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
Putnisite is a newly discovered purple mineral that, unlike the many minerals found each year, is not closely related to already-known minerals.
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New mineral discovered in Australia
A new report from Twopcharts has found that 44% of the world’s Twitter accounts have yet to send a Tweet . With approximately 974 million Twitter accounts, that’s an awful lot of dead air. As the Wall Street Journal points out, however, this could mean that people, scammers, or bots simply signed up for an account and never came back—or that there are hordes of shy people out there waiting for the moment to strike. Do you have a Twitter account you have never used? If not, why not? [ Wall Street Journal ] Read more…
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44% Of All Twitter Accounts Have Yet To Send A Tweet
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.
Just a few days after Turkey’s scandal-rocked government banned Twitter by tweaking national DNS settings, the state has doubled down by ordering ISPs to block Twitter’s IP addresses , in response to the widespread dissemination of alternative DNS servers, especially Google’s 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (these numbers were even graffitied on walls ). Following the ban, Turkey’s Twitter usage grew by 138 percent. Now that Twitter’s IP range is blocked, more Turkish Internet users are making use of Tor and VPNs, and they continue to use SMS for access to the service. It’s interesting that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has singled out Twitter for his attacks (“Twitter, schmitter! We will wipe out Twitter . I don’t care what the international community says.”) Why not Facebook or Google Plus? I’m not certain, but my hypothesis is that Facebook and Google’s “real names” policy — which make you liable to disconnection from the service if you’re caught using an alias — make them less useful for political dissidents operating in an environment in which they fear reprisals. According to the Internet activist collective Telecomix, there also were reports that devices configured to use Google’s DNS service or other DNS providers outside the country were being hijacked to a local DNS server by the Wi-Fi network at Istanbul’s airport. The move has driven up the usage of VPN services and the Tor anonymizing network in Turkey. Telecomix has been providing a list of Tor gateways for Turkish users. Tor network metrics show a huge spike in users directly connecting to the Tor network over the past few days, growing from 25,000 users to 35,000 since March 19. Downloads of VPN software have also exploded with VPN apps for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android becoming the most downloaded apps from their respective app stores in Turkey. After DNS change fails, Turkish government steps up Twitter censorship [Sean Gallagher/Ars Technica]
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Turkey orders block of Twitter’s IP addresses
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 hotel restaurant in Onitsha, Nigeria was reportedly shuttered after authorities confirmed it was selling dishes containing human meat. According to the Naija Zip , self-described as an er, “gossip news” site, police discovered two human heads on the premises along with weapons and ammunition. “I went to the hotel early this year, after eating, I was told that a lump of meat was being sold at N700, I was surprised,” a pastor who tipped off the cops was quoted as saying. “So I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such expensive price.”
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Nigerian restaurant busted for cannibal cuisine
At the Myrmecos blog, Alex Wild explains why all the baby ants are saying “YOPO” . (You Only Poop Once)
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And now, a post about ant poop
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
When the first excavations of the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum began in 1738, the diggers found what appeared to be charcoal and half-burnt logs . In reality, those blackened lumps were papyrus scrolls. Buried beneath the detritus of Mt. Vesuvius, a Herculanean villa contained a whole library of the things. And now, thanks to micro-CT imaging and other digitization techniques , researchers are finding ways to read those scrolls.
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How to: Read books buried 2000 years ago