A shockingly well preserved Wooly Mammoth has been found in the far flung regions of Siberia and it could lead to the future resurrection of the species. The six-month old animal died over 10,000 years ago. It’s eyes and trunk are were found preserved in the permafrost.

But back to the main question, how does this lead to us bringing back the fuzzy beasts of yore?

Some scientists hold out hope that well preserved sperm or other cells containing viable DNA could be used to resurrect the mammoth lineage.

Despite the inherent difficulties, Dr Agenbroad remains optimistic about the potential for cloning.

“When we got the Jarkov mammoth [found frozen in Taimyr, Siberia, in 1997], the geneticists told me: ‘if you can get us good DNA, we’ll have a baby mammoth for you in 22 months’,” he told BBC News.

The beast did not initially yield a sufficient DNA sample but is being sent to Japan for further study. Meanwhile, scientists fret that further finds could be tainted by a burgeoning new black market trade. Siberian scavengers, who used to simply sell the recovered from the ice have since begun selling mammoth parts found in the permafrost online. For example, mammoth hair sells for $50 an inch.

In other news, does anyone have $50.

[BBC]

GOOGLE PROJECT GLASS LOOKS AS PROMISING AS MICROSOFT’S VISION OF THE TABLET PC IN 2001…

Google has only released one video and little else on their project for bringing augmented reality to the masses, so it’s hard to cast aspersions on what’s the most vapory of vaporware. That said, I’ll pick apart the video; in that even with the use of After Effects and the potential to show us anything, their vision of the future seems rather timid.

Like the silly Nintendo Power Glove in Minority Report (far less impressive than Microsoft’s Kinect and ideas in the labs when the movie was made), we get a vision of the future that feels dated before it happens.

The future is not run on Nintendo Power Gloves...

Google’s glasses appear to just be a screen in front of your face with eye tracking. And I don’t mean that in the ‘iPhone is just a screen you touch’, way. It feels like Microsoft’s attempt at tablets in the early 2000’s. They figured your finger would just be a pointing device for Windows. Substitute ‘eye’ for ‘finger’ here and you get a shortsighted vision of the potential for this technology.

Google’s Glass doesn’t do anything different than what we do now. The screen is just in a different place. Think of how the iPad changed the way we interact with software or how Microsoft’s Kinect changed gaming. Augmented Reality could be bigger than all of this.

Touch interfaces took off when you realized that the medium had changed. Google’s Glass doesn’t feel that way. I don’t think they get their medium. My first case in point is the map feature:

How does Google envision using augmented reality to show us a map? They just float a regular map in front of you. Why not lay the map over on your field of view and actually show you a path to follow?

Second, let’s look at the trip to the book store. Obviously, Google doesn’t want to scare off brick and mortar partners with flashing deals to buy the book elsewhere. But why not use their already solid image recognition technology to hover reviews of the book or show us augmented publisher information. The same for the concert poster. Make the thing move. Show us what a connected world looks like.

Third, the apps were disappointing. When the girlfriend calls, why not make it look like she’s on the top of the building with him? Don’t just overlay reality, blend it. Why not create artificial elements in real space?

Fourth, show us virtual objects. What’s a virtual ebook look like to read or a magazine? I’d love to see what Google thinks the future of virtual items will be like with augmented reality. I have to image it’s more than a transparent screen.

That said, I’m excited that Google is taking the initiative on this. I’ll leave them with the words of Tom Hardy’s Eames in Inception, “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.”

For good time’s sake:

James Cameron heads down to the bottom of the ocean and the boys squee with delight. Justin hits rock bottom while living with Brian only to purchase and lose a winning MegaMillions lotto ticket. Andrew describes a mysterious abandoned LA mansion built with plenty of room for goose stepping. Spiro and The Fudge return to solve the case of a crop circles in Australia.

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UNINTERRUPTED thanks to Brian Brushwood’s Scam School Book 1 and Andrew Mayne’s Angel Killer.

Picks:

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Hunger Games

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Brian:

The Provider

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Angel Killer

What is there not to love about this report from KSAX-TV News? A reporter is dispatched to take a look at a mysterious bit of road kill found by a local woman. Pictures of the hairless creature sparked an intense Facebook debate as to what the creature could be.

The local who found the questionable carrion pointed out what looked like human features on the beast and wondered aloud about secret government testing on animals.

Our favorite moment of the clip? A little girl who is shown a photo of the beast during a “man on the street” segment. He answers, “I think it’s a dog.” When pressed for reasons why? “Because it is.”

From the mouth of babes…

[KSAX] via Scott Johnson

In front of security cameras, a tourist vanishes from the top of the Empire State Building and mysteriously falls to her death moments later in Times Square…

A young girl dies crawling out of her own grave after having been declared dead a year earlier…

On a Fort Lauderdale beach, a missing World War II airman and his aircraft show up as if he died only hours before…

They call the mysterious man behind these unnatural events the Warlock. To some he’s the messenger of a modern age of miracles.

To Jessica Blackwood, FBI agent and daughter of a legendary magic family, the Warlock is a trickster and a murderer and she’s the only one who can see through his deceptions.

—

Andrew Mayne, the author of Public Enemy Zero and The Chronological Man series brings you an edge-of-your-seat triller that only he could write.

BUY IT NOW FOR ONLY 99¢

Necessity is the mother of invention.

For blind California resident Steve Mahan, he absolutely needed to get a taco. But how to get there? He could walk, call a cab or get picked up from a friend.

He relied on a trusty friend from Mountain View named Google.

And so Steve headed to the Bell, driven by one of Google’s new self-driving cars. Science and technology had finally advanced it’s most challenging rubric, getting a blind man to a chalupa as fast and easy as possible.

According to the Google’s own Google+ page, since Mahan doesn’t have a driver’s license he had to get special permission from local law enforcement to sit in the front seat. A police official even sat in on the ride. But we’re pretty sure it was just so he could get one of the new Dorito shell hard tacos.

[Google’s Google+]

I am fond of saying that all politicians are lizard people. Vaguely humanoid creatures drawn to the warmth of public office and the uniquely bizarre responsibilities and customs that go with it.

But that’s just a metaphor. A way to illustrate a healthy distrust for anyone campaigning.

It certainly isn’t true about Councillor Simon Parkes of the UK, who was elected only last month. He isn’t a lizard person. No, according to a confessional vlog on YouTube he’s one half green alien.

He said: “Two green stick things came in. I was aware of some movement over my head. I thought, ‘they’re not mummy’s hands, mummy’s hands are pink’.”

He added: “I was looking straight into its face. It enters my mind through my eyes and it sends a message down my optic nerve into my brain.

“It says ‘I am your real mother, I am your more important mother’.”

He later confesses that his alien background did not come up during his recent campaigning. Furthermore, his extraterrestrial lineage is far more aware of the world around him than the local government he was elected to serve on.

“I get more common sense out of the aliens than out of Scarborough Town Hall. The aliens are far more aware of stuff. People in the Town Hall seem not to be aware of the needs of Whitby.”

You’ve cracked us Councillor Parkes… you’ve earned my endorsement for the next public office you seek. Because, if he’s willing to confess he was raised by a green alien, what could he possibly be hiding?

[The Northern Record] via mxyzplx on Twitter

One week ago today, several residents of Clintonville, WI heard a series of big booms throughout the town. Beginning at 2 a.m. and continuing until 8 p.m. Monday many residents initially called in reports ranging from a car crashing into a house to ice falling off a roof, only to find no physical evidence.

Yet the booms kept coming.

They’ve since received an official explanation. An extremely rare 1.5 magnitude earthquake shook the town shortly after 5 a.m. Tuesday, concluded the United States Geological Service.

But that doesn’t quite explain what the noises were Monday.

I have a theory…

[Fox 11]

Lost in the massive confusion and destruction of the 2011 Japanese tsunami, a fishing vessel has shockingly been found afloat off the western coast of Canada.

The ship is the largest piece of debris found yet from the natural disaster and is being monitored as debris as of now. It will hit landfall in roughly two months if not stopped at sea.

Meanwhile, the boat could just be an eerie harbinger for even more random Japanese stuff. Is is estimated roughly two tons of debris washed off shore and the main mass of that should start hitting North America in two years time.

[BBC] via WT reader Jeff

It’s really hard to judge the first new footage from the upcoming season of Doctor Who. We get a suitably intimidating villain, an interesting locale and of course all the usual smiling faces we’ve come to know and love.

But something feels… missing.

We don’t really get enough of the premise of the episode to have that mean much to us. There are no hints as to how the Doctor reunites with the Ponds, which should be the most interesting mythological beat in the first 10 minutes of episode one. And as intimidating as our cyborg gunslinger seems to be he’s just… well… a robotic Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen.

Which isn’t bad. It’s just not uniquely grabbing in the grand pantheon of Whovian foes.

What do you guys think? Are you more or less pumped for having seen it?

It’s go time.

The man who directed the most successful film in movie history twice is about to embark on his greatest adventure yet. James Cameron will begin his descent into the Pacific Ocean, weather permitting, sometime this weekend.

His mission is to make it to the bottom of Challenger Deep, the lowest known point in the ocean. His submarine, a revolutionary vertical design, will attempt to sink to the bottom as fast as possible so he can spend six hours investigating. He will be the first ever human to see the depths with his own eyes, the only previous crew (aboard the Trieste in 1960) to make it that deep hit the bottom to hard and caused a silt storm bringing visibility down to zero.

Cameron will also bring along 3D cameras to make a documentary of his voyage.

Godspeed James.

[Nat Geo]

Nokia has applied for a patent which amounts to tattoo which would accommodate customizable buzzing for your phone.

Here is how it would work:

The patent application describes “a material attachable to skin, the material capable of detecting a magnetic field and transferring a perceivable stimulus to the skin, wherein the perceivable stimulus relates to the magnetic field.” The material would react to magnetic signals emitted by a nearby electronic device, such as a smartphone. It would offer some sort of micro vibration, and could be set to certain vibrating patterns. The idea is to provide you with a more direct way to notice when you’re receiving some sort of incoming device alert, whether it be a phone call, email, or text message.

Congratulations I Didn’t Feel The Vibration Through My Pants Excuse Practitioners and welcome to Screwsville.

In reality though, this is something that could be used for far more than smart phones. Imagine how many “alerts” we get everyday. Our phone, our car, our appliances and anything else you can think of. What if we had a way to prioritize some to directly interact with our body.

It’s a pretty cool idea at least.

[Information Week] via @Lockridge_Lisa

Dissecting the Stephen Moffat Doctor Who press conference today.

How many episodes?

We will get six this year including a blockbuster Christmas special (MUCH more on that in a bit) and then eight more to round out this season in 2013.

When are Amy and Rory off the TARDIS for good?

Episode five. Which means we have five episodes for them to reconnect with the Doctor whom they’ve just realized is still alive. I sincerely hope that this season comes with a bit of reinvestment for the Ponds. The possible pregnancy / Amy’s going crazy angle last season felt tacked on. In fact, Amy’s storyline has felt a bit stalled since the end of her first season. She got on the TARDIS to put off getting married to Rory, she then rediscovered her love for him, bada bing bang boom we’re dun-zo.

If it’s simply, “Hey! The Doctor is back!” I’ll be a little bummed.

Will one of them die?

Moffat says not everyone will survive the fifth episode. But… c’mon, you wouldn’t send Amy off a widow, would you? Or kill off a beloved companion? Stuck in an alternate time stream is bad enough.

Anywho… their final nemesis will be the Weeping Angels.

Who is the new companion?

Jenna-Louise Coleman. Her biggest credits to date came from the ITV soap opera Emmerdale. Let’s go to a clip…

She also played one half of the silent double date put together for Steve Rogers by his pal Bucky at the World’s Fair in Captain America.

We will soon see her in the upcoming Titanic miniseries penned by the folks behind Downton Abbey.

Why is she the new companion?

Moffat says she won him over in an audition with Matt Smith where the motor-mouthed rambler played catch up with JLC’s energy.

Also, as The Internet has already noticed. She’s pretty. Reading between the lines of Moffat’s answers, they seem to be positioning her as an Amy Pond-level spitfire with Rose Tyler looks.

Raise you hand if you think that’s a bad idea? I thought not.

She does look tiny. Next to the stretchy Smith she might look even smaller.

How does she meet the Doctor?

No firm details beyond that she’s not a “conventional” character. So I guess we can rule out the Doctor arriving in modern day London and solving a crisis surrounding a smoking hot chick in her early 20s before inviting her on his space ship to enjoy platonic adventures?

What we do know is that it will take place during the Christmas special. This creates the highest stakes incarnation of that particular episode since David Tennant had his “Hello, World” turn in The Christmas Invasion, which began season two.

Once Rory and Amy are gone, have we seen the last of River Song?

Quoth Moffat: “No, not necessarily.”

It can’t all be good news, sweetie.

A South African man claims he has been to heaven four times and has drawn a map.

Self-styled prophet Mthembu says there are 11 heavens, so nuts to you if you had seven in the office pool. He made his first journey to one of them in 1998, took a little breather until 2004 when he returned. He also made a long weekend of heavenly vacays in 2006 and 2008.

He described those first several minutes in heaven.

“An angel, whom I later realised was Gabriel, who was in his early 20s, appeared at my house and led me by the hand to the Mandeni River where he baptised me and he returned to heaven,” Mthembu told the newspaper.

He said the same angel arrived in 1998 and this time took him along to heaven. Mthembu said he had seen God, Jesus and angels during his journeys.

Mthembuuuuuu do you know what that’s worth? Who knew heaven was a place on Earth?

[News24]

Elon Musk got his close-up beauty shot last night on CBS’ venerable newsmagazine 60 Minutes. His company SpaceX was the subject. Here was our favorite impression.

The biggest geeks about SpaceX work at SpaceX.

Every employee interviewed shared the same Big Sky optimism. They are doing what they are doing because this is a pivotal moment in the history of space and… well… they’d like to go to space and this is the best way to do it.

Which is why we root for them.

The organization really has a dot com start-up vibe to it. Not a shock considering Musk’s background but it is awesome to see in action.

The money quote from Garrett Reiseman, an engineer and astronaut who spent time on the International Space Station now working with SpaceX as a consultant.

“If you had a chance to go back in time and work with Howard Hughes when he was creating TWA. If you had a chance to be there at that moment when it was the dawn of a brand new era, wouldn’t you want to do that?”

Watch the full segment above.

A season comes to a close with the cast a little lighter, many bullets fired and a few lessons learned.

This might not be a democracy but it is the final Dissection of the year so you might as well click through a read it.

Read the rest of this entry »