This photo of variable star V838 Monocerotis was taken by the Hubble telescope in 2002. At the time, no one realized how much it looked like the Firefox logo, since the browser wasn’t even named that until 2004. http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/04/firefox-logo-sp.html -via the Presurfer

A new drug being developed for the US military can protect cells against the effects of radiation, according to a study publish today in the journal Science.

Although radiation is an important weapon used by doctors to blast cancers, drugs that limit radiation's devastating effects on healthy cells are needed to reduce the potentially severe side effects.

Radiation induces damage in healthy tissues not by directly killing cells but by prompting them to commit "suicide" through a process called apoptosis.

The new drug, called "Protectan CBLB502, tested in mice and monkeys, protects radiation-blasted tissues by shutting down this cell death programme, which the body normally turns on in cells with damaged DNA to keep them from multiplying, says Dr Lyudmila Burdelya, who worked with Drs Vadim Krivokrysenko and Andrei Gudkov at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and colleagues at the company Cleveland BioLabs, also in Buffalo, New York,

Research shows that tumor cells are not given the same protection by the drug. Link -via Digg

Good spoons have heavy handles, but that makes it difficult to lay your spoon down when eating from a bowl. If you don’t want to put the spoon down on the table, you’ll tip the bowl over. But this bowl and spoon combination makes it easy to rest your spoon in your bowl. $21.00 Link -via J-Walk Blog

James Spring wanted to help someone in some way to celebrate his 40th birthday. He read about a case of a couple wanted for murder who may have gone to Baja, Mexico, an area he was intimately familiar with. The couple had their two children with them, although they did not have legal custody of six-year-old Viana.

"I took off Sunday morning," Spring said. "I found them in a day and a half."

After contacting US Marshals, it took some time to arrange the paperwork to have the couple arrested and brought back to the US. Mexican police raided the family’s house late Monday afternoon, and Viana and her infant sister were delivered to their grandparents in San Jose on Tuesday night. The parents, Richard Carelli and Michelle Pinkerton are accused of murdering a roommate and leaving his decomposing body in their van.

Spring said he's accomplished what he set out to do and has no plans to meet the girls' relatives in Soquel or produce a first-person account of his adventure. He turns 40 on April 29.

Link -via Fark

Real Men Wear Kilts is a website with information on how to wear a kilt, news about kilts, links to vendors, and a member registry with pictures.

I have long felt that there was a desperate need for a website devoted to the WEARING of the kilt, not merely the sales of highland wear, kilts, sporrans, etc. To be certain, there are definitely sites detailing the history of the kilt, how to wear the kilt, etc., but not one that celebrated the wearing of this simple but somewhat controversial fashion.

I love to see a man wearing a kilt! Link -via the Presurfer

NASA rocket scientists have used the gravitational pull of one planet to “slingshot” space craft toward another planet. This method causes acceleration without additional fuel use. What if we could set up a system where craft were in (almost) perpetual motion between Earth and Mars, using each planet’s gravity to sling it toward the other? Such a trajectory is available, thanks to the work of Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The orbit is called the Aldrin Cycler. Unmanned explorers and astronauts could catch a cycler every 26 months and ride to Mars (or back) using a small fraction of the fuel that would be needed for a conventional mission. The cycler orbit simulation above can be seen in motion at Damn Interesting. Link

German inventor Dieter ‘Didi’ Senft unveiled his latest creation Tuesday in Storkow, Germany. It’s a 39-foot guitar, driven by a bicycle chain underneath! http://www.absolutegadget.com/200804091276/news/automotive/my-other-bike-is-a-stradivarius.html -via Arbroath, who has a video of the contraption.

They say you can find anything on the internet, including specialized niche dating services. Cracked takes a look at five you should avoid, and the reasons why (if they aren’t obvious to you). Link

Don’t you just hate it when you spend millions of dollars for a large construction, only to find out there is something fundamentally wrong underneath? Oh yeah, especially when the failure becomes apparent during a big public grand opening. It happens, and mental_floss has a look at four cases of embarrassing (and expensive) mistakes in huge projects. Link

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Gizmo likes to watch boxing on TV. Looks like he'd also like to get in on the action! -via Arbroath

The Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss asks you to match the 80s hair band with a song they did. I took one look and gave up, even though I played all these songs on the radio in the 80s. All I could think of were the original artists, who were not 80s bands, and therefore did not appear on the quiz. No doubt younger people will do better... although any attempt would be better than mine! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14013

This clever public service sign about drinking and driving was found in Mumbai. This is only a detail; see the full picture at Ads of the World. Link -via Dump Trumpet

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Purdue University created this video on where the greenhouse gasses in the US are coming from, and where they go.

A new, high resolution, interactive map of United States carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels has found that the emissions aren't all where we thought. The maps and system, called Vulcan, show CO2 emissions at more than 100 times more detail than was available before. Until now, data on carbon dioxide emissions were reported, in the best cases, monthly at the level of an entire state grid. The Vulcan model examines CO2 emissions at local levels on an hourly basis. Purdue researchers say the maps are also more accurate than previous data because they are based on greenhouse gas emissions instead of estimates based on population in areas of the United States.

Read more about the Vulcan Project at the University’s website. Link -via Viral Video Chart

70-year-old Wal*Mart employee Dennis O'Brien was arrested in Royal Palm Beach, Florida for attacking 81-year-old coworker John Esposito with a price gun.

The report says Dennis O'Brien and John Esposito began arguing Sunday and O'Brien swung at Esposito with the tool in his right hand.

Authorities say Esposito suffered a swollen left eye and cuts on his nose and mouth.

Esposito said both he and O'Brien worked at Wal-Mart. He would not discuss the nature of their argument.

There was no word on what price the gun was set to. Link -via Digg

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From Creature Comforts. It just gets funnier as it goes. The last line is the best! -via Mookie