Science & Technology – Page 20 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Guest Blogger

VIETNAMESE RHINO LOST FOREVER…

A White Rhino calf with it's mother. Javan Rhino's are very similar in apperance but have smaller, more rounded horns.

Sadly, these beautiful creatures are never again to be seen in the country of Vietnam.

The Javan Rhino has been hunted to extinction by illegal poaching.

You hear about species being added to the Endangered Species list all the time, but when a particular animal is crossed off that list and it’s NOT because they’ve grown in number and are now safe, it’s a sad day for all of mankind.

The BBC News writes:

A critically endangered species of rhino is now extinct in Vietnam, according to a report by conservation groups.

The WWF and the International Rhino Foundation said the country’s last Javan rhino was probably killed by poachers, as its horn had been cut off.

Experts said the news was not a surprise, as only one sighting had been recorded in Vietnam since 2008.

Fewer than 50 individuals are now estimated to remain in the wild.

“It is painful that despite significant investment in Vietnamese rhino conservation, efforts failed to save this unique animal, ” said WWF’s Vietnam director Tran Thi Minh Hien.

“Vietnam has lost part of its natural heritage.”

One of the few pictures of a Javan Rhino caught on a trap cam.

These animals are amazing, intelligent, and this should never be allowed to happen to anything else, ever again.

This is just so sad. I know that the only reason we’re hearing about this particular animal is because the rhino is one of the larger mammals on Earth, and I know there are tons more creatures that disappear from that list every year that we never hear of…

….and that’s NOT ok.

WOMAN HAS AGED 50 YEARS IN ONLY 5!

Not sure why they couldn’t dress her up a bit. Maybe, put her in a nice dress or something for the newer photo.

Either way, Nguyen Thi Phuong of Vietnam has an unfortunately severe allergic reaction to seafood that has caused her to skin to make her look dramtically older than she actually is.

Thankfully, she has this man that truly loves her for her and has stuck be her side ever since they were married years ago.

The Daily Mail writes:

These pictures may look like an attractive woman in her 20s and her grandmother. But they are said to be the same person – apparently taken just days apart.

The young Vietnamese woman at the centre of the improbable medical case, Nguyen Thi Phuong, claims the transformation may have come about because of an extreme allergy to seafood.

Nguyen, 26, says she developed this puffy face and sagging skin in 2008 but was too poor to seek treatment. Earlier this month, doctors said they would examine her free of charge.

Nguyen’s husband, carpenter Thanh Tuyen, insists the story is true and his love has not faded for his once-beautiful wife.

She has always worn wear a mask in public to hide her appearance from prying eyes, but she has now sought help from doctors to see if they can reverse the ‘ageing’ effect.

Displaying photos of a beautiful 21-year-old woman on her wedding day in 2006, Mrs Nguyen said: ‘Five years ago, I was rather pretty and not so ugly like this, right?’

Mrs Nguyen believes her condition was caused by a life-long allergy to seafood.

She said she had suffered a particularly bad reaction in 2008. ‘I was really itchy all over my body. I had to scratch even while sleeping.’

SPOKE LIKE YODA OUR ANCESTORS DID

According to a new study of the history of human language, it turns out our ancestors of long ago actually spoke the way Master Yoda does in a movie series you might be familiar with, Star Wars.

Does George Lucas know something we don’t?

…probably not.

New Scientist writes:

What form did the first human language take? According to some linguists, all known languages descend from a proto-language, perhaps dating back to the first behaviourally modern humans 50,000 years ago. But little else is known about how our ancestors spoke.

Now two maverick linguists say they have clues. Merritt Ruhlen of Stanford University in California, and Murray Gell-Mann, at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico created a family tree for 2200 languages, living and dead, based on how they use similar sounds for the same meanings. Most modern languages use subject-verb-object sentences: “I see the dog”, while most dead ones, such as Latin, go subject-object-verb – “I the dog see”.

On Ruhlen and Gell-Mann’s tree, subject-verb-object languages always descend from subject-object-verb languages, but never the other way around. “This tells us that the putative ancestral language had subject-object-verb word order,” says Ruhlen. However, mainstream linguists are dubious about the tree’s validity.

Read similar stories at newscientist.com

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Guest Blogger

SPOOKY SPIRIT OR SPIRIT SPOOF?

This is one where we want our reader’s to give some input and see what you think about this kind of thing. Do you think it’s real? Can you explain this? Do you have the ability and know-how to make something like this of your own? Give us some feedback and let us here at The Museum Of The Weird know what you think!

BIGFOOT PHOTOGRAPHED IN RUSSIA?!

Now this is news! We finally got ourselves a Bigfoot!

…well, on some decent quality film at least!

Here are a number of high-res photos taken in Russia just weeks ago. These are some the newest and best “Bigfoot” photos around. Have a look!

Here is the link to the original story and photos but, it’s in Russian, so use Google Translate if needed to help read it.

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Guest Blogger

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.”

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.

WORLD’S SCARIEST INSECT GETS AN UPGRADE!

I was already terrified of these things, then they go and grow HUGE jaws/fangs out of nowhere? NOT fair.

Live Science writes:

A giant male wasp with jaws that, when open, are longer than its front legs was discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, researchers announced last week.

Researchers called the shiny black wasp, which is about 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) long, the “Komodo dragon” of the wasp family.

“Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male’s front legs,” said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohard Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis. “I don’t know how it can walk.”

BIG TOE FOR A THUMB? WHY NOT?

Incredibly awesome surgery skills going to work here! This man lost his thumb and was able to have doctors use his big toe replace it. I mean, they do look a lot alike to begin with so that’s a plus. I wish this man good luck and a speedy recovery!

BBC News writes:

James Byrne, 29, from Fishponds severed the thumb on his left hand last December while sawing through wood. After an attempt to re-attach his damaged thumb failed, plastic surgeons at Frenchay Hospital transplanted his left big toe to his hand.

Surgeon Umraz Khan said: “The loss of the toe is not as disabling as losing a thumb, so the loss outweighs the gain.”

Mr Byrne said: “Mr Khan re-attached my thumb but it had been badly damaged and although we tried everything, including leeches, to get the blood flowing again it didn’t take.

“Mr Khan said to me ‘You will have a thumb even if I have to take your toe’. I thought he was joking, but he was serious and nine months later here it is. The aesthetics of it don’t bother me, “I am just happy that it works, my work as a paver would have been destroyed without the use of my hand because I couldn’t pick up a brick without a thumb but now I hope I can be back at work in a few months.”