British Navy mechanic Arthur Batchelor, one of the recently released Iranian hostages, has been criticized for “making a mockery of his capture in a series of sickening photos.” I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to be held in captivity, so I wouldn’t think of passing judgment. But this got me thinking about Gary Powers, the pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the U.S.S.R. in 1960. I wondered what became of Captain Powers upon his return. Here’s what I learned.

(more…)

After picking up a new African Violet at the grocery store, I noticed a little tag on the plant — the tag had a picture of the Space Shuttle, surrounded by flowers. Eh? A quick trip to Google, and I learned all about the Optimara EverFloris “Space Violet” program. From the site:

…the development of EverFloris Violets began in 1984, when Optimara launched 25,000 Optimara seeds into space aboard one of NASA’s space shuttles. The seeds remained in space, orbiting the Earth, for nearly six years. (The Long Duration Exposure Facility, on which the seeds orbited, is shown at right. [Blogger’s note:  see below for an LDEF link]) The program was conceived to test the effect of long-term exposure to cosmic radiation and lack of gravity. When the seeds were retrieved in 1990, many mutations soon became apparent. One such mutation resulted in a new characteristic which Optimara has dubbed ‘multiflorescence.’ This characteristic gives Optimara Violets an extraordinary abundance of flowers which never stop blooming. Compared with PMA standards, which define a finished African Violet as having five to seven open blooms, a multiflorescent Optimara variety will have at least 20 open blooms.

Um…wow? (Before we move on: more on the Long Duration Exposure Facility.) After consulting my friendly neighborhood geneticist, I was informed that mutations induced by extraterrestrial radiation are no different from mutations created in the lab. But, dude, SPACE.

More stories of seeds in space after the jump.

(more…)

It’s time for another whimsical Tuesday Turnip search wherein I type a random phrase and we see what kind of interesting factoids “turn-up.”

Today I typed in “the most expensive in history,” unearthing the following:

• The Athens Games cost about euro 9 billion (11.6 billion US dollars), the government said Friday, making the 2004 Olympics the most expensive in history.
• The turning point from race-baiting to gay-baiting came in 1984, when Jesse Helms framed his Senate campaign — then the most expensive in history
• Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr spent more than $6 million on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the overall investigation of President Clinton is becoming the most expensive in history, congressional auditors reported Wednesday.
• The 2008 campaign is shaping up as the most expensive in history
• By all accounts, the 2004 [election] advertising campaign was the most expensive in history, with up to $1.5 billion spent on advertising
• The Oklahoma City tornado was the most expensive in history, damaging 8000 buildings and causing nearly a billion dollars of damage.
• The FBI investigation [into 9/11] will be the most expensive in history.
• The 2004 [storm] season was the most expensive in history. The costliest single storm was 1992’s Andrew at $35.6 billion.

Cthulhu is a deity/monster/alien featured in H.P.Lovecraft’s science fiction, particularly The Call of Cthulhu. The original character is anything but cute; in fact he’s powerful, evil, horrifying, and scary, too. But the heart of comedy is a juxtaposition of opposites, so it’s natural to try to make Cthulhu into something cute.

French artist Francois Launet puts a comic spin on the horror of Cthulhu at the webcomic The Unspeakable Vault of Doom.

Artist Gala Tokareva drew baby Cthulhu in the classic nude-on-belly pose. See more at her site.

Oh, there’s lot more, after the jump.

(more…)

When I was growing up, goldfish were the ultimate contraband. The easy-access packaging (a Ziplock bag, usually) was too tantalizing, and my mother was often too exhausted to resist our solicitations. But few were the hours before my sister was crouched over the fishbowl, gingerly lifting the doomed thing out of its habitat and into her Fritos-stained hands–”I’m petting him!” The ones that weren’t tortured this way were usually belly-up within weeks; however, if we’d been aware that many goldfish actually aren’t dead when they float or “swim” upside down, maybe things could have been different…Well, maybe our hopefuls wouldn’t have been able to top the lifespan of Goldie, the UK goldfish who died at 45, but still! Apparently, constipation in goldfish makes it tough for them to maintain equilibrium, tipping them upside down. But if you switch up their diets–boiled peas (as long as you remove the skins) are especially good–they should deflate in no time.

Excuse me while I channel my inner flailing stand-up comic. Do we have any grandparents in the audience?

[mild applause]

Any grandparents who like to give advice?

[applause starts to die down]

Any grandparents who know how to use computers?

[two people clapping in the back]

Oh, right. Unless your more tech-savvy friends printed out and mailed you a copy of this website, it’s likely you can navigate the Internet. So let’s get to the punchline.

In the tradition of Dear Abby, Elder Wisdom Circle aims to connect wisdom-toting seniors with advice-seeking youth. Their mission is “to promote and share elder know-how and accumulated wisdom. We also have a goal of elevating the perceived value and worth of our senior community.”

As a lucky grandson of very knowledgeable grandparents, I think this is fantastic. The Elder Wisdom Circle was featured on NPR last year, and you can read some of their advice letters here. And if any of our more senior readers want to impart specific wisdom on our younger ones, comment away.

[The great photo above is courtesy of Mark Bottrell, creator of the “Pedro Lacks Political Experience” t-shirt. This is his grandma.]

The original Dummies book, DOS for Dummies, made sense: DOS was a dry and complex operating system that made most mortals who tried to use it feel a little, well, dumb. Since then, the Dummies universe has exploded, and there are dumbed-down how-to books covering nearly every topic imaginable. In some cases, however, it seems like the franchise may be encouraging the dummies of the world to enter into activities which it might be best if they stayed away from. To wit:

…. and of course, the just-plain-weird:

There being more of these books than we could possibly list here, it’s time to poll our readers: what’s the strangest Dummies title you’ve seen?

We’ve discussed the all-time best-selling albums, top rated TV shows and most popular video games. Today’s light trivia list covers the albums that enjoyed the most weeks at number one on the Billboard 200.

1. (54 weeks) West Side Story — Soundtrack (1962)
2. (37 weeks) Thriller — Michael Jackson (1983)
3. (31 weeks) Calypso — Harry Belafonte (1956)
4. (31 weeks) South Pacific — Soundtrack (1958)
5. (31 weeks) Rumours — Fleetwood Mac (1977)
6. (24 weeks) Saturday Night Fever — Soundtrack (1978)
7. (24 weeks) Purple Rain — Prince and the Revolution (1984)
8. (21 weeks) Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em — MC Hammer (1990)
9. (20 weeks) The Bodyguard — Soundtrack (1992)
10. (19 weeks) Blue Hawaii — Elvis Presley (1961)

This information comes courtesy of the diligent people at Answers.com, who also had many chart-related tidbits…
(more…)

In 1987, Apple produced a futuristic concept video (Google Video link) showing their vision of the future of computing in the year 2010. The video featured a laptop-ish computer which embodied several major advancements, chief among them a natural-language spoken interface — not just voice-controlled, this interface was conversational.

Aside from the (still sci-fi) verbal interface, many of the other innovations have come to pass, at least in some form: wireless networking, effective internet searching, internet-based videoconferencing, lightweight large-screen portable computers, and touch screen interfaces are all commonplace today, two decades after the video was produced.

Further reading: Wikipedia page on the Knowledge Navigator (mentions a second K.N. video that I couldn’t find online); high resolution QuickTime versions of the Knowledge Navigator video; Future Shock, another Apple concept video from 1988; Alan Kay’s Dynabook (an early laptop concept).

In our tradition of bringing you the wackiest real photos from around the world, check out this guy’s car:

I happened to run into him at the local gas station while paying entirely too much per gallon this morning. He claims every object in the car has some relation to a Disney film/cartoon/series – part of the Imagineering team. I guess that now includes Pixar, but wait, isn’t that the donkey from DreamWorks’ Shrek hanging in the trunk? Hmmmm, what’s he trying to tell us there?

(more…)