A reply to a question in Notes & Queries yesterday recommended purchasing lion and tiger urine from Chester Zoo to stop neighbourhood cats from urinating in a vegetable patch (G2, page 17). Chester Zoo would like to forestall requests for its big cats’ urine: it asks us to make clear that it does not in fact sell either tiger or lion urine. Many years ago the zoo sold elephant dung, but it no longer does.
(via Regret the Error)
You decide. Whatever the case, it’s kind of amazing.
(via Ectoplasmosis)
DNR spokesman Hoy Murphy says Casell has a permit for the tiger. And Murphy notes this isn’t the first time Casell’s dealt with an escape: a 400-pound Asian brown bear got loose in May 2006 and hasn’t been seen since.
(Herald Dispatch [1 Dec 2008], via Cryptomundo)
Quote:
“One might be able to envision potential applications ranging from medical interventions to use in video gaming or the creation of artificial memories along the lines of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in ‘Total Recall.’ Imagine taking a vacation without actually going anywhere?
“Obviously, we need to conduct further research and development…”
(via io9, via EurekAlert: “Ultrasound shown to exert remote control of brain circuits” [29 Oct 2008])
Say what you will of Lockheed-Martin’s take on Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles-as-documentary; this proof-of-concept (if that’s the right phrasing) test video is eerily captivating.
(References: http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/html/mdalink.html, http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/12/killing_robot_b.html, http://www.thirdeyeconcept.com/news/index.php?page=336)
As we become too lazy to do our own work, we send technologically augmented turtles and seals to be our detectives and scientists.
(via BoingBoing and NewScientist)
Which is, really, fortunate.
“10 other dates when the world failed to end.”
One of my favorites:
Sept 11-13 1988 – Former Nasa engineer Edgar Whisenant sold 4.5 million copies of his book 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988, mostly to evangelical US Christians. Follow-up works, which revised the prediction for dates in the 1990s, failed to sell as well.
Shocking! (Emphasis added.)
Also, I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be “March 1997″ and not “Match 1997″.
(via Monochrom)
Winnie-the-Pooh, a panther, and a mouse rob a passer-by of $160.
Also questionable: the robbers were wearing their costumes on account of “they had run out of clean clothes.”
(Although… probably not actually $160, as the setting of the crime in question is Tokyo.)
Related: Winnie-the-Pooh, Soviet style.
(via Reuters: “Winnie-the-Pooh held for robbery?” [12 Aug 08])
Forget the Golden Gate Bridge and House of Nanking and Zeitgeist on a summer night — the heart of San Francisco beats loudest on the carpeted second floor of that South Van Ness building you thought was Bank of America.
…
“Thank you for calling San Francisco 311, this is Kyle speaking, how may I help you?”
Kyle Sutton is one of 50 or so customer service representatives, or CSRs, asking this question 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The free service launched in March not just to funnel 2,300 government phone numbers into a single line, but to give the city more of a service orientation. About 6,000 calls come in every day, and program director Ed Reiskin says 311 is on track to answer 2 million a year.
Officially, the purpose is to supply a handy route to non-emergency government services and information. Unofficially, it’s a glimpse into the funny inner mind of the city.
“Hello, how long does it take to build a cable car?”
“There’s cocaine all over my clothes! There’s cocaine everywhere!”
“My roommate has been passed out for two days.”
“There’s pig balls on the street.”
Ideally, every call would be like these and our city would have the best dinner parties ever. In fact, most people call about the bus. How do you get to Justin Herman Plaza? I’m on Clement and 8th Avenue, where’s the 2? My driver didn’t stop for me.
(SFGate: “Pig balls and stuck skunks: A 311 customer service rep has a window onto San Francisco’s secret heart,” by Chris Collin [4 Sept 2007])
No child should touch a gun or pistol, or on any account present one at another person. We behold a little boy shooting his sister dead!
And:
Here we see the danger of playing with lighted candles. One little girl has set the bed-curtains on fire, and the other her hair; and both are in great danger of being burnt to death, unless someone grants them speedy assistance.
From The Book of Accidents (1831), with excellent woodcut illustrations.
(via Ectoplasmosis)
With headlines like “Octopus ride accident injures two” and “Ferris wheel catastrophe kills five”, it will be hard to look at amusement park rides in quite the same light.
Not that they ever seemed on par with the safety of something like, say, bonsai gardening.
(via BoingBoing)
Interesting enough for the subject matter — the mysterious skyjacker who disappeared from a plane1 with some gracious amount of money, never to be found again (the skyjacker that is; some of the money was found, maybe) — this article from the AP is probably best for the very last sentence:
“Maybe a hydrologist can use the latest technology to trace the $5,800 in ransom money found in 1980 to where Cooper landed upstream,” Carr said. “Or maybe someone just remembers that odd uncle.”
The FBI’s presenting, as they say, “for the first time” to the public, new & exciting information.
In case you do remember that odd uncle.
1 Which is to say, jumped.
When police asked the man what caused the accident, his one-word answer was “pterodactyl,” Smith said.
…
The man was treated and released at Central Washington Hospital, hospital officials said.
No word on the pterodactyl’s injuries.
(HeraldNet: “Man blames car wreck on prehistoric winged reptile,” by Rachel Schleif [29 Dec 07]; via BoingBoing)
Yes, it can happen to you. Well, maybe not you, but someone else:
Dropping something may have saved Joy Horton’s life. The 73-year-old woman was preparing some food in her western New York home on Monday morning when she dropped a spoon on the floor of her kitchen. When she bent down, her house exploded.
…
Fire officials said that because Horton was bending down when the explosion occurred, the kitchen sink and counter top helped keep debris from hitting her.
(via BoGlo/AP: “Spoon drop saves woman’s life” [Aug 21, 2007])
This quote from a “spokesman for the soap industry group” — a little suspicious, admittedly.
But seriously, Americans’ hands are getting dirtier.
(Reuters: “Americans getting lax about clean hands?” [18 Sept 2007])
