Mouse Party

When anti-vivisectionists talk about computer models, I guess they had this in mind. The University of Utah has made available a wonderful little flash animation where you can see the effects of cocaine, alcohol, and a host of other drugs on the brain at a molecular level. Fun and educational! (link)

2 comments July 8th, 2007

Test kit sniffs your daughter’s knickers

Now over to the wonderfully libertarian Brick House Security, from which you can buy an alarming array of equipment not found at your local Tesco. Chief among these in terms of creepiness is the Check Mate Semen Detection Test Kit, which promises to:

Put an end to the nightmare of suspicion and doubt caused by the infidelity of a cheating spouse or of a sexually active teen.

For a measly $49.95, you can buy ten vials of a reagant that turns purple when in contact with an enzyme called acid phosphatase, found in large amounts in seminal fluid. Seems simple enough. But here’s the crux: what if you’re a suspicious woman trying to catch out a cheating husband? No problem!

On Sunday morning he left the house and told you he was going to play golf. Then, when he came home and took a shower, you grabbed his underwear and did the test. If you detected semen, what is he going to say?

Well, I imagine he might say: “I whipped one off in the shower before I left”, shortly before adding: “and you’re a freak with no respect for my privacy, goodbye.”. On the contrary, if you’re a man testing your wife’s dirty underwear, and you get a positive result, what’s to say it’s not yours? Especially, as the site points out, that a woman can exude traces of semen for up to 72 hours after sex.

Of course, this would be unprotected sex. If your wife is practising extra-marital safe sex, or your daughter is stuck on third base, you just wasted fifty bucks. It’s a wonderful system that will either confirm your paranoia or leave it brewing, but certainly won’t end it.

Perhaps if you spent the fifty dollars taking your wife out to dinner, you’d be able to worry a little less.

1 comment July 8th, 2007

Dinosaur bone soup

The BBC is reporting that yokels in central China have been digging up dinosaur bones and turning them into soup:

Villagers in central China have been using dinosaur bones as medicine - thinking they were from dragons. These bones have been dug up, then boiled in soup or ground down to make traditional medicines for decades.

Well, the villagers’ thinking is understandable. There’s definitely something special about organic matter that can survive for 65 million years! According to the BBC, these aren’t crunchy stone fossils - these are bones! Which makes the condesceding tone of the article a wonderful exercise in hubris.

1 comment July 7th, 2007

Orbo fails to work, world unsurprised

Irish tricksters Steorn, who claimed some time ago to have created a free energy machine, have finally exhibited their wondrous invention to the public. To no-one’s surprise, it failed to work.

From yesterday, the Kinetica Museum in Spitalfields was host to Steorn’s solution to all mankind’s woes, which they have now christened Orbo. According to the website, the intense heat of the camera lights frazzled poor little Orbo, and the gallery closed early. Wait, did I say “gallery”? Yes, I forgot to mention that the Kinetica Museum isn’t actually a museum as such, but an art space devoted to “providing an exhibition space in central London where the most important examples of kinetic, technological and electronic art, both past and present, can be properly stored and displayed.”. Steorn claimed theirs was “the World’s First Free Energy Demonstration”. O rly?
Orbo is missing from the gallery, but you can watch a fascinating webcam feed of its box, filled with what I can only assume is hot air. How wonderfully appropriate.

6 comments July 6th, 2007

Obligatory Monday Jesus-Dino post

It’s getting to be a regular thing.

You can get this one on a t-shirt.

1 comment July 2nd, 2007

Bizarre Science Mash-Up TV

What happens when you mix together a camera, pulp TV and a group of European PhD students with far too much time on their hands? Probably something like DiscoverMC TV, a whole channel featuring shows such as “Extreme Lab Makeover” and “Pimp my Pipet”. Worth it for the poke at anti-wrinkle potion DNAge, which is revealed to work via “self tranfection” using “all natural elephant sperm”. Enjoy.

Thanks to Fleps Orre for discovering this!

1 comment July 1st, 2007