The Narrative Fallacy writes "Wired reports that with just a few weeks of training, you can learn to 'see' objects in the dark using echolocation the same way dolphins and bats do. Acoustic expert Juan Antonio Martinez at the University of Alcalá de Henares in Spain has developed a system to teach people how to use echolocation, a skill that could be particularly useful for the blind and for people who work under dark or smoky conditions, like firefighters — or cat burglars. 'Two hours per day for a couple of weeks are enough to distinguish whether you have an object in front of you,' says Martinez. 'Within another couple weeks you can tell the difference between trees and pavement.' To master the art of echolocation, you can begin by making the typical 'sh' sound used to make someone be quiet. Moving a pen in front of the mouth can be noticed right away similar to the phenomenon when traveling in a car with the windows down, which makes it possible to 'hear' gaps in the verge of the road. The next level is to learn how to master 'palate clicks,' special clicks with your tongue and palate that are better than other sounds because they can be made in a uniform way, work at a lower intensity, and don't get drowned out by ambient noise. With the palate click you can learn to recognize slight changes in the way the clicks sound depending on what objects are nearby. 'For all of us in general, this would be a new way of perceiving the world,' says Martinez."

Land Rover says their new S1 mobile is the world's strongest phone. Testing done by Land Rover and the staff at The Sun showed the S1 would still work after being stepped on by an elephant, run over by a Land Rover, dropped from a second-story window, buried in mud, soaked in a pint of beer, and roasted in an oven at 150 degrees centigrade. A forklift truck proved to be its match, and was able to crush the S1 under its three-tonne weight. The phone comes with 1,500 hours of battery life, a 2.0 megapixel camera, an extra loud ringtone and an unconditional three-year guarantee.

An elderly woman in Zurich mistook a fire on her television for the real thing and called the fire department to save her. The firemen found her TV tuned to a German station that airs the constant image of a fireplace in the early morning. "The fire was extinguished with the press of a button," police said in a statement. I wonder who she would have called if she had accidentally tuned into a Godzilla marathon.

President Viktor Yushchenko signed a law that makes possession of pornography a crime in the Ukraine unless it is "for medical purposes." Punishment for possession of pornography can include fines and imprisonment for up to three years. Remember, porn is not right for everyone. Only your doctor knows if porn is right for you.

A marketing company in Newcastle got rid of Hawaiian shirt Fridays and their pants while they were at it in an attempt to improve morale. Naked Friday was the brainchild of business psychologist, David Taylor. He convinced the folks at design and marketing onebestway that stripping off their pants would also strip away walls blocking good communication. Nearly everyone went the full monty at the office, with only one man and two women choosing to wear underwear. Sam Jackson, 23, the house manager, was the only woman to go fully naked. She said, "It was brilliant. Now that we've seen each other naked, there are no barriers."

At least it apologized.

jendudley writes "A new service is letting you buy swathes of friends on Twitter. $87 buys you 1000 followers, $147 will buy you 2500 followers, $229.60 will buy you 5000 followers, $372.75 will get you 10,000 followers and, should you wish to go for the motherlode, $1491 will buy you 100,000 Twitter followers. Usually, these followers arrive in just 2-4 days. So wrong."

tiffanydanica writes "For a lot of us our browser history is something we consider private, or at least not something we want to expose to every website we visit. Web2.0collage is showing just how easy it is (with code!) for sites to determine what sites you visit. When you visit the site it sniffs your browser history, and creates a collage of the (safe for work) sites that you visit. It is an interesting application of potentially scary technology (imagine a job application site using this to screen candidates). You can jump right into having your history sniffed if you so desire. While the collages are cool on their own merit, they also serve as an illustration of the privacy implications of browser history sniffing."

The parents of a 2-year-old Chinese boy are seeking advice on how to help their child kick his smoking habit. The toddler has been smoking for over a year and was allowed to start to help deal with the pain of a hernia. His parents say that his smoking is getting out of control, but they are unsure on how to get him to quit. The terrible twos are bad, but imagine the horror of a 2-year-old in the middle of a nic-fit tantrum.

For centuries mankind has pondered such questions as: What is the sound of one hand clapping? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Now a Spanish man is accused of adding another philosophical riddle to the mix; if you have your boss killed can you avoid being laid off? Police say that the head of audiovisual services at the Barcelona International Convention Center hired a Colombian hitman who killed the director of the convention center. Investigators say the director planned to lay off the arrested man as part of a restructuring project.

Ninjas aren't born; they're stolen.

Designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau have created a clock that is powered by "eating" bugs. The clock traps insects on flypaper stretched across a roller system and then drops them into a vat of bacteria. The insects are then "digested" and the ensuing chemical reaction is transformed into power that keeps the rollers moving and the LCD clock working. The two offer another version that is powered by mice and an even cooler machine that picks insect fuel from spiderwebs with the help of a robotic arm and a video camera.

In an attempt to stop wide spread bribe-taking, staff at Nepal's main international airport are being issued pants without pockets. Nepal's Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) sent a team to the airport to "observe the growing complaints about the behaviour of airport authorities and workers towards travellers." "We discovered that the reports were true," said spokesman Ishwori Prasad. I have a feeling that staff will also find themselves wearing mittens soon.

Order something off the super green supreme menu.

It should be pretty easy for The Boulder Police Department to find the perpetrator of a liquor store robbery last Saturday. The male robber was wearing red and white face makeup, a red and purple wig, a fake nose and a denim dress. A clerk says the clown asked for help in a feminine voice, saying, "Will you help me? My husband is out of work." The employees ignored his pleas and the jilted suspect pulled a gun and robbed the store. After collecting an undisclosed amount of cash, the clown unexpectedly fled on foot and not on a unicycle or in a tiny car full of other transvestite clowns.

This is not the bride you are looking for.

Sue Williams has been awarded a £20,000 grant by the Arts Council of Wales, to "explore cultural attitudes towards female buttocks." Sue plans to examine racial attitudes towards bottoms in Europe and Africa and create plaster casts of women's behinds to try to understand their place in contemporary culture. And here I've been studying the issue all these years for free like a sucker!

BBC Magazine convinced 13-year-old Scott Campbell to trade in his iPod for a Walkman for a week and see what he thought. Scott thinks the iPod wins when it comes to sound quality, color, weight, and the shuffle feature. The Walkman, however, offers two headphone sockets, making it much easier to listen to music with a friend. My favorite part of the review is, "It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equalizer, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette."

Dr_Ken writes "According to this news story in Ananova, the Indian Defense Ministry is looking into a cheaper and simpler form of tear gas agent for riot dispersal and crowd control. From the article: 'Defense researchers say the idea is to replace explosives in small hand grenades with a certain variety of red chili to immobilize people without killing them, reports the BBC. The chili, known as Bhut Jolokia, is said to be 1,000 times hotter than commonly used kitchen chili. Probably much cheaper to fabricate than conventional CN or CS gases and way less toxic, too.'"

sayanchak writes "The Bangalore Mirror reports, 'People of a village near Bajpe were in a panic, after they found a chip resembling a pen drive in their toilet soaps. As rumors spread that the chip was a bomb or was inserted to make blue films, the villagers made a beeline to the police station. Police investigated and found that the chip was installed for collecting data. A team from Hindustan Lever Limited was conducting studies related to Lifebuoy soap and its usage in the village.'"