Any farm-savvy secret agent can tell you that it’s always a good idea to keep abreast of livestock-stupefying techniques. A chicken’s brain is small enough to be eclipsed by a dime, and is therefore a particularly easy subject. You’ll need A) an ordinary chicken, and B) a finger. In the old days they used chalk, but a plain old finger or a stick does the job just as well.

Start by holding the chicken’s head against the ground, and place the tip of your finger on the ground right in front of the chicken’s beak. Then, while holding the chicken’s head, use your finger to draw a straight line directly away from it. It will quickly enter a trance-like state with significantly reduced heart and respiration rates, and will remain this way for anywhere from fifteen seconds to several hours. Most of the time, it’s on the order of a few minutes before the bird normalizes.

Description from the Old Farmer’s Almanac

There is a very real, very disturbing, and very rare medical condition called “Alien Hand Syndrome” (AHS). An individual with this neurological disorder has full sensation in the rogue hand, but is unable to control its movements, and does not feel that it is a part of their body. The hand becomes personified, as if it has a will of its own, and its owner will usually deny ownership of the limb.

Though AHS was first identified in 1908, it was not clearly defined until 1972. Depending on the cause of the injury, the movements may be random or purposeful, and may effect the dominant or non-dominant hand. The symptoms are brought on by an injury to the brain, such as head trauma, stroke, tumor, or infection, but it can also be a side effect of a certain kind of brain surgery where the patient has the two lobes of the brain separated to relieve severe epilepsy.

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Crime really winds my watch, and I am fully in favor of intense and creative crime deterrents.

The AUTO TASER from the UK is an ingenious amalgam of The Club, a car alarm, and a Taser. It’s a long locking mechanism that affixes to an automobile’s steering wheel, and extends out over the stereo. It locks into place firmly, preventing the steering wheel from moving. If someone does break into the car, and tried to force the mechanism to move, that person is treated to all three functions: first, the inability to remove the lock should alone foil his schemes. Second, if the vibration detectors sense an intruder, a screeching 120-130 dB alarm is sounded as a warning before the third, and most interesting countermeasure lights up; five seconds later, a field of electrons completely surrounds the unit. Any attempt to touch the AUTO TASER will slap the culprit with a non-lethal–yet non ignorable–50,000 volt pulse of justice.

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If you haven’t yet encountered PostSecret in your wanderings through the information ether, it’s worth a look. PostSecret is a site where all are invited to anonymously send in their darkest secrets in the form of a decorated postcard, and the best selections are added to the site weekly. The sentiments range from humorous to bizarre to depressing, and are often accompanied by some fascinating artistic expression.

It’s been around for awhile now, long enough to have a traveling exhibit, and a book. Postcards don’t stay on the site for long, and there are no archives available… probably to encourage frequent visits.

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So, with a system that hid mistakes instead of learning from them, a reactor with inherent dangerous design flaws, and a set of management that were ignorant to reactor technology but were there for their own gain, the stage was set for the nightmare history had not yet seen.

The flaws with the reactors were not only in the design, but the implementation of some important safety features. In the case of something really horrendous, the system was designed with a maximum design-basis accident button. This button, which was supposed to run through the main system and trigger several emergency systems, was rerouted not to work as designed as to avoid a heat shock in the reactor. In order to produce a “clean” test, several other mistakes were made. One of which was the fact that the test was performed while the reactor was still live. Another mistake was that the emergency water feeds were turned off and locked shut. The triggering mechanism in the emergency systems was disabled so that a second run on the test could have been made in case of failure.

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In the U.S., tobacco companies are required to print text warnings on cigarette packages, where the surgeon general gets a small chunk of space to peddle his/her dry warnings regarding the grim dangers of smoking, such as, “Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy.”

It’s almost as though these warnings are designed to be ignored. Perhaps this is because the tobacco industry, while harmful to consumers, makes for some pretty potent economy fertilizer. Not that I’m suggesting the U.S. government would put its citizens in harm’s way for its own benefit. Cough.

Other governments around the world are taking a remarkably less sissy approach to informing smokers of the health risks, in some cases covering over 50% of the package surface with images of tumors, premature babies, sexually troubled couples, et cetera ad nauseum. In grocery lines, smokers and non-smokers alike are confronted with these queasiness-inducing photographs which peer out the cigarette racks.

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The U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) currently offers over 6,000 genetic strains of laboratory mice, and research labs all over the United States poke, prod, and generally harass the poor creatures, in hopes of discovering ways to improve the lives of humans. In doing so, they have found ways to cure a plethora of ills in mice, including cancer, Sickle Cell Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Type I Diabetes, early-stage Alzheimer’s Disease, baldness, and more. Some lab mice can even regenerate lost limbs and organs.

Due to the problems in translating these treatments into safe, reliable medicine for people, there is a gap of many years between finding a cure for mice and duplicating that cure in humans. Sometimes, given differences in physiology, the treatment is simply not compatible with humans.

The answer? I suggest we use gene therapy to transform all humans into half-man-half-mouse, disease-thwarting, regenerating mutants. It seems the most direct route to success. Plus, cheese is damn tasty.

Article on SEED magazine website (includes links)

As early as the 1970s, auto researchers have known that adding hydrogen to the ignition phase in a combustion engine dramatically increases the efficiency of the reaction, while also reducing pollution. But until recently, there was no safe, reliable means to provide a steady supply of hydrogen to an engine. Now, a company called Canadian Hydrogen Energy is marketing their Hydrogen Fuel Injection (HFI) system to North American shipping companies, and the system is proving useful.

The HFI system is a bolt-on apparatus which includes an electrolysis unit, and a water reservoir. It uses power from the engine’s alternator to electrolyze distilled water, and produce hydrogen on demand. The hundreds of semi trucks in North America which are now using this system enjoy improved horsepower, and emit about half of the particulates they did before the unit was added.

Sherwin Fast, the president of Great Plains Trucking, reports that their four HFI-equipped trucks have saved them $700 a month in fuel. With the units about $14,000 each, it will take some time to recoup the expense; but in the meantime they’re also helping to save the environment. Instant Karma… just add water.

Wired News article
Canadian Hydrogen Energy homepage