Melbourne man who tortured and executed his own brother-in-law

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9 July 2013
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This is Yeng Jun Wu — a bankrupt businessman who was jailed for 27 years after brutally murdering his brother-in-law and removing his brain.

Supreme Court Justice Terry Forrest said that in his 35 years in criminal law he had never seen a crime as appallingly and gratuitously violent.

Justice Forrest said Yeng Jun Wu’s torture and execution of his brother-in-law Shao Qing Victor Chen and the subsequent defiling of his body were aggravating factors of his offending.

Mr Chen had most likely been asleep when Wu, who owed him more than $250,000, set upon him in his bedroom with a heavy, sharp weapon believed to be a machete or an axe.
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He was struck repeatedly before being coerced down the stairs and killed despite trying to ward off the murderous attack, Justice Forrest said on Tuesday.

Mr Chen’s distraught wife, Yan Yan Wang, was in tears as the judge described how during the attack, Wu removed Mr Chen’s brain and placed it near his head — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Evita, Giant Anteater / Zoo Berlin

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9 July 2013
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Evita, Giant Anteater / Zoo Berlin

Zoo Berlin welcomed a baby Giant Anteater on 26 May. The baby, named Evita by her keepers, is a female. The name was chosen because E is the fifth letter in the alphabet, and this is mom Griseline’s fifth surviving baby. Before Evita there were Adolpho, Benita, Carlos, and Danita, all born at Berlin Zoo. Evita is being hand-fed by keepers and receives three additional bottle meals per day — via ZooBorns

Female inmates sterilised in California prisons without approval

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8 July 2013
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In Health, Politics, Rights
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Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilised nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Centre for Investigative Reporting has found.

At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years — and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.

From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.

The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison.

Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.

Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison’s infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilised.

I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s not right,’ said Nguyen, 28. Do they think they’re animals, and they don’t want them to breed anymore? — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Mechanical Spider Sculpture No 26 / A Mechanical Mind

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8 July 2013
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Mechanical Spider Sculpture No 26 / A Mechanical Mind

Spider No 26 was made with recycled watch parts and an automotive light bulb. In order to create the legs, forty-eight watch stems must be cut in different sizes to simulate the organic appearance of real spiders’ legs, which vary in size and shape between species. Each of these segments is carefully arranged into a leg and soldered at the joints with lead free, silver bearing solder. Each side of four legs is then soldered together at the base, forming what looks like a claw — via Etsy

Brazilian referee beheaded by spectators after he fatally stabs player

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7 July 2013
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Police in northern Brazil say one man has been arrested after a referee who fatally stabbed a player during a match was decapitated by spectators who stormed the field.

Local reports said the incident, which took place on 30 June in the remote Brazilian town of Pio XII, escalated when the player, 30-year-old Josenir dos Santos, became involved in an argument with the referee, Octavio da Silva.

As the confrontation became physical and Dos Santos refused to leave the field, Da Silva allegedly produced a knife and stabbed the player, who died while being taken to hospital.

Reports said that outraged spectators responded by running on to the field and stoning Da Silva, before severing his head and sticking it on a stake in the middle of the field — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Dogs in Elk / Anne Verchick

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7 July 2013
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They’re inside of it. They crawled inside, and now I have a giant incredibly heavy piece of carcass in my yard, with 2 dogs inside of it, and they are not getting bored of it and coming out. One of them is snoring. I have company arriving in three hours, and my current plan is to 1. put up a tent over said carcass and 2. hang thousands of fly strips inside it. This has been going on since about 6:40 this morning — via Robert Burke

Mindscapes: First man to hear people before they speak

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6 July 2013
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PH is the first confirmed case of someone who hears people speak before registering the movement of their lips. His situation is giving unique insights into how our brains unify what we hear and see.

It’s unclear why PH’s problem started when it did — but it may have had something to do with having acute pericarditis, inflammation of the sac around the heart, or the surgery he had to treat it.

Brain scans after the timing problems appeared showed two lesions in areas thought to play a role in hearing, timing and movement. Where these came from is anyone’s guess, says PH. They may have been there all my life or as a result of being in intensive care — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Craft, Entertainment

The Internet / KineticGifts

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5 July 2013
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This is The Internet. It is wireless and can normally be found at the top of Big Ben in London, where it gets the best reception. Whether you are looking for novelty for your desk, somewhere to hide your secrets or a subject for a speech to the shareholders, The Internet is a unique and fun tribute to this hilarious joke from The IT Crowd — via Etsy

Octopus inspires silent propulsion system for boats and subs

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4 July 2013
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Along with their writhing tentacles, octopi and squid sport another interesting feature — they swim not by swishing a tail, but by expelling a jet of water. This allows them to move very quickly and quietly. Scientists from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation have now copied this system, in a propulsion system that could ultimately find use in boats, recreational watercraft, or submarines.

Known as the Octopus Siphon Actuator, the miniature prototype system consists of four joined 20 x 6cm elastomer balls, each with a hydraulic piston inside. Initially, water is sucked in through an opening in each ball – just as a squid or octopus draws water into its mantle. Cables integrated into the balls then cause them to contract, rapidly expelling the water.

In the same way that the animals steer themselves by moving the funnel that the water comes out of, the Fraunhofer system can also be steered, using a motor to selectively point the balls in the desired direction(s).

The whole apparatus can be fabricated in one step, using a 3D printer. Production could reportedly be scaled up to the point of producing balls measuring two metres across. According to Fraunhofer, not only would a commercial version of the technology allow for fast and near-silent travel, but there would also be no danger of sea creatures being cut by propellers — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Glowing tags to reveal hidden prints

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4 July 2013
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Scientists have described a new system for visualising hidden crime scene fingerprints.

Despite several enhancement techniques already in use, only about 10% of fingerprints from crime scenes are of sufficient quality to be used in court.

The technique is based around fluorescent chemical tags and works on metal surfaces, meaning it could be used on knives, guns or bullet casings.

Details were outlined at the Faraday Discussions lecture series in Durham.

Notwithstanding DNA, fingerprints are still the major source of identification in criminal investigations, co-author Prof Robert Hillman, from the University of Leicester, told BBC News.

When someone asks: ‘Haven’t we been doing this for a century, why do we need another method?’ Our answer is: ‘To image the 90% we don’t currently get’ — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Cousins who marry doubles risk for babies

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4 July 2013
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First cousins who marry run twice the risk of having a child with genetic abnormalities, according to the findings of a study based on the English city of Bradford.

The city, which has a high proportion of South Asian immigrants and their descendants among its population, served as a microcosm for examining the risk of blood relative couplings.

About 37 per cent of marriages among people of Pakistani origin in the study involved first cousins, compared with less than one per cent of British unions, said the researchers.

University of Leeds investigator Eamonn Sheridan led a team that pored over data from the Born in Bradford study, which tracks the health of 13,500 babies born at the city’s main hospital between 2007 and 2011.

Out of 11,396 babies for whom family details were known, 18 per cent were the offspring of first-cousin unions, mainly among people of Pakistani heritage.

A total of 386 babies — three per cent — were born with anomalies ranging from problems in the nervous, respiratory and digestive systems, to urinary and genital defects and cleft palates.

This Bradford rate was nearly twice the national average, said the study published in medical journal The Lancet — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Samsung buys set top box maker Boxee

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4 July 2013
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Samsung is buying Boxee — an Israeli firm that makes media streaming devices.

The South Korean electronics giant said it had acquired key talent and assets from the company.

This will help us continue to improve the overall user experience across our connected devices, it added.

Boxee’s latest product lets subscribers record TV shows onto its servers and then stream them to TVs, computers and smart devices from the cloud — via redwolf.newsvine.com

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