Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin initiated a program in the early 1920s to create a horde of half-man half-ape super soldier with no feeling of pain or fear.
The Soviets drafted their top animal-breeding expert into the program. Ilya Ivanov, who previously had set up the world's first centre for the artificial insemination of racehorses, set off for West Africa to conduct his first experiments in inseminating chimpanzees.
Meeting little success, Ivanov turned his efforts around, setting up a facility in Stalin's home republic of Georgia to fertilise human volunteers with monkey and ape sperm. Not surprisingly, the efforts were a total failure.
For his expensive failure, he was sentenced to five years' jail, later commuted to five years' exile in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17630955-13762,00.html | Another Link
US Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta gave Santa Claus the official US Government permission to fly over its skies and land on people's houses legally.
An order granting a flight certificate and signed by U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta finds that Santa Claus is “exceptionally fit, joyfully willing and uniquely able to engage in the interstate air transportation for which he has requested a certificate.” The Secretary added that Santa has a 100 percent on-time arrival record, having never failed to deliver all of his toys by Christmas morning.
[Santa] also told the department that his sleigh will be powered by eight tiny reindeer, with the addition of a possible ninth reindeer equipped with a special air navigation warning light in its nose, in the event of fog or heavy snow.
Finally, the applicant, aware of the department’s heightened security concerns, said that although he does not have a federal air marshal on board he has asked his lead reindeer, Rudolph, to stay especially alert.
Santa's sleigh also got a safety inspection from the FAA.
Paul Chadwick of the University of Southampton and Peter Trower of the University of Birmingham, UK analyzed 53 paranoid people and found that there are 2 forms of paranoia:
- "Poor Me" or fear of (undeserved) persecution
- "Bad Me" or fear of (deserved) punishment, who has lower self-esteem and more negative thinking than the Poor Me paranoids.
Paranoia more complex that you thought? I was afraid of that ...Link
Seth Frye and friends came up with the "Santa Speedo Run" in 1999. The idea is to run wearing only Christmas themed speedos (though they add bikinis and one-piece for the ladies) in butt-cold weather in Boston.
Researchers at Chicago's Brookfiled and other zoos discovered that aging female gorillas go through menopause, just like humans!
The study also may provoke a few chuckles along the way.
"Do they have hot flashes? Do they get grouchy? We haven't been able to measure those things yet, but give us time,'' said study co-author Sue Margolis, a former Brookfield Zoo researcher and now curator of primates at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo.
Many biologists believe menopause evolved because it gave human grandmothers more time to help care for their grandchildren, said Steve Austad, a researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio who was not involved in the study.
MIT professor Anette "Peko" Hosoi and colleagues developed Robosnail, a robot that moves like a snail! It can even crawl on vertical walls and cross ceilings.
Jim Needham of Carmel, California, is a master rock stacker.
As he places a heavy boulder on top of the rocks that are stacked, all the rocks begin shifting under the added weight. Suddenly, there is this fluid dance where all the rocks are shifting, rolling, moving, and adjusting. It looks very snake like as it is fluid in motion. Needham uses his knees, his body, his shoulders and chin to settle the rocks down as he is listening intently for that still point of perfect balance. All at once, all motion stops, the rocks are still, perfectly, sacredly, silently motionless, and still. It is a deafening moment of silence.
