They even see colors, those lying little vermin. Impostors!

[Live Science]

Remember that pirate ship they found under the World Trade Center we reported on in July? Researchers gathered many samples and the investigation has now started to reveal the true origins of the ship.

The wood samples will hopefully tell us where the ship was built by analyzing the properties and age rings. They are also analyzing various woodworms in the wreckage to glean where the ship might have sailed.

The American Archaeologist site is keeping a close eye on the ship and will report findings as they happen.

[American Archaeologist]

Scientists at the University of Calgary have used a specific type of microchip called a neurochip to allow doctors to monitor the brain waves of victims of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

While the chips aren’t quite ready to replace your Gravis Gamepad, researchers hope they will eventually let patients control symptoms and doctors to monitor the brain’s reaction to new treatments.

[CBC News]

If this is an elaborate viral campaign to promote the upcoming Thor movie, color me impressed.

Long dismissed as accidental additions to Viking graves, prehistoric “thunderstones”—fist-size stone tools resembling the Norse god Thor’s hammerhead—were actually purposely placed as good-luck talismans, archaeologists say.

Using fire-starting rock such as flint, Stone Age people originally created the stones to serve as axes. But the Vikings, whose Iron Age heyday lasted from about A.D. 800 to 1050, saw the primitive tools as lightning repellent.

As yet unreported, the underside of the hammerhead features a picture of Natalie Portman and a prequel comic that leads into the events of the film. Not really.

[Nat Geo]

Enjoy this stunning HD video of the Apollo 11 rocket taking off… in HD! No clue how they kept the camera from melting, but their innovation makes for a great video.

In an update to our story from last week (Asteroid Heading For Earth (in 2182)!), NASA is considering sending a probe to the ominous asteroid 1999 RQ36 to collect rock samples so they can more accurately when and if it will collide with earth. The project is being proposed as part of the New Frontiers program, and is competing with a trip to Venus for funding.

Basically, we are choosing between finding out when Earth will be destroyed or finding somewhere else to go before it is. Considering Bruce Willis will most likely not be around when the time comes I think we can safely write off the ‘Armageddon Option.’

[Telegraph.co.uk]

The fine folks at Cracked.com list ’em like only they can, from military dogfights to strange green fireballs.

[Cracked]

We told you last week about a possible new therapy hoping to regrow body parts. Unlike the ill-fated research of Dr. Curt Connors, it does not use the DNA of an animal that naturally regrows limbs so the likelihood of the recipient turning into a giant lizard and forcing Spider-man to do a backflip whilst saying something glib… is unlikely.

But that was that therapy. This therapy makes none of the same boring promises.

Scientists are regrowing mouse limbs with newt and salamander DNA and humans could be next.

“Newts regenerate tissues very effectively,” said Helen Blau, PhD, the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Professor and a member of Stanford’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. “In contrast, mammals are pathetic. We can regenerate our livers, and that’s about it. Until now it’s been a mystery as to how they do it.”

Not noted in the story is that lightning struck right after she called mammals pathetic.

The unsolved puzzle to limb regeneration is apparently the rampant cancer that unchecked cell replication can kick start. Mouse trials have utilized two tumor-suppressing proteins to keep that mess in check.

Peter Parker, it’s time you came face to face with… The Newt.

Thanks to Weird Things reader Dan Wheeler for passing this along.

[Science Daily]

Apparently some small monkeys are freaked the freak out by flying squirrels. Researches have noticed that the otherwise even-keeled creatures lose their s@#$ when they see one.

When Japanese giant flying squirrels glided over to a tree in the monkeys’ vicinity, adults and adolescent macaques started hollering at it threateningly, the researchers report. Young macaques screamed and mothers scooped up their infants, while adults and high-ranking males in particular went and physically harassed the offending squirrel.

Onishi said other researchers have observed macaques responding in a similarly aggressive manner to birds that prey on the monkeys, such as the golden eagle and mountain hawk eagle. These raptors glide and swoop much like the flying squirrels.

Even when the monkeys climb a tree to get a better look at these air-borne rodents they still start hootin’ and hollerin’. Can you blame them?

[Live Science]

Marvel at the various life cycle of the fantastical Turritopsis nutricula, a jellyfish that is, for all practical purposes, immortal. This strange creature reaches adulthood, transforms itself back into a child, then lives through it’s life again. Think of it as Groundhog Day with a jellyfish.

While old age can’t kill it, the creature is still susceptible to disease and fatal injuries.  Read more about this fascinating forever-fish here.

Paging Dr. Connors… Dr. Curt Connors…

Researchers at the Tufts Center for Regenerative & Developmental Biology at Tufts University are testing whether a replicated amniotic (womb fluid) environment can promote limb regeneration in adult mammals.

Trials in rats have now begun. No word yet if Empire State University has received their grant yet…

[Chemical & Engineering News via Kurzweil]

And on Shark Week no less! In the interest of fair comment the YouTube description says that fatal shot was fired because the injured shark was going to be eaten anyhow, so this was a mercy killing.

Still… OMFG! This completely changes how I think about Jason Mraz…

[YouTube via Deadspin]

The FDA has given a biotech tech firm the A-OK to start embryonic stem cell therapy trails. First up? An Iraq war vet who was paralyzed from the chest down in 2005.

Yesterday it was announced that Iraq War veteran and Marine Matt Cole, paralyzed from the chest down since a 2005 insurgent attack in Iraq, has enrolled as the first patient in the first FDA clinical trial of adult stem cells used to treat spinal cord injuries.

The procedure involves removing a couple of thousand adult stem cells from Cole’s bone marrow, multiplying them in the lab and injecting them into his spinal cord. That should happen later this month. Nine other patients have also been enrolled for this phase of the trial, which is being undertaken by TCA Cellular Therapy in Covington, La.

Is that super serum enough for you? Me too.

Now who wants to send Matt a shield… just in case.

[Business Wire via Pop Sci]

Newly declassified documents have revealed that former Prime Minister Winston Churchill demanded a cover-up of an encounter between a Royal Air Force plane and a UFO.

The revelation was found in a letter from the son of one of Churchill’s bodyguards who claimed to have witnessed Churchill viewing pictures of the incident and demanding it remain secret for at least 50 years because ‘it would create mass panic among the general population and destroy one’s belief in the Church’.

UFO experts aren’t surprised, however. Churchill is known as a big UFO buff, and even requested an update from the British government in the 50’s.

[Telegraph.co.uk]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Cadillac of dead body retrieval technology…

The system involves a small aluminum pipette that can detect trace amounts of a chemical called ninhydrin-reactive nitrogen, which collects in air pockets around a grave site. It’s the only known example of testing the chemical in its vapor phase, NIST says. As an added bonus, the system works at ambient temperatures instead of freezing cold, which could make it easy to transport.

Chemists Thomas J. Bruno and Tara M. Lovestead tested it on dead rats, burying some in 3 inches of soil and laying others on top of the soil. For comparison, they also tested boxes with no dead rats in them. The NRN compound was still detectable after nearly five months, the researchers say. A paper on their findings was published in the journal Forensic Science International.

Cross that one off your Christmas wish list.

[PhysOrg via Pop Sci]

Could brief flashes of gamma explosions billions of light years away be the very seems of our cohesive universe?

According to theories of high-energy particle physics, the strings would have been created when matter in the very early universe went through what’s called phase changes, such as when liquid water freezes to become solid ice.

Cosmic strings, the theories state, are imperfections in space-time akin to the cracks that form as water freezes.

Although there is no observational evidence for cosmic strings, most theories predict that the strings should stretch through the universe to its horizon.

“You can picture a cosmic string as an extremely long conducting wire with the same length-scale of the universe,” Cheng said.

Most gamma explosions come from collapsing stars, but those last more much longer. These fireballs are different, shorter. Could they be the subtle imperfections in our universe?

[Nat Geo]