Show Notes for TWS124: Life Mirrors Fart
On the show this week:
- Always Blame The Farting Dog
- Life is a Scifi/Horror Movie
- Shocking Revelations! (dropped on the cutting room floor) (EXTRA)
This week’s Challenge Question:
A “recession” is sometimes indicated by two consecutive quarters of “negative growth”. The economy, it is suggested, should always be growing. Forever and ever… Does this principle of infinite growth actually make sense?
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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: How To Grow Your Geek — If you have kids — or you even have friends with kids — Suzi will give you advice and her experience in how to interest them in geeky things, or how to understand and appreciate their geeky ways.
- Always Blame The Farting Dog
- Welcome to Pagan Kombat! Symbols will battle it out for domination of the season! FIGHT! – New Scientist: Chocolate eggs under threat from witches’ broom
- Some people have more money than brains. Or chocolate. – Ananova: £1,000 Easter egg ‘an investment’
- You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him mousse.. – Ananova: The mane attraction
- They jumped (on) the shark.. – Yahoo!/AP: Rare megamouth shark caught, eaten in Philippines
- Yes, but is the yoke on you? – Ananova: Hen lays green eggs
- Renaming things because people snicker? That’s bollocks! – Ananova: Never mind the pollacks – here’s Colin
- This will be in the next version of Porky’s, I’m sure.. – WCBS-TV/CBS: Burglar Cat Stealing Underwear, Gloves From Homes
- They’re watching you with those beady little eyes.. – ScienceDaily: Birds Can ‘Read’ Human Gaze
- Crafty chimps know that the way to a girl’s heart is through their stomachs — just like it is with girls after guys. – STV/Reuters: Chimps find candy is dandy but steak is quicker
- EXTRA: Some people are *never* satisfied.. – STV/Reuters: German woman divorces husband for cleaning too much
- Turns out, you can’t even teach a young dog new (cat) tricks.. – Ananova: Cat teaches puppies how to catch mice
- I guess “fish-slapping” would be considered “pre-meditated assault” now.. Next: spit-balls are grounds for attempted manslaughter and terrorism charges.. – ABC: Man charged with using fish as deadly weapon
- Always club your roadkill before putting it in the back seat.. Just saying: good general rule. – Ananova: Driver faces jail after ‘dead’ deer wakes up
- This is some sort of “Extermination Extravaganza: Battle for the Species” thing, right? – STV/Reuters: China pays deer price for condor protection
- EXTRA: I wonder if this is similar to Monty Python’s “killing joke” sketch.. – Ananova: Laughing man prompts rescue bid
- EXTRA: Maybe it was for making the ref cry? – Ananova: Footballer booked for breaking wind
- EXTRA: Maybe he swears that it was a dog, but even the dog would have been shot.. – Metro: Man’s farting prompts knife-throwing attack
- EXTRA: Jackassery in the name of skepticism is *still* jackassery.. – The Daily Record: UFO pranksters sentenced
- EXTRA: Blaming fiction for UFO sightings is like blaming video games for violence in the real world: some effect, but reality still *happens*. – BBC: Dr Who link to UFO sighting rise
- EXTRA: Dogs are versatile, I’ll grant them that: they’ll eat stuff that most of us would never consider.. – Yahoo!/AFP: Dog overboard found four months later
- Life is a Scifi/Horror Movie
- “… and eerie mist will flow from their eyes..” – The UK Daily Record: World War One gas horror of rescue workers as they try to help poison pellet man
- Finally, we’ll get to the bottom of that spacecraft that crashed.. (And then we’ll all melt..) – NOAA: Ice-Free Arctic Summers Likely Sooner Than Expected
- Meanwhile, the South Pole will reveal the lost city in the Mountains of Madness.. – BBC: Ice bridge ruptures in Antarctic
- While some call this a scary 1st demonstration of robotic independance, it still just looks like automated yeast farmers to me.. – BBC: Robo-scientist’s first findings
- Slightly more frightening is this pattern finder program, but not so sexy with its math rather than yeast (to some, anyway).. – Science Daily: Being Isaac Newton: Computer Derives Natural Laws From Raw Data
- “I’m going to be late for work today — my car caught a cold.” – BBC: Virus battery could ‘power cars’
- 32 years separates two photos which both show a ghost in the same location. Trick of the light? – Yahoo!/UK Press Association: Snap! We’ve got a ghost photo too
- I really gotta go to Great Britain: it is simultaneously the most haunted, the most UFO-ridden, and the most historical place I can think of.. – STV: Experts meet in Edinburgh to discuss existence of ghosts
- I *will* use this imagery in a story someday.. HANDS OFF, MR. KING! 😛 – The UK Telegraph: Skeleton found in tree 29 years after suicide
- “One day, the dead shall rule..” I wonder if this is what that strange lady meant.. – Metro: Town re-elects dead Mayor
- Zombies may already be among us; watch your neighbours for signs.. – NOLA/The Times-Picayune: Metairie man says stranger chewed, swallowed after taking bite out of his arm
- EXTRA: Ok, fine, you win. Wait.. isn’t this the plot of Pontypool? – Ananova: Week long radio show
- Now that’s… harsh and unusual fighting tactics.. – Metro: Friend bites man’s penis off in row
- Sometimes, even ridiculing something doesn’t remove it’s horrific implications.. – Metro: Anti-terror poster remix LOLs
- Next, they are going to gouge out the eyes of anyone caught glancing in their direction, then spend money for laws to make it legal. Then, we nuke them. (There, see? It’s a scifi/horror film.) – Ananova: Villagers boycott Google Street View
- EXTRA: The mole people are real! – BBC: Roman police find sewer children
- EXTRA: It’s like an anti-poo-flinging rule only… not poo. (Eww.. Although at this point I was planning to muse on the notion of what is “gross” and odd, especially given context..) – OregonLive/The Oregonian: House passes bill too gross to talk about
- EXTRA: The world, therefore, is doomed. (Or maybe nothing happened.) – BBC: Mecca mosques ‘wrongly aligned’
- EXTRA: So much for the male/female difference being a single chromosome. The real story is, of course, more complicated… – New Scientist: Girl with Y chromosome sheds light on maleness
- EXTRA: It’s seems unreasonable to expect that our form of life could not also exist elsewhere. It seems unreasonable to expect it *all* too, however.. – New Scientist: Do aliens share our genetic code?
- EXTRA: I think I did this story before, but there were flashy lights and now I can’t remember.. – ABC News: Drug-Free Therapy Could Erase Memories
- EXTRA: Technically, “rocket fuel” is found in all water, as hydrogen. Hype, panic or something actually important? Are babies going to blow out candles and blow across the room? – Yahoo!/AP: CDC: Rocket fuel chemical found in baby formula
- EXTRA: Someday, I hope that “ghostbuster” will be a really legitimate job title — and that I will do it. Y’know: why don’t we go ahead and *create* ghosts, even if they possibly don’t exist now.. – Ananova: Council calls in ‘ghostbusters’
- EXTRA: I believe that would be the first (real-life) identity transplant. Hope the doner wasn’t wanted for something.. – Yahoo!/AP: French hospital performs face, hand transplants
- EXTRA: It’s like sneak attacks versus mosquitos.. I like it! – New Scientist: ‘Evolution proof’ agents give mosquitoes a slow death
- EXTRA: Turns out, quantum theory suggests that a warp bubble wouldn’t be stable long enough to work. Quoting Scotty: “Ya canna change the laws of physics!” (Yeah, but lets try just ignoring them for a while, and get out of the theory labs!) – Technology Review/arXiv Blog: Quantum setback for warp drives
- EXTRA: Turns out, the phantom pilot was great at take-offs, but really sucked at actual flight.. – Ananova: Plane takes off without pilot
- EXTRA: Some former employees talk about how really boring and mundane it wos. I think I missed there being _any_ details in the discussion at all about *REDACTED* or even *REDACTED*. – Los Angeles Times: The Road to Area 51
- EXTRA: New possible ad campaign? “You wouldn’t kick Fluffy the cute dog, would you? Why, then, are you ultimately kiling Fluffy?” – New Scientist: Pets may become latest victims of climate change
- EXTRA: My problem is that the motivation of these TV junkits can’t really be all that pure, and are far from really scientifically motivated. – Hurriyet DailyNews: US documentarists in search of “Lake Van Monster” in Turkey
- EXTRA: The idea that a sasquatch might produce a mind-altering infrasound makes me wonder why nature hasn’t done this at least once, in some creature. Maybe we need to *build* it.. – Blogsquatcher: Sing me a lulaby, boogeyman
- Shocking Revelations! (dropped on the cutting room floor) (EXTRA)
- EXTRA: Doctor Who + Tesla Coils = EPIC AWESOME – Metro: These dudes, they sing the body electric
- I’m simultaneously impressed that they could figure it out, confused as to why they started looking, and curious about what applications they will use this info for.. Space stations, I’m hoping! – PhysOrg: The Physics of Pizza Tossing
- Turns out, the old saying “if you keep scratching, you’ll only make it itch more” isn’t really always true. – STV/Reuters: Tests shows how scratching brings relief
- Maybe she’s remembering something the aliens made her forget… – Metro: Woman with “a phantom third arm”
- EXTRA: She’ll raise your spirit and lift up your soul! Oh, Hallelujah! – Ananova: Ex-lap dancer to perform for church leaders
- EXTRA: When we start taking our advice from kids, there are two things that come to mind: 1) we are seekng innocent answers to our complex questions, to be free from our over-complicating experience; 2) they’re KIDS — they don’t know enough to give good advice, you fools! – Ananova: Girl, 7, is agony aunt
- EXTRA: I’m with the state in this case: no one should ever profess love of tofu, that’s just wrong.. Hmm.. Maybe “ILOVTOFU” *does* have another interpretation, however.. – The Colorado Independent: Colorado DMV nixes TOFU vanity plate citing obscenity concern
- EXTRA: Yes. (What, you were expecting more?) – Scientific American: Can someone live to be a supercentenarian?
- EXTRA: Good news: shorter hangovers! Bad news: hangover directly followed by a heart attack.. – Ananova: Proof that bacon butties cure hangovers
- EXTRA: Science once again showing that turning your back (haha) on folk methods might not be a good idea.. – New Scientist: Doctors tune in to the source of back pain
- EXTRA: It just goes to show: you need to have unnecessary “distractions” around for creative things to occur… So, keep your toys and baubles on your desks, geeks everywhere! – ScienceAlert: “Junk” DNA assists evolution
- EXTRA: Turns out, we aren’t related to the humble sponge. That means we can marry, right? – ScienceDaily: No Sponge In Human Family Tree: Sponges Descended From Unique Ancestor
- EXTRA: How do you get poisoned by something that isn’t in your area? – BBC: Punjab disability ‘uranium link’
- EXTRA: With so much in nature being so malleable, doesn’t it seem like humanity really is in a dead-end rut, evolutionarily speaking? – LiveScience: Bees’ Brains Morph to Avoid Mid-Life Crisis [by] Robert Roy Britt
- EXTRA: A loverly bit of “space porn”, in which we assume that what we see is what we think — but one day, maybe it will be true.. – ScienceDaily: Young Pulsar Shows Its Hand
- EXTRA: It was all part of a secret mission to cover the grail, perhaps.. – The UK Times: Knights Templar hid the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican
- EXTRA: Turns out that we humans really suck at keeping things clean.. – Cryptomundo: MonsterQuest Makes Loch Ness Discovery
- EXTRA: Time may actually heal all heartaches (if you live long enough). – NewsDaily: Scientists prove human heart can regenerate cells
- EXTRA: It’s kinda like not chaining down a tonne of steel — not like anyone can really steal it easily anyway.. – Ananova: Contractors left bank unlocked
- EXTRA: I just hope she had a baby with her at the time.. – Ananova: Driver caught breastfeeding at wheel
- EXTRA: I’m pretty sure that the cops weren’t saying “please” when they asked the criminal to drop the gun, and it caused hurt feelings. – Ananova: New guide to keep PCs PC
- EXTRA: Mixing up and separating twins is really letting bureaucratic paperwork overcome common sense, I suspect.. – BBC: Award for twins switched at birth
- EXTRA: Maybe it was creating bus policy changes via wishful thinking? – Coventry Telegraph: The bus stop – on a road that buses don’t run
- EXTRA: Wait until a casino gets in on this, and makes his tie 100′ wide and have flashing neon/LED’s.. – Ananova: Groom sells advertising space on tie
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