October 21, 2008
Don't try this at home
Banjo player Eddie Adcock recently had brain surgery where surgeons installed deep brain stimulator electrodes to control a tremor in his right hand. Patients are sometimes kept awake during brain surgery to interact with the surgeon and help guide the procedure. In Adcock's case, he played the banjo as the surgeon worked.Full story, link, and video at BoingBoing.net.
October 20, 2008
Hot baby food?
"Hot" as in "stolen" -- I had no idea:
A store owner in the Wanskuck neighborhood is accused of paying people to steal cans of baby formula and other items from major retailers for resale in his own store.From the Providence Journal.Baby formula is one of the hottest items shoplifted from retailers -- so much that some investigators have dubbed it "liquid gold" because it's expensive and easy to resell on the black market. Nationally, baby formula has become a favorite of organized crime rings, which have been caught fencing millions of dollars in baby formula for resale at other stores or online auctions.
The Providence police say this is the first time that they've caught a store owner allegedly hiring people to steal the items for stocking on his own shelves.
Dinosaur dance floor
Scientists have identified an amazing collection of dinosaur footprints on the Arizona-Utah border in the US.From the BBC.There are so many prints - more than 1,000 - that geologists have dubbed the site "a dinosaur dance floor".
Located within the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, the marks were long thought simply to be potholes gouged out of the rock by years of erosion.