These days, fraud is in. The latest example is a biotech executive who forged documents, lied to his lawyers, and pretended to be his own doctor to fake having cancer as a way of wriggling out of a lawsuit.
Howard Richman admitted yesterday that he lied to a federal judge about having stage 3 colorectal cancer in order to avoid a trial being brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for lying about the development of a synthetic blood substitute. In 2003, he stated publicly that the Cambridge, MA-based Biopure Corporation’s development of Hemopure, a synthetic blood made from cow hemoglobin, was progressing smoothly. Too bad it was a big fat lie: In reality, the clinical trials had failed to get FDA approval.
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Lie detection is all the rage on TV these days, with newcomer “The Mentalist” drawing viewers like flies to honey and “The Closer” and “Psych” burning up the Nielsens. And now a new show has joined the mix, called “Lie to Me,” about a man with a near-preternatural ability to tell when someone is lying.
The show stars Tim Roth (forever Mr. Orange) as Dr. Cal Lightman, a behavioral science expert who makes bank as a consultant for clients who want him to catch liars. His near-perfect skills supposedly come from interpretation of body language and facial expressions that let him in on whether this week’s murder suspect or shifty spouse is spinning a big one.
Both the main character and his skills are reportedly based on the persona and work of Dr. Paul Ekman, the facial expression expert who advises the Department of Defense on lie detection. Ekman’s method is based on what he calls “microexpressions,” small facial movements that he says present evidence of what you’re really feeling. We don’t necessarily know we’re doing them, so we can’t necessarily control them—say “I am saddened by my wife’s death” but flash a happy or disgusted microexpression, and a detective should take note.
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How easy would it be for terrorists to pack a mosquito in their luggage? At present, there’s no airport security device that would stop them. And at least one bug expert—Jeffrey Lockwood, a professor of entomology at Wyoming University—thinks there is reason to worry.
Lockwood told DISCOVER that insects can be used to cause disease, impact agriculture, and inflict pain (fire ants being a prime example). He also notes that yellow fever can potentially spread in the U.S. just like West Nile Virus did after an infected individual traveled to New York and was bitten.
Bugs have been used in warfare before. In World War II, Lockwood says, the Japanese army injected fleas with the bubonic plague and coated flies in cholera, killing more than 400,000 Chinese.
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It somehow escaped my attention in 2008 that a version of the Taser (the “C2 Personal Protector“) is now available for consumer use. Yes, you too can subdue potential attackers with same technology as the Gainesville police.
In the far reaches of the CES North Hall, a company marketing associate demonstrated the product (no she didn’t tase me, she just turned it on — but it was still pretty scary) and outlined a few product benefits:
- shoots two small, fishhook-ended probes into an attacker from fifteen feet away, incapacitating him or her with 30 seconds of electrical pulse;
- comes with a lifetime replacement guarantee — when you tase someone, you’re supposed to drop the weapon and run away (taking the Taser with you might recapacitate your attacker). Afterwards, if you send the company the police report, they will send you a new C2 for free;
- available in six colors.
The spokeswoman also loved that she could take the C2 to places like bars in her homestate of Arizona where she was prohibited by law from bringing her concealed firearm.
Buyer beware, however. The C2 is illegal in several states (including New York and New Jersey) and comes with a sophisticated lock that only opens after you’ve completed a background check.
A Beverly Hills liposurgeon has been accused of using his patients’ liposuctioned fat to fuel his and his girlfriend’s SUVs. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this story is that no one came up with the lipo-fat-as-fuel idea before.
Give Dr. Alan Bittner this: He was never secretive about what happened to the leftover liposuction fat from his practice, Beverly Hills Liposculpture. According to Forbes.com, he even ran a Web site dedicated to human fat fuel. On the now defunct lipodiesel.com, Bittner wrote, “The vast majority of my patients request that I use their fat for fuel—and I have more fat than I can use… Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly but they get to take part in saving the Earth.”
Experts say animal fat is just as good as vegetable fat and a gallon of either will get you about the same mileage as a gallon of regular diesel. The only caveat is that animal fat requires an additional processing step to remove free fatty acids. Due to a recent surge in soybean oil prices, biodiesel manufacturers say that over half of this year’s biodiesel came from animal sources, such as pig lard. Other new sources of biofuel include turkey feathers (see the DISCOVER story Anything Into Oil), coffee grounds, pond scum, and rainforest fungus.
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Feeling stressed or sad? Before you succumb to the blues, try standing under a blue light. Several cities around the world claim to have reduced suicides, crime, and even traffic accidents by installing blue lights in the public spaces.
In Glasgow, Scotland, blue streetlights installed in 2000 have reduced street crimes noticeably. In Japan, a country notorious for its high suicide rates—authorities say in 2007 alone there were 640 suicides attempted by jumping in front of oncoming trains—two railroad companies have turned to light therapy. After blue lights were installed on station platforms and near railway crossings, the number of suicide attempts dropped to zero. Also in Japan, hundreds of blue lights have been installed along highways and rest stops. An expressway operator said trash cans near blue lights received 20 percent less garbage.
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Jun Wang dumped fuel from his tanker trunk into Little Beaver Creek in Kettering, Ohio. Allesandro and Carlos Giordano, a father and son team, imported and sold cars that didn’t meet U.S. emissions standards. These are just some of the characters on the Environmental Protection Agency’s new “Most Wanted” list of environmental fugitives.
The list is posted on the agency’s website and includes mugshots of 23 people along with their alleged violations and suspected whereabouts. And the EPA wants your help in capturing them. The Web site has information on who to call if you see any of the suspects—it’s usually the Criminal Investigation Division office in the city where they were charged. There are also Wanted posters you can print out.
But don’t, they warn, take green justice into your own hands:
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Last week a band of Somali pirates hijacked a Saudi Arabian tanker in just 16 minutes using Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers. This was just one of around 100 attacks in the area this year—leaving plenty of fear that the pirates are on their way to sabotaging one of the most important sea trade routes in the world. But the days of pirate victories may soon be over, thanks to a little scientific ingenuity. A British company called Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions thinks the outlaws can be taken down using none other than a high-tech “sonic laser.”
Their plan is this: Hook up a long-range acoustic device (LRAD) to an MP3 player, and raise the volume to painful sound levels whenever pirates approach. The noise from the satellite dish-sized LRAD can get so loud that it causes permanent hearing damage. If threatened ships blast oncoming pirates with “precise beams” of warning messages, sirens, etc., it could be enough to cause “absolute agony” to any ambitious pirates, according to APMSS chief executive Nick Davis, and could make them turn back.
While anti-pirate sound doesn’t come cheap—the team and equipment costs $21,000 for three days of use—the technology is in high demand, with APMSS sending 10 teams out on on ships in the Gulf of Aden this week. Let’s just hope they’re armed with good ear plugs.
For everything you’d ever want to know about what’s going in pirate attacks, check out the Weekly Piracy Report.
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Image: iStockPhoto
Look for this in a future episode of CSI: Detectives expose a piece of paper, a shard of glass, or even a scrap of fabric to a chemical vapor, and within hours, dark brown fingerprints appear. Scientists in the UK report a new method of fingerprint detection that makes fingerprints on almost any material visible to the naked eye. But that’s not all: They say the same method can also read a sealed letter without opening the envelope.
Researcher Paul Kelly stumbled upon the discovery while studying the compound disulfur dinitride. His team first noticed the compound’s fingerprint imaging properties on laboratory glassware. When exposed to vapors of the compound, even in low concentrations, fingerprints left on the glassware would stain a dark brown. Residues from the fingerprints were causing disulfur dinitride to form a dark brown polymer.
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Just as the Census of Marine Life announces the existence of amazing new wonders in the Southern Oceans, a battle over the oceans’ largest inhabitants rages on. While many have criticized Japanese whalers for illegally terrorizing (and slaughtering) whales, the Japanese are now turning the tables and accusing the television channel Animal Planet of terrorizing their whaling ships.
The accusations stem from Animal Planet’s new seven-part series, Whale Wars, which documents the militant anti-whaling escapades of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The Sea Shepherds have been using harsh and combative— though, they insist non-violent—strategies like hurling stink bombs, throwing acid, and spreading propeller-tripping steel cables to stop Japanese whaling ships from doing their job. The group says they prevented 300 whale deaths last winter. Japanese whalers have killed thousands of whales since the 1980s, and claimed they were in the name of research.
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