sciencehabit writes "Researchers at Guangdong Entomological Institute in Guangzhou, China, have observed oral sex for the first time in a non-primate. During intercourse, female short-nosed fruit bats lick the genitals of their partner, a possible ploy to increase copulation time. The discovery suggests there may be a biological advantage to fellatio."

nightcats writes "Describing it as a 'limited beta test,' Wal-Mart announced its plans to offer coffins to its shoppers. In the Wal-Mart world, of course, beta comes with a price: $900 for a Mom or Dad coffin, all the way up to $2900 for a bronze sarcophagus. "

9gezegen writes "Pepsi learned that if it wants to continue to 'Refresh Everything,' it needs an extra $1.26 billion. It looks like one of the secretaries forget to inform company lawyers about a trade secrets case in a Wisconsin state court. When nobody arrived to court, the judge gave $1.26 billion default judgement. According to Pepsi lawyers, they were not properly served because the secretary was 'so busy preparing for a board meeting.' One might imagine she was working on the refreshments. Perhaps Pepsi should learn more about the Spamhaus case."

Two9A writes "With the recent introduction of memorial accounts on Facebook, the potential arises for hilarity and abuse. Simon Thulbourn's Facebook page has been marked as 'in memorial' on the word of a report submitted by one of his friends; unfortunately, the closest the report gets to Simon is that the funeral service in question was officiated by 'Revd. Simon Thorburn,' which seems to be enough for Facebook to mark an unrelated user's profile as dead. Questions have previously been raised about the standard of proof required by Facebook for this service; it seems that those questions were pertinent, if the lax attention paid to these reports by Facebook staff continues."

Serenissima writes "Bad drivers may in part have their genes to blame, suggests a new study by UC Irvine neuroscientists. People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it — and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant. 'These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away,' said Dr. Steven Cramer, neurology associate professor and senior author of the study published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex."

An anonymous reader writes "Famous writer and minor television personality John Hodgman posits the end of the culture of Jockdom in favor of a cultural reverence for engineers, scientists and Slashdot readers: 'Jockdom is very noble. It's not deliberative. It's certainly the best way to win wars. It's the best way to motivate teams of people to fulfill a goal — not just war, but getting things done. The most important way to motivate a factory floor. But as you know, we're not as much of a manufacturing society as we were before. China and other big industrial nations are rewarding their nerds and technicians rather than creating a culture that makes fun of them — it would be wise for us to embrace the book-smart as much as our culture has traditionally embraced the street-smart, the jock-smart. I'm not saying nerds must have their revenge; I'm just saying the time for wedgies is at an end.'"

Barence writes "Two weeks after announcing its sponsorship of a special episode of Fox's edgy animated sitcom Family Guy, the computer giant has pulled out, saying the program is 'not a fit with the Windows brand.' Quite why Microsoft thought Family Guy would complement their brand is anyone's guess — the Family Guy special that was to be sponsored by Microsoft was recorded on October 16 and reportedly features jokes about deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest. Fox plans to air the show on November 8, as scheduled, partnered with a new, as-yet undisclosed, 'integrated' sponsor."

An anonymous reader writes "Here is something for idle to chew on. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is ticked off. He’s tired of signing bills that don’t address the pet causes he deems important. So when another unworthy bill crossed his desk recently for signing — addressing funding issues for the Port of San Francisco — the guv vetoed it and sent lawmakers a little note saying why. Only the note said a little more than lawmakers were expecting. A shortcut to the letter supposedly sent by the Govenator can be found here. If you are still stumped, this should clear it up. I have to admit, I never expected him to be this clever."

An anonymous reader writes "Motherboard.TV reports, 'In Monrovia, Liberia, there’s a guy taking the matter of a lopsided, state-run media and reshaping it into a free-of-charge, independent news-aggregator—all accomplished with dry-erase board and couple markers. (Sorry, internet!) Each morning, at 10:45 AM, Alfred Sirleaf wakes up and heads down to his bulletin board to post the day’s news, culling together a slate of stories his countrymen might otherwise never see. Grateful readers line up in droves, on foot and in cars, to read these updates, in what has been described as the country's — and probably the world's — only analog blog.'"

A woman in Georgia was able to scare a would-be burglar off by pretending to be a dog. According to police, the woman dropped to the floor, scratched at the door, and acted like a large dog when a man tried to open her door. The noise scared off the mystery man and police were unable to find anyone matching his description. The woman and her property are reportedly fine and she hopes to be house trained in a few weeks.

According to Professor Svante Paabo, director of genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Neanderthals and modern humans had sex across the species barrier. The professor has been using DNA retrieved from fossils to piece together the entire Neanderthal genome, and plans on publishing his findings soon. He recently told a conference that he was sure the two species had had sex, but still had questions as to how "productive" the relations had been. "What I'm really interested in is, did we have children back then and did those children contribute to our variation today?" he said. "I'm sure that they had sex, but did it give offspring that contributed to us? We will be able to answer quite rigorously with the new [Neanderthal genome] sequence." What remains a mystery is what Paleolithic brewery provided the catalyst for these stone age hook-ups.

The marketing team at EA are doing a great job with promoting Dante's Inferno. Take a look at their 17 pounds of wrath.

Proving that UN security is as tight as a typical car show, and that there is nothing that a KFC Famous Bowl can't fix, a man impersonating the Kentucky Fried Chicken founder talked his way into the UN headquarters in New York and met with a senior official. Michele Montas, a spokeswoman for Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general said, "It should not have happened – that I will stress, and very strongly. There was some lapse in security and the individual in question was, on the initiative of one security guard, taken into the UN."

The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that bong water is a drug saying it is, "a preparation, compound, mixture, or substance containing a controlled substance, regardless of purity." The 4-3 decision means that possession of 25 or more grams of bong water can lead to first-degree drug charges instead of a fine of no more than $300 for paraphernalia. At least someone is trying to stop the epidemic of glassy eyed children selling little thermoses filled with smelly water at school.

Barence writes "Social-networking site Facebook is planning to preserve the accounts of dead members. The new 'memorialized' accounts will continue to display photos and wall posts, but remove 'sensitive information' such as status updates and contact information. Friends or family who want to report the death of a Facebook member are encouraged to fill out the site's Deceased form. The form asks for proof of death, such as an obituary or news article, although it's not clear how Facebook can validate the death of a member if neither of those pieces of information is published on the internet. How long before someone snuffs it on Facebook before their time?"

35-year-old Anthony Armatys had about the best job anyone could have. He had almost 5 years worth of paychecks deposited into his account from a New Jersey company that he didn't work for. Armatys took a job with telecommunications company Avaya Inc. in September 2002, then changed his mind. The company's computer system liked him so much however it never removed his name from the payroll. Prosecutors say that he received more than $470,000 in paychecks.

Judge a man by his clothing.

boombaard writes "News is spreading quickly here that scientists writing in a popular science periodical (Dutch) have debunked the 2012 date (google translation linked) featuring so prominently in doomsday predictions/speculation across the web. On 2012-12-21, the sun will appear where you would normally be able to see the 'galactic equator' of the Milky Way; an occurrence deemed special because it happens 'only' once every 25.800 years, on the winter solstice. However, even if you ignore the fact that there is no actual galactic equator, just an observed one, and that the visual effect is pretty much the same for an entire decade surrounding that date, there are major problems with the way the Maya Calendar is being read by doomsday prophets." I wonder what Amazon's return policy on a box full of 3 doomsday wolves shirts is?

New Jersey's David Smith has built a model train that is 35,200 times smaller than the real thing. It took months to build and the locomotive only cost about $11.

Researches say that today is really unproductive.