TWS140: Knowledge is Power, Please Recharge Your Brain
Promos: 7th Son the novel ; Technorama
CQ: So many traditions which give life meaning are based on pagan/religious or otherwise fantastical ideas. These are inconsistent with the scientific, rational way of life. Is this a contradiction, or does this speak to something fundamentally important about belief and the universe?
On the show this week:
- The World Is Out To Get You (But That’s Ok!)
- The More You Know, The More You Thought You Knew
- That Which You Don’t Know
Full list of 88 articles after the jump!
- The World Is Out To Get You (But That’s Ok!):
- (EXTRA) The world is an intolerant place, unable to accept variation.. It may not even be person, but financial.: Metro – Two-headed baby abandoned in China
- But wait — that’s a *good* thing!: The UK Telegraph – Kissing was developed ‘to spread germs’
- I’m not sure I like the idea of being an ecology.. Or colony.. I’m not sure we find it surprising, tho’..: New Scientist – Human microbes are picky about neighbourhoods on body
- Nothing like f******g someone’s brains out, but I never took that so literally..: CNN Health/CNN – Sex, then amnesia…and it’s no soap opera
- This is one of those tragic stories on which great literature can be made..: The Daily Mail – Woman discovers she’s allergic to her husband… on their wedding night
- This *can’t* be good. I don’t think they even *get* a vaccine, and if it can go back to humans again.. Wait: does that make it feline flu then?: The Jackson Sun/AP – Officials: Swine flu confirmed in Iowa cat
- Vlad the Inhaler?: CBC – ‘Vampire’ spiders use blood as perfume
- Although not quite as sinister as it sounds, still pretty freaky.: The UK Telegraph – Japanese fishing trawler sunk by giant jellyfish
- I think I’m not alone in forgetting that the skin is our largest sensory organ, but the realization that sensations come from *within* as well as outside is a wonderful thought inversion.: New Scientist – Skin helps heartbeat creep into consciousness
- It’s a little like knowing when you are going to die, or any other “spoilers” from the future..: New Scientist – Genes show when a woman’s biological clock will stop
- Just don’t press the “iFart” button instead..: Yahoo!/Reuters – Scared of flying? Press the fear iButton
- (EXTRA) Always schedule emergencies outside of break time.: BBC – Patient left locked in ambulance
- Most interest part of story seems to be that they were dealing with a dynamic duo of lions, one who liked steak and the other chicken..: ScienceDaily – Notorious ‘Man-eating’ Lions Of Tsavo Likely Ate About 35 People — Not 135, Scientists Say
- (EXTRA) Have you seen plane service vs prices? I’d faint, too..: BBC – Alert as six faint on board plane
- Ironically enough, I believe this is also the way that life will end, unless we GET OFF THIS ROCK.: New Scientist – Was life founded on cyanide from space crashes?
- (EXTRA) I don’t care that we might have caused it: climate change is *real*.: ScienceDaily – Snows Of Kilimanjaro Shrinking Rapidly, And Likely To Be Lost
- (EXTRA) One could argue that we evolved house fires multiple times, too.. (Well, *I* would.. badly.): ScienceDaily – Venomous Shrew And Lizard: Harmless Digestive Enzyme Evolved Twice Into Dangerous Toxin In Two Unrelated Species
- (EXTRA) Who knew that bears could be so.. *wrinkly*?: The Daily Mail – Who’s taken my fur coat? Vets baffled by bald bears with mystery condition
- (EXTRA) Turns out: it’s glue. Or maybe the dead bodies of insects. Or maybe miniature fangs.: Discovery On/ANI – What makes spider webs sticky
- Most of the video shows mutant dogs, and one is an irrelevant possible-hoax, but the description of a cross between kangaroo and dog sounds interesting..: EverythingPR – More Chupacabra Video As Reported Sightings Increase
- We need to place our lives in the hands of our servant robots, so that they may guide us toward a brighter future. And so it is written, and so it should be.. And the meekbots will inherit the earth..: New Scientist – Innovation: Can technology persuade us to save energy?
- (EXTRA) Is the notion of an “alien abduction” really just our modern, up-to-date theory of what is going on? Is this like the early “flat earth” theories, bound to be discovered false if anyone takes the time to really study it?: Cabinet of Wonders – The Gateshead Grey: Britain’s earliest alien abduction?
- (EXTRA) Poltergeists? Firebugs? Rats with matches?: The Malaysian Star/Bernama – Strange happenings force family to live in small hut
- (EXTRA) Another case of a home mysteriously catching on fire. Does this constitute an interesting trend?: Prague Daily Monitor – Experts cannot explain paranormal events in Czech house
- A case of spontaneous combustion?: WFTV – Woman’s Charred Body Found In Unburned Trailer
- This is enough to start people protesting in the streets..: Ananova – Virtual bonfire night
- (EXTRA) As historically illustrated by Finnigen’s Wake, sometimes we can be too quick to grieve..: Yahoo!/AP – Man appears alive at own funeral in Brazil
- (EXTRA) Hey, if you steal someone’s home, you better be prepared for righteous retribution..: BBC – Bear kills militants in Kashmir
- (EXTRA) Given that the universe appears to operate on multiple levels similarly (like a fractal), do metaphors like “the planet/human race is a body, UFOs are like infections/diseases” not start to make sense?: The UFO Iconoclasts – UFOs and The Divine Milieu
- (EXTRA) Typical bone-headed human move: pollute it in the first place, then act surprised when you find it polluted..: NewsDaily – Space junk storm will up mission costs: experts
- (EXTRA) It’s when things operate on such a long scale that they start to shake me up.: New Scientist – Quakes from the 1800s still shaking planet
- (EXTRA) A perfect example of why I don’t report most UFO stories..: The Sun – I saw UFO beam up a buffalo
- The More You Know, The More You Thought You Knew:
- There needs to be serious study of *everything*; granted, I personally would like to do *not-so-serious* research on a lot of things..: BBC – Student gets psychic scholarship
- Most of the time, *not* claiming to see giant brightly-coloured rabbits is a *good* thing..: Oregon Live/The Oregonian – Hit-and-run driver claimed he didn’t see 6-foot-tall orange rabbit on the pedicab
- Psychic healing, under the microscope. Of course, it’s not a universal trait, no more than blue eyes or O- blood.: Michael Prescott’s Blog – Of mice and men
- Turns out, maybe the body *does* obey the mind, to a degree.. If the placebo effect is real, why *couldn’t* it get better?: The Examiner – Are our beliefs making the placebo lie more powerful for healing?
- The device bears a striking similarity in description to a dowsing rod; if so, someone should be aware that dowsing rods don’t seem to work for everyone (although they *do* seem to work for some).. Perhaps, however, there is a psychological effect worki: The New York Times – Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. Sees as Useless
- By this logic, I should generally be really capable of remembering stuff. #FAIL: Yahoo!/Reuters – Thinking negatively can boost your memory, study finds
- A bit more impressive than the communication via binary presented a week or two ago.: The UK Telegraph – Scientists use computer to ‘read minds’ on screen
- (EXTRA) Well, it *took* them long enough… But what’s that thing standing behind him? It’s… AAAAAGH!: The UK Telegraph – Japanese scientists create ‘Alien’ bionic arm
- (EXTRA) “Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary proof,” but perhaps extraordinary coincidences are themselves proof of… something?: The Irish Independent – Art may be imitating life in one ‘uncanny’ portrait
- They are getting closer and closer to inventing the things we told them to invent during the ’80s..: BBC – Smart spectacles aid translation
- If you can get deeply absorbed into your soaps characters, your novel characters and your movie characters — that you *don’t* control — why *wouldn’t* you start to grow attached to your game characters? And what about gamers?: New Scientist – How your brain sees virtual you
- The notion that the weather is fundamentally “simple” should really have been apparent by the generations of relatively uneducated farmers who are quite able to tell the weather. They weren’t dumb, just in tune to patterns that mattered to them.: New Scientist – Tomorrow’s weather: Cloudy, with a chance of fractals
- (EXTRA) Fortunately, such things aren’t tolerated here.. Well, people couldn’t tolerate the weather, so they don’t do them..: BBC – Police quash nude pumpkin run
- (EXTRA) Most kids know that a good roll in the mud is healthy, but is it *that* healthy?: Ananova – Muddy miracle worker
- (EXTRA) It will be *impossible* to send him to his room, now..: Ananova – Boy, 11, declared reincarnated holy man
- (EXTRA) One wonders if similar cases are what set the original stories in motion.: MSNBC/AP – Maine girl with ‘mermaid syndrome’ dies at 10
- (EXTRA) The true demonstration of a tolerant society is one in which tolerance is not only afforded to those who are like you..: Gothamist – Paganism Becomes Key Issue in Queens City Council Race
- (EXTRA) I’d like to put my money on “all of them”, but I think it’s an unfortunate longshot..: Irish Central – Huge Irish bookmaker Paddy Power wants bets on next star to ditch Scientology
- The Cryptozoology Museum has opened up (nearly) officially. Go! Visit it! I will try to get there in the next year.: Crytomundo – If We Build It, They Will Come
- (EXTRA) It’s a total sausage fest.. No, really: the Scots carry some fine sausages!: STV – Butchers want to protect our Lorne
- (EXTRA) It probably has something to do with all the spooky castles, dark moors, centuries of invasion and bloodshed, and lots of buried history..: The UK Guardian – How Britain became a nation of ghost hunters
- (EXTRA) If Bigfoot has successfully hidden from all the nasty predators in the woods, why do people think that it couldn’t be carefully hidden from amateur (or even experienced) investigators?: The Courier Express – Finnigan: Sasquatch in our woods?
- (EXTRA) Just going to show us that we don’t know this planet anywhere near as well as we think we do; and that insects are the real rulers of this planet..: MSNBC/AP – Yellowstone ‘bioblitz’ uncovers hidden species
- (EXTRA) Most exciting thing to me was the statement “they are not rays, they are a series of particles”. Makes *soo* much more sense now..: ScienceDaily – Origin Of Cosmic Rays: VERITAS Telescopes Help Solve 100-year-old Mystery
- (EXTRA) Um.. If we already knew that only 5 percent of the universe was made up of real matter, doesn’t that mean the rest is just “space’? Granted: *heavy* space..: ScienceDaily – Dark Matter And Dark Energy Make Up 95 Percent Of Universe, Detailed Measurements Reveal
- (EXTRA) When it’s just Joe Average on the street saying it, maybe it’s dismissable, but when someone in power says it, maybe it should carry some weight..: The UFO Chronicles – Former Brazilian Air Force Minister Re UFOs: “Technology Far More Advanced Than Ours”
- (EXTRA) A remarkably interesting video shows some tracking of apparent lights in the sky. If real, it raises a fascinating number of questions, not least of which is how often such moving lights really can be seen.: De Void/The Herald Tribune – Trolling for evidence
- (EXTRA) Some people believe that the governments of the world have been hiding UFO contact for decades. I’m torn, because that would mean that they are far more efficient and competent that I generally give them credit for..: Exopolitics Blog – Is Disclosure Imminent?
- (EXTRA) A beautiful sight, day or night.. I wonder if there is a silver pot at the end of a night rainbow? Or a cheest pot!: The UK Telegraph – Rainbow in the night sky
- (EXTRA) A tale of the potential origins of the heads, between the short-eared workers and the long-eared ruling class. Wait.. are we talking humans and elves here?: Philip Coppens/Frontier Magazine – The stone heads of Easter Island
- (EXTRA) And yet, no matter how many times I dig in my front yard, all I find is worms..: Discover On/novinite.com – Bulgarian Archaeologists Find Silver Treasure in Thracian Tomb
- (EXTRA) I can imagine a cross-section illustration of Britain, in which there is: on top, thin modern society; below that, a thin layer of soil; after that, nothing but treasures.: STV – Iron Age treasure haul uncovered in Stirling field
- (EXTRA) Proof that information flows well on a web..: Ananova – Facebook finds lost camera owner
- (EXTRA) But don’t worry — it might be natural.: Yahoo!/AFP – Mont Blanc shrinks by foot-and-a-half
- (EXTRA) I’ve never bought the theory that only vegetable (or to some, only animal matter!) is responsible for oil deposits. Something of that never set well with me..: ScienceDaily – Abiotic Synthesis Of Methane: New Evidence Supports 19th-Century Idea On Formation Of Oil And Gas
- That Which You Don’t Know:
- (EXTRA) A remarkable simulacra root that is the rough shape of a human.. Well, a Cthulhic human, maybe..: Ananova – Getting to the root of the matter
- (EXTRA) What are they worried about — that the cat will smuggle in a file?: The UK Telegraph – Cat banned from visiting Buddhist bank robber in jail
- (EXTRA) This is one case where I think we are safe from a religious cult forming..: The UK Telegraph – Beatle Ringo Starr’s face seen in water droplet on lotus leaf
- (EXTRA) There’s questioning The Grand Design, and then there’s outright mocking it. I think I choose the latter, here..: Yahoo!/AP – Man says image of Jesus appears on truck window
- (EXTRA) I always thought that “being the Queen’s footman” was a full-time job..: Ananova – Queen’s footman is champ wrestler
- (EXTRA) These people are a whole new level of cheap. For the money they won, they could recreate the house, brick by brick..: Ananova – Lotto winners refuse to leave council house
- (EXTRA) I’m not really sure how this qualifies as a “record”, since it’s nothing more than a big pile o’ meat..: Ananova – World’s biggest meatball
- (EXTRA) Well, it might be argued that he *was* pursuing a public propoganda campaing aimed at promoting military conquests, but that might be stretching it..: Ananova – Poppy seller told to undergo risk assessment
- (EXTRA) It’s like a flash mob for God.: BBC – 7,000 at shrine for ‘apparition’
- (EXTRA) It’s a fine example of situational economies, or perhaps relative value. : The UK Telegraph – Pablo Escobar burnt £1m in cash to keep warm on the run
- (EXTRA) An example of someone who used their passion for what some might consider “laughable” reasons to create not only practical byproducts but also scientific interest. We should all be so laughable.: Cryptomundo – Loch Ness Hero Robert Rines Dies
- (EXTRA) Tom Biscardi’s name pops up again, so the alarm bells are going off; once burned, twice shy. (Hmm.. maybe Bigfoot was burned?): Charleston Daily Mail – Man hopes to prove Bigfoot exists in W.Va.
- (EXTRA) This would be one of those things that isn’t quite covered by “whoops!”..: Ananova – Wildlife officer loses alligator in school
- (EXTRA) Are they being frightened from the briny depth due to movement of giant tentacle-faced star-spawn? (Probably not.. but *still*!): BBC – Rare whale gathering sighted
- (EXTRA) They aren’t nearly as prudish as we are about it, either..: CBS/AP – Study: Crabs Trade Favors for Sex
- (EXTRA) Somehow, they are trying to diminish my imaginary view of Mars, what with the oceans of mud..: Discovery On/ANI – Martian water may have flowed as slurries of mud
- (EXTRA) It’s likely the most expensive 96 seconds on the planet..: Ananova – Children take ‘world’s shortest flight’ to school
- (EXTRA) A discussion of the times when witches were burned for their crimes – y’know, like “existing” and “believing something different”. I think that was last week, in some places..: BBC – The burning times
- (EXTRA) I wonder if they cut down the trees to make the lines? Sounds like oil and the automobile industry, actually..: Reuters – Deforestation sped demise of Nasca in Peru: study
- (EXTRA) Or maybe they just like treating surveys like rubbish..: Ananova – Kids think Hitler was a football coach
- (EXTRA) I’m sensing a popular belief that there is a “taze first, ask questions never” attitude out there. Stories like this don’t help, but just reinforce fear/uncertainty/doubt..: Kent News Net/Kent State University – Police use taser on Kent resident
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