December 2011
51 posts
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Wikipedia: Madidi titi →
I just finished the book The Prodigal Tongue by Mark Abley a few days ago. It was a pretty enjoyable look at the influence of other languages on English and the influence of English on other languages. Here’s a review by The Telegraph if you’re interested.
The Madidi titi, a species of South American monkey, was mentioned in the book. From Wikipedia:
Rather than choosing a name...
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Grail spacecraft to study moon's gravity field →
Alicia Chang, the AP:
Over the New Year’s weekend, a pair of spacecraft the size of washing machines are set to enter orbit around it in the latest lunar mission. Their job is to measure the uneven gravity field and determine what lies beneath - straight down to the core.
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Once in orbit, the spacecraft will spend the next two months flying in formation and chasing one another around the...
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13 Fantastic Female Comics Creators of 2011 →
Kelly Thompson’s list of “13 fantastic female creators in comics that you should be watching, reading, and supporting.” Some really great looking stuff on this list — warm up your credit cards, everybody.
(Via Bryan Gyg Jebavy.)
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Why NORAD Started Tracking Santa →
Kristen Wyatt, the AP:
Santa-tracking volunteers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado said they fielded about 102,000 telephone queries on his progress beginning early Saturday, breaking the previous mark of 80,000.
All well and good, but why did they start tracking Santa in the first place? I only realized I didn’t know the answer to this question when she gave it later in the...
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'Manos: The Hands Of Fate': Carefully Restoring... →
Chris Heller with a piece for NPR’s Monkey See blog about Ben Solovey’s Manos: The Restoration project:
“There’s a very distinct feeling in the episode of, ‘What is this movie that we’ve discovered?’” said Ben Solovey, a 26-year-old Florida State film school grad who’s behind Manos: The Restoration, a project to repair an original 16mm...
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Sir Patrick Stewart and his son Daniel on the...
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Merry Christmas! Why are you here? I’m not...
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School accused of putting autistic student in bag →
Bruce Schreiner, AP:
A 9-year-old autistic boy who misbehaved at school was stuffed into a duffel bag and the drawstring pulled tight, according to his mother, who said she found him wiggling inside as a teacher’s aide stood by.
Why the hell would you do this. Like, what possible rationale could there be for
At a meeting with school district officials, the bag was described as a...
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Pearl Harbor surprise: Photo of female... →
Bill Dedman on MSNBC’s Open Channel blog:
In the 70 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor, a dramatic photo of female firefighters has been published many times in magazines, history books and online as a depiction of action on Dec. 7, 1941. We published it this past week on msnbc.com. Now, with the help of our readers, we’ve located one of the women, who says the photo was...
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Pigeons match primates in number sense →
Kate Shaw writing for Ars Technica:
Overall, the birds performed about as well as the rhesus monkeys had in the original experiment. Both species are certainly capable of learning a simple mathematical rule, then using that rule in a more abstract sense to handle new values.
Can’t wait for the first avian mathematician.
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Sorry we thought Adolf Hilter's Mein Kampf would... →
How the fuck does this happen?
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The Penis Mom →
This is not only a fucking hilarious story, it makes an important point about feminism: “this is not a situation of the men holding us back - we are holding ourselves back because we don’t want to step forward if it is icky and muddy.”
(I wish there was some easy way to give attribution for the above, but this is yet another blog without a bio. Sad.)
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So as part of my new Quora board1 “Hip Hop...
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Rape affects almost 20% of US women, study says →
Yes. 20% of US women will be raped or suffer attempted rape at some point in their life. Compare that with the similar statistic for men — 1.4% — and you may begin to see that there’s something to this whole feminism blah blah patriarchy blah blah rape culture buzzing noise that I keep making.
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“Demoralizing? There’s no morals out there.”
– Oakland Raiders linebacker Aaron Curry on his team’s late collapse to the Detroit Lions on Sunday. That bizarre turn of phrase gets a whole lot funnier when you factor in that the Raiders are on pace to break the record for most penalties in a single season.
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Man Eats Cocaine From Brother's Butt, Dies →
nostrich:
A South Carolina man’s brother died after police said he was forced to eat cocaine hidden in his brother’s backside.
What.
Seconding that.
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New MLB deal: No corporate tattoos →
The AP:
Baseball’s new labor contract includes more video replay, the chance for a longer All-Star break and a small, but likely welcome perk for players: the chance to get a private room instead of a roommate during spring training.
… for players thinking about selling ads on their bodies, MLB has thought ahead. The agreement says “no player may have any visible markings or logos...
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“The Smithsonian, specially on the ethnological side, was a pleasant place to...”
– Rudyard Kipling delivering a sick burn in his autobiography, Something of Myself. Yes, Rudyard “The White Man’s Burden” Kipling.
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Multiball = credit default swap
Colin: Pretty sure I’m reading this right? What Would Happen if an Asteroid Hit U.S. banks?
Colin: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/23/us-financial-stress-idUSTRE7AM2NE20111123 apparently the full article
‘Ili: “People would probably die.”
Colin: It actually has nothing to do with asteroids!
Colin: It’s just about another hypothetical banking crisis.
...
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Experiments show rats aren’t selfish, but caring... →
The AP:
New experiments show rats demonstrating compassion and helping other rodents. It’s a trait some scientists thought was reserved only for humans and higher primates.
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In repeated tests, rats freed another trapped rat in their cage, even when yummy chocolate served as a tempting distraction. Twenty-three of the 30 rats opened the trap by pushing in a door. The rats could have...
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GOTTA GO FAST
fuckyeahidiotsonic:
by Oneiros
New favorite Tumblr thing of the week: Sonic Running Like an Idiot.
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Guitareste →
A blog about women who play the guitar by Chelsea Voulgares. I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit so far. Be sure not to miss the exclusive interviews, really terrific.
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How a collapsing scientific hypothesis led to a... →
John Timmer for Ars Technica:
In 2006, scientists announced a provocative finding: a retrovirus called XMRV, closely related to a known virus from mice, was associated with cases of prostate cancer. But other labs, using different sets of patients, found no evidence of a viral infection. Before the controversy could be sorted out, another research group published a 2009 paper containing an even...
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Octavio Dotel set to pitch for record 13th MLB... →
The AP:
Octavio Dotel is on the verge of an unusual record.
Dotel has reached an agreement with the Detroit Tigers on a one-year deal, with a team option for 2013. When he takes the mound for the Tigers next season, the right-handed reliever will be playing for a record 13th major league franchise.
Sweet.
How music therapy soothed the bullet-damaged brain →
Brent Bambury, CBC News, on brain-damaged congresswoman Gabby Giffords’s experience with melodic intonation therapy:
One of the therapies that Morrow tried with Giffords is called melodic intonation therapy. It’s an intensive program that was developed after researchers noticed that patients with severe aphasia (the loss of the ability to speak) could sing words and phrases they...
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Vatican University Hosts Unusual Tattoo Conference →
The AP:
Tattooed mummies in ancient Egypt, Crusaders who branded their foreheads with crosses, and New Zealand’s inked Maori warriors were fodder for an unusual conference at a Vatican university Tuesday on the role of tattoos in shaping identity.
“Into the Skin: identity, symbols and history of permanent body marks” was the brainchild of a Christian arts association and...
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Hands On: Botanicula →
John Walker of Rock, Paper, Shotgun got his hands on a development version of Amanita Design’s upcoming game Botanicula and oh man I want this thing when is it coming out come on is it 2012 yet how about now
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'Mythbusters' cannonball hits Dublin, CA home,... →
Demian Bulwa & Henry K. Lee for the San Francisco Chronicle:
One of the zany experiments staged by the “Mythbusters” television show nearly turned into a suburban tragedy Tuesday afternoon in Dublin when the crew fired a homemade cannon toward huge containers of water at the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department bomb disposal range.
The cantaloupe-sized cannonball missed the...
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Town of liquor foe Carry Nation OKs Sunday sales →
Maria Sudekum Fisher, AP:
Turn-of-the-century teetotaler Carry A. Nation began her campaign against drinking by busting up saloons in Kansas, which to this day has some of the strictest liquor laws in the country. But even in the town where her legacy is enshrined, the influence of the hatchet-wielding crusader is waning.
Residents in Medicine Lodge, where Nation lived for about a decade in the...
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Pfizer tries to protect Lipitor from generics →
AP report:
Pfizer has devised discounts and incentives for patients, insurers and companies that process prescriptions that will, at least for the next six months, make the brand name drug about as cheap as or cheaper than the generics. Pfizer also has spent tens of millions of dollars this year on marketing to keep patients on Lipitor, which loses patent protection Wednesday.
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Typically,...
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As efforts to find AIDS vaccine continue, mouse... →
The AP:
As scientists struggle to find a vaccine to prevent infection with the AIDS virus, a study in mice suggests hope for a new approach — one that doctors now want to test in people.
The treated mice in the study appeared to have 100 percent protection against HIV. That doesn’t mean the strategy will work in people. But several experts were impressed.
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Researchers reported the new...
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Sirhan lawyers: Bullet was switched and he was... →
The AP:
Lawyers representing convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan argue in newly filed court documents that a bullet was switched in evidence at his trial and new forensic details show he is innocent of the 1968 killing of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
In the latest of many appeals filed on behalf of Sirhan, the attorneys are seeking to overturn his conviction. They repeated a previous assertion and...
