Archive for 2024

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Urine for a Real Treat This Week. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week we have Florida’s weirdest doctor, the Mystery Surfer, and a Kentucky family just discovered something scarier than murder hornets.”

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Scientists use food dye found in Doritos to make see-through mice.

Scientists have discovered a surprisingly simple way to potentially peer inside the body, using a common yellow food dye found in Doritos to create see-through mice.

In a series of experiments that could have been plucked from the pages of science fiction, researchers at Stanford University massaged a solution containing tartrazine, the chemical found in the food dye known as “yellow No. 5,” onto the stomachs, scalps and hind legs of mice. About five minutes later, the opaque skin of the mice transformed temporarily into a living window, revealing branching blood vessels, muscle fibers and contractions of the gut, they reported Thursday in the journal Science.

These results may sound like magic, but they are grounded in the basic science of optics — and are a major step forward in the long quest to see what’s beneath the surface of bodies without using a scalpel.

“You could see through the mouse. I’ve been working in optics for 30 years, and I thought that result was jaw-dropping,” said Adam Wax, a program officer who specializes in biophotonics at the National Science Foundation, one of the funders of the research.

Who had “Mad Scientist with Army of Invisible Mice” on their 2024 Bingo card?

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: “I’m just trying to find the bridge. Has anybody seen the bridge?”

—Robert Plant, singing on Led Zeppelin’s “The Crunge” in 1973.

Now we know why he can’t: TikTok has destroyed pop’s best asset – the bridge.

THERE ARE SEEMINGLY TOO MANY OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS TO KEEP TRACK OF, WHICH IS EXACTLY THE POINT:

YEAH, SHE WANTS TO WIN: There’s a Method to Kamala Harris’s Flip-Flop Madness.

Related (From Ed): Ruy Teixeira on The Rise of Vince Lombardi Democrats:

As legendary football coach Vince Lombardi famously said: “Winning isn’t everything—it’s the only thing.” That might well serve as the slogan of today’s Democrats as they enthusiastically line up behind the newly-minted presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris. Doubts about Harris’s political history and positions, what she really stands for, what she might actually do if she is elected—all have been completely submerged to the sacred goal of beating Donald Trump.

I’m not sure about the analogy — Lombardi was a brilliant coach, and Kamala is a less than brilliant politician — but she could still very much collect the Super Bowl ring in November.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME SOCIALISM?! The Nation Aims for Worst Take of the Year Complaining About Democrats Embracing ‘Dark Side’ of Football.  “This is certainly a take, and definitely in the running for the worst take of 2024:”

It may seem like the Democrats are playing offense. That certainly fits a sports cliché, but it gets the underlying political dynamic backward. Football—and the reclamation of patriotic symbology—is pulling the Democratic Party to the right. While the left never had a coordinated plan to sink pro football, the last decade’s exposure of the sport’s corrosive nature is a good thing. People have the right to know the negative physical and psychological effects that can arise from playing the most popular sport in the country. Football and medical whistleblowers have exposed a right wing willing to look away from public health if it means pats on the back and campaign dollars from the reactionary billionaires that run the NFL.

“While the left never had a coordinated plan to sink pro football,” we all know of one fella who really gave it the ol’ college try, speaking of sports cliches. Good luck with that, though: