Tasmanian devil cancer

Whoa. An infectious cancer is decimating the Tasmanian devil population. Weird and sad. More here.

The most accurate measurement ever made and a new theory of everything

The team, led by Geoff Pryde of Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, has managed to measure the interference between two light waves as they beat slightly out of step, with a precision that is limited only by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the most fundamental and unavoidable source of ‘fuzziness’ in the quantum world.
Nature News

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An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists...Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year.

Telegraph

And it's testable?!? Gracias, Minty

Fear No Smell

Normal mice were drawn to smells of peanut butter and mouse urine; but couldn’t flee fast enough from the scents of rotting food, fox glands, and the urine of snow leopards.

But mice without these neurons showed less interest in the sweet smells and little aversion to spine-tingling ones, the team reports in Nature. The mice could still detect these smells, the researchers found, and could learn to hate the odours if researchers made the mice sick while delivering the 'nasty' smells.

Nature News
Nature Article

Various TV appearances by Red Sox

These appearances range from joyous to painfully awkward like a phone conversation with me. I would want it no other way.

Jonathan Papelbon on Letterman (my personal favorite)
Manny Ramirez on Leno (good)
David Ortiz on Conan (a bit odd, but Papi's jacket makes it worthwhile)
Jonathan Papelbon and Doug Mirabelli on QVC (bizarre)
David Ortiz on Regis and Kelly (painful)