The Domestication of Social Cognition in Dogs -- Hare et al. 298 (5598): 1634 -- Science
This is neat. I meant to post this some years ago...before this blog existed. Creepy, eh? Heheh. Well, anyway, it seems we've bred dogs to recognize emotions. No surprise, right? So it turns out that puppies raised by humans, or even without human contact in kennels, are able to 'read' humans pretty well, whereas wolves raised by humans mostly fail.


Did the Soviets really build a "doomsday machine"? - By Ron Rosenbaum - Slate Magazine
The answer is yes, kind of. It was a system that, after detecting a nuclear attack on Russian soil, and not receiving any sort of signal from Moscow, would authorize whatever guy happened to be sitting in the bunker that day to launch Russia's arsenal at the US. No two keys, no backups, just one guy. Still, it did require an attack to occur before the system would unlock. But electronics are somewhat less than reliable. heh.
The really awesome part?
It's still turned on.




Experts doubt plan to block Web bomb recipes - Online World - MSNBC.com
Those crazy Europeans. They want to "use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism". That sounds pretty likely to work, doesn't it? And I'm sure it won't impede people's ability to actually talk about the world, or criticize government, or even do basic research on what's going on in the world. Weren't there a few silly, fantasy-story books about dangerous words a few years ago?
Heh. Just imagine - you want to write a paper about suicide bombers, you google "suicide bombers", "terrorism", and get "no results found." While I'd hope that that's true of the results of suicide bombing, I doubt it is true of the information online.



Part of Patriot Act ruled unconstitutional - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com
I don't have to say much beyond the title. It's just like it says. And that's good news. Government has got to play by the rules all the time, not just when it's convenient, or what the hell are rules for?



World Hepatitis Awareness Day 2007
And finally something lighthearted. No, seriously! If you've been failing to get hepatitis lately, this will give you some nice pointers. And knowing is half the battle! (the other half is violence! I saw that on the Internet)

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