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How to catch the 'Jihadi Bug'

How to catch the 'Jihadi Bug'

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

Want to become a terrorist?  It's easier than you think to get sucked in, writes New Scientist.

The anthropology of terrorism makes for compelling fieldwork and Scott Atran is on a quest to understand what makes people kill and die for a cause.   He says he has met with the Hamas high command in Damascus, unpacked the web of connections behind the 9/11 and 2004 Madrid train attacks and been forced to flee for his life from militants in Indonesia and Pakistan unsettled by his probings.
We've all thought it -

We've all thought it - "Will someone please shut Krugman up?"

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

Some people feel like they were born in the wrong century and should have been born when there were cowboys or knights or whatever.   Paul Krugman simply thinks he was born in the wrong decade and should have come along two decades earlier than he did, when money was free, the Great Society was just being funded and activism mattered. 
WikiLeaks boss walks out on CNN interview when reporter asks him about HIS private life

WikiLeaks boss walks out on CNN interview when reporter asks him about HIS private life

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his organization are famously liberal with the secrets of the U.S. military but he is not so forthcoming about his own private affairs.

Assange walked out of a CNN interview after the reporter asked him about his often terse relationship with fellow workers and the court case in which he was cleared of sex abuse charges in Sweden.
9 Foreign Rip-Offs Cooler Than The Hollywood Originals

9 Foreign Rip-Offs Cooler Than The Hollywood Originals

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

You think Batman's pretty cool, don't you?  Outside of America, they make Batman even cooler because he guns down bad guys and has sex with the ladies he rescues. 

Other countries have been working around the clock to improve our cultural icons in similar. From Cracked.com, here are 9 ripoffs that are better than the US originals, proving you can create something awesome no matter where you're from or how limited your budget is, as long as you don't give a shit about copyrights.
Probiotics Health Claims Remain Unproven For The Sixth Time

Probiotics Health Claims Remain Unproven For The Sixth Time

Oct 23 2010 | comment(s)

The Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies posted its assessment of 800 health claims earlier this week, including some from manufacturers whose products include so-called functional ingredients like probiotics, which are food additives proponents claim can stimulate the immune system to aid digestion or inhibit pathogens.
Dogs can recognize their owner's faces

Dogs can recognize their owner's faces

Oct 22 2010 | comment(s)

In the first study designed to show how much dogs 'prefer' their owners, scientists say they have also shown just how much dogs rely on seeing their owners faces in order to recognize them.

The researchers writing in the journal Animal Behaviour measured how much dogs prefer to gaze at and follow their owners, rather than a stranger and described how dogs had difficulty recognizing their human "best friend" when the person had their face covered.
Professional sleeping? Spain Holds First Annual Siesta Championship

Professional sleeping? Spain Holds First Annual Siesta Championship

Oct 22 2010 | comment(s)

In a move designed to help revive the tradition of taking a nap after lunch, Spain's first national siesta championship is underway in Madrid.

Participants are monitored as they lie down for a 20-minute nap and they have pulse monitors attached to their bodies.   A maximum of 20,000 points is awarded to those who manage to sleep for the full 20 minutes and sleeping fewer minutes means fewer points but judges also award marks for original sleeping positions, the loudest snore and the most eye-catching outfits.

AFP
UK science not dead, but it's frozen

UK science not dead, but it's frozen

Oct 22 2010 | comment(s)

Talk of significant cuts in the UK's science budget had some researchers in the country worried about a "brain drain" of researchers to other countries but the government has sent a signal to scientists and engineers in the UK that research is still a priority - sort of. Genomeweb has the details.
Rapid rise in Medicaid expenditures for autism treatment

Rapid rise in Medicaid expenditures for autism treatment

Oct 22 2010 | comment(s)

Autism was described as early as 1940 but only recently has there been a marked increase in the diagnosis of the broader class of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) - one in 110 children in 2006 and that diagnosis increased at an average annual rate of 57% between 2002 and 2006. The escalating health care expenditures associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has the health community concerned.
Google Engineer Builds Facebook Disconnect Tool

Google Engineer Builds Facebook Disconnect Tool

Oct 22 2010 | comment(s)

If you are increasingly concerned about the numerous "connect to Facebook" links on too many websites to count (not here, but if you want to put this article on your Facebook page, by all means do so) or you don't feel like the vaguely creepy guy running it has the best interests of members in mind and shouldn't have your web browsing data, a Google engineer is here for you.
NPR - backlash from both sides over Williams firing

NPR - backlash from both sides over Williams firing

Oct 22 2010 | comment(s)

NPR news analyst Juan Williams gets nervous about people who put religion before anything - it's a sentiment shared by most of the progressives who listen to taxpayer-funded National Public Radio - but he was wrong to say it, according to NPR, so they fired him.

It isn't just conservatives who are siding with freedom of speech over political correctness - though Whoopi Goldberg and Bill O'Reilly on the same side is a rarity.
6,400 state university students and staff urged to vote early and help Democratic Party

6,400 state university students and staff urged to vote early and help Democratic Party

Oct 22 2010 | comment(s)

Should tax dollars for a state school be used to solicit votes for a political party?   If you think it's illegal and unethical, you're right.   

State school employees in the student affairs division at Winston-Salem State University didn't think that applied to elections where it's this important so 6,400 staffers and students got an email requesting that they help Democrats as much as possible and take advantage of early voting available there.
OMNI Publisher Bob Guccione Dead at 79

OMNI Publisher Bob Guccione Dead at 79

Oct 22 2010 | comment(s)

Okay, you may not have thought much of Penthouse but Bob Guccione, Sr. was a fan of science also - like many successful people of his day, he was a geek who made money one way and used it to finance things he loved, like science and science fiction.   One of those things that contained both was OMNI, a curious hybrid.

While OMNI never made any money, he financed it for 16 years.
Scary chupacabras: Villain or victim?

Scary chupacabras: Villain or victim?

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

As Halloween approaches, tales of monsters and creepy crawlies abound. Among the most fearsome in places like Mexico and Puerto Rico is the legendary beast known as the chupacabras. 

But the real fiend is not the hairless, fanged animal purported to attack and drink the blood of livestock; it's a tiny, eight-legged creature that turns a healthy, wild animal into a chupacabras, says University of Michigan biologist Barry OConnor.
Warmer Arctic probably permanent

Warmer Arctic probably permanent

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

The signs of climate change were all over the Arctic this year - warmer air, less sea ice, melting glaciers - which probably means this weather-making region will not return to its former, colder state, scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported on Thursday.

"It's a bit of a paradox where you have overall global warming and warming in the atmosphere (that) actually can create some more of these winter storms," said Jim Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. "Global warming is not just warming everywhere. ... It creates these complexities."
Gene Simmons Unleashes 4Chan On Himself

Gene Simmons Unleashes 4Chan On Himself

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

Gene Simmons of KISS fame is all about the money - most aging rockers don't have the pretense they had when they were young ("it's not about the money, man, it's about the MUSIC") and make no secret of the fact they want to get paid.

So when Gene Simmons stated he didn't think the RIAA was aggressive enough prosecuting grandmothers if their grandkids downloaded a Justin Bieber song ("Make sure your brand is protected. Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars.") and Anonymous at 4Chan (all million of them) tried to rattle his chain, he wasn't impressed.
Google's Dutch Sandwich Saves Them $60 Billion In Taxes

Google's Dutch Sandwich Saves Them $60 Billion In Taxes

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

It's good to be a big company.   Middle America is about to get clobbered with higher taxes to pay for a health care reform that won't reform anything but Google's clever income shifting helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.
Number of sisters affects male sexuality

Number of sisters affects male sexuality

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

Unburdened by social engineering, some females prefer males who act like males so growing up with lots of sisters makes a male less sexy - for rats, anyway.

A new study published in Psychological Science, says that the sex ratio of a male rat's family when he's growing up influences both his own sexual behavior and how female rats respond to him.
When males who were raised with a lot of sisters were presented with receptive female rats, they spent less time mounting them than did male rats that were raised in male-biased litters or in balanced families.
Chinese economic sabotage? Rare earth exports cut

Chinese economic sabotage? Rare earth exports cut

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

Like 'green' technology?  Currently 97% of the world's 17 rare earths originate from China and they are necessary for catalytic converters that reduce emissions in cars, for computer monitors,  pharmaceuticals and many other things that require these specialty metals.
Google Maps locates The Bat Cave

Google Maps locates The Bat Cave

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

Is nothing secret any more?    Not with Google Maps prowling the planet.

The top secret location of Batman's Batcave has been revealed and it's not under Wayne Manor - it's at an Air Force base in Okinawa.

Batman symbol Air Force’s 44th Fighter Squadron, the Vampire Bats

Why is it there?  The 44th Fighter Squadron is known as "the Vampire Bats", according to an Air Force spokesman.   Suuuuuuure, that's the truth.