September 17, 2015

Top News Stories –

‘Universal urination duration’ wins Ig Nobel prize –
A study showing that nearly all mammals take the same amount of time to urinate has been awarded one of the 2015 Ig Nobel prizes at Harvard University. These spoof Nobels for “improbable research” are in their 25th year.
The team behind the urination research, from Georgia Tech, won the physics Ig. Using high-speed video analysis, they modelled the fluid dynamics involved in urination and discovered that all mammals weighing more than 3kg empty their bladders over about 21 seconds. Run by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research, this is a jubilantly irreverent affair. It has become world famous for recognising scientific achievements that “make people laugh, and then think”. This year’s Ig winners travelled from six continents to accept their trophies. The triumphant research included a chemical recipe to partially un-boil an egg, and the discovery that the word “huh?” occurs in every human language. [BBC] See List of the Day

Valcke’s reign at FIFA likely to be at an end –
For the second time in his career, Jerome Valcke leaves FIFA with a cloud hanging over him. Sepp Blatter’s lieutenant for the past eight years, Valcke became the highest profile figure in the corruption-plagued organization to fall during the current series of scandals when he was “released from his duties” on Thursday and it appears unlikely he will return. The Frenchman has not been formally dismissed but Blatter is standing down in February and Valcke had already suggested he would probably go at that time as well. The 54-year-old, however, is now being investigated by FIFA’s ethics committee after allegations he was involved in a plan to re-sell 2014 World Cup tickets for a lucrative profit. [Reuters]
Jérôme_ValckeJérôme_Valcke

Sperm banks attract customers by offering them enough cash to buy a new iPhone –
Chinese sperm banks have been saying that there is no need to sell a kidney to afford an iPhone, just your bodily fluids. Renji Hospital in Shanghai is one among several facilities offering enough money to buy an iPhone if men donate sperm. The hospital wrote in an online posting: “No need to sell your kidneys – you can easily have a 6s,” which refers to cases where people actually sold their organs to be able to afford Apple products. The advert says that if a man passes a health test and then regularly donates his sperm, he can earn enough money to purchase an iPhone. This amounts to 6,000 yuan (£610) which is enough to buy the new iPhone 6s. [Daily Telegraph]

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Does Your School Matter? – ASAP Science

List of the Day –

Winners of the Ig Awards 2015 [BBC]

Chemistry – Callum Ormonde (University of Western Australia) and colleagues, for inventing a chemical recipe to partially un-boil an egg.

Physics – Patricia Yang (Georgia Institute of Technology, US) and colleagues, for testing the biological principle that nearly all mammals empty their bladders in about 21 seconds (plus or minus 13 seconds).

Literature – Mark Dingemanse (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Netherlands) and colleagues, for discovering that the word “huh?” (or its equivalent) seems to exist in every human language – and for not being quite sure why.

Management – Gennaro Bernile (Singapore Management University) and colleagues, for discovering that many business leaders developed in childhood a fondness for risk-taking, when they experienced natural disasters (such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and wildfires) that – for them – had no dire personal consequences.

Economics – The Bangkok Metropolitan Police (Thailand) for offering to pay policemen extra cash if the policemen refuse to take bribes.

Medicine – joint award: Hajime Kimata (Kimata Hajime Clinic, Japan) and also Jaroslava Durdiaková (Comenius University, Slovakia) and her collagues, for experiments to study the biomedical benefits or biomedical consequences of intense kissing (and other intimate, interpersonal activities).

Mathematics – Elisabeth Oberzaucher and Karl Grammer (University of Vienna, Austria) for trying to use mathematical techniques to determine whether and how Moulay Ismael the Bloodthirsty, the Sharifian Emperor of Morocco, managed, during the years from 1697 through 1727, to father 888 children.

Biology – Bruno Grossi (University of Chile) and colleagues, for observing that when you attach a weighted stick to the rear end of a chicken, the chicken then walks in a manner similar to that in which dinosaurs are thought to have walked.

Diagnostic medicine – Diallah Karim (Stoke Mandeville Hospital, UK) and colleagues, for determining that acute appendicitis can be accurately diagnosed by the amount of pain evident when the patient is driven over speed bumps.

Physiology and entomology – Awarded jointly to two individuals: Justin Schmidt (Southwest Biological Institute, US) for painstakingly creating the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which rates the relative pain people feel when stung by various insects; and to Michael L. Smith (Cornell University, US), for carefully arranging for honey bees to sting him repeatedly on 25 different locations on his body, to learn which locations are the least painful (the skull, middle toe tip, and upper arm). and which are the most painful (the nostril, upper lip, and penis shaft).

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January 17, 2016

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Russia may nuke asteroids –
The European Commission funded Russian scientists to develop plans to save the world from rogue asteroids by blowing them up with nuclear weapons. Scientists from the Russia’s top space research institute teamed up with missile and rocket engineers to look at ways of sending a warhead into space under a European Commission funded program called NEOShield. “Work was distributed among various participants from different countries and organisations, and work on deflecting dangerous space objects with nuclear explosions was conducted by Russia” between 2012 and 2015, the Central Scientific Research Institute of Machine Building, part of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said in a press release on Saturday. [Daily Telegraph]

Video of the Day –

Miike Snow “Genghis Khan” // Dir: Ninian Doff from Ninian Doff on Vimeo.

List of the Day –

The winners for the Critics’ Choice Awards 2016
BEST PICTURE: Spotlight
BEST ACTOR: Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant
BEST ACTRESS: Brie Larson – Room
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Sylvester Stallone – Creed
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Alicia Vikander – The Danish Girl
BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS: Jacob Tremblay – Room
BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE: Spotlight
BEST DIRECTOR: George Miller – Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy – Spotlight
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Charles Randolph and Adam McKay – The Big Short
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Revenant – Emmanuel Lubezki
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: Mad Max: Fury Road – Colin Gibson
BEST EDITING: Mad Max: Fury Road – Margaret Sixel
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Mad Max: Fury Road – Jenny Beavan
BEST HAIR & MAKEUP: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Inside Out
BEST ACTION MOVIE: Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION MOVIE: Tom Hardy – Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION MOVIE: Charlize Theron – Mad Max: Fury Road
BEST COMEDY: The Big Short
BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY: Christian Bale – The Big Short
BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY: Amy Schumer – Trainwreck
BEST SCI-FI/HORROR MOVIE: Ex Machina
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Son of Saul
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Amy
BEST SONG: Furious 7 – “See You Again”
BEST SCORE: The Hateful Eight – Ennio Morricone

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February 2, 2016

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LinkedIn: Slovenian club sign right-back after posting advert –
Not one for fax machines and agents’ fees, Slovenian club NK Domzale had a novel way of avoiding the madness of the January transfer window – using LinkedIn. The online networking service is best known for telling you an old colleague has a better job than yours and is mainly used in the UK by professionals such as lawyers and accountants. But after Domzale head coach Luka Elsner, 33, posted a message asking for an “offensive right-back” who “must have an EU passport”, the top-flight club received 150 applications and signed Spanish defender Alvaro Brachi, 30, just before transfer deadline day. [BBC]
LinkedIn football ad DK Domzale LinkedIn ad

A-lister Naomi Watts links up with Anglesey football club –
A Hollywood A-lister has agreed to become the honorary president of a small Anglesey football club. Naomi Watts said she was “very excited” to take on the role for Glantraeth FC, based in Malltraeth, which has a population of 400 people. The English-born star of Mulholland Drive and King Kong spent time as a child on her grandparents’ farm nearby. Glantraeth FC play in the third tier Welsh Alliance football league division one and get crowds of 40 people. After former president Sir George Meyrick stood down last August, secretary Stan Strickland suggested Ms Watts as a replacement. He sent a letter to her agent who is based on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, and received a positive response on Monday night. [BBC]
Naomi_WattsNaomi Watts

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Untamed from The Animation Workshop on Vimeo.

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June 22, 2016

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Democrats stage sit-in on House floor to force gun vote –
Dozens of House Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor Wednesday in protest of the GOP leadership’s refusal to allow a vote on a gun control measure following the Orlando massacre. Led by Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights icon, and John Larson (D-Conn.), more than 40 Democrats walked into the chamber just before noon and pledged to “occupy” the House floor until GOP leadership allowed a vote. In one hour, their numbers more than tripled — even as Republicans recessed the House, turning off C-SPAN cameras and the video feed to the public. Democrats countered the TV camera blackout by streaming everything on their cellphones, which ended up on C-SPAN anyway. [Politico]

Mark Zuckerberg masks Mac webcam and microphone –
A photograph of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg shows tape has been used to cover his MacBook Pro’s webcam and mic. Facebook has not responded to requests for comment about the picture, shared to celebrate Instagram reaching its 500 million monthly user milestone. FBI director James Comey has previously said he also covers his laptop’s webcam to prevent hackers spying on him. And digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said it regularly sold its webcam “stickers”. [BBC]
Mark Zuckerberg [Facebook]Mark Zuckerberg

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World’s LARGEST NERF GUN!!

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July 14, 2016

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Terror fiend tricked police to get death truck onto busy Nice promenade, kill 84 –
Cars and trucks were barred from the Promenade des Anglais during Thursday’s Bastille Day festivities, but the terrorist who plowed a 19-ton truck into a mile-long crowd of revelers – killing at least 84 – reportedly got past police by telling them he had ice cream to hand out. Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old divorced loner, petty criminal and Tunisian national began his route of carnage by slowly moving onto the packed, seaside walkway around 10:40 p.m. local time. Then, say witnesses, he gunned the engine and weaved through the horrified crowd for nearly a mile, leaving a wake of dead and broken bodies. Police killed him in a shootout minutes later. Bouhlel, who shot at revelers after driving through the crowd and was then killed by police, was reportedly known to police prior to the attack although his rap sheet included just one arrest, for a road rage incident in March French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said. [Fox News]

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How to Make a Tennis Ball from Benedict Redgrove on Vimeo.

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  • The French government calls on former European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso not to take a job with investment bank Goldman Sachs, after some EU politicians demanded Barroso be sanctioned for accepting the new position that raises questions about the EU’s conflict of interest rules. (BBC)
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