As obvious as it may be to include a "picture" of an atom -- a Rutherford model -- it seems terribly incorrect to use it as the primary image to be associated with a quantum-mechanical phenomenon. Though I guess it's good enough to make the article feel "science-y".

I can't help but recall Wyoh Knott, the heroine of Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", who conceived of an electron as "about the size and shape of a small pea".

I guess I've seen too many of those stupid banner ads for whatever scam it is that always uses some variation of the same thing. You know:

$UNREALISTIC_RESULT by $OBEYING_VERB this $NUMBER_1 $WHIMSICAL_ADJECTIVE $INSTRUCTION_SYNONYM

And then I keep reading, and sure enough, it has something to do with losing mass. F@(%!#% Internet, get out of my damned head!

Damn you, Enrico Fermi, and your infernal paradox. Damn damn damn!

As in what's here? http://goo.gl/info/Kjyl#week

I'm sure it'll change over time, but the stats from the first 24 visitors from Slashdot are quite interesting:

Browsers
Firefox: 10
Chrome: 7
Mobile: 2
Opera: 2
Safari: 2
Arora: 1

This tells me that Slashdot users don't use IE. At least, not those who read brand-new stories and are willing to click an unknown link and chancing NSFW content. Thankfully, it's SFW, unless your boss was already "gonna give you up".

I'll be curious how those stats hold up tomorrow!

I've always preferred SoCuteURL. It makes URL's that are sometimes short, sometimes long, but always a lot easier to retype (say, from a text message) than a computer-generated hash. For example, I've got a better chance of telling someone how to type in socuteurl.com/yappypupperpig (so cute u r l dot com slash yappy pupper pig) than I do goo.gl slash anything.

Of course, I also have a soft spot in my heart for http://urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com/ -- but they refuse to "shorten" http://goo.gl/ for me, saying "This URL has been rejected to prevent the universe from collapsing on itself."

Awesomely informative post, thanks!

Insofar as your argument I would venture that the dead snakes would be full of NAPQI, an unhealthy surprise for any critter eating them that was unable to metabolize this chemical.

But does the NAPQI metabolite actually make it into the bloodstream of the scavenger or bird that eats the dead/dying snake? If we (or more accurately, they) are lucky, maybe it gets broken down in the digestive tract before causing any trouble.

Trust me, I've seen it. You're thinking of attention like "famous person" attention, or something you'd see in a movie. Mundane, everyday clinical depression doesn't work that way -- the need for attention is a subconscious thing, not a purposeful attempt.

Someone who's depressed doesn't say "Oh, I need attention, I'll do something stupid today". It's more like the childhood verse: "Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm going to eat a worm."

That's why OD'ing on Tylenol is a case of "Suicide in haste, repent at leisure". If it's too late for the antidote, you get plenty of time to realize what a dumb thing you did as you wait for a transplant (in a hospital under psych watch).

Once the dead snakes are doped on acetaminophen, don't they face the risk of whatever native species might eat them overdosing on acetaminophen

Probably not. The snake will die after its liver wears itself out breaking down the Acetaminophen. All that will be left in the snake is a worn-out liver and non-toxic Acetaminophen metabolites.

Arsenic, by contrast, doesn't "break down". It's an element, so it kills you and remains Arsenic. Other poisons would likely behave similarly. My guess is that Tylenol (I'm tired of typing the long word) was chosen *because* it's less likely to perpetuate in the food chain. In fact, I think it would be just about impossible for it to get beyond two layers -- the liver of whatever eats the snake should take care of the excess with no trouble.

I guess all those warnings about how Tylenol can damage your liver are true!

Ha Ha only serious. I can't find many decent references in a quick Google search, because all the links are "lolz teh armey is dropping Tylenol mice", but Acetaminophen is quite toxic to many animals, including house cats. It works as a poison by damaging the liver.

For a healthy human, the liver can metabolize a normal dose of Tylenol just fine... but if you combine alcohol, Tylenol, and a drawerful of other Acetaminophen-containing products (cough syrup with pain reliever, sleep aid with pain reliever, cocaine/speed/etc cut with pain reliever, etc), you've got trouble on your hands.

Also, there's the problem of would-be suicides who try to overdose on Tylenol-3, the prescription high-dose version with Codeine added. They generally don't die -- largely because there's a specific antidote that hospitals have to neutralize the Acetaminophen before it overwhelms the liver. Those who are too late for that intervention don't die either, not right away... they end up on the list for a donor liver, and get to spend their final weeks wishing that they'd either found a better way to get attention, or that they'd invested in a shotgun.

As always, if you read something linked from here and think coverage is better elsewhere, you're more than welcome to hit us with an email saying so.

And, as always, if you hit them with an email saying so, they're more than likely to route it to /dev/null.

(We'll leave aside for the moment the fact that 99% of such emails are pointless whines in the first place...)

Thanks! I didn't see the scene as overtly religious -- and Spirited Away is full of gods and demons, so what would be the big deal? Though I guess there's a big difference between a bathhouse full of minor gods, versus the more Western monotheistic understanding of God. Very interesting.

The Nausicaä anime still only covers a small part of the full story that you get with all 7 manga books though, and it does give the impression of not quite being finished. And there's *that* scene at the end that Miyazaki was never happy with.

The manga was amazing -- I was lucky enough to find it at the local library.

But what did Miyazaki-san not like about the scenes at the end of the movie? (The Google has failed me, sorry.)

Oddly enough, that's probably the most accurate number available. :)

Seriously though, no one in their right mind down here would try to destroy a rat problem with a possum problem. Matter of fact, anyone that doesn't call them 'possum' doesn't really have any experience with the nasty things

I'm with you -- what the hell were they thinking? Anyone from south of the Mason Dixon line would know damned well that turning possums loose on NYC would lead to complete chaos. The possum's preferred meal is Your Garbage, and a NYC alleyway is a possum's smorgasbord.

But I do have an alternate theory. Someone from the Big City came down South and said something stupid about the size of our "rats". Someone from the Little Southern Town said, "We call 'em 'possums', and they'd eat your so-called Noo Yawk rats for breakfast". The city slicker promptly requested a truckload be delivered, and my cousin Bubba gladly obliged... knowing exactly what lay in store for Mr. Smarty-Pants from the city.

Or it could have been an evil plot to wreak toothy, naked-tailed revenge for the wrongs inflicted upon the South during the Civil War... oh, sorry, I mean "War of Northern Aggression". YMMV.