Max Maven sat down with James Randi several months ago at the Magic Castle to discuss a wide range of subjects including Randi’s beginnings in magic, his most recent work as an arch-Skeptic and everything in between.
However, one part we found particularly interesting comes at 49:40 of the nearly two hour conversation. Maven asks Randi why he is friends with those he disagrees with, as many might think that his bitter relationship with folks like Uri Geller is the rule and not the exception.
Randi’s answer: personal honesty.
If he feels that someone whom he believes is absolutely wrongheaded about something is telling the truth to him, he can accept it on face value.
The entire conversation is available on the James Randi Educational Foundation YouTube channel. It’s also embedded below.
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Alberta Kelley, you are a 67-year-old grandmother from Western Pennsylvania who just got busted on an anonymous tip for growing marijuana plants next to your tomato garden.
What do you have to say for yourself?
A Pennsylvania granmother, who was busted for growing pot next to her tomato plants, told police it wasn’t her idea to grow the illegal plant but a bearded stranger wearing a Smurf hat who gave her the seeds.
Smurf gave you the seeds? Okay, fine, you are acquitted on all charges.
Now, who was the snitch that dropped dime on Granny? You guessed it.
The pair begin a 31-city tour this Sunday in Los Angeles’ Nokia theater.
Explains Adam…
We worked hard to port what we like about “MythBusters” onto stage without doing something that was just a big boring science demonstration show. And what we decided to do was to spend a couple of hours messing with the audience, with the way they see things, with the way they see themselves. We’ll demonstrate something where A plus B equals C, and bring an audience member up and show them that even though it looks like that might be the case, we can demonstrate situations in which it’s not. We have a sketch in which we physically manipulate the way people see and their ability to complete actions onstage — so in addition to the general idea of perception as the way we think through things, we’re going to be messing with actual perception.
Hmmm… live on stage, messing with perception. If they end with a bullet catch, things might get ugly.
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We really can’t say enough about this violin tribute to the many themes of Legend of Zelda as performed by the undulating Lindsey Stirling. Soaring vistas, sweeping renditions of nostalgia tugged melodies that would melt the heart of Ganondorf himself.
Also, we credit the whip smart number one YouTube comment to this post for the headline.
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A new study proves that organizing activities where a group of people move in unison can create more concrete leader-follower relationships and be used as a tool for helpful cooperation or evil deeds.
In the experiment, participants were instructed to either walk in sync with an experimenter, out-of-step with them or simply alongside them at their own pace. They were then asked to gather as many bugs as possible in 30 seconds and put them into a device where they were told they’d die.
Those participants who walked in step with the same experimenter who later instructed them to kill the bugs put approximately 54 percent more bugs into the device than did those in the control condition. They also put 38 percent more bugs into the funnel than did participants in the coordinated but asynchronous condition and twice as many bugs into the funnel as did participants who walked in synchrony with a different experimenter than the one who instructed them to terminate the insects.
Synchronized action is used as a tool for many institutions including but not limited to: religious rituals, military exercises and Supermaning dat ho.
That was the challenge for one biologist who discovered that this plant, Philcoxia, was indeed consuming worms.
Yet it doesn’t seem to have any orifices to trap the organisms, or lures to bring the creepy crawlies out of the dirt to their doom. No, the Philcoxia does things the easy way. It grows sticky leaves under the ground to trap the wrigglers and slowly digests them.
Yummy.
The picture below shows a close-up of the worms trapped underground in the leaves.
The folks behind MatterPort, a hack using a Microsoft Kinect to create instant 3D renderings of items by taking pictures of them at various points, say that this does for 3D scanning what pictures did to painting. And they are not far off.
The technology is nothing short of amazing and could revolutionize how we categorize real world information. In short, every physical object on the planet could be categorized and searchable.
Kurzweil says it’s time to start 3D scanning the world, we couldn’t agree more.
“Mutants. Since the discovery of their existence they have been regarded with fear, suspicion, often hatred. Across the planet, debate rages. Are mutants the next link in the evolutionary chain or simply a new species of humanity fighting for their share of the world? Either way it is a historical fact: Sharing the world has never been humanity’s defining attribute.” – Professor X
Due to an interesting quirk with trade tariffs, Marvel found itself having to take the stance that the X-Men and other mutants are not human. Toys that are imported into the United States are taxed higher (12% versus 6.8%) if the toys are classified as “dolls” – which are toys that represent humans. In order to save some money, Marvel found itself arguing the position that toys like Wolverine are “representing animals or other non-human creatures (for example, robots and monsters).”
“While fictional characters in the Marvel Universe — the heroes at least — typically argue a position that says mutants and humans are not really different, and should be afforded the same rights, in the real world the company’s position is somewhat contrary.
In the non-fictional world, our world, Marvel is taking the position that mutants are not humans at all. But this isn’t an ideological or a moral stance. Instead, it is a financial one. Toys manufactured in other countries and imported into the US are subject to taxes, but those taxes are lower if the toys represent non-human characters.”
Sure it already has a beloved animated incarnation, which precede the upcoming epic live action version, but why not whet your whistle with this lost gem. Buried like so much treasure guarded by a fierce dragon is this 1966 animated version of the Hobbit, just discovered yesterday.
Listen kids. If you are reading this and you only know of Peter Parker and Spider-man because of the Sam Raimi films, let me break something to you.
Peter Parker didn’t start shooting webs out of his wrists as part of an overnight biological evolution after being bit by a radioactive arachnid. That’s just Hollywood fantasy. The real story is that the brainy Parker, having already woken up with super strength, agility and uncanny Spider Sense decided to augment his new natural gifts with his own scientific concoction. A sticky, strong, spider silk-esqe substance which he then shot out of home made mechanical dispensers triggered by a specific hand gesture.
The mechanical web shooters reinforces a key element of the Spider-man mythos. Peter Parker is a socially awkward kid because he’s a genius level science nerd. This matters! This is important! Yes! I am still furious about this 9 years after the first Spider-man movie came out!
Also, 50 years after the character was created scientists have finally caught up with Peter Parker and recreated spider silk by transferring key spider genes into silkworms which are far easier to farm the substance out of.
So they worked out a way to transfer the key spider genes responsible for the strong thread making into the silkworm.
The scientific breakthrough could open the door for large-scale production.
The silk could be used in many medical applications including artificial ligaments and tendons, as well as tough wound dressings.
It is also said to be strong enough that it could be used as a new material in manufacturing bulletproof vests.
Or shooting Mysterio in the face so you can make fun of his helmet.
Over 10,000 years ago a creature stalked the Tibetan landscape. 10 foot tall, weighing in at over 1,200 pounds, this lumbering herbivore moved like a massive version of a modern Orangutan. His name was Gigantopithecus and his species is a likely starting point for the Yeti and Bigfoot legends propagated even today.
And the blood of this noble creature stains the honor of our evolutionary ancestry.
Before we get to that, let’s back up a bit. Gigantopithecus has been on our radar since 1935 when a German paleoanthropologist was sold a far larger than normal molar at a bizarre in Hong Kong. Since then, a variety of dental records have been gathered to give us a better idea of what this massive beast was. As to the question of how it went extinct, there are a few theories.
Zhang’s team suggested the rise of the Tibetan plateau 1.6 million to 800,000 years ago altered the climate of South Asia, ushering in a colder, drier period when forests shrank. Other factors could have exacerbated this crisis. Gigantopithecus‘s neighbor, Homo erectus, may have over-hunted and/or outcompeted their larger ape cousin.
Homo erectus, a key link in the chain of life that brings to this point today, reading The Internet instead of working. They killed Gigantopithecus. They killed the Yeti.
Andrew Smith was commissioned by Ripley’s Believe It Or Not to create this moving sculpture constructed from found items including railroad lanterns and an old bicycle.
South Korean military men find themselves all in a lather when female pop stars Girl’s Generation surprise them for an impromptu concert. We don’t have any information on where this took place, but you can’t deny that’s a toe tapper of a song choice.
Also, how many girls are in this group? 15? I think there are some that haven’t met each other yet.
Georgia-Bigfoot-body-in-a-freezer hoaxer and the “best Bigfoot tracker in the world”, Rick Dyer claims he received permission from the Canadian government to kill a Bigfoot and bring it back to America. Dyer says his team has permission to hunt for anything that has not been discovered yet in the Great White North. “In redneck terms, it’s basically saying we have permission to bring firearms into Canada to hunt for Bigfoot,” said Dyer.
I am 100% sure this will end well and won’t cause any problems at all.
One of the more gruesome crypto creatures made a frightening return to Malaysia over the holidays. The Oily Man (Orang Minyak) is a supernatural creature covered in black grease that crawls into the homes of families and rapes virgin daughters.
According to a report in Malaysian newspaper The Star, there were multiple sightings over the Christmas holidays. One eyewitness saw it “crawling up the stairs of the house, just like Spider-man. When it reached the top it suddenly jumped onto the roof. I don’t think a human could do that. It then just disappeared… We can laugh and joke about it, but this is serious. All the families here have young girls.”
This is unique as far as crypto creatures go for one key reason. It’s a supernatural creature that operates like a home invader. It’s not out in the wilderness where humans rarely operate (Bigfoot, Chupacabra et. al.) nor is it trapped in a house with history beyond the previous owners like a ghost. Hell, even vampires normally have rules about private property.
But not the Oily Man, he just breaks right in like a common hoodlum and takes what he wants.
The legend has at times created mass hysteria, according to Wikipedia. With young unmarried women in student dormetories sleeping with sweaty men’s clothing so as to trick the OM into thinking they were with a boyfriend.
Animal Planet series Finding Sasquatch gives us this web exclusive comparing various Bigfoot Calls. Our favorite it the one that might actually have been a real woman being murdered in the woods only it was incorrectly classified as a Sasquatch squeak.
