sprinkletown writes "A Boston-based wind energy company is facing an unusual problem for its proposed wind farm in Maine: the site is too windy for even the burliest of turbines. From the article: 'First Wind’s vice-president of business development Matthew Kearns said at a public meeting in Rumford that because of the strong, irregular wind resource on Black Mountain, the Longfellow Wind Farm project may no longer be viable. “The wind is very, very turbulent, so we don’t even know yet whether to proceed with the project at all,' Kearns told a packed house eager to learn about the company’s future plans in the area.'"

PhrostyMcByte writes "November 24th will mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the pivotal work that helped bring the theory of evolution through natural selection into popularity. Around this same time, Growing Pains star Kirk Cameron is spearheading a plan to pass out 50,000 free copies at universities around the country. The catch? Each copy will be altered to include creationist propaganda and FUD targeting evolution and Darwin himself."

elstonj writes "The vacuum, long an instrument for chasing cats, has now been turned against its own. What better use for automatic home appliances than to have them chase each other in classic video game style? From the article: 'We've seen mixtures of Roomba and Pac-Man before, but nothing like this. A team of developers have hacked five floor-cleaning bots to create a sort of OCD version of the game, with the Pac-Man bot sucking up little white rectangles whilst being chased by robot incarnations of Inky, Pinky, Blinky, and Clyde. But, when the Pac-Man vacuum finds a power pellet those ghostly rovers turn blue and start fleeing. The tech is supposed to be a demonstration of the developers' Unmanned Aerial System suite, designed for guidance of airborne vehicles, but we're too busy geeking out to care about potential real-world applications of this tech.'"

25 years ago a methyl isocyanate gas leak from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India killed at least 3,787 with some putting the death toll as high as 10,000. Luckily the Indian government has realized that a place this special shouldn't be off limits to tourists so they'd like you to gather the kids and come on down for a visit. The doors have been locked since the disaster out of concerns over contamination and just common decency, but that is about to change for one week only. The man with the worst job title in the history of job titles, gas tragedy minister Babulal Gaur said, "The government hopes that allowing people to visit the site would satisfy their curiosity and remove misconceptions that things at the plant have been kept under wraps. I have visited the site numerous times and handled the waste on several occasions. There's nothing to worry about."

Learn more in 4 minutes than the entirety of your high school history class.

MarkWhittington writes "It seems that a SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) experiment happened decades before the Project Ozma occurred in 1960. The historians at the blog Letters of Note have uncovered a telegram sent in 1924 by then Chief of Naval Operations Edward W. Eberle instructing the United States Navy to listen for radio transmissions from the planet Mars."

There's only one thing Cook County prosecutors hate more than crime, and that's being proven wrong. This leads us to journalism professor David Protess and his class. Already having helped prove the innocence of 11 men behind bars, his investigative journalist students have spent 3 years investigating the case of a man convicted of killing a security guard. The students believe they have evidence that shows the wrong man is in prison. In response, the Prosecutors Office has issued subpoenas to professor David Protess seeking his students’ grades, his syllabus and their private e-mails. They claim since the team was made up of students, they may have been under pressure to prove the case to get a good grade. “Why are we talking about our grades when we should be talking about whether there’s an innocent man in prison?” said Evan Benn, a former Protess student mentioned in the state’s subpoena.

jones_supa writes "Sheboygan Press tells a story of an American youngster called Calvin Gosz who was selling a right to his name in eBay. The auction site later removed the item as inappropriate. However, the 'Newegg of Finland,' Verkkokauppa.com caught on the idea and contacted Calvin via Facebook. For $5,000 Mr. Gosz changed his name to Verkkokauppa Com. Gosz, who moved to Sheboygan from Florida in September, said the name change was an idea to raise money after many unsuccessful attempts in finding a job. 'That company has been great to me. I was just surprised they actually transferred the money. Nice of them to help me out like that,' Calvin comments. He is eligible to change his name back after two months."

emeraldd writes "Everett Bradford's 'Prometheus Device' is a hand-mounted appliance that shoots fire."

mr crypto writes "From the BBC News article, 'A South Korean woman is celebrating after passing the written exam for a driving license — on her 950th attempt. After four years of trying, 68-year-old Cha Sa-soon finally managed to secure the 60 out of 100 points needed to pass the test.' Maybe some things should just not be."

CNETNate writes "You'll laugh, but mostly you'll cry. Some of the questions Google gets asked to deliver results for is beyond worrying. 'Can you put peroxide in your ear?', 'Why would a pregnancy test be negative?', and 'Why can't I own a Canadian?' being just a selection of the truly baffling — and disturbing — questions Google is regularly forced to answer."

An anonymous reader writes 'After having played on the slot machine for over 30 minutes, Bill Seebeck was ecstatic when he hit the $166 million jackpot. However, The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tampa was less than enthusiastic, telling Seeback his win was a mistake because the machine malfunctioned. Thus, the casino refused to pay Seebeck his prize as the machine was only supposed to have a maximum pay out of $99K. Currently, the casino refuses to pay out even that amount.'

An anonymous reader writes 'A Houston man wasn't allowed to vote in Tuesday's mayoral election because he refuses to use computers and there were no other options available. No paper ballots? Skynet is taking over.'

In addition to searching for the fastest horse and the best barbecue, the people of Louisville, Kentucky love looking for something else: online porn. BusinessInsider.com conducted a study using Google Trends and found Louisville residents the most likely to search for obscene material online. "You want to be number one in a lot of different things, but you certainly don't want to be number one for obscene searches across the entire country," said Bryan Wickens, president of Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana.

The family of 59-year-old Ademir Jorge Goncalves got a shocking but pleasant surprise at his funeral when Ademir showed up alive. Police and family misidentified the victim of a terrible car crash as Goncalves and as is customary in Brazil, the funeral was held the next day. In reality Goncalves had stayed at a friends house after drinking sugarcane liquor all night. "The corpse was badly disfigured, but dressed in similar clothing. People are afraid to look for very long when they identify bodies, and I think that is what happened in this case," said a police spokesman. I can't wait for this premise to be made into a reality show.

MikeChino writes "How many times have you bit into a piece of fruit only to find that you're also chomping on a sticker label? The small sticky labels have long been the bane of waste-conscious fruit and vegetable eaters, but that might all change thanks to new technology that uses a low-energy carbon dioxide laser beam to etch information directly onto produce. No more peeling those annoying labels! So far the technology is being used on a number of fruits and vegetables in New Zealand, Australia, and Pacific Rim countries, and it's currently going through the final stages of review by the FDA. Once the technology is approved in the US, researchers from the University of Florida and the USDA Agricultural Research Service hope that it will be used in Florida's massive grapefruit industry."

jggimi writes "According to the New York Times, more than fifteen hundred remote sensing devices have been sold to Iraq's Ministry of the Interior, at prices ranging from $16,500 to $60,000 each. The devices are used for bomb and weapon detection at checkpoints, and have no battery or other power source. Sounds great, but according to a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, they work on the same principle as a Ouija board — the power of suggestion. He described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod. Even though the device has been debunked by the US Military, the US Department of Justice, and even Sandia National Laboratories, the Iraqis are thrilled with the devices. 'Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,' said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior's General Directorate for Combating Explosives."

If you're a al Shabaab insurgent in Somalia with a Mylie Cyrus ringtone you probably have a lot of problems. The newest one is that your organization has formally banned musical ringtones. The official ring is "...to be only a Muslim cleric reading the Hadith or Koranic verse." Terrorist and Bollywood movie song aficionado Sacdiyo Sheeq says. "I used to listen to my favorite Indian songs on my cell phone, but now I have just thrown that memory away."

Uganda's ethics minister, James Buturo, is leading a movement to ban witch-doctors from advertising on the radio. Witchcraft is a major problem in Uganda, particularly in rural areas. Buturo says that radio stations, "...are promoting witchcraft-related activities to the detriment of Uganda's integrity." When asked for comment a witch-doctor spokesman said, "Ooo eee, ooh ah ah, ting tang walla walla, bing bang." Bing bang, indeed.

An anonymous reader writes "Google Latitude has already made headlines for allowing phone users to locate their friends, and there are countless other iPhone and Android phone apps already designed to transmit your location — but could pets be the next big thing in GPS tracking? A number of device manufacturers are marketing GPS technology as a futuristic tool for tracking your cat or dog, and even discovering exactly where they've been. These devices are sold under a number of names and brands, including Sportdog, LoCATor, RoamEO, Petcell, Zoombak and Pettrack."