Posted
by
samzenpus
from the I-can-win-your-heart-in-less-than-twelve-parsecs dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that devoted fans at the recent Star Wars Convention V, many dressed as Jedi knights, stormtroopers, or the indomitable Princess Leia, sat opposite one another for a series of 3-minute speed dates, in hopes of finding a connection with a fellow Star Wars enthusiast. 'Over the course of the three events, due to size and time, we turned away about 600 participants,' says Ryan Glitch. 'Yesterday, this room was packed. We had to keep shoveling people along.' Meanwhile in the main exhibition hall, a chapel was set up to allow fans to profess their love and devotion to each other in the form of commitment ceremonies. 'I've been told that we've had two commitment ceremonies from people that met at my event,' says Glitch adding that he saw eight additional couples at the convention made up of people who had attended his speed dating sessions."
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the level-1-random-encounter dept.
nibbles2004 writes "An article in the Guardian newspaper shows how parasitic fungi evolved the ability to control ants they infect, ultimately leading the ant to its death. The fungus controls the ant's movements to a suitable leaf and causes the ant to grip onto the leaf's central stem, allowing the fungus to spore, which will allow more ants to become infected."
spopepro writes "While un-captioned cats might be of limited interest to the /. community, I found this column on how a fabricated statistic takes on a life of its own interesting. Starting with the Humane Society of the United States' (HSUS) claim that the unsterilized offspring of a cat will '...result in 420,000 cats in 5 years,' the author looks at other erroneous numbers, where they came from and why they won't go away."