Most children will start to heel around age 6.

A team at Northwestern University, led by Dean Ho, has discovered that nanodiamonds are a wound's best friend. Insulin is very attracted to nanodiamonds and in addition to regulating blood sugar, insulin can accelerate the healing process and stave off infection in wound sites. Since the tiny diamond can be easily placed in a wound without causing further damage, this is an excellent way to get an increased amount of insulin there as well. From the article, "A substantial amount of insulin can be loaded onto the nanodiamonds, which have a high surface area. The nanodiamond-insulin clusters, by releasing insulin in alkaline wound areas, could accelerate the healing process and decrease the incidence of infection. Ho says this ability to release therapeutics from the nanodiamonds on demand represents an exciting strategy towards enhancing the specificity of wound treatment."

A pest control company in Japan has come up with a way to catch human rats, an Anti-burglar door mat. The mat is basically a giant adhesive trap that weighs a respectable, but hardly immovable, 8kg. Still the company says the mat is effective, claiming that it has proved itself during a recent break-in at a restaurant already. The mat will become available in Japan starting this fall and is promised to be more humane than the companies last invention, The Poison Cookie Burglar Feeding Station.

His life was a carnival so it shouldn't come as a surprise that his death has turned into one too. The next act in the Michael Jackson circus is brought to you by LifeGem. The company, who specializes in turning human remains into precious stones, has purchased a lock of the dead singer's hair and plans on transforming it into diamonds that can be sold to adoring fans. "We are currently evaluating Jackson's hair sample to determine how many diamonds can be created. This will be a limited collection and we anticipate great interest," said Dean VandenBiesen, the founder of LifeGem. I hope in the near future there is a race to be the first country with a living Michael clone.

suraj.sun writes "Cows may not think it is the real thing, but Coca-Cola is preparing to launch fizzy milk on the world. The drink contains skim milk mixed with sparkling water, flavored with fruit and sweetened with cane sugar. Scientists have developed the drink at the firm's laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia, ensuring it will not curdle in its 8 oz. aluminum bottle. Going under the name Vio, Coca-Cola has begun test-marketing the carbonated drink at natural food stores and delis in New York. It sells for about $2.50 a bottle, no chilling required. One of Coke's copywriters claims it tastes 'like a birthday party for a polar bear.' It comes in four 'natural' flavors — peach mango, berry, citrus and tropical colada — and could even be marketed as a healthy nutritional drink. But it has 26 grams of sugar a bottle, on a par with other non-diet Coca-Cola products, and 1.5 grams of fat. The drink is part of a wider Coke initiative called Project Life to develop milk-based products. If it is a success in the United States it could be launched globally." Nothing washes down a grilled rat cheese sandwich like a bottle of fizzy milk.

The Dept. of Zombie Disposal: Taking out your dead.

runyonave writes "There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week's 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore's Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks. That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias."

An anonymous reader writes "According to a CNN affiliate site, 19 people have been arrested with connections to an Illegal songbird fighting ring. From the article: 'Police said 150 birds were seized in a canary-fighting investigation in Shelton on Sunday. Police said canaries and saffron finches were seized and 19 people were arrested at a Ripton Road address. "There was 100 canaries fighting, and they were betting on them 'til they were dead. It's absolutely shocking," said neighbor Marion Sega.'" If you doubt the aggressive nature of the canary, just ask Sylvester the Cat about the damage this bloodthirsty species can cause.

mhajicek writes "A great way to meat clients! These guys are prototyping business cards laser engraved on beef jerky." Nothing says, "take my company seriously," like a business card made of jerky.

path0$ writes "British Ex-DJ Steve Miller claims that his Wi-Fi allergy is making his life one big misery , forcing him to live in an iron-clad home far from any neighbors. According to the article, more and more people are suffering from an allergy like his. The only positive side to this is that at least Miller didn't think of suing anybody yet, like these people did, who claim to suffer from the same condition and were mentioned in a Slashdot article in 2008."

gyrogeerloose writes "The San Diego Union-Tribune reports in a New York Times wire service story that a black bear known as 'Yellow-Yellow' (named for the two yellow ear tags she sports) has solved the problem of opening a food container that was previously thought to be bear-proof. The container, known as The Bear Vault, was constructed in a manner similar to a child-proof pill bottle, and had passed tests at zoos where bears were given a certain time to break in. The only bears able to open it were grizzlies large and strong enough to rip the lid off using brute force — up to several years ago, when campers in the High Peaks region of New York's Adirondack Mountains started reporting successful break-ins. A redesigned canister was introduced last year; Yellow-Yellow, a relatively petite 120-pound black bear, figured that one out too. The manufacturer is working on a new design expected to be released next year. New York state officials have agreed to test it by filling it with food and placing it in Yellow-Yellow's territory."

Jeremy White writes "CodeWeavers examines Microsoft's latest financial results and concludes they will overtake Microsoft by the year 2018. The data includes a graph with exacting and highly rigorous projections, along with a documentary about the discovery."

Oracle Goddess writes "'Years from now, when you've moved on to Windows 7, you'll look back at Windows Vista fondly. You'll remember its fabulous attributes, not its flaws.' That's the opinion of Steve Guggenheimer, vice president of the OEM division at Microsoft. 'I think people will look back on Vista after the Windows 7 release and realize that there were actually a bunch of good things there,' Guggenheimer said in a recent interview. 'So it'll actually be interesting to see in two years what the perception is of Vista.' A dissenting opinion comes from Bob Nitrio, president of system builder Ranvest Associates, doesn't believe organizations that skipped Vista will ever regret their decision. 'I don't think for a second that people are suddenly going to love Windows 7 so much that they will experience deep pangs of regret for not having adopted Vista,' said Nitrio. If I had to bet, I'd go with Bob's take on it." My first thought was, Steve meant Windows 7 is designed to be virtually unusable as payback for all the complaints about Vista, but I might be biased.

A group of research engineers at Berkeley have developed a mobile phone microscope that can photograph microbes in your blood, and analyze them for disease. The group hopes the device will be useful to doctors in developing countries to diagnose blood diseases in the field. The device uses a phone attachment with an LED, and magnified images are fed into the cell phone camera. Software installed on the phone analyzes bacterial counts, or the images can be sent to labs for quick analysis. UC Berkeley bioengineer Dan Fletcher led the CellScope research team. He said, "The same regions of the world that lack access to adequate health facilities are, paradoxically, well-served by mobile phone networks. We can take advantage of these mobile networks to bring low-cost, easy-to-use lab equipment out to more remote settings . . . We had to disabuse ourselves of the notion that we needed to spend many thousands on a mercury arc lamp and high-sensitivity camera to get a meaningful image. We found that a high-powered LED — which retails for just a few dollars — coupled with a typical camera phone could produce a clinical quality image sufficient for our goal of detecting in a field setting some of the most common diseases in the developing world."

She can sit with the family when she admits that she added too much rum to the spice cake.

High school teacher Frank McCourt had received dozens of excuse notes from students over the years, most of them forgeries. One day while looking at the pile of obvious fakes, and thinking about how much the kids complained about writing even short essays, he had an epiphany. Why not teach the art of the excuse note? "This is the first class to study the art of the excuse note — the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You're so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worthy of study," he said to the class. Frank's classes have written a wide range of notes including ones from Adam and Eve to god, and historical figures. Frank was even commended by the school superintendent for his innovative idea. "That kid writing an excuse note for Judas. Brilliant. I just want to shake your hand. There might be a letter in your file attesting to your energetic and imaginative teaching. Thank you," he said.

For some reason people in Arvada, Colorado are upset that someone left a claymore mine in the Goodwill drop box at a local strip mall. Police were notified and the Jefferson County Bomb squad disposed of the explosive. Officials say they don't know if the mine was operational or not. I guess the residents of Arvada don't think the disadvantaged deserve a secure perimeter.

Scientists from the University of East Anglia are studying the potential health benefits of dark chocolate, and need 40 female volunteers who would like to eat chocolate every day for a year. The chocolate loving 40 must be post-menopausal and have type 2 diabetes so it can be determined if the flavonoid compounds in chocolate can reduce the risk of heart disease. Dr Peter Curtis, of the UEA's School of Medicine, said, "Our first volunteers are about to return for their final visit to see if the markers of heart health - such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels — have changed. A successful outcome could be the first step in developing new ways to improve the lives of people at increased risk of heart disease."

It turns out a passed out person and a yoga master possess a comparable amount of flexibility. Here's a gallery of the unintentional yoga masters alongside the forms in a more traditional manner.

61-year-old Li Shuqi is only raising one of the ten plagues of Egypt but from the fuss his neighbors are raising you'd think he was working on all ten. Li has spent the last three years raising locusts. He has about two millions locusts living in five locust houses and sells them to Beijing restaurants where they are considered a delicacy. Li says, "My neighbours are constantly keeping an eye on my locust fields and checking the security of the meshes that prevent them from escaping."