Did the Earth Flip Over in the Past?

"Scientists have found evidence that the Earth might have flipped over in the past, completely shifting the orientation of its poles."

It's because the Earth started out as God's pancake!

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Beautiful Picture of a Lagoon Nebula

"The lovely Lagoon Nebula spans about 30 light-years at an estimated distance of 5,000 light-years toward the constellation Sagittarius."

Too bad modern art doesn't even try to be this pretty...

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Spintronics: A New Spin on Computing

"A growing effort is underway among researchers to find a way to make spintronics, the manipulation of electrons' "spin" to do computing, practical. The promise is clear: spintronics could lead to computers that turn on instantly and electronics that use far less battery power, and also overcome the looming limits to Moore's Law."

Hmmm... I don't understand the science of this at all...

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October 3rd Declared "Day Against DRM"

Is DRM really that bad? I think it would only be loathed by people who enjoy illegal downloading... I'm afraid I have no reason to be against it.

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CNN news anchor's mic left on during bathroom break (Video)

"CNN apologized Tuesday after an open mike transmitted an anchor’s bathroom conversation with another woman live over the network as it was carrying President Bush’s speech in New Orleans."

Oops! It stinks when you tell a friend that your sister-in-law is a control freak and broadcast it for the whole world to hear...

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Biggest scam in EVE Online (and maybe all MMO) history

"It might have been a scene out of some movie about the Great Depression. Hundreds of frantic people tearing their hair out as they mob the doors to a bank, only to realize that the bank's owners, along with their money, had vanished into thin air..."

Hmmm... a con artist in an online game? Quite interesting... If this were done in the real world, it would of course be a crime, but what about in an online multiplayer game?

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Bowmaster - Addictive Flash Game

Fun Flash game...

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Bring Back the Side Scrollers

Game design advice: KISS, I guess?

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New Spore Gameplay Footage

Some new footage of Spore, the game in development by Maxis, creators of Sims, headed by Will Wright. Spore will most likely be the best game ever created. I can imagine spending countless hours just on designing creatures and watching them come to life.

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Hubble Spies Supernova Remnant

"NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope took this photograph of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, one of the youngest remnants we know of in the Milky Way."

Kaboom. Wow, look at all that space smoke. I wonder how many aliens were killed just from the debris...

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Why not to post pictures of your illegal snake on Myspace

"Mecklenburg County Animal Control has confiscated a 90 pound snake living in a home near Freedom Park... Neighbors first saw the python on their neighbor’s Myspace.com page."

What an idiot. I think I saw him on a plane...

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Mars offering 2 million dark chocolate M&M's for return of "The Scream"

"A new ad campaign launched by the owner of the M&M's brand aims to make eating dark chocolate a scream. M&M's is offering 2 million dark chocolate M&M's for the return of "The Scream," a painting by Edvard Munch that was stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, in 2004."

Yummy. I wish I had stolen the painting, but Danny Ocean doesn't like me.

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September 11, 2001 from space

The smoke went a long way.

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Rare high-altitude clouds found on Mars

"Planetary scientists have discovered the highest clouds above any planetary surface."

Mary Poppins would love to sit on those!

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Groundbreaking Discovery Of Chimpanzee Tool-Use Reported

"Field scientists working in the Ebo forest of Cameroon, Central Africa recently made a groundbreaking discovery when they witnessed chimpanzees using stone hammers to crack open hard-shelled nuts to extract the edible interior."

Um... uh... that's great. They still don't have eternal souls.

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New Startup Podango Will Pay Podcast Directors $$

Unfortunately I am no longer in a quiet enough environment to create podcasts on a regular basis (college is noisy, not to mention an overall waste of time and money because of poor decisions made by educators on what to make students spend time learning), but this might become something neat if a market develops for podcasters and talented people like... me.

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Scientists Find Memory Molecule

"They demonstrate that by inhibiting the molecule they can erase long-term memories, much as you might erase a computer disc."

Oh, great, just as my short story involving memory loss gets rejected again, building a Losian (a machine that erases your memory) becomes possible... well, maybe not quite, but close enough.

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Will the Hobbit (Homo floresiensis) Argument Ever Be Resolved?

"For the past two years, researchers have been hotly debating (and coming dangerously close to fighting over) whether the fossils of a diminutive hominin found in Indonesia are those of a previously unknown species. The publication this week of some long-standing doubts over the 'hobbit' fossils show the debate is far from over."

I say these are not hobbits, because the hobbits could not have lived in Indonesia. They must have lived in Ireland because of the celtic-like music we all heard playing in Lord of the Rings during the Shire scenes. Also, the Shire was very green, and Irish people like green.

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Took you long enough

"QUITO, Ecuador - Maria Esther de Capovilla, believed to be the world's oldest person, has died at 116, her granddaughter said. Born on Sept. 14, 1889, Capovilla was married in 1917 and widowed in 1949. She always ate three meals a day and never smoked or drank hard liquor, her family said."

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20 Things You Didn't Know About... Death

I don't mean to be morbid, but...

"#13 During a railway expansion in Egypt in the 19th century, construction companies unearthed so many mummies that they used them as fuel for locomotives."

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Philips Lumalive textile garments

"The jackets and furniture feature its innovative Lumalive technology. Lumalive textiles make it possible to create fabrics that carry dynamic advertisements, graphics and constantly changing color surfaces."

A future in which everyone partly designs their own clothes, or becomes walking advertisements that actually change and/or are animated, might be pretty neat (though distracting to drivers). While Philips new technology might be a step toward that future, it's hard to tell if this will make an immediate difference or not. Probably not, but wearing a jacket that changes color would be a great way to get noticed if you think it will boost your self-esteem and don't want to get an ugly haircut.

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Best mistakes with pictures

Movies' great glaring discontinuities and mistakes you never noticed... of course the Harry Potter ones can simply be explained by magic.

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Brain's Filing System Uncovered

"Socks in the sock drawer, shirts in the shirt drawer, the time-honored lessons of helping organize one’s clothes learned in youth. But what parts of the brain are used to encode such categories as socks, shirts, or any other item, and how does such learning take place?"

Memory is just so cool.

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Crazy Mouse speed game

I could only get to level 9 ... it's fun until it gets too hard.

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Oh, I don't want the Fields Metal...

"In 'A Beautiful Mind,' mathematics has been infused with the legend of the mad genius cut off from the physical world and dwelling in a separate realm of numbers. Last week, a reclusive Russian topologist named Grigory Perelman seemed to be playing to type, or stereotype, when he refused to accept the highest honor in mathematics, the Fields Medal." Perelman doesn't seem to like the idea of the award, that is, awarding a person for an idea when men must stand on the shoulders of giants to find them. Fame and awards encourage egotism, which gets in the way of the ultimate search for truth. Who cares about the Fields Medal? It ultimately means whatever we make it mean... does it mean anything? Is it good for egotists to compete in the search for truth, or do competitions and awards just waste time?

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The Social Organism: Even Microbes Favor Their Own Kin

New research published by Rice University biologists in this week's issue of Nature finds that even the simplest of social creatures - single-celled amoebae - have the ability not only to recognize their own family members but also to selectively discriminate in favor of them... racist amoebae! They need affirmative action, that will make everything alright.

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Molyneux fires warning about Wii controller

"Peter Molyneux, the legendary game designer responsible for games like Populous, Theme Park and The Movies, has issued a warning to future games designers regarding the new motion sensing control pads - that gamers may be too lazy to use them!" While some people disagree with him... like Nintendo fans... he's most likely right. While non-standard game controllers seem innovative at first, they often pair up with only one or two games designed for their use and do not revolutionize the way games are played at all. Who would want to swing a controller around to control Zelda's sword? That's a stupid idea... maybe. Wii controller implementation will have to be addicting to be popular, and generally having to move more than your fingers while staring at the TV will be too much work for lazy gamers. Yes, some claim it will help gamers exercise! Oh yeah, that will be at the top of every child's todo list... time to exercise with Mario! "It's a-me, Mario! Let's a-exercise! One! Ha! Two! Hiya! Woohoo!" No.

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Man Photographs Every Meal for a Year

Opera singer Chris Gillet snapped 2,550 photos of every breakfast, lunch, and dinner during the year of 2005, resulting in this colossal 16 ft. art piece. It can sure make a man feel like a pig.

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How Music Gets you High

A neuroscientist explains why women want rock stars to father their children (what about bad clarinetists?), and how melodies can work like Prozac.

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'Wrong Guy' TV blunder could be right for big screen story

The man who became a celebrity after he was mistaken for an internet expert and interviewed on BBC News 24 could see a film made about his story. The incident involving Guy Goma is the basis for a film being planned by Alison Rosenzweig, who produced the 2002 Nicolas Cage film Windtalkers. That would be stupid... and funny.

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Spider-Man 4 Confirmed

"There will be many more Spider-Man films to come," Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige reveals. "We already have stacks of ideas for the next one because of the wealth of stories in the comics. We could be making Spider-Man movies for the next 20 years, based on the 50 years of Spider-Man history we have." However, the article also mentions that the guy who's been playing Spider-Man may not return... Toby something whats-his-name... s0 perhaps it will turn into a Batman-like movie series, with different casts, directors, etc changing every few movies, which means there will probably be some corny Spider-Man movies in the attempt for a studio to make quick money.

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Evolution of Speechballoons

"During the 18th century, British caricaturists changed the shape of speechballoons from gothic speech-bands or flags into fluffy balloons, our modern speechballoons."

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