Floating Pig Trick

For those who have been to Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, here's why you couldn't steal the hundred dollar bill in the stone.

Mystery Junkie Alert

During the Cold War, the United States Navy erected a vast array of underwater listening devices in order to detect and track Soviet nuclear submarines. Hydrophones were placed at roughly 3,000 mile intervals in the deep layer of water known as the deep sound channel, where cold temperatures and high pressures allow sound waves to propagate great distances. When the Cold War ended, rather than mothballing the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), the U.S. Navy lent the Cold War relic to science.

The sound, traced to somewhere around 50° S 100° W (South American southwest coast), was detected repeatedly by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array, which uses U.S. Navy equipment originally designed to detect Soviet submarines. According to the NOAA description, it "rises rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km." Though it matches the audio profile of a living creature, there is no known animal that could have produced the sound. If it is an animal, it would have to be, reportedly, much larger than even a Blue Whale.

Theories abound as to the source of the Bloop. Some have suggested that giant squids could be responsible for the sound, but that is unlikely considering that no known species of cephalopod have the gas-filled sac necessary to reach such great volumes. Indeed science has not recorded any animals– living or extinct– with nearly enough size to house the organs needed to produce the level of output demonstrated by the Bloop… so unless this mystery creature uses some unknown mechanism to generate sound, it is presumed to be an incredibly massive organism.

The frequency of the Bloop technically is not too low for a machine, but it would be difficult for a machine to produce a sound of such volume.

It is also possible that the sound was made by a large number of creatures emitting a synchronous vibration.

• Bloop.wav: This is the sound as on the NOAA page. According to them, it was sped up 16 times to produce this file.
• Bloop_nr.wav: Same file with Noise Reduction.
• Bloop_realtime.wav: Original file slowed down 16 times for accurate reproduction. 2.5 MB
• Bloop_realtime_nr.wav: Realtime file with noise reduction applied. 2.5 MB

Further Reading...
Check out the CNN article.

For the Fast food nation

Here's food for thought


Selling French fries is profitable - and selling soft drinks is incredibly profitable.


The fast food chains buy Coca-Cola syrup for about 53p a litre. They add the syrup to bubbly water and serve it in a paper cup. A medium Coke that sells for 75p contains about 5p [94ml] worth of syrup. Buying a large Coke for 85p instead, as the worker behind the counter always suggests, will add another 2p [132ml in total] worth of syrup - and another 8p in pure profit.




Nice way to cash in on our health.

Want revenge?

No need to leave the restaurant just yet, chicken nuggets and hamburgers are usually the least profitable things on the menu.



Further Reading

link


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

Strange Coincidences

What did John F Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln have in common?

How did Anthony Hopkins come by George Feifer own copy of The Girl From Petrovka?


Was Morgan Robertson the 19th century Nostradamus?


Did a comet spell death for Mark Twain?

Answers and more here.

Talk About Bad Commercials...

Ren and Stimpy's Gas

Now, for some immature fun!!!

Gas!!!


Damn you new Nickelodeon!!! Bring back Spümcø's Ren and Stimpy

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year to all.

And now, on the lighter side of things.



Mr Bill Gates, leaving the Daily Show.



Yeah, there is no audio...

Take that Mr Gates, [sorely deserved for sleeping with the **AA] for the crappy Vista release!!!

Why Rice Krispies Go Snap, Crackle, Pop!

Research from the food scientist Ted Labuza of the University of Minnesota...


A Rice Krispie behaves like a piece of glass. If you hit it hard, it’ll break into a puzzle of a million pieces that, if you had the patience, you could put back together again.

When you pour milk into your breakfast bowl, the cereal absorbs the milk. As milk flows into the crispy kernel, the liquid puts pressure on the air inside and pushes it around.

During the cooking process, each piece of rice expands and a network of air-filled caves and tunnels form inside.

The air shoves against each pocket’s walls until they shatter, forcing out a snap, or a crackle, or, as you, know, sometimes a pop.