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Colbert Bump? Herman Cain Has More South Carolina Votes Than Perry, Huntsman And Bachmann Combined is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.

Aidan began being attacked in internet forums, by those whom he calls “the haters”.  Somehow ignoring the remarkable achievement by thus 13 year old, even should he be proven wrong, there was an inappropriate and offensive vitriol. Aidan remains unfazed.

Says the Wall Street Journal

Dr. Kleissl praised Aidan’s work, but added that even if Aidan had measured the right variables, “I’m certain that he will not find that his arrangement is better,” he said. “I think it’s a romantic ideal that nature has many lessons for us, and there are a few cases where this is true, but in the majority of cases we could teach nature, in a way, how to be better, faster.”

On a recent afternoon, Aidan showed a visitor his newest model, tweaked to respond to his critics: a towering seven-foot tree form adorned with solar panels and painted green. He is now measuring current and power. So far, he said, the tree continues to outperform the traditional panel. “I’m thinking that it could actually change the world.”

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Can 13 Year Old Aidan Dwyer Revolutionize Solar Energy? is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.

haven’t read it, well, what are you waiting for?  Either way, go and listen to BBC Radio drama version available at archive.org for free. Thanks to Open Culture for bringing this to our attention:

Eventually, the BBC decided to adapt Asimov’s trilogy to the radio, dramatizing the series in eight one-hour episodes that aired between May and June 1973. Years later, you can buy the radio drama on iTunesfor $9.99. But we’re going to suggest that you pocket that hard-earned money and download the radio drama for free from the Internet Archive.

Click the links below to stream the individual episodes. Or download the full program as a zip file. The Internet Archive gives you more download options here.

Part 1 |MP3| Part 2 |MP3| Part 3 |MP3| Part 4 |MP3| Part 5 |MP3| Part 6 |MP3| Part 7 |MP3| Part 8 |MP3|

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Isaac Asimov’s Classic Foundation Trilogy Adapted As A BBC Radio Drama – Free MP3 Version is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.

The latest excavations uncovered evidence of more than 500 thatched houses. At its peak the city would have been home to 100,000 Native Americans.

But Cahokia lacked the density of Mayan or European settlements – instead appearing to have organised itself along the lines of ‘modern American urban sprawl’.

The remains of the ancient city can be seen at the 2,000 acre Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, which lies just across the Mississippi River from St Louis.

The city, the most sophisticated Native civilisation north of Mexico, was inhabited from 700AD to 1400 and known for its large, man-made earthen structures.

Its original population was thought to have been in the hundreds, but in the 11th century swelled to tens of thousands.

 

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The Metropolis of Cahokia- City of 100,000 People Thrived A Millenium Ago Near Modern-Day St. Louis is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.

It was a bad plan

Much of her ordeal was captured in a recording of the 911 call in which she asked for help — and also asked for permission to shoot if necessary.

“There’s a guy at my door and I’m here by myself with my infant baby. Can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?” McKinley asks in a voice that is both steady, but tinged with emotion. Grady County dispatcher Diane Graham asks McKinley whether her doors are locked. Her steely answer: “Yes. I’ve got two guns in my hand. Is it OK to shoot him if he comes in my door?”

“I can’t tell you that you can do that,” Graham answers, “but you do what you have to do to protect your baby.”

Justin Shane Martin, 24, of Blanchard, died clutching a knife in his gloved left hand, according to court records filed in Grady County district court. His alleged accomplice, Dustin Louis Stewart, 29, also of Blanchard, shown above, later turned himself in to police.

…

McKinley told NewsOK that she tried to hold off as long as she could, waiting for police to arrive, while Martin kept pounding on the front door. At one point, she gave her son a bottle to keep him from crying too loud — and possibly alerting the intruders to her specific location.

“I didn’t want to give away my position in the house, I wanted to see him first,” she said of the intruders during this video interview with NewsOK.

But about 21 minutes later, with no law enforcement officer in sight, Martin pushed his way in the door.

“I was standing in the bedroom doorway with a shotgun in my hand … when he did come in the door … I told 911 I was going to shoot and I did. And he just kind of fell over the couch.”

She said she feels bad — but has no regrets.

“I felt like what I did was the best decision for my son and I. Obviously when someone breaks into your house with a deadly weapon, they’re not here for anything good. But I am very sorry and it’s not something I ever wanted to do.”

McKinley will not be charged as she acted in self-defense.  We wish her and her child only happiness and success from now on.

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18 Year Old Widow Protects Her Child, Kills Intruder Bent On Stealing Late Husband’s Painkillers is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.

company. The Huffington Post notes

The number of recalls and the company’s handling of them – including a 2008 “stealth recall” in which J&J paid another company to secretly buy up defective Motrin packets from stores – have generated investigations by Congress and the Food and Drug Administration. They also forced the shutdown and gutting of the Fort Washington, Pa., factory operated by J&J’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit that made many of the recalled over-the-counter medicines

The family of 2 year old River Moore who died after taking Tylenol from a batch that was later recalled has now sued Johnson & Johnson alleging that the medicine contained a fatal dose of its active ingredient, acetaminophen. The lawsuit

accuses them of “willful and reckless conduct which needlessly caused the death of (the boy) simply to preserve the continuation of their billion-dollar revenue streams of pediatric medicines.”

The suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, interest and legal expenses.

“We are sympathetic to the pain and hardships suffered by the Moore family,” J&J said in the statement. “We are deeply concerned about all matters related to our medicines and we remain committed to providing safe and effective pediatric medicines.”

From the public statements, there seems to be reasonable evidence to conclude that it is likely that defective medicine was the cause of the child’s death.  We don’t know what else might come out through the legal process, but we hope that all involved will make drug safety their primary concern in reaching a resolution in this case.

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Did Defective Tylenol Kill 2 Year Old? is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.

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Stolen Monkey Banana-Sam Returned To San Francisco Zoo is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.

“the stenographer is envoled to. But I don’t no her name.”

The unidentified court reporter is to blame, Rodena contends, because she refused to record testimony where Rodena’s victim said he wasn’t the kidnapper.

Instead of typing, Rodena said, “All she did was Smirk at me. And kept her fingers over the machine, and never typed one key.”

22 Years Later, Convict Tries To Sue “I Don’t Know My Lawyer’s Name” is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.

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Thus Spoke Dr. Ravens- Give The Money Back is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.

One would think it would be rather simple to count the toes on an elephant.  For many years the answer has been 5.  But recently John Hutchinson published a paper declaring the answer to be 6. What we learned reading How The Elephant Got Its Sixth Toe:

1. Elephants have a sixth toe which is hidden and tiny
2. Elephants react poorly to anaesthesia
3. Elephant feet are impervious to x-rays and ultrasound at safe intensities
4. John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College in London has “dubious distinction of having perhaps the world’s largest collection of frozen elephant feet… He now has more than 60 stored in various freezers”
5. It took Hutchinson’s team 3 years of study to discover this sixth toe
6. “Gerald Weissengruber at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna says that the paper has “fundamental flaws”. He says that it is unclear if the sixth toe is a sesamoid bone at all, because it has no obvious muscles attached to it as do the panda’s thumb or a human sesamoid.”

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6 Things I Didn’t Know About Elephants is a post from Giving Up the Ship - Last One Out...Turn out the Lights. All Rights Reserved.