“Residents in Huanshan City in East China encountered one of the best and most clearest mirage of their city a few weeks ago after a rainfall. Apparently some believed to be a “ghost city” that materialized over the Xin’an River. Yet others believed that what they were looking at was a real city from another dimension.”
Well this is certainly a step in the right direction for downloading instructions on how to fly a helicopter right into your brain. Researchers have stuffed chips into rat brains that enabled them to instantly know things. They can also flip the switch off and the rats forget. Fascinating.
After studying the chemical interactions that allow short-term learning and memorization in rats, a group of scientists lead by Dr. Theodore Berger—from the University of South California’s Viterbi School of Engineering—have built a prosthetic chip that uses electrodes to enhance and expand their memory abilities. The chip is capable of storing neural signals, basically functioning as an electronic memory, allowing rats to learn more and keep it in the devices.
Dr. Berger’s description is almost frightening:
“Flip the switch on, and the rats remember. Flip it off, and the rats forget […] These integrated experimental modeling studies show for the first time that with sufficient information about the neural coding of memories, a neural prosthesis capable of real-time identification and manipulation of the encoding process can restore and even enhance cognitive mnemonic processes.
[Gizmodo]
Recently, a dog in Jerusalem got uppity and entered the courts and would not leave. This prompted some judges to remember that they had cursed a lawyer 20 years early to have his spirit enter a dog, because in traditional Judaism dogs are impure creatures. Naturally, they issued a verdict that the lawyer dog should be stoned to death. Luckily for the dog, it escaped before its sentence could be carried out.
“A Jewish rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a stray dog it feared was the reincarnation of a lawyer who insulted its judges, reports say.
The dog entered the Jerusalem financial court several weeks ago and would not leave, reports Israeli website Ynet.
It reminded a judge of a curse passed on a now deceased secular lawyer about 20 years ago, when judges bid his spirit to enter the body of a dog.
The animal is said to have escaped before the sentence was carried out.”
[BBC]
A strange little video. Thoughts?
“We caught whatever this is on our digital still camera on video mode. We were zoomed in as far as the camera would go. It took off when we tried to get closer. We were startled by the result of the zoomed image, PA.”
The Bounty
io9 will be offering a $2000 bounty for the best photographic or video evidence of a genuine cryptid. In August, we will invite our panel of experts, including zoologists, the team behind excellent cryptid blog Cryptomundo, cryptid expert Loren Coleman, and a photoshop analyst, to judge which pictures are the most authentic. We’ll give the bounty to the one that they judge to be the most mysterious yet authentic creature.Don’t have a cryptid photo or video? We still want to hear your stories.
Help your fellow cryptid hunters this summer by telling them where you saw cryptids, or heard about them showing up. You can post your stories in our Cryptid Summer Forum, or put your sightings upon our community cryptid map here.While the bounty is out, throughout June and July, we will post updates on the best photos we’ve gotten, and ask you to vote on which ones you think are most likely to be authentic.
Something For The Fakers, Too
Want to give us your best fake picture of a cryptid? Well, start your engines. In July, we’ll ask for your most awesome fake images of cryptids, and readers can vote on the best ones. If yours wins, we’ll give you some free books and DVDs.
[io9]
An Australian chap named Chris Malloy has built a hoverbike from motorbike parts, and he claims it can fly at 173 mph at an altitude of 10,000 feet.
Those are theoretical figures for the time being because the contraption hasn’t flown too far yet. Malloy bases those outlandish specs on the 231-pound device’s thrust-to-weight ratio. It consists almost solely of a pair of massive propellers powered by an 1,170-cc engine good for 107 horsepower. The fuel tank contains enough juice to give it a range of 92 miles at a cruising speed of 92 mph.
The pilot’s right hand controls the thrust of the rotors, while the left adjusts the angle of the control vanes, pitching the nose down or up to move forward or backward. Turning the handlebars turns the machine.
[Wired]
Scientists at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have genetically engineered the world’s first living laser. This is a living cell that can emit laser light. Based on previous Nobel winning work on Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) the researchers believe these laser shooting cells can be used in imaging and the targeted destruction of diseased cells.
Now, GFP has been incorporated into living human cells for an entirely new purpose: the production of laser light. Optical physicists in Boston have genetically engineered a cell capable of amplifying light and emitting a bright-green directional laser beam visible to the naked eye. Their research is published in the June 12th issue of Nature Photonics.
“This is the first time that we have used biological materials to build a laser and generate light from something that is living,” said Dr. Seok-Hyun Yun, who, together with his colleague Malte Gather, created the living laser.
[io9]
And now: taxonomic correction during assault.
Police say a man was carrying a dead weasel when he burst into a Hoquiam apartment and assaulted a man.
The victim asked, “Why are you carrying a weasel?” Police said the attacker said, “It’s not a weasel, it’s a martin,” then punched him in the nose and fled.
The attacker was apparently looking for his girlfriend and had gone to her former boyfriend’s apartment Monday night where the victim was a guest.
KXRO reports he left carcass behind.
The Leicester City Council is “not ready” for a zombie attack and a concerned citizen forced them to admit it using the Freedom of Information Act. The CDC recently released one here in the U.S., but it could use some work.
“A worried member of the public has forced Leicester City Council to admit it is unprepared for a zombie invasion.
The authority received a Freedom of Information request which said provisions to deal with an attack, often seen in horror films, were poor.
The “concerned citizen” said the possibility of such an event was one that councils should be aware of.
Zombie letter in full
Dear Leicester City Council,
Can you please let us know what provisions you have in place in the event of a zombie invasion? Having watched several films it is clear that preparation for such an event is poor and one that councils throughout the kingdom must prepare for.
Please provide any information you may have.
Yours faithfully,
Concerned Citizen”
[BBC via Geekologie]
Police in Brownhelm Township, Ohio were called to Timber Ridge Campground because an extremely intoxicated man was fighting people and kicking dog cages. So far this story sounds like just another night on Lake Erie, but when the police found the man in question, Thomas Stroup, passed out in a trailer surrounded by knives and swords things got interesting. When he was first awoken by the police he reportedly growled at them and then started talking in a slurred Russian accent. He then proceeded to tell the deputies that he had been scratched by a wolf in Germany and now “blacks out and goes on the attack when the moon’s out”.
“A man who allegedly acted violently after drinking “copious amounts of vodka” told Lorain County sheriff’s deputies he had been scratched by a wolf in Germany and now “goes on the attack when the moon’s out,” deputies reported.
Deputies found Stroup passed out inside a trailer filled with knives, swords and other edged weapons, the report said. When Stroup awoke, at first he only growled at deputies. When he spoke, his words were slurred and in a thick Russian accent.
He told a deputy he was going to kill the deputy’s cousin Keith, but the deputy did not have a cousin named Keith, according to the report.
While being driven to jail, Stroup was apologetic, saying he drank too much vodka and blacked out. He added he was arrested last year by German police for blacking out after drinking too much vodka. Police found a passport in his pocket confirming he had visited Germany.”
I love the fact that he actually has his passport in his pocket and the deputies actually go through the process of verifying that he had actually been to Germany and then including it in the report.
[The Morning Journal and Fox 8 Cleveland via Deadspin]
“According to a statement from the Uruguay navy, officers on a routine ocean patrol came “across a large number of dead penguins” and alerted environmental authorities.
Officials are now attempting to “establish whether the cause of death is due to a sudden change of temperature” from a toxic substance called Ferox, that was recently found in coastal waters on the Atlantic coast, the navy said.
An animal rescue group told The Associated Press that they found the carcasses of 400 Magellan penguins washed up near the town of Piriapolis. Dead turtles, dolphins, and albatrosses were also found nearby.”
Forget about the shapeshifters on the loose – it is being reported that monster rats the size of small dogs are killing and eating children in South Africa. The rats can grow up to three feet long and have inch long teeth.
“The monster rodents are as big as cats are thought to have killed two babies in the townships, according to the The Sun.
Three-year-old Lunathi Dwadwa was killed as she slept in her parent’s shack in a slum outside Cape Town this week.
Another baby girl died in a similar rat attack, on the same day, but this time in the Soweto township near Johannesburg.
Last month, 77-year-old grandmother Nomathemba Joyi died after giant rats chewed off the right side of her face.”
You have until June 13th to submit your name to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to be included on a microchip in the Mars Science Laboratory rover which is headed to Mars later this year. To date 1,171,344 names have been submitted and California, Texas, and Florida are dominating the U.S. participation.
[JPL]
So, yeah. 71 49 19.73n 29 33 06.53w in Google Mars if you want to see it yourself. What do you think it is?
CASSINI MISSION from Chris Abbas on Vimeo.
“Rick Sheridan was working in his garage when he heard gunshots. He went around the back of his house to a pond, where he saw three police officers. The three officers had spotted the gator and were lined up on the bank, shooting at the large reptile.”
No words.
[Fox 4 KC]