‘Science’ Archives
Computer Love: Man Marries Videogame Chick
Is it me? Why can't I find something mundane or boring about Japanese culture? In what surely must be the first wedding of its kind, a man has married an anime videogame character. Last Sunday, a man named Sal9000 married the love of his life. Her name is Nene Anegasaki, and she lives inside of a Nintendo DS video game called Love Plus. The [...]
Drilling for 100 year old Scotch whiskey in Antarctica
How far would you go for a drink? To the kitchen? To the bar up the street? Try Antarctica, that's how far distillers Whyte and Mackay are willing to go. The beverage company has asked a excavation team to drill through Antarctica's ice for two crates of McKinlay and Co. Scotch whiskey that were shipped there by British polar explorer Sir [...]
Happy Birthday to Us
12 months and we're still alive and kicking, I'm not sure what to make of the last year. We've seen a global economic meltdown, the cancellation of Jon & Kate Plus 8, the election of a Black U.S. President, the birth of singing sensation Susan Boyle, the flame out of Sarah Palin, the introduction of the leopard print Snuggie, the death [...]
Sweden’s Bunny Biofuel
This week we found out that the practical European country that gave us Ikea and Volvo is burning bunnies to stay warm. The BBC reports that the bodies of thousands of rabbits are fuelling a heating plant in central Sweden. The city of Stockholm has an annual cull of thousands of rabbits to protect the ecosystem of the capital's parks and [...]
Canadian Genius Mulled by Tiger
Why do all of these animal attack stories have common elements? Yet again we have the requisite: alcohol, young people, and the breaking and entering a secured animal habitat. I drink quite a bit and I've been to a zoos. And yet it has never occurred to me during a drunken haze to go get up close and personal with a jungle cat. The [...]
Ig Nobel awards: The gas-mask bra and the best beer bottle for fighting
The Ig Nobels, or Igs, are an annual exercise in irreverence that celebrates research that "cannot, or should not, be repeated". They are given to scientists whose results first make people laugh, and then make them think. This year's ceremony took place at Harvard University, with the coveted prizes handed out by real Nobel laureates. The [...]
And This is Why Cremation is a Good Idea
I don't care how many sci-fi books you've read or how many times you've seen Han Solo come back in Return of the Jedi-- people were not meant to be frozen, at least not in the early 21st century. Case in point from ESPN: Red Sox Hall of Famer Ted Williams' severed head was mistreated at an Arizona cryonics facility, according to details from a [...]
