Source: EurekAlert! The COROT satellite has discovered its first extra-solar planet, but more importantly the preliminary results indicate that it should be possible for it to detect planets as small as Earth orbiting other stars, three times smaller than originally thought possible.
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Source: Mickey News
Ah, there's nothing like educational programming. And it appears the Disney channel provided a program of a more, shall we say, educational nature than what they had originally intended. Last Tuesday, the Disney Channel got their wires crossed when the Handy Manny cartoon program was interrupted by a porn movie. Parents are outraged, now having to explain the "facts of life" to children rather than letting them learn them on the streets, given that they also don't seem to want it taught in schools either. The story was lampooned in the web comic Punch an' Pie, although some believe that the entire story is a hoax, despite having been reported by organizations like CBS. Personally, it sounds plausible enough to be true.
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Source: Globe and Mail
Found on Rick Mercer's blog. Earlier this year, the US Defence Department issued a false espionage warning because of.... a Canadian poppy quarter. A defence contractor apparently thought the coin, with it's bright red poppy centre in honour of the 117,000 fallen soldiers, was suspicious. They believed that the red coating was some form of nano-technology being used to spy on the contractors. The coins were supposedly sneaked into the pockets of the contractors who later examined them in detail. "Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top," wrote one, and the coating apparently glows under ultraviolet light. Ya, fear us and our advanced nano-tech spy currency. Ur tek BLongs 2 us!
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Source: ABC News
Forget LSD for your drug fix, salvia divinorum is where it's at among college students. The plant, known as Diviner's Sage, is legal in most states in the US (I have no idea of its status in Canada), yet is a powerful hallucinogenic, providing a high that lasts anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours. One of the difficulties in policing it's distribution is that it is a popular plant for landscaping. Various states are moving now to make sale of the plant illegal.
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Source: Reuters German researchers have been able to coax stem cells from bone marrow to become something resembling immature sperm (I never know sperm could be immature. See, science is fun!) They hope to eventually use this to treat male infertility. At the moment, they have no idea if the sperm-like material can be encouraged to become fully-functional sperm cells.
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