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The Mars Gravity Biosatellite Project is an unmatched international effort that pools top-notch technical talent from MIT, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. The mission is nothing short of groundbreaking. The plan is to build a spacecraft capable of housing a small crew of mice, including pregnant females, which will simulate the gravity of Mars to determine its effects on mammalian development.
posted by David Dark at 10:15 PM PST - 9 comments

"Mr. Magoo." Just the man to run the Army in a two-front Middle Eastern war, right? username: metafilter password: metafilter via rc3.
posted by specialk420 at 9:17 PM PST - 9 comments

Area 51, truth seekers 0. Bush reissues order keeping Nevada site secret. I can't believe he had time to think about this with all the other shit he's stirring so hard.
posted by puddsharp at 8:55 PM PST - 16 comments

It's sad we lost, but the Mayor got what she had coming This woman is an atrocity to the beautiful city of Dallas - she is grossly uncouth, lacks class, and is not fit for the position of mayor in one of the greatest cities in America. She made a bet on the Cowboys when they started the season with a game against the Houston Texans - and lost. The agreement was that if the 'boys won the game, the Mayor of Houston would wear a 'boys cap and jersey at a city hall meeting. Likewise and reciprocal from the herself. Yeah.
posted by JessicaRose at 8:31 PM PST - 25 comments

Tumbling Woman A statue of a falling woman designed as a memorial to those who jumped or fell to their death from the World Trade Center was abruptly draped in cloth and curtained off Wednesday because of complaints that it was too disturbing. It's all right if you don't want to discuss it here and now. I was also in NYC and saw the towers on that day.
posted by neu at 8:23 PM PST - 70 comments

ESPN and Reality Based TV....together at last!! It's called Beg, Borrow and Deal, ESPN's new reality show. 2 Teams, 4 people each are dropped into Times Square with just the clothes on their back. They have to make their way to Alcatraz Island in 4 weeks. The catch? They must complete 10 of 40 challenges. These challenges range from difficult, (watch the Kentucky Derby from the infield and place a winning bet on the Kentucky Derby itself), to unbelievable (play horse vs an NBA player and win), to crazily impossible, (play 4 members of congress in a game of flag football in front of the Capital building in DC, one must be a senator).

To make matters worse, you're given no money or food or equipment. No contestant is allowed to touch any money during the game. They can only (ahem) beg, borrow and deal for favors from strangers or friends. Add to that, none of the sports teams or organizations know about the contest...

The Prize: Two tickets, all expenses paid, to four championship events of the next year.

I was skeptical at first, but man, what a great first episode. I haven't had this much fun since the original Survivor. It looks like the contestants had the time of their lives. It's like a super cross country sports scavenger hunt. Sign me up for next season!
posted by gwong at 7:43 PM PST - 24 comments

The Anti-Defamation League has release a new report, entitled: Jihad Online: Islamic Terrorists and the Internet [pdf] It outlines seven Islamists groups and their use of the Internet to plan, recruit, and even attack over the web. [more inside]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 7:24 PM PST - 9 comments

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike...
posted by grumblebee at 7:17 PM PST - 18 comments

Ever wanted to be an author but didn't know how to start? Here's your chance - a story already underway and waiting for you to add your contribution. [more inside]
posted by dg at 6:07 PM PST - 15 comments

Researchers zap Dan Aykroyd's brain; actor unzips own fly. Swiss scientists have simulated an out-of-body experience in a female epilepsy patient, by using electrodes to stimulate the angular gyrus section of the brain. Anyone have other examples of (supposedly) parapsychological phenomena struck down by the (supposedly) harder sciences?
posted by bingbangbong at 6:04 PM PST - 29 comments

I will not forget the liberal media who abused freedom of the press to kick our country when it was vulnerable and hurting. This is just one of the lines of text in a recent email forwarding. The piece is attributed to one Ed Evans, MGySgt., USMC (Ret.). Google turns up page after page of the exact same text. It's being plastered all over the internet, repeated hundreds of times by hundreds of people. By what means does something like this become so ubiquitous? If a person wanted to create this sort of buzz, how would they do it? How do you combat such a tidal wave of jingoistic hooey?
posted by pejamo at 4:45 PM PST - 49 comments

Is this a good idea? The SEC names an ex-Andersen partner to a top position regulating auditors. Why not have oil executives pick our energy policy while we're at it?
posted by spotmeter at 3:46 PM PST - 11 comments

Fire up that warp drive. In this week's issue of Nature, physicists claim to have made 50,000 atoms of antihydrogen. Not only is this a lot more antihydrogen than has been produced before, the stuff is cold -- read slow-moving -- so it's possible that physicists will finally be able to trap it and study it. (Less technical news story here.)
posted by ptermit at 1:56 PM PST - 26 comments

Tired of your office mate's irritatingly cute Hello Kitty USB hub? Balance the forces of cuteness with Hubzilla. (Via Macintouch)
posted by nathan_teske at 1:35 PM PST - 26 comments

Paging Winston Smith... Not content with mere cynical doublespeak, the Bush Administration is now trying to shape government reports and research to agree with the President's beliefs: an EPA report omits a section on global warming for the first time in six years; the Department of Health and Human Services is being "restructured," eliminating committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views; and at the Department of Education, old studies that contradict the current administration's policies are being removed from the agency's web site. When you add this trend to the administration's "permanent war," I suspect George Orwell is smiling somewhere...
posted by mattpusateri at 12:45 PM PST - 42 comments

What is pain? It can get pretty technical. There are several different theories. Regardless of what you think pain is, it turns out that men can deal with it better than women. *Flexes muscles*
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 12:23 PM PST - 33 comments

"When you talk about running electricity through someone's genitals, most people think of torture. However, we have found that low power, high frequency (audio) current can produce some very interesting tingling and throbbing sensations." Bored of the same, day-in, day-out masturbation routine? Try electronic masturbation! "
posted by Pinwheel at 12:12 PM PST - 28 comments

Edith's Huge Interface. Some kind of Usenet spamming strategy that I don't understand provides a rich resource for band names, random subject lines, and Mefi taglines. "Hey, I'll annoy the robot!"
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:16 AM PST - 28 comments

What do Prince William, Sir Winston Churchill and President George W. Bush have in common? They're all blood relatives.
posted by TBoneMcCool at 10:59 AM PST - 25 comments

They vanished in a variety of circumstances. A 52-year-old security man disappeared from an inn; a 22-year-old bar hostess went missing after dropping off her children at a day-care center; two college students on summer vacation went missing near a beach; an engaged couple disappeared after apparently stopping at a seaside lookout. They lived and died with their kidnappers.
posted by i blame your mother at 9:47 AM PST - 24 comments

According to this guy we have become an over-regulated society, directed towards obedience, bordering on totalitarianism. While much of what he says here is not new to us, it does appear that with each new law put into effect, we are incrementally giving up more and more of our freedoms. So, when is the breaking point? Some laws and regulations are necessary, but have we already gone too far? (More interesting/entertaining rants from him here.)
posted by eas98 at 9:33 AM PST - 23 comments

...a $17,100 traveling toilet box; a $15,000 dog umbrella stand; a $6,300 sewing basket; a $6,000 shower curtain; $5,960 for two sets of sheets; a $2,900 set of coat hangers; a $2,200 gilt metal wastebasket; a $1,650 notebook; and a $445 pincushion. Yes, it's more insane corporate greed: Tyco Details Lavish Lives of Executives (NYT link, 'free' regis. req'd)
posted by Shane at 9:19 AM PST - 22 comments

As it is... Bhagavad Gita Art - love it - (as seen in those Hare Krishna books they give out around the world) and makes sure not to *always* stick with Eastern representations. I think Dubya should do more of this... whaddyathink?
posted by HeadSessions at 9:18 AM PST - 10 comments

Bad News for a Wednesday I certainly hope that some good can come out of this tragedy. Perhaps that's a bit of wishful thinking on my part.
posted by tommyspoon at 9:16 AM PST - 11 comments

India's slide into facsism... An essay in The Nation by India's Arundhati Roy — novelist, essayist, activist — lays down the facts around a very troubling assertion: people-heavy, nuclear-armed, legitimacy-seeking, proto-super-power India is quickly becoming a fascist state.
posted by silusGROK at 8:59 AM PST - 14 comments

Parents charged in death of girl forced to drink water - Forcing a 4 year old to consume large amounts of water seems like an odd way to promote family bonding. Death by over watering can happen, but this sounds more like an episode of Law & Order.
posted by MediaMan at 8:57 AM PST - 20 comments

Would you like some cheesecake with that coffin? An Italian coffin maker and funeral home is using sex to sell... coffins!? Can this be for real? Advertising at its finest. Cheesecake is here (scroll down to "Cofani funebri e fascino" and click the links below) and here (a calendar? what the?).
posted by internal at 8:22 AM PST - 26 comments

Black-Jew Rift Widens After Southern Primaries WASHINGTON — Participants in this month's Congressional Black Caucus conference say the defeat of two black House members in bitter primaries not only suggests a widening rift with Jewish Democrats, but trouble within the Democratic Party itself. I have long considered the Democrats in trouble: one of their charms. A Black loses to another Black and it is the fault of the Jews? Reparations? Assuming there had been a strong lobby at work to get the Jewish vote to come out against these candidates, is that un-American? Don't we vote for those we feel best serve our interests? Odd that he Protocols of Zion not mentioned.
posted by Postroad at 7:35 AM PST - 26 comments

This war plan forces me to stand by the dictator who tortured me. Iraqi writer, an exiled dissident and victim of Hussein's regime speaks against war and sanctions: "You are "either with us or against us", they say. As an Iraqi that means choosing between war and the dictator. To be on the side of the oppressed does not mean we are unaware of the complexity of the situation. To campaign for the lifting of sanctions, for an end to the paralysing bombardment and daily threat of war is to stand by the Iraqi people; it is that policy which will help them to change the oppressive regime. Any change should be initiated from within Iraq, not imposed by Bush or Blair."
posted by talos at 7:34 AM PST - 11 comments

Duplex Planet, David Greenberger's legendary zine which has spawned books, CDs, comic books, and videos, finally went online sometime this year. "In the universal experience of aging we are desperately short of meaningful guidance. The Duplex Planet offers some lessons and examples," says Greenberger. Does he succeed, or is DP just an artful "seniors say the darndest things"?
posted by kmel at 7:34 AM PST - 8 comments

Help me leave my husband. No, not me. A woman named Peggy from Seattle, Washington saw Save Karyn and decided to do the same thing to help end her marriage. more inside..
posted by SuzySmith at 3:42 AM PST - 57 comments

Each of these reflects on the growth and implications of technology during the 20th century from early air transport to the current ethical debate on the future of our species. The Hindenburg, Bikini Atoll and Dolly the sheep: Steve Reich and Beryl Korot's new video opera, Three Tales.
posted by monkey closet at 3:31 AM PST - 2 comments

Enron course original documents - University of Chicago. Actg 494: Special topics in Accounting: Accounting and Disclosure After Enron
posted by sheauga at 2:03 AM PST - 5 comments

It's The Way You Quote Them: Frosties is a cracking new collection of quotations from Ariga, expertly and eccentrically selected by one I.Frost, who defines himself as "friend, philosopher and jurist" . Unlike many online dictionaries, it includes generous helpings from its chosen authors; proper references; unexpected quotations (rather than the same old chestnuts) and, above all, personality. Bravo!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:06 AM PST - 25 comments