McBacon writes "After Leonardo Da Vinci's resume was transcribed, Wired asked Gordon Chesterman, Director of the Careers Service at the University of Cambridge, if Da Vinci would get hired today. 'What about commercial awareness? No mention of any budgetary control, meeting financial targets or a good return on capital. Few companies can afford "blue sky" stuff at any cost these days.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Following worldwide attention after being caught looking at pictures of Miranda Kerr at work while a colleague was being interviewed on TV, a petition to save David Kiely's job has started. Stated motives: He seems like a nice bloke, the pics weren't hardcore, he has suffered enough, and, maybe more important, there's just too much political correctness in this world anyway. Showing class and sense of humor, miss Kerr said she will sign the petition."

An anonymous reader writes "In reality, it's yet another randomly-generated paper that got into a conference with no meaningful criteria for peer review. In the world of humor, two dogs may be up for tenure soon."

French artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot has finally answered the question, "Will 40 birds play Skynyrd if left in a room with a guitar?"

siloko writes "A German walker, stranded on sea ice after abandoning the beach in favor of a better picture of the sunset, has been saved after flashes from his camera were spotted by a tourist webcam viewer hundreds of miles away. After darkness fell over the seaside town of St Peter-Ording, the walker became disoriented and couldn't locate the coast. In desperation, the walker, who hasn't been named, started using his camera flash to attract attention, which was noticed by a woman watching a webcam of the area. She notified the police, who located the man and escorted him to safety."

After the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. announced it was filing to run for US Congress and released a campaign video.

garg0yle writes "It's known that animals in nature (including fruit bats) will seek out fermented fruit in much the same way humans seek out anything containing alcohol. But do they get drunk in the way that humans do? Researchers in Canada decided to find out, and the results were surprising. Even with enough alcohol in their bloodstream to make most humans wobbly-kneed, the bats were able to fly through an obstacle course without difficulty. From the article, 'the authors think that it is more likely that they are simply hard drinkers.'"

Gerald Ford may have said, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration." But he was never stupid enough to make this.

bizwriter writes "This may seem like a joke, but it's not. The US Patent and Trademark Office will not accept patent filings faxed in if they arrive upside down. That's right, the home of innovation of the federal government is incapable of rotating an incoming fax file, whether electronically or on paper."

SilverTooth writes "Often, when watching a science documentary or reading an article, it seems that the scientists were executing a well-laid out plan that led to their discovery. Anyone familiar with the process of scientific discovery realizes that is a far cry from reality. Scientific discovery is fraught with false starts and blind alleys. As a result, labs accumulate vast amounts of valuable knowledge on what not to do, and what does not work. Trouble is, this knowledge is not shared using the usual method of scientific communication: the peer-reviewed article. It remains within the lab, or at the most shared informally among close colleagues. As it stands, the scientific culture discourages sharing negative results. Byte Size Biology reports on a forthcoming journal whose aim is to change this: the Journal of Serendipitous and Unexpected Results. Hopefully, scientists will be able to better share and learn more from each other's experience and mistakes."

FiReaNGeL writes "Could humans one day walk on walls, like Spider-Man? A palm-sized device invented at Cornell that uses water surface tension as an adhesive bond just might make it possible. The device consists of a flat plate patterned with holes, each on the order of microns (one-millionth of a meter). A bottom plate holds a liquid reservoir, and in the middle is another porous layer. An electric field applied by a common 9-volt battery pumps water through the device and causes droplets to squeeze through the top layer. The surface tension of the exposed droplets makes the device grip another surface — much the way two wet glass slides stick together. To turn the adhesion off, the electric field is simply reversed, and the water is pulled back through the pores, breaking the tiny 'bridges' created between the device and the other surface by the individual droplets."

astroengine writes "Assuming you had an interstellar spaceship, how would you navigate around the galaxy? For starters, you'd probably need a map. But there's billions of stars out there — how complex would that map need to be? Actually, Samuel Arbesman, a research fellow from Harvard, has come up with a fun solution. He created the 'Milky Way Transit Authority (MWTA),' a simple transit system in the style of the iconic London Underground 'Tube Map.' (Travel Tip: Don't spend too much time loitering around the station at Carina, there's some demolition work underway.)"

Whether you want to join with your sweetheart in a perfect union of physical beauty, or just give the cute neighbor a "Brazilian Coffee Filter," Mildred's Temple Kitchen would like you to do it in their bathroom this Valentine's Day weekend. The restaurant's website asks: "Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom? Check out Mildred's Sexy Bathrooms throughout the weekend of Big Love." You get the picture.' Chef and co-owner Donna Dooher says, "We've always had little trysts in our bathrooms. We're taking it to the next level on Valentine's weekend."

theodp writes "'You have a lot of missing images, in the TV, in the news reporting,' explains billionaire Jimmy Lai. It's a gap that Lai's Next Media intends to fill with its animated news service. Artists lift details from news photos while actors in motion sensor suits re-create action sequences of stories making headlines. Animators graft cartoon avatars to the live-motion action, and the stories hit the Web. When news agencies didn't have footage of scenes from the Tiger Woods car crash, Lai's team raced to put together animation dramatizing the incident that became a YouTube sensation. Thus far, Lai has been denied a television license, but with or without his own station, he thinks his animations are headed for televisions worldwide. His company is currently in talks with media organizations to churn out news animations on demand using Next Media's graphic artists and software tools."

A new pseudoreality show, Bump, will follow three actresses pretending to have unwanted pregnancies, and whether or not they decide to get an abortion is up to the viewers. Executive producer Dominic Iocco said the idea for the show came after President Obama's commencement address at Note Dame University last year where he said he wanted, "to find ways to communicate about a workable solution to the problem of unintended pregnancies." I bet this is exactly what he had in mind.

According to a report in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, a 15-year-old girl without a vagina was impregnated via stabbing after performing oral sex on her boyfriend. The girl had been performing the sex act when an ex-lover appeared and stabbed her. She was taken to the hospital where two holes in her abdominal wall were flushed out and repaired. 278 days later the she was admitted again to hospital with abdominal pain. An examination revealed she was pregnant and that she had no vagina. Doctors theorized that spermatozoa gained access to the reproductive organs via the injured gastrointestinal tract.

A future Darwin Award winner was injured after his homemade rocket exploded during a sledding party. According to witnesses, the 62-year-old man built a "rocket" using a motorcycle muffler, a piece of pipe, gunpowder, match heads and gasoline. He strapped the device to his back, had a fellow party goer light his fuse, and went down the hill on a sled. Soon after its ignition the device exploded, sending its builder to a local hospital.

An anonymous reader writes "The Daily Mail describes an 'intricately designed Roman implement, which dates back to 200AD ... made from silver but has an iron blade. It features a spoon, fork as well as a retractable spike, spatula and small tooth-pick. Experts believe the spike may have been used by the Romans to extract meat from snails.' But is it a Roman Army Knife, or an Army Knife of Rome?"

Were you caught in a hellish Zeppelin accident? Are you the victim of a car stunt gone horribly wrong? Get the legal representation that you need.

Do you think Snuggies are for old ladies with too many cats or small shaking dogs? Think again. Now you too can wear something ridiculous while typing, talking on the phone, or just browsing your favorite website.