July 2012
52 posts
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Probe: data in 172 papers by Toho University... →
Report from Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun:
The Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists (JSA) on June 29 announced the results of an investigation finding that at least 172 research papers by Yoshitaka Fujii, a former associate professor of anesthesiology at Toho University, contained fabricated data.
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The investigation covered 212 papers listing Fujii as an author in 41 journals between 1991...
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Ex-Argentine dictators jailed for baby thefts →
MSNBC & news services:
Three key figures from Argentina’s “Dirty War” got hefty jail terms for the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, an Argentine court ruled on Thursday.
The missing children — stolen from their parents and illegally adopted, often by military families — are one of the most painful legacies...
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The world’s smallest fly probably decapitates... →
Ed Yong on Discover’s Not Exactly Rocket Science blog:
Some flies, known as phorids, specialise in decapitating ants in a gruesome way. They lay their eggs inside their victims. When the maggots hatch, they move towards the ant’s head, where they gorge upon the brain and other tissues. The ant stumbles about in a literally mindless stupor until the connection between its head and body is...
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Horne's 'home run cycle' has yet to be replicated →
Lisa Winston for MLB.com back in 2006:
On July 27, 1998, playing for the Arkansas Travelers of the Double-A Texas League, [Tyrone] Horne hit four home runs in a 13-4 victory at San Antonio.
Now, four-homer games by themselves are rare, but certainly not unprecedented. This year, there have been two such performances in the Minors (Ryan Harvey of the Daytona Cubs did it on July 28 and Alexis...
June 2012
48 posts
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Wikipedia: SimCopter →
The game gained controversy when a designer inserted sprites of shirtless “himbos” (male bimbos) in Speedo trunks who hugged and kissed each other, who appear in great numbers on certain dates. Their fluorescent nipples were drawn with a special rendering mode usually reserved for fog-piercing runway landing lights, so they could easily be seen from long distances in bad weather. An...
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The Magic of FM Synth →
Ray Barnholt wrote an great piece for 1UP.com on the use of FM synthesis in video game music. Writing on this kind of thing can be really dodgy, but this is pretty accurate and also pretty comprehensive, going over arcade games and Japanese PCs too. Check it out!
And I can’t recommend enough the Ubiktune albums mentioned at the end, FM FUNK MADDNESS!! and FM FUNK TERRROR!!. Also pretty much...
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First trailer for RZA's movie "The Man with the... →
So far, RZA’s exceeding my expectations for this. Pretty amped.
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"Did I ever lie to you?" →
You may have heard that Jerry Sandusky of Penn State was convicted on forty-five child sexual abuse counts last week. I was reading an article on it from the Associated Press in the paper and this passage jumped out at me:
The accuser known in court papers as Victim 6 broke down in tears upon hearing the verdicts. Afterward, a prosecutor embraced him and said, “Did I ever lie to...
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Lonesome George, last-of-his-kind Galapagos... →
Reuters:
Lonesome George, the last remaining tortoise of his kind and a conservation icon, died on Sunday of unknown causes, the Galapagos National Park said. He was thought to be about 100 years old.
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George was believed to be around 100 years old and the last member of a species of giant tortoise from La Pinta, one of the smallest islands in the Galapagos, the Galapagos National Park...
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When My Crazy Father Actually Lost His Mind →
Jeneen Interlandi, writing in the New York Times Magazine:
We were on something like the 15th round of rummy, and my father was winning decisively. He cracked a wide, toothy grin as he laid his cards on the table. “That’s 321 for BaBa, and 227 for String Bean,” he said, tallying the ledger we were keeping on a piece of scrap paper.
Before he finished writing the numbers, he began a rapid...
