Top 10 Women in Science developments of 2007. Too recently it would have been difficult to come up with ten developments at all!
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If you didn’t like what you got for Christmas, don’t wait too long to return it! Here are return policies for 15 major retailers.
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Different ways to pack the holiday decorations, so they’ll be easier to use next year. A little bit of time now will save you a ton of aggravation next Thanksgiving weekend.
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10 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube. They’ve done some serious homework to put this list together.
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A new book claims to have definitive evidence that Alexander Graham Bell stole the idea for the telephone. Did Bell take his technology from rival Elisha Gray’s patent application?
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What happens when you race a full-sized remote control car with the normal toy-sized r/c vehicle? Top Gear ran the test, but treachery can trump skill.
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Too weird to die. Four of the strangest creatures on the planet.

As we near year’s end, we’re re-posting a few heavily commented-upon posts from earlier in 2007. Here’s one of my favorites, from September.

According to Wikipedia, Babe Ruth once lived in my hometown. I’m surprised this never came up. I realize it might be suburban legend, and you probably don’t care. Most conversations starting with “Did you know Babe Ruth once lived in my hometown?” probably end soon thereafter.

But we’ve had great comments under past posts soliciting your local trivia, including discussions of school names, school nicknames, famous classmates and unfortunate street names. So let’s try again. What’s the most fascinating fact about your hometown?

That The Babe used to be my neighbor might not be Denville’s claim to fame. Here are a few other facts:

• During the last season of The Sopranos, Tony and Christopher crashed on their way from New York to the greater Caldwell area. They were taken to St. Clare’s Hospital in Denville. This bypassed several closer major hospitals, representing major inefficiencies in our health care system. But still, the plug was nice.

• When I was in third grade, parts of Torch Song Trilogy were filmed at Knuth Farm, across the street from Lakeview School. During shooting, Matthew Broderick occasionally had lunch in our cafeteria. We were not allowed to meet him or know what the movie was about.

• Former Knick, Senator and Presidential candidate Bill Bradley and Just Shoot Me star Laura San Giacomo are Ruth’s modern rivals for the title of Denville’s Most Famous Resident (though I don’t think either live there now.)

• Denville Dairy and Pavolo’s Pizza are among the world’s best providers of ice cream and pizza. (Says me.)

Back in November, we had a “Clip Show Edition,” which led to several suggestions of artists and works to cover. Erin suggested El Greco; upon researching him, I discovered that one of his paintings, “A Lady in a Fur Wrap,” is both a mystery and a controversy in the art world. So, without further ado, let’s revisit El Greco’s mysterious woman…

1. “A Lady in a Fur Wrap” differs from El Greco’s other paintings in two significant ways: the skin of the lady is pink, not blue-white, and the subject is, well, a woman. There is no other well-known El Greco portrait of a woman.
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College football’s bowl season is here, and it’s brought its annual cavalcade of baffling sponsorship deals with it. For much of college bowls’ century-plus history, the postseason games carried humble monikers. The Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Salad Bowl, and Refrigerator Bowl all accentuated just how much time bowl organizers spent in their kitchens frantically looking for something quotidian whose name they could slap on their bowl; “Ummm…have we named a game after the blender yet? Does anyone else think ‘Spatula Bowl’ has a nice ring to it?” However, selling naming rights has become a hot business since the 1980s, and now most bowls’ names are more market-driven than indicative of local color.

In honor of the corporate magic that now permeates almost every bowl, here are a few of our favorite bizarre corporate sponsorship and naming deals:

San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl

If you’re like me, you were probably sitting around last Thursday night mulling the logistics of a hypothetical move to San Diego. If I took a county job, where would I do my banking? I couldn’t have been alone in this conundrum. The entire nation was wondering, and if they’d been watching the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, they would have known. Does a local credit union really need the national exposure of sponsoring a bowl game? If you’ve got a more efficient idea for letting people in Vermont know about the 4.00% APY they could be earning with an average daily balance over $100,000 in the credit union’s Money Market Max account, I’d like to hear it.

Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl

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As we near year’s end, we’re re-posting a few heavily commented-upon posts from earlier in 2007. Here’s one of my favorites, from May.

Inspired by this, the Freakonomics Blog held a discussion about whether a home’s value is negatively affected by a really awful street name (the verdict: maybe, but probably not). I am not compelled to conduct further research.

But this got me thinking. Do I know any really awful street names? Near my house growing up, we had The Hobo Path. Though I don’t recall that appearing on any signs or maps. I don’t remember encountering any hobos, either. There is a Breakneck Road in Green Pond, New Jersey. Kind of scary. Interstate 70 becomes The Mark McGwire Freeway in St. Louis, named long before his infamous Congressional testimony on steroids. In a baffling example of city planning, pretty much every road in Atlanta is Peachtree-something – though that’s more confusing than really awful.

Here are a few more examples…

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As we near year’s end, I’m re-posting a few heavily-commented-upon posts from earlier in the year. Here’s one of my favorites!

Now I’ll admit that from time to time, I enjoy a good glass (or six) of, uh, wine, in the course of, oh, let’s say an academic discussion or an evening symposium. One such evening last week led to an incident in which I, being thoroughly uninhibited and deeply joyful, decided to share my unedited joy with others…let’s say coworkers…via email at 2am.

Although I didn’t manage to embarrass myself out of a job, it led me to wonder why I don’t hear more about drunk emailing. It must happen all the time. It’s akin to drunk dialing (featured in the movie Sideways), but even easier to do (and easier to track down the next day in your Sent Mail folder). Imagine the ease of drunk emailing if you have a BlackBerry (or are just really good at texting). New technology gives us newer, faster, and more trackable ways to connect with the world at times when we really shouldn’t.

Some (sober) Googling revealed that this does happen all the time, of course, and there’s even a term for it: d-railing (apparently a slightly drunken conflation of “drunk emailing”). There’s also drunk blogging and even (shudder) drunk eBaying.

I asked some friends what they do online when they’re drunk, and by far the winner was: drunk iTunes Store purchases. That “buy now” button is just too easy. And then I remembered something from my evening of drunken computing…checking my Amazon wishlist, I discovered that I’d decided to treat myself to a few paperbacks that had been languishing on my list for a year. I even got the two-day shipping.

So let’s have it, folks: what do you do online when inebriated?

Note: check out the 109 comments on the original post!

It took 1,035 guesses, but we finally have a winner in Monday’s book giveaway. For picking lucky number 701, Julia from Minneapolis wins a copy of 15,003 Answers: The Ultimate Trivia Encyclopedia. Tuesday’s winner was Joe, who successfully guessed Joe Biden’s 1988 campaign.

Today we’re giving away 100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization: History’s Most Influential Canines. Here’s how to play:

Make a case for your dog’s inclusion in the next printing. What makes him or her so special?

The most impressive pooch wins the book!

And now, a superfluous picture of my dog Bailey…

Sure, you know old Walt from Mickey Mouse, Disneyland, Walt Disney World and basically any animated film that didn’t go straight to video, but how much do you really know about this American genius? Here’s a fact list with just a few of our favorite things

1. The Specs

Height: 5’ 10″
Eyes: dark brown
Star Sign: Sagittarius, born Dec. 5, 1901
(Our) Favorite Quote: “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

2. Turn-ons:

Animals (he had a poodle, which he fed steak), flying (he used his twin-engine planes to fly over Disneyland), and Republicans. He also loved tomato juice so much that he served it to everyone who came to his office, and got angry if they didn’t accept it.

3. Turn-offs:

Wrinkles (he had ‘em airbrushed off his promotional pics), criticism (he once threw an Oscar at his brother’s head when he doubted him), and unions (he thought they were part of a Communist plot against him).

4. Hobbies

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Whether you believe near-death experiences imply a plane of existence beyond our own, or are nothing more than the misfirings of a traumatized brain, you’ve got to admit, they’re pretty interesting. While many features of NDEs are common throughout the world — the sensation of floating above your own body, the long dark tunnel, strange loud noises — the cultural differences say a lot about who were are. For instance:

• Many Africans interpret near-death experiences as somewhat evil, a bad omen or a sign that they were somehow “bewitched.”
• Among 400 Japanese NDErs that participated in a study, many reported seeing long, dark rivers and beautiful flowers, two common symbols that frequently appear as images in Japanese art.
• East Indians sometimes see Heaven as a giant bureaucracy, and frequently report being sent back because of clerical errors.
• Americans and Brits often say they are sent back for love or in order to perform a job or task.
• Natives of Micronesia often visualize Heaven as a large, brightly lit American city with loud, noisy cars and tall buildings.

Anyone have a similar experience they’d like to share? (The closest I’ve ever come to death was falling out of the oak tree in my backyard as a kid and bumping my head; no big thing.)

This week and next, you’ll run across a ton of year-end lists. It’s inevitable on the web every year. Looking back at the old year helps us to put things in perspective and clear our minds for the new year. In addition to the major lists, there are quite a few that will feed your brain with something new.

1. Let’s take a look back at The Associated Press’ Top News Stories of 2007. These are the biggest, according to the U.S. editors and news directors belonging to the AP. But you already know the big stories. Learn something new by checking out The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2007.

2. The New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2007. Surprisingly, there are no science books on the list. But NPR picked up some slack there by recommending their favorite science books of 2007, then posting other’s suggestions.

The list of lists continues, after the jump.

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