Archive for June, 2009
A Once In A Generation Event Leads To Saturn’s Rings Disappearing
Charlie Jane Anders, io9.com: Check out that flat shadow crossing Saturn’s rings. It’s the shadow of Mimas, one of Saturn’s moons, and its appearance means we’re getting closer to Saturn’s equinox, when it’ll be spring in the North and the rings will go dark.
Saturn’s equinox only happens about once every fifteen years, and it’s when the sun crosses the plane of Saturn’s rings. Before that happens, you start to see the shadows of Saturn’s moons across the rings. According to Astronomy Now:
“During this celestial alignment, the shadows of the planet’s rings fall in the equatorial region on the planet, and the shadows of Saturn’s moons external to the rings, especially those whose orbits are inclined with respect to the equator, begin to intersect the planet’s rings. Any vertical protuberances within the rings, including small embedded moons and narrow vertical warps in the rings will also cast shadows on the rings.…
Psychedelic Rock Innovator Sky Saxon Dies
Being a friend of Sky and a former band-mate I received a call this morning: Sky Saxon, lead singer of ’60s rock group The Seeds, is dead.
The Seeds were contemporaries of The Doors and played the same clubs, recording hits such as ‘Pushin’ Too Hard’, ‘Mr. Farmer’ (later featured on Nixon’s Black List), ‘Can’t Seem To Make You Mine’, and many others.
Their ‘garage’ sound went on to influence legions of rock musicians, knowingly or not. Those who point to The Stooges as the first punk band may need to reconsider — The Seeds beat them by a few years, and one wonders at the similarities between Sky’s voice and Iggy Pop’s.
Sky collapsed Monday during a performance due to heart failure. He’d been gaining ground in his pursuit for recognition — Morrison is a household icon,
and I was on a tour bus with him for weeks before I even had an…
Jesse Ventura On Legalizing Drugs
Jesse Ventura pulls no punches in this candid interview with Opie & Anthony on Sirius XM:
This Is My Column. This Is My Column On Drugs. Any Questions?
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian: In areas of moral and political conflict people will always behave badly with evidence, so the war on drugs is a consistent source of entertainment. We have already seen how cannabis being “25 times stronger” was a fantasy, how drugs-related deaths were quietly dropped from the outcome measures for drugs policy, and how a trivial pile of poppies was presented by the government as a serious dent in the Taliban heroin revenue.
The Home Affairs Select Committee is now looking at the best way way to deal with cocaine. You may wonder why they’re bothering. When the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs Act looked at the evidence on the reclassification of cannabis, they were simply ignored. When Professor David Nutt, the new head of the advisory council, wrote a scientific paper on the relatively modest risks of MDMA, he was personally attacked by the Home…
Website Hoax: Jeff Goldblum Not Dead
Daniel Hurst, Brisbane Times: They say bad news comes in threes. Perhaps that explains major media outlets’ rush to believe unconfirmed reports this morning that American actor Jeff Goldblum had died.
As the world came to terms with the news pop superstar Michael Jackson had suffered a heart attack and former Charlie’s Angels actress Farrah Fawcett had died from cancer, the rumour of Goldblum’s death surfaced.
The news has now been revealed as a hoax.
But only after gaining widespread news coverage and generating a flurry of activity on social networking websites. “Jeff Goldblum dead” was at 11am the third-most popular search term on Google. All the other top-10 search terms revealed on Google Trends related to Michael Jackson’s death.
It appears the rumour of Goldblum’s death originated on a spoof website that generates generic news stories about celebrity deaths.
The Strange Life of Creatures Whose Sperm Is Larger Than They Are
io9.com: Some insects and sea creatures produce sperm that is up to 10 times bigger than they are. Now scientists have used an innovative new x-ray technology to show how this bizarre situation evolved over hundreds of millions of years.
It sounds like a genetic aberration, but supergiant sperm can actually be an evolutionary advantage in several species. Fruit flies are a just a few millimeters long, but their sperm are 6 cm long. To top that, a human male would have to shoot out sperm that are up to 60 meters long. Another super giant sperm producer is a type of ostracod, a sea crustacean that looks like a tiny snail less than a centimeter long. Its sperm grows up to 10 times longer than its body.
Shockingly Violent Coffee Commercials Starring Muppets
SuperPunch: Surprisingly violent series of commercials for Wilkins Coffee, featuring primitive Muppets. One of the ads involves a guillotine. Hard to believe, but it apparently was a genuine ad campaign:
War Book Reveals How Britain Planned to Cope with Nuclear Attack
Stephen Bates, The Guardian: New details of how Britain would have been governed in the event of a nuclear war from the 1960s into the 1990s have been disclosed with the publication of the secret War Book.
The document, over 16 chapters, gives precise plans and instructions for what would have been done by officialdom during the build-up to an international confrontation and after the bombs started falling.
There are indications that aspects of the arrangements have been adapted for use during other, domestic, emergencies since the cold war, including the fuel protests in 2000.
Although some of the plans have been revealed before – including earlier this year the scripts that would have been broadcast by the BBC in the event of a nuclear war, instructing the public not to panic – governments of the period left nothing to chance, including the censoring of private mail.
The country would have been divided into…
Marty Beckerman Interviews P.J. O’Rourke
The Daily Beast: The bestselling humorist talks to DUMBOCRACY author Marty Beckerman about his new car anthology, Driving Like Crazy — plus how the GM takeover is like an addiction, and why he didn’t get killed as a globetrotting reporter…
Beckerman: P.J. O’Rourke is a relentless quote machine. The bestselling humorist and foreign correspondent, who inherited the Rolling Stone national affairs desk from Hunter Thompson in the 1980s, has cultivated an image as a bitter old man, but remains the only conservative whom left wingers admit is hysterical (in a good way). His new anthology of automotive journalism, Driving Like Crazy, is released this week.
Are we ready to start, or do you need to finish another interview first?
I was just finishing with Nancy Grace. Or was it Bill O’Reilly? They look so much alike, impossible to tell…
The book tour doesn’t sound quite as bad as a dozen years in a North Korean gulag.
No, I’m too…
Michael Jackson Dead at 50
The Los Angeles Times reports that Michael Jackson has died at age 50 after being rushed to UCLA Medical Center. Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Steve Ruda told the newspaper that Jackson was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his home and CPR was performed. TMZ.com reported that he may have suffered cardiac arrest.
Michael Jackson ‘King of Pop’, R.I.P.
[Updated at 3:15 p.m.: Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told the Times.]
[Updated at 2:46 p.m.: Jackson is in a coma and family have are arriving at his bedside, a law enforcement source told the Times.
Jackson was rushed to a hospital this afternoon by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics.
Capt. Steve Ruda said paramedics responded to a call at Jackson’s home around 12:26 p.m. He was not breathing when they arrived. The parademics performed CPR and took him to UCLA Medical Center, Ruda told the Times.
[Updated at 2:12 p.m.: Paramedics were called to a home on the 100 block of Carolwood Drive off Sunset Boulevard. Jackson rented the Bel Air home for $100,000 a month. It was described as a French chateau estate built in 2002 with seven bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, 12…
Health Insurance Executive Speaks Out
Testimony given before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation:
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be here this afternoon.
My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick — all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.
… The average family doesn’t understand how Wall Street’s dictates determine whether they will be offered coverage, whether they can keep it, and how much they’ll be charged for it. But, in fact, Wall Street plays a powerful role. The top priority of for-profit companies is to drive up the value of their stock.
… Notices that insurers are required to send to policyholders — those explanation-of-benefit documents that are supposed to explain how the insurance company calculated its payments to providers and how much is left for the…
FOX ‘News’ Denies Their Own Kind (Again)
When does an embattled Republican suddenly become an embattled Democrat? When Fox News is covering him, of course.
The network known for its conservative leaning ran footage of Mark Sanford admitting to an extramarital affair on Wednesday with a Chyron identifying the South Carolina Republican — near tears — as a D, for Democrat.
But it’s also worth adding that this is not the first time the network has misidentified a GOPer in the midst of acknowledging misconduct. When former congressman Mark Foley admitted to having problems with alcoholism — after reports that he had behaved inappropriately with congressional pages — Fox News also identified him as a Democrat.
Crop Circles, Poppies — And Tripping Wallabies
Wallabies snacking in opium poppy fields are getting “high as a kite” and hopping around creating crop circles.Tasmania is the world’s largest producer of legally-grown opium for the pharmaceutical market.
Tasmania attorney-general Lara Giddings told a budget hearing yesterday that she recently read about the wallabies in a brief on the state’s large poppy industry.
She said: “We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles.”Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.
Sharks Threatened WIth Extinction
Almost a third of sharks and rays found in the open ocean are threatened with extinction – largely as a result of overfishing, conservationists have warned.
The first assessment of the global fortunes of 64 species of pelagic, or open ocean, sharks and rays found 32 per cent were under threat including the great white shark and basking shark.
The study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) blamed tuna and swordfish fisheries that often catch sharks as accidental “by-catch”. Sharks are also being increasingly targeted themselves to supply growing demand for shark meat and fins.
Warren Buffett: U.S. Economy In ‘Shambles’ … No Signs of Recovery Yet
In a live interview on CNBC today, Warren Buffett said there has been little progress over the past few months in the “economic war” being fought by the country. “We haven’t got the economy moving yet”…
Researcher Implants Laser-Activated Brain Cells!
A Stanford researcher has spliced light-sensitive algae genes into a human brain cell to fire neurons whenever they’re activated by a laser. Light is shone through an implanted fiber optic cable (blue light on, yellow light off). “Once the researcher attaches the other end of the cable to a laser, he or she has absolute and flawless control over that group of neurons.”
Implanted electrodes are already used to treat Parkinson’s, chronic pain, and depression, but “optogenetics” can reach even deeper into the brain and target very specific deep structures too fragile for surgery. But author Quinn Norton cites it as a first attempt at “building useful handles on the very things that make us ourselves,” and her article has ended up featured in the transhumanist magazine h+.
The Six Best 2012 Apocalypse Theories (Are All Bullshit)
Luis Prada, Cracked.com: You may have noticed a recent trend of trying to fit every hackneyed doomsday prophecy into the same red-letter year of 2012. The theories are obtuse, their connections are flimsy and the perceived consequences are completely unsubstantiated.
Unsurprisingly, these prophecies are enormously popular.
Web-bot: In the late 90s, some brainiacs created a computer program called Web-bot to make stock market predictions, perhaps out of a belief that large amounts of money would be the only way any of them would ever get laid. Web-bot works like an Internet search engine does, but it presents its results in the form of numerical trends.
Basically, it was designed to tap in to our collective unconscious by analyzing information on the Internet and then make predictions based on its findings. So it’s kind of like Trending Topics on Twitter, only people inexplicably trusted it to provide meaningful financial advice.
In 2001, the aforementioned brainiacs reasoned…
God, He Really Is A Moody One
In an interview with something to offend everyone, Robert Wright explains why religion has given us a fickle deity.
Steve Paulson, Salon: Robert Wright has carved out a distinct niche in American journalism. While his essays range freely across the political landscape — from foreign policy to technology — it’s his meaty, book-length forays into evolutionary psychology and the sweep of history that have set him apart. Now his latest book goes after bigger game: God Almighty.
Actually, The Evolution of God never grapples with the most basic religious question — the existence of God. Instead it charts the twists and turns of how God’s personality has kept changing over the centuries, and specifically, how the rough-and-tumble politics of the ancient Middle East shaped the Abrahamic religions. The book is filled with richly observed details about the Bible and the Quran, though Wright wears his learning lightly as he guides us through several…
