New Survey Suggests Modern Humans Originated in Southwest Africa

Locations for the Garden of Eden have been offered many times before, but seldom in the somewhat inhospitable borderland where Angola and Namibia meet.

A new genetic survey of people in Africa, the largest of its kind, suggests, however, that the region in southwest Africa seems, on the present evidence, to be the origin of modern humans. The authors have also identified some 14 ancestral populations.

The new data goes far toward equalizing the genetic picture of the world, given that most genetic information has come from European and Asian populations. But because it comes from Africa, the continent on which the human lineage evolved, it also sheds light on the origins of human life.

“I think this is an enormously impressive piece of work,” said Alison Brooks, a specialist on African anthropology at George Washington University.

The origin of a species is generally taken to be the place where its individuals show the greatest genetic diversity. For humans, when the new African data is combined with DNA information from the rest of the world, this spot lies on the coast of southwest Africa near the Kalahari Desert, the research team, led by Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, said in this week’s issue of Science.

via New Survey Suggests Modern Humans Originated in Southwest Africa - NYTimes.com.

Laser quest: The scientist with a planet-saving plan straight out of Spider-Man

Clean energy forever. That, in a glorious theoretical nutshell, is what nuclear fusion – the reaction that gives stars and hydrogen bombs their immense power – could deliver. The urgency of the climate-change debate and the renewed impetus to tackle the 21st century's glaring energy problems have put fusion back on the agenda... and, thanks to key contributions from the British-trained scientist Dr Brian MacGowan, the highly volatile process may be harnessed to provide us with a viable source of green electricity sooner than previously expected.

Staff at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in central California are confident that some time in 2010, they will create a fusion reaction by focusing 192 intense ultra-violet lasers on to a tiny golden pellet, recreating the energy of the sun for a fraction of a second, thereby paving the way to a carbon-neutral future without global warming or nuclear waste. If all goes to plan, the implications would fairly reflect California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent description of the project as "monumental". Fusion, we're told, could be mankind's salvation – but what are the chances of translating theory into practice?

...The accuracy of MacGowan's lasers, according to NIF's brochure, "can be compared to standing on the pitcher's mound at AT&T Park in San Francisco and throwing a strike at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, some 350 miles away". Elsewhere, I'm told to digest the idea that a dollar bill (or a paperclip) contains the energy of one nuclear explosion, and I'm also asked to imagine the pressure of 10 aircraft carriers on my thumb...

So, will Inertial Confinement Fusion really work? "When we do our first ignition shot [in 2010] we'll be very confident we'll succeed," says MacGowan. "We have a series of about 100 experiments to do before then, which will establish that we've adjusted the laser and the target, and the design of the target, sufficiently well to have a high confidence of ignition.... MacGowan believes NIF's major contribution to fusion energy will be demonstrating the fact that it works, and – all being well – he expects a "prototype energy production capability" to follow by 2020.

via Laser quest: The scientist with a planet-saving plan straight out of Spider-Man - Green Living, Environment - The Independent.

Elise Tan Roberts, 2, becomes youngest member of Mensa

A two-year-old girl has become the youngest member of Mensa, the society strictly for geniuses.

With intelligence far beyond her years, Elise Tan Roberts can name 35 capital cities and identify the three types of triangle. Her IQ is 156 - higher than Carol Vorderman’s, the maths expert and former Countdown host. The average IQ in the population at large is 100.

The toddler, from Edmonton in North London, can already spell her name aloud, read the words “mummy” and “daddy” and recite the alphabet. Mensa accepts the top two per cent of the population based on IQ and normally only tests children over 10 years old, but the society made an exception and welcomed Elise based on a standard intelligence measure.

The child is in the top 0.2 per cent for her age, according to Professor Joan Freeman, the child psychologist who used the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale to test Elise. John Stevenage, head of Mensa, said he was always delighted to welcome a new member.

“Elise’s parents correctly identified that she is an exceptional child. They now realise they have an interesting challenge on their hands as she grows up.

“We wish them well and look forward to seeing Elise develop in the coming years.”

Elise’s mother Louise, 28, said she realised her daughter was different as soon as she was born.

She took “an unusual” interest in her surroundings, uttered her first word aged just five months and took her first steps at eight-and-a-half months. The little girl was born in London in December 2006 and has heritage in England, Malaysia, China, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

via Video: Elise Tan Roberts, 2, becomes youngest member of Mensa - Times Online.

Fiona Phillips thinks this identification is a bad idea.

They know what you're thinking: brain scanning makes progress

If Adam Wilson had had a sense of making history he might have chosen his words more carefully. “Go Badgers,” he wrote, in a message posted on the Twitter website last month.

The phrase, a rallying call for his university’s sports team, seemed entirely unremarkable – until the research scientist revealed in a second message just how he had sent it.

“Spelling with my brain,” he wrote 20 minutes later. Wilson had become the first person to post electronic messages just by thinking about them.

Wilson was not, of course, working unaided. Sitting snugly on his head in a lab at the University of Wisconsin was a device that looked a little like a bobble hat but was actually a miniaturised brain scanner. Inside each bobble a sophisticated package of miniaturised electronics was picking up the tiny electrical fields generated by the workings of his brain.

After a little practice Wilson had found he could use it to pick out letters from an alphabet on a screen, write an electronic message and send it. The process took just a few minutes. “If only I’d known I’d get this much attention I’d have said something more profound,” he said last week.

Wilson’s aim was indeed important, designed to create a system that would allow those with “locked-in” syndrome – people who can no longer speak because of strokes or other brain conditions – to start communicating again.

What he also did was to shine a light on some of the remarkable developments in brain science.

The power of his scanner to peer through the skull and detect the tiny electrical fields generated by currents in the cells beneath is just one of a multitude of breakthroughs.

Last month alone, other researchers announced they had used a different scanning technique to reconstruct simple images being shown to their subjects. In effect, their minds were being read.

In the past few months scientists have used the same technology to watch the formation of emotions ranging from love and lust to anger and disgust. They have also watched decisions being made, measured academic ability, spotted the mental signature of psychopathy and seen the hitherto invisible advance signs of devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s. ...

via They know what you're thinking: brain scanning makes progress - Times Online.

Memo: 9/11 Commission Witnesses Were Intimidated By Government “Minders”

Somewhat lost within the flu pandemic media hype this week is an important new revelation concerning the cover up of the events of 9/11.

A recently uncovered 9/11 Commission memo dating from October 2003, half way through the panel’s investigation, addresses concerns that government “minders” were intimidating witnesses and shaping their testimonies.

The document was drafted by Kevin Scheid, a senior staffer who led the commission’s Team 2, which was responsible for reviewing the overarching structure of the US intelligence community.

Names also appearing on the memo are those of staffers Lorry Fenner, an air force intelligence officer, and lawyer Gordon Lederman.

The memo, entitled “Executive Branch Minders’ Intimidation of Witnesses,” states the following:

* Minders “answer[ed] questions directed at witnesses;”

* Minders acted as “monitors, reporting to their respective agencies on Commission staffs lines of inquiry and witnesses’ verbatim responses.” The staff thought this “conveys to witnesses that their superiors will review their statements and may engage in retribution;”

* Minders’ notetaking “facilitates agencies in alerting future witnesses to the Commission’s lines of inquiry and permits agencies to prepare future witnesses either explicitly or implicitly.”

* Minders “positioned themselves physically and have conducted themselves in a manner that we believe intimidates witnesses from giving full and candid responses to our questions.”

The staffers make it clear that intimidation by minders was widespread and had not only occurred with their team’s witnesses.

The memo was discovered by an independent researcher in the National Archives, to which it was added earlier this year.

via Memo: 9/11 Commission Witnesses Were Intimidated By Government “Minders”.

Who Created God?

The early Hebrews were polytheists. They worshiped many powers, with Baal (Baalzebub) and Astaroth (Astarte, Ishtar) as their major male/female deity. Baal-zebub and Astaroth were effectively demonized, as you may have read in the Bible.

But not before Baal and his "hieros gamos" Astarte were praised by Hebrews from Samaria to Judah, even after the Babylonian captivity of 605 BCE.

Eventually, Baal was renamed YHWH Elohim, with Asherah remaining as his consort. This is why Genesis sometimes uses the divine plural "We."

When the Hebrews first settled in Canaan, the local gods and goddesses' powers and titles were absorbed by the Hebrew's god Baal, who was renamed YHWH Elohim or simply El. The Bible lists numerous YHWH-Elohim titles, such as El Shaddai, El Ohim, El HaNe'eman, El Yisrael, El HaShamayim, El De'ot, El El-yon and dozens of others, all of which were originally Canaanite titles. In the Canaanite and Hebrew religion, El became the supreme god, Son of God , Father of Mankind, and loving companion of Asherah.

This is well attested by the clay tablets which date from 1300 to 1200 BCE. The tablets were discovered by archaeologists in the ruined library of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, Syria).

Baal(im), is Canaanite for "Lord" or "Master", and together with Baal-zebub or Beelzebub ("Baal The Prince") they became major Semitic deities. Baal, Son of El, (sometimes married to his sister Anat) was an agricultural deity, responsible for sex, fertility and propitiating the sun (Shamash). When Baal was murdered and dismembered by the god Mot, Baal's sister/wife Anat killed and dismembered Mot (the Egyptian Isis, Osiris & Set) in revenge. Somehow, this magically resurrected Baal, who was "reborn" from the parts of his own dismembered body.

Baal was eventually dropped as a distinct god in a polytheistic pantheon and even as an honorific title for the Hebrew supreme god. The Tanach/Old Testament tells of YHWH-El informing his people of his desire for exclusivity:

"On that day", said Adonai, "you will call me ishi (My Husband) you will no longer call me Ba'ali (The Baal, the god). For I will remove the names of the ba'alim (plural for the Baal, the gods) from her mouth; they will never again be mentioned by name." [Hosea 2:16-17]

In this way the Hebrew priests prevented potential rivals to their "jealous god" YHWH by dismissing the title Baal and denying the consort Astheroth altogether. They were no longer "Baals" or gods. They were pronounced "heathen" idols of wood and stone. YHWH inherited their powers.

via Who Created God? - Auburn Journal.

Could the net become self-aware?

Could the net become self-aware? Yes, if we play our cards right - or wrong, depending on your perspective.

In engineering terms, it is easy to see qualitative similarities between the human brain and the internet's complex network of nodes, as they both hold, process, recall and transmit information. "The internet behaves a fair bit like a mind," says Ben Goertzel, chair of the Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute, an organisation inevitably based in cyberspace. "It might already have a degree of consciousness".

Not that it will necessarily have the same kind of consciousness as humans: it is unlikely to be wondering who it is, for instance. To Francis Heylighen, who studies consciousness and artificial intelligence at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in Belgium, consciousness is merely a system of mechanisms for making information processing more efficient by adding a level of control over which of the brain's processes get the most resources. "Adding consciousness is more a matter of fine-tuning and increasing control... than a jump to a wholly different level," Heylighen says.

How might this manifest itself? Heylighen speculates that it might turn the internet into a self-aware network that constantly strives to become better at what it does, reorganising itself and filling gaps in its own knowledge and abilities.

If it is not already semiconscious, we could do various things to help wake it up, such as requiring the net to monitor its own knowledge gaps and do something about them. It shouldn't be something to fear, says Goertzel: "The outlook for humanity is probably better in the case that an emergent, coherent and purposeful internet mind develops."

via Unknown internet 2: Could the net become self-aware? - tech - 30 April 2009 - New Scientist.

Does DNA Have Telepathic Properties?

DNA has been found to have a bizarre ability to put itself together, even at a distance, when according to known science it shouldn't be able to. Explanation: None, at least not yet.

Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA. The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.

Even so, the research published in ACS’ Journal of Physical Chemistry B, shows very clearly that homology recognition between sequences of several hundred nucleotides occurs without physical contact or presence of proteins. Double helixes of DNA can recognize matching molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules or chemical signals.

In the study, scientists observed the behavior of fluorescently tagged DNA strands placed in water that contained no proteins or other material that could interfere with the experiment. Strands with identical nucleotide sequences were about twice as likely to gather together as DNA strands with different sequences. No one knows how individual DNA strands could possibly be communicating in this way, yet somehow they do. The “telepathic” effect is a source of wonder and amazement for scientists.

via Does DNA Have Telepathic Properties?-A Galaxy Insight.

UFO investigators reveal possible otherworldly relic

The tiny piece of silvery material came from a site where water tended to gather. Ziegelmeyer was sifting through buckets of dirt when the object emerged, and she quickly clutched it to keep it from blowing away. The material began to curl up after it was exposed to sunlight. Ziegelmeyer speculated that it might have been sensitive to light or heat, although Doleman suggested it may have started to dry out after it was taken out of the ground. ...

Zukowski examined the item using an electron microscope. ... Zukowski said he determined that the artifact was mostly aluminum silicate. Other elements showed up in the sample, but he believes they are mostly from the microscope's surroundings or dirt that clung to the object.

Doleman said that aluminum silicate is not uncommon in nature, but the item was found on a limestone plateau, which is mostly calcium carbonate. There seemed to be nothing around that would contain or produce the compound. Zukowski also took extremely close-up pictures of the artifact, capturing some features only a few microns long.

"We see some damage in here," he said, "and it's interesting that when you get down that small, you can see holes."

He also displayed an image of what looked like a tiny metallic whisker.

Zukowski, who designs microchips for a living, said that the features struck him as unusual.

"We know this thing definitely is not organic, number one," he concluded. "Number two, we know it's not indigenous."

The small silvery object was one of many that turned up during the dig. Doleman presented slides of what looked like a piece of PVC pipe and fragments of plastic, as well as what seemed to be leather and rubber from a shoe. Doleman said that they had not been analyzed, and he would like to confirm that they are what they seem to be. ... The excavation also unearthed pieces of igneous rock that seemed out of place on the limestone plateau.

"They look like they may have been burned," noted Doleman. "Who knows what kind of burning a UFO creates when it smacks into the earth and then goes bouncing back up into the sky?"

The items that Doleman found most interesting were some orange blobs of material. Assaigai Analytical Laboratories Inc. in Albuquerque found that they were modacrylic adhesive, a heat-resistant synthetic copolymer. The Union Carbide Corporation was the first to produce modacrylic fiber in 1949. Zukowski said the modacrylic adhesive might tie into an eyewitness account. One of the volunteer excavators was Nancy Easly Johnson, daughter of Maj. Edwin Easly, who was allegedly at the crash site. Easly told Johnson little about the incident, but mentioned orange debris. ...


via UFO investigators reveal possible otherworldly relic.

New free Xeno song: Night with an Empty Bucket

New free Xeno song: Night with an Empty Bucket

This song is what happened as I was testing various instruments in Cubase 5 which I just purchased.

It is odd for me to write a song with no guitar.

Inspired by hearing about people who travel to foreign countries to help people less fortunate, and by this picture which accompanied this story:

Gunshots ricocheted around Nairobi's streets and houses and shops burned today as Kenya's post-election violence escalated. The Foreign Office has now warned 'against all but essential travel to Kenya' and British tour operators have cancelled tours to the country for the rest of the week. The Federation of Tourist Operators is also considering travel arrangements for the 7,000 Britons already on trips in Kenya - metro

See the box on the left for the song. Click to play or download "Night with an Empty Bucket".

I sometimes change the song that is uploaded on the box to improve the mix  so if you download you may get an older version, but please steal this for your iPod or whatever if you like listening to it.

Amazing video: a seemingly working motor powered only by magents

Yes, I know this is supposed to be impossible, but after several other videos which could have had a hidden device under the table, Mylow now reveals his face and shows his whole assembly working on a glass table top. This is pretty cool. The only possible scam explanation left is a battery powered motor in the base of the thing. If that is not the case, then this is something REALLY new and amazing (outside of the secret government circles):



Another thing that was supposed to be theoretically impossible is the Levitron. I have one of those and it works. It is a balancing act between magnetic and gyroscopic stabilization forces.

Here is an interesting email from someone on the Mylow-news group who also claims to have something like this working. Can you imagine if this could generate enough power to run the lights in your home? Well, it seems to me that since the magnets are getting depleted that they become just another type of battery.

Some ideas for you Mylow -

We saw that we needed a minimum a rotation of about 300 to 350 rpm of the rotor disc to start developing a sufficient EMF (will explain EMF later). The cooling of the magnets and rotor disc is a good sign. We experienced the same down to 11C.

We used rare earth materials (neodymium) for the magnets and copper material for the rotor disc. It requires a free spinning bearing system with as little drag as possible. Also, a very sturdy and stable stator support. The optimum stator to rotor magnet gap is dependent on the rotor magnet spacing and magnet flux density (magnetic strength).

Have you tried to vary this distance to see what effect this has on the disc rotation speed? Remember that the rotor disc must be stable and secure as well as the stator magnet bracket. The stator bracket must not bow or bend as the rotor disc rotates below it. In other words, the stator to rotor magnet gap must be constant as the rotor spins.

Perhaps Sterling or another friend can help you in locating someone to design the magnetic / induction pickup coil system, when the time comes. This is necessary for producing the electric power as the strong magnets (bottom disc) pass thru pickup coils and induce an EMF (electric voltage).

One of our prototype designs had a polycarbonate (plexiglass) disc attached to the bottom of the copper rotor disc. This non-metallic disc was spaced about 6 inches below the copper disc and had magnets attached to the bottom surface. As this sandwiched disc rotated the bottom magnets thru pickup coils, a voltage (EMF) was induced into the coil. The resultant frequency and voltage amplitude was dependent on the number of magnets, pickup coils and their size (magnetic flux density for the magnets and number of windings on the induction coils) and their spacing.

The importance of strong rotor disc magnets and optimized rotor magnet / stator magnet spacing (gap) is emphasized because as the bottom magnets (field magnets) move thru the induction coils (field pickup coils) a "back EMF" is produced. This back EMF places an amount of drag on the rotating rotor disc. This is termed as a "magnetic brake" as it attempts to dampen the rotation of the rotor. It's a balancing act of sorts in that the rotor disc needs to rotate at a constant speed while generating a constant and useble power that can be converted to 120volts, 60 hertz AC or 240 volts, 50 hertz AC. Theorectically, the system can be scaled to produce energy levels to power an electric car or an average sized home..... or larger!!

Update: I've left my YouTube comment asking Mylow to put some feathers or scraps of tissue paper around the table to show that there are no air currents. There are vortex fans which can blow a fairly powerful stream of air in a tube from across the room.

I think it would be loud enough to hear, but we still need to rule out air currents. If focused on one side of the device, air could cause it to spin. Here is a link to a Vortex Cannon.

Maybe you've seen those toys that send smoke rings across the room? They generate vortex rings by thumping the back of a diaphragm into a shaped chamber with a circular exit, and can blow out candles at surprising distances, because the vortex ring is highly stable.

There are military applications as well: A small charge is used to generate pressure, and the resultant vortex ring can knock a man over. The charges can be set off at 10 per second, which is apparently totally debilitating, but not lethal.

What I propose is another version, where the diaphragm is rapidly oscillated, perhaps by a sub woofer speaker.
The rapidly created vortex rings would act like highly directional cooling fans, with long distance capability. I think these might be useful in gardens or large halls.

There might be many applications for portable, high power, devices: sweeping leaves; picking fruit; pest control etc. - halfbakery

Secret Of Google's Book Scanning Machine Revealed

Image of Google's infrared camera technology United States Patent and Trademark Office

The other day my colleague Kee Malesky turned me on to an incredibly interesting article from the New Scientist website about the granting of patent 7508978. What's so important about Patent 7508978 you ask? It's the patent that explains how Google's proprietary book scanning technology works.

... Before Google came on the scene, book scanning was a tedious process that sometimes resulted in the death of a book. The software used to scan books, called Optical Character Recognition software or OCR for short, required each page of the book to be flat. Now anyone who's ever opened a book knows it's next to impossible for a book to lie flat without some sort of device. One solution to the problem was to use glass plates that individually flattened each page, but this method wasn't very efficient. The other solution was to chop off the book's binding, but that method destroyed the book. How was one to go about scanning a book quickly and efficiently without destroying it?

...Google created some seriously nifty infrared camera technology that detects the three-dimensional shape and angle of book pages when the book is placed in the scanner. This information is transmitted to the OCR software, which adjusts for the distortions and allows the OCR software to read text more accurately.




via NPR: The Secret Of Google's Book Scanning Machine Revealed.

Picture becomes a chair

This is a good design from Kwang Hoo Lee. Its basic structure is the same as many other ones, but when it is folded, a picture frame appears. You can hang it on the wall for decoration.

via I New Idea Homepage » DESIGN.

UFO Filmed by Discovery Channel crew?

Update: When I first saw this, I was thinking "a balloon" based on its motion in the sky, but it seemed to be "shape shifting." After Mike's comment about it seeming to be a bundle of balloons, it no longer seems mysterious. But why is the film crew spending so much time filming it? Is it part of a movie they are making? With enough balloons a person can be taken up. Do you think there might be a person or an animal up there?

That's a disturbing thought: What if someone were to go around a town snatching dogs and launching them into the stratosphere with bundles of balloons? Perhaps only the dogs that have been bad.  That would be very cruel since it could end up killing the animals. It could also kill people by causing plane crashes or by landing in traffic.

The same thing could also be done with snakes. That would be scary. Do you ever have thoughts you wish you could un-think?



Here are some UFO related books that the spammers linking to my blog want to sell you:

Incredible Technologies Of The New World Order; UFOs - Tesla - Area 51

Visitors: A New Look at UFOs

The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence

UFOs Over New York: A True History of Extraterrestrial Encounters in the Empire State

Interdimensional Universe: The New Science of UFOs, Paranormal Phenomena and Otherdimensional Beings

Alert! Russian Army Moving Towards Georgian Borders - Now!

News is just broken out all out Russian media. I quess soon we can hear it all over.

Tone is very alarming from Russian officials - just days before NATO drill in Georgia... "Naturally, we will draw our own conclusions about this provocation."

- NATO excercise is taking place now in Georgia
- Russian diplomats was just few days ago ousted from NATO
- Russian Army is moving across the border of Georgia
- New deals done with Ossetia and Russia in thursday

... WTF is really happening over there?

- No numbers given how much, and powerfull is Russian Army which is now moving inside South Ossetia and Abkhazia! - Scale of deployments unknown...

“Border troops command will be located in Tskhinvali proper, while others will be deployed along the whole border perimeter."Russian guards take up duties on Abkhaz, S. Ossetia borders
en.rian.ru...

Russian troops patrol rebel borders with Georgia
wire.antiwar.com...

Russian guards head for Abkhazian and Ossetian borders
www.russiatoday.com...

USA - get out from Georgia, now...

I found this comment on ATS interesting:

Exactly. It's NATO's very presence and instigation of Ossetia to break away from Georgia that ignited an attack on Russian people a couple of months ago. How would we like it if a foreign power was doing exercises in say Cuba (that's not a good example, but it'll do) and they talked south Florida into breaking away from the state? So south Florida breaks away from Florida state, and Florida state starts firing on south Florida and BINGO, a war on American soil has started.

In such a scenario, Washington would of course react. Washington and every single American citizen would be furious at the foreign power for instigating trouble right on American soil, let alone conducting war exercises so close to America's borders. Obviously, that's an extremely provocative practice with obvious intentions.

Well that's exactly what NATO is doing to Russia, provoking the hell out of them. Nobody can blame Russia for sending in troops. America would do exactly the same thing.

Food carvings

More on wambie

Blocked gene gives mice super smell.

Time to hide the cheese. Researchers have created a mutant mouse strain whose sense of smell is much sharper and more sensitive than that of typical mice. Oddly enough, they did so by inactivating a gene in the rodents, not by adding one.

The knocked-out gene encodes a protein called Kv1.3, which normally assembles into some of the membrane channels that control the flow of potassium ions in and out of cells and thereby regulate how readily nerve cells respond to stimuli.

Because the protein is found in cells of the olfactory bulb of mice, Debra A. Fadool of Florida State University and her colleagues suspected that deactivating the gene might create rodents with a poor sense of smell. In the Feb. 5 Neuron neuron, the researchers report the opposite result: Mice lacking Kv1.3 have a sense of smell 1,000 to 10,000 times as sensitive as that of typical mice and are better at discriminating closely related odors. The researchers speculate that variations in the corresponding human gene may account for differences in people's sense of smell.

Further study of the mutant mice revealed that the animals had smaller-than-average glomeruli, the odor-detecting units of the nose, but the rodents had many more of them than usual. The researchers haven't documented other profound physical or behavioral abnormalities in the rodents lacking the Kv1.3 gene.

via Blocked gene gives mice super smell. - Free Online Library.

This is news from 2004.

Other source: http://www.bioedonline.org

Leaked Document says Obama will close public gatherings in US?

Alex Jones exaggerates quite a bit in his program in my view, but the information here sounds like it may be real. Will Obama close all public gatherings in the US? Will the swine flu get much worse than anyone yet understands?

Guidespot.com: Scary-good Face Painting

These were my three favorites, but check out the others:

via Guidespot.com: Scary-good Face Painting.

Where the Hell is Matt?