• Robots are fighting fires in London, and thereby sparing humans from the dangers of blazes started by explosive industrial gas.
• Meanwhile, researchers are looking to pizza parlors for techniques to help them come up with a way to make robots more dexterous.
• He shoots, he scores! Check out this video of a soccer-playing robot. What’s next—World Cup, Robot Edition?
• Batter up! Make way for the robo-pitcher.
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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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