Ok, so OJ's book and TV deal have been cancelled. The News Corporation cited criticsm from advertisers, television personel, and the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown-Simpson as reasons for halting publication.

(I was ready to go out and buy the book myself. I'm a little disappointed.)

I'm sure most of you have already heard about this, but OJ Simpson is publishing a book called "If I Did it, Here's How it Happened."

Watch for the exclusive interview on Fox (of course).

On June 24th, 2003 a group of teens approached a man wearing an Allen Iverson jersey named Kevin Johnson, who was waiting for a trolley in south Philadelphia. Unbeknownst to Kevin: one of the teens, Robert Ferguson, was carrying a gun. The group admired Kevin's jersey. What was simple admiration, turned into an opportunity for the teens to prove their manhood to each other. They began to demand the jersey from Kevin. He did not give it up. The teens began to rough up Kevin. Robert pulled his gun, shot Kevin in the back of the neck.

Three years later and Robert is still serving for attempted murder, Kevin died last week when he was taken off his ventilator, and Allen Iverson is paying for the funeral.

The record for the NFL's longest play was tied tonight as the visiting Chicago Bears gave an injury-plagued New York Giants what they had coming...a loss. It was a crucial game for both teams as it decided who would stand atop the NFC. The play came during the fourth quarter off a Jay Feely (Giants) field goal attempt. The kick was short and landed in the arms of Devin Hester, who was waiting for it 8 yards deep in the endzone. When he caught the ball, the Giants special teams unit was walking off the field, towards the sidelines, not realizing that the ball was still in play. (Hester claimed that he knew what he was doing by hesitating in order to let the Giants leave the field, but he looked just as confused as the Giants.) To make a long story short, Hester ran 108 yards for a Bears touchdown and an NFL record.


From the Associated Press:

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- Standing eight yards deep in the end zone with the ball, Devin Hester couldn't believe his eyes -- the New York Giants were actually walking off the field.

He had just gathered in Jay Feely's field-goal attempt in the fourth quarter, a kick that fell short. But the Chicago Bears' return specialist wasn't going to go sprinting off just yet.

He gave the Giants a few extra seconds to vacate.

And with that, Hester was off to the races, giving the Chicago Bears the inside track on NFC title with a record-tying 108-yard romp that was the knockout blow in a 38-20 victory over the injury-ravaged Giants in their NFC showdown Sunday night.

"I probably would have downed it if I saw defenders coming at me," said Hester, who returned punts of 84 and 83 yards for TDs earlier this season. "It seemed like all of them were walking off the field like it was over. So I decided to take it out. It surprised me."

The record-tying return gave Chicago (8-1) a 31-20 lead.

On Nov. 13, 2005 -- almost exactly a year ago -- the Bears' Nathan Vasher caught Joe Nedney's missed 52-yard field-goal attempt in the back of the end zone on the final play of the first half and ran it back for a 108-yard TD return. The play helped Chicago beat San Francisco 17-9, and now Hester shares the record for longest NFL play with his teammate.

I learned a new joke today:

"If I could be any DNA-associated protein I'd be helicase."
'Why?'
"So I could unzip those genes."

(I've been studying a lot)

Asian Silver Carp:

In various Midwest rivers, such as the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Illinois, Asian Silver Carp have become something of an epidemic. Introduced in the 1960's, Asian Silver Carp were used in fish farms to clean algae and other microscopic wastes, but once a few escaped they have been out competing local fish for food and nutrients, thus saturating these Midwestern habitats.

However, Asian Silver Carp aren't only driving out local fish species, they also pose a threat to local boaters. When the Asian Silver Carp detects a noise that is unfamiliar or strange (such as a motorboat), they exhibit a strange defense mechanism - they begin to leap as high as eight feet out of the water. Local boaters have described the fish as "slimy bowling balls" and "silvery missiles."

Asian Silver Carp in action:



Asiain Silver Carp protection:




(It gets better)

The Wall Street Journal recently published a cover page article about the Asian Silver Carp problem. The article included several incredible (and hilarious) accounts of boaters with these jumping fish:

Betty DeFord:
"One slammed into my lap. Another nearly knocked me out of the boat. Then another knocked me back into it. When it was over, we had 32 fish in the boat. We were slimed from head to toe. It was really scary."

(Jesus, I wish there was a youtube video of that)

The Wall Street Journal also tells of a man "holding his dip net and peering into the water got smacked in the face by a carp and went to the local hospital with a broken nose and blackenend eyes."

(Holy Shit! I bet new defense secretary Gates is looking into using these fish as weapons. Fucking oblong bowling balls.)

Otoacoustic Emissions:

In the ear there is a mechanism called the Cochlear Amplifier, which acts to amplify auditory signals received by the outer hair cells. However, the same mechanism that amplifies auditory responses can also generate noises of its own, known as Otoacoustic Emissions.

The Cochlear Amplifier produces Otoacoustic Emissions by essentially working in reverse. When a sound enters the cochlea, it also generates an echo, which moves back through the cochlear fluids and membranes, which in turn vibrates the oval window and ossicles, and finally vibrates the tympanic membrane (ear drum) to create a sound in the outside the ear.

Generally these Otoacoustic Emissions go unnoticed because they are very small in intensity. However, damaged regions of the cochlea, caused by exposure to loud noises, can produce these Otoacoustic Emissions spontaneously, creating ringing in the ears- a disorder called tinnitus. In mild cases, the auditory cortex can recognize these unwanted, spontaneous emissions and suppress our perception of them, but, as a result, we experience a slight loss of hearing.

(Sorry, I've been studying for a neural science exam.)


Here's a goofy picture of a woman getting her Otoacoustic Emissions checked:

Tetrachromacy:

Normal human vision is a combination of three different photoreceptors that are sensitive to red, green, and blue. The genes for the red and green photoreceptors are located on the female sex chromosome, X, while the blue lies on a separate chromosome. Now, in a rare genetic occurrence, it may happen that an X chromosome obtains two 'different' red photoreceptors or two 'different' green photoreceptors, instead of the a red and a green. These 'different' receptors would respond to slightly different wavelengths of light. For example, if an X chromosome had two different green photoreceptors, one would respond to one shade of green and the other would respond to an alternate shade of green.

Now say a female carrier of this mutated X chromosome has a female child (a female would have two X chromosomes as opposed to the XY of a male. The Y chromosome generally contains no genetic material.) Then, this female child would have an X chromosome with genes for two slightly different photoreceptors responding to the same color, and an X chromosome that is perfectly normal (with both a red and a green photoreceptor gene). Thus, this child would be tetrachromat- they could essentially be capable of seeing an extra color, somewhere in between red and green.

(This is funny because my friends and I as kids always used to think up names for new colors. The best name we came up with was 'GLOW,' which was the color of the setting sun reflecting off our friend’s parents’ Buick.)

Now, it is uncertain whether the brain can process this fourth photoreceptor to make sense out of the extra color, but given the plasticity of the brain, it is likely.


Here's a quote I found about the possible 'application' of tetrachromats:

"But this could be a good thing [tetrachromacy], making tetrachromats invaluable for jobs involving color comparison, such as authenticating artwork and pattern matching, or for recognizing subtle distinctions in skin tones for patient diagnosis, mood reading, lie detection, and make-up artistry. In addition to seeing more colours [yeah, it's British], a tetrachromat might possess a red photopigment shifted slightly further into infrared wavelengths, enabling them to see beyond the natural limit of human perception, allowing for cat-like night-vision, and perhaps even directly perceiving hints of body heat." (Ryan Sutherland in "Aliens among us: preliminary evidence of superhuman tetrachromats.")

(That last sentence seems a little sensational. THE PREDATOR DOES EXIST AND HE CAN SEE YOUR BODY HEAT! OH SHIT! WE'RE SO FUCKED!)

In the wake of Halloween and much internet searching, here is the best Halloween picture of 2006:



CONGRATULATIONS DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER! KING OF HALLOWEEN 2006!

"If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity."

-Deuteronomy 25:11-12

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
(I hope somebody got drunk, because I sure didn't.)


Go see this movie:




Then go see this movie:




And finally:



(I swear that I had only heard of one of these movies before today.)