Don’t Even Think About It

Think about it… or don’t! (chrisauman.com)

According to a new Stanford University School of Medicine study—recently published in the journal Cell—thinking can help “fuel the growth” of high-grade gliomas (i.e. deadly tumors that begin in the brain or spinal cord).

These gliomas represent approximately 80% of all malignant brain tumors. And sadly, there are few treatment options available to those who develop them. Fortunately, though, there is also good news.

Most of us have nothing to worry about…

The Ultimate Gross-Out

Could this be in our future? (GaleriDesain)

I’ve always taken great pride in having a strong stomach. Very little grosses me out and I always try new things regardless of how nasty they seem at the time.

Take blood sausage, for instance. On my one and only trip to Germany—many, many years ago—someone handed me a sandwich and, being the food daredevil, I immediately started eating it. Moments later, I was told that the meat inside was blood sausage, a revelation that made everyone around me cringe. Of course, it tasted good to me and since I was already eating it, I continued to do so. Hell, I even ate more blood sausage as my week-long vacation progressed.

Honestly, even the thought of disgusting food doesn’t shake me—at least it didn’t until recently, when I heard about some foods that even make me cringe with disgust.

The first isn’t so much a food as a preservative found in commercial breads. The amino acid L-cysteine is used to extend the shelf life of factory-made breads, which most of us likely consume on a weekly—if not daily—basis. However, did you know this amino acid is most commonly synthesized using human hair? Sure, cow horns, pig bristles and duck feathers can also be used, but human hair is at the top of the list. And oddly enough, most of the hair comes from the floors of hair salons and barber shops in China. No wonder Americans love Chinese food so much—sometimes we consume it without even knowing it!

Scrotal cheese: the perfect topping for your Triscuits (YouTube/Christina Agapakis)

Our second entry comes from Ireland where scientists at Trinity College are making cheese from… wait for it… human bacteria. Using samples from human toes, belly buttons, mouths and even armpits, these culinary cuckoos produce cheeses that supposedly smell like the body odors of their respective donors. No word yet on whether fumunda cheese will be next (i.e. cheese from under a man’s balls, for those unfamiliar with the term). I imagine it’s only a matter of time, though.

Entry number three comes to us from Japan, the home of some of the most unique—and nasty—foods in the world. Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from Okayama Laboratory in Tokyo, just found a way to extract protein from sewage (a.k.a. human feces), mix it with some other ingredients and produce artificial steak. To make matters worse, some people have even tested the “meat” and claim it tastes just like beef. Of course, I’ll never know since I limit my shit-eating to American fast food.

Taken separately, these three “foods” may not seem all that gross, but consider this: putting them together could make the most disgusting—and cannibalistic—cheeseburger in history.

Toe cheese shit-burger deluxe, anyone?

Picking Cotton

Senator Tom Cotton: GOP superstar or future astronaut? (Politico)

By now, you likely know that the Republican-backed letter sent to Iran’s leaders in an attempt to undermine President Obama’s negotiations with that country was orchestrated by Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. You may also know that loads of GOP politicians are praising his efforts and holding him up as an example of how great the Republican Party could eventually be.

It sounds like another load of horse shit to me, but whatever. Celebrate yourselves if you must.

On Monday evening, Cotton gave his first speech on the Senate floor and it didn’t take him long to connect the Obama administration to… wait for it… Adolf Hitler.

“The world is growing ever more dangerous, and our defense spending is wholly inadequate to confront the danger,” Cotton said. “To be exact, during the last four or five years, the world has grown gravely darker. We have steadily disarmed, partly with a sincere desire to give a lead to other countries and partly due to the severe financial pressure of the time. But a change must now be made. We must not continue longer on a course in which we alone are growing weaker while every other nation is growing stronger.”

A new home for Cotton? (Nerdist)

Cotton then connected the dots: “I wish I could take credit for those eloquent but ominous words, but I cannot. Winston Churchill sounded that warning in 1933 as Adolf Hitler had taken power in Germany. Tragically, Great Britain and the West didn’t heed this warning, when they might have strangled that monster in his crib. Rather they let the locust continue to eat away at the common defense.”

So Obama’s efforts at peace are little more than a new Hitler-esque effort to help Iran take over the world? As if!

I recently heard that a private company was hoping to establish a human colony on Mars and has been accepting applicants for the one-way trip. These people would have to depart Earth and live the rest of their lives in space and on the red planet, never to return.

Any chance there’s space left for Tom Cotton? Better yet, can we ship the whole damn GOP there? Perhaps then Washington could accomplish something both positive and useful for the American people.

Holiday Gift Ideas

Barbie with stretch marks is keeping it real! (Nickolay Lamm/Lammily)

One week from today is the dreaded Black Friday, the official first day of the Christmas shopping season. Stores around the country will open early and entice customers with all sorts of sales and “door buster” specials. And despite consumer spending being in a slump, you better believe people will be fighting tooth-and-nail to find the perfect gifts for friends and loved ones.

Personally, I try not to leave the house on Black Friday. Crowds and traffic really bother me and I tend to have a short fuse for rude people and bad drivers. It’s probably best I become a recluse and do the majority of my shopping online.

Of course, I also run across great gift ideas as I cruise through cyberspace, so why not share them with you good people? Here are some “hot sellers” for 2014, all of which should make quite an impression on their recipients:

• Artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm has designed Lammily dolls, which some people have described as Normal Barbies. Basically, these are dolls that more realistically portray average American women—namely an average 19-year-old woman. You can even purchase an add-on pack of stickers that allow children to give their dolls stretch marks, tattoos, cellulite, acne, scars and more!
• Kristof Retezar, a student at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, has designed something known as Fontus. Named after the Roman god of springs and wells, Fontus is a device that attaches to the back of a bicycle, condenses moisture from the air and wind, and uses it to fill a water bottle hidden behind the seat. Granted, it hasn’t been perfected or manufactured yet, but it might be a good gift for the athlete in your family sometime in the next few years. And it never hurts to start shopping early, does it?
• At the November 19^th DEMO conference, two science guys—Austin Heinz and Gilad Gome—previewed the Sweet Peach, a probiotic for women that can help prevent UTIs and yeast infections. Of course, it has another effect that some may find even more appealing: it makes a woman’s vagina smell like peaches! If you know anyone interested in a hoo-ha that smells of fresh fruit, then this is the gift for you!

Now your lady can smell like Princess Peach, too! (Nintendo/Fanpop)

Sadly, I am unable to link to pages where these gifts can be purchased. My blog would get shut down for sure if I did that. However, these gift ideas should make one thing abundantly clear about Christmas 2014: there is indeed something for everyone!

Lab-Grown Sausage

Create your own sausage! (finecooking.com)

For years, scientists have used technology to grow human organs in laboratory settings. I remember one instance where a human ear was grown on the back of a mouse, which was a pretty freaky sight to see. Of course, this isn’t the strangest example given a recent story about researchers at Wake Forest University, who successfully grew penile erectile tissue in 2009 and created a “functional engineered solid organ” for rabbits.

And by “organ,” I mean “penis.”

Yes, scientists now seem to be capable of growing penises in their labs, and the first human trials could be ready within the next four or five years.

I know what you’re thinking: Maybe I can have a really large member grown in a lab to replace the flaccid, undersized sausage I currently have?

Sorry, but that’s not really how it works.

Lab-grown penises could be used to help men with penile cancer, erectile dysfunction and even abnormalities in their nether regions. They may also help guys whose penises are destroyed due to injury… or vengeful women, I suppose (think Lorena Bobbitt).

Unfortunately, this procedure won’t help transgender men since their surgeries involve using existing penile tissue. But it could help a lot of others, so kudos to the WFU researchers responsible for this ground-breaking treatment.

I would offer them a twelve-penis salute but, sadly, I have only one saluting them at the moment!

Squeeze Play

Breast fondling just entered the 21st century (PinIt/Huffington Post)

According to Wikipedia, virtual reality is a computer-generated environment “that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world or imagined worlds” and can “recreate sensory experiences” like smell, sight, sound and—of course—touch.

It’s this last sensory experience that caught my attention today because—believe it or not—someone has actually created a virtual reality boob-squeezing game.

A recent VIDEO posted to the Japanese site NicoNico Douga by someone named Ryuto showcases this new invention: the Oculus Rift Boobs Simulator, or ORBS. Using a LeapMotion pressure sensor, an Arduino control board, an Oculus Rift VR headset and a cushioned mouse pad, ORBS allows users to grope a fictional anime character named Mami. And what’s worse is that whenever her breasts are squeezed, Mami recoils.

Yes, leave it to technology to help train a new generation of sexually harassing perverts! As if there weren’t enough out there already!

Aaron the Ripper?

The real Jack the Ripper (Beth Ivie-Allen)

In the fall of 1888, the Whitechapel district of London was terrorized by a serial killer who preyed on prostitutes and murdered them in the most brutal fashion: the infamous Jack the Ripper. And for more than 125 years, the identity of this vicious madman remained a mystery, despite there being a handful of potential suspects.

Well, it looks like the mystery has finally been solved—and not by a seasoned detective, but by an amateur sleuth named Russell Edwards.

The revelation came after Edwards acquired a shawl that was found at the crime scene of one of the Ripper’s victims, Catherine Eddowes. A world-renowned expert in DNA analysis—Dr. Jari Louhelainen—examined the shawl and was able to recover not only blood from the victim, but semen from her killer. He then used mitochondrial DNA—as well as samples from descendants of Eddowes and several suspects—to determine the identity of the notorious slasher: a Polish immigrant named Aaron Kosminski.

Edwards and the shawl that helped him solve the mystery (Ian Mcilgorm)

Kosminski fled to England in the early 1880s to escape the Russian persecution of Jews in Poland. According to his immigration papers, he worked as a hairdresser in Whitechapel and lived only a few hundred yards away from where his third victim, Elizabeth Stride, was murdered. Kosminski also suffered from serious mental illness—most likely schizophrenia—and spent the end of his life in an asylum before dying of gangrene at the age of 53.

Thus ends one of the most interesting mysteries in history. Jack the Ripper has finally been unmasked, so now people can focus on solving other mysteries… like what the hell McDonald’s really puts in their Chicken McNuggets!

Techno-Sex

The “GoPro vibrator” is on sale now! (Svakom)

When you hear the term techno-sex, the first thought that likely comes to mind involves people having sex with robots. And while this probably isn’t too far into our collective future—and could actually be happening now, come to think of it—the good news is that there is plenty of other sex technology available now to perverts everywhere.

Last month, the makers of Fleshlight introduced an accessory to enhance their popular, handheld masturbation tool. It’s called the Launchpad, which is essentially just a special iPad case that allows users to connect their Fleshlights to their tablets. This means that while they watch porn—or even Skype with unsuspecting victims—men can pleasure themselves by effectively banging their Apple products.

I bet Steve Jobs never envisioned that happening, huh?

Steve could have gotten an iJob from the Launchpad (Esquire)

Not to be outdone, the Chinese-based company Svakom just introduced their own technologically sexual device, the Gaga. Basically, it’s a vibrator outfitted with a camera and a light so users can see inside whatever “holes” they choose to plug with it. In other words, it’s a personal vagina cam—or ass cam, depending on your preference.

Yes, for the low, low price of $180—which includes both the device itself and a handy USB cable—you can not only pleasure yourself or your partner, but also see what lies beneath—or inside, I suppose. And who doesn’t want to see inside their lover’s twat or rectum?

Why just the other day I was wondering how I might perform my own colonoscopy…

The Blood Moon

Look for tonight’s blood moon around 2-3 a.m. (Steve Margala/Astronomy for Beginners)

If there are any astronomy buffs in the crowd, then I’m sure you are all preparing for tonight’s lunar festivities—especially if you live in the Americas and don’t mind staying up until the wee hours of the morning.

Starting at around 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, the first of four total lunar eclipses slated for 2014-2015 will begin, resulting in what is known as a Hunter’s Moon or—more commonly—a blood moon. The moon takes on this sanguine hue as it passes through Earth’s shadow, which has been described as being the color of a desert sunset.

In other words, it’s incredibly beautiful, provided you can stay up until 3 a.m. or so. That’s when the moon should be bloody as hell, but sadly, this effect will start to fade roughly an hour later.

The good news is that if you miss tonight’s blood moon, you will get three more chances to see it during what is known as a tetrad—a series of four consecutive lunar eclipses scheduled for April 15^th and October 8^th of 2014, as well as April 4^th and September 28^th of 2015. And believe me when I say that tetrads like these are incredibly rare. Some NASA experts equate them to drawing a four-of-a-kind in poker, which any poker player can tell you happens only once in a blue moon… or a red one, for that matter.

Of course, celestial events like blood moons can also lead to Biblical hysteria and prophecy-making… and this event is no exception considering the Book of Revelations 6:12-14 mentions the Hunter’s Moon specifically: “When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.”

Pastors Blitz and Hagee “prophesizing” (Calling the Roll/My Catbird Seat)

Enter the Blood Moon Prophecy, an idea popularized by John Hagee and Mark Blitz, two Christian pastors. Blitz actually came up with this idea in 2008 and has been preaching that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur in 2015—this tetrad, in other words, signals the beginning of the end for humanity. Hagee brought Blitz’s ideas back into the spotlight when he published Four Blood Moons in 2013, only he viewed the tetrad as evidence of some major historical change to come—especially for Israel since tetrads always seem to coincide with important events in Jewish history.

Personally, I see tonight’s blood moon as nothing more than an interesting lunar event worth checking out if you’re awake when it happens. Since I consider myself to be an open-minded person, though, I suppose it’s at least possible it could mean something more—especially if Jesus appears once the tetrad ends on September 29, 2015!

At that point, I would probably be willing to reconsider my religious affiliation… or lack thereof…

Tombstone Tech

Be sure to take your cell phone or tablet to the cemetery (Star Tribune)

Technology is everywhere and continues to advance at breakneck speed. And now it seems that even death can’t prevent us from “staying connected” online through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Yes, we may all end up as ghosts in the machine someday—and an Alabama-based company known as Memorysquare is already making this happen. Here’s how they describe themselves—and their innovative new service—on their website:

At Memorysquare we believe that the true value of what we do is found in helping pass on to future generations a life once lived. There is great healing that comes in remembering, reflecting and honoring a life. We provide a user-friendly platform that combines memorialization and technology that enables users of mobile devices to connect to this personalized tribute page while visiting the cemetery. Friends and family are able to post comments and even share content on popular social sites.

This is how it works: When you die and your remains are shipped to the cemetery for burial, your tombstone includes a QR code that links to a personalized memorial page—for a small, one-time fee, that is. The current price is $125 for a non-video tribute and $245 if you prefer video be included. Once registration has been completed—most likely by a family member, unless you’re proactive and want to register while you’re still breathing—a memorial site is launched that allows users to post obituaries, photos, videos and other information about the deceased (or soon-to-be deceased, whatever the case may be). Visitors to your grave can then use their mobile devices to read your QR code, link to your memorial site, learn more about your life and even contribute their own remembrances.

Who could influence hackers to use this technology for evil? Could it be… SATAN! (NBC/Getty Images)

Pretty freaky, huh?

As I mentioned, this service is still new, so I have heard very little about their security protocols. I do wonder how something like this might be exploited by hackers, though—especially after falling victim to those Target hackers at Christmastime. QR codes link directly to individuals’ memorial sites, but they still have to be housed somewhere online… and there’s the rub. Hackers work in cyberspace, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone visited a cemetery, scanned a tombstone QR code and suddenly found themselves at some porn site or worse… at the launch page for the Satanic Temple!

Stranger things have happened…