This one is going straight on my “Do Not Want” list. Apparently, back in the good old days of 1910, the Worthington Golf Ball Company produced golf balls with a radium-laced core. Known as the “Ball of Mystery that never loses life or shape due to its inherent radioactive properties”, this bad boy was supposed to travel farther than the competition. Check out the original advertisement.

“I have not found any company literature that specifically states that the ball contained radium but an advertisement (see below) in the May 17, 1918 issue of the New York Tribune quotes “one of the greatest of American Golfers” as saying that the ball had “what is known as a radium center.”

An analysis by gamma spectroscopy clearly shows that it does indeed contain radium: approximately 150 Bq (4 nCi).”

[Oak Ridge Associated Universities via Improbable Research]

What are you going to be doing New Years Eve? A whole bag of nothing, that’s what. Why not kick 2011 in the pants with your friends? Brian Brushwood will be performing his full magic show, Justin Robert Young will be hosting the event and we’ve even heard unconfirmed reports of dungeon master Andrew Mayne being in attendance.

Music? They will be joined by DJ Skratchy, who is nationally recognized for being one of the industries most elite DJ and RemoteKontrol, a group of three enormously talented poppers.

Where and when? I’m glad you asked.

Saturday December 31st–DROP Zone Nightclub presents. . .
NewYears Eve Bash 2012
Come Dressed To Impress For This Event
8:00 p.m.-5:00 a.m.
Located at: Drop Zone Nightclub @ Orlando Sun Resort & Convention Center
6375 W Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy Kissimmee, FL 34747

Tickets
$25.00: includes entry into event

VIP Package for Two
$149.00: includes
private table
for 2, 2 dinner buffets
2 admissions to our New Years Day party
a one night hotel stay (must be booked by
12/29).

VIP Table Package
$119: includes
private table for 2,
Entry for 2
2 dinner buffets

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

Two Dutch television-show hosts said they had their flesh cooked by a top chef and then dined on each other before a studio audience.

“Nothing is really that special when you’re talking about the taste of the meat,”  host Dennis Storm told ABCNews.com. “But it is weird to look into the eyes of a friend when you are chewing on his belly.”

Yeah, so. Dutch cannibalism on TV. Nothing I can add to this.

[ABC News]

[UFO Casebook]

It’s under the water. Just below the gentle, lapping surface near Olympic Park in East London. It lurks.

What it is, we don’t yet know. Aside from the apparent taste for fat Canadian Geese, not much can be confirmed as no one has yet to put an eyeball on it.

Witnesses alerted environment bosses after seeing a 16lb Canada goose dragged under the surface, with fears there could now be a pike, alligator or even a large python stalking the waters near the Olympic site.

The number of swans on the river and waterways near the newly-built £9bn Olympic Park is also dropping.

No matter what manner of beastie is currently snacking in the waters, we will suspect it’s still less terrifying than the official Olympic mascots.

[Daily Mail]

Did Benjamin Franklin report on an unsubstantiated mermaid claim in Bermuda as a young writer, or was it all a big joke?

Here is what Franklin wrote in the Pennsylvania Gazette on April 29th, 1739:

“From Bermuda, they write, that a Sea Monster has been lately seen there, the upper part of whose Body was in the Shape and about the Bigness of a Boy of 12 Years old, with long black Hair; the lower Part resembled a Fish.”

“He was first seen on shore, and taking to the Water, was pursu’d by People in a Boat, who intended to strike him with a Fishgig; but approaching him, the human Likeness surpris’d them into Compassion, and they had not the Power to do it.”

The question is, was this meant as an April Fool’s joke? Many Franklin biographers believe this was supposed to be included in the 4/1/1739 edition of the paper but was instead included later by an editor not realizing it to be silly folly.

But don’t be so quick to dismiss this as genuine reporting from the most colorful Founding Father. Remember, The New York Times was writing about sea monsters as recently as 1855. Franklin nowhere in the report claims to have seen the mer-creature himself but rather relies on outside gossip and writings, which were prevalent throughout the Caribbean through that time.

[BerNews via Cryptozoology]

The Ross Ice Shelf is about as desolate as desolate can get. All you can hope to do is complete your research of the warming arctic water, survive and hope that one of your colleagues doesn’t turn into The Thing.

Now, the first of those tasks just got a bit easier. Scientists recently completed installation of a fiber optic cable which will periodically ring a modem in a New York University professors office delivering up to the second data without having to rely on a bunch of researchers who may or may not have already turned into The Thing.

[Live Science]

A man convicted of his wife’s murder will get a new trial for two reasons.

1) It has come to light that the, since fired, State Bureau of Investigation agent in charge of his investigation mishandled evidence in several of his cases.

2) A new theory, backed by several experts, that a rogue owl got into the house and triggered the wife’s fatal fall down the stairs.

A successful author, Michael Peterson was first convicted of his wife’s murder in 2003. The new owl theory hinges on a feather found at the scene of the crime and injuries to the head of the victim which specialists from the Smithsonian Institute say are consistent with what would occur if an owl was tangled in her hair.

The case, sans owl theory, was dramatized in the 2007 Lifetime Original Movie “The Staircase Murders” starring Treat Williams.

[MSNBC]

Younglings and hardened Jedis alike will have a chance to hit the slopes Star Wars style when a new 2,000 acre SW-themed snowboard park opens. The park will specialize in teaching kids as young as three the essentials of boarding. And the Force. Probably more of the former than the latter.

“Our youth programs demonstrate that kids as young as three can start snowboarding if they are provided with qualified instruction that utilizes terrain-based features and equipment designed for beginners,” said Jeff Boliba, Burton’s Global Resort Director. “The Burton Star Wars Experience at Sierra will give ‘younglings’ this tailored experience so they can be successful at snowboarding at a super young age.”

We will hold off on booking our trip until we can take down an AT-AT Walker by snowboarding around their legs with a metal cable.

[Star Wars]

The University of Oxford’s Internet Institute has analyzed Google search patterns and discovered that there are places in the United States where there are more people searching for zombies and satan than for Santa Claus.

“a few pockets including just outside the San Francisco Bay and Seattle and the cities Houston, Dallas and Austin in Texas have a lot of zombie angst. Hmmm…it might be the only things these places are in agreement on. But one of the more interesting clusters runs from Tampa to Orlando Florida….home of Disney World. Sort of makes sense in a way. Also of interest is a thin band of zombies stretched out along the Eastern seaboard, west of most of the major metropolitan areas.”

Check out the Satan cluster around Tampa Bay; I am going to have to start watching my neighbors a little more closely. You can download the data here and find your own patterns.

[Floating Sheep via Gizmodo]

A Foo Fighters concert in New Zealand generated geologic activity consistent with volcanic activity. With the power of rock.

According to the GeoNet blog, “the biggest shakes started at 8:20 p.m. when the Foo Fighters took the stage, and then it all went quiet at 11 p.m. when the gig ended.” Apparently they could also pick out “lulls in the signal between the songs and peaks in signal intensity during the songs.”

We’d love to see the dip in activity when they took it down a notch to play Everlong.

[Guitar World]

23 and Me, the genetics company offering to break down and explain customers DNA using only a spit sample is now allows you to check for another variable.

Exactly how much Neanderthal DNA do you have in you?

The lab, developed by one of our resident computational biologists, Eric Durand, compares two modern human genomes with the Neanderthal genome to determine the percentage of your own DNA is Neanderthal. Before coming to 23andMe, Eric worked on the first draft of the Neanderthal genome and on analysis of the Denisova genome, another of our early human cousins. The method we use to determine the percent of Neanderthal DNA a person has is similar to the one Eric helped develop while working at the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

The 23 and Me blog, cleverly titled The Spittoon, says that most people have some degree of Neanderthal DNA but a minority of the human population has much more.

[The Spittoon]

Andrew sheds light on a brilliant, real life team-up between some of the most brilliant minds of our age. Brian comes ever closer to his life goal of hanging out in space, without have to clip coupons alongside his castle-dwelling neighbor. The corporate owned United States media takes violent blow of truth as the boys blow the lid off the Goblin black out. Finally, is Sasquatch really a biblical figure doomed to walk the earth for eternity?

Support the show by purchasing Andrew’s BRAND NEW AUDIOBOOK PRESENTATION OF The Chronological Man: The Monster In The Mist as read by Justin Robert Young for only 99¢ by clicking the image below!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEO LAPORTE!

Picks:

Brian-

• When We Left Earth

Justin-

• Louis C.K. Live at the Beacon Theater

• Spaced

Andrew-

• Band of Brothers

When a someone truly great dies, everyone talks about how it relates to them. A testimony. As if to say, you could discount everything else about them, but I know my life was changed and here is how.

You will see many, many people write about the brilliant Christopher Hitchens today. They will all be honest testaments by friends, and enemies, he made in his all too brief 62 years.

I only have two anecdotes, both from the same dinner at a since demolished Ruby Tuesdays in the Stardust Casino on January 16th, 2005. Both, to my delight, involved alcohol. For me, watching Hitchens drolly fire off one liners about booze was akin to Paul McCartney picking up an acoustic guitar and strumming out Yesterday while we waited for appetizers.

Anyhow, this was right after The Amazing Meeting 3 where Hitchens was speaker. Thanks to Andrew Mayne, I was tagging along to a speakers and staff only dinner after the convention wrapped up. As everyone began seating themselves, we resolved to angle our way next to Hitch. We did.

Waiter: Would you like something to drink.

Hitchens: Yes, wine.

Waiter: Red or white?

Hitchens: (5% more serious than anyone you’ve ever seen order a drink at Ruby Tuesdays) Wine. Is. Red.

His wine was then delivered.

Hitchens: (Drinks wine, grimaces) Ugh, this is terrible. This is awful. This is sheep dip. (Turns to me) You want to know the only thing worse?

Me: What?

Hitchens: No wine at all.

Christopher Hitchens was a larger than life hero for me. As a prolific writer, ferocious thinker and fearless personality. He was a great man. The world is much less interesting today.

[NPR]

A rogue shopper assaulted several with a replica light saber on Wednesday at an Oregon Toys R Us.

After being chased into the parking lot and fending off responding officers with his trusty weapon, police decided to employ a taser. However, even that would not bring down the man…

“Officers arrived and attempted to take the suspect into custody, but he continued to swing the light saber and was yelling incoherent statements,” officers said in their report. One officer was able to hit the man with his Taser, but the suspect then broke the Taser wire with his light saber — at which point officers grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground.

The suspect is currently awaiting a mental health evaluation. And likely a stern rebuke from the Jedi council.

[LA Times]

This awesome wildlife rescue happened back in October, 2010 in Taku Inlet near Juneau, Alaska. Alaska Quest Charters was crossing the inlet when four deer approached the boat about a mile offshore.  The struggling animals were brought aboard where they recuperated. When they reached the opposite shore, three of the deer took off into the forest. The fourth had to be rolled off with a wheelbarrow, but after a couple hours was able to take off as well.

“About a mile offshore, Sharon, a birder, spotted something odd in the water coming towards the boat through her binoculars.  What she first thought were sea lions or shorebirds turned out to be four young Sitka black-tailed deer (a subspecies of mule deer).

Even though Sitka deer are known for their swimming ability and often cross large bodies of water between islands, these four where in obvious distress in the frigid water and whipping winds that had stirred up two to three foot swells in the inlet.  The biggest sign of that distress was the fact that the deer actually swam towards the boat and tried to board it, their fear of drowning overpowering their fear of people.

Unable to propel themselves out of the water in their exhaustion, they had to be hauled out onto the deck, where they collapsed.  There, the hypothermic deer slowly but calmly recovered.”

[Animal Planet]