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"submitted by reddit to blog." - bob

"DuPont's biotech soybean could be welcome news for soy farmers, who have seen food companies move away from standard soybean oil as they work to eliminate trans fats, which are linked to coronary health risks, from their ingredients. It is a difficult shift. The industry uses about 6 billion pounds of the oil each year, all of which contained trans fats....Widespread adoption of DuPont or Monsanto's next-generation soybeans, which would also include traits for weedkiller or pest resistance, would be unlikely to shift the soy crop further toward bioengineering, simply because there is little room for expansion: More than 90 percent of the U.S. soybean crop is already genetically engineered." - bob from Bookmarklet

"In Kuwait, after the end of the Gulf War, the Kuwaitis celebrated by firing weapons into the air—and 20 Kuwaitis died from falling bullets" - bob from Bookmarklet

If you fire directly up, the bullet stops at the top of its arc and tumbles down harmlessly. If you fire with a ballistic trajectory its terminal velocity is much higher, and can be deadly. - Gabe

Falcon 9 Flight 1 Mission Highlights - April Buchheit from Bookmarklet

i like the wasp in the video :P - bob

i wonder how deep/what the total dive time was - probably not as long as they dragged out the video for :P - bob

Freedivers are freakin' crazy. Basically, it hurts like hell because it shrinks your lungs and pushes your organs up into your chest when you're down there at pressure with just that lungful of air you started with. - Otto

"extraordinary video captured early yesterday morning at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Took place at the north toll plaza, which served as a launching ramp for one drunk driver trying to exit the airport in a hurry....We also have fiery post-crash pics after the jump -- because after the driver went all General Lee, she got out and made a call on her cell, at which point the vehicle went boom." - the video is pretty good too :P - bob from Bookmarklet

Nice! Too bad they don't have video of the whole thing. - Paul Buchheit

Nice pics, but it is an emergency situation anyway. - Nerie Carreon

"Paul Kench at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Arthur Webb at the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji used historical aerial photos and high-resolution satellite images to study changes in the land surface of 27 Pacific islands over the last 60 years. During that time, local sea levels have risen by 120 millimetres, or 2 millimetres per year on average. Despite this, Kench and Webb found that just four islands have diminished in size since the 1950s. The area of the remaining 23 has either stayed the same or grown (Global and Planetary Change, DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2010.05.003). Webb says the trend is explained by the islands' composition. Unlike the sandbars of the eastern US coast, low-lying Pacific islands are made of coral debris. This is eroded from the reefs that typically circle the islands and pushed up onto the islands by winds, waves and currents. Because the corals are alive, they provide a continuous supply of material. "Atolls are composed... more... - bob from Bookmarklet

"Betelgeuse's angular diameter of just under 0.055 arcseconds makes it almost three times larger, 950 to 1000 times larger than the Sun (8.8 to 9.3AU, or roughly to the orbit of Saturn). It is one of only about a dozen stars whose apparent size is so large it has been imaged telescopically as a visible disk rather than a point. Why is this important? Well, you see, Betelgeuse has been shrinking continuously since 1993, at an increasing rate. By June 2009, it had shrunk 15% from its size as measured in 1993. But wait! There's more. It is rumored, though I have been unable to find any reliable confirmation of the source (which is claimed to be first-hand) that the latest observations from Mauna Kea show that Betelgeuse is now shrinking so fast it is no longer round. (Due to conservation of angular momentum, when a massive star collapses gravitationally, it collapses faster at the poles, becoming increasingly oblate — flattened — as its final collapse accelerates.) What does this mean?... more... - bob from Bookmarklet

"...here has so far been no confirmation of the original report from any reliable source, so the odds of the report being accurate are shrinking faster than Betelgeuse. ;) ... Kind of a shame, really; it would have been a hell of a spectacle." - ✔ ǝuǝƃnǝ

"It’s hard to know just when a star will explode when you’re on the outside. Betelgeuse might go up tonight, or it might not be for 100,000 years. We’re just not sure....The post also talks about Betelgeuse shrinking. That claim is from observations made over the course of many years. Those data indicate the star is shrinking, but it’s unclear what they mean. While it may mean the star is in fact shrinking, starspots (sunspots on another star) may be fooling us, for example. Also, red supergiants aren’t like marbles, with a clean, sharp surface. They are balls of gas, extended and bloated, so there is no real surface. It’s therefore entirely possible the astronomers aren’t even really measuring the surface of the star at all, and it’s just the highly extended atmosphere that’s changing." - bob from Bookmarklet

"Nobel Laureate Charles Townes announced evidence that 15 consecutive years of stellar contraction has been observed by UC Berkeley's Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) atop Mt. Wilson Observatory in Southern California. Reported on June 9, 2009, the star has shrunk 15% since 1993 with an increasing rate. The average speed at which the radius of the star is shrinking over the last 15 years is around 210–219 m/s (470–490 mph).[citation needed] According to the university, Betelgeuse's diameter is about 5.5 A.U., and the star's radius has shrunk by a distance equal to half an astronomical unit, or about the orbit of Venus." - bob from Bookmarklet

""Significant amounts of virtual property" were stolen from around 400 users of the Habbo Hotel virtual hotel, where visitors can create a character for themselves to hang out with friends, take care of virtual pets and furnish their own rooms for a fee, Finnish police said Tuesday. The cyber thieves used hoax web pages to steal user names and passwords, which they then used to sign in to Habbo profiles and shift property away from its rightful owners, the police said in a statement. As part of the investigation, the police have searched homes in five Finnish cities, confiscated computers and interrogated several people, they said, adding that while the value of damages could not yet be defined, for some users the cost could be "significant"." - bob from Bookmarklet

"During raids Thursday, Islamic police caught 18 women traveling on motorbikes who were wearing traditional headscarves but were also dressed in jeans. Each woman was given a long skirt and her pants were confiscated. They were released from police custody after giving their identities and receiving advice from Islamic preachers. "I am not wearing sexy outfits, but they caught me like a terrorist only because of my jeans," said Imma, a 40-year-old housewife who uses only one name. She argued that wearing jeans is more comfortable when she travels by motorbike." - bob from Bookmarklet

Wow. *shakes head* I'm betting jeans are a whole lot safer in the case of a motorbike crash, too. Sheesh! - Ladyepiphanybug

"A thief stole five paintings, including major works by Picasso and Matisse, in a brazen overnight heist from a Paris modern-art museum, police and prosecutors said Thursday. The paintings disappeared early Thursday from the Paris Museum of Modern Art, across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower, in one of the French capital's most chic and tourist-frequented neighborhoods...On a cordoned-off balcony behind the museum, police in blue gloves and face masks examined the broken window and empty frames. The paintings appeared to have been carefully removed from the disassembled frames, not sliced out." - bob from Bookmarklet

"He said the tires began to fry within seconds." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

WHOA! - David Cook

"Obama had just begun an afternoon statement to reporters lauding the end of a Senate filibuster on his financial overhaul plan when some kind of rodent — opinions differ on which — dashed out of the bushes to his right, just outside the Oval Office." - seems like a security hole/plot for an in the line of fire type movie :P - bob from Bookmarklet

"It also has implications for efforts to tax what's possibly the state's largest cash crop, because a drop in prices from increased supply might invalidate current estimates of the trade and its value." - bob from Bookmarklet

I like how they turned a KFC into a pot dispenary. It shows they really know their target market. - Gabe

in my experience, it works more often if you smother the flame (with a small cup or something) - you get a more coherent smoke stream that way - bob

Near Moab, it appears: http://www.pbase.com/listora.... We should go sometime. - Paul Buchheit

im up for it - bob

"The pattern for this happening is when a brilliant white spot forms in the southern zone. Gradually it will start to spout dark blobs of material which will be stretched by Jupiter's fierce winds into a new belt, and the planet will return to its familiar 'tyre track' appearance." - bob from Bookmarklet

"Nearly 27% of Arab men and 65% of ultra-Orthodox Jews don't work, government figures show. The non-employment rate for ultra-Orthodox men has tripled since 1970, Ben-David said. "We support a lifestyle of nonworking that is pretty unparalleled in the Western world," said Ben-David, who is also a Tel Aviv University professor. "On the one hand, we have this state-of-the-art part of the economy. Then there is the rest of the country that is like a huge drag." What worries Ben-David most is that the nonproductive part of Israel's population, which survives largely on welfare, is also the fastest growing. Today Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox together make up less than 30% of the population, but they account for nearly half of school-age children. If trends continue unchecked, Arab and ultra-Orthodox children could make up 78% of Israeli classrooms, recent studies have shown." - bob from Bookmarklet

Maybe you should just grow some peyote. - Gabe

"An improperly handled human defecation resulted in a tomato plant taking root which was also destroyed." - bob from Bookmarklet

"On Feb. 17, 2009, they received stunning news from the fertility clinic: All of their frozen embryos had been accidentally transferred into the womb of another woman -- and she was pregnant." - bob from Bookmarklet

If I'm reading the article correctly, both families already have biological children. That said, I can't imagine what they went through. Carrying a baby to term that you know is not your own seems like a huge burden. - Clare Dibble

diamond isnt very malleable, diamond studded steel? - bob

Here ya go http://www.youtube.com/user... "It takes about 20 minutes to cut through this soapstone hillside" - JCunwired

"Eating for 14 hours at a stretch, an elephant consumes 325 kilograms of food a day. When leaves and fruit fail to fill that giant stomach, it tears off whole branches and eats the wood. Its tusks gouge so much bark from around the stems of full-grown trees that they turn into whitened skeletons and eventually fall at dizzy angles. Trees that survive are pushed sideways to the ground so that their roots can be munched. Now numbering one for every 14 human inhabitants, the relentless roaming of Botswana’s 120,000 elephants is driving villagers from the land by indiscriminately destroying their crops. Even the staunchest conservationists now concede that some significant culling is necessary." - bob from Bookmarklet

Elephants are evil. But they're cute, so we protect them. - Amit Patel

Can't they just export the elephants to other countries that need them? - Gabe

"The atolls of Maldives encompass a territory spread over roughly 90,000 square kilometers, making it one of the most disparate countries in the world. It features 1,192 islets, of which two hundred are inhabited.[5] The Republic of Maldives's capital and largest city is Malé, with a population of 103,693 (2006)." - bob from Bookmarklet

"In other jurisdictions, the philosophy of the law holds that it is human nature to want to escape. In Mexico, for instance, escapees who do not break any other laws are not charged for anything and no extra time is added to their sentence;" - bob from Bookmarklet

haha, good catch casey ;) - bob

"The pinto stallion named Einstein weighed just 6 pounds and measured 14 inches tall when he was born Friday in Barnstead, N.H." - bob from Bookmarklet

"The biggest challenge facing the porcine dairy industry is collecting the product. Pigs on average have fourteen teats as opposed to cows that have four teats. Pigs also differ from cows in their milk ejection time, a cows milk ejection is stimulated by the hoimone oxytocin and can last ten minutes, where as a pig's milk ejection time only last fifleen seconds as the suckling pigs stimulate the release of oxytocin. The technology of a 14 cupped mechanized milking machine that can milk a pig in 15 seconds is not available to pork producers.'" - bob from Bookmarklet

15 seconds? That doesn't sound like much - Gabe

"In a bold predawn attack, gunmen stormed a hotel Wednesday in the heart of the northern city of Monterrey and kidnapped at least three people, officials said. Mexican media said up to 50 hooded gunmen arrived in a convoy and burst into the downtown Holiday Inn, seizing guests and employees." - bob from Bookmarklet

""The next thing I know, I'm spun around. I see this kid...and he's pulling (the iPad) out of my hand." Jordan says the Apple bag's cords were wrapped around his fingers and he couldn't let go. "I never hear it coming, I never see it coming. I just remember this kid pulling and pulling and pulling and it got caught…took the flesh right off, the tendons and everything. There was nothing but bone."... Jordan called for help and was rushed to the hospital. There, a doctor gave him the bad news. "He said 'I recommend amputation'."" - bob from Bookmarklet