Ah, Black Friday. The day-after-Thanksgiving shopping spree that draws millions of deal-stealers into long, cold lines at 4 AM (or earlier) while I remain blissfully asleep in my warm bed.

Picture Black Friday, in its own words, is “a photojournalism project that aims to revisit
and analyze a combination of forces- a worsening economy, financial
desperation, excitement, fear, and a distinctly American cultural
tradition- that culminate the morning after Thanksgiving.” Check out last year’s winner:

Image via Wikipedia

Tycho Brahe, in the words of Wikipedia, was a “Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations.” In fact, this pioneering gentleman-scientist made the most accurate astronomical observations and calculations of his time – and served as a mentor to the better-known astronomer Johannes Kepler. All told, Brahe made many important contributions to the fledgling science of astronomy. His life, however, was far stranger and more fascinating than a cursory glance at his biography might have you think. From the New York Times:

When Danish and Czech scientists exhumed the remains of the astronomer Tycho Brahe
in Prague this month, they dug up much more than some bones and hairs.
They found something that has eluded astronomers for thousands of years:
a story with major box-office potential.

It’s “Amadeus” meets “Da Vinci Code” meets “Hamlet,” featuring a deadly
struggle for the secret of the universe between Tycho, the swashbuckling
Danish nobleman with a gold-and-silver prosthetic nose, and the
not-yet-famous Johannes Kepler,
his frail, jealous German assistant. The story also includes an
international hit man, hired after a Danish prince becomes king and
suspects Brahe of sleeping with his mother (and maybe being his
father!).

For comic relief, there’s a beer-drinking pet elk wandering around
Tycho’s castle, as well as a jester named Jepp, a dwarf who sits under
Tycho’s table and is believed to be clairvoyant.

That’s definitely a film I would see. You can read more here.

Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr

Thanksgiving is a time of traditions – traditions and myths. By now, after sundry articles and Thanksgiving specials, you’ve probably seen a few of these myths busted – like the false claim that turkey causes sleepiness due to tryptophan, for example. But did you know that the first Thanksgiving feast in America was actually celebrated by the French? From the New York Times:

Long before the Pilgrims sailed in 1620, another group of dissident
Christians sought a haven in which to worship freely. These French
Calvinists, or Huguenots, hoped to escape the sectarian fighting between
Catholics and Protestants that had bloodied France since 1560.

Landing
in balmy Florida in June of 1564, at what a French explorer had earlier
named the River of May (now the St. Johns River near Jacksonville), the
French émigrés promptly held a service of “thanksgiving.” Carrying the
seeds of a new colony, they also brought cannons to fortify the small,
wooden enclosure they named Fort Caroline, in honor of their king,
Charles IX.

Read more here. And happy Thanksgiving!

I’ve always wondered if such a thing was possible. Apparently, it is. From Gizmodo:

This is one of the most surprising and awesome tales ever told in the
history of medicine. These twins are Tatiana and Krista Hogan. Their
brains and sensory systems are networked together, but they have
separate personalities. Their story defies belief.

So much, in fact, that Tatiana and Krista Hogan shouldn’t be alive at
all. Their chances of surviving the pregnancy, birth and first months
of life were almost zero. Surprisingly, they turned four on October 25,
and they are still healthy and happy, as you can see in the photo above.

They play Nintendo Wii games against each other, they fight for toys
and they share food and physiological functions. But they also share
their senses. For example, one can pick an object out of her field of
view, while the twin looks at the object.

Most importantly, however, they can share thoughts.

Check out the fascinating full article, replete with video and photographs, here.

Image by michaelhenley via Flickr

It’s a question every horror fan has asked at some point: what if zombies were real? Indeed, since recent adaptations of the zombie genre have attempted more realistic portrayals of zombie plagues (e.g., the disease-based zombies of 28 Day Later versus the radioactively-contaminated zombies of George Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead), this question is being asked with increasing frequency.

Many zombie aficionados, furthermore, have observed the similarities between the zombie viruses of the silver screen and real-world afflictions like rabies. National Geographic examines these similarities, and like many others, asks, “what if?”:

Though dead humans can’t come back to life, certain viruses can
induce such aggressive, zombie-like behavior, scientists say in the new
National Geographic Channel documentary The Truth Behind Zombies.

For instance, rabies–a viral disease that
infects the central nervous system–can drive people to be violently
mad, according to Samita Andreansky, a virologist at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine in Florida who also appears in the documentary.

Combine
rabies with the ability of a flu virus to spread quickly through the
air, and you might have the makings of a zombie apocalypse.

Read on here.

Within every scientist is the childlike desire to do strange, dangerous, and/or crazy things and observe the result. That said, I’ll let this article speak for itself:

In a development whose importance it would be difficult to
exaggerate, scientists have produced research answering one of the great
questions facing humanity in the 21st century: what happens if you get
snails hopped up on crystal meth and poke them with sticks?

The drug-pushing scientists in question are Barbara Sorg of
Washington State Uni and Ken Lukowiak of the University of Calgary. The
mollusc they chose for their experiments was the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis.

You can find these scientists’ dramatic conclusions here (spoiler: apparently, memories formed under the influence of meth are harder to forget).

Image via Wikipedia

Ear candling, apparently, is an alternative medicine practice that is pretty much what it sounds like. One end of a candle is placed in the ear, and the other end is lit. Supposedly, this will improve your health by removing “toxins” from the body – but it turns out (perhaps unsurprisingly), that it’s ineffective and dangerous. From Wikipedia:

One end of a cylinder or cone of waxed cloth is lit, and the other
placed into the subject’s ear. The flame is cut back occasionally with
scissors and extinguished between two and four inches from the subject.

The subject is lying on one side with the treated ear uppermost and
the candle vertical. The candle can be stuck through a paper plate or
aluminum pie tin to protect against any hot wax or ash falling onto the
subject. Another way to perform ear candling involves the subject lying
face up with the ear candle extending out to the side with a 45 degree
upward slant. A dish of water is placed next to the subject under the
ear candle.

Proponents claim that the flame creates negative pressure, drawing wax and debris out of the ear canal^[4], which appears as a dark residue.

In October 2007, the United States Food and Drug Administration
issued an alert identifying ear candles (also known as ear cones or
auricular candles) as “dangerous to health when used in the dosage or
manner, or with the frequency or duration, prescribed, recommended, or
suggested in the labeling thereof” … “since the use of a lit candle in
the proximity of a person’s face would carry a high risk of causing
potentially severe skin/hair burns and middle ear damage.”^[9]

A strange practice. But then, I guess people do strange things all the time – and if the placebo effect makes you feel healthier, more power to you.
Here’s my question: who came up with this? Apparently, some ear candle manufacturers allege that the practice originated with the Hopi Indians, but Hopi tribal spokespersons deny any knowledge or involvement.

While this is not quite of the same caliber as the hologram technology mentioned yesterday, it’s still pretty neat:

As Google points out, today is the anniversary of the discovery of x-rays, without which modern medicine and airport security would be at a loss.

To observe this date, then, I recommend you take a look at the first image ever made with x-rays – it’s 115 years old.