The sewer monster is made up of thousands of tiny organisms called bryozoans, or moss animacules, said N.C. State University biologist Thomas Kwak. Invertebrates, they bunch together in colonies and feed with tiny tentacles.

"They can get as big as the size of a watermelon," he said.

They've been known to clog pipes, but Raleigh officials aren't worried, even though bryozoans can move up to 10 centimeters a day. "I don't know if we've seen anything move on its own inside a sanitary sewer line," Public Utilities Director Dale Crisp said.

Previously, previously.

The Extinction Oscillator

Using the revised timescales and Fourier analysis, Rohde and Muller looked for a periodic signal in the history of biodiversity. They were looking for evidence of a 26-million-year extinction cycle that had been hinted at in the 1980s; the strong peak in their power spectrum indicating a 62-million-year cycle was a surprise. We found evidence of the same cycle in three more data sets.

Nothing known in the motion of the Earth itself can make a 62-million-year cycle. Further, the laws of celestial mechanics rule out any object orbiting the Sun with such a long period; it would be so distant that the gravity of other stars would pull it away. But other astronomical cycles are still in play.

It takes about 200 million years for the Sun to complete one orbit around the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Moreover, the galaxy is a thin disk, and there is also a motion along a vertical direction. As our solar system slowly orbits the Milky Way's center, it oscillates through the galactic plane with a period of around 65 million years. When we move up in the disk, we are pulled back down by gravity, coasting past the midpoint, then rising back up again, akin to a weight bobbing up and down on a spring.

Was this the missing mechanism? In fact, Rohde and Muller had considered this and dismissed it, for the same reason almost anyone would: One would think that any effect would occur when we passed through the disk of the galaxy, or perhaps when we got very far away from it. But that would happen twice per cycle, every 30 million years or so, which doesn't explain the 62-million-year signal.

It turns out that the biodiversity minima of the 62-million-year cycle happens when the Sun is "bobbed up" on only one side of the galaxy, when the solar system is on the disk's upper, "north" side. The galaxy's north side lies toward the constellation Virgo, as well as the largest concentration of mass in our neighborhood, the Local Supercluster some 60 million light-years away. This supercluster is so massive that its gravity pulls our galaxy toward it at a velocity of about 200 kilometers per second.

As our galaxy falls into the Local Supercluster, it should disturb this gas and create a shock wave, like the bow shock of a jet plane. Shocks in hot gas at such high speeds generate cascades of high-energy subatomic particles and radiation called "cosmic rays." These should be showering the north side of the galaxy's disk. We are protected by the galactic magnetic field, much as the Earth's magnetic field protects our planet. When we rise to the north side, we are less protected -- and the ensuing flux of cosmic rays contains particles of such energy that they can reach the Earth's surface.

You stay klassy, Bozeman, Montana.

Applying for a job with the City of Bozeman? You may be asked to provide more personal information than you expected.

That was the case for one person who applied for employment with the City. The anonymous viewer emailed the news station recently to express concern with a component of the city's background check policy, which states that to be considered for a job applicants must provide log-in information and passwords for social network sites in which they participate.

The requirement is included on a waiver statement applicants must sign, giving the City permission to conduct an investigation into the person's "background, references, character, past employment, education, credit history, criminal or police records."

"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.," the City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.

[...] "We do those types of investigations to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the City," Sullivan said.

The Learjet repo man

Inside the cell, Haitian cops had turned Popovich's face inside out. The pain was ungodly. His shoes were gone. He was starving. And Popovich was sitting in a cage surrounded by 35 prisoners spitting epithets in his face. His only priority was to avoid getting hurt any worse than he already was. In his experience, that meant behaving like a total maniac, lashing out at the nearest prisoners and threatening to kill anyone that came near him.

The charge was the attempted theft of a 707 jumbo jet and he was facing 20 years to life. The jet in question belonged to a Caribbean tour company that went bust. After a few missed payments, the bank had called Popovich, who had tracked the plane from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. The gig promised to be simple. Popovich even spotted the battered silver-and-blue jet on the tarmac as he taxied into Port Au Prince's Toussaint L'Ouverture airport on a sweltering February afternoon. All he needed was an hour to check the avionics, an open runway and a flight plan. It hadn't worked out that way.

By the third day of his imprisonment -- sometime after the American embassy politely informed him that the bank employing him wouldn't put up $100,000 in bail -- details started to come back. The tracer fire pinging the plane's wings like popcorn kernels. Men with bayonets slamming on the fuselage. A police cruiser skidding to a halt right in front of the jet, blocking the runway and preventing Nick from taking off. The cops beating him senseless and throwing him in Penitentier National prison. And now, here he was.

On the seventh day of his incarceration, Haitian President Baby Doc Duvalier was overthrown and the rioting masses swung open all of the cell doors. Bruised, bloody and sleepless, Popovich hobbled out of his cell. As he taxied down the runway for the second time. he couldn't help thinking that what they said was true: Flying home is always the easy part.

The new software "is programmed to reject attempts at exuberance or human warmth." "It will send an error message if it detects a non-neutral expression," the DMV spokeswoman said.

Reasonable Consumer Would Know "Crunchberries" Are Not Real, Judge Rules

The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, alleged that she had only recently learned to her dismay that said "berries" were in fact simply brightly-colored cereal balls, and that although the product did contain some strawberry fruit concentrate, it was not otherwise redeemed by fruit. She sued, on behalf of herself and all similarly situated consumers who also apparently believed that there are fields somewhere in our land thronged by crunchberry bushes.

These people think you'd be better off with some parasitic worms. And they will sell them to you. Worm Therapy: Helminth-Induced Immune Modulation

My favorite bits from the FAQ:

I have heard bad things about medical treatments in Mexico.

Most of what has been reported in the American press is accurate if not prone to hyperbole.

Will I get worse before I get better?

It is not uncommon to experience what is known as the "worm flu".

How long do the worms last?

That depends on the worm you use. In the case of hookworm you can expect them to last between three to seven years. In the case of the tapeworm it is important to kill the worm before it reaches sexual maturity.

Is it safe?

We would like to take a moment to discuss hookworm specifically. This is an organism that uses a human host and though there are animal surrogates these surrogates run the risk of attenuating the organism or transmission of zoonotic disease. Thus, we use human hosts. This means that the organism that is crawling through your skin and into your bloodstream is only a few weeks removed from developing in the ovaries of its parent organism that feeds on the blood of another human. Moreover, some companies raise their hookworm from ova to the infective L3 stage using human feces. We do not. We can mitigate the risk of hookworm carrying fecal bacteria into your bloodstream and we can use hosts that are tested for blood born pathogens but there are mechanisms of vertical transovary transmission that may exist. This type of transmission of disease has not been reported in the literature and our human reservoirs undergo routine testing to mitigate the risk of co-infection. Bottom line: do your research.

Side Effects and Warnings for Beef Tapeworm

Common symptoms include loss of appetite or feeling of fullness, increased appetite, abdominal pain, weakness, headache, nausea, constipation, diarrhea, vomiting and spontaneous emergence of proglottids from the anal sphincter.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, and frankly, the entire poop tag.

The Boy Scouts now have SWAT program.

The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out "active shooters," like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

"Put him on his face and put a knee in his back," a Border Patrol agent explained. "I guarantee that he'll shut up."

Cathy Noriego, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns -- known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets -- in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.

"I like shooting them," Cathy said. "I like the sound they make. It gets me excited."

You're going to be the most popular mom in the trailer park, Cathy.

New weapon turns fire ants into headless zombies

Researchers in Texas are trying an unusual approach to combat fire ants -- deploying parasitic flies that turn the pesky and economically costly insects into zombies whose heads fall off.

[...] But now the researchers are trying a tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants originated. The flies lay eggs on the fire ants, and the eggs hatch into maggots inside the ant and eat away at the pest's tiny brain. The ant will get up and wander for about two weeks while the maggot feeds, said Rob Plowes, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin.

"There is no brain left in the ant, and the ant just starts wandering aimlessly," he said.

About a month after the egg is laid, the ant's head falls off -- and a new fly emerges ready to attack another fire ant.

I can't tell if this is The Onion or not...

Local government officials in China have been ordered to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packs of cigarettes in a move to boost the local economy during the global financial crisis. The edict, issued by officials in Hubei province in central China, threatens to fine officials who "fail to meet their targets" or are caught smoking rival brands manufactured in neighbouring provinces.

Even local schools have been issued with a smoking quota for teachers, while one village was ordered to purchase 400 cartons of cigarettes a year for its officials, according to the local government's website.

China has 350 million smokers, about a million of whom die each year from smoking-related illnesses. Despite anti-smoking campaigns, cigarette taxes form a major component of China's annual tax-take at local level.

Local authorities in Gong'an county are taking the cigarette quota seriously and have established a "special taskforce" to enforce it.

According to a local newspaper account, a teacher from a village middle school said officials burst unannounced into the school at around 3pm one afternoon and started sifting through the ashtray and bins in the staff-room.

Three "non-compliant" cigarette butts were discovered by the "cigarette marketing consolidate team" which informed the teacher he had violated the related civil servants "cigarette usage rule" After some negotiation the school was spared a fine, but subjected to "public criticism" for "undisciplined practices".

I thought you might be interested in what happens to computing machinery around me. It's part of a field that I emit. Or perhaps a secretion. But I think it's a field. A failfield. I have been using this particular keyboard for just under eight years:

Yes, those keys used to say "N" and "M" on them. Wearing the paint off your keycaps? That's for amateurs. Not only do I wear the paint off, I inadvertently carve scars into the plastic. But it's the left "Alt" key that deserves special notice:

It is nearly worn through. That's just how meta I am, man.

Spokane to detonate squirrels

The Rodenator Pro pumps propane and oxygen into the tunnels of squirrels, then sends an electric spark that causes an explosion. The shock waves kill the squirrels and collapse their tunnels - but in a humane way, the agency said.

"You're kidding," Humane Society Director Gail Mackie said when she learned the news.