Well, not really “saves the day” as prevents a large coffin being shoved into a tiny hole.. – Ananova: Vigilant gravedigger saves the day
  • This is becoming increasingly popular. Personally, I still celebrate birthdays. (Barely.) – Ananova: Man stages own funeral
  • It’s all ok; it would have been worse if he hadn’t woken up. – Ananova: Driver wakes up in coffin
  • Sadly, I don’t think this would work for me. – Metro: Sleepy drivers forced to eat chilli
  • It was the impounding of the Star Wars memorabilia in the car that makes me weep (a little). – Ananova: Speeding driver raced home to bid on eBay
  • National Lampoon’s European Vacation was a cautionary tale.. – Ananova: Motorist got stuck on roundabout
  • EXTRA: I wonder if that means he can’t go around wagging it at people.. – Ananova: Coffee taster’s £10m tongue
  • This feels a bit like rewarding bad behaviour.. – Yahoo!/AP: Study: Belligerent chimp proves animals make plans
  • See? Now they are *all* gonna do it.. Soon, it will be war! – The UK Telegraph: Monkey ‘kills cruel owner with coconut thrown from tree’
  • I guess we’ll never win that gorilla war. *snicker* *thunk* – New Scientist: Chimps use geometry to navigate the jungle
  • Since people rarely look at themselves to see what their children will look like, I really don’t think we’ll have to worry about genetic testing for babies.. – MSNBC: Baby Olympian? DNA test screens sports ability
  • Fortunately, we’ve got this genetic anomoly controlled with poor education, lack of motivation and low funding for science.. – New Scientist: High-speed brains are in the genes
  • The first Gallifreyan? – The UK Sun: Two hearts are better than one
  • EXTRA: There’s a Roman myth just bursting out of this one.. – Ananova: Boy born with two penises
  • EXTRA: Also a potential Roman myth, although the chronic pain solution is a new twist.. – Ananova: Woman howls like wolf
  • You snooze, you lose. – BBC: Napping ‘increases diabetes risk’
  • That is not dead which can eternal lie. — HP Lovecraft, referring to Cthulhu. – ScienceDaily: Dead Gene Comes Back To Life In Humans
  • I wonder if they generated the fear by going up behind the participant and shouting “boo” (just before jabbing them with a wire connected to a car battery..). – ScienceDaily: Humans Can Sense ‘Smell Of Fear’ In Sweat, Psychologist Says
  • You might be able to blame your parents for being a scaredy-cat — but you might be afraid to.. – ScienceDaily: Genetics Of Fear: Specific Genetic Variations Contribute To Anxiety Disorders, Study Suggests
  • Terrible waste of funds, or adoption of interesting new tech? (Doesn’t really have to be one or the other, doesn it?) – Ananova: Council buys sat navs for lawnmowers
  • Must be why I feel depressed: I’m on a very low sodium diet… – ScieceDaily: Salt Might Be ‘Nature’s Antidepressant’
  • EXTRA: The story that I should have covered: Japan is trying to be the cutest nation in the world! KAWAAIIIIIII! – Metro: Japan picks “cute ambassadors”
  • EXTRA: Meanwhile, in Germany they just want to seem not quite so mean. Is this an Axis of “I’m not Evil!”? – Metro: ‘Ich bin ein friendly person’
  • EXTRA: A worrisome case of a happenig at a company where this should never happen. It’s enough to make you listen to the conspiracy theorists again, if only to find out what the worst possible accidents might be. – Natural News: Vaccines as Biological Weapons? Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries
  • EXTRA: We can make plants talk. Everyone talks.. eventually. – ScienceDaily: Novel Electric Signals In Plants Induced By Wounding Plant
  • EXTRA: We’re going to start over again, roll the cosmic dice to see what we can get. – New Scientist: Second Genesis: Life, but not as we know it
  • EXTRA: This is something gamers have been doing for years.. – New Scientist: Second Genesis: Making new life
  • EXTRA: Shadow Life gets a +4 bonus to all Stealth rolls, so they are hard to find.. – New Scientist: Second Genesis, Part 2: The search for shadow life
  • EXTRA: Yeah, that whole “two by two” thing of Noah’s might not have worked out that well.. – The UK Telegraph: Blue Ducks likely to die out in UK after male birds get together
  • EXTRA: Just because they are all collapsing at once doesn’t mean that there is a single, unified cause.. – BBC: ‘No proof’ of bee killer theory
  • EXTRA: Worst crime seems to be artificial inflation of concerns by making getting *off* the list far harder than getting *on*.. – New Scientist: ‘Flawed’ Red List putting species at risk
  • EXTRA: He’s still not getting any more candles on the cake, however. – BBC: ‘Peking Man’ older than thought
  • EXTRA: Turns out, birds aren’t so hard to predict. – ScienceDaily: Bizarre Bird Behavior Predicted By Game Theory
  • EXTRA: Irony, thy name is irony. – Ananova: Swimming pool to close if ‘too wet’
  • EXTRA: It’s the old “Marilyn Monroe slept here” phenomenon. – Ananova: Silly Burghers’ 007 museum
• Afterlife (EXTRAS)
  • EXTRA: His big plans? To play on the beach. – CafeTerra/AOL: A 4-year-old boy has won the use of an uninhabited tropical island
  • EXTRA: Interestingly enough, the reason we don’t remember our dreams is because the memory systems aren’t in sync. So, what about lucid dreaming? – ScienceDaily: Why Dreams Are So Difficult To Remember: Precise Communication Discovered Across Brain Areas During Sleep
  • EXTRA: This seems obvious, really. – New Scientist: Climate change already shaping society
  • EXTRA: Lots of monsters on the frescoes, but no further warnings of impending apocalypse that I recall.. – NewsDaily: Rare Maya panels found in Guatemala
  • EXTRA: It’s got HUGE fangs! (No, really!) – BBC: ‘Dracula’ fish shows baby teeth
  • EXTRA: This is *not* your typical vampire myth: in this case, they were concerned with the vampires gnawing their way out of the grave, so they put large stones in their mouths. How.. odd. – New Scientist: ‘Vampire’ discovered in mass grave
  • EXTRA: Once again, nature is far ahead of us in finding solutions. Perhaps we are *not* the “tenders of the garden”? – ScienceDaily: Yellowstone Alga Found To Detoxify Arsenic
  • EXTRA: That which does not eat you, becomes family.. – Ananova: Hen adopts puppies
  • EXTRA: Another set of experiments by Dr Richard Wiseman, the guy who doesn’t just wave his hand and say “that doesn’t really happen” (unlike most scientists) but actually tries to put these things to the test. – STV: Experts gather to investigate ghosts in Edinburgh
  • EXTRA: A case of precognition, or just happenstance? – The Times-Union/AP: Mich. teen escapes injury after listening to dad
  • EXTRA: This only works for Earl Hickey. – Yahoo!/AP: Magician who claimed he mailed self admits to hoax
  • EXTRA: Creepiest. Statue. EVAR. – The Mainichi Daily News: Tigers fans hope discovery of long-lost fast-food icon will lift ‘Curse of Colonel Sanders’
  • EXTRA: Reportedly, he didn’t pay up, and had no plans to. I think they’ll use tasers next.. – Ananova: TV licence demand sent to 16th century mathematician

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