2012 – Page 9 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on September 16, 2012 by MOTW Admin

SHARK HELPS MAN LOST AT SEA FIND SAFETY

Did a 6ft shark save a man, or try to eat him?

A man lost at sea for over 15 weeks claims that a shark, ignoring its years and years and years of evolutionary instincts, decided to nudge the little wooden raft he was on to safety instead of bumping him off for a tasty treat.

Sky News writes:

A lost fisherman who drifted at sea for 15 weeks, sleeping next to his dead brother-in-law, was eventually helped to safety – by a shark.

Toakai Teitoi was stuck on a 15ft wooden boat for more than 100 days after he ran out of fuel and the vessel drifted deep into the Pacific.

The 41-year-old Kiribati policeman relived his harrowing voyage after a fishing boat eventually picked him up and took him to Majuro in the Marshall Islands.

The father-of-six told of sleeping with the body of his brother-in-law who died during the ordeal, suffering severe dehydration.

And he said it was only after the intervention of a circling shark that he was eventually rescued.

Mr Teitoi’s ordeal began on May 27 after he had flown from his home island of Maiana to the Kiribati capital of Tarawa to be sworn in as a policeman.

Instead of flying home he decided to join his brother-in-law Lelu Falaile, 52, on what was supposed to be a two-hour sea journey back to Maiana.

But after stopping to fish along the way and sleeping overnight, they woke the following day to find they had drifted out of sight of Maiana and ran out of fuel.

“We had food, but the problem was we had nothing to drink,” he said.

As dehydration took hold, Mr Teitoi, a Catholic, said he turned to prayer as it gave him strength. But Mr Falaile’s health began failing and he died on July 4.

“I left him there overnight and slept next to him like at a funeral,” Mr Teitoi said. He buried his brother-in-law at sea the next morning.

Only a day after Mr Falaile passed away a storm blew into the area and rained for several days allowing Mr Teitoi to fill two five-gallon containers with water.

“There were two choices in my mind at the time. Either someone would find me or I would follow my brother-in-law. It was out of my control.”

He continued to pray regularly and on the morning of September 11 caught sight of a fishing boat in the distance but the crew were unable to see him.

Dejected, he did what he had done most days, curling up under a small covered area in the bow to stay out of the tropical sun.

Mr Teitoi said he woke in the afternoon to the sound of scratching and looked overboard to see a six-foot shark circling the boat and bumping the hull.

When the shark had his attention it swam off.

“He was guiding me to a fishing boat. I looked up and there was the stern of a ship and I could see crew with binoculars looking at me.”

WORLD’S FIRST FILM FOOTAGE EVER IN COLOR

The world's first film footage in color dates back to 1901!

We certainly take for granted all the luxuries we have in a world today but, things were very, very different not too long ago. Something as simple as color on our tv screen seems like something that better be working right these days, although when color was first introduced to film, the world changed forever.

Check it out:

Sky News writes:

The footage, made by cinematic pioneer Edward Turner in around 1901, was found in the archives of the National Media Museum in Bradford and with the help of experts at the BFI National Archive was transformed into watchable digital files.

It includes footage of a macaw, soldiers marching through London and a group of children believed to be Turner’s young family.

Film historians had long thought Turner’s technique, which involved filming through red, green and blue filters and superimposing the frames on top of each other, was a failure.

The inventor patented his idea in 1899 with his financial backer Frederick Lee but died four years later aged 29 before he could take full advantage of it.

The museum’s curator of cinematography Michael Harvey said: “We sat in the editing suite entranced as full-colour shots made 110 years ago came to life on the screen.

“The image of the goldfish was stunning: its colours were so lifelike and subtle.

“Then there was a macaw with brilliantly coloured plumage, a brief glimpse of soldiers marching and, most interestingly, young children dressed in Edwardian finery.

“I realised we had a significant find on our hands.

“We had proved that the Lee and Turner process worked.”

The footage will go on show at the National Media Museum in Bradford from Thursday.

ANOTHER WORLD’S TALLEST: MEET ZEUS THE GREAT DANE

Zeus, a 3-year old Great Dane from Michigan is now the world's tallest dog!

On the heels of yesterday ‘World’s Tallest Mohawk’ Post, I proudly present to you another ‘World’s Tallest’, Zeus is officially the world’s tallest dog!

Yahoo News writes:

A Great Dane called Zeus who towers 2.2 metres (7 feet 4 inches) on his hind legs is named the tallest dog ever recorded in the latest Guinness Book of World Records launched on Thursday.

The giant canine from Michigan in the United States eats an entire 14-kilogram (30-pound) bag of food every day and weighs in at 70.3 kilograms, the 57th edition of the global records book says.

Measuring 1.12 metres (44 inches) from paw to withers — the point between the shoulder blades at which the official height of a four-legged mammal is judged — he is officially the tallest dog ever recorded, the volume claims.

‘Guinness World Records 2013’ says the humongous hound breaks the record of Giant George, another Great Dane who is one inch shorter.

“The most common thing people ask is: ‘Is that a dog or a horse?'” says the three-year-old’s owner Denise.

“We had to get a van to be able to transport him, oh, and if he steps on your foot he leaves bruises!”

The book — the latest edition of the world’s best-selling copyrighted series — also names Oklahoma Sam, a four-year-old American Mammoth Jackstock, as the tallest living donkey on the planet.

Measuring 1.55 metres (5 feet 1 inch) from hoof to withers, she dwarfs the average common donkey (80 centimetres, 2 feet 8 inches) and the average for her own larger breed (1.22 metres, 4 feet).

The four-year-old record-breaker lives in Watsonville, California, where she shares her one acre of land with a macaw, duck, goose and four cats.

WORLD’S TALLEST MOHAWK

Kazuhiro Watanabe at Washington Square Park in New York

Some people will go to great lengths to have their own little piece of human history. This fashion designer from Japan felt that 3 feet and 8.6 inches was the length he needed to go to get his, and it worked!

The Huffington Post writes:

It took three cans of hairspray, one large bottle of gel — and, of course, 15 years to grow it out — but Kazuhiro Watanabe has made history.

The Japanese designer has shattered the Guinness World Record by more than a foot with his 3-foot, 8.6-inch mohawk.

You can ask why he did it, but the answer is just too obvious: “I really wanted to be in the Guinness World Record book,” he told The Huffington Post through a translator.

Watanabe and a hairdresser were in New York’s Washington Square Park today to launch the Guinness World Records 2013edition.

“I considered trying to set the record for drinking most tabasco sauce,” said the 5-foot-7 Watanabe, who usually wears clips to keep his hair down.

Without gel, his hair reaches to his knees.

FUNNY LOOKING MOTORCYCLE YOU CAN’T TIP OVER

This is the world’s first gyroscopically stabilized cycle and can't fall over.

Here’s a weird little guy that might be changing the face of transportation forever.

Tech Crunch writes:

The recent influx of both high- and low-end EVs and electric motorcycles have shown promise, but current battery technology is still limiting, and the cost of entry is far too high with the benefits of switching from petrol-powered vehicles not being quite as obvious or apparent in the near term.

Now imagine a vehicle that’s smaller than a Smart Car, nearly a third of the price of a Nissan Leaf ($32,500), safer than a motorcycle with a range capacity that just lets you drive and won’t ever tip over? What you get is Lit Motors‘ C-1, the world’s first gyroscopically stabilized, two-wheeled all-electric vehicle, which launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco today. Oh, and it will talk to your smartphone and the cloud. Did I mention that you can’t tip this thing over? (I’ve tried.)

Founder, President, and CTO Danny Kim and his team at Lit Motors have built and approached the C-1 much differently than others have with their respective EVs. Instead of Frankensteining existing technologies, the C-1 has been designed, machined, and built by hand from the ground up in San Francisco. They’ve not only created something unique based on proprietary technology, but have also put together a package that appeals to the “cool kids” and the price-conscious in both America and abroad.

“We aim to be the future of personal transportation,” Kim told me. “By taking our vehicles to the mass market quickly and internationally, we will ease traffic congestion, decrease fuel use, reduce CO2 emissions, create 2,000 to 10,000 green jobs, and allow people to get around quickly and efficiently.”

FEMA PREPARES AMERICA FOR ZOMBIES

Are you prepared for the zombie-apocalypse?

Seems like everyone is on the Zombie bandwagon these days, even FEMA is getting together an emergency plan for the fabled z-day. You know, just in case.

The Bellingham Herald writes:

No one in emergency preparedness circles really believes the dead will rise and come looking for living people to devour — that weird face-eating incident in Florida aside.

But they do see zombies — the moaning, flesh-eating stars of a plethora of horror novels, comics and movies — as a brain-grabbing way to get people to think about preparing for large-scale disasters.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency became the latest federal government agency to shamble onto the zombie bandwagon, following in the footsteps of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency that captured the hearts of internet geeks everywhere when it unveiled its “Zombie Apocalypse” preparedness page and social media campaign last year.

“We need something that gets their attention, so I applaud that,” said Richland Fire Chief Grant Baynes, who is involved in local disaster planning.

Baynes likened getting the public engaged in emergency planning to “trying to sell an umbrella on a sunny day.”

In a place that’s relatively disaster-free — the Tri-Cities doesn’t get catastrophic hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or floods as other parts of the United States — residents can become complacent and forget that a flu pandemic or some other disaster might be around the corner.

Baynes said it’s good that people feel safe, but he’d also like them to be mindful that life is unpredictable.

“Preparedness isn’t just a technical thing,” he said. “It’s mental. It’s an attitude. It’s that same attitude that says, ‘I know there is that potential, so I’ll buy this umbrella now while I have the opportunity.’ “

DID KING TUT HAVE EPILEPSY?

The mysteries surrounding one of the most famous pharaoh’s death are a constant facet of investigation by archeologists and historians from around the world and this time, they turned up with some new information!

New Scientist writes:

TUTANKHAMUN’S mysterious death as a teenager may finally have been explained. And the condition that cut short his life may also have triggered the earliest monotheistic religion, suggests a new review of his family history.

Since his lavishly furnished, nearly intact tomb was discovered in 1922, the cause of Tutankhamun’s death has been at the centre of intense debate. There have been theories of murder, leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria, sickle-cell anaemia, a snake bite – even the suggestion that the young king died after a fall from his chariot.

But all of these theories have missed one vital point, says Hutan Ashrafian, a surgeon with an interest in medical history at Imperial College London. Tutankhamun died young with a feminised physique, and so did his immediate predecessors.

Paintings and sculptures show that Smenkhkare, an enigmatic pharaoh who may have been Tutankhamun’s uncle or older brother, and Akhenaten, thought to have been the boy king’s father, both had feminised figures, with unusually large breasts and wide hips. Two pharaohs that came before Akhenaten – Amenhotep III and Tuthmosis IV – seem to have had similar physiques. All of these kings died young and mysteriously, says Ashrafian. “There are so many theories, but they’ve focused on each pharaoh individually.”

Ashrafian found that each pharaoh died at a slightly younger age than his predecessor, which suggests an inherited disorder, he says. Historical accounts associated with the individuals hint at what that disorder may have been.

“It’s significant that two [of the five related pharaohs] had stories of religious visions associated with them,” says Ashrafian. People with a form of epilepsy in which seizures begin in the brain’s temporal lobe are known to experience hallucinations and religious visions, particularly after exposure to sunlight. It’s likely that the family of pharaohs had a heritable form of temporal lobe epilepsy, he says.

This diagnosis would also account for the feminine features. The temporal lobe is connected to parts of the brain involved in the release of hormones, and epileptic seizures are known to alter the levels of hormones involved in sexual development. This might explain the development of the pharaohs’ large breasts. A seizure might also be to blame for Tutankhamun’s fractured leg, says Ashrafian (Epilepsy & Behavior, doi.org/h8s).

200+ ANCIENT WARRIORS FOUND 2,000 YEARS LATER

Ancient warriors have been found frozen in a bog for 2,000 years.

What seems like a cool set-up for an action-horror movie “An ancient army of warriors has been uncovered, frozen in time in a bog of Denmark with weapons and shields intact” except unlike what would happen in the movies, the skeletons lie in their graves silently, only offering a wealth of knowledge and a rare glimpse into our past.Ah… oh well, maybe the next army found buried underground will be a bit more scary.

Discovery News writes:

The remains of hundreds of warriors have resurfaced from a Danish bog, suggesting that a violent event took place at the site about 2,000 years ago.

Discovered in the Alken Enge wetlands near Lake Mossø in East Jutland, Denmark, the skeletal remains tell the story of an entire army’s apparent sacrifice.

Following work done in 2009, archaeologists have so far unearthed the hacked bones of more than 200 individuals.

Skeletal remains include a fractured skull and a sliced thighbone. An abundance of well preserved axes, spears, clubs and shields have been also unearthed.

“It’s clear that this must have been a quite far-reaching and dramatic event that must have had profound effect on the society of the time,” project manager Mads Kähler Holst, professor of archaeology at Aarhus University, said.

Showing distinct weapon marks, the Iron Age bones can be found all over a large area.

“We’ve done small test digs at different places in a 40-hectare (100-acre) wetlands area, and new finds keep emerging,” Ejvind Hertz of Skanderborg Museum, who is directing the dig, said.

In fact, the find is so massive that the archaeologists aren’t counting on being able to excavate all of it.

REMOTELY-CONTROLLED CYBORG COCKROACHES ARE A REAL THING

A simple setup and this roach can be accurately remote-controlled.

I feel like whenever a big giant roach crosses my path, it comes right at me as if it’s being remotely controlled by someone who has learned my deepest, darkest fears and is using them to torment and ‘bug’ me. Well, it seems I may be right!

Scientists from North Carolina have developed remotely-controlled roaches, not to torment me, more like to help find and save survivors of natural disasters.

National Geographic writes:

The sight of a cockroach scuttling across the floor makes most of us shudder, but in a disaster, roaches might prove to be our new best friends.

Cockroaches that are surgically transformed into remote-controlled “biobots” could help locate earthquake survivors in hard-to-access areas. This new video from North Carolina State University’s iBionics Laboratory shows how the lab’s enhanced roaches can be steered with surprising precision.

To learn more, Amanda Fiegl spoke to assistant professor of engineering Alper Bozkurt, who led the roach biobot project.

What exactly is a biobot? Is it like a cyborg, a combination of a living organism and a robot?

“Biobot” is short for “biological robot.” It is the first stage of creating what we would call an insect cyborg.

Currently, we can steer these roaches remotely and make them stop, go, and turn. If we can have them interact independently with the technologies we’ve surgically implanted in them, then they will become true cyborgs.

Is it hard to perform surgery on a cockroach?

No, it’s quite simple. Insects can be anesthetized by putting them in the fridge for a few hours—the cold basically makes them hibernate, so they don’t move. Then you just need tweezers and a microscope.

We do a simple surgery to insert the electrodes in the roaches’ antennae and cerci [rear sensors]. We also use medical-grade epoxy to glue tiny magnets to their backs, so that we can just snap on the backpack containing the wireless control system.

Your paper mentions that these biobots could help rescue earthquake survivors. How, exactly?

Their backpacks can carry a locator beacon and a tiny microphone to pick up cries for help. Of course, a human operator or computer still has to be listening and steering them. Our biobots are basically just beasts of burden. They could also carry a camera or any other kind of miniaturized sensor one can imagine.

These experiments were done in a very controlled laboratory environment, on a flat surface, so we are now in the process of building test-beds that mimic some real-life scenarios. I don’t think it will be very long before we can deploy them to actually help rescue people.

Read more of the Q & A at news.nationalgeographic.com

Posted on September 7, 2012 by MOTW Admin

‘GENIUS APE’ STUMPS SCIENTISTS

Natasha, shown above, has a wide range of abilities her average chimp-mates do not.

The gap between man and monkey seems to be growing smaller all the time, whether the humans are getting dumber or the apes are getting smarter has still yet to be decided.

Discovery News writes:

Certain apes appear to be much smarter than others, with at least one chimpanzee now called “exceptional” when compared to other chimps.

The standout chimp, an adult female in her 20s named Natasha, scored off the charts in a battery of tests. The findings, published in the latest Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, suggest that geniuses exist among non-humans, but that no one attribute constitutes intelligence.

Instead, a perfect storm of abilities seems to come together to create the Einsteins of the animal kingdom. Natasha’s keepers at the Ngamba Island chimpanzee sanctuary in Uganda knew she was special even before the latest study.

“The caretakers named Natasha as the smartest chimpanzee, precisely the same chimpanzee that our tests had revealed to be exceptional,” study authors Esther Herrmann and Josep Call of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology wrote.

“All three of the most experienced caretakers included Natasha in their lists (of the most intelligent chimps),” they added.

Natasha has made headlines over the months for her attention-grabbing antics. For instance, she repeatedly escaped her former enclosure, surrounded by an electric fence. She did this by tossing branches at the fence until she didn’t see a spark, letting her know that the power was off.

She also learned how to tease humans, beckoning them to throw food her way, only to spray the unsuspecting person with water.