Archive for July, 2010

When I decided to write a blog post about France’s infamous amphibian delicacy, frog legs, I didn’t expect violence. Yet there it was in the London Times — a frog-leg crime drama: Earlier this year, when a farmer in France tried to stop frog poachers from laying out nets near his property, the men sprayed him with tear gas and then shot at his car with a rifle.

That’s what I said: Frog poachers carry loaded weapons.

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Oh man, do we have a nose full of Stuff From the Science Lab for you this week! We depend on our sense of smell to process the world around us, and both of this weeks’ episodes get down to the science of both fragrant and noxious odors. It’s quite a journey, as we’ll take you from the perfume bottles of Paris to the strange atmospheres of the outer planets.

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There’s a lot going on in tech news this week. Among the items I thought interesting include a report in The Wall Street Journal that Google is looking to introduce its own social networking service. I mean besides Orkut, Friend Connect and Buzz. Amir Efrati wrote that Google has been talking to social gaming giants Playfish, Playdom and Zynga about the possibility of bringing their wares to a Google-based service.

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You may look at “positive thinking” in a different light after watching this video featuring Barbara Ehrenreich…

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A Forward Operating Base or FOB is a military installation designed to house military troops close to a front.

This article points out that FOBs have a positive effect on the lives of soldiers, relatively speaking:

How the Forward Operating Base is changing the life of combat soldiers

The situation in post war Iraq is producing combat veterans accustomed to a perspective of combat that differs greatly from past wars. The Forward Operating Base (FOB) has become a mainstay of the U.S. presence in Iraq. Dr. Leonard Wong and Colonel Stephan Gerras explore the facets of fighting from the FOB and show that it gives soldiers the unprecedented advantage of gaining a respite from constant danger, minimizes the wearing effects of hunger and fatique and reduces the isolation of combat

However, they are not “luxury hotels”, as is easily seen in these videos…

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There are so many things revealed in this video…

  • The fact that car production, once dominated by the U.S. and Japan, is now dominated by China both in terms of production and consumption
  • The massive number and size of China’s cities
  • The incredible change that is coming in the way China thinks about and makes cars

It is fascinating and eye opening…

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If you’re planning to drive in a foreign country, you might need an international driver’s license — but what exactly is it? How do you apply for it? Tune in and learn more about these licenses — and whether or not you need one — in this podcast.

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Designed entirely to cater to the sense of smell, perfume occupies a unique position in fashion and society. But when we catch the whiff of a passing perfume enthusiast, what are we really smelling? Tune in and learn more about the science behind perfume.

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A presidential pardon is a unique, unchallengable power granted to the president of the United States by the Constitution. In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss the origins, history and controversial use of the presidential pardon.

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Bye-Bye Batteries: Radio Waves as a Low-Power Source – “What’s unusual, however, is that the hat’s beeper and microprocessor work without batteries. They use so little power that they can harvest all they need from radio waves in the air…” Deal finalised on fusion reactor – “The European Union and six member states have reached [...]

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