Weird News of the World Thread - Part 1

[Alex_Spider]

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jun/08/open-access-research-inevitable-nature-editor

Open access to research is inevitable, says Nature editor-in-chief
Philip Campbell says the experience of open access to scientific research is 'very compelling' for readers and scientists

Open access to scientific research articles will "happen in the long run", according to the editor-in-chief of Nature, one of the world's premier scientific journals.

Philip Campbell said that the experience for readers and researchers of having research freely available is "very compelling". But other academic publishers said that any large-scale transition to making research freely available had to take into account the value and investments they added to the scientific process.

"My personal belief is that that's what's going to happen in the long run," said Campbell. However, he added that the case for open access was stronger for some disciplines, such as climate research, than others.

Campbell, who was speaking on Friday at a briefing by academic publishers on open access at the Science Media Centre, related his recent experience of reading papers on psychology and psychiatric treatments. "It's been a delight to find how many of those papers are published open access. I've been able to dip around into papers, get what I want, not necessarily the whole paper, and immediately find what I need. As a reader experience and a researcher experience, that's very compelling."

He added: "In the future, there will be text mining and tools … that need to get into that literature - I see that as a key part of the future and it's hard to see how that could work without open access."

Publishers of scientific journals have come under intense criticism in recent months from academics upset that the work produced by their peers, and funded largely by taxpayers, sits behind the paywalls of companies that charge UK universities around £200m a year for access. Supporters of the so-called "academic spring" have argued that the results of publicly funded research should be made available to anyone who wants to use it, for whatever purpose. It is a position supported by the UK government, which has drafted in Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help achieve its goals.

"You hear it said that the public has paid for it, the public should have access to it for free," said Campbell. "At that point, I draw back and say, what do you mean by 'it'? You mean something that has got quality in it, that has been selected and copy-edited. Somebody has got to do all that stuff, so the 'it' you want usually has involved somebody acting like a publisher to make it useable and comprehensible."

Nature Publishing Group, he said, employed around 100 editors across its titles whose job is to assess submissions and organise peer review. Additional investment was required to maintain the digital platforms that host papers. All of these costs are currently met by a combination of subscriptions and fees from authors paying for so-called gold open access – an option operated by Nature where authors pay an upfront fee for their paper to be available immediately.

If gold open access became the norm for the primary literature, Campbell said that the cost per article could be in excess of $10,000 to publish in highly selective journals such as Nature, Cell or Science.

Theodora Bloom, editorial director for biology publishing at the open access publisher Public Library of Science, said that subscription models made sense in a world of print, when sharing research entailed printing and mailing costs for each additional user.

"But, in an online world, the costs don't come every time someone new looks at it, they come at the point where you publish the work. Subscriptions online have the effect of stopping reading science – whether those readers are patients, the general public, other researchers, start-up companies. All of those people need to be able to read and access research online."

Alicia Wise, director of universal access at Elsevier, addressed concerns from academics that the cost of journal subscriptions was too high. She said there was a gap between what university libraries would like to have in their collections and what they can afford to subscribe to, but that "gap exists not because of our prices or our profit, but because, for decades, there's been a widening gap between library budgets and the global investment in R&D.

"Global R&D is around $1.2 trillion per year and it grows by more than 4% each year. This fuels growth in the number of researchers and research projects and the number of articles that are written and are of high enough quality to be published.

"It's unfortunately no surprise that there's an affordability gap in libraries. This is a shared problem for libraries, publishers, academics and funders that we need to work together to address."

As the number of good-quality research articles had risen over the years, the publishing industry had invested in the systems to meet that demand and provide quality controls, added Wise.

"Without our investments in the publishing industry, things would be quite different, academics would still be walking across campus to read books and journals in their libraries, off shelves," she said.

"The present is that you read electronic information driven by our investment to create electronic journals, to digitise their archive, to structure and tag content and to surface it throughout the internet has made this improvement in efficiency possible."

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Armless Man Pulled Over, Discovered Driving with His Feet

After a 45 year-old man surnamed Guo was pulled over in Hubei, China, it was discovered he was was driving without a license. He was also driving with his feet.

As reported by Xinhuanet and ShanghaiIst, Mr. Guo lost his arms at the age of seven after accidentally touching a high-voltage cable. He's learned how to use his feet to do everything—from wash his face and brush his teeth to write letters and, well, drive.

The problem is that Guo couldn't get a license under Chinese law. So while he's been driving illegally, racking up nearly one hundred thousand miles in the process, he did purchase insurance for the car he bought. And Guo claims he's never had an accident!

While driving without a license in China can mean up to fifteen days in jail, the police gave Mr. Guo a verbal warning and a 500 yuan (US$80) fine. How about giving the guy a round of applause for buying insurance and not apparently getting in accidents?

I like how they blur his face, it's not like he has any other notable features that we could identify him with

 

[KevanG]

Well he has a hell of a better record than most people I've known who can drive.

 

[squeekness]

If he can pass the standard test I say let him drive.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Great White Shark Takes A Bite Out of Distance Swimmer in California

Oh, good. Shark season is here. Authorities at the Los Angeles Fire Department have revealed that a man swimming at Manhattan Beach was bitten on the upper right side by a great white shark when he was swimming in a group of distance swimmers.

The shark had apparently been agitated when a fisherman who was fishing off the Manhattan Beach Pier tried to reel the shark in.

As Rick Flores, a spokesperson for the LAFD, told the AP:

The attack started when a person fishing off the Manhattan Beach Pier hooked the shark and spent over 30 minutes trying to reel it in, which Flores said, made the shark grow agitated.

The victim was in a group of long-distance swimmers about 300 yards off the beach, where Flores said the shark bit the man.

The fisherman cut the line and a surfer put the injured swimmer on his board, taking the victim ashore with the help of Los Angeles County lifeguards. Paramedics began treating the man.

In a particularly ominous-sounding phrase, the AP then reports that the 7-foot shark "remained in the area for the next 20 minutes and then disappeared into the murky water."

The beach remained open though a stretch was made off-limits to visitors.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/shark-bites-man-southern-california-beach

There have been a few sightings of great whites here off the coast of FL as well. Glad the person that got bit will have a speedy recovery, and he will always have a cool story to tell people about the time he got bit by a great white shark

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Independence Day Boat Collision in Florida Kills Four

Two boats in the Dinner Key Marina in Miami, Fl. collided late Friday while boaters were out celebrating the Fourth of July, reports say. The collision has resulted in the deaths of four and injuring several others.

At around 10:45 p.m. on Friday night, one boater alerted authorities that he'd been hit by another boat and that his 36-foot boat was taking on water.

Jorge Pino, a public information officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comission, told the Associated Press:

"My understanding is they may have been out there enjoying the fireworks display, and typically after the fireworks are over, everyone makes a mad dash for the nearest marina," Pino said. "And unfortunately in the past we've seen where accidents have occurred during that time."

Miami Fire Rescue Lt. Ignatius Carroll explained that the scene was chaotic on Friday night as many searched for bodies in the water. Relatives of a missing female found her body early Saturday, Pino told the AP.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...LLISION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Well that is a horrible end to ones holiday festivities

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

116-Year-Old Officially Named Oldest Living American

2 Things That Will Make You Feel Old: You Are 116 Years Old And You Are The Oldest Living American

The Associate Press reports that Gertrude Weaver, a woman from south Arkansas, is officially the oldest confirmed living American after celebrating her 116th birthday on Friday. (She was 106 when The Notebook came out!) From the AP:

Gertrude Weaver spent her birthday at home at Silver Oaks Health and Rehabilitation in Camden, about 100 miles southwest of Little Rock. This year's festivities included the new award from the Gerontology Research Group, which analyzed U.S. Census records to determine that Weaver is the oldest living American, rather than 115-year-old Jeralean Talley, who was born in 1899.

Robert Young, the Gerontology Research Group's database administrator and senior consultant for Guinness, confirmed that this makes Weaver the second-oldest person in the world—behind Japan's 116-year-old Misao Okawa—and the 11th oldest person of all time.

Speaking to the Camden News this week, Weaver said:

"You have to follow God. Don't follow anyone else. Be obedient and follow the laws and don't worry about anything. I've followed him for many, many years and I ain't tired."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-07-04-13-50-09

Congrats to her but only way I want to end up that old is if I have cyborg parts and I get infused with nano-bots that keep me healthy

 

[MangleBoP]

Congrats to her but only way I want to end up that old is if I have cyborg parts and I get infused with nano-bots that keep me healthy

Agreed.

 

[Alex_Spider]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/vegan-diet-cancer_b_2250052.html

A Vegan Diet (Hugely) Helpful Against Cancer

If you're anything like me, the "C" word leaves you trembling. But today there is very good news to report: Research suggests you can improve your odds of never getting cancer and/or improve your chances of recovering from it. Not with a drug or surgery, although those methods might be quite effective. This is all about the power on your plate, and it's seriously powerful.

A 2012 analysis of all the best studies done to date concluded vegetarians have significantly lower cancer rates. For example, the largest forward-looking study on diet and cancer ever performed concluded that "the incidence of all cancers combined is lower among vegetarians."

That's good news, yes. But what if we're looking for great news? If vegetarians fare so much better than meat-eaters, what about vegans? Is that an even better way to eat? We didn't know for sure until now.

A new study just out of Loma Linda University funded by the National Cancer Institute reported that vegans have lower rates of cancer than both meat-eaters and vegetarians. Vegan women, for example, had 34 percent lower rates of female-specific cancers such as breast, cervical, and ovarian cancer. And this was compared to a group of healthy omnivores who ate substantially less meat than the general population (two servings a week or more), as well as after controlling for non-dietary factors such as smoking, alcohol, and a family history of cancer.

Why do vegans have such lower cancer risk? This is fascinating stuff: An elegant series of experiments was performed in which people were placed on different diets and their blood was then dripped on human cancer cells growing in a petri dish to see whose diet kicked more cancer butt. Women placed on plant-based diets for just two weeks, for example, were found to suppress the growth of three different types of breast cancer (see images of the cancer clearance). The same blood coursing through these womens' bodies gained the power to significantly slow down and stop breast cancer cell growth thanks to just two weeks of eating a healthy plant-based diet! (Two weeks! Imagine what's going on in your body after a year!) Similar results were found for men against prostate cancer (as well as against prostate enlargement).

How may a simple dietary change make one's bloodstream so inhospitable to cancer in just a matter of days? The dramatic improvement in cancer defenses after two weeks of eating healthier is thought to be due to changes in the level of a cancer-promoting growth hormone in the body called IGF-1. Animal protein intake increases the levels of IGF-1 in our body, but within two weeks of switching to a plant-based diet, IGF-1 levels in the bloodstream drop sufficiently to help slow the growth of cancer cells.

How plant-based do we need to eat? Studies comparing levels of IGF-1 in meat-eaters vs. vegetarians vs. vegans suggest that we should lean toward eliminating animal products from our diets altogether. This is supported by the new study in which the thousands of American vegans studied not only had lower rates of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, but significantly lower cancer risk as well.

This makes sense when you consider the research done by Drs. Dean Ornish and Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn; they found that a vegan diet caused more than 500 genes to change in only three months, turning on genes that prevent disease and turning off genes that cause breast cancer, heart disease, prostate cancer, and other illnesses. This is empowering news, given that most people think they are a victim of their genes, helpless to stave off some of the most dreaded diseases. We aren't helpless at all; in fact, the power is largely in our hands. It's on our forks, actually.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19279082
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/vegetarians-versus-healthy-omnivores/


http://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/337301

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

North Korea Is Sending Cheerleaders to South Korea

In a bid to distract from its nuclear weapons program, North Korea announced it will send cheerleaders to South Korea. The DPRK has done this only a handful of times since the Korean War, always in attempts to ease tensions between the two Koreas. The cheerleaders will travel with athletes to the Asian Games in Incheon this September.

Right now, South Korea wants North Korea to stop claiming that its nuclear weapons program will promote peace in the region. "DPRK should not repeat its unreasonable claims, but return to the dialogue table," South Korea's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Eui-do said during a press briefing. Last week, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Chinese President Xi Jinping asked North Korea to denuclearize.

North Korea hasn't responded to these requests, but earlier today it released a four-point plan to ease tensions and work towards the "independent reunification" of the two Koreas.

The statement announcing the plan to send cheerleaders said the cheering girls will "create an atmosphere" of reconciliation. The last time the North sent cheerleaders to the South (for the 2005 Asian Games), one of them ended up marrying Kim Jong-Un.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=228394

Those North Koreans are a wacky bunch

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Crocodile Named John Attacks Zookeeper in Front of Terrified Visitors

A crocodile with a human name in Australia attacked his handler this week during a feeding show. Trent Burton eventually managed to get loose from the twelve-foot crocodile, whose name is John, and escaped with only minor injuries.

The incident happened at the Shoalhaven Zoo in New South Wales while onlookers watched, horrified. Michelle Orr, who the BBC describes as an "elderly onlooker," told the press that it was the scariest thing she'd ever seen.

Via the BBC:

Another eyewitness, Michelle Brady, from nearby Albion Park, said the keeper had a narrow escape.

"He was feeding him meat, and the crocodile took it before the designated [feeding] area," she told the local Smith Coast Register newspaper.

"So the trainer went to grab it out of the crocodile's mouth, and the crocodile just grabbed the trainer's hand and pulled him to the ground and dragged him into the water."

Burton, who has handled crocodiles at the zoo for ten years, was dragged into the water but was able to break himself free. He was taken to a local hospital and treated for puncture wounds to his hands. The zoo said it would be reviewing its safety policies in response to the incident.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-28193023

There is no such thing as a domesticated crocodile

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Tennessee Fireworks Superstore Explodes Two Days After July 4th

A fireworks outlet in Tennessee self-destructed shortly after the biggest day of the year for colorful explosions in the sky, exploding and burning to the ground in one last sad display before the long wait until New Year's Eve.

The explosion, which occurred the evening of July 6th, completely destroyed the Campbell County Fireworks Superstore building and caused miles-long backups on Tennessee's Interstate 75. Witnesses reported seeing fireworks shooting out of the store and exploding during its demise.

There were no reported injuries, but several employees and customers were inside when the fire started, according to ABC. The cause of the blaze is under investigation.

http://www.wate.com/story/25950592/fireworks-store-on-fire-in-campbell-county-i-75-lanes-shut-down

There is a crazy vid on YouTube of the place burning, can't link due to language but just search: Fireworks Super Store in Tennssee Burns July 6th

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Fancy-Ass Japanese Grapes Sell for $5,400

A wedding hall operator in Japan forked over $5,400 for a bunch of 30 Ruby Roman grapes, which are apparently the most expensive grapes in the world. These grapes, the wedding hall says, will be served to couples who have their weddings at the venue in Kanazawa. It is unclear if couples would be allowed to eat the grapes of if they will just be permitted to look at them.

From Agence France-Presse:

The bunch of around 30 grapes weighed some 800 grams (28 ounces), and individual grapes can reach 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) in diameter, according to public broadcaster NHK.

The top notch grapes — costing around $180 a pop — will be served at the wedding hall in the central city of Kanazawa, in Ishikawa.

"I was surprised to see a higher price than I had originally imagined, but I would like bridal couples to savor them and have a great memory," the hall owner told NHK.

But do they even taste good?

"They're delicious—sweet but fresh at the same time, very well balanced," Japanese agricultural official Hirofumi Isu told the Associated Press in 2008.

So, maybe?

http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2008/08/the-most-expens.html

What kind of person spends $180 for a single grape?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Finnish Couple Wins 19th World Wife Carrying Championships

Ville Parviainen and Janette Oksman, a Finnish couple, have won 19th World Wife Carrying Championships—a competition, if you couldn't guess, in which men race while carrying a female teammate.

According to the Associated Press, the couple finished the 278-yard obstacle course in 63.75 seconds on Saturday. The pair secured their victory less than a second ahead of Britain's Rich Blake Smith and Anna Marguerite Smith. Here's the AP with the rules:

The rules stipulate that the woman must be over 17 years of age and weigh at least 49 kilograms (108 lb). Despite the event's name couples don't have to be married, and organizers say male contestants could "borrow a neighbor's wife" if they didn't have a female companion.

The men can carry their teammate in various ways, though a popular method is for the woman to hang upside-down with her legs around the male contestant's shoulders.

Thirty-six pairs from countries including Australia, Japan, and the United States took part in this year's race.

Congratulations to the happy couple.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-07-05-12-48-56

That doesn't look fun at all but I bet it would be fun to watch

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Robbers Sawed Hole in Bank Roof While Everyone Else Watched Fireworks

This Fourth of July, while revelers were distracted by a fireworks display over the East River in New York City, smart bank robbers took the opportunity to saw a giant hole in a bank roof on the Lower East Side and steal some cash. After all, no one was watching.

According to a report by the New York Post, the robbers were able to reach the roof by climbing a ladder that was connected to a construction site on an adjacent roof.

Inside, they made off with cash from a vault they were able to break open, the sources said.

But they failed to crack another locked safe where the big bucks were stashed, *according to the sources.

Police officers were investigating the scene on the Saturday after Independence Day, claiming that it would have taken the robbers over an hour to saw the hole. No details have been revealed on how much cash the robbers made away with, but I'm going to guess it was $1776.

http://nypost.com/2014/07/06/robbers-enter-bank-by-sawing-hole-in-roof/

Ocean's 4th of July One would think if they go through that much effort and planning they would have had a way to get to the big bucks

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Watch The World's Tallest Water Slide Test Its First Human Riders

The Verrückt, the world's tallest water slide, has finally started testing with real, live humans. And the first drop in this POV footage is absolutely terrifying.

[YT]NG-uY2wze2Y#t[/YT]

Located in Kansas City, Schlitterbahn water park has been pushing back the big unveiling of their monster slide (The Verrückt) again and again. But this video with slide's engineers taking the first human ride gives us hope that it may just be safe enough for the public soon.

Here are the facts. The Verrückt is 168 feet and 7 inches tall. The Statue of Liberty (from toes to the tip of the flame) is only 151 feet. It's also taller than Niagara Falls. You have to climb up 264 steps to get to the top of the 17-story slide. It's expected to hit speeds of up to 65 miles-per-hour. And when you ride you must be velcro strapped into a very large raft (which is good because you would have no butt if you did this bare bottomed).

Also, remember a few months back when we reported the rumor that sandbags were being launched off the ride, and then everyone freaked out because the park claimed that wasn't true. Well guess what? It was true. In earlier models of the ride sandbags were launched into the air. And on the actual ride itself, early tests showed the entire freaking raft lift off into the air.

But it's cool because now the ride has netting around it so you probably won't fall off. Maybe. Still no word on the official release date but the website says "sometime in 2014."

And here's the raw POV shot. The camera craps out on the second bump, but the drop is still intense.

[YT]6o2kGw0GbA0[/YT]

Can't wait. This weekend a friend of mine took a shot of The Verrückt from the highway and the thing is just so ridiculously large, even from super far away.

http://theverruckt.com/

That thing is a beast! Not gonna lie, I kind of want to do it. Maybe after it's been open for a year or so without incident though

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

World's Oldest Dick Graffiti Found On Grecian Island

A specialist in prehistoric archaeology discovered something very exciting recently while doing work on Astypalaia, an island off the coast of Greece: ***** and ***** galore. According to Dr. Andreas Vlachopoulos, the erotic graffiti and inscriptions he discovered are the oldest on earth.

The inscriptions are reportedly "monumental in scale" and "tantalizingly clear." Found on the Vathy peninsula, the graffiti dates back to the fifth and sixth centuries B.C.

Via the Guardian:

Chiselled into the outcrops of dolomite limestone that dot the cape, the inscriptions have provided invaluable insight into the private lives of those who inhabited archaic and classical Greece. One, believed to have been carved in the mid-sixth century BC, proclaimed: "Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona (Νικασίτιμος οἶφε Τιμίον&#945.

"We know that in ancient Greece sexual desire between men was not a taboo," added Dr Vlachopoulos, who returned to the far-flung island last week to resume work with a team of topographers, photographers, conservationists and students. "But this graffiti … is not just among the earliest ever discovered. By using the verb in the past continuous [tense], it clearly says that these two men were making love over a long period of time, emphasising the sexual act in a way that is highly unusual in erotic artwork. "

The dick discovery isn't just important proof that humans have been sexy braggarts for centuries, but it also reveals how sophisticated Grecian culture was in regards to early writing skills. Though the Acropolis had not yet been built, the Aegean graffiti shows high literacy levels.

Angelos Matthaiou, an epigrapher, told The Guardian:

"Whoever wrote the erotic inscription referring to Timiona was very well trained in writing," said Matthaiou, for more than 25 years the general secretary at the Greek Epigraphic Society. "The letters have been very skillfully inscribed on the face of the rock, evidence that it was not just philosophers, scholars and historians who were trained in the art of writing but ordinary people living on islands too."

A number of Grecian islands have yet to be truly parsed for findings like this, which means there may be many, many more ***** and erotic notes to come.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/...t-erotic-graffiti-astypalaia-classical-greece

So it appears that as long as man has been writing things genitalia has always been involved. The more things change the more they stay the same

 

[Marvolo]

Crocodile Named John Attacks Zookeeper in Front of Terrified Visitors

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-28193023

There is no such thing as a domesticated crocodile

Rule number one: never try to take food out of a croc's mouth.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Hospitals Are Using Credit Card Data To Predict People's Health

So, this sounds creepy: Some hospitals are identifying high-risk patients by buying loads of consumer data (i.e. credit card purchases, store loyalty programs, etc.) and plugging it into algorithms so they can step in before the customer gets sick. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, it's currently being used by Carolinas HealthCare System, which is using that type of data to survey the health of its two million members.

How does it work? Take, for example, an asthma patient. A hospital would decide how likely a person would arrive in the emergency room by tracking how often they have refilled their medication, if they're caught buying cigarettes, and if they live in an area with a high pollen county. "The idea is to use Big Data and predictive models to think about population health and drill down to the individual levels," said Michael Dulin, a chief clinical officer for analytics and outcomes research for the medical network, in the Bloomberg Businessweek report.

The purpose of using a system like this is due to Obamacare, since hospital pay is docked if the government sees that patients are coming into the emergency room too frequently. Also there's more of an incentive for medical centers to decrease the number of tests they administer since they're no longer paid on how many tests they perform. A data-heavy system, in which they can decide what is wrong with a person without administering a number of tests, helps solve that dilemma.

Of course, deploying such an intrusive program doesn't come without its critics. "It is one thing to have a number I can call if I have a problem or question; it is another thing to get unsolicited phone calls. I don't like that," Jorjanne Murry explained to Bloomberg Businessweek, who has Type 1 diabetes and adds she ignores phone calls from her insurer.

And the data brokers, or the companies from where the hospitals buying their information from, acted cagey in regards to what information they sell to health-care providers. Understandably; the fact that any of it at all is trading hands is disturbing enough. The details could only get worse.

http://www.businessweek.com/article...credit-card-data-to-predict-who-will-get-sick

Well we have known these companies sell or data for sometime now. I guess if it is used in a beneficial way like this it's a good thing...right?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Feral Parrots of Tokyo Are a Spooky Presence Flocking Above

Birds are a traditional subject of nature photography, and usually are seen as specimens of beauty. But the parrots that soar and roost around Tokyo are portrayed in the work of Yoshinori Mizutani quite differently.

The birds, actually parakeets, are not native to Tokyo. They were originally imported in large quantities as pets in the 1960s, and since have spawned feral flocks that inhabit the surrounding areas. Mizutani's images, shot with a flash, often at nighttime, are off-kilter and frenetic, reflecting the conflicted relationship of the foreign species to the surrounding urban environment. It's a stark contrast to the pristine, action-freezing conventions of wildlife photography.

Mizutani describes his experience of seeing the flocks of parakeets as though he had fallen into the Hitchcock movie "The Birds." His photos certainly do an amazing job conveying a kind of surreal terror.

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles...mpaign=Feed:+itsnicethat/SlXC+(It's+Nice+That)

I've got 2 crazy parakeets that have taken up residence in the trees in my front yard and they are annoying. I feel bad for Tokyo

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Guy Raises $20,000 on Kickstarter to Make Potato Salad

Last month, crowdfunding site Kickstarter loosened its strict(ish) guidelines for projects, allowing users to ask the internet to pay for basically anything that's not illegal. So Zack Danger Brown was well within the rules when he asked for $10 to make potato salad, and his 1,700 backers didn't violate the site's terms by giving him $23,000 and counting.

His project began last Thursday with a simple mission: "I'm making potato salad. Basically I'm just making potato salad. I haven't decided what kind yet."

He offered rewards like a bite of the potato salad or the chance to pick one potato-salad-friendly ingredient to add to the dish, and people just ate it up. (Sorry.)

What started as a ridiculous gag has now turned into an effort to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a simple side dish. Brown will spend some of his thousands renting a venue and turning the creation of the meal into a live event. He's also paying to broadcast it live online.

Brown jokes that making the meal could take weeks, because for each type of potato salad he makes—the project has expanded to include multiples recipes—he'll be saying every backer's name out loud.

Why not just make the original potato salad and donate the huge excess of cash to charity? That's actually against Kickstarter's terms, because it could result in backers inadvertently funding causes they don't agree with.

So, instead, we get what may be the most expensive potato salad in the history of the world. Congratulations, internet. You did it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/29y3rp/iama_guy_who_just_surpassed_his_kickstarter/cipt94j

Never put it past the internet to do something crazy with their money

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

New Study Finally Links Oklahoma Quakes Directly to Fracking

Geologists say that they have confirmed what many have suspected for years: a swarm of earthquakes that rattled central Oklahoma was the direct result of fracking and wastewater injection.

The study by a team of geologists from Cornell University, the University of Colorado, Columbia University and the United States Geological Survey released last week makes a direct link between high-pressure wastewater injection at four hydraulic fracturing sites southeast of Oklahoma City to a swarm of 2,547 small earthquakes near the small town of Jones.

According to the study, fracking and wastewater injection is responsible for a 22,900 percent increase in magnitude 3.0 or higher earthquakes in the state since 2008. Prior to that, Oklahoma typically saw, on average, one magnitude 3.0 earthquake per year.

"It really is unprecedented to have this many earthquakes over a broad region like this," says study co-author Geoffrey Abers of Cornell University. "Most big sequences of earthquakes that we see are either a main shock and a lot of aftershocks or it might be right at the middle of a volcano in a volcanic system or geothermal system. So you might see little swarms but nothing really this distributed and this persistent."

Oklahoma is now the second-most active state for quakes in the lower 48 states, trailing only California.

Fracking and wastewater injection are two distinct parts of the same process. Fracking involves injecting a potent and toxic brew of water and chemicals into a layer of oil or gas-producing shale formations underground, breaking up the rock and releasing the hydrocarbons—which are then sucked back up to the surface along with the water and chemicals. This process can generate earthquakes, but the quakes are typically small—most cannot be felt and are very rarely greater than magnitude 3.

Wastewater injection, though, is the real problem child—for a number of environmentally nasty reasons, but in this case particularly for generating larger earthquakes. The wastewater from fracking operations is separated from the valuable oil and natural gas and then injected at high pressure back into wells deep underground. Scientists say that the wastewater injection process can, in essence, pry apart rock layers and act as a lubricant on deeply-buried and otherwise stable faults, triggering potentially strong and damaging earthquakes in places that probably aren't used to them.

A powerful magnitude 5.6 quake linked to wastewater injection struck central Oklahoma in November of 2011, destroying 14 homes and injuring two people.

In general, the oil and natural gas energy industry has mostly stuck by the position that there is no direct scientific link between wastewater injection at fracking sites and earthquakes. And there hasn't been an increase in earthquake activity at many of the nation's 30,000 deep injection wells, including in North Dakota's busy Bakken Shale formation.

But for years, scientists have known—or at least strongly suspected—that injecting fluids deep underground can trigger earthquakes. In August of 1967, a series of magnitude 5.0+ earthquakes believed to have been caused by the injection of liquid waste into a borehole at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal outside of Denver caused millions of dollars in damage.

Last month, Colorado state regulators ordered a 20-day stoppage of operations at an injection well in Weld County northeast of Denver after a magnitude 2.6 quake was recorded in the area. The same area was hit by a magnitude 3.4 quake in May.

The earthquake problem is being seen all across the west, often in places that have rarely—if ever—had earthquakes before. And that's bad news for some property owners as seismic building regulations in many of the areas now undergoing a fracking boom aren't as strong as those in states where naturally-occuring quakes are common.

In the normally seismically-stable Texas, wastewater injection is suspected in a swarm of over 300 mostly small but unnerving earthquakes around a fracking site northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. One homeowner in Reno, Texas, says that the quakes have cracked his walls and wrecked his toilets, among other things—but his insurance company refuses to pay for the damage because they say the earthquakes were man-made.

"An earthquake in this part of the country was the furthest thing from my mind," said David Hull, who lived most of his adult life in North Texas without ever feeling a tremor. "But they're here."

Earthquakes with suspected links to fracking and wastewater injection have also been felt in New Mexico, Ohio, Kansas, and other states and provinces across the U.S. and Canada.

In California, which certainly doesn't need yet another trigger for earthquakes, a bill in the state legislature would put a freeze on wastewater injection and fracking operations in the state until research shows it can be done without triggering earthquakes. Geologists think that there could be as much as 15 billion barrels of oil in the Monterey Shale formation in the San Joaquin Valley that can only be accessed via fracking.

Back in Edmond, Oklahoma, a nervous overflow crowd gathered at a town hall meeting last month to discuss the increase in earthquakes in their area. The town was rattled by an early-morning magnitude 3.5 quake in late June, and many in the audience asked why fracking operations in their area haven't been shut down as a result.

They were told by officials that under state law fracking operations can't be unilaterally shut down without a legal justification.

The subject of fracking and wastewater injection is a touchy one in Oklahoma, as nearly a quarter of all jobs in the state are tied to the oil and natural gas industry.

In Nature, Oklahoma Geological Survey seismologist Austin Holland—who was not a part of the new study—says that the results need to spark a larger social and political discussion in the state about the costs of fracking:

"Just how important is it to produce oil and gas in Oklahoma, and are we willing to deal with the issues of these disposal wells in order to produce the oil and gas that we are accustomed to producing?"

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6192/13.summary

Yet another reason we need to reduce or dependency on oil

 

[Hal_Jordan]

Fricken fracking

 

[KevanG]

And they said fracking was harmless...

Oh wait no one has EVER said that.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Wasp Nest Fuses With Recliner To Become A Terrifying Throne Of Pain

[YT]M9I2hSQRTMQ[/YT]

Half-easy chair, half-yellow jacket nest, this mesmerizing recliner was discovered by a bee removal company the town of Hobe Sound, Florida. How long could you sit atop the Throne of Wasps?

Discovered by Wayne's Bees, this massive yellow jacket home must have been left undisturbed for a very long time to grow to this magnitude. It is beautiful in a scary stinger way, but not nearly as horrifying as the human wasp face!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wayn...l-and-Honey-Sales/220927631315281?sk=timeline

I would pay good money to see someone go and sit in that thing for 30 mins