Updating today's headlines every hour of every single day. Well, the interesting ones.
Scientists were able to cure peanut allergies in mice by attaching peanut proteins to the mice's own cells and then putting the cells back in their bodies. This technique also worked with egg allergies. The technique hasn't been tested on humans yet, but at least now mice can enjoy delicious PB&J sandwiches.
Something is rotten in the state of New York. Specifically, upstate. People in the Buffalo area keep crashing their cars into buildings, and nobody can explain it. According to a tally by local news station WVIB, about 17 cars have pummeled into storefronts since August. They even built a handy map and gallery to keep track of all of them. Amherst, NY, has started to enact regulations that would require barriers in front of restaurants to protect from careening cars.
Some of the crashes have been tragic, like when two young men were killed when a car smashed into a grocery store last Saturday, probably due to speeding. Others are pretty harmless, with a lot of people accidentally stepping on the gas instead of the brakes, like when this senior citizen drove through the window of a Wendy's.
Public radio station WBFO talked to a couple experts in storefront crashes (they exist), who confirmed the spate was out of the ordinary.
Locals are clearly a little freaked out. We've been getting nearly-daily email updates from residents on the ever-increasing number of crashes; one commenter on Buffalo's local Topix forum offers darkly, "Something is suspect about these scenarios and reasons…"
[Images via WVIB]
White collar professionals across America are spinning their trackwheels in vain today, the day the Personal Digital Assistants died. Widespread BlackBerry outages in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India reached North America today, leaving thousands of cubicle dwellers in the U.S. and Canada mashing their fingers against microscopic keypads in vain. Messaging and email services are at their worst state in two years. (Apparently there was a big outage back then too? Why do people still use these things?) Globally, BlackBerry's RIM network has suffered disruptions for three days. Meanwhile, I can't get RIM's service update site to load. Is that just me? Anyway, good day to buy stock in Apple.
[Reuters, RIM, images via Wikimedia and Shutterstock]
Texas resident Colleen O'Neal is suing Continental Airlines and two other carriers for a short 2009 flight from College Station, Texas, to Houston that was exceptionally bumpy. Apparently she now has post traumatic stress disorder. Sure, being a plane that's bumping around (especially for two hours) is nerve-wracking, but she got on the plane when there were tornadoes and thunderstorms in the area. Didn't she think this might happen? Also, it's a plane! Things can get bumpy. If O'Neal went on a boat ride and got wet, would she sue for that too?
Apparently now she's too afraid to fly and had hoped to get a job with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but that would have required her to travel by plane. Since she won't be able to do that now, she's suing for lost wages for a job she never had. I always hoped to be an astronaut. Does that mean I can now sue NASA for a trip to the moon?
[Houston Chronicle, image via Getty]
On Monday night a family got so lost inside a 7-acre cornfield maze in Danvers, Massachusetts that they had to call the police to rescue them. The couple was still trapped in the maze at Connors Farm an hour after closing, and when it started getting dark they called the police.
Talk about cheap: A woman named Ma Jei told tourists visiting China’s Zhonghau Castle that she scaled its 70-foot wall to avoid paying the 4 dollar admission fee. The 48-year-old, who stormed the castle without so much as a safety harness, says she has climbed the wall many times in the past, having grown up in the area.
According to reports, several tourists who attempted to mimic Ms. Jei were either injured in the process or had to be rescued by police. “She ran up the wall like a goat and made it look easy,” said an onlooker. “But when people tried it for themselves they saw it wasn’t quite as simple as they thought.”
The worldwide challenge, part of the First Lady’s ongoing “Let’s Move” campaign to whip America’s precious snowflakes into shape, continues until 3 PM today, after which Guiness World Records will review the results and make its decision.
To beat the current record, over 20,425 people must jump jacks for at least one minute.
Of all the stupid things in all the world, a restaurant in Canada is trying to ban men from their God-given right to pee standing up. That's right, the last acceptable (semi-)public display of masculinity is now being brought to it's knees—or rather to its ass on a slimy, germ-filled toilet seat. Sad. And of course this is happening in Canada. Daddy blogger (was there ever a more sissified profession?) Chad Skelton went with his family to Edible Canada and when he went the unisex toilet he discovered that there was a sign placed over the commode instructing men to not pee standing up. It might as well have asked him to cut off his balls, flush them down the toilet, put on a skirt, and run to the multiplex to watch Twilight while applying lip gloss and worrying about who was going to be eliminated next on the Bachelor.
What did you do, Chad? Huh? I bet you sat down, didn't you? Wimp. As Chad points out, the men's bathroom is universally a filthy place and the establishment is just probably trying to keep their lavatory cleanly. If it means that much to them, why not build a separate room for the men? This is the problem with equality. As the roles (and restrooms) for men and women continue to combine women are asked to behave more like men and men more like women. That's fine. I think it's great that guys can show off their sensitive sides and stay at home with the children (and become daddy bloggers!) and women can be more brash and sexual and be the breadwinner. That's advancement! That feminism come alive.
But that doesn't mean that the playing field will ever be entirely level (and it certainly isn't now). Men are still going to behave like men and some of that has to do with our biology. We get to pee standing up. It is an evolutionary imperative and we are going to exercise it. Forever! You can't stop this, and no matter how much you beg and plead, how many signs you put up in all the restrooms in the world, men are going to continue peeing standing up. It's the way we're wired and, we might not have known it until it was taken away, but it's something we're proud of. So, ladies, we promise to do our best to make the world a fairer places for both sexes if you promise to not mess with this one messy behaviour. That's fair, right?
[Source/Image via Shutterstock]
Is the mighty and fabled Abominable Snowman currently, as we speak, right this moment, trouncing around upper Russia, stealing livestock and what not? Well. It's certainly an issue over which experts can disagree. As per widely accepted standards in the world of anthropology and cryptozoology, we can't be certain we've found a mythical creature until a group of tourism-hungry local officials claim to have seen it, or its hair, or at least some tree branches that it broke when it was walking around. By those standards: the Yeti has been found!
Their claim appears to be based on bent branches, a single unclear footprint and a small sample of grey ‘hair', found in a cave.
The administration of the Kemerovo region, where the cave is situated, yesterday announced that ‘indisputable evidence' had been found.
But critics said the expedition was more about making the area a tourist destination than true science.
"This could also, theoretically, be indisputable evidence of an alien landing site," said local Kemerovo officials. "The broken branches could also be consistent with the Loch Ness Monster dragging itself through the underbrush on its annual migration to its secret Siberian hibernation hole. Or, you know, lots of things. What are you into? There's a nice little lodging house right downtown, why don't you come check it out?"
"We also have hookers," they added.
[Daily Mail. Photo: hillary h/ Flickr]
Rumours have been circulating since the singer - who is married to the rapper Jay-Z - appeared on an interview on Australian television in which her bump appeared to collapse as she sat down. But a spokesman for Beyonce said the accusations were "stupid, ridiculous and false."
Footage of the interview, given to local TV personality Molly Meldrum on the Sunday Night programme, has divided opinion on YouTube. Around the 57 second mark - the cameras appear to show Beyonce's bump being squashed and moving as she sits down. Beyonce told the programme that she is due to give birth in February and said she felt "blessed" and "grateful" that she was pregnant.
US blog Media Takeout first highlighted the strangly shaped bump and The Washington Post calling it 'weird.' ABC News also questioned the mum-to-be's changing shape. The footage has triggered wild 'conspiracy theories' that she is faking her pregnancy while a surrogate mother carries her baby. However she was clearly pregnant when she was snapped wearing a bikini on a recent holiday to Croation.
Beyonce announced her pregnancy at the MTV music awards where she showed her bump on the red carpet before rubbing her stomach at the end of her performance. She told a magazine: "I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to unveil it. It was important to me that I was able to do it myself.
"I was extremely nervous. It was the toughest red carpet I ever did... I decided to say nothing and proudly show my baby bump. I felt it was more powerful to see the love and enthusiasm as opposed to saying anything."
She is now launching her own maternity line.
Happy birthday, Gumby creator Art Clokey! The animation legend, who would have been 90 today, receives a well deserved Google Doodle tribute today.Clokey showed Gumbasia to movie producer Sam Engel, whose son Clokey happened to be tutoring at the time. Engel was so impressed that he offered to fund Clokey’s next endeavour, with the suggestion that he add clay figures. That endeavor? A pilot for what would become one of the most beloved children’s television shows of all time — Gumby.
Art Clokey would have turned 90 today, had he not passed away in January of last year. To honour his memory, Google illustrated an interactive doodle which features Gumby and all his animated pals.
The NY Times has a follow-up on the 33 rescued Chilean miners, most of whom are unable to find jobs and find themselves poorer than a year ago, when their 69-day ordeal began. The sponsored trips to Israel, the U.K. and Disney World have all but dried up. What's left is a group of men suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the sad details:
[NYT, Photo via Getty]
Remember Random Task, the "Korean ex-wrestler evil handyman extraordinaire" from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery who'd use his shoe as a deadly weapon? Well, it turns out that was not just acting. He is actually a very scary, dangerous, terrible person! For starters, Joseph Hyungmin Son, the actor's real name, was already serving a life sentence for kidnapping, torturing and raping a woman back in 1990. (He was convicted in 2008, based on DNA evidence.)
On Monday, his 50-year-old cellmate at California's Wasco State Prison Reception Center was discovered dead, and Son is the prime suspect. The victim was serving two years for failing to register as a sex offender.
In related news, The Love Guru continues to delight audiences the world over.
[LA Times, photos via LA Times]
Samuel L. Jackson registered a Twitter account more than two years ago, but never bothered to send out a single tweet. Then today, followers of @SamuelLJackson were greeted with a tweet that read, "Can-a muh fukka say f*** on here?" Anyone wondering why Jackson decided to start tweeting today got their answer on tonight's Late Night: It was all thanks to Jimmy Fallon.
