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charon writes:

OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine — Maine's state fire marshal says a man burned down his parents' house and killed three pets while trying to exterminate ants in his basement with matches.

Investigators say 21-year-old Devon Doucette was trying to incinerate the ants with wooden matches when one of them ignited combustible materials. The fire quickly spread to the rest of the house.

[...] Authorities say the fire killed two cats and one dog. They say charges are not likely.

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Phoenix666 writes:

As wires of silver are made smaller and smaller, down to about 40 nanometers, they follow the expected trend: they get relatively stronger and more brittle. But earlier research by other scientists had shown that at even-more-extreme smallness—below 10 nanometers—silver does something weird. "It behaves like a Jello gelatin dessert," Sansoz say. "It becomes very soft when compressed, has very little strength, and slowly returns to its original shape."

Materials scientists hypothesize this happens because the crystals of silver are so small that most of their atoms are at the surface, with very few interior atoms. This allows diffusion of individual atoms from the surface to dominate the behavior of the metal instead of the cracking and slipping of organized lattices of atoms within. This causes these tiniest, but solid, silver crystals to have liquid-like behavior even at room temperature.

"So our question was: what's happening in the gap between 10 nanometers and 40 nanometers?" says Sansoz. "This is the first study to look at this range of diameters of nanowires."

[...] What the team of scientists found in the gap—using both an electron microscope and atomistic models on a supercomputer—is that "the two mechanisms coexist at the same time," Sansoz says. This gives silver wires in that little-explored zone both the strength of the "smaller-is-stronger" principle with the liquid-like weirdness of their smaller cousins. At this Goldilocks-like size, when defects form at the surface of the wire as it's pulled apart, "then diffusion comes in and heals the defect," Sansoz says. "So it just stretches and stretches and stretches—elongating up to two hundred percent."

More info: "Li Zhong et al. Slip-activated surface creep with room-temperature super-elongation in metallic nanocrystals," Nature Materials (2016). DOI: 10.1038/nmat4813."

There could be silver jello in your future.

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charon writes in with news of a story about dropped food from the Independent:

Food that has been dropped on the floor is usually safe to eat under the so-called "five-second rule", a scientist has said.

Germ expert Professor Anthony Hilton, from Aston University, said that although retrieving these morsels can never be completely without risk, there is little to be concerned about if the food is only there momentarily.

Professor Hilton will be demonstrating how the five-second rule works at The Big Bang Fair – a celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for young people – which opens on Wednesday at the NEC in Birmingham.

He said: "Eating food that has spent a few moments on the floor can never be entirely risk-free. Obviously, food covered in visible dirt shouldn't be eaten, but as long as it's not obviously contaminated, the science shows that food is unlikely to have picked up harmful bacteria from a few seconds spent on an indoor floor."

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takyon writes:

Universal Pictures' Fast & Furious franchise will see the production of at least two more films:

Universal surprised the CinemaCon audience by debuting The Fate of the Furious, the eighth installment in Universal's hit franchise, in full Wednesday. Star-producer Vin Diesel took the stage to talk about the franchise, which he's been a part of since the beginning. "One of the things we're so proud of with this chapter is how much we defied expectations," said Diesel.

A ninth and tenth installment have also already been announced.

"As the world sees this movie, they'll see how its the beginning of a new trilogy," Diesel said, adding that certain characters were brought in for this new trilogy.

The late star Paul Walker, who died in a car crash before the seventh film was released, was on the mind of Diesel as he took the stage. "Part of Paul's legacy lives through every frame that we shoot," Diesel said. "There's something beautiful about that."

Original Submission

mrpg writes:

[Edwards Middle School teacher David] Yancey, 31, has been teaching at the school for eight years, and while he's always had a passion for educating, when he realized his students were struggling to understand government, he had to find a new way to help them retain each lesson.

"Students have always hated social studies since the dawn of time," Yancey told NBC News in an email. "I realized that students almost choose to be disconnected from the material. In an attempt to bridge the gap, I chose to ask my mentoring group 'What songs are in right now?'"

[...] In videos posted on YouTube, Yancey is seen rapping his own lyrics along to Migos' "Bad and Boujee," which he tweaked to "Mad and Losing," and devoted to a lesson about General Ulysses S. Grant and the Civil War.

[...] While Yancey isn't completely sure if the raps have improved his students' grades, he said some of his former pupils have told him they still remember his lyrics years later and are able to put them to use.

Rapping Teacher Turns Social Studies Lessons Into Songs

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mrpg writes:

A shark was found on the streets of Queensland, Australia, shortly after a powerful cyclone pounded the country's northeastern coast this week, immediately inspiring people to make jokes about the sci-fi film "Sharknado" having come to life.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services posted a photo of the mud-covered bull shark to its Facebook page on Thursday with a warning to followers: "Think it's safe to go back in the water? Think again!"

[...]

That's likely for good reason. Bull sharks, which are capable of living in both brackish and fresh water, are extremely aggressive and considered to be one of the leading species behind attacks on humans, according to the International Shark Attack File.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/shark-out-of-cyclone-australia_us_58dbfa48e4b0cb23e65dbd54?section=us_weird-news

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charon writes:

Spiders are quite literally all around us. A recent entomological survey of North Carolina homes turned up spiders in 100 percent of them, including 68 percent of bathrooms and more than three-quarters of bedrooms. There's a good chance at least one spider is staring at you right now, sizing you up from a darkened corner of the room, eight eyes glistening in the shadows.

Spiders mostly eat insects, although some of the larger species have been known to snack on lizards, birds and even small mammals. Given their abundance and the voraciousness of their appetites, two European biologists recently wondered: If you were to tally up all the food eaten by the world's entire spider population in a single year, how much would it be?

Martin Nyffeler and Klaus Birkhofer published their estimate in the journal the Science of Nature earlier this month, and the number they arrived at is frankly shocking: The world's spiders consume somewhere between 400 million and 800 million tons of prey in any given year. That means that spiders eat at least as much meat as all 7 billion humans on the planet combined, who the authors note consume about 400 million tons of meat and fish each year.

Or, for a slightly more disturbing comparison: The total biomass of all adult humans on Earth is estimated to be 287 million tons. Even if you tack on another 70 million-ish tons to account for the weight of kids, it's still not equal to the total amount of food eaten by spiders in a given year, exceeding the total weight of humanity.

In other words, spiders could eat all of us and still be hungry.

Source: http://pilotonline.com/news/local/science/spiders-could-theoretically-eat-every-human-on-earth-in-one/article_53dbfb56-4b99-58ed-acee-c56652defb46.html

Original Submission

charon writes:

Police in Michigan are trying to identify a man suspected of stealing a 12-foot-tall inflatable beer bottle worth more than $2,000.

Kalamazoo Public Safety released a photo of a man police said was caught on surveillance cameras taking the giant inflatable bottle of Oberon beer from its spot near the Radisson Hotel in the city's downtown about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The inflatable advertisement stands over 12 feet tall and is valued at more than $2,000, police said.

Source: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2017/03/30/Michigan-police-searching-for-2000-inflatable-beer-bottle/3241490887509/

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charon and mrpg both sent in this story:

It made its name by terrorising Earth at the end of the Late Cretaceous, but Tyrannosaurus rex had a sensitive side too, researchers have found.

The fearsome carnivore, which stood 20 feet tall and ripped its prey to shreds with dagger-like teeth, had a snout as sensitive to touch as human fingertips, say scientists.

T rex and other tyrannosaurs would have used their tactile noses to explore their surroundings, build nests, and carefully pick up fragile eggs and baby offspring.

But the snout is thought to have served another purpose. Experts believe that males and females rubbed their sensitive faces together in a prehistoric form of foreplay.

Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, the US authors describe how the sensitive skin may have proved crucial to the dinosaur's mating success. "In courtship, tyrannosaurids might have rubbed their sensitive faces together as a vital part of pre-copulatory play," they explain.

The findings follow the discovery of a new member of the tyrannosaur family called Daspletosaurus horneri in Montana, US.

D horneri lived before T rex about 74m years ago and was three-quarters the size of its later cousin, with a body length of nine metres (29.5ft).

Also at Sky News

Journal article: A new tyrannosaur with evidence for anagenesis and crocodile-like facial sensory system (doi:10.1038/srep44942)

[Updated 2017-04-02 to add journal reference and additional details from story. --martyb]

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"exec" writes:

Eric Alvarez of WZTV said during a recent broadcast the NCAA would not give the station permission to use highlight clips for their sports segment, so he decided to get "a little creative."

"And, before you ask: Yes, I did make this segment with things I found lying around my desk," Alvarez said.

The clips that played during Alvarez' segment featured a makeshift hoop composed in part by a key chain ring, Lego Batman and Superman and a rubber duck.

Source: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2017/03/27/Nashville-reporter-without-NCAA-clips-gets-a-little-creative/8691490639885/

-- submitted from IRC

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martyb writes:

If you haven't noticed already, today is April 1st, otherwise known as April Fool's Day.

Writers are a creative lot and very occasionally use this day as an excuse to let their creative juices flow — as they are often granted some discretion by those who watch over their work.

In years past, I've had times where I decided I'd just give up on surfing the web at all, given the plethora of nonsense that got posted. "Sure, it might have seemed funny when you wrote it, but it sure didn't do much of anything for me." I know I am not the only one who has felt this way. Once in a while, though, I do stumble upon a real gem that makes me bust out laughing.

Given all the noise of the half-baked stories out there, the well-crafted prank stories can be hard to find. Let's use this story to post links to the best April Fool's Stories. Funny stories are, of course, desired. So too are bizarre, but genuine, stories. Bring it on!

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Bob Dylan will formally receive his Nobel Prize in Literature in Stockholm, Sweden this weekend:

"The Swedish Academy is very much looking forward to the weekend and will show up at one of the performances," Nobel spokesperson Sara Danius wrote in a statement Wednesday. "The good news is that the Swedish Academy and Bob Dylan have decided to meet this weekend. The Academy will then hand over Dylan's Nobel diploma and the Nobel medal, and congratulate him on the Nobel Prize in Literature. The setting will be small and intimate, and no media will be present; only Bob Dylan and members of the Academy will attend, all according to Dylan's wishes."

He will deliver a taped lecture at some point later.

Also at NPR and Billboard.

Original Submission

mrpg writes:

Scott Wagner is an American businessman and state senator from the state of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Republican Party. What did he say?

"I haven't been in a science class in a long time, but the earth moves closer to the sun every year-you know the rotation of the earth," Wagner, a York County state senator, said, according to StateImpact Pennsylvania. "We're moving closer to the sun."

He added, according to StateImpact's Katie Meyer, that, "We have more people. You know, humans have warm bodies. So is heat coming off? Things are changing, but I think we are, as a society, doing the best we can."

I haven't been in a science class in a long time...

Original Submission

CoolHand writes:

From NewsMax:

Amazon will start collecting state sales taxes nationwide starting April 1 after those governments complained for years about losing revenue to the Internet retail giant.

The move adds Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, and New Mexico to the states where Amazon will collect state sales taxes, after other states were added earlier this year, CNBC noted. Amazon will not collect state sales taxes in Alaska, Delaware, Oregon, Montana, and New Hampshire because they don't have sales tax levies.

The National Conference of State Legislatures said its members lost $23.3 billion in revenue in 2012 due to their inability to collect sales taxes from online purchases, CNBC noted. Amazon, the biggest e-commerce business, will collect state sales taxes for all entities that have them.

[...] Money magazine wrote this week that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is calling for internet retailers like eBay, Etsy, and similar online marketplaces to be made to collect state and local sales tax. Proposals are in the works for New Mexico and Rhode Island.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

If you want to read the official laws of the state of Georgia, it will cost you more than $1,000.

Open-records activist Carl Malamud bought a hard copy, and it cost him $1,207.02 after shipping and taxes. A copy on CD was $1,259.41. The "good" news for Georgia residents is that they'll only have to pay $385.94 to buy a printed set from LexisNexis.

Malamud thinks reading the law shouldn't cost anything. So a few years back, he scanned a copy of the state of Georgia's official laws, known as the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, or OCGA. Malamud made USB drives with two copies on them, one scanned copy and another encoded in XML format. On May 30, 2013, Malamud sent the USB drives to the Georgia speaker of the House, David Ralson, and the state's legislative counsel, as well as other prominent Georgia lawyers and policymakers.

"Access to the law is a fundamental aspect of our system of democracy, an essential element of due process, equal protection, and access to justice," said Malamud in the enclosed letter. The law, he reminded them, isn't copyrighted.

[...] Georgia lawmakers' response to Malamud's gifts was anything but peachy. "Your unlawful copying... Infringes on the exclusive copyright of the state of Georgia," read the response letter, written by the chairman of Georgia's Code Revision Commission, Josh McKoon. "Accordingly, you are hereby notified to CEASE AND DESIST ALL COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT."

[...] Now, the case has concluded with US District Judge Richard Story having published an opinion (PDF) that sides with the state of Georgia. The judge disagreed with Malamud's argument that the OCGA can't be copyrighted and also said Malamud's copying of the laws is not fair use. "The Copyright Act itself specifically lists 'annotations' in the works entitled to copyright protection," writes Story. "Defendant admits that annotations in an unofficial code would be copyrightable."

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Gullibility occurs because we have evolved to deal with information using two fundamentally different systems, according to Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman.

System 1 thinking is fast, automatic, intuitive, uncritical and promotes accepting anecdotal and personal information as true. This was a useful and adaptive processing strategy in our ancestral environment of small, face-to-face groups, where trust was based on life-long relationships. However, this kind of thinking can be dangerous in the anonymous online world.

System 2 thinking is a much more recent human achievement; it is slow, analytical, rational and effortful, and leads to the thorough evaluation of incoming information.

While all humans use both intuitive and analytic thinking, system 2 thinking is the method of science, and is the best available antidote to gullibility. So, education tends to reduce gullibility and those who receive scientific training in critical, sceptical thinking also tend to be less gullible and less easily manipulated.

Differences in trust can also influence gullibility. This may be related to early childhood experiences, with the idea that trust in infancy sets the stage for a lifelong expectation the world will be a good and pleasant place to live.

Original Submission