The mother of all link dumps

Dec 19, 2009 21:05

Various shit collected over the last week or two, mostly from boingboing, with a few slashdot/sciencedaily/etc. thrown in.

Hops Compound May Prevent Prostate Cancer. Holy fascinating connection, Batman! I would LOVE to see a followup study examining if there is a relationship between the taster/supertaster thing about how sensitive people are to bitter tastes vs. cancer predisposition.

Another cool optical illusion.

Which flights on which airlines have wifi? A comprehensive chart.

A Congresswoman has introduced a bill that would require TV commercials to be at the same volume as the program.

5-year fugitive plastic surgeon from Chicago found in the Italian Alps.

Another application of the Law of Unintended Consequences: environmentally-friendly LED traffic lights don't melt the snow that falls on them.

Reddit: "A single sperm has 37.5MB of DNA information in it. That means that a normal ejaculation represents a data transfer of 1,587.5TB". Hilarious geek humor in the comments.

Peek at the Tetris God at work might've been funnier if the player hadn't played so godawfully.

The next time you think you have a bad beat story consider the man who dove into the ocean off the coast of Australia while wearing full-body "stinger suit" and bought a peanut-sized jellyfish in the face of a species that "can kill a person in minutes."

IRS audits the H&R Block-prepared return of a $10/hour mother who works at Supercuts. She sought help from her dad's accountant, who filed a response suggesting the IRS was misinterpreting the tax laws. The IRS is responding by auditing her parents too.

NEJM, via Schneier: The epidemiology of fear responses: "When the inoculum of dramatic illness is first introduced into society, the public psyche rapidly becomes infected. Almost like an IgE-mediated histamine release, there is an immediate flooding of fear, even if the illness -- like Ebola -- is infinitely less likely to cause death than, say, a run-in with the Second Avenue bus. This immediate fear of the unknown was what had all my patients demanding the as-yet-unproduced H1N1 vaccine last spring."

You can make a reasonable living mining discarded betting slips for overlooked winners.

Another awesome creative image retrofitting: this elevator button has the Creation of Adam painted around it, so that when you press the button you touch God's finger.

Apparently the programmers for the Predator drone didn't think the video downfeed needed to be encrypted. "Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations."

Based on jwz's experiences, good luck getting SFPD to get off their asses and do anything about car-on-bike assaults.

Food and Eating section:

An awesome periodic table made out of cookies.

via boingboing, which do you think has higher meat-quality standards, fast food restaurants or school lunch programs?

Which has the greater environmental impact fresh or frozen salmon?

Scene from a James Bond movie? Ukrainian student killed by exploding chewing gum. "Are you ready for the TSA to ban chewing gum?"

HFCS can damage the metabolism and "is fuelling the obesity crisis" according to a study.

I'm going to assume that by now everyone has seen the mobius bagel.

duh, tetris, taxes, jellyfish, health, silliness, tv, video games, high fructose corn syrup, geekiness, optical illusions

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