Bat may have ridden shuttle into space

When the Space Shuttle Discovery blasted into orbit two days ago, it might have taken this bat along for the ride. NASA technicians spotted the flying rodent clawed up against the vehicle's external tank during inspections. And it was thought that it would eventually take fly off on its own.But as Discovery roared from the launch pad, a tiny black speck was spotted clinging...

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Paraplegic man walking again after spider bite

David Blancarte of Manteca, California was 27 when a motorcycle accident cost him the use of his legs. That was in 1988.Then a few months ago Blancarte was bitten by a poisonous Recluse spider. He was hospitalized for five days (Blancarte, not the spider) and during an evaluation, doctors discovered that Blancarte had regained nerve function in his legs. Somehow, the spider...

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Something I whipped up for the occasion...

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SESAME STREET explains the Bernie Madoff scandal

Jimmy Kimmel Live! shared this educational clip from Sesame Street in which Ernie and Cookie Monster convey to little kids the intricate workings of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme...

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Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton is dead

The extremely sad word has just got out in the past few hours that Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, the world-renowned Appalachian moonshiner, has died in his home.He was due to begin serving a sentence in federal prison this coming Friday, the result of a raid by government agents on his moonshine operation in eastern Tennessee last spring. Following the raid many rallied in support...

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This year's NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament pairings...

...are the most screwed-up brackets that I've seen in a way long time.I'm beginning to see some merit to Dad's suggestion: take the top 64 teams, and apart from the teams that deserve to be #1 seeds, pick numbers out of a hat and pair 'em up randomly.I still haven't given up hope that someday, I'll live long enough to see Elon University go to the Big Dance. Along with witnessing firsthand a real tornado, it's one of my aspirations in life ...

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Sci-Fi Channel is now Syfy

Sci-Fi Channel's days are numbered: on July 7th it metamorphosizes into Syfy. Which is actually pronounced just like "sci-fi", so nothing really is changing at all. If that makes any sense...Network execs are making the move because the popular cable channel has become about much more than spaceships and monsters. The station now carries reruns of Lost, which handily defies...

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Take a look at this shot from NORMALSVILLE!

Good friend, fellow filmmaker and renaissance man Marco van Bergen sent along this still from Normalsville, his latest project...That looks stunning! Can you believe this is a film being made by mostly teenagers? Well, Marco and his crew are a very talented lot and I'm not ashamed to say this either: I've learned a lot from him that I'm eager to apply to my own productions....

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EXTREMELY crazy insane BIOSHOCK 2 news (it's about Big Daddy...)

So the Internets have been burning like mad all day with rumors regarding BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams. The prevailing word since late last night, and what very much upset many people, was word that the iconic Big Daddies - the diving-suit clad monstrosities that protect the Little Sisters in Rapture - would not be in the upcoming sequel to the 2007 first-person shooter.2K Games...

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If Stan Lee had written WATCHMEN...

Alan Moore's Watchmen is rightly considered to be the most praised graphic novel of all time. And the long-awaited motion picture adaptation has introduced it to many who had never read it before (it's currently the #1 selling book on Amazon.com). But have you ever wondered what Watchmen would have been like if it were written by someone else?Like, say... Stan "The Man"...

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Meet Jerry Jalava: The man with the 2 GB USB finger

Jerry Jalava of Finland is a motorcycle enthusiast and computer hacker. He lost a finger in a riding accident last spring and when the doctor working on rebuilding his hand heard about Jerry's love of technology, he suggested a USB "finger" drive to replace the lost digit. So now Jerry Jalava's right near-pinky finger is also a 2 gigabyte USB drive that carries a Linux distribution...

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Bev Perdue's lottery looting costs county 4 schools

That "North Carolina Education Lottery" that we've had for going on three years now? The one that was supposed to do nothing but supplement, you know, education in North Carolina?Well, our newly-minted governor Bev Perdue has raided the lottery's reserve fund of $50 million. And then she took another $38 million that was marked for new schools construction, and applied it to the state's budget shortfall.And now because of her fiscal shenanigans,...

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Man wants DNA testing to prove he's Al Capone's grandson

A guy in Boston named Christopher Knight (so far as I can tell there's no relation :-) believes that he is the grandson of infamous mob boss Al Capone and he has so much confidence about it that that he has legally changed his name to "Christopher Capone".And now Chris Capone is seeking DNA samples from known male descendants of the gang so that a scientific determination can be made. If none are willing to provide him with genetic material, Chris...

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New battery recharges in 10 seconds

Those wonderful engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have conjured up a new type of battery for mobile devices that recharges in just ten seconds. The battery is composed of currently existing materials and is said to be cheap to manufacture on a mass scale. Along with the extremely fast recharge rate, the new design doesn't degrade with repeated recharges as do currently existing batteries.In addition to the uses this thing will...

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Star Wars fan does 110 MPH trying to race toward eBay bid

From the Seattle, Washington side of the galaxy: a 46-year old man was stopped for speeding on I-90 by State Patrol troopers. He was doing an astonishing 110 miles per hour and once he had finally been pulled over, officers found his car loaded with Star Wars memorabilia.The man's reason for going so fast? He was trying to rush home to bid for another Star Wars item on eBay.Click on the link above for some hilarious reader commen...

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United States poised for Zimbabwe-style economic collapse, sez governor

If the United States keeps "spending a bunch of money we don't have", it faces a collapse of its economy much like what has happened in Zimbabwe, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford predicts.In case you haven't heard, the financial hyper-inflation which has rocked Zimbabwe has led that country to issue a one trillion dollar bill as part of its currency. For one of those legal tender notes, you can currently buy a hamburger or two.Sanford gets what's...

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Artificial life possible "within five years"

Many scientists are predicting that synthetic life is going to be a reality within the next five to ten years. Geneticists have already created an artificial ribosome (a cell structure responsible for protein manufacturing) and the consensus is that a full-blown cell is just around the corner.Color me "meh". I'd love to read the journals on what's going into this effort. It's one thing to replicate structure and function. But real life is much...

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