A new biography about the remarkable life of film star and inventor Hedy Lamarr tells the story behind her idea that revolutionized the way we communicate today.

Lamarr became focused on defense innovation when a German U-Boat sank a ship of German refugees. Married to a munitions supplier to the Nazis before coming to America, she was well aware of the challenges associated with guiding torpedos to hit enemy targets using radio.

And so, the idea for how to create a more accurate signal that could not be interfered with was hatched.

Her insight was that you could protect wireless communication from jamming by varying the frequency at which radio signals were transmitted: if the channel was switched unpredictably, the enemy wouldn’t know which bands to block.

She later went on to develop the technology with fellow amateur inventor George Antheil. Although it was never utilized by the United States military for its intended purpose, the idea itself has become the bedrock for so many of our most cherished devices. Chiefly, Wi-Fi and cellular calling.

Hedy Lamarr = Awesome.

[New Scientist]

SETI is officially back online, listening to the stars for intelligent, presumably chatty, life.

The project ended a seven month dark period caused when former partner the University of California at Berkley pulled out due to budget cuts. Faced with a world where cries from alien civilizations could fall on deaf ears, the institute decided to ask for public donations.

$230,000 later, we have our ears back to the train tracks.

“This morning, at 6:18, we began re-observing the Kepler worlds,” Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, said Monday during the Kepler Science Conference here at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “We’re just extremely excited to be back on the air today.”

The focus now as it was before the shut down are alien planet candidates observed from the Kepler telescope.

Welcome back SETI!

[SPACE.com]

Are you suffering from male pattern baldness? Would you like to feel younger, more confident and regain your youthful swagger?

Why not take a note from the majestic bear! Yes, instead of turning to stem cell treatments one Dr. Cheng-Ming Chuong, a professor at the University of Southern California suggests we take a page from how our forrest friends regrow their winter coats.

…a treatment could aim at altering the environment around hair follicles, rather than implanting stem cells within them.

These outside signals that are present in animals are missing in people.

“This extra follicle-affecting factor has disappeared during human evolution,” so human hair follicles are activated only by signals internal to the hair follicle, Chuong told MyHealthNewsDaily.

Unconfirmed are reports that such a treatment would involve snagging a fish out of a moving stream with your mouth. But… you know… it couldn’t hurt.

[Live Science]

John Carpenter’s 1988 SciFi action masterpiece They Live needs to be remade every recession. It’s not a request, it’s a demand. And I have a proposal on when exactly to do it.

We can tie the productions to unemployment numbers. Once they hit a certain point, let’s say 7%, the rights holders commission a draft. The original film was released in November of ’88 (5.4%) but the nation had just come out of a crippling recession which topped out at 10.4% in 1982. We were as high as 7% in July of 1986.

In the film, our homeless hero played by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper makes friends with Keith David while taking a day labor gig at a construction site. It’s through this relationship and the introduction of a friendly vagrant commune that the bedrock of the socioeconomic underpinnings of the story are forged.

Put simply: There is no work. Life sucks. Take what you can get and shut up about it.

In today’s era of 8.6% unemployment. It’s a relatable narrative. A Google Image search for “They Live“ reveals inspired illustrations of both recession presidents. And unlike most stories that attempt to gain sympathy based on the economic plight of the underclass, They Live has a very simple solution everyone can get behind.

Aliens are controlling the planet using subliminal mind control. They use this to hide in plain sight. The rich are getting richer because they are in league with the aliens. We need to break their mind control hold on the proletariat so we can ultimately rise up and kill the aliens.

Class warfare as a justification for violence crass, easy and polarizing to say the least. Human survival as a reason for lethal action is primal, awesome and unifying. Throw in some brilliant creature design and no one can feel bad about Hot Rod murdering random strangers at the drop of a hat. Perfect action premise.

Thankfully, there has been talk of a remake. Unfortunately, it’s rumored to be based specifically of the source material for Ray Neely’s short story 8 O’Clock In The Morning. This has caused quite a stir since producer Eric Newman, who remade Carpenter’s The Thing earlier this year, insinuated that it would not include the iconic glasses which allows our hero to see behind the mind control curtain. More troubling for me, the story also lacks the economic subplot that makes They Live so instantly lovable for a theater full of people that know multiple unemployed people or are themselves without a steady paycheck. It’s also not particularly good.

It would be missing the point. Like remaking The Thing and removing the “the alien could be any one of us” device by constantly separating the alien from our survivors. Oh wait.

According to my proposal, we should have been hiring writers in December of 2008 when the unemployment rate hit 7.3%. Let’s not continue to make this mistake.

They Live is currently available on Netflix Instant. Watch it.

A few “unfortunate bounces” sent a cannonball through a local home after the Mythbusters crew misfired the gigantic projectile for an experiment. The ball missed several water barriers intended to slow it down, was sent skyward and shot clean through the homestead leaving entry and exit holes.

Thankfully no one was hurt.

Which reminds me, did you guy ever heard about the urban legend where a TV show shot a cannonball through a house in Northern California? I wonder if it’s true or not.

[MSNBC]

Bill Munns has made a name for himself in the Bigfoot research community as someone who was granted rare access to the original Patterson-Gimlin Film Roll. The former Hollywood make-up effects supervisor has studied the iconic footage more so than any other crypto researcher. Here he explains why he feels the footage indeed shows a bipedal animal and not a costumed prankster. Also, for the first time 202 rarely seen “lost” frames from the original reel are revealed.

[Cryptomundo]

A newly identified comet is coming home for the holidays. And by holidays I mean mid-December and by home I mean the Sun. So really that first sentence doesn’t mean anything. But a comet is going to graze the surface of the Sun, most likely disintegrating it.

The comet is categorized by astronomers as a “sungrazer” and it is destined to do just that; literally graze the surface of the sun (called the photosphere) and pass through the sun’s intensely hot corona, where temperatures have been measured at upwards of 3.6-million degrees Fahrenheit (2-million degrees Celsius).

We should get some pretty wicked images from the daredevil space racer’s death defying stunt. In the slim event that the comet survives, we might even be able to see it in broad daylight.

[Live Science]

Thanks to George McLoed on Google Plus.

A rare find, the Powder of snails. A giant white, albino snail has been located in New Zealand’s Kahurangi National Park.

“Our group had seen three or four snails already that morning as it had rained and they’d come out in the wet conditions.

“Then I saw the white snail and went ‘wow’. We were excited to see it, knowing how extraordinary it was.”

These carnivorous beasts are usually found munching on earthworms and slugs. The snail has now been written into the new Hobbit film. Not really. But it should.

[WeirdWorldNews]

This video is identified in the YouTube description as being taken by an Occupy Oakland protester.

“Flying Saucer Over Oakland; Alien UFO, Korean BBQ. I was visiting an art exhibit that night in the Art Murmur district of Oakland, having just had Korean BBQ. The ship or whatever it was was the size of a small car, and zip past overhead. I ran down the gallery atrium and out the front door. The ship had frozen just over the restaurant across the street. It wavered and pulsed over the restaurant, as if absorbing something. I was startled.”

Check the full video.

[YouTube via UFO Casebook]

Prequels to the Watchmen comics/graphic novels, which were confirmed this week with rumors that lend credibility to previous rumors (or something), will probably happen. And any fan of the Watchmen should be excited about it. Or at least, not immediately scream from the highest tower that it’s an abomination.

This is not a ringing endorsement that I think they’ll be good. The Watchmen is/was Alan Moore. It’s a masterwork amongst a legendary career. The book stands as a common inspirational thread for so many brilliant creators of popular books, television and film. It’s not good for a comic book, it’s so good you wish your other favorite books had pictures.

But Moore is not involved. It is logical to assume that is bad.

So why should you be excited, knowing it’ll probably not be in the same quality universe as the source material?

Because statistically, maybe it will. And we will never know if that’s true unless we, as a genre fan base, encourage people/companies/artists to try.

This goes for every sequel, prequel, special edition and remake. Sure, they will probably suck, but usually the existence of the new project does not completely erase the existence of the original property you know and love.

Consider each project a lottery ticket, the vast majority will be a bust. But maybe… just maybe we hit the numbers exact and get another amazing fan experience in a universe we already know and love.

On a personal note, hating is easy. It takes very little effort to poop on everything and then come back and join the party when something is proven out. Believing takes courage. Hope is fun. Don’t be the frowny-faced coward who sneers when something fails. Be the pioneer who is rewarded on the front lines when a project is better than everyone thinks it would be.

Chinese message boards have lit flame with a romantic controversy filled with taboo, lust and well-lit viewing areas. A sheep and deer have fallen in love at the Yunnan Zoo. When first reported, many reacted skeptically, believing the report to be a cutesy ploy to draw attention to the tourist attraction.

But doubters were proven dead wrong when zoo officials posted the above photo on their weblog. The indisputable evidence shows the hot couple in flagrante delicto.

Thanks to Weird Things writer Ryan for passing this along.

[ChinaSmack]

Okay, it’s not bigger on the inside but this TARDIS themed door to a DVD closet is the coolest DIY project you’ll see today.

Thanks to Steven Lauren on G+ for tipping us off to it.

Find a few more pictures AFTER THE JUMP…

[TheRPS]

(more…)

[Animal Planet]

The Saint Louis Zoo has bred Ozark hellbenders in captivity for the first time. This is most definitely a worthwhile achievement and a step forward in retaining as much of Earth’s rich diversity as possible.

But if you thought Ozark hellbenders was a good name, check out this lizards nicknames…

Also known by the colloquial names of “snot otter” and “old lasagna sides,” the adult hellbender is one of the largest species of salamanders in North America, with its closest relatives being the giant salamanders of China and Japan, which can reach five feet in length.

OLD LASAGNA SIDES! That is a name! Of a lizard! At some point in the Ozarks, someone said to someone else “Hey, did you see Old Lasagna Sides running up the river bank?”

I can’t get over this.

[Science Daily]

25 miles off shore, this big lug (let’s call him Alfie) decides to ominously circle this fishing tourists boat. You know, just for the lulz.

It should also be noted that this video was captured on an iPhone. Which could have lead to the greatest interaction with Siri ever.

Tourist: A Great White Shark is circling my boat, what do I do?

Siri: Let me think… Yeah, you’re screwed.

[KING 5]