2011 Ig Nobel awards

The Ig Nobel is awarded to researchers, whose research should not be repeated. The 2011 winners, announced on 29 September 2011 at Harvard University were

PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE: Anna Wilkinson (of the UK), Natalie Sebanz (of NETHERLANDS, HUNGARY, and AUSTRIA), Isabella Mandl (of AUSTRIA) and Ludwig Huber (of AUSTRIA) for their study 'No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise."
REFERENCE: 'No Evidence Of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise Geochelone carbonaria," Anna Wilkinson, Natalie Sebanz, Isabella Mandl, Ludwig Huber, Current Zoology, vol. 57, no. 4, 2011. pp. 477-84.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Ludwig Huber

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of JAPAN, for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm.
REFERENCE: US patent application 2010/0308995 A1. Filing date: Feb 5, 2009.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Makoto Imai, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami

MEDICINE PRIZE: Mirjam Tuk (of THE NETHERLANDS and the UK), Debra Trampe (of THE NETHERLANDS) and Luk Warlop (of BELGIUM). and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder and Robert Feldman (of the USA), Robert Pietrzak, David Darby, and Paul Maruff (of AUSTRALIA) for demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things — but worse decisions about other kinds of things‚ when they have a strong urge to urinate.
REFERENCE: "Inhibitory spillover: Increased Urination Urgency Facilitates Impulse Control in Unrelated Domains," Mirjam A. Tuk, Debra Trampe and Luk Warlop, Psychological Science, vol. 22, no. 5, May 2011, pp. 627-633.
REFERENCE: "The Effect of Acute Increase in Urge to Void on Cognitive Function in Healthy Adults," Matthew S. Lewis, Peter J. Snyder, Robert H. Pietrzak, David Darby, Robert A. Feldman, Paul T. Maruff, Neurology and Urodynamics, vol. 30, no. 1, January 2011, pp. 183-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Mirjam Tuk, Luk Warlop, Peter Snyder, Robert Feldman, David Darby

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE: Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, NORWAY, for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.
REFERENCE: "Is a Sigh 'Just a Sigh'? Sighs as Emotional Signals and Responses to a Difficult Task," Karl Halvor Teigen, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, vol. 49, no. 1, 2008, pp. 49–57.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Karl Halvor Teigen

LITERATURE PRIZE: John Perry of Stanford University, USA, for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important.
REFERENCE: "How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done," John Perry, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 23, 1996. Later republished elsewhere under the title "Structured Procrastination." http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~jperry
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Colleague Deborah Wilkes accepted the prize on behalf of Professor Perry.

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle
REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females (Coleoptera)," D.T. Gwynne, and D.C.F. Rentz, Journal of the Australian Entomological Society, vol. 22, 1983, pp. 79-80
REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle," D.T. Gwynne and D.C.F. Rentz, Antenna: Proceedings (A) of the Royal Entomological Society London, vol. 8, no. 3, 1984, pp. 116-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz

PHYSICS PRIZE: Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne and Bruno Ragaru (of FRANCE), and Herman Kingma (of THE NETHERLANDS), for determining why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't.
REFERENCE: "Dizziness in Discus Throwers is Related to Motion Sickness Generated While Spinning," Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne, Bruno Ragaru and Herman Kingma, Acta Oto-laryngologica, vol. 120, no. 3, March 2000, pp. 390–5.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: The winners accepted via recorded video.

MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of KOREA (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.

PEACE PRIZE: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, LITHUANIA, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.
REFERENCE: VIDEO and OFFICIAL CITY INFO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Arturas Zuokas

PUBLIC SAFETY PRIZE: John Senders of the University of Toronto, CANADA, for conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him.
REFERENCE: "The Attentional Demand of Automobile Driving," John W. Senders, et al., Highway Research Record, vol. 195, 1967, pp. 15-33. VIDEO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: John Senders

Compare to 2010 and 2009, which I've previously written.

The mathematics and peace prizes were particularly interesting. Sigh. Or was just a sigh?

Cow on the run

First there was Luna the jumping cow, then Krista the bovine beauty queen. Now, there is a report about yet another cow, Yvonne, who is living life on the run in a Bavarian forest. Reported in the Guardian

A €10,000 reward is being offered in Germany for the safe return of a cow called Yvonne who went on the run in May after apparently sensing she was about to be sent to the slaughterhouse.

Yvonne, a six-year-old dairy cow, has, in the words of one newspaper, become "a kind of freedom fighter for the animal loving German republic" since she escaped from her field in the village of Zangberg, 50 miles north-east of Munich, on 24 May.

Having been fattened up, she was due to be dispatched when she managed to breach the electric fence surrounding her farm. For months she led a quiet life grazing among the fir trees of nearby forests, until she nearly came a cropper crossing a road into the path of a passing police car.

Read more. See also NPR and Der Spiegel.  Ernst, a rather attractive bull has been enlisted to help lure her out of the forest (see video below from ZDF). Ernst, being castrated, might not actually be of much use.



See another video from Der Spiegel.

The German media appears to be obsessed with cows.

The coconut meat rap

The white 'flesh' of a coconut is called 'meat'.  A work colleague couldn't believe it is called 'meat' for something that isn't of animal origin.

Being also a talented rap musician, he also wrote the following ditty

Go loco for Coco, the Coconut /
sweet is the meat when you split the nut /
it's not like beef, nor pork my friend /
it's a fruity meat, a treat till the end /
slurp on the juice, white crumbly flesh /
combine it with peanut meat, now that's somethin' fresh /
Coconut meat, Aroy-D all in the can /
when you eat the cocomeat well you da man /

There you go. Lyrics above © copyright by D'Opus & Roshambo

Shop window dummies. Alive.

Reported by AFP via France24 on 18 July 2011, Italy's union Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL) has expressed displeasure at Milan department store Coin for displaying live models in place of shop window dummies claiming to "protect workers' decorum and customers' intelligence" against the 'commodification' of the body.



In turn, the models have also protested the union's claims holding signs saying "Anche fare il modello è un lavoro".

See also Corriere della Sera on 15 July 2011, which suggests the union won with Coin withdrawing the models.

One would think that in the prevailing economic circumstances in Italy, the union would be supportive of young people being employed.

Has he lost his noodles?

Reported by BBC News (14 July 2011),

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear".

Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.

Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.

Later a police spokesman explained that the licence was issued because Mr Alm's face was fully visible in the photo.

"The photo was not approved on religious grounds. The only criterion for photos in driving licence applications is that the whole face must be visible," said Manfred Reinthaler, a police spokesman in Vienna.

He was speaking on Wednesday, after Austrian media had first reported Mr Alm's reason for wearing the pasta strainer.

After receiving his application the Austrian authorities had required him to obtain a doctor's certificate that he was "psychologically fit" to drive.

Read more. Earlier reporting by AFP in France24 (12 July 2011), Der Spiegel (13 July 2011).

(photo from Niko Alm blog)

See also Niko Alm's blog. His press release

Eine kleine Pressemitteilung.

—-

Morgen 8.30 Ad hoc PK: Die Nudelsieb-Affäre. Die Hintergründe.

Eine Beweisführung darüber, wie absurd Kirchenprivilegien heute sind. Mit Niko Alm und seinem Nudelsieb.

(Wien 13.7.11,) Wie es kam, dass ein Führerschein-Foto des Unternehmers Niko Alm mit Nudelsieb auf dem Kopf von der Behörde akzeptiert wurde – Niko Alm, Atheist und Mitinitiator des Volksbegehrens gegen Kirchenprivilegien, ist bekennender Pastafari und hat 3 Jahre lang um sein Recht auf einen Identitätsausweis mit Nudelsieb am Kopf gekämpft. Der Pastafarianismus wurde 2005 vom US- Physiker Bobby Henderson gegründet, Gottheit ist das Fliegende Spaghettimonster. Niko Alms Führerschein hat dieser Tage großes mediales Aufsehen erregt. Allerdings kann jeder das Privileg einer konfessionellen Kopfbedeckung am Passfoto in Anspruch nehmen. Niko Alm möchte aufzeigen, dass religiöse Privilegien vielfach aus dem Mittelalter kommen, oft skurril sind und im 21. Jahrhundert endlich beendet werden müssen.

Alles über das Recht aufs Nudelsieb und den seit heute laufenden Wettbewerb “Pimp your Head” – zeig die kreativste konfessionelle Kopfbedeckung, präsentiert von den Initiatoren des Volksbegehrens gegen Kirchenprivilegien.

Pressekonferenz und Fotoshooting:
morgen Donnerstag, 14.7., 8.30h

mit
Niko Alm, Unternehmer, Mitinitiator Volksbegehren gegen Kirchenprivilegien,
und
Univ. Prof. Heinz Oberhummer, Physiker und Wissenschaftskabarettist, Mitinitiator des Volksbegehrens gegen Kirchenprivilegien

Café Prückel
Stubenring 24 (Luegerplatz)
A-1010 Wien

Presse-Rückfragen:

FJ PUKARTHOFER PR, Jakob Purkarthofer, +43-664-4121491, info@purkarthofer-pr.at

Strangely, it's not a bad look. Fitting that the appropriate headwear for worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is one that is used to drain spaghetti.

Tennis routines

It's Wimbledon time and Xan Brooks writing in the Guardian has written an excellent article about tennis superstitions

Like Fight Club, it seems that the first rule of tennis superstitions is that you do not talk about tennis superstitions. "I do not have superstitions," snapped Djokovic, the man who won't use the same shower twice and who reputedly fears he can't win Wimbledon unless his poodle, Pierre, is allowed to join him in London. "I have routines. I call them routines."

Read more, particularly about the player who "insists on lining his water bottles up in a row, so that all the labels are pointing in exactly the same direction".

Of course, news about tennis player superstitions isn't new. See BBC (2003) and ABC (2007).

A video from Tennis Warehouse during BNP Paribas Open 2010

The truth about cats

Cats have more secrets than humans will ever know.

Via noob.us

Judgment day or zombie apocalypse? Perhaps both.

According to 'Christian' broadcaster Family Radio, led by Harold Camping and widely reported by media worldwide, Judgment Day (or the 'rapture') will occur on Saturday, 21 May 2011. 5500 billboards announcing the event have appeared worldwide.

Billboard in Brisbane, Australia (photo by Benjamin Nichols submitted to ABC)

See San Francisco Chronicle.

Somewhat coincidentally, on 16 May 2011, the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) published in its blog a guide to the zombie apocalypse. Included in the plan are the following points:

Identify the types of emergencies that are possible in your area. Besides a zombie apocalypse, this may include floods, tornadoes, or earthquakes. If you are unsure contact your local Red Cross chapter for more information. Family members meeting by their mailbox. You should pick two meeting places, one close to your home and one farther away.

Pick a meeting place for your family to regroup in case zombies invade your home…or your town evacuates because of a hurricane. Pick one place right outside your home for sudden emergencies and one place outside of your neighborhood in case you are unable to return home right away.

Identify your emergency contacts. Make a list of local contacts like the police, fire department, and your local zombie response team. Also identify an out-of-state contact that you can call during an emergency to let the rest of your family know you are ok.

Plan your evacuation route. When zombies are hungry they won’t stop until they get food (i.e., brains), which means you need to get out of town fast! Plan where you would go and multiple routes you would take ahead of time so that the flesh eaters don’t have a chance! This is also helpful when natural disasters strike and you have to take shelter fast.

If the prediction of Judgment Day is correct, the righteous ascend to heaven. Given the timing of the CDC's notice, it is likely that the rest of us will be facing a zombie apocalypse, when the non-righteous dead, rise again.

This cowgirl's cow jumps and she's over the moon

From the town of Laufen in Bavaria, 15-year-old Regina Mayer, whose parents are farmers declined her request for a horse, so she did the next best thing, which was to train one of their cows called Luna like a horse. Luna also thinks she is a horse.

Associated Press


Antenne (Bayern)


See also reporting in
- Der Spiegel (English)
- Der Spiegel (Deutsch)
- Nürnberger Nachrichten

Moo!

April fooled fourth

This morning I fell for April fools' pranks. Not once but four times.

First, I visited a colleague on the other side of our floor. He had the local Canberra Times newspaper, which usually prints a serious article on the front page. None could be found. He then mentioned reports about bats in the local area and mentioned seeing some in the tree that could be seen through the window. He insisted there was one just hanging in a branch. I looked and looked and could not see any. Five minutes later...

The second time was when a colleague mentioned that a staff member whom she supervised would be leaving on promotion to another area. My colleague is also going on annual leave in a few weeks so her team would be down from three to one. While I was trying to work out how to fill the 'vacancy' as quickly as possible...

Meanwhile, I had received an email from another colleague who knew about my regular consumption of weißwurst. She mentioned media reporting about "another round of Gammelfleischskandal in Germany" and that Das "Bild is calling it the Schwarzwurst Skandal". So I looked...

Finally, the big boss' executive officer came around to tell me that he wanted to talk to me about something urgent and important. So I grabbed a notebook and a pen while trying to figure out what it could be. Upon arrival at his office, I peered in only to find the prankster sitting in his chair.

I must have had 'gullible' printed on my forehead this morning.

Meanwhile, some of the better pranks today were from
- Lonely Planet on non-human translations of its guides
- The Guardian on their new approach to the monarchy and new live blog
- Google's new Gmail Motion
- Richard Branson buying Pluto
- The Independent reporting about Cristiano Ronaldo being traded by Portugal to Spain
- BBC's 3D radio
- The Sun reporting about gorillas being given iPads
- The Telegraph reporting about ferrets being trained to lay cables for broadband
- Artline's new tweeter pen
- IKEA's Hundstol (see video below)



There is always the possibility that any one of those mentioned above could be serious.

James Creedon from France24 in his international press segment for today seemed to enjoy it a bit more

A law against flatulence

The Malawi Democrat has reported that the Parliament of Malawi will table a bill to criminalize farting. However, Solicitor General Anthony Kamanga earlier claimed there was no such law intended. As reported

“The Local Court Bill confers jurisdiction on local courts, inter alia, to try offences under Section 198 of the Penal Code which reads: Fouling Air: Any person who vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the public to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighbourhood or passing along a public way shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,” Kamanga, who is also Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, said.

“How any reasonable or sensible person can construe the provision to criminalising farting in public is beyond me, and to claim, as some people have, that the bill is (an) introduction (of) an offence on farting is not true,” he said.

The Malawi Democrat cites Justice Minister George Chaponda's interview on Capital Radio where he indicated that an anti-farting provision would ensure decency.

Something stinks in all this.

2010 Ig Nobel awards

The Ig Nobel is awarded to researchers, whose research should not be repeated. The 2010 winners, announced on 30 September 2010 at Harvard University were

ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
REFERENCE: "A Novel Non-Invasive Tool for Disease Surveillance of Free-Ranging Whales and Its Relevance to Conservation Programs," Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin and Diane Gendron, Animal Conservation, vol. 13, no. 2, April 2010, pp. 217-25.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, Agnes Rocha-Gosselin, Diane Gendron

MEDICINE PRIZE: Simon Rietveld of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Ilja van Beest of Tilburg University, The Netherlands, for discovering that symptoms of asthma can be treated with a roller-coaster ride.
REFERENCE: "Rollercoaster Asthma: When Positive Emotional Stress Interferes with Dyspnea Perception," Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest, Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 45, 2006, pp. 977–87.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest

TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PRIZE: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi of Japan, and Dan Bebber, Mark Fricker of the UK, for using slime mold to determine the optimal routes for railroad tracks.
REFERENCE: "Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design," Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Science, Vol. 327. no. 5964, January 22, 2010, pp. 439-42.
[NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ARE CO-WINNERS BOTH THIS YEAR AND IN 2008 when they were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for demonstrating that slime molds can solve puzzles: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Kentaro Ito, Atsushi Tero, Mark Fricker, Dan Bebber

PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
REFERENCE: "Preventing Winter Falls: A Randomised Controlled Trial of a Novel Intervention," Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest, New Zealand Medical Journal. vol. 122, no, 1298, July 3, 2009, pp. 31-8.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Lianne Parkin

PEACE PRIZE: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
REFERENCE: "Swearing as a Response to Pain," Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston, Neuroreport, vol. 20 , no. 12, 2009, pp. 1056-60.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Richard Stephens

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Manuel Barbeito, Charles Mathews, and Larry Taylor of the Industrial Health and Safety Office, Fort Detrick, Maryland, USA, for determining by experiment that microbes cling to bearded scientists.
REFERENCE: "Microbiological Laboratory Hazard of Bearded Men," Manuel S. Barbeito, Charles T. Mathews, and Larry A. Taylor, Applied Microbiology, vol. 15, no. 4, July 1967, pp. 899–906. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC547091/?tool=pubmed>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Manuel S. Barbeito was unable to travel, due to health reasons. A representative read his acceptance speech for him.

ECONOMICS PRIZE: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Eric Adams of MIT, Scott Socolofsky of Texas A&M University, Stephen Masutani of the University of Hawaii, and BP [British Petroleum], for disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix.
REFERENCE: "Review of Deep Oil Spill Modeling Activity Supported by the Deep Spill JIP and Offshore Operator’s Committee. Final Report," Eric Adams and Scott Socolofsky, 2005.
<http://www.boemre.gov/tarprojects/377.htm>
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Eric Adams, Scott Socolofsky, and Stephen Masutani

MANAGEMENT PRIZE: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
REFERENCE: “The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study,” Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo, Physica A, vol. 389, no. 3, February 2010, pp. 467-72.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo.

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, and Shuyi Zhang of China, and Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol, UK, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.
REFERENCE: "Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time," Min Tan, Gareth Jones, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, Shuyi Zhang and Libiao Zhang, PLoS ONE, vol. 4, no. 10, e7595.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Gareth Jones

Compare to 2009 - I wrote about it then.

It is so tempting to read some of the research references.

Reykjavík's new mayor Jón Gnarr - was he joking?

In April, it was reported that Icelandic comedian Jón Gnarr had founded a mock political party called Besti flokkurinn (The Best Party) and planned to run in the election for Reykjavík City Council in May. The party's platform included a polar bear display for the zoo, free towels at public swimming pools and a new Disneyland near the airport.

In the elections held on 29 May, the party won the largest percentage of votes (34.7 per cent) for six of the 15 seats on the council. The Best Party and the Democratic Alliance formed a coalition agreement, thereby forming a majority.

On 15 June, it was reported that Jón Gnarr was sworn in as mayor.

Was this a mock or real political advertisement?


The voters/residents of Reykjavík sure have a great sense of humour.

See also New York Times.

Of course, power changes everything. In 1989, the Australian Capital Territory (similar to the District of Columbia) was forced to self-govern (it had until then been administered by the federal government). In its first election, three members of the No Self Government Party were elected (as a protest vote). Two years later, the three members left the party to become independents. One of them even became a government minister.

Voyager spacecraft's invitation answered?

The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts were launched into space in August 1977 to explore Jupiter and Saturn. Both have travelled beyond the orbit of Pluto, which was re-categorised as a dwarf planet in 2006. Having accomplished its original mission, both spacecrafts continued travelling into space, transmitting data back to Earth.

Until now.

On 6 May 2010, NASA reported changes in the data being received.

Engineers have shifted NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft into a mode that transmits only spacecraft health and status data while they diagnose an unexpected change in the pattern of returning data. Preliminary engineering data received on May 1 show the spacecraft is basically healthy, and that the source of the issue is the flight data system, which is responsible for formatting the data to send back to Earth. The change in the data return pattern has prevented mission managers from decoding science data.

The first changes in the return of data packets from Voyager 2, which is near the edge of our solar system, appeared on April 22. Mission team members have been working to troubleshoot and resume the regular flow of science data. Because of a planned roll maneuver and moratorium on sending commands, engineers got their first chance to send commands to the spacecraft on April 30. It takes nearly 13 hours for signals to reach the spacecraft and nearly 13 hours for signals to come down to NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth.

Voyager 1 and 2 also included an open invitation to visit Earth through the Golden Record.

NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2-a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record-a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.
...

Once the Voyager spacecraft leave the solar system (by 1990, both will be beyond the orbit of Pluto), they will find themselves in empty space. It will be forty thousand years before they make a close approach to any other planetary system. As Carl Sagan has noted, “The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.”

Reported by newspaper Bild, German 'alien' expert Hartwig Hausdorf was quoted as saying (after translation) “It seems almost as if someone had reprogrammed or hijacked the probe – thus perhaps we do not yet know the whole truth…” - „Es scheint fast, als hätte jemand die Sonde umprogrammiert oder entführt – vielleicht, damit wir noch nicht die ganze Wahrheit erfahren ...“

An interesting speculation.

Bild could be considered to be sensationalist. Hausdorf, author of Ufos – Sie fliegen noch immer (UFOs – They Are Still Flying) has made other speculative claims.

We can only wait. Until the invasion.

Giving your baby a ridiculous name is child abuse

Paul Schmidtberger wrote a brilliant reader-submitted article for the New York Times (complaint box) about the latest fad of misspelling names for newborns.

... I’m about to meet little Brittney, Brittny, Brittneigh, Brit’nee, Brittani and Bryttney. If you absolutely have to name your child after a rugged French peninsula, then get out a dictionary and look it up. It’s Brittany.

I have a major gripe with the trend of misspelling baby names. On purpose. The parents’ logic runs something like this: “My child is special and unique. Thus, my child deserves a special, uniquely spelled name.” The upshot is that Chloe becomes Kloey, and Jacqueline metastasizes into something ghastly, like Jaq’leen.

It would be easy to blame this on celebrities, since there appears to be an unspoken contest among them to saddle children with awful names. Gwyneth Paltrow set the bar high when she named her daughter Apple, but not high enough. Reign Beau, daughter of Ving Rhames, and Vanilla Ice’s Dusti Rain and Keelee Breeze are way up there. For boys, could any name be worse than Bronx Mowgli, son of Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz? Perhaps Jermajesty Jackson?

Not that this is just a Hollywood problem. All across America, parents are mangling names in a misguided mission to trumpet their kid’s individuality. Take the wildly popular name Chase, which is actually not a name at all, but something a dog does to its tail. It was annoying to begin with, but now it gets worse as it slowly mutates from Chase to Chace, and on to Chayce.

Perhaps not misspelling, but rather intentional variations of already perfectly spelled out names. Everybody is unique but there is nothing wrong with conforming.

See also Things Bogans Like.

Evil faced tinned pear shocks woman

photo as supplied to The Southland Times

Reported in New Zealand's The Southland Times, a woman opened a tin of pears to discover a 'demonic face carved into one of its contents'.

Mrs McMahon said the shock of the find is nothing compared with the trial she has had trying to get answers out of the pears' supplier.

She bought the Budget brand can of pears from Invercargill Pak'N Save a fortnight ago and feeling "a bit peckish", she opened it, late on May 1.

She said it was when she returned to the can for a second helping that she scooped the freakish piece of fruit out.

"I thought `oh my God, is that a face'... it really kind of shocked me."

Inspecting the can, she found an 0800 number and called it.

That call went through to voicemail and, despite feeling "embarrassed", she left a message, Mrs McMahon said.

She took photos of the pear, posted them to websites, including TV3 and Facebook and listed it on Trade Me before going to bed.

The rest of the article details Mrs McMahon's dealings with the distributor, in which she had a greater problem with the complaint process and her treatment rather than the piece of fruit in question.

Seriously, the treatment received by Mrs McMahon was proportionate to the fuss she made about the now unimportant piece of fruit.

The tin of fruit was produced in and imported from China. The brand appears to be a low cost one. The piece of fruit was still edible.

What did Mrs McMahon expect the manufacturer to do? Launch an investigation to find the Chinese factory worker who may have done the deed? The Chinese worker who does the same job every day canning pears for very little pay?

Honestly, people should balance their outrage with a bit of perspective.

grand theft octo

A San Franciscan now living in New Zealand was had his video camera stolen by an octopus whilst diving. See YouTube clip by Victor Huang

April 15, 2010 — while trying to get video of a wild octopus, it suddenly dashed towards me and rips my shiny new camera from out of my hands, then swims off, all while the camera is recording! he swam away very quickly like a naughty shoplifter. after a 5 minute chase, I placed my speargun underneath him and he quickly and curiously grabbed hold of the gun as well, giving me enough time to reach in and grab the camera from out of his mouth. I didn't feel threatened at all during the whole ordeal. he seemed to be fixated on the shiny metallic blue digital camera. the only confusing behavior was how he dashed off with it like a thief haha. cheeky octopus.

See also reporting by CBS News


Watch CBS News Videos Online

The octopus is lucky it doesn't live in the coastal waters of Greece. It would have ended up as dinner.

The earth moves in mysterious ways

The Los Angeles Times reported that southern California has been experiencing increased seismic activity this year

Southern California, along with Baja California, has seen a surge in moderate earthquake activity this year and scientists are trying to figure out what's causing the uptick.

There have been 70 quakes greater than a magnitude 4.0 so far this year. That's the most of any year in the last decade -- and, it's only April. There were 30 in 2009 and 29 in 2008.

Seismologists say they are looking into the recent surge but they can not yet fully explain it.

Meanwhile, AP has reported that an Iranian cleric is blaming women who dress immodestly and engage in promiscuity for the cause of earthquakes

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran's acting Friday prayer leader.

Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe, but many, especially the young, ignore some of the more strict codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair.

"What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?" Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon Friday. "There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes."

Now, neither of those two news reports are related.

Perhaps a plausible explanation is geological faults and in many cases, due to tectonic plate movement.

Finally, real coffee in New York

Reported in the New York Times on 9 March 2010, New Yorkers are finally getting the real taste of coffee.

The difference between a cup of coffee from these new style coffee bars and what was available before is striking.

These shops use only beans that have been roasted in the past 10 days (though some say two weeks is fine), so the flavors are still lively.

The beans are ground to order for each cup. Certain coffee bars have a skyline of grinders: one for espresso, one for decaffeinated espresso, one for brewed coffee. If they offer more than one variety of espresso bean, that gets its own grinder, too.

Milk is steamed to order for each macchiato or latte. A telltale sign is an arsenal of smaller steam pitchers, instead of one big one.

And coffee bars reaching for the highest rung use only manual espresso machines run by baristas who, in the past three years, have been able to attend classes given by the leading roasting companies in the intricacies of these devices. Many chain stores are turning to automatic machines with preset levels for coffee, temperature and timing.

The article also provides a list of cafes serving real coffee.

Melbourne has been the centre of Australian cafe and coffee culture for many years and Melburnians are now taking their expertise to New York. Reported in The Age

Melburnian Alexander Hall who previously managed St Kilda's Cafe Racer and Il Fornaio, reckons New Yorkers still have plenty to learn.

''The New York coffee scene is similar to Melbourne in 1985. When I moved here about six years ago, there was virtually nowhere that served quality espresso coffee. I originally planned to pick up an idea here and then move back to Melbourne to cash in.

''But I realised there was a huge opportunity here because nothing in New York compared to our cafes,'' Mr Hall says.

He opened The Milk Bar in Brooklyn last year and is looking for another site in Manhattan.

All rather strange really as Melbourne's cafe and coffee culture arose from Italian migrants. They preserved this culture and promoted it to the wider Australian community in Melbourne. New York also has a high Italian migrant population but somehow they lost it.

Stopping the sag

Two months ago, I wrote about how General Larry Platt's audition on American Idol with Pants on the Ground became an internet viral hit.

Platt now has an ally in New York State Senator Eric Adams. Senator Adams, together with Fully Persuaded for Children and Families Inc, has launched a campaign to encourage young people to raise their pants, with six billboards unveiled in Brooklyn.





See reporting by CNN. Needless to say, some youths in Brooklyn are not happy about being told what to wear (reported in The Brooklyn Paper).

The simple truth is that it looks ridiculous.