• Is the world’s most valuable source code currently out in the open? And has anyone told Goldman Sachs?
• A ramen-making robot lets Japanese customers choose the flavoring they want. So where’s the cheesecake robot?
• Who says gaming has no value? BigPharma firm Bayer has created a DS plugin to let diabetic kids turn monitoring their glucose levels into a game.
• An amazing spider builds life-size decoys of itself to distract hungry predators. Sarah Palin is reported to be examining a similar strategy.
• A popular online gamer ran up debt, stole from the virtual bank he ran, and exchanged it for actual cash on the black market. And then got busted. No doubt Paramount is buying the story rights as we speak.
• Between global warming and trans fats, there are plenty of things to worry about. But we bet you forgot about this one: A massive jellyfish invasion that some Japanese researchers fear could occur this year.
• If you think you’re important, think again—unless you have a fish or insect christened in your honor. Check out this list of species named after famous people.
• Always having to see with your eyes can get tiring. Luckily, you can use sound to “see” by using echolocation, the same technique used by dolphins and bats to guide themselves and find prey. Experts in Spain say it takes just a few weeks of training to master the method.
• Add one more thing to the list beer can do: Send you into space on Sir Richard Branson’s spacecraft. Guinness is offering one lucky winner the chance to hurtle 68 miles above the Earth at three times the speed of sound. The contest is accessed via the company’s Web site and is open to people in 28 countries.
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• Humans aren’t the only ones who can feel the narcotic effects of opium; wallabies can, too. In fact, farmers in Australia have reported that the animals “get high” from munching on the stuff, which grows in open fields, then form crop circles when they repeatedly hop in circles.
• Hey, lay off my layout! Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, has been accused of plagiarism by Kayak, a web site that helps customers find inexpensive plane fares. Apparently, Bing looks so similar to Kayak, it’s confounding customers.
•Talk about DIY: The woman who biopsied and treated her own breast cancer in 1999 while at the South Pole died on Tuesday, June 23.
•Remember those one-legged frogs deformed by chemical pollution? Turns out that there may be another explanation for those missing limbs: dragonfly nymphs, which feed on tadpole legs. Tasty!
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• When summer storms hit, beware of your XBOX or Wii—apparently an increasing number of people have faced injury while playing hardwired video games indoors when there’s lightning outside.
• Spoon that irresistible raw cookie dough into your mouth at the risk of kidney failure and bloody diarrhea: Toll House has recalled its dough due to possible E. Coli contamination.
• Snakes in a station! About 400 cobras were expelled from a Sierra Leone police station using attack rifles and power hoses after snakecharmers failed to lure the reptiles from the building.
•It’s been a rough week for pets: Just ask the the week-old puppy that was flushed down the toilet, the cat that was shot 50 times, and the kitten that was abandoned in a public mailbox in Boston. Those furballs survived, but the cats and dogs that ate pet food tainted with melamine weren’t so lucky. The manufacturing company and its owners pleaded guilty this week to selling the contaminated food.
•Remember the rap about the LHC? Now there’s another one by the same, er, artist, tackling the subject of rare isotopes.
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• Don’t let unemployment put a wrinkle in your plans. Viagra isn’t the only treatment you can get for free—a spa has offered free Botox, too. Confused? Watch the video.
• Hear, hear! Severed your ear but don’t know where to store it? Consider copying this guy by having doctors attach it to your stomach. Then surgeons can use cartilage from your ribs to stitch it back onto the side of your head.
• A 15-year-old, two-foot-tall girl in India is the world’s smallest teenager. Doctors think she has a pituitary problem, but apparently they haven’t been able to pin down the problem.
• Check out this video of the blackbird that’s terrorizing people in San Francisco by dive-bombing their heads. (It’s ok to laugh…we won’t tell.)
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• Bees and their hives aren’t just for honey anymore: They might help farmers in Kenya deter elephant raids that threaten crops.
• It’s a nice day for a weightless wedding, at least for the Brooklyn couple that will get married in zero gravity later this month. They’ll tie the knot on a commercial weightless flight, with a price tag of $5,200 per person.
• Conservatives are more easily grossed out by bugs, blood, and guts than are their liberal counterparts, according to a study in the journal Cognition & Emotion.
• And, finally, a video of the world’s only pet hippo!
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• Forget Graceland: If you’re in Huntsville, Ala., be sure to visit the graves of spacemonkeys Able and Baker, the first monkeys to survive a space flight. You can find the graves easily—they’re strewn with bananas.
• If you’re reading this, you have a UFO to thank—at least according to a Russian scientist, who claims an alien spacecraft saved earth from an approaching meteorite by smashing into it a century ago.
• To test whether beer or a joint does more damage to driving skills, researchers got students drunk, or high on marijuana. The results? Stoned drivers drive significantly slower than drunk ones, but—surprise!—both groups drove less safely than their placebo’ed peers.
• Think you’re smart? Not compared to this 16-year-old Iraqi. It took him only four months to solve a math problem that had been baffling academics for 300 years.
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• According to British health chiefs, white is the new black…at least when it comes to keeping your house cool. They’re suggesting that all U.K. homes be painted white to combat global warming—a technique long used in hot Mediterranean countries like Greece.
• Turns out you’re not the only one who can prevent forest fires. Giant buzzsaw-wielding robots can do it, too!
• Don’t let the economy get you, er, down: Some jobless Americans are now eligible for a free year’s supply of Viagra and other drugs.
• Scientists are using human bile acids to make a replacement for mercury and plastic dental fillings. As if going to the dentist didn’t already leave a bad taste in your mouth.
• And lastly, check out what might be the world’s smallest cat. Itty bitty kitty committee, anyone?
Astronaut Mike Massimino is the first man to tweet from space. Now we know for sure that the “launch was awesome!!”
Now that the anxiety over swine-flu fears have receded somewhat, a virus that up to 99 percent of us have can cause high blood pressure.
There’s something in the air in Barcelona and Madrid. It’s not love, it’s drugs.
Who needs Gatorade when all you need is the Michael Phelps diet—corn flakes and milk—to perform well.
English rats have reportedly developed resistance to poison. Sometimes we wish evolution were not true.
• We all know the snows of Kilimanjaro are melting and Mt. Everest isn’t in great shape either. Now, Bolivia’s Chacaltaya Glacier, home to the world’s highest ski run, has melted.
• As if a treadmill in space weren’t enough, Stephen Colbert now has a species of diving beetle named after him: Agaporomorphus colberti. The beetle is known for having bristles on the males’ reproductive organs.
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