The majority of community acquired (i.e., not caught in a hospital) cases of antibiotic-resistant staph can be linked to a single strain of the bacteria. And, now, scientists have pinpointed where that strain first evolved. It’s from the upper west side of Manhattan .
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MRSA is from Morningside Heights
How scientists figured out that a set of 260 million-year-old footprints were probably made by an arachnid and why those footprints are still shrouded in mystery.
The Exosuit allows humans to move like scuba divers at depths that would make scuba wildly impractical . It’s got all the benefits of a small submarine, but with more flexibility and freedom of movement.
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The underwater spacesuit that’s going to revolutionize ocean research
A man purchased a first-class ticket on China Eastern Airlines and enjoyed over 300 days of free meals and drinks at the airport’s VIP lounge at Xi’an Airport in Shaanxi, China. He kept changing the itinerary, which allowed him to feast without paying for nearly a year. When the airlines started to look into the matter, he cancelled his ticket and got a refund.
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Man uses first-class airline ticket to get free meals for almost a year
Choire Sicha reports on Mediaite managing editor Jon Nicosia, who turns out to be a con artist, Zachary Hildreth, with form. The “confession” . The fallout . On the internet, no-one know you’re a dog. But if they never see you because of “black ops”, well, you’d think some suspicion would kick in… [The Awl, Mediaite, Gawker]
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Top blogger scammed many
Starfish have eyes — not just light-sensitive “eye spots”, but real, honest-to-Poseidon eyes, one at the end of each of their arms. They probably see the world differently than we do (for instance, they’re likely colorblind and can’t see at near the level of detail), but they can see. And they know about that time you poked them with a stick.
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The eyes of the starfish
This ancient Peruvian telephone was unearthed in the 1930s by by Baron Walram V. Von Schoeler, “a shadowy Indiana Jones-type adventurer.” The gourd-and-twine device, created 1,200 to 1,400 years ago, remains tantalizingly functional — and too fragile to test out. “This is unique,” NMAI curator Ramiro Matos, an anthropologist and archaeologist who specializes in the study of the central Andes, tells me. “Only one was ever discovered. It comes from the consciousness of an indigenous society with no written language.” We’ll never know the trial and error that went into its creation. The marvel of acoustic engineering — cunningly constructed of two resin -coated gourd receivers, each three-and-one-half inches long; stretched-hide membranes stitched around the bases of the receivers; and cotton-twine cord extending 75 feet when pulled taut—arose out of the Chimu empire at its height. There’s a 1,200-year-old Phone in the Smithsonian Collections (Via Daily Grail )
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1,200 year old telephone
Dr Bjoern von Reumont: “This is the first time we have seen venom being used in crustaceans and the study adds a new major animal group to the roster of known venomous animals. Venoms are especially common in three of the four major groups of arthropods, such as insects. Crustaceans, however, are a glaring exception to the rule.” [BBC]
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Venomous crustacean discovered
I don’t remember how I found out about Munseys. It’s a website with links to thousands of out-of-print books, with over 1, 500 pulp era novels.
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1,661 pulp novels as free e-books
MuckRock News reports that Freedom of Information Act requests faxed to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) started coming back as undeliverable a couple weeks ago.
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DoD office can’t process FOIAs because fax machine broken, no money for new one