[OSF] Effects of Drugs on Spider's Webs

A great study about the effects of various drugs (caffeine, marijuana, crack, and more) on spiders and their spiderwebs. Seriously though, in the 60's there was a study on the effects of various drugs on a spider's web making abilities. It's pretty interesting...read about it on [CaffeineWeb]

Best. Thesis. Ever.

So you're sitting there playing pong on your Atari 2600 thinking about how much the controller sucks. You could move up to a more modern console, or you could think outside the box as Jennifer from New York University did.

For her demo, Chowdhury made a video of herself and a partner playing Pong. He stands behind her with his hands near her shoulders, and she reaches back toward his hips. When he touches her left breast, the paddle moves to the left. The sensor in the right bra cup moves the Pong paddle to the right.

Let me break this down...

Playstation 3 wireless controller < Boobs

Xbox 360 wireless controller < Boobs

Wii motion sensoring controller < Boobs

That's how I'd score it anyway.

[Read]

[OSF] Peanut Butter and Bananas - Delicious Sandwich...Atheist's Nightmare Foods?

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm all for being open minded to religion, and actively exploring my personal spirituality. But man, some arguments (both for and against the concepts) are just ... oh, what's the word I want here ... well, nuts. Here's two old school (in Internet lifetimes) examples from the "for" category. Bananas: with Kirk Cameron Peanut Butter: with Chuck Missler (who?) Kirk Cameron "Debunked" (interesting):

Saltwater into fire...and a cure for cancer?

So this guy from Erie came up with this idea at like 3 in the morning for curing cancer using radio waves. Genius by itself...but, when you add the fact that a by-product of this invention is that he can also set salt water on fire (thus making it combustible enough to be a fuel source)...well, I'll let the video blow your mind for me. It's too early to be witty.

Chill your beer FAST with science

This was actually on an episode of MythBusters, me and the Grand Chawhee (50 points if you know what that's from) tried it and like most science, it worked really really well. I'd explain how it works but then you wouldn't watch the video, and then what's the point of me posting it in the first place? So watch, you zoomer, and learn. GOOOO SCIENCE!

Easy Ways to Unlock your Car

So, it's been 6 days since the last post, and I refuse to let it get to a week, because that's the start of a downward spiral I don't want to get on. Unlike the Super Fun Happy Slide, which I would LOVE to get on. Lock yourself out of your car? Can't find it in a parking lot? Here's a few ideas that may or may not work for you. There's actually a LOT more, but I'm too lazy to post them all, so go visit the link yourself. [HackedGadgets]

How can parts of Canada be "missing" gravity?

For more than 40 years, scientists have tried to figure out what's causing large parts of Canada, particularly the Hudson Bay region, to be "missing" gravity. In other words, gravity in the Hudson Bay area and surrounding regions is lower than it is in other parts of the world, a phenomenon first identified in the 1960s when the Earth's global gravity fields were being charted. [HowStuffWorks]

Scientists find magnets that repel sharks

A company named Shark Defense have found that a rare earth magnet may be the key to avoid getting eaten by Jaws. Since 2001, SharkDefense has been working on a chemical shark repellent. According to Herrmann, he and Stroud were playing around with powerful rare-earth magnets in 2005, when he dropped one next to their shark research tank in Oak Ridge, New Jersey. The lemon and nurse sharks inside instantly darted to the opposite wall. In testing at the Bimini Biological Research Station shark lab in the Bahamas, Stroud and Herrmann have found that sharks dramatically avoid magnets made from neodymium, iron and boron. The magnets even rouse sharks from tonic immobility, a coma-like state induced by turning them upside down. As you can see in this video, the sharks won't cross the line of magnets on the tank floor. [Read]

Xylitol can be harmful to dogs

So, anyone who's ever sent me an email forward that made no sense at all knows that I'm very big on debunking that kind of crap. Could Bill Gates POSSIBLY track and pay you for sending emails? WOULD he? Don't be ridiculous. Yet I still get that one sent to me, randomly, 8-10 years later [sigh]. If you're one of the guilty forwarders, I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret: Snopes. Before you hit "Forward", go to Snopes.com, please, for the love of god. Save us all the time and bandwidth. However, some of them actually are true. This is one of them...a big one. As a pet lover, I'm amazed I haven't actually researched this before, but I'm glad I did now. Spread the word to anyone you know who has dogs...be VERY careful, especially with Orbitz and other gums (nothing against them, I love Orbitz, it just seems to be the most likely place a dog is going to get Xylitol from in most households). Xylitol is a sugar alcohol used in candy and chewing gum. It is also found in some pharmaceuticals and oral health products such as chewable vitamins and throat lozenges. It can also be used in home baking. While Xylitol is safe for humans, it can be harmful to dogs. The compound doesn't affect glucose levels in people, but when ingested by dogs it can cause a dangerous surge of insulin. (In as little as 15 minutes, the blood sugar of a dog that has eaten gum containing Xylitol may register a marked drop in blood sugar.) At higher doses, Xylitol is believed toxic to the canine liver. Just three grams of Xylitol can kill a 65-pound dog. [Snopes] [Wikipedia]

11 Great Color Legends

Some colors become huge successes early on and then fade off into obscurity… while other colors go the distance and become international icons. Here we look at 11 of the great color legends… Stop Sign Red, Horny Green M&Ms, Black Death, Blue Sky... [Read]

A new kind of 'power plant'?

From a distance, as we rounded a bend and first caught sight of it, I couldn't believe the strange structure ahead of me was actually real. The tower looked like it was being hosed with giant sprays of water or was somehow being squirted with jets of pale gas. I had trouble working it out.

In fact, as we found out when we got closer, the rays of sunlight reflected by a field of 600 huge mirrors are so intense they illuminate the water vapour and dust hanging in the air. It is Europe's first commercially operating power station using the Sun's energy this way and at the moment its operator, Solucar, proudly claims that it generates 11 Megawatts (MW) of electricity without emitting a single puff of greenhouse gas. This current figure is enough to power up to 6,000 homes.

[Read]