Aspiring Jedis the world over are rejoicing with the release of the new Spyder III Pro Artic Laser which is billed by the maker (WikedLasers.com) as “the most dangerous laser ever created.”

Obviously modeled on the Skywalker Family’s favorite accessory, the laser produces an “ultra high power 1W beam” that is 1,000 times more powerful than the sun. It can instantly blind anyone within 700 feet after powering on for a 1/4 second and can easily cause skin burns as well as cancer. Even staring at the dot it produces when shined on a wall can cause permanent retinal damage.

This laser is every Star Wars fan’s dream come true, but it is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND POTENTIALLY DEADLY. So please please please don’t buy it.

Here’s where you can buy it.

[Sky News]

Everyday this week… Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Survival Stories ever told.

As I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off the other day, scrambling to find a great/weird survival story, I had an epiphany. In hindsight it’s a blaringly obvious epiphany…but an epiphany nonetheless!

For simplicity’s sake we’ll call this epiphany, Mike.

Once upon a time in September of 1945 Lloyd Olsen decided he was having chicken for dinner. Axe in hand he grabbed a struggling Wyandotte chicken named, Mike (Coincidence? No. No it’s not.) and, much like the mighty Casey, the air was shattered by the force of Lloyd’s blow…the chicken however, not so much.

Lloyd managed to miss the carotid artery and a fair chunk of the brain stem despite lopping off the better part of Mike’s head. The result?

EIGHTEEN MORE MONTHS OF LIFE FOR MIRACLE MIKE. And as we learned from our pal, Wenny the other day, not dying is worth its weight in gold. The Olsen’s began touring with Mike raking in up to $4500 a month via sideshows and fairs. But wait, that’s in mythological 1945 dollars. How much is that in REAL money, you ask?

$53073.16!

Sadly, in 1947, Miracle Mike choked to death in his swank hotel room like so many other rising stars who burn too bright. But forget dear Mike not, friends and readers! Instead, honor his memory by playing “Pin the Head on the Chicken” or entering the “5k Run Like a Headless Chicken Race” at the annual Fruita, Colorado “Mike the Headless Chicken Day” held the third weekend of every May!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find my axe and some practice chickens in the hopes of paying my rent on time this month…

Ever seen an actual chicken actually running around with its actual head chopped off? Will this beat Wenseslao or Ming Ming’s stories in the Weird Off? What else have you got for me?

“Why do I need to buy windshield wiper fluid?” wheezed the Cheapest Man in the World. “I’m just going to shoot it out on the street!”

As it turns out, those who try and use tap water to clean the bug incrusted looking glass are likely poisoning themselves with Legionnaries’ Disease.

If you use standard tap water in your windshield washer fluid reservoir instead of a cleaner, you may have effectively turned your vehicle into a biological weapon. Sure, that sounds cool and all, but according to BBC News, the only person you’re going to be hurting is yourself. As it turns out, using plain water can cause the washer fluid system to become a breeding ground for Legionella bacterium – the same nastiness that causes Legionaires’ Disease and pneumonia. Spray your windshield and the bacteria becomes airborne, allowing it to easily enter your lungs and wreak havoc with your immune system.

Don’t be such a cheapskate. Buy the fluid. Save on antibiotics.

[BBC via Autoblog]

Beautiful hair…

[CNN]

In the 1940’s the archetype of The Mad Scientist was prevalent in all media from movie serials to comic books. Most people didn’t think such characters actually existed, but they instilled fear in the audience who were afraid of science after the advent of the atomic bomb.

Little did they know that over in communist Russia Mad Scientists were hard at work on a freaky Frankenstein-lite experiment.  By hooking the severed head of a dog up to a blood pump the head re-animates and reacts to stimuli.

Uber-creepy, but it does suggest that the Jar Heads featured in Futurama might just exist some day.

Everyday this week… Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Survival Stories ever told.

What happens nine months after that stick bug from Disney/Pixar’s Bug’s Life and Dumbo get a little frisky one night at a Disney holiday party?

You get Ming Ming. The six-year-old Chinese boy was left alone sleeping in his apartment while his grandfather ran an “errand.” (I’m going to avoid making an opium den joke here.) Unfortunately, the poor kid woke up, freaked out and started wandering the apartment screaming for granddad. With no sign of him inside he wandered out onto the safety grate outside the window where the skinny little rascal promptly fell between two bars 8-stories to his certain death.

This is one of those moments where, if this were a movie, the camera would tilt downward following the trajectory of his death dive only to realize that halfway down he somehow wasn’t in frame anymore, and when the camera quickly tilts back up we’d all be met with the image of a screaming six-year-old boy hanging 80 feet in the air by…his ears.

Yes. His ears. (See, now the stick bug/Dumbo line doesn’t seem so silly after all, does it?)

Eventually firemen were able to force the bars apart and pull the little boy back into the apartment without either dropping him to his death or suffocating him.

No word on whether or not he still had the magic feather in his possession.

Your thoughts? I guess if you had to be dangling 8 stories off the ground by a body part it could be worse, right? Any thoughts on jokes I may have left out? Do you have a better survival story you’ve found lurking around the internets?

Well now…

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

After the blaze erupted, first respondents included local fire and police officers, as well as officials from the Department of Irony and Metaphorical Symbolism.

[MSNBC]

Six men have sequestered themselves in a Russian Bunker for a 520-day experiment to study how a mission to Mars would effect astronauts.

The experiment will simulate the isolation of space travel and offer limited access to the outside world. Much like an actual space mission the scientists will only be able to communicate with “Mission Control” when they need assistance. Unlike an actual space mission the researchers will also be participating in simulated Inter-planetary chess with chess master Anatoly Karpov.

Participants can end the study at any time by simply walking out, which is a bit of a cop out. If nobody leaves please join us back here in about a year for our follow-up story: “Russian Researchers Bugger, Eat Each Other.”

[NPR]

The premiere site for paranormal sightings in Latin America, Inexplicata, prints this tale from a Mexican pilot. Word around the hangers is a white arrowhead has been eye balled a few times by different flight crews.

“Dear Ana Luisa – My best regards to you. This photograph was taken by Fausto Abaroa on May 21st as an Aeromexico 737-800 approached Mexico City along the San Mateo air corridor. The same image shows a black flying object that dangerously escorts the passenger jet.

“It should be noted that the allowed distance between one airliner and another is one mile (1209 meters) as per SVRM Regulations for passenger aircraft navigation in Mexican airspace.

Read the original post for the full letter. Could it be an unregistered aircraft? Military prototype? UFO?

[Inexplicata]

Dolphins emit a calming noise that notifies all other dolphins to chill out when dolphin emotions run high and a dolphin fight is about to break out… dolphin-sytle.

The burst-pulsed sounds are used “to avoid physical aggression in situations of high excitement, such as when they are competing for the same piece of food, for example,” said lead researcher Bruno Díaz of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in Sardinia.

Bottlenose dolphins make longer burst-pulsed sounds when they are hunting and at times of high aggression, he said, and these calls allow each individual to maintain its position in the hierarchy.

“Burst-pulsed sounds are used in the life of bottlenose dolphins to socialize and maintain their position in the social hierarchy in order to prevent physical conflict, and this also represents a significant energy saving[s],” Díaz said.

So next time things are about to break down at a bar late night, make like a dolphin and croak out a low burst-pulse sound. Then leave the story of what happened in the comments.

[Live Science]

Wenseslao Moguel is the guy you never want to run into at a cocktail party…and not just because of his hideous, gag inducing face. In fact, he plays a prominent part in my worst nightmare, if not directly, then at least in spirit.

Imagine if you will: you’re regaling the audience at large with your adventurous tales of daring do. You have their full attention with the story about your time spent in Nevada racing ostriches, you weave a tale of wonder with your hang gliding exploits, finally you have their complete admiration as you outline you time spent living on the streets and on other people’s couches as you wander the country without any meaningful possessions like some sort of extremely selfish Kane. But then, it happens.

Wenseslao Moguel steps slowly out from the shadows letting light fall ever so gently on his disfigured face. Somehow, everyone realizes for the first time that he’s in the room and his mere visage brings the laughter and carousing down to a muted hush. He whispers just one sentence.

“I was shot nine times by a firing squad, and once more in the face to ensure my death.”

HOW AM I (er…I mean…ARE YOU) SUPPOSED TO TOP THAT STORY?!?1?!

Allow me to set the stage. The year: 1915. The verdict: guilty. The revolution: Mexican.

Wenseslao (or Wenny as the kids in the school yard presumably called him) is sentenced to death without trial for his role as a soldier in the revolution. After being shot repeatedly he manages to wait until his executioners leave and somehow makes his way to safety and treatment. (I can only assume he ran across the Mexican wildernesses equivalent of Dr. McDreamy’s skilled surgical hands.)

Wenny then went on to live a long and full life touring with the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. Oh, and he had a song written about him.

Man, I hope he’s never at the same party as me.

What do you think? Do you have a story that can steal this survivor’s thunder? What four survival stories could possibly be weirder than this one?

Scientists at the Frederick Hutchinson Cancer Institute have released findings that explain why some creatures can survive being frozen and could lead to advances in suspended animation.

The study finds that small organisms such as yeast can survive extremely cold temperatures if you take away all their oxygen first. The yeast used in the experiment boasted a 66% survival rate after being frozen one day. Better odds than instant death, anyway.

The scientists aim to use the finding to find a way to slow the maturation of terminal illnesses to give conventional treatments more time to work. Once they adapt these new ideas to human beings suspended animation is a certainty.

Would you freeze yourself? Let us know in the comments!

[Science Daily]

[via Pharyngula]

Sheep are being brutally murdered in the United Kingdom country side. Who’s to blame? Psychotics? Hellfire ritualists? Revenge-driven sheep?

In one man’s opinion, it’s proof of UFO visitation.

In rural Britain, dead sheep are being found by famers with mysterious – and gruesome – injuries. Mike says a “highly active” area in the UK includes Shrewsbury, Dartmouth and parts of Wales.

“We’re talking about some fairly remote areas,” he said

“These injuries to the animals – the animals are invariably killed – are very specific. If you’ve seen some of the bodies that I’ve seen, it’s just absolutely incredible.

“The flesh appears to have been cauterized indicating some sort of thermic lance or micro-sonic wand has been used. We’re talking incredible technology. There is never any blood.”

Ahhh, the tell tale signs of the thermic lance or micro-sonic wands…

[BBC News]