January 2010 Archives

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 meet a source about a story he called "the Octopus." This centered around a sprawling conspiracy theory involving an international cabal, and primarily featuring a number of stories familiar to journalists who worked in and near Washington, D.C. in the 1980's--the Inslaw case, about a software manufacturer whose owner accused the Justice Department of stealing its work product; the October Surprise theory that during the Iran hostage crisis, Iran deliberately held back American hostages to help Ronald Reagan win the 1980 presidential election; the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International; and Iran-Contra.^[2]

• "Ice Cube" dispenser
• Huntsman spiders are tough to catch
• A gallery of strange places on Mars
• Chupacabra body turns out to be hoax
• The weird experiences of 7 (non-Chupacabra) dead bodies
• Urinal fountain art installation
• Scum river bridge
• Tea submarine
• Make your own mossarium
• Crocodiles recognize their own names

Image by FotoBart via Flickr

led by a man named Igor Dyatlov -- headed to a slope called Kholat Syakhl (Mansi language for "Mountain of the Dead," ahem) for a rugged, wintry trek. On their way up, they are apparently hit by inclement weather and veer off course and decide to set up camp and wait it out. All is calm. All is fine and good. They even take pictures of camp, the scenery, each other. The weather is not so bad. They go to sleep.

Then, something happens. In the middle of the night all nine suddenly leap out of their tents as fast as possible, ripping them open from the inside (not even enough time to untie the doors) and race out into the sub-zero temps, without coats or boots or skis, most in their underwear, some even barefoot or with a single sock or boot. It is 30 degrees below zero, Celsius. A few make it as far as a kilometer and a half down the slope. All nine, as you might expect, quickly die. (from sfgate.com)

Okay, you might say, that is odd, but surely there must be a logical explanation. But there aren't any easy answers - and the story gets even more bizarre. Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle continues:

The three-month investigation revealed that five of the trekkers died from simple hypothermia, with no apparent trauma at all, no signs of attack, struggle, no outward injuries of any kind. However, two of the other four apparently suffered massive internal traumas to the chest, like you would if you were hit by a car. One's skull was crushed. All four of these were found far from the other five. But still, no signs of external injuries.

Not good enough? How about this: One of the women was missing her tongue.

Oh, it gets better. And weirder.

Tests of the few scraps of clothing revealed very high levels of radiation. Evidence found at the campsite indicates the trekkers might've been blinded. Eyewitnesses around the area report seeing "bright flying spheres" in the sky during the same months. And oh yes, relatives at the funeral swear the skin of their dead loved ones was tanned, tinted dark orange or brown. And their hair had all turned completely gray.

Wait, what?

The final, official explanation as to what caused such bizarre behavior from otherwise well-trained, experienced mountaineers? An "unknown compelling force." Indeed.

There's only one word for this: unnerving. We'll probably never know what happened on that mountain 51 years ago. The real explanation might even be mundane - but that won't stop the story from raising hackles or stealing sleep.

The mountain in question, of course, was renamed Dyatlov Pass.

• Scientists worry that the Haitian quake is a sign of more to come
• Slime molds make surprisingly good urban planners
• The first movie made by chimpanzees - coming soon to television!
• Stray subway-riding dogs of Moscow
• Humans, apparently, could theoretically run 40 mph
• Government plans re: alien contact somewhat lacking

Image by smiteme via Flickr

Some say it resembles a prowling hyena, others a ferocious wolf.

While there are those who have seen the mysterious creature menacing Buckshaw Village and describe it as a terrifying cross between a wild boar and some kind of big cat.

Whatever it is, it has been blamed for mauling several deer to death, and one resident's Alsatian dogs were left quivering with fear after a particularly close encounter.

Now one intrepid villager has taken a photograph of what locals have dubbed the Buckshaw Beast, sparking a feverish online debate about what exactly it might be.

The initial consensus was that it is a wild boar forced out of the countryside by the cold weather as it strives to find food, but experts have said one would be unlikely to kill deer.

 Like your shoelaces or electrical cords, light can get twisted into knots. Now, scientists have used a computer-controlled hologram and theoretical physics to turn a light beam into pretzel-like shapes.

The twisted feat not only led to some pretty cool images, but the results have implications for future laser devices, the researchers say.

"In a light beam, the flow of light through space is similar to water flowing in a river," said lead researcher Mark Dennis of the University of Bristol in England. Even though the light from something like a laser pointer travels in a straight line, it can also flow in whirls and eddies, Dennis explained. 

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As we speak, broadcast signals are moving invisibly through the air all around you, from millions of sources. And some of them are really, really freaking weird.

We know this because occasionally somebody with a shortwave radio, or a special antenna or even a common household television, will capture one of these mystery signals and suddenly start broadcasting utter insanity.

Where do these signals come from? Who the hell knows?

You can read the list yourself here. But first, I'd recommend you turn off your television and radio.

It's not new, but Nate Harrision's six-year-old look at one of the most sampled drum beats in the world is still worth a listen.

"This sample was used extensively in early hip hop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music -- a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip."

Very interesting stuff.

Image by Martin Deutsch via Flickr

The stark contrast of monochromatic, crumbling stone buildings and small, colorful plastic toy blocks is especially jarring in Berlin, where evidence of the horrors of World War II is still visible in cracks and bullet holes. But that's what makes this setting so poignant for German artist Jan Vormann, who patches damage to old buildings around the world with Legos. Vormann aims to fill Berlin with new life - even if only temporarily and symbolically - using this sometimes controversial juxtaposition of new and old, and the unity that it brings to onlookers who stop to help.

Image by AJC1 via Flickr

The virus now turns out to have an intimate bond with every person on Earth. In the latest issue of Nature, a team of Japanese and American scientists report that the human genome contains borna virus genes. The virus infected our monkey-like ancestors 40 million years ago, and its genes have been passed down ever since.

Borna viruses are not the only viruses lurking in our genome. Scientists have found about 100,000 elements of human DNA that probably came from viruses. But the borna virus belongs to a kind of virus that has never been found in the human genome before. Its discovery raises the possibility that many more viruses are left to be found.

As sea temperatures have risen in recent decades, enormous sheets of a mucus-like material have begun forming more often, oozing into new regions, and lasting longer, a new Mediterranean Sea study says (sea "mucus" blob pictures).

And the blobs may be more than just unpleasant.

Up to 124 miles (200 kilometers) long, the mucilages appear naturally, usually near Mediterranean coasts in summer. The season's warm weather makes seawater more stable, which facilitates the bonding of the organic matter that makes up the blobs (Mediterranean map). 

Now, due to warmer temperatures, the mucilages are forming in winter too--and lasting for months.

[...] Mucilages aren't a concern for just the Mediterranean, Danovaro added. Recent studies tentatively suggest that mucus may be spreading throughout oceans from the North Sea (map) to Australia, perhaps because of rising temperatures, he said.

It would certainly be unnerving to run into one of these. While they won't devour you like the horror-film Blob, the article - which you can read here - notes that they "are hot spots for viruses and bacteria, including the deadly E. coli."

The official, easy-to-use punctuation mark to emphasize a sarcastic phrase, sentence or message. Once downloaded to your computer or cell phone, it's a quick key-stroke or two to insert the ®  where you want, when you want, in your communications with the world. Never again be misunderstood! Never again waste a good sarcastic line on someone who doesn't get it!

Sarcasm - Punctuate It - SarcMark ®

Stand Up For Sarcasm - It needs a punctuation mark. Let your voice and written word be heard across the country, the continent, and the world.

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In the latest episode of The Memory Palace podcast, reporter Nate DiMeo tells the captivating story of "The Great Moon Hoax" of 1835. According to a series of New York Sun articles published that year, a respected astronomer named Sir John Herschel had observed an amazing array of flora and fauna on the moon, including bipedal beavers, winged humanoids, and (yay!) blue unicorns. None of it was true. (Or so we're told now.) And Herschel wasn't even aware until much later that he was the star of this bit of science fiction presented as fact. The lithograph above accompanied one of the articles to illustrate what Herschel had "seen" through his giant telescope.

Received wisdom says that pond owners should break a hole in the ice to allow oxygen to reach the water.

But new research by conservation charity Pond Conservation has shown the opposite is true.

Oxygen levels can actually rise in a frozen-over pond, benefiting the animals and plants living beneath.

Take heed. This is important news.

- text "HAITI" to "90999″ and a $10 donation will automatically be charged to your cellphone bill and given to the Red Cross

- Red Cross International Response Fund

- Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres)

- UNICEF

- Save The Children

- Yéle Haiti Earthquake Fund (Wyclef Jean)

- Mercy Corps

- AmeriCares

- Partners In Health

- Sion Fonds

The Big Picture has a photo gallery showing just how bad the situation is in Haiti.

Please donate, if you can. In the meantime, jeers to Pat Robertson, who called the quake a "blessing in disguise" and claimed that it was God's punishment for the "pact with the devil" that Haiti made in order to gain independence from France.

Image by Curious Expeditions via Flickr

Every day, 7,000 times a day, Stanford Hospital staff turn to pneumatic tubes, cutting-edge technology in the 19th century, for a transport network that the Internet and all the latest Silicon Valley wizardry can't match: A tubular system to transport a lab sample across the medical center in the blink of an eye.

In four miles of tubing laced behind walls from basement to rooftop, the pneumatic tube system shuttles foot-long containers carrying everything from blood to medication. In a hospital the size of Stanford, where a quarter-mile's distance might separate a tissue specimen from its destination lab, making good time means better medicine.

[...]

The value of these pneumatic tube networks is not unique to Stanford--they are in use at hospitals nationwide--but SHC's system, which also serves the adjacent Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, is one of the largest in the country. Its architecture is a sophisticated design of switching points, waiting areas, sending and receiving points. It hosts 124 stations (every nursing unit has its own); 141 transfer units, 99 inter-zone connectors and 29 blowers. To help alert employees to the arrival of containers, the system has more than three dozen different combinations of chiming tones.

You can read - and see - more here.

What is particularly curious about these books is that while most books are made of wood, pulped into paper, these books are both about trees and constructed of them; their construction and contents are truly one and the same. Each volume is about a different species of tree, with its cover made from the wood of that tree, showing both wood radial, longitudinal, and cross profiles. And on each spine is a section of the tree's bark.

I snapped the above photo in downtown Manhattan a month or so ago. There were several stone rectangles around the property that all looked similar. What a great example of the subconscious art of graffiti removal!

Evoking images of flying saucers, interplanetary space pods and science fiction futurism, the Futuro house offered homeowners a chance to live in the future without ever leaving their front yards. Finnish architect Matti Suuronen designed the Futuro house in 1968 but only 96 of the fiberglass-reinforced polyester plastic pods were produced over a 5-year period - killed by the 1973 Oil Crisis that tripled the price of plastics. Today, roughly half of the ellipsoid structures have been accounted for and their iconic design has made them a favorite of pop culture collectors, retrofuturism fans and all those who appreciate the impact of 1960s Space Age style.

Across South Korea, entrepreneurs are holding controversial forums aimed at teaching clients how to better appreciate life by simulating death. They use mortality as a personal motivator. 

...

[At] the Coffin Academy, South Koreans can get a glimpse into the abyss. Over four hours, groups of a dozen or more tearfully write their letters of goodbye and tombstone epitaphs. Finally, they attend their own funerals and try the coffin on for size.

The sound is believed to be coming roughly from 50oS; 100oW. After reading that, I wondered how close that was to the coordinates given in "The Call of Cthulhu". Allow me to quote: "Then, driven ahead by curiosity in their captured yacht under Johansen's command, the men sight a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47°9', W. Longitude l23°43', come upon a coastline of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth's supreme terror - the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh, that was built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars."

 Gotta love it!