The teddy bear’s fluffy, cream coloured fur looks like that of a typical stuffed animal. But this teddy’s fur has something more in common with health foods than children’s toys — it comes from soy. Tofu Bear is part of Biltmore World Trade’s line of SoySilk Pals, stuffed animals whose fur is made out of soy fibre that is extruded from soybean cake, or tofu
Jakub Fik, 33, cut off his own penis during a Northwest Side rampage. When confronted by police, Fik hurled several knives and his severed organ at the officers. Officers stunned him with a Taser and took him into custody — via The Cult of Father Darwin
The Australian Government has shut down a parody web site that mocked Australian Prime Minister John Howard. The web site featured a satirical speech that apologised
for the Iraq war. The site was down for two days before a phone call from Melbourne IT advised the owner that it had been shut down on the advice from the Australian Government
. A mirrored PDF copy of the apology speech
is available
The controversial American fundamentalist missionary organisation the New Tribes Mission is making weekly visits to a group of isolated Ayoreo-Totobiegosode Indians first contacted in 2004 — via Warren Ellis
Booster jabs could soon become obsolete following the discovery by a British scientist of the world’s first effective way to control the speed at which vaccines are released in the body
In a legal win for Google, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a writer who claimed the search giant infringed on his copyright by archiving a Usenet posting of his and providing excerpts from his Web site in search results. Thankfully, we can all still read Usenet articles on Google as well as other archive services
US and Japanese researchers have announced results of a study showing that capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers hot, can cause prostate cancer cells to kill themselves
The Pentagon’s defence scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions
Reporters who write about government surveillance could be prosecuted under proposed legislation that would solidify the administration’s eavesdropping authority, according to some legal analysts who are concerned about dramatic changes in US law
Internet copyright pirates in France will face prison and large fines after French MPs pushed through laws to curb illegal music and film downloads
Cheap radio chips that are replacing barcodes are a threat to privacy and susceptible to computer viruses. Researchers at the Amsterdam’s Free University created a radio frequency identity (RFID) chip infected with a virus to prove that RFID systems are vulnerable despite the extremely low memory capacity on the cheap chips
Online codebreaking enthusiasts working to solve a series of German World War II ciphers have cracked the second of three codes. Thousands of users around the world have joined the M4 Project, using spare computing power to crack the codes — via BBC News
European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx criticised governments’ fondness for biometrics to identify citizens and warned that greater interoperability of databases may have serious implications for people
Telstra yesterday officially launched a free blogging service to broadband customers of its retail BigPond arm
Nanotechnology has restored the sight of blind rodents, a new study shows. After injecting the hamsters with a solution containing nanoparticles, the nerves re-grew and sight returned — via BBC News
Up to one million litres of oil have leaked from a damaged pipeline in Alaska’s North Slope, the worst spill in the region’s history. The leak, apparently caused by metal corrosion, was detected March 2 in the United States’ largest oil field in Prudhoe Bay, which lies about 1,040 kilometres north of Alaska’s biggest city, Anchorage
Rosuvastatin, a drug that reduces cholesterol, has been found to turn the clock back
in narrowed arteries, a discovery that could prevent heart attacks and strokes in thousands of people
New versions of Ubuntu Linux have been released at a steady six-month cadence, but project founder Mark Shuttleworth is considering a six week delay to improve the reliability of an important new version
A recent virus-definition update from security firm McAfee incorrectly flagged several applications as viruses, even removing the core Microsoft Excel executable from some users’ computers
In another blow to the reputation of the agency that just can’t seem to get anything right, the Chicago Tribune used web searches and various commercial online databases to uncover a treasure trove of information about the CIA. The Tribune found the identities of over 2600 CIA employees (including an undisclosed number of covert operatives) as well as the locations of over two dozen CIA facilities across the US, internal telephone numbers, and information on 17 aircraft
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