From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Wed Sep 04 2002 - 08:14:33 MDT
Some news items from _News of the Weird_.
(collected from their archive: http://www.newsoftheweird.com/ )
New Products: British engineers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau
announced their "tooth telephone" (radio receiver implanted in the
tooth, vibrating the signal to the inner ear) (June). Fort Worth
(Texas) inventor Don Mims and marketer Ron Toms introduced a wooden
"Gatling"-type gun that rapid-fires up to 144 rubber bands by
turning a crank (though the rubber bands have to be hand-loaded)
(March). South African researchers working in New Zealand said they
are developing cockroach-shaped robots to do housework and yardwork
(February). [The Tennessean-AP, 6-29-02] [National Post, 3-12-02]
[New Zealand Herald, 2-26-02]
Seattle computer programmer Boris Tsikanovsky told the San Jose
Mercury News in April that he has developed software that will stop
his cat, Squirrel, from bringing animal prey into the house when
he's not at home. Squirrel can enter though a special door via a
magnet on her collar and had been hiding dead mice and birds in the
furniture. Consequently, Tsikanovsky developed imaging software,
with a camera by the door, that permits Squirrel to enter only if
her pixeled profile shows nothing in her mouth. [San Jose Mercury
News, 4-28-02]
In June in Rotherham, England, Gaak the robot, who is part of a
research project into equipping robots to think for themselves,
escaped from the lab while it was momentarily unattended and made it
as far as the parking lot of the Magna science center before being
stopped by a visitor's car. It had forced its way out of a small pen
used to house units scheduled for repair. Said Professor Noel
Sharkey, "(The robots) have all learned a significant amount and are
becoming more intelligent by the day." [The Age (Melbourne),
6-20-02]
News of the Weird reported in 2000 that New York doctoral student
Erik Sprague was part-way through surgically making his body
lizard-like (sharper teeth and forked tongue, and with implanted
forehead bumps and scale-like skin soon to come). In June 2002, the
Michigan House of Representatives considered banning tongue-forking
surgery, but by 53-43 decided such bodily transformations were none
of the government's business. (The issue had come to light when Bay
City, Mich., tattoo artist Seth Griffin began publicly seeking a
surgeon for his tongue-separation surgery after once performing it
on himself only to see the tongue eventually fuse back together.)
[Newsday-AP, 6-6-02]
In a May dispatch from Cuba, The Wall Street Journal reported that
Fidel Castro proposed in 1987 to alleviate a chronic milk shortage
by trying to get his scientists to clone the most productive cows,
shrunk to the size of dogs so that each family could keep one inside
its apartment. The cows would feed on grass grown inside under
fluorescent lights. Cuba was the home of the late Ubre Blanca, the
Guinness book record-holder as the most milk-productive cow of all
time. [Wall Street Journal, 5-21-02]
A Dutch livestock-breeding-device manufacturer recently began
selling a $27 vibrator that supposedly relaxes sows during
artificial insemination to increase the chances of fertilization.
Said the sales manager at the company Schippers Bladel BV, "Once the
vibrator is inserted, the pig's ears will go up and she will stand
ready to be serviced." The company also makes a remote-controlled
plastic pig whose movements, mating sounds and scents supposedly
encourage the sow to be serviced. [Bloomberg News, 5-24-02]
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