Weird News Stories

[BruceVC]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jeremybender/creepiest-places-on-earth

 

Guys take a look at this list, these are some of the scariest and weirdest places on earth to visit , I like the forest in Romania and Leap Castle in Ireland

 

[Malcador]

Wonder when Centralia will finally die down.

[BruceVC]

Wonder when Centralia will finally die down.

 

Yeah that is a good question and it applies to the Door to Hell in Turkmenistan

[Walsingham]

At least Centralia was an accident. A culpable accident, but an accident.

[Malcador]

Good intentions on setting the gas well alight, though someone's math was off.

[Amentep]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jeremybender/creepiest-places-on-earth

 

Guys take a look at this list, these are some of the scariest and weirdest places on earth to visit , I like the forest in Romania and Leap Castle in Ireland

 

 

Varosha, San Zhi, Wonderland, and Cinncinatti's subway system seem ripe for filmic exploitation.

[kgambit]

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jeremybender/creepiest-places-on-earth

 

Guys take a look at this list, these are some of the scariest and weirdest places on earth to visit , I like the forest in Romania and Leap Castle in Ireland

 

 

Varosha, San Zhi, Wonderland, and Cinncinatti's subway system seem ripe for filmic exploitation.

 

 

Varosha, Oradour-sur-Glane and the Cinci subway would be great for zombie flicks. 

[BruceVC]

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jeremybender/creepiest-places-on-earth

 

Guys take a look at this list, these are some of the scariest and weirdest places on earth to visit , I like the forest in Romania and Leap Castle in Ireland

 

 

Varosha, San Zhi, Wonderland, and Cinncinatti's subway system seem ripe for filmic exploitation.

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jeremybender/creepiest-places-on-earth

 

Guys take a look at this list, these are some of the scariest and weirdest places on earth to visit , I like the forest in Romania and Leap Castle in Ireland

 

 

Varosha, San Zhi, Wonderland, and Cinncinatti's subway system seem ripe for filmic exploitation.

 

 

Varosha, Oradour-sur-Glane and the Cinci subway would be great for zombie flicks. 

 

 

I agree, perfect setting actually

[ShadySands]

http://sarcasticcharm.com/99-life-hacks-that-could-make-your-life-easier

[Raithe]

Heh. You can always trust The Sun to accurately research things they write about...

 

[Raithe]

I should have added the rest of the link , so my bad.. but here's one of the reports on it all..:

 

The Escapist - UK Tabloid Confuses Deus Ex Company for Real World Firm

 

 

Sarif Industries, the fictional firm at the center of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, has been cited by The Sun as one of the leading innovators in the field of cybernetic implant technology.

 

Notorious U.K. tabloid The Sun may not be the most journalistically rigorous publication on the planet, but even though occasional missteps are nothing new for the paper I can't help but have a little fun with this one. A recent article in the print edition of the tabloid took a quick look at a number of emerging technologies, including cybernetic implants, but things got a bit out of hand when the author whipped up a brief history of the industry's high points.

 

"These have been in use since 2009 when Carol Kasyjanski of New York became the first recipient of a pacemaker that allows her doctor to monitor her cardiac activity online," the article states. "A year later, Canadian moviemaker Rob Spence replaced his glass eye with a camera that films and broadcasts moments from his life. And U.S. firm Sarif Industries has developed an eyeball implant."

 

The article includes a picture of a "cybernetic eyeball," complete with Sarif Industries logo, which looks very cool - and, of course, does not exist beyond the confines of a videogame. I'm not sure how much that will actually bother anyone at The Sun, but it's good for a laugh. And you have to admit, the Sarif Industries website is pretty convincing - at least until the Lazarus pirate broadcast kicks in.

 

[Gorth]

Ouch. The dangers of social media and keeping an eye on your personal data I guess..

 

Open Letter to New York Comic Con - Protect Our Secret Identities

Oh, they got conned alright... Orwell would have been so proud

[Walsingham]

 

Ouch. The dangers of social media and keeping an eye on your personal data I guess..

 

Open Letter to New York Comic Con - Protect Our Secret Identities

Oh, they got conned alright... Orwell would have been so proud

 

 

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/everything-orwellian-say-idiots-2013092579759

[Raithe]

Astronomers note a rather large asteroid on its way...

 

 

 

Mark August 26th, 2032 on your calendar, folks. Ukrainian astronomers have just detected a 1,350-foot-wide (410 meter) minor planet that’s headed our way. The impact risk is minimal, but it’s now the most serious near-term celestial threat to face our planet.

 

I tend to shrug off this sort of stuff when I encounter it, but the sheer size of this asteroid, along with its near-term potential, made me curious. So I headed over to NASA’S Near Earth Object Program website to see if it was added it to its Torino Scale — a regularly updated chart that designates asteroid impact risk by category.

Not only was it there, it was at the top of the recently observed list — and all lit up in green, which is not a happy color in this case.

 

 

And indeed, the asteroid, which was initially discovered by astronomers working at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in southern Ukraine, has now been confirmed by other scientists in Italy, Spain, the UK, and Russia’s Siberian republic of Buryatia.

 

A Torino Scale rating of 1, which is shown in green, indicates an event that "merits careful monitoring." It’s considered potentially hazardous because its orbit will bring it closer than 7.5 million km from Earth’s orbit. Size also matters when it comes to risk assessment. If it were to hit us, it would unleash 2,500 megatons of TNT — 50 times greater than the biggest nuclear bomb ever detonated.

 

The newly discovered asteroid, named 2013 TV135, now joins 2007 VK184 as the only Torino Scale 1 objects known to astronomers. Asteroid VK184, which is 603 feet (184 meters) in diameter, has a 1 in 1,750 chance of hitting the Earth between 2048 to 2075.

 

SExpand

 

Thankfully, the risk posed by TV135 is extremely low — but not impossibly low. Current best estimates show that it has a 1 in 63,000 chance of colliding with Earth in 2032. That means it has a 99.9984% chance of missing the Earth. This number could either go up or down as new measurements are made over the coming years.

Asteroid defense system, anyone?

 

[Amentep]

And ironically, we also just found out that the Mayan Calendar was calculated by Uinal Katun who forgot to carry the 2 and thus the 2012 end of the world was meant to be 2032*.

 

*this is factually correct as x approaches infinity for sufficiently true values of x

Edited October 17, 2013 by Amentep

[Raithe]

Oh the joys of parents who leap first...
 
Tor - Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere Banned in School
 
 
 
 

A mother in Alamogordo, New Mexico, decided to celebrate Banned Books week a little late this year by asking her daughter’s school to pull Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere from its reading list. She objected to the fact that her daughter, a sophomore student at the town’s lone high school, was expected to read the book after she found what she considers an “R-Rated” scene in the book.
For those of you who haven’t read it, Neverwhere is about a young man named Richard Mayhew who finds out that the London he thought he knew is actually divided into two worlds: London Above, where he lives, and London Below, which is a pseudo-medieval society completely invisible to London Abovers. When he attempts to help a girl from Below, he finds that his kindness not only puts him in mortal danger, but that he, too has become invisible. And it is a desperately lonely scene meant to drive Mayhew’s isolation home that has caused the controversy.
 
The passage in question, on page 86, shows Richard Mayhew unwittingly sharing a park bench with a pair of adulterous lovers, who cannot see him. “The man had his hand inside the woman’s jumper, and was moving it around enthusiastically, a lone traveller discovering an unexplored continent. ‘I want my life back,’ Richard told the couple.” The word f*** is then used three times by the couple, while the woman licks the mans face and “giggles drunkenly.” Their intentions are quite clear, but the scene’s intention is equally so. When put in context it’s very clearly meant to graphically show us Richard’s invisibility.
 
The mother of the student decided that this passage made the book inappropriate for teenagers, and went straight to the administration. Met with this single complaint, the school system pulled the book from the reading list, despite the fact that Neverwhere has been part of the curriculum since 2004, with no prior complaints. For a report on this incident, check out KRQE’s broadcast, or read The Alamogordo News.
Gaiman took to Twitter to find out more, and then posted a lengthy response from Kathy Wallis, one of the teachers in the school’s English Department on his Tumblr:
 
 
“English Department at Alamogordo High School do not agree with the knee jerk reaction of pulling Neverwhere from the Dept. library. It has been successful as a supplemental novel and since our goal is to get students engaged and encourage their thinking, this novel is a keeper — the students love it.”

 
The teachers also specifically took issue with the way this case has been handled, saying that the parent never spoke directly with the teachers, and also clarifying that no one was forcing the student to read the book. The teacher offered an alternate reading assignment as soon as she learned about the objection—presumably from the administrators, as seemingly the parent never spoke with her. She continues:

“I am sorry our school administrators did not stand up and support the material the way we all would have expected them to do […] We simply cannot stand for banning a book for hundreds of students this year and in the years to come because a single parent objected over one brief passage on one page. [...] Our students have enjoyed Gaiman’s novel for almost ten years, and it saddens us to think that our future students will not have the same opportunity.”

 
Neil Gaiman, speaking at the Second Annual Reading Agency lecture last week, mused on the role of adults in children’s reading, and was quoted in The Guardian:

“Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child’s love of reading. Stop them reading what they enjoy or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like—the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian ’improving’ literature—you’ll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and, worse, unpleasant.”

He also provided an account of inadvertently nudging his daughter’s reading habits toward tamer material:
 
Gaiman revealed that he too had been guilty, once telling his 11-year-old daughter that if she loved [R.L.] Stine’s horror books, she would absolutely adore Stephen King’s Carrie: “Holly read nothing but safe stories of settlers on prairies for the rest of her teenage years and still glares at me when Stephen King’s name is mentioned.”
 

You can read a full transcript of the lecture here.
 
Obviously, parents should have a role in what their children are exposed to, and I certainly don’t want to flippantly mock someone’s values or reading tastes. However, the idea that one person’s opinion about her own child’s needs is then allowed to impact every other child in a school district (as well as presumably the careers of the teachers involved) frankly horrifies me. Neverwhere is about many things, including kindness, self-sacrifice, social responsibility, and homelessness. The entire plot hinges on one young man’s decision to help someone, despite the fact that it would be easier for him to ignore her pain. And while it does occasionally use graphic violence to make its points, I think it’s a huge stretch to describe it as “inappropriate,” as the parent did in this case. It is not trying to disabuse young people to the horrors of the world, its trying to argue that it’s worth it to stand up and confront them.

Edited October 17, 2013 by Raithe

[Gorth]

I wonder how long power plants can run if we substitute coal and oil with books for a while?

[Malcador]

And ironically, we also just found out that the Mayan Calendar was calculated by Uinal Katun who forgot to carry the 2 and thus the 2012 end of the world was meant to be 2032*.

 

*this is factually correct as x approaches infinity for sufficiently true values of x

Wait a minute, you can't do a limit on a boolean. Also 2032 is when 32-bit time_t runs out, so that was a concern as well.

[Amentep]

 

And ironically, we also just found out that the Mayan Calendar was calculated by Uinal Katun who forgot to carry the 2 and thus the 2012 end of the world was meant to be 2032*.

 

*this is factually correct as x approaches infinity for sufficiently true values of x

Wait a minute, you can't do a limit on a boolean. Also 2032 is when 32-bit time_t runs out, so that was a concern as well.

 

 

Shhhh...nobody knows that here.

 

Also...the whole caveat of "sufficiently true" was already a problem.

 

But never fear, I can assure you that 1 + 1 = 3 for sufficiently large versions of 1.

[Raithe]

Hm, I really need to get some decent sleep patterns in again...

 

io9 - The Real Reason Sleep Deprivation Can Destroy You

 

 

 

We've all experienced the grinding headache and bodily misery that comes from a few nights of not enough sleep. But why does a sleep deficit wreak such havoc with your normal functioning? New research suggests that sleep fulfills a vital function, and missing sleep can ruin you, even worse than you already suspected.

 

In a nutshell, this new study provides evidence that we need a certain amount of sleep every night, because the brain takes this time to rid itself of toxic metabolic byproducts, which would otherwise accumulate in the brain and impair brain function, destroy neurons — and potentially cause neurodegenerative disorders.

 

One of the main functions of the lymphatic system is to remove the body of waste. A fluid called lymph bathes the cells and tissues in the body, collects cellular waste products and dumps them back into the bloodstream to be filtered from the body.

 

But the brain has no lymphatic vessels. It has its own internal ecosystem and is surrounded by the blood-brain barrier, which controls what enters and leaves the organ. These features have long been a conundrum for scientists.

"Since the brain has a very high metabolic rate, how does it efficiently remove metabolic waste that's produced between cells?" says Rashid Deane, a researcher with the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The Glymphatic System

Last year, Deane and his colleagues discovered that the brain has its own special garbage disposal system, which they've dubbed the glymphatic system, named after the glial cells that are involved in the waste disposal process and the lymphatic system. The glymphatic system is made up of star-shaped glial cells called astrocytes, which form a network of water channels surrounding the brain's blood vessels.

 

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flows into the brain along the channels that surround the arteries. The fluid then washes through the brain tissues and intermixes with the waste-filled interstitial fluid that surrounds the cells of the brain. Finally, the CSF collects in the channels around the veins and drains out of the brain, taking the metabolic waste with it.

 

Importantly, the team discovered that the glymphatic system is responsible for clearing the brain of amyloid beta — a metabolite that many researchers believe can lead to Alzheimer's disease if it builds up and destroys neurons. This suggests that Alzheimer's disease may arise because of a faulty glymphatic system.

In fact, the researchers showed that removing the water channels in mice causes amyloid beta to build up in the brain.

Sleeping to Take Out the Trash

With that research complete, Deane and his colleagues then wondered if there are differences in the glymphatic system between sleeping and waking states. "While you're awake, brain cells are all fired up and producing waste products, but they need to clear those products, too," Deane tells io9. Waste clearance may be difficult or inefficient if the brain is taking in sensory and other information.

 

Additionally, scientists have previously discovered that amyloid beta levels are higher during wakefulness, compared with sleep. On one hand, this change could mean that the production of the metabolite and others are different while you're asleep. Alternatively, it could mean that the brain just disposes of its waste better while you're asleep.

 

To test this latter idea, the researchers trained mice to relax and fall asleep on a device called a two-photon microscope, which can trace the movement of dyes through living tissue in high resolution. Once the mice fell asleep — which the researchers could tell based on the rodents' brain activity — they injected a green dye into their CSF. After half an hour, they woke the mice up, and then injected a red dye into the CSF. By tracking the movement of the two dyes during the session, the researchers discovered that the flow of CSF through the interstitial space — the gaps between the cells — during waking is only about five percent of what it is during sleep.

 

Next, the researchers decided to test whether this interstitial space is increased during sleep — which could possibly explain the increase in CSF flow. "If the gaps between cells are wider, then there will be a larger channel for the fluid to flow through," Deane explains.

In the waking mouse brain, the interstitial space makes up 13 to 15 percent of the brain's volume, the researchers found. But when the mouse is sleeping, this space increases to between 22 and 24 percent. The team isn't sure why the space increases during sleep, but they theorize that the brains cells actually shrink.

 

 

So the flow of CSF and the size of the interstitial space both increase during sleep — but does this actually mean the brain is able to clear away more debris? To find out, Deane and his colleagues injected amyloid beta into the brains of sleeping and waking mice. The glymphatic system cleared the waste twice as fast in the sleeping brains than in the waking brains.

 

Finally, the researchers sought to determine what drives these changes in interstitial space volume that lead to greater waste clearance. "We know that during waking, the brain gets fired up and active after the release of a chemical called noradrenaline," Deane said. This neurotransmitter is not very active during sleep, but it gets released in bursts when the brain needs to be alert, such as in response to fear and other external stimuli.

 

The scientists used an inhibiter to block noradrenaline in the brains of waking mice, causing their brain activity to become more "sleep-like." Inhibiting the chemical also caused the brains' interstitial volume to jump from 14.3 percent to 22.6 percent. The researchers suggest noradrenaline may play a role in regulating the gaps between cells in the brain.

The Link To Neurodegenerative Diseases

Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases are associated with not only the buildup of waste products, but also lack of sleep. While the team's previous study suggested glymphatic failures might be behind neurodegenerative diseases, the current study suggests lack of sleep could be an additional culprit. Specifically, if someone consistently doesn't get enough sleep, amyloid beta and other waste could build up in the brain and destroy neurons, leading to dementia.

 

"Both failure of the glymphatic system and lack of sleep could ultimately lead to increased waste products," Deane said.

The implications of the study are huge, especially when you consider that 50 to 70 million adults in the United States alone have a sleep or wakefulness disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are a number of different drugs out there to help induce sleep, but future therapies could also help the brain clear out its waste products, Deane said.

 

For now, the researchers want to figure out just how the interstitial space increases or decreases with changing brain states. But there many other interesting questions to investigate.

 

For example, it's well known that sleep deprivation decreases your cognitive functions — could this impairment actually be due to the accumulation of brain waste? And could the buildup of waste even be what makes us sleepy and drives us into our beds at the end of the day?

Read the full paper containing the team's findings in the journal Science.

 

 

 

[Walsingham]

My father had an excellent approach to reading. He would periodically tell me I wasn't old enough to read various books, and this guaranteed I'd read them at least twice as soon as possible.

[Raithe]

Heh, for the random funny news..

 

Muggers Choose Cage Fighter as Victim...

 

 

 

A PAIR of drunken muggers picked the wrong man to rob in a darkened car park as their victim turned out to be a cage fighter.

Dean Maundrell and Michael Bennett thought they would outnumber their target as he got home from a Friday night gym session.

But Lewis Hawkins fought back, repeatedly punching Bennett, 27, and ignoring 25-year-old Maundrell’s threat that he had a gun as he dragged him from his car.

Tara Wolfe, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court Mr Hawkins had just arrived home from training at about 8pm on March 8.

 

As he pulled up in his Honda Civic in a car park off Cross Street, close to the flats where he lived, he saw two men loitering.

When he got out Maundrell shouted ‘Oi mate, what’s the time? I’m not from Swindon,’ then grabbed him by the arm.

Bennett joined his accomplice, standing over Mr Hawkins as Maundrell demanded ‘Give me what you’ve got’ and reached into his pocket and grabbed his car keys. Bennett took a swing at him, only for Mr Hawkins to punch him in the face.

 

The fighter then tried to get away from the men but Maundrell tripped him, jumped on him, and tried to punch him, but he blocked the blows before getting free.

“Mr Bennett made an effort to punch him again but the complainant punched back and Mr Bennett fell,” Miss Wolfe said.

“Mr Maundrell got in the car and tried to start it. Mr Bennett went over to the car and was described as leaning all over it. In order to protect the car he (Mr Hawkins) punched Mr Bennett in the face again, causing him to fall to the floor.”

He then dragged Maundrell out of his car and as he did so the robber shouted ‘I’ve got a gun, I’ve got a gun,’ to which Mr Hawkins replied ‘Well get it out and shoot’.

 

Maundrell then said ‘I’m going to blast you’ but when the victim told him to give him his keys he threw them and fled.

Bennett hid behind some bins and Mr Hawkins told him to stay there until the police, who had been called by neighbours, arrived. When he was arrested soon after, he was found to have a lock knife in his pocket which he claimed he had from work.

 

His accomplice was arrested a couple of months later after CCTV footage showed him close to the scene and he was picked out in an ID parade.

Maundrell, of Brendon Walk, Park North, and Bennett, of Queens Drive, both admitted robbery. Bennett denied possessing a bladed article but was found guilty at trial.

 

At the time, Maundrell was under a curfew imposed for an earlier offence.

Jane Malcolm, for Maundrell, said he had been drinking heavily and could recall little of the incident. She said: “As a result of excess alcohol he has behaved like a drunken lout. At the time he was at a low place in his life.”

 

Will Woodman, for Bennett, said his client had contested the trial on the knife, saying it was a work tool.

He said the men had been drinking all afternoon and had been thrown out of the Plum Tree for being drunk before the incident.

“They came up against, I should think, the last person they should want to come up against – a cage fighter who knows how to look after himself,” he said.

Jailing them, Judge Euan Ambrose said: “These offences are so serious that in each of your cases only an immediate custodial sentence can be justified.”

Maundrell was jailed for 27 months and Bennett, who played the lesser role, got 20 months.

 

 

 

[ShadySands]

Heroes or vandals?

 

 

A video of the pillar falling released on Facebook on Friday shocked many Americans, including state rangers and Boy Scout officials, who said the toppling of one of hundreds of rock pillars at the park contravened tradition, rules, and potentially criminal law.

 

But the incident has also raised questions, exacerbated by recent the government closures of national parks due to vandalism concerns, about how average Americans and state rangers view nature stewardship in different ways.

 

Park rangers said that visitors should keep their hands off natural formations, especially those under state protection. "This is highly, highly inappropriate," Eugene Swalbert, a state park official, told the Salt Lake Tribune.

 

 

But Boy Scout leaders Dave Hall and Glenn Taylor – representing the Utah National Parks Council – explained that the goblin rock moved at the mere push of a hand during a hike with a group of teenage scouts. Dylan Taylor was the third man present.

 

After discovering the allegedly loose rock, the men said they pow-wowed for 15 minutes, discussing what to do. They ultimately decided that the rock posed a danger to hikers coming up a trail below it, especially since the park was more crowded than usual because of the shutdown of the state’s numerous national parks. They said the cheering and high fiving in the video was a result of the sheer rush of watching a massive stone dislodged and tumble.

[ManifestedISO]

Oh, I know the truth of hearts in Utah, and it is not preventive heroism.

[Walsingham]

 

Heh, for the random funny news..

 

Muggers Choose Cage Fighter as Victim...

 

 

 

A PAIR of drunken muggers picked the wrong man to rob in a darkened car park as their victim turned out to be a cage fighter.

Dean Maundrell and Michael Bennett thought they would outnumber their target as he got home from a Friday night gym session.

But Lewis Hawkins fought back, repeatedly punching Bennett, 27, and ignoring 25-year-old Maundrell’s threat that he had a gun as he dragged him from his car.

Tara Wolfe, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court Mr Hawkins had just arrived home from training at about 8pm on March 8.

 

So not only did they pick a cage fighter, but a fully warmed-up cage fighter?