Casiello Family Weblog

(via Fark)

The NCAA has ruled that division 1 athletes can’t participate in Hoopfest – a 3-on-3 basketball tournament in Spokane, WA, because they give away T-shirts to the winning teams.

Gaah.

(via devnull)

I’ve been trying to get Verizon to hook up my DSL for, oh, a while. now. Hopefully, I won’t be waiting as long as this poor guy.

At least I know from the get-go that it’s going to be my kids, not me, using it once it’s here.

(via devnull)

The Air Force is testing a new high-energy laser weapon (in a simulator), but they had to add sound-effects, since the real weapon doesn’t make noise, and “pilots don’t know when the weapon has fired if it doesn’t make a noise” according to one of the developers, who added “We got the noise for this one from Tactical Air Systems. I think they got it from ‘Star Trek’ or something, but I’m not sure. You’d think a bunch of nerds like us would know that.”

Uh, oh, I think I smell an MPAA lawsuit!

(via Dave Barry, I think, but don’t quote me)

CurveBall

(via New Scientist)

The broken bone is scanned, a 3-D computer model is built, and patches can be ‘printed’ by depositing layers of a new polymer, strong enough to bear weight. These patches are abosorbed by the body as new bone grows in to heal.

(via New Scientist)

The Aramaic inscription, translated to “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” on a stone box used for burial of bones was added in modern times.

Further suspicion was raised because of the inscription on the back: “Dad always liked you best.”

The BBC reports that eating three bowls of Miso soup a day could reduce breast cancer risk 40%.

(via Nature.com)

There are lots of palindrobe gene sequences on the Y chromosome. Coincidence, or a defense mechanism?

The Y chromosome’s mutation rate is thousands of times that of other chromosomes. Maybe that’s why so many of the X-Men are, well, men.

Dave Barry points to this site, specifically the Insaniquarium game.

(via devnull)

I wonder if Dubya would fall off of this?

(via Dave Barry Oh, just go read his blog yourself, wouldya?)

A fun Flash copter game

(via Dave Barry)

http://www.powergenitalia.com/

(via Lockergnome)

…only 12,000 years ago cavemen could draw better than I can now!

(via New Scientist)

…only to be replaced by ‘see ya later’ 23 million years ago.

A new genetic study suggests that Old Word primates (and thus, later humans) may have stopped relying on pheromone signals because they developed color vision.

(via Dave Barry)

It turns out cows breathe out a *lot* of methane, enough to account for 20% of the methane in the atmosphere – about 100-150 gallons per cow, per day.

Biochemist Stephen Ragsdale at U-Nebraska is trying to develop a feed additive to reduce the problem. Besides reducing atmosperic methane, this may also save farmers money – about 16% of what cattle eat ends up just being used to produce methane.

Maybe they could just fit the cows with snorkels, and harvest the methane for power production. Gary Larsen, where are you when we need you?!

(from Nature.com)

According to a Spanish researcher, the universe may not rip itself to shreds after all. We’ve known for several years that the expansion of the unverse is accelerating, the recent ‘Big Rip’ theory says this will end in the galaxies, planets, and eventually subatomic particles themselves will be torn to pieces by the ever-increasing pressure of ‘dark energy’. But maybe not.

Whew!

With apologies to Dave Barry, I’ll conjecture that the galaxies are accelerating away from us just to get away from this guy.

(via APoD)

A montage of the May 31 solar eclipse in which a hot-air balloon showed up in some of the shots.

Gee, two astronomy posts in one day. I’ll hafta find something about cows soon.

(via devnull)

The Earth and Moon as seen from Mars. From the Nasa site: This is the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that actually shows our home as a planetary disk.

Robert Burns seems appropriate here:

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An’ foolish notion
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us
An’ ev’n Devotion

— from To A Louse On seeing one on a Lady’s bonnet at Church.