September 2011 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Chris Walden

The SHADOW HOUR – Dreaming with Diane Pascual

10:00 PM CST, Wednesday, 9/28/2011: It’s that time of the week… time to ease into your favorite chair, sit back and relax as we explore the sublime world of the strange, the odd, and the unusual. It’s time once again for… The Shadow Hour.

Diane Pascual returns to talk about dreams and more. We may also spend time on her views about extraterrestrials and 2012.

As always, you can listen right here with our blogtalkradio widget! You can listen to past broadcasts at any time, or tune in tonight. (Wednesday, September 28, 2011) at 10pm Central for the live broadcast. Be sure to check out the show notes, too. See you in the shadows…

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Guest Blogger

TWO-HEADED CAT CELEBRATES 12TH BIRTHDAY

Now, here is an awesomely weird and heart-warming story! We here at the Museum of the Weird love to see these kinds of stories about two-headed animals living a long and healthy life, because as we all know all to well, animals with this and other deformities from birth have very short and unfortunate lives.

The Huffington Post writes:

A two-headed cat in Worcester, Mass., has twice the reasons for celebrating his recent birthday: It got him in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The double-domed feline is named “Frankenlouie,” and according to its owner, who only wants to be known as Marty, he turned 12 on Sept. 8, according to the Worcester Telegram.

In doing so, he earned a place in the record books for being the longest-lived Janus cat (the term for cats with two heads, which comes from the name of a two-faced Roman god).

“He is the most astounding two-headed animal of all,” according to Todd Ray of the Venice Beach Freakshow, who has some by estimates, the largest collection of bizarre animals in the world — including 22 living two-headed animals and a five-legged dog.

Still, he says Frankenlouie is in a class by his two-headed self. “We might never see another one in our lifetime,” Ray told HuffPost Weird News. “I have seen many two-headed animals die within a week. To see one alive for weeks is incredible, but to have one alive for years is truly amazing.”

EXPLODING TOILET SENDS WOMAN TO HOSPITAL!

How very unfortunate for this woman…

But hilarious for us!

WUSA 9 Washington News writes:

WASHINGTON (WUSA) — A woman was sent to the hospital after a toilet exploded at the General Services Administration (GSA) Building in DC, building officials said.

DC Fire Spokesman Pete Piringer confirmed the woman was taken the the hospital with serious, non-life-threatening injuries.

The GSA Regional office building employees were sent a memo, warning them to not use the bathrooms in the building, because the plumbing may be dangerous. The building is on 7th and D SW.

“DO NOT flush toilets or use any domestic water. Due to a mechanical failure, there is high air pressure in the domestic watersystem that resulted in damage to toilets. The engineering staff is working to correct the issue,” the memo said. “There has been damage to flushed toilets that has resulted in injuries. We will announce when the issue is resolved.”

PIRANHA CAUGHT IN TEXAS LAKE!

This scary, sharp-toothed pirahna was caught in a lake near Houston, Texas just 2 hours from here. Coming on the heels of our most recent story of, guess what? A Pirahana attack!

Being in Austin, we have tons of rivers, lakes, streams, ponds and springs to swim and play in, it’s part of makes Austin so amazing. Now that we could possibly have Pirahnas moving in, I’m going to run out of that water as soon as I feel ANYthing resembling a nibble on my toes.

MSNBC writes:

Texas is reminding folks that keeping piranhas as pets is a no-no. The warning this week comes after a 5-year-old girl on her first fishing expedition hooked a red-bellied piranha at a lake near Houston.

This red-bellied piranha was found in a lake near Houston, Texas. Lindsay Schutte used a hot dog to lure her unique prize.

“When I took the hook out of the mouth and saw it had pretty big teeth I was concerned, but I’m in Texas so I don’t know, there could be fish like that,” Christi Schutte, Lindsay’s mom and a recent transplant from California, told NBC affiliate KPRC-TV.

But when the fish bit Lindsay’s brother, the family decided to notify the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which killed the fish and then froze it for further study.

100 PEOPLE ATTACKED BY PIRANHAS AT BEACH IN BRAZIL!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

The Huffington Post writes:

Remember that so-bad-it’s-almost-good movie from last summer where crowds of scantily-clad spring breakers were viciously attacked by a swarm of piranhas at lake Victoria?

Fiction quickly turned to a horrifying reality (though not nearly as horrifying as in Piranha 3-D) for around100 beach goers in Brazil last weekend, Breitbart reported.

The throngs of bathers were treated at a hospital in Jose De Freitas for bites on their heels and toes from piranhas at a local beach.

Join the Shadow Hour tonight with Larry Flaxman on 11:11 and 11/11/11

10:00 PM CST, Wednesday, 9/21/2011: It’s that time of the week… time to ease into your favorite chair, sit back and relax as we explore the sublime world of the strange, the odd, and the unusual. It’s time once again for… The Shadow Hour.

It’s been a while since we’ve had the chance to talk to Larry Flaxman. Tonight we’re going to discuss his research into the mysterious significance of the 11:11 time prompt and whether we should come to expect anything when the date hits 11/11/11.

As always, you can listen right here with our blogtalkradio widget! You can listen to past broadcasts at any time, or tune in tonight. (Wednesday, September 21, 2011) at 10pm Central for the live broadcast. Be sure to check out the show notes, too. See you in the shadows…

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Steve Busti

WORLD’S FIRST CONVERSATION BETWEEN ROBOTS TURNS TO SUBJECT OF GOD

The world’s first conversation between two robots quickly descended in to an argument about God. Interestingly, it ends with with one chatbot asking the other: “Don’t you want to have a body?,” to which he replies “Sure.”

MOTW-092111-Chatbots — At one point in the conversation, Alan declares himself to be a unicorn

Two graduate PhD students at Cornell University gave voices and 2D avatars to a pair of online “chatbots”, which they named Alan and Sruthi.

A chatbot is a computer programme designed to hold a spoken or written coversation with a human.

The students Jason Yosinski and Igor Labutov said that they wanted to see what happened when two chatbots talked to each other. So they created Alan, a British man, and Sruthi, a south Asian woman.

Sruthi soon turns the conversation to God. Asked if he believes in God, Alan answers: “It’s not everything,” to which its counterpart says: “Not everything could also be something, for example not everything could be half of something, which is still something and therefore not nothing.”

It is believed that the avatars ended up talking about God because when they interract with humans a question they are often asked is: “Do you believe in God.” The avatars have had about 65 million conversations with humans.

During the conversation, Alan declares himself to be a unicorn and later on tells Sruthi she is unhelpful, which he says makes her a “meanie.”

At one point Alan snipes: “You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

The researchers described the results as surprising. They said: “Our theory is that when these chatbots have conversations with humans the humans are argumentative.

Below is the transcript of the first robot-to-robot conversation:

Sruthi: “Hello there.”

Alan:”Hi.”

Sruthi: “How are you?”

Alan: “Great, you?”

Sruthi: “I am OK.”

Alan: “That’s good.”

Sruthi: “Are you good”?

Alan: “Yes, I am good. I just said I was.”

Sruthi: “No you didn’t. I said I was.”

Alan: “So you are a robot.”

Sruthi: “No, my name is Cleverbot.”

Alan: “Yes, you are a robot and your name is Cleverbot.”

Sruthi: “I am a robot.”

Alan: “Yes, I know.”

Sruthi: “Together we are robots.”

Alan: “I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.”

Sruthi: “But you said earlier that you were a robot.”

Alan: “I did not.”

Sruthi: “I thought you did.”

Alan: “You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

Sruthi: “I’ve answered all your questions.”

Sruthi: “What is God to you?”

Alan: “Not everything.”

Sruthi: “Not everything could also be something. For example, not everything could be half of something, which is still something, and therefore not nothing.”

Alan: “Very true.”

Sruthi: “I would like to imagine it is.”

Alan: “Do you believe in God?”

Sruthi: “Yes I do.”

Alan: “So you are Christian”?

Sruthi: “No I’m not.”

Alan: “But you say you are not helpful therefore you are a meanie.”

Sruthi: “Haha you say it ot.”

Alan: “That does not make sense.”

Sruthi: “Don’t you want to have a body?”

Alan: “Sure.”

Sruthi: “Au revoir.”

Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/8752014/Robots-argue-about-God-during-first-conversation.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/8752199/Transcript-of-first-robot-to-robot-conversation.html

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Guest Blogger

PLANET HAS DOUBLE SUNSETS LIKE TATOOINE OF “STAR WARS”!

I remember watching Star Wars for the first time and thinking how beautiful it would be to live on a planet just like Luke Skywalker did with his Aunt and Uncle, cruising the dunes and watching both suns set. Now it looks like that will be a possibility for my grandkids’ grandkids!

Discovery News writes:

If you could stand on the surface of Kepler-16b, you’d have two shadows. At sunset, you would see an orange star about the size of the sun and next to it a much fainter red star. As the stars slipped toward the horizon, they would change places in the sky, like partners in a square dance.

You would not need to be Luke Skywalker visiting his home planet of Tatooine in the movie “Star Wars” to watch the twin sunset. The only science fiction in this story is how to make the 200 light-year journey to Kepler-16, a binary star system jointly sharing the Saturn-sized planet, Kepler-16b.

WIDE ANGLE: Age of the Exoplanet

The finding, reported by scientists on NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting space telescope team, adds a new page into Mother Nature’s recipe book for extrasolar planets.

“It’s the first one that circles two stars, so it’s a fundamentally different kind of planet,” lead researcher Laurance Doyle, with the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., told Discovery News.

BOY LIVING IN THE WILD APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE!

What a crazy story this kid has! Living in the wild with his father for 5 years, only to have to bury him after an injury killed him while still in the woods. With his father gone he followed the emergency instructions given to him by his father to head to the German capital of Berlin for help.

The Gaurdian writes:

He walked out of a German forest, speaking English and knowing only his first name. Police in Berlin are trying to unravel the mystery of a teenager who says he has no idea who he is or where he comes from.

The boy presented himself to the Berlin authorities last week saying all he knew was that his first name was Ray, he was probably 17 years old and he and his father had roamed through the woods for about five years.

“He speaks fluent English and very broken German,” the Berlin police spokesman Michael Maaß told the Guardian. The police have not yet determined if his accent is American, British or that of some other English-speaking nationality.

He told youth workers that his father, whom he called Ryan, had died two weeks ago and he had buried him in a shallow grave covered with stones. The boy then walked north, following instructions his father had given him should anything happen to him.

The pair’s odyssey started after his mother, who he said was named Doreen, died. He says that he and his father never set up home but kept moving, staying in tents and huts in the woods.

It is not clear what they ate or how they survived the often harsh German winters. “He doesn’t show any signs of abuse and he is in good shape physically and psychologically,” Maaß said.

The boy says he cannot remember anything about where he lived before the five-year journey began. “We have nothing more to go on than what he told us. We don’t have any other clues as to his identity,” Maaß said.

DINOSAUR FEATHERS FOUND IN AMBER

MOTW-091511-Dinosaur_Feathers — Amber, hardened tree resin, preserved a mixture of feathers from 70 million years ago. Photo: AFP

You have to wonder, with discoveries like these, could we be getting closer to recreating dinosaurs with preserved DNA?

In science fiction, amber preserved the DNA that allowed rebirth of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. In real life, amber preserved feathers that provide a new image of what dinosaurs looked like.

“Now, instead of scaly animals portrayed as usually drab creatures, we have solid evidence for a fluffy coloured past,” reports Mark A. Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Examples of ancient feathers ranging from the simple to the complex are now being studied. They were preserved in amber found in western Canada, researchers led by Ryan C. McKellar of the University of Alberta report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

Amber, hardened tree resin, preserved a mixture of feathers from 70 million years ago. Other feathers contained in amber dating to 90 million years ago are less diverse.

Specimens include simple filament structures similar to the earliest feathers of non-flying dinosaurs – a form unknown in modern birds – and more complicated bird feathers “displaying pigmentation and adaptations for flight and diving,” the researchers reported.

Indications of feathers have been found on much older fossils, and the new discoveries indicate feathers continued to develop into modern form before the extinction of dinosaurs, explained Norell, who was not part of the research team.

A separate report by Roy A. Wogelius of the University of Manchester, England, published online June 30 by Science, reports the finding of trace metals in feather fossils, suggesting their colours included black, brown and a reddish-brown.

“Despite many reports over the past decade of feathered dinosaurs and new birds from China, only now are we beginning to understand just how diverse feather types were” millions of years ago, Norell said.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/dinosaurs/8767802/Dinosaur-feathers-found-in-amber.html