Beatles to Re-Release Stripped Down Album

I feel like a bad Beatles fan. I didn't even know that Phil "Wall of Sound" Spector produced the original "Let it Be" album. According to Beatles to Re-Release Stripped Down Album, a newly "de-Spectorized" version will come out in the fall:

The surviving Beatles are planning to re-release "Let It Be" the way they intended: stripped down. The album will have the same track listing, but it will not have the orchestration that producer Phil Spector added to it after the band broke up.

Italy Arrests 28 Pakistanis in Al-Qaeda Linked Bust

Wow. Italy Arrests 28 Pakistanis in Al-Qaeda Linked Bust reports some scary (but good) news:

Military police burst into an apartment in central Naples on Wednesday night as part of a routine sweep against illegal immigration and ended up discovering enough explosives to blow up a three-story building, officials said on Friday.

They arrested all 28 men staying in the apartment after finding 800 grams (28 ounces) of explosives, 230 feet of fuse and various electronic detonators crammed behind a false wall.

Islamic religious texts, photos of "jihad" (holy war) martyrs, piles of false documents, maps of the Naples area, addresses of contacts around the world and more than 100 mobile telephones were also found in the run-down lodgings, police said.

I'm perplexed by the Pakistani ambassador's response:

Pakistan's ambassador to Italy, Zafar Hilali, denied the men were terrorists and said the arrests appeared to form part of a campaign of targeting innocent Pakistanis living in Italy.

"According to my information none of (these men) had anything whatsoever to do with terrorism, none of them had anything like explosives," he told Pakistan TV.

Young Psychiatrists Prefer Couch to Using Medications

I read this in my paper copy of the Journal, and I just found an on-line copy, Young Psychiatrists Prefer Couch to Using Medications. It says a lot about the psychiatric profession:

Psychiatrists in training feel a strong stigma in their profession against people who are taking antidepressants and other medications, even though about one-fifth of the training psychiatrists are themselves on medication, according to a survey of psychiatric residents in New York.

Army Places Gigantic Wager On Revamped Patriot Missile

Army Places Gigantic Wager On Revamped Patriot Missile gives a thorough account of the Patriot missile's history (and current status):

For many Americans, the bright green explosions of Iraqi Scud missiles and Patriot interceptors provided the most memorable images of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Washington seized on the Patriots as a symbol of how its technical prowess was key to winning modern wars. A Patriot missile launcher even accompanied the victorious troops in a Manhattan ticker-tape parade.

But a decade later, Defense Secretary William Cohen said just before leaving office that the Patriot "didn't work."[...]The stunning TV images for the most part showed Patriots and erratic, often-malfunctioning Scuds exploding independently of one another.

Not very reassuring.

The latest Patriot, the Army says, is a big improvement over the old model, which knocked down missiles by exploding in their flight path. The new version destroys enemy missiles by slamming into them, a method known as "hit to kill."

Army and industry officials say the force of the collision, which the original Patriots couldn't deliver, allows the new models to dissipate chemical or biological warheads on impact.

If the old missiles couldn't even place high-explosives close enough to a Scud to hit it with shrapnel, what are the odds that the new missiles can "hit a bullet with a bullet" and slam right into a Scud?

The PAC-3s [the new Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles] currently cost about $2.7 million each, though the cost is expected to be between $1 million and $2 million once full production begins.

By contrast, the Scud, based on a 1960s-era Soviet design, is about as cheap as a missile comes nowadays.

I have to wonder how much damage one Patriot even prevents — when it works. Does a Scud do millions of dollars of damage? If a Patriot takes out a Scud one time in four, that's $10 million or so it's costing to stop a Scud. Would it be cheaper to evacuate everybody within Scud range and buy them new homes?

I find this telling:

Israel, which relied on the Patriot during the Gulf War, isn't taking any chances. With U.S. funding and technical backing, Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd., a government-owned company, has designed its own missile-defense system, which is intended to intercept enemy missiles at an even higher altitude than the PAC-3. The $2 billion system, known as "Arrow," has been fielded at Palmachim Air Force Base near Tel Aviv and near the city of Hadera.

They're the ones with everything on the line, and they're building their own missile system.

By the way, the very first Patriot missile system wasn't even designed to shoot down other missiles:

The original system, first deployed in West Germany in 1985, was designed to shoot down Soviet bombers. It was never used in combat.

NBC Sports Maps Future Without the Big Leagues

As NBC Sports Maps Future Without the Big Leagues points out, big-league sports broadcasts aren't earning back the big-league fees they cost, and networks are turning to smaller sports:

Fed up with the rising costs of televising big sports, NBC has decided to go small. The network thinks its deal with the Arena Football League, a 16-year-old operation with teams in cities from Buffalo, N.Y., to Los Angeles, could be the model for a new fiscal sanity in sports TV.

Oddly, the article doesn't bring up the XFL for a long, long time, until practically the end:

A big challenge has been avoiding comparisons with NBC's last football venture, the sex-, violence- and bravado-filled flop of 2001, the XFL. NBC Sports executives concede that the XFL, a joint venture with World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., embarrassed the network. But it also taught NBC how not to promote an alternative football league.

At a production seminar last week in advance of the AFL debut, Mr. Ebersol told 60 staffers and freelancers that the public didn't perceive the XFL as legitimate. By contrast, Mr. Ebersol said, arena football has been around a decade and a half. "There's no need for hyping," he said.

To that end, NBC is playing the AFL straight. Its promos prominently mention that the league is in "Season 17." It has hired veteran announcers like Pat Haden and Al Trautwig, in contrast to former Minnesota governor and onetime professional wrestler Jesse Ventura, who worked XFL games. Says longtime NBC Sports director John Gonzalez, "We're not going to have [cameramen] running out there in the middle of plays." That happened in the XFL.

What they don't mention is that the XFL still scored higher ratings than the NHL (which doesn't get mentioned at all).

Hidden Treasures Lurk In Ruin of Berlin Museum

Astonishing. According to Hidden Treasures Lurk In Ruin of Berlin Museum, one of the greatest museums in the world goes largely forgotten (and unfunded), full of unexamined finds from ages past:

Mr. Heinrich's good fortune, however, stems from the museum's subsequent years of misfortune. Two world wars and four decades of communist neglect left it a wreck. As a result, findings from decades-old excavations, including the Tendaguru trip, lie unstudied in bamboo crates in the basement — a treasure trove for scientists such as Mr. Heinrich, but one that faces a threat.
[...]
Up in Mr. Heinrich's cramped office, the walls are covered with faded black-and-white photos of the Tendaguru expedition. A 20,000-year-old mammal tusk rests among papers on a table.

At his desk, Mr. Heinrich peered into a microscope at the mammal teeth he found in the basement a few years back. The triangular, brown teeth and a jaw were clearly visible. His find was important evidence that mammals co-existed with dinosaurs at a time and place where few mammal remains had been found. "The fact that objects from the Tendaguru beds have been lying undiscovered in this building for so long amazes me," says Mr. Heinrich.

In 1909, a German mining engineer in what was then German East Africa stumbled across a dinosaur bone exposed by rain. The Berlin museum mobilized a massive expedition, hiring more than 900 workers on sites covering a 1,300-square-mile area. After four years of work, the team lugged more than 250 tons of petrified dinosaur bones back to Berlin, one of the largest discoveries in the history of paleontology.

Pirates in China Move Fast In Stealing New Toy Designs

Pirates in China Move Fast In Stealing New Toy Designs intriguing on multiple levels:

The fact that toy makers can face instant copies at toy fairs is the Catch-22 of the $11 billion-a-year business. Hong Kong's proximity to the cheap but skilled labor base in China makes it a snap to duplicate a toy. The global toy industry is still looking for a fail-safe way to protect designs from Chinese copies without curbing its addiction to Chinese labor.

Today, China makes 70% of the world's toys and accounts for 49% of all counterfeit seizures in the U.S. by the Customs Service. Since China's admission into the World Trade Organization, U.S. trade officials have prodded the nation to take firmer steps against design theft, which mires companies in costly copyright disputes and guts their ability to compete.

First, I knew that toys were big business, but $11 billion a year sounds really big to me. You'd think they'd put out better toys with that kind of money involved. Second, if renegade Chinese toymakers are going to crank out knockoffs of your product line, maybe you need to harness that somehow. Maybe you can leak your Stormtrooper action-figure design, so cheap armies are affordable. Then you charge a premium price for the name characters — who are now more fun to play with, since they can finally wade through an army of cannon fodder.

Videocameras, Too, Can Lie — or at Least Create Prejudice

Videocameras, Too, Can Lie — or at Least Create Prejudice discusses a fascinating psychological phenomenon, illusory causation:

Almost three decades of research in both lab and real-world settings shows that when people witness an interaction, they tend to attribute causality to events or individuals that are more noticeable. When people see two individuals chatting, for instance, and if they have a better angle on Mr. A than Mr. B, they conclude that Mr. A shaped the tone and direction of the conversation and caused Mr. B to respond as he did.
[...]
"They judged videotaped confessions recorded with the camera focused on the suspect as more voluntary than videos focused equally on the suspect and interrogator, even when the content was identical."
[...]
"In one instance, the simple change from an equal-focus confession to a suspect-focus confession doubled the 'conviction' rate," says Prof. Lassiter.

India Plans Cloning to Revive Extinct Cheetah

Evidently India's out of cheetahs but still has a few leopards left. According to India Plans Cloning to Revive Extinct Cheetah:

A leading Indian research institute has asked Iran to loan it a pair of cheetahs or offer some cells to clone an animal that has been extinct in India for about half a century, its chief said on Friday.
[...]
He said an Indian leopard could serve as a surrogate mother for a cloned cheetah, adding that although the Iranian cheetahs were small in number they were identical to the species that disappeared from India.

Babies' Mental Delay Tied to Moms' Vegan Diet

More evidence the "healthy" vegan diet isn't so healthy, from Babies' Mental Delay Tied to Moms' Vegan Diet:

The breast-fed infants of two mothers who did not eat any animal products, including milk and eggs, developed brain abnormalities as a result of a vitamin-B12 deficiency, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Thursday.

The primary sources of vitamin B12, which is essential for brain development, are animal products like meat, dairy products and eggs. Since the mothers ate little or no animal products, too little vitamin B12 was transmitted to their children through breast milk, according to the CDC's Dr. Maria Elena Jefferds.

Troubled Power Project Plays Role in North Korea Showdown

It's almost as if North Korea's dictatorship is using the threat of nuclear weapons to extort aid from richer countries... From Troubled Power Project Plays Role in North Korea Showdown:

Under a 1994 agreement, Pyongyang promised to halt its efforts to build nuclear weapons. In return, the U.S. agreed to help build two light-water reactors for power generation to be overseen by international inspectors — the only swap North Korea would accept. The deal also called for the U.S. and North Korea to restore full diplomatic and economic ties, a step Pyongyang saw as crucial to jump-starting its moribund economy.

Lion Rips Woman's Arm Off

In case you haven't heard, lions are big, carnivorous beasts that will happily eat irksome tourists — or whatever parts of those tourists they can reach. Lion Rips Woman's Arm Off explains:

A lioness in a Spanish animal sanctuary ripped the right arm off a British tourist after the 54-year old woman clambered up a barrier and stuck her fingers inside the cage, local media reported.

"The lady climbed up the three-meter high barrier...She climbed to the top and stuck her fingers inside the enclosure. Then Martha, one of the lionesses, grabbed her fingers, tugged her in and ripped her arm off," Serafin Domenech, owner of El Arca sanctuary near Alicante in southeast Spain, told state television Wednesday.

You're shaking your head too, right?

'Cyclops'-like remains found on Crete

Researchers found bits of a proto-elephant on Crete, according to 'Cyclops'-like remains found on Crete:

Researchers on the southern Greek island of Crete have unearthed the fossilized tusk, teeth and bones of a Deinotherium Gigantisimum, a fearsome elephant-like creature that might have given rise to ancient legends of one-eyed cyclops monsters.
[...]
A large hole in the middle of the elephant's skull — a nasal cavity for its trunk — could have given rise to the tales of the cyclops, the ferocious mythological giant with one eye that appears in Homer's "Odyssey" and other stories.

The connection between this find and the mythical cyclops is a bit tenuous though:

Remains of other elephant ancestors have previously been found on mainland Greece, leading some researchers to speculate that bones found by ancient Greeks may have become part of their mythology.

Singapore Plays Matchmaker, Hoping to Boost Its Birth Rate

I always find Singapore's ambitious social-engineering projects darkly comical. Singapore Plays Matchmaker, Hoping to Boost Its Birth Rate describes a program that tops "caning" vandals or outlawing chewing gum:

This tiny, Type A city-state, worried by a steep decline in population growth, is trying to get its best and brightest to mate and breed with a new generation of government-sponsored dating games, some of which it has copied from American singles groups.

Government-sponsored dating games?

It's American-style Speed Dating, sponsored by the government's official matchmaking agency, the Social Development unit. The SDU assembles a group of men and women and pairs them off at tables. They chat for seven minutes until a bell rings, and then rotate on to a new mystery date. At the end of the session, participants write down who they'd like to meet again. If there are matches, they'll get a date.

The SDU also organizes Zodiac Dates, in which singles try to guess each other's astrological signs. Prizes for right answers include bath gels and restaurant vouchers.

Then there are Library Dates, in which eight men and eight women are paired off and given 45 minutes to look through bookshelves, choosing books that reflect their interests. Then they write down their impressions of each other based on the books they have chosen. Over drinks and cake, everyone gathers at a roundtable discussion to present the partner to the rest of the group.

I won't cast aspersions on the dating games themselves — they have a certain dorky charm — but there's something seriously creepy about a Zodiac Dates session set up by the government's Social Development unit. Seriously creepy.

National Geographic Reveals Swimsuit Issue

I found National Geographic Reveals Swimsuit Issue laugh-out-loud funny when I first read the headline. The magazine's having a bit of fun with their photo archives:

One of the earliest photographs is from 1900, showing a Red Cross swimming instructor demonstrating strokes while propped up on a stool, wearing the cover-up swimsuit of the day, with only her head and arms uncovered. When wet, such a costume would have weighed about 22 pounds (10 kg), the magazine said.

A pair of bare backsides from Cable Beach's "clothing optional" zone at Broome, Australia, is a more modern archival image, from 1988. Two more posteriors were shown in a 1908 shot of surveyors near a rocky pool along the Canada-Alaska border.

A photo from 1917 showed two bare-breasted women from the Marquesas Islands, "where women dressed simply for the Polynesian weather -- to the dismay of Western missionaries."

I can't help but think of a particular Onion News in Brief item:

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 07 — 16 SEPTEMBER 1997
Sales Disappointing For First-Ever Hustler Swimsuit Issue
LOS ANGELES�Spokespersons for Larry Flynt Publications are struggling to explain the poor sales of Hustler magazine's first annual swimsuit issue, crammed from cover to cover with beautiful young women modeling the latest sexy swimwear. "We are utterly baffled," LFP public-relations director Kenneth Micklos said of the issue, which sold 17 newsstand copies nationwide. "Our readership demographic is overwhelmingly heterosexual and male, with a strong interest in looking at beautiful women. It's a mystery."

Cold Water Ups Risk of Lung Problem in Swimmers

Years ago, I made the mistake of going waterskiing for the first time in a cold lake. A really, really cold lake. (I can't remember, but I think it was late autumn.) When I jumped into the water, my chest seized up, and I couldn't breath. "Don't worry about it! You'll be fine!" Aside from some mild hypothermia, I guess I was fine, but Cold Water Ups Risk of Lung Problem in Swimmers points out that strenous swimming in cold water — 67 degrees Fahrenheit, even in a wetsuit — can cause pulmonary edema:

Strenuous swimming in cold water may cause a life-threatening build-up of fluid in the lungs, the recent cases of three US sailors show.

Navy researchers report that the three men, all in their 20s, accumulated fluid in their lungs during a 2-mile ocean swim in water that was 67 degrees Fahrenheit.

During their swims, the men — all undergoing training as Navy SEALs — developed symptoms that included dizziness, rapid breathing, confusion and coughing up blood.

The swimmers recovered with treatment, but if they had been left untreated, the fluid in their lungs — the mark of a condition called pulmonary edema — would have cut off their access to oxygen, causing them to suffocate.

These cases of pulmonary edema, reported this week in the February issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine, occurred even though the patients had worn wet suits. They also said they had not put their heads underwater or inhaled water during their swims.

I love the follow-up:

Once patients have recovered, the doctors advise them on how to swim without overexerting themselves, and suggest other ways to reduce their risk of future episodes.

"First, drop out of the SEALs..."

A Reveille, Not a Record

I won't dwell on last night's speech, but A Reveille, Not a Record summed up its strengths pretty well:

As a president and orator, Bush has two great strengths: moral clarity and resolve. To the Iraqi people, he declared, "Your enemy is not surrounding your country; your enemy is ruling your country." To anti-war relativists, he observed of Saddam Hussein's atrocities, "If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." To the country and the world, he vowed: "Free people will set the course of history. "The course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others. We will prevail." When Bush talks like that, he doesn't just send chills down people's spines. He puts steel in them.

That's the good news. The bad news is the way Bush ducked the bad news.

Why Does Bush Go "Nucular"?

Last night's State of the Union speech — and today's water-cooler conversation — compelled me to research the whole "nucular" thing. Why Does Bush Go "Nucular"?:

When speaking about nuclear weapons, George W. Bush invariably pronounces the word "nucular." Is this an acceptable pronunciation?

Not really. Changing "nu-clee-ar" into "nu-cu-lar" is an example of what linguists call metathesis, which is the switching of two adjacent sounds. (Think of it this way: "nook le yer" becomes "nook ye ler.") This switching is common in English pronunciation; you might pronounce "iron" as "eye yern" rather than "eye ron." Why do people do it? One reason, offered in a usage note in the American Heritage Dictionary, is that the "ular" ending is extremely common in English, and much more common than "lear." Consider particular, circular, spectacular, and many science-related words like molecular, ocular, muscular.

Bush isn't the only American president to lose the "nucular" war. In his "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine in May 2001, William Safire lamented that, besides Bush, at least three other presidents — Eisenhower, Carter, and Clinton — have mangled the word.

The mispronunciation is so common that Merriam-Webster lists it as "a pronunciation variant that occurs in educated speech but that is considered by some to be questionable or unacceptable." The get so many complaints about listing "nucular" that they have a prepared statement defending their decision.

Did Shania Twain Lip-Sync Her Super Bowl Halftime Songs?

I was practically certain that Shania was lip-syncing her Super Bowl performance, but Did Shania Twain Lip-Sync Her Super Bowl Halftime Songs? says otherwise:

ABC producers promised that the pop stars they recruited for this year's Super Bowl halftime show would do their singing live — no lip-syncing allowed. But what about country star Shania Twain, who seemed to hop around the stage without missing a note?

Paul Liszewski, who produced the sound for the show, says Shania's mic was hot and her vocals were live. (Other audio engineers who watched the broadcast agreed.) Twain's accompaniment, however, was what's called a "band in a box," which means the back-up vocals and instrumentals we heard were prerecorded. So while the diva was belting out show-stoppers like "Man, I Feel Like a Woman," her onstage drummer was thrashing away merely for effect.

I had, ahem, no doubt that we were getting live music from No Doubt and Sting, but I was wrong. Sort of:

During No Doubt and Sting's halftime sets, we were also hearing live vocals and canned instrumentals.

But here's the kicker. Shania did lip-sync at moments. Sort of:

For big events, even totally "live" bands have tapes standing by in case of emergency. If, say, Bono's microphone had suddenly failed last year, an engineer in a broadcast truck equipped with an audio mixer would have quickly brought up the sound on a prerecorded version of Bono's vocal track. If the person doing the blend did the job right, the audience would never even notice the glitch. (That explains the moment when Shania ran back to the stage after mingling with the crowd and didn't appear to be singing, even though her vocals came through loud and clear. When Twain took too long getting back to the stage, the mixing engineer likely brought up the prerecorded vocal track, and then took it back down as Shania started to sing.)

Lepidopterist Sheds New Light On Austria's Rare Butterflies

Lepidopterist Sheds New Light On Austria's Rare Butterflies provides a bittersweet image of butterflies "exhausted from nocturnal fluttering" under artifical lights:

Gerhard Tarmann will never forget when the 1964 Winter Olympics came here. Not because of the gold medals his ski-crazy nation won in the men's downhill and slalom, but because of the devastation it wreaked on the city's butterflies.

Then a 14-year-old amateur lepidopterist, he at first thought the games were a godsend. To move masses of spectators to the slopes, the city built a bridge over the river Inn. In the summer, the bridge's lighted sidewalks, shining all night long, lured swarms of butterflies, which are active in daylight, from the dark, tree-lined banks below.

"They'd land on the sidewalk, thousands of them. You just picked them up with your fingers," Dr. Tarmann said recently from the middle of Innsbruck's Olympic Bridge, tweezing the wintry air with a forefinger and a thumb as cars roared past. "I'd walk up one side," he explained, with a wave of his hand, "and back the other — for hours."

But within just three years, the butterflies had all but disappeared, burned by the walkway's hot, white lights or so exhausted from all that nocturnal fluttering that they couldn't lay eggs or find food.

By the way, "lepidopterist" is a very cool word.

Nut Allergy Passed Through Liver Transplant

I heard about this on the radio yesterday, but Nut Allergy Passed Through Liver Transplant provides a more detailed story:

An Australian man who received a liver transplant developed a life-threatening nut allergy apparently passed on through the donated organ, doctors reported Monday.
[...]
The liver donor was a 15-year-old boy whose own allergic reaction to peanuts had caused his death. His organs were donated to four different patients, but only the recipient of the liver acquired the nut allergy.
[...]
The recipient of the liver was a 60-year-old man with chronic hepatitis B and a liver tumor. A day after he was sent home from the hospital, the man developed a severe allergic reaction after eating cashews. Nuts had been a regular part of his diet prior to the transplant, causing no problems.

He was taken to a hospital and treated for tightness in his throat, blurred vision, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Tests confirmed an allergy to cashews, peanuts and sesame seeds. The patient was sent home with an epinephrine shot to self-inject in case of a future allergic reaction.

He had to use the shot again 32 weeks after his transplant; this time he was accidentally exposed to peanuts. More tests confirmed antibodies to nuts were present in his system, but in lesser amounts than during his first bout with anaphylactic shock, or potentially life-threatening allergic reaction.

Two years following his liver transplant, the patient died from complications related to the original liver tumor.

Drug-Resistant Staph Bacteria Found in Los Angeles

Drug-Resistant Staph Bacteria Found in Los Angeles paints an unpleasant visual:

A bacterial skin infection that does not respond to standard antibiotics is showing up for the first time in gay men, raising concerns that it could spread further, a Los Angeles health official said on Tuesday.

The virulent strain of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or staph, has caused symptoms like abscesses and boils in a still undetermined number of gay men, as well as other people, said Dr. Elizabeth Bancroft, a medical epidemiologist with the Los Angeles County Health Department who is leading an investigation.

Dr Pepper/Seven Up 'Milks' Raging Cow in Effort to Think 'Outside of the Barn'

What's the latest softdrink craze? Milk. No, really. The lead story on Dr Pepper/Seven Up's site, Dr Pepper/Seven Up 'Milks' Raging Cow in Effort to Think 'Outside of the Barn', proclaims:

Cheered by a rowdy mascot, Dr Pepper/Seven Up executives today announced the creation of Raging Cow, a new milk-based product served cold in single servings, with an array of five alluring flavors.
[...]
Consumer testing confirmed for Dr Pepper/Seven Up that people want new, exciting dairy drink products. "With flavors such as Piña Colada Chaos, Jamocha Frenzy, Berry Mixed Up, Chocolate Caramel Craze and Chocolate Insanity, Raging Cow has something for everyone," McGrath concluded.

In the Philippines, Stuntmen Take On a New, More Dangerous Role

I couldn't make this stuff up. From In the Philippines, Stuntmen Take On a New, More Dangerous Role:

Instead of diving through windows or having chairs broken over his back, Mr. Espinosa and other unemployed stuntmen free-lance for the government's Videogram Regulatory Board for as little as $5 a day. They raid the illegal, back-alley factories that flood the streets of Manila with hundreds of thousands of pirated CDs and DVDs.

In recent years, the Philippines' movie industry has been decimated by rampant video piracy, making gigs for stuntmen such as Mr. Espinosa few and far between.

As you can see, it's out of their high-minded sense of propriety that Filipino stuntment protect the sanctity of intellectual property rights.

Should Your Kid Receive A Chickenpox Booster?

I knew that a vaccine for chickenpox had come out, but I didn't realize how prevalent it had become. According to Should Your Kid Receive A Chickenpox Booster?:

The incidence of chickenpox has fallen 85% in the U.S. since Merck & Co. introduced its vaccine in 1995. About 75% of children are getting the shot, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. While some vaccinated children still contract the disease, they tend to get much less sick and have fewer scars than unvaccinated children. The side effects are minor; about 5% of vaccinated children develop soreness, redness and a rash at the injection site.

Of course, I managed to go decades without catching chickenpox — only to get it in 1994. When did the vaccine come out again? Oh, right, 1995.

Voice Interfaces: Assessing the Potential

Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox, Voice Interfaces: Assessing the Potential, makes an amusing point:

Many people have an exaggerated impression about voice-interface benefits, likely based on the prominence of voice-operated computers in Star Trek. You know, the captain says, "Computer, locate Commander Data" and the computer answers, "Commander Data is no longer on the ship: he left half an hour ago on an unauthorized shuttle launch."

I've always thought that Captain Picard would have been much better off with a design that informed him immediately when a shuttle was stolen, without first waiting to be asked.

His more serious point is that speaking isn't a great advantage over typing in most cases — and listening is far worse than looking at a screen.

Ohio Native Finds Stardom Acting South of the Border

Playing the foreign "heel" seems entirely too rasslin' (or lucha libre) to me, but Roger Cudney has made a career out of it. From Ohio Native Finds Stardom Acting South of the Border:

On the recent Mexican soap opera, "Amigas y Rivales" (Friends and Rivals), Mr. Cudney was a racist South Texas rancher who caught a couple of illegal Mexican immigrants trespassing on his property, shortly after the World Trade Center attack. "Git off of my land," the actor snarled, waving a shotgun. Then, in his distinctively accented Spanish, he ad-libbed: "Thousands of Americans have just died in New York. They shouldn't let anyone enter my country anymore."

On the late show or on home video, you can catch Mr. Cudney playing a sadistic American prison warden in "Con Odio en la Piel" (With Hate in the Skin) or a bloodthirsty intelligence operative in "Bano de Sangre" (Blood Bath).

He also shows up on commercials. Not long ago, in a TV ad campaign for the Mexican soft drink Aga, Mr. Cudney appeared as a scowling border patrolman combing the U.S.-Mexico frontier for illegal immigrants.
[...]
In the film, "Karateca Azteca" (Aztec Karate Fighter), Mr. Cudney plays an archaeologist, with a black belt, who turns out to be robbing ancient Mexican treasures. In the climactic scene, Mr. Cudney loses a martial-arts battle to the wimpy Capulina, an outcome that so distressed Mr. Cudney's nine-year old son that he wouldn't talk to his father for several days.
Mr. Cudney's loved ones have had to get used to such humiliations. "I've been killed in Mexican films more ways than I can even remember," he says. The comeuppances can be quite creative. Mr. Cudney's characters have been smashed by a giant Aztec calendar, dropped down a water well and hurled off the deck of a yacht by a woman.

Nicotine-Reduced Cigarettes Reach Market

According to Nicotine-Reduced Cigarettes Reach Market, smokers will now be able to get their nicotine kick by smoking lots of low-nicotine Quest cigarettes:

Although the company says Quest contains only trace amounts of nicotine, it makes no claims that the cigarette reduces carbon monoxide or the chemicals that increase the risk of cancer. Smoking also is linked to heart disease, emphysema and birth defects.
[...]
Quest takes a different approach [from "light" cigarettes]. It allows smokers to choose their nicotine content: Quest 1 has 17 percent less nicotine than an average light cigarette, the company said. Quest 2 has 58 percent less nicotine, and Quest 3 is virtually nicotine-free.

Of course, a high-nicotine cigarette that would expose smokers to less tar, carbon monoxide, etc. is too sinister to even consider.

Leanness, Not Diet, May Be Key to Long Life

For years we've known that severe caloric restriction with adequate nutrition (CRAN) extended animals' lifespans. Some people even practice CRAN, eating a third less than normal, in an effort to extend their own lives — what we call the "live longer by not really living" plan. According to Leanness, Not Diet, May Be Key to Long Life though, the key may not be near-starvation dieting; it may just be staying lean:

Many studies have shown that animals live longer when they eat, on average, about 30 percent less than normal. The findings have led scientists to speculate that people, too, can extend their lives by dieting.
[...]
Dr. C. Ronald Kahn of the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School and colleagues genetically engineered a mouse that lacked a gene called fat-specific insulin receptor. This change limited the action of insulin on fat cells.

The mice, which they nicknamed FIRKO mice (for fat-specific insulin receptor knock-outs), fed freely without gaining much fat and also lived longer than normal mice.

They had 50 to 70 percent less fat, no matter what they ate, and also were less likely to develop diabetes than normal mice. They lived on average 134 days, or 18 percent longer than normal mice. By the age of 30 months half the normal mice had died but 80 percent of the FIRKO mice were still alive.

Hippos Roam Colombian Drug Lord's Abandoned Ranch

Legendary was Xanadu where Kubla Khan decreed his stately pleasure dome. Today, almost as legendary is Florida's Xanadu...or Pablo Escobar's 7,400-acre Hacienda Napoles. From Hippos Roam Colombian Drug Lord's Abandoned Ranch:

Ten hippopotamuses roam wild among the ruins of the late drug kingpin Pablo Escobar's abandoned country home, leaving huge footprints in the mud and scaring the wits out of the local cows.

The hippos are all that remain of Escobar's private zoo. In his heyday in the 1980s, Escobar imported elephants, rhinoceroses, lions, giraffes and other exotic beasts to his lavish ranch at Puerto Triunfo, 100 miles north of Bogota in central Colombia, as a testament to his fabulous wealth.

Most of the animals were confiscated by the authorities and transferred to zoos after the cocaine lord was gunned down by police in 1993 in Medellin. But the hippos were left behind.

Despite the absence of a keeper, the Nile hippos — some of which weigh 2 tonnes — have flourished and reproduced on a muddy lake near the Magdalena River as if it were their natural terrain. And for six of the hippos born there, it is.

How Hearst/Kane is this?

Escobar built an airport, artificial lakes, swimming pools, a bull-ring, a garden with 100,000 fruit trees and towering cement dinosaurs. He assembled his menagerie to entertain guests, who included politicians, judges, soccer stars and beauty queens.

Dirty School Toilets a Risk to European Children

I'm amused that Dirty School Toilets a Risk to European Children paints the problem as one European kids face:

School toilets in Britain and Sweden are so dirty, smelly and dangerous that many students avoid using them throughout the day, increasing their risk for problems such as urinary tract infections, a new report shows.
[...]
More than half of boys and one in three girls in the UK said they avoided the toilets while at school, blaming poor conditions and fear of bullying. In Sweden, one in four children said they stayed away from the toilets for similar reasons.

Sounds like the school toilets I remember. In particular:

In the UK, 21% of toilets were not flushed in the morning, and 69% not flushed later in the day. Broken taps and lack of hot water were also found. In Sweden, the researchers said seven out of eight school toilets smelt of urine, six had no soap and six were not adequately cleaned.

I don't think prison toilets are as bad as school toilets.

Dubliners Raise Their Glasses to Brewing Genius

I definitely enjoyed a pint or two of the "Black Stuff" while I was in Dublin last fall, as Dubliners have been doing for the past two centuries. In fact, Dublin recently celebrated the bicentenary of Arthur Guinness's death, and Dubliners Raise Their Glasses to Brewing Genius explains a bit of the drink's history:

When Arthur Guinness brewed his first pint, beer was almost unknown in rural Ireland where whiskey, gin and poteen (moonshine) were the favorite tipples. It was known as porter at the time because of its popularity with porters and stevedores.

It was known as porter at the time because of its popularity with porters. I was not aware of that! Porters are big, strong guys, and they drink dark beer. Obviously then, Guinness gives you strength:

Its healing powers are legendary -- Asian women have been known to bathe newborn babies in Guinness, while the stout beer was once given out free by health authorities in Britain to pregnant women.

A cavalry officer recovering from wounds sustained at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, drank a pint of Guinness. "I am confident that it contributed more than anything else to my recovery," he wrote.

Vitamin A Supplements May Hurt Bones

One more reason not to take Vitamin A, from Vitamin A Supplements May Hurt Bones:

Taking vitamin A supplements can weaken the bones and increase the risk of fractures up to seven times, according to a large Swedish study.

The research, conducted on men, confirms three earlier studies in women showing that high intake of vitamin A raises the risk of broken hips and weak bones. The latest study is the first to measure levels of the vitamin in blood, rather than just asking about diet and supplement use.

Highway Deaths Spike After Super Bowl

Small effects, magnified over enough people, can lead to big numbers, as Highway Deaths Spike After Super Bowl demonstrates:

A study of the last 27 Super Bowl Sundays concluded that the highway death rate jumped 70% in the first hour after the big game and remained high over the next few hours.

The increase was particularly dramatic in states with the losing team, where the death rate was 147% higher than on the Sundays before and after the championship.

The only exception was in states with the winning team, where highway death rates did not rise, according to Donald Redelmeier, the chief author of the study.

The scientists blame alcohol, fatigue, and distraction — "The Monday-morning quarterbacking begins Sunday, not Monday night. The result is a surge in fatality rates."

Colleges Use 'Wink' Letters To Snare Top Students Early

As Colleges Use 'Wink' Letters To Snare Top Students Early points out, competition between schools for top applicants is getting fierce:

In increasing numbers, colleges are wooing their top choices with notes of praise and hints of acceptance letters and scholarship money to come. The idea is to win their affections by getting them some good news before the competition does. This courtship, which can take place up to several months before formal acceptance letters hit students' mailboxes, comes in various forms: everything from "likely" letters — which tell students that they're likely to get admitted — to "love" letters, or handwritten notes from admissions offices complimenting a student's essay or some other aspect of the application.

I love the way Dartmouth is using these "likely" letters:

Most Ivy League schools generally send out such letters only when pursuing an athlete who may be getting sports scholarships from non-Ivy institutions. In fact, all the Ivies are bound by a rule that requires them to mail out their acceptance letters no earlier than April 2. Dartmouth says its "likely" letters aren't a violation because they don't outright admit the applicant, they just hint at it.

"It's not an acceptance; it just hints at an acceptance." Riiiggght.

Before Taking the SAT, Read These Few Tips

Before Taking the SAT, Read These Few Tips reminds us that it's SAT season again. The "politically correct" test-design process intrigues me:

Trial and Error

---

Questions the College Board rejected because specific groups of students missed them disproportionately:

1. In a certain area of the ocean, two tectonic plates have been moving apart at the rate of 1/2 inch per year. At this rate, in how many years will the distance between the plates be widened by an additional 100 feet?
A) 17
B) 34
C) 200
D) 600
E) 2,400

Group: Women and African Americans

2. Guzzle : beverage:
A) dine : dinner
B) gorge : glutton
C) taste : flavor
D) nibble : snack
E) wolf : food

Group: Hispanics

(Answers: 1. E; 2. E)

Questions go through a half-dozen reviews before being included in the SAT to remove, for example, gender references, specialized words like "spreadsheet" and any question on which one ethnic group or gender scores particularly lower than another.

Then there's the issue of "scale drift":

Wasn't the test dumbed down recently? The College Board pales at that suggestion. Rather, it says, the scale was "re-centered" in 1994 because of "scale drift." The original scale was set in 1941, when about 10,000 students took the test. By 1990, there were two million test takers, including record numbers of immigrants, minorities and low-income students. The average score is supposed to be 500, but two-thirds of students were scoring below that.

In 1995, the College Board adjusted the scale, making 500 the average once again. So that results could be compared from year to year, it added 70 points to the verbal scores and as many as 30 points to the math scores of everyone who had taken the SAT in the past. Mr. O'Reilly calls the re-centering a "one-time fix," even though the average score is now above 500. Those extra points are student achievement, the College Board insists.

Student achievement. Riiiiiggghhhht.

Big Chains Talk the Talk, But Can't Walk the Wok

Before reading Big Chains Talk the Talk, But Can't Walk the Wok, I didn't realize what was special about the wok:

Shaped like a large bowl, the steel cookware withstands flames up to 700 degrees that would melt conventional skillets. It requires its own special stove, which produces heat four times as intense as that of any conventional stove. Food cooks in seconds. But even experienced Chinese chefs sometimes burn themselves when fire shoots up as they're stirring and tossing ingredients in a motion the Chinese call "pao."

Suddenly, the wok seems cool. (Or, rather, tremendously hot.) Anyone who's seen a wok knows it's oddly shaped (compared to a "normal" pan or skillet). Here's why:

Originally, the Chinese created the wok in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) as a way to conserve fuel. The shape of the wok focuses heat in a small, defined area, cooking food quickly. Over time, wok cooking blossomed into an art form. In Hong Kong, the stir-fry capital of the world, chefs spend two to five years mastering the round-bottomed pan. These chefs strive to produce dishes with "wok hay," which means "the essence of the wok," says Grace Young, who is writing a cookbook titled "The Breath of a Wok."

Impressive, but it does have its downside:

But woks are simply making it too hot in the kitchen for many newcomers. The heat from a wok stove is so intense that it draws sweat from anybody standing nearby — and warps woks so much that they need to be replaced as often as once a month. The wok stove also takes up twice as much space as a regular one and requires extensive weekly cleanings to keep burners from clogging and losing heat. Woks, says Richard Chey, owner of Atlanta's three-chain Doc Chey's Noodle House that uses them, "are really a pain."

And this, according to the Wall Street Journal, is why there's no Chinese equivalent of McDonald's.

The Death of a Ranger Shows Venerable Job's New Hazards

According to The Death of a Ranger Shows Venerable Job's New Hazards:

Park rangers now have a dangerous job. Crime is on the rise in many national parks, and rangers must assume the role of police officers — a task some are reluctant to accept.
[...]
The nation's rangers are more likely to be assaulted than any other federal law-enforcement officers, according to Justice Department statistics. In 2000, there were 99 assaults on National Park Service officers, compared with 55 on Customs agents, 55 on Drug Enforcement Administration agents and 25 on FBI agents.

Perhaps they need more Texas Rangers.

[L]egend records a Texas Ranger stepping down from a train in a riot-torn town and being met by the locals who said, "They only sent one Ranger?" His reply, "You only got one riot, don't you?"

More seriously, Park rangers are dying, fighting drug smugglers and "coyotes" (illegal-alien smugglers) — most likely without putting a dent in either activity. For instance:

In all, the team captured 10 backpacks containing 492 pounds of marijuana. "That's just nothing," shrugs Mr. Jones, who says the rangers assume they're catching a tiny fraction of the tons of marijuana moving through the park.

And lastly, on a less political note:

On Dec. 6, a park ranger in Arches National Park in Utah tracked a man armed with an assault rifle through the back country, and then called in the Utah Highway Patrol, who subdued the desperado with a dog. Two weeks later at the same park, five rangers were summoned to help police stop a semi tractor-trailer that had blasted through two roadblocks and was headed for the park entrance. Police had shot out the truck's tires, but the driver kept rolling on the flats. "You guys will have to kill me. I'm not stopping," he shouted into his CB radio. As the rangers braced for his arrival, the truck skidded to a halt four miles short of the entrance. A Utah Highway Patrol sharpshooter blew apart an air hose on the truck, causing its brakes to seize.

A Utah Highway Patrol sharpshooter blew apart an air hose on the truck, causing its brakes to seize. How cool is that?

Doubling as Birdhouses Boosts Thai Real Estate

In Thailand, owners are transforming entire buildings into elaborate, cave-like birdhouses to attract swiftlets, swallow-like birds that build valuable nests. Why are they valuable? From Doubling as Birdhouses Boosts Thai Real Estate:

Ethnic Chinese around the world have a seemingly insatiable appetite for the delicate nests, which are used in bird's nest soup and tonic and are believed to improve digestion, cure dysentery and rejuvenate the elderly. The annual export trade is estimated at $500 million. A pound of the nests can fetch about $1,000 in this part of Thailand. In the U.S., they go for about $250 an ounce wholesale.

Spun from the glutinous saliva of birds that feed on flies, mosquitoes and other insects, the nests are often served in restaurants with chicken broth or ginseng.

Ewwww...

Skeptic Pitied

I love The Onion:

Skeptic Pitied
FAYETTEVILLE, AR�Craig Schaffner, 46, a Fayetteville-area computer consultant, has earned the pity of friends and acquaintances for his tragic reluctance to embrace the unverifiable, sources reported Monday.

"I honestly feel sorry for the guy," said neighbor Michael Eddy, 54, a born-again Christian. "To live in this world not believing in a higher power, doubting that Christ died for our sins�that's such a sad, cynical way to live. I don't know how he gets through his day."

Coworker Donald Cobb, who spends roughly 20 percent of his annual income on telephone psychics and tarot-card readings, similarly extended his compassion for Schaffner.

"Craig is a really great guy," Cobb said. "It's just too bad he's chosen to cut himself off from the world of the paranormal, restricting himself to the limited universe of what can be seen and heard and verified through empirical evidence."

Also feeling pity for Schaffner is his former girlfriend Aimee Brand, a holistic and homeopathic healer who earns a living selling tonics and medicines diluted to one molecule per gallon in the belief that the water "remembers" the curative properties of the medication.

"Don't get me wrong�logic and reason have their place," Brand said. "But Craig fails to recognize the danger of going too far with medical common sense to the exclusion of alternative New Age remedies like chakra cleansing and energy-field realignment."
[...]

X-Claimer

I recently commented on Fans Howl in Protest as Judge Decides X-Men Aren't Human — in particular, on this excerpt:

To Brian Wilkinson, editor of the online site X-Fan, Marvel's argument is appalling. The X-Men � mere creatures? "This is almost unthinkable," he says. "Marvel's super heroes are supposed to be as human as you or I. They live in New York. They have families and go to work. And now they're no longer human?"

It seems that Brian Wilkinson posted his own little disclaimer on X-Fan:

Disclaimer: Though it's true that I spoke with Mr. King about this subject, I feel I should point out that my quote is taken slightly out of context. I found the decision and situation humourous and was providing what the fan reaction might be like if this were to take place within the comics themselves. A few other factual errors may also exist within the article, but Mr. King may be forgiven as he is a self-admitted 'newbie' to the world of the X-Men.

(Now go back and re-read that disclaimer with your best Simpsons Comic Book Guy voice.)

Cloned Cats Aren't Necessarily Copies

It doesn't take a genius to realize that a cloned pet won't recognize the original animal's owner or know all the same tricks, but as Cloned Cats Aren't Necessarily Copies points out, a cloned pet might not even have the same coat pattern as the original!

Rainbow the cat is a typical calico with splotches of brown, tan and gold on white. Cc, her clone, has a striped gray coat over white. Rainbow is reserved. Cc is curious and playful. Rainbow is chunky. Cc is sleek.
[...]
Cc (for carbon copy) is just over a year old. Her birth Dec. 22, 2001, was big news when it was announced last February because it was the first time a household pet had been cloned. Previous mammal clones were barnyard animals like cows and goats.
[...]
Experts say environment is as important as genes in determining a cat's personality. And as far as appearance, having the same DNA as another calico cat doesn't always produce the same coat pattern.

The Discount Grocery Cards That Don't Save You Money

It should come as no surprise that grocery-store discount cards are just a gimmick, as The Discount Grocery Cards That Don't Save You Money points out:

The bottom line: Sale prices — which were once available to all shoppers — are now mostly restricted to card holders in stores with cards and are called "card specials." In our experience, items not covered by card discounts tended to be more expensive than at nearby noncard stores. As a result, we paid more at card stores than at noncard stores.

America's Ultra-Secret Weapon

According to Time's America's Ultra-Secret Weapon, the US has High-Power Microwave weapons, ready to knock out Iraq's electronics:

HPMs are man-made lightning bolts crammed into cruise missiles. They could be key weapons for targeting Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons. HPMs fry the sophisticated computers and electronic gear necessary to produce, protect, store and deliver such agents. The powerful electromagnetic pulses can travel into deeply buried bunkers through ventilation shafts, plumbing and antennas. But unlike conventional explosives, they won't spew deadly agents into the air, where they could poison Iraqi civilians or advancing U.S. troops.

While it's a pleasant surprise that EMP weapons could knock out Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, isn't the high-tech US military even more susceptible to such weapons? We're the guys trying to run the war via GPS.

Asthma Attacks More Common on Foggy Nights

If you have asthma — or asthmatic loved ones — this might interest you. Yahoo! News - Asthma Attacks More Common on Foggy Nights:

A group of Japanese researchers led by Dr. Kosuke Kashiwabara of Taragi Municipal Hospital in Kumamoto, Japan, gathered data from a hospital in Kyushu, the southernmost large island in Japan. The researchers found that there were 50% more emergency room visits by asthmatic children on misty or foggy evenings compared to clear nights.

Children with asthma were more than four times as likely to visit the emergency room when temperatures rose above 17.7 degrees Centigrade (63 degrees Fahrenheit). There also tended to be more ER visits by asthmatic kids on days with lower barometric pressure. The findings are published in a recent issue of the Journal of Asthma.

I guess the vaporizer can go...

Scorpions Produce Two Types of Venom

According to Scorpions Produce Two Types of Venom, scorpions produce a biologically "cheap" prevenom and a separate, deadly, "last resort" venom:

Scorpions don't bother to waste venom killing a victim if they don't have to. Instead they use a prevenom that causes extreme pain, resorting to the deadlier version only when necessary, researchers have discovered.

A team led by entomologist Bruce D. Hammock of the University of California, Davis, was researching the possibility of an anti-venom for scorpions when they discovered that the stinging creatures produced two kinds of venom.

Although I find "anti-venom" perfectly intuitive — that's what I would've called it — the "correct" term is "antivenin" — for reasons unknown. (Similarly, inflammation of a tendon is not "tendonitis" but "tendinitis". Sigh.)

When first confronted by a threat the scorpion produces a clear liquid on its stinger, Hammock said. The more deadly venom, a thick liquid, "like a milkshake," is produced later, if the threat continues.

It's a clever strategy, Hammock explained, because the deadly true venom uses a lot of proteins and peptides that are costly for the scorpion to make.

So instead it tries to get by with a faster acting and more painful toxin that doesn't kill, but is easier to make.

The findings are reported in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The first scorpion weapon, what Hammock calls a pretoxin, gets its kick largely from potassium salts that block receptors in animal cells, rapidly causing severe pain.

Salt in the wounds...

Fly UI

Clever. Disturbingly clever. The Fly UI invites being peed on:

I have seen one of the finest instances of user interface design ever, and I saw it in the men's room at Schipol airport in Amsterdam.

In each of the urinals, there is a little printed blue fly. It looks a lot like a real fly, but it's definitely iconic - you're not supposed to believe it's a real fly. It's printed near the drain, and slightly to the left.

I asked a user interface designer I knew at Nortel about this, who happened to be Dutch and who was familiar with this particular piece of toilet technology. And he told me that washrooms are much cleaner when these flies are there. Presumably because they encourage, in a very subtle way, good aim.

Now I love this kind of interface, because it's so psychologically clever. If they had put big circular targets, and arrows with a little printed message "pee here!" (like it would probably be if anybody ever tried such a thing in America), it would backfire. A certain percentage of men would deliberately try to disobey this instruction.

But this innocuous little fly just invites being peed upon, if such a thing makes any sense, but in a non-insistent, gentle, and entirely effective way. If you're the user interface specialist Donald Norman, I suppose you'd say the fly affords being peed on.

This is particularly funny if you've read Norman's The Design of Everyday Things.

DVD Menu Design

I can't believe how useless — pretty but useless — most DVD menus are, and Don Norman, guest columnist on Alertbox, agrees with me in his (year-old) column, DVD Menu Design:

Designers of DVDs have failed to profit from the lessons of previous media: Computer software, Internet web pages, and even WAP phones. As a result, the DVD menu structure is getting more and more baroque, less and less usable, less pleasurable, less effective.

I thought I had it bad navigating through multiple menus just to get to the next episode of Buffy:

Memento, a fascinating movie, has a website-like presentation, filled with hidden words and hyperjumps to tantalizingly vague images that move about the screen. In theory, this is sophisticated hypertext, exploring the story subtleties in a non-linear fashion that mirrors the time distortion of the film. But the treatment does not live up to the theory. First, the film is actually linear, so the text fights the story it is trying to enhance. D