Curious
Times No. 361
August 10, 2006
OOOOOMMMMMM MY GOD WE’RE GETTING BOMBED!
Great news! The endless wars in the Middle East will soon be over
thanks to yogic flyers who are planning to build a “shield
of invincibility” around Israel. A retired colonel from the
Israeli army is spearheading this latest plan which hopes to bring
enough yogic flyers to the middle east in order to bring peace
to the region once and for all. This scheme is based upon the
mathematics of Trancendental Meditation, which claims that if
a number of people equal to the square root of one percent of
a country’s population can all meditate together, they will
affect the collective consciousness of the area enough to end
all war. Based on that logic, the Israeli contingent of yogic
flyers needs about 265 people to build what they call a “shield
of invincibility” around their country. So far, 20 are on
board... Good luck! (Yahoo
News)
STILL THINK YOUR JOB SUCKS?
India’s Medical Council will be investigating three doctors
who were caught on film offering to amputee the healthy limbs
of beggars in order to “help” them get more donations
from passerbys. The bizarre scenes were secretly filmed by the
CNN-IBN news channel as part of their attempt to expose an India-wide
network of what they call “beggar mafia dons” who force
beggars to hand over the money they earn on their turf. According
to this report the mafia routinely maims beggars in order to maximize
revenue. On one of the filmed scenes a doctor asks for 10,000
rupees (approximately $215) to amputate a lower leg from an otherwise
healthy beggar. He then suggests chopping three fingers from the
man’s hand because, he advises him, “if there are two
beggars in front of you and one of them is lame, you will give
the money to the lame beggar.” (Reuters)
THE REAL REASON SCIENCE GEEKS ARE SO SMART
Experiments at the University of Vienna have discovered that sharing
a bed reduces brain power in men. Women don’t seem to have
the same problem, but men who were tested in mental agility tests
scored far poorer after sharing their bed with a partner than
when they slept alone. The effect was noticeable regardless of
whether or not the men had sex during the night. (The
Daily Mail)
IT’S OFFICIAL: OLD MARRIED PEOPLE ARE BORING
The previous story reminded me of research carried out a few years
ago by a psychologist in New Zealand who studied the lives of
280 great scientists and found that over two-thirds of them made
their greatest contributions to science before the age of 30.
After more number-crunching he discovered that great scientists
who got married saw an immediate and substantial decline in their
creativity. "Scientists rather quickly desist (from their
careers) after their marriage, while unmarried scientists continue
to make great scientific contributions later in their lives,"
said Dr Satoshi Kanazawa. His research found similar effects on
the creative output of married musicians, painters and writers.
Most interestingly, the mind-numbing effects of marriage also
hinders criminals, who tend to stop committing crimes after tying
the knot, whereas criminals of a similar age who remain single
continue in their lives of crime. The doctor theorizes that there
is a "single psychological mechanism" which is responsible
for both the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory
and to gain the attention of women. (ABC
News)
YOUR
DISEASE IS HIDING UNDER ALL YOUR FAT
As if you don’t have enough medical concerns if you are overweight,
a new report in Radiology Journal has found that increasing numbers
of Americans are too fat to fit into X-ray machines and are not
receiving a proper diagnosis of their conditions. Not only are
many Americans too large to fit into medical scanning devices,
but the ultrasound waves are unable to penetrate through large
amounts of fatty tissues and so are unable to create an accurate
image. According to this report, the number of overweight patients
who were unable to fit into X-ray machines has doubled in the
past 15 years. (BBC)
THE FUTURE IS PHAT
Speaking of fat, among the many predictions tossed around at last
year’s convention of the World Future Society was the news
from Thomas T. Samaras, a science and medical researcher from
San Diego, who claimed that based on current trends, 100 percent
of Americans will be obese within the next 100 years. (Milwaukee
Journal Sentinal)
GO LOSE YOUR SHIRT
Hurry up and get your soon-to-be-naked ass over to London so you
can help set a new world record at the World Strip Poker Championship.
Yes, what started out as an April Fool’s prank from the gambling
site PaddyPower.com has turned into a real event thanks to overwhelming
interest from folks who want to play strip poker for cash. So
on Aug. 19 at the Cafe Royal Casino in London, 200 entrants will
compete for the £10,000 prize and the not-yet-coveted “Golden
Fig Leaf” trophy. Get yourself all in at StripPoker.PaddyPower.com.
I-READ-IT-ON-THE-INTERNET-SO-IT-MUST-BE-TRUE FACT OF THE WEEK
People who eat popcorn at movies are three times more likely to
cry during the film than non-popcorn eaters.
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