Around half of U.S. troop fatalities are caused by blood loss from battlefield injuries. Now, with another 30,000 troops deploying to Afghanistan, the Pentagon is pushing for medical advances that can save more lives during combat. The Defense Department’s latest research idea: Stop bleeding injuries by turning pigs into the semi-undead. If it works out, we humans could be the next ones to be zombified.
Military’s mad-science arm Darpa has awarded $9.9 million to the Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies (TIPS), to develop treatments that can extend a “golden period” when injured war fighters have the best chance of coming back from massive blood loss. Odds of survival plummet after an hour — during combat, that kind of quick evacuation, triage and treatment is often impossible.
The institute’s research will be based on previous Darpa-funded efforts. One project, at Stanford University, hypothesized that humans could one day mimic the hibernation abilities of squirrels — who emerge from winter months no worse for wear — using a pancreatic enzyme we have in common with the critters. The other, led by Dr. Mark Roth at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, used nematode worms and rats to test how hydrogen sulfide could block the body’s ability to use oxygen — creating a kind of “suspended animation” where hearts stop beating and wounds don’t bleed. After removing 60 percent of the rat’s blood, Dr. Roth managed to keep the critters alive for 10 hours using his hydrogen sulfide cocktail.
Wired: Pentagon: Zombie Pigs First, Then Hibernating Soldiers
(via Social Physicist)
“I was studying mosaics in school” recalls Cliff. “I just remember sort of making this connection in my head between the tiles and roach papers. It’s when one sees the level of detail in Cliff’s work that the true amazement begins. Little bits of paper– otherwise thrown away– cut into delicate shapes and arranged together in such a way as to form a true work of art.
Chronic Art
(via Toke of the Town via Disinfo)
Could it really be this simple?
I give examples to show that the code used in the Voynich Manuscript is probably a series of Italian word anagrams written in a fancy embellished script. This code, that has been confusing scholars for nearly a century, is therefore not as complicated as it first appears. [...]
I used an Internet site, ‘Italian Anagram Dictionary,’ to help me unscramble the words and translate the anagrams into English. The book ‘The Botanical Gardens of Padua 1545-1995’(iv) helped identify some of the common names used for plants in Italy in the 16th century. You can judge from the examples given below, whether this Anagram Code has been successful deciphering this limited selection from the Voynich Manuscript. I hope some of you who read medieval Italian will help decipher more of the manuscript so we can finally learn the mysteries, if any, that this manuscript is hiding.
The Voynich Manuscript Decoded?
(via Joe Matheny)
An man who was adopted as a child made contact with his biological mothers who told that his father is Charles Manson. The article, in the ever trustworthy Sun, doesn’t mention anything about DNA evidence or any other corroboration but the guy DOES look like Manson.
Sun: I traced my dad… and discovered he is Charles Manson
(via Dangerous Minds)
Danger Room has an article posted fact checking the claims made in the new The Men Who Stare at Goats movie:
Hippie Army? True. Lt. Col. Jim Channon dove deep into the New Age movement, and came back to the military with a most alternative view of warfare — one in which troops would carry flowers and symbolic animals into battle. In the movie, Channon is played by Jeff Bridges. His First Earth Battalion is renamed the “New Earth Army.” But the ideas are the same. Much of the artwork from the New Earth manual is lifted straight from the Channon original.
Channon has been taking advantage of the publicity for his cause; this week he has a column in the Guardian newspaper, suggesting (among other things) that armies should be used for reforestation and navies to control over-fishing.
The military’s interest in Eastern and alternative practices is once again on the rise. “Warrior mind training“, apparently based on ancient Samurai techniques, is being taught at Camp Lejeune as a possible treatment for PTSD. Elsewhere the Army has a $4 million initiative exploring other approaches including Reiki, transcendental meditation and “bioenergy.” The Air Force is looking into acupuncture for battlefield pain relief.
Danger Room: Psychic Spies, Acid Guinea Pigs, New Age Soldiers: the True Men Who Stare at Goats
As pointed out at Danger Room, you can download the original First Earth Battalion Manual from Jim Channon’s web site
Previously:
Psychic Warfare from 1981-2008
Real life DHARMA Initiative # 1: SRI (Stanford Research Institute)
LA Times highlights several “vampire hunting kits.” Above is one by Alex CF. Read my interview with Alex here.
There’s something so quaint and tidy about a kit for eradicating evil. Some of these vampire hunting kits are “authentic.” Some were assembled by artists aiming to capture the antique beauty of the things. Others are straight up hoaxes.
LA Times: Vampire Hunting Kits: Travel-Sized Boxes of Pain & Vengeance
Update: this is most likely a hoax.
Did you know that melanin, the pigment in hair, is light sensitive and can be used as a conductor? Well, that’s what an 18 year old in Nepal recently discovered, and is now using human hair to replace silicon in solar panels. Since the price of hair is considerably cheaper than silicon, this enterprising youth may have just found a breakthrough technology to help bring down the cost of solar and give thousands of people in developing nations access to affordable renewable energy.
Inhabitat: Nepalese Teen Invents Cheap Solar Panel Using Human Hair
(via Posthuman Blues)
Christopher Wall, who was born with his heart on the outside of his chest, recently celebrated his 34th birthday. Amazing.
Boy Born With Heart Outside Body Defies Odds
(via What a Wonderful Place to Be)
For Britain’s struggling fruit farmers, things could be about to go even more pear-shaped…
A Chinese farmer has invented baby-shaped pears – and he is planning to export his novel idea over here.
Plucky farmer Gao Xianzhang has created 10,000 of the mini marvels this season and he plans to take the fruits of his labour to the UK and Europe.
Britain could soon see the arrival of the pears, which are shaped like mini buddhas.
Daily Mail: Enlightened Chinese farmer branches out by growing pears shaped like baby Buddha
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211141/Behold-latest-addition-novelty-fruit-market–5-pear-looks-like-baby-buddha.html#ixzz0QAC9CD0e
As part of the upcoming Aqua Metropolis festival in Osaka, engineering firm NTT Facilities has developed a pair of solar-powered, UFO-shaped floating water purifiers that will be deployed in the city’s canals and in the moat at Osaka Castle.
Pink Tentacle: ‘Solar UFO’ water cleaners afloat in Osaka canals
A new species of giant carnivorous plant has been discovered in the highlands of the central Philippines.
The pitcher plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is so big that it can catch rats as well as insects in its leafy trap.
BBC:
Giant ‘meat-eating’ plant found
mongolian death worm
ARMED with explosives, two men are heading to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert to find the fabled acid-spitting and lightning-throwing Mongolian death worm.
The worm has never been documented but some Mongolians are convinced it exists. They call it Allghoi Khorkhoi, or “intestine worm” because it resembles a cow’s intestine and is about 1.5m long.
The worm apparently jumps out of the sand and kills people by spitting concentrated acid or shooting lightning from its rectum over long distances, NZPA reports. (Seriously.)
New Zealand TV entertainment journalist David Farrier, who is organising the expedition, and cameraman Christie Douglas, leave this week to spend two weeks in the Gobi, trying to verify the worm’s existence and making a documentary about it.
news.com.au: Journalist hunts for acid-spitting Mongolian death worm
(via Post Atomic)
Photography by Jason Nocito.
Rod Stanley: You’ve just shown me that arrest warrant on the wall, but there’s so many other amazing objects in here. How long have you been collecting these items?
Joe Coleman: Only since my 20s. The collection is so much a part of my work that it can also reflect the way I work. The overall experience of the room is like my paintings – you look at a painting from a distance, but then if you get close to any of the details, each one has a whole story behind it. I can just grab… here, this is my favorite autograph – it’s William Marwood. He was a famous hangman, who discovered that if you weight the body and measure the distance of the drop, you could cause someone to die instantly. This is his calling card – if you turn the autograph around… here – you will see that it is his calling card.
Dazed: Inside the Odditorium of Joe Coleman
(via Richard Metzger)
Yeah, WTF? That’s by comics’ version of a grindhouse director, Rob Liefeld. It makes no sense to me either.
Via: Occasional Superheroine
Long ago I heard a list of funny-sounding diseases. My spelling may be off, because I heard and did not read them. They were gastrocolitis, valbuminitus and lumpuckaroo. The first I’ve confirmed as real. The third I’ve confirmed as “the blahs.” The second I’ve not confirmed at all.
What’s more, it seems I was told of a disease in which a person grows black thorns from their skin which when cut off – vibrate.
Now I’ve been told a bunch of stuff in my life. I’ve also told plenty of fibs myself. I’m not saying the vibrating thorn disease is real, or that it is called valbuminitus. But I’d like to find the origin of this story if possible. Thanks for helping, metafilter.
Full Story: Ask Metafilter
The best guess so far is that this refers to cutaneous horns or the extreme form epidermodysplasia verruciformis. Anyone know anything else about this? Particularly the vibrating part?
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