25 July 2010

Sunday smörgåsbord

(I wonder whether anyone else reading this blog will remember the names of Charlie Boone and Roger Erickson at WCCO radio)

James Joyce's Ulysses is summarized in cartoon on one page at "Ulysses for Dummies'

Add Caravaggio's name to the list of painters whose death may in part have been caused by (or accelerated by) lead poisoning.

Getty Images is now purchasing photographs from Flickr users.

Harbour seals reportedly use their whiskers as vibration sensors to detect the presence and direction of movement of fish.

Newsweek has published its list of America's top 1,600 high schools.

Mental Floss asks a logical question:  Why does bottled water have an expiration date?

In June, earthquake activity was increasing in Iceland volcano Eyjafjallajökull's bigger neighbor, Mýrdalsjökull.

A French prisoner killed his cellmate and ate his cellmate's lung (he fried it with onions, if you really want to know). 

The US Supreme Court has ruled that Monsanto can sell genetically modified seeds before safety tests on them are completed.

A laser pointer is attached to the collar of a dachshund.  Video at the link.

Australian men have been shooting one another with air rifles "to see if it hurts."  Alcohol is presumed to have affected the decision-making.

In Oklahoma "Police tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn't breathe, after her grandson called 911 seeking medical assistance."

The highest score ever recorded in soccer was 149-0, consisting of 149 own goals.

Discovery News has photos of a 112-year-old wreck of a wooden steamship found on the floor of Lake Superior; the cold water has preserved everything.

King Tut may have been a sickler.

5 comments:

  1. I imagine that wooden ship was preserved more from the absence of oxygen rather than the cold temperature of the deep water.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know why the water at the floor of Lake Superior would be anaerobic. It certainly is in the Black Sea, but that's a different situation.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I met Boone & Erickson once, and Mike and Else and Mari (that's Mari on the cover) as well.

    But then, I also met Cedric Adams.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The "police taser grandma" story is so incredible I checked on snopes to see if it might be a hoax. No matches for my searches. Still, I find it hard to believe. I would be very interested in the outcome of this case.

    ReplyDelete
  5. expat, I wondered the same thing. I Googled the lady's name, which is rather unusual (Lona Varner), and got thousands of hits, including Wired and this Oklahoma news site -

    http://newsok.com/oklahoma-grandmother-gets-shocked-by-taser-sues-el-reno-police/article/3471619

    so it's real...

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...