theodp writes "Is there anything cuter than baby milestones? Baby's first steps. Baby's first word. And now, baby's first TSA patdown. 'Well,' writes Anna North, 'it finally happened. Airport security officers gave a pat-down to a baby.' A post on the TSA blog defended the move: 'The child's stroller alarmed during explosives screening. Our officers followed proper current screening procedures by screening the family after the alarm...The [8-month-old] child in the photo was simply receiving a modified pat-down.' Hey, at least they didn't make a federal case of the 4 oz. of liquid found in the little tyke's Pampers."

RobertNotBob writes "In a gaffe of galactic proportions, a local newscaster in Germany apparently goofed a Google search and displayed a logo from the series Deep Space 9 instead of the logo used by the Special Operations team that is widely reported to be the group that recently killed that famous terrorist earlier this month, (name omitted because I am, quite frankly, sick of hearing about him). Enjoy the story, and see if you notice the bat'leths at first glance."

disco_tracy writes "Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has come up with the ultimate in a nondenominational wedding ceremony: quantum entanglement. From the article: 'Keats has designed an entangling apparatus, which, when situated in a sunny window and exposed to the full spectrum of solar radiation, divides pairs of entangled photons and translates them to the bodies of a nearby couple.' As unusual as it seems, the ceremony is serious business to Keats, who says, 'The quantum marriage will literally be broken up by skepticism about it.'"

kkleiner writes "Frederik and Gerrit Braun, energetic twin brothers with no shortage of dreams, have just finished construction of the world's largest model airport. With 40,000 lights, 15,000 figurines, 500 cars, 10,000 trees, 50 trains, 1000 wagons, 100 signals, 200 switches, 300 buildings and 40 planes, Knuffingen Airport is both a wonder to behold as well as a technological tour de force. The best part of Knuffingen is that it's alive. Forty planes and 90 vehicles move about autonomously. Located in Hamburg, Germany, the model is based on Hamburg Airport."

LordStormes sent in a link to an article about a new device that may allow dolphins to finally thank us for all the fish. Denise Herzing, founder of the Wild Dolphin Project and Thad Starner, an artificial intelligence researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, have been working on a project called Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry or CHAT. The pair hope that CHAT will allow them to "co-create" a language with wild dolphins, allowing the two species to communicate. From the article: "Herzing and Starner will start testing the system on wild Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) in the middle of this year. At first, divers will play back one of eight 'words' coined by the team to mean 'seaweed' or 'bow wave ride,' for example. The software will listen to see if the dolphins mimic them. Once the system can recognize these mimicked words, the idea is to use it to crack a much harder problem: listening to natural dolphin sounds and pulling out salient features that may be the 'fundamental units' of dolphin communication."

In a move that some might consider excessive, Japanese lingerie maker, Triumph, has unveiled a line of bras that contain messages of encouragement. The messages come from overseas and range from simple notes of admiration for surviving the earthquake and tsunami to more poignant writings such as: "Those who have already left us let us know life is so fragile, and those who are alive let us know life is so strong." Triumph is known for unusual designs which have included a solar-powered bra and a "Welcome to Japan" bra, which featured greetings in three different languages.

Just when the students of St John’s College thought the worst job the school could provide was being a lunch server, the administration came up with something even more insidious: babysitting drunks. For a rumored £100 per night, “carer volunteers” will make sure their fellow classmates don't pass out somewhere, get home, and generally stay out of trouble. A college spokesman says: "The college authorities, with the full co-operation of the student body, are putting in place measures to provide support, through trained volunteers, for any students who become incapacitated through excessive alcohol consumption."

Minneapolis police have a new weapon in the war against drugs: stoners. Police say it's easy to tell when someone is drunk, but it can be much more difficult to determine if someone is high. To help teach officers what to look for, the department is recruiting people under the influence of drugs for training exercises. High volunteers are given rewards, such as a meal, for helping trainees figure out what drug they are on. From the article: "Officers from all over the state have come to Minneapolis’ Fifth Precinct for two weeks of intense training that will certify them as one of Minnesota’s Drug Recognition Experts. 'It’s not your typical police-subject interaction,' said Sgt. Don Marose of the Minnesota State Patrol, who trains officers for the state’s DRE program."

An anonymous reader writes "A team of 50 from the University of Maryland has developed a human-powered helicopter, 'The Gamera,' which took two years to complete. The size of the helicopter is one third of a football field. The helicopter is made from light materials such as balsa, mylar, carbon fiber and foam and weighs about 210 pounds. The team aims to have it hover at least 3 meters off the ground."

The city of Victoria, British Columbia has unveiled a new $60k public restroom that allows you to relive the joy of relieving yourself behind a parked car after a pub crawl. The new open air urinal is located across the street from one of the city’s most famous theater venues and is so loved by Bruce Carter, CEO of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce, that he says it’s “an attraction in itself.”

snydeq writes "Carcasses, garter belts, anthrax — there is no end to nasty when it comes to working in IT, as the fourth installment of InfoWorld's Dirty IT Jobs series proves. From the systems sanitation engineer, to the human server rack, surviving in today's IT job market often means thriving in difficult conditions, including standing in two feet of water holding a plugged-in server or finding yourself in a sniper's crosshairs while attempting to install a communications link." In case you missed them, here are the first three parts.

fysdt writes "Four people were taken to hospital and a glass door smashed as a near-riot broke out at Beijing's top Apple store among crowds rushing to snap up the popular iPad 2 tablet computer, state press said Sunday. Angry consumers began rushing the store on Saturday afternoon after a 'foreign' Apple employee allegedly stepped into the crowd to push and beat people suspected of queue jumping, the Beijing News said."

sdasher writes "Finally, there's a chance to combine your love of version control and parties: Gitionary. The brainchild of two MIT alums, it's a party game where you try to illustrate git commands. A set of gitionary cards (PDF) has been posted as well. Personally, I'm still holding out for the Debugging Python RPG."

In an attempt to reduce pressure on disappearing fish stocks, the EU's fisheries chief has proposed paying fisherman to catch floating plastic instead of fish. In a trial run, select Mediterranean fishermen will be given nets for scooping up the trash and will be paid for the amount of plastic that gets recycled. From the article: "...in future the scheme could turn into a self-sustaining profitable enterprise, as fleets cash in on the increasing value of recycled plastics. Cleaning up the rubbish will also improve the prospects for fish, seabirds and other marine species, which frequently choke or suffer internal damage from ingesting small pieces of non-biodegradable packaging." I look forward to the day that landfill mining becomes profitable.

It's not quite sharks with laser beams attached to their heads, but an Australian prison just got a guard dog with titanium teeth. Axel got his new metal chompers after he bit into a board, breaking many of his teeth. Veterinary dentist David Clarke says: "So much is spent on training working dogs that it ends up much cheaper to repair a dental problem than retire the dog. Prison dogs, police dogs, hunting, quarantine and customs dogs often suffer injuries in the course of their job."

arkenian writes "The BBC reports on a farm in the UK to be run by online subscribers to the MyFarm website voting on which crops to grow and livestock to rear. For a £30 annual fee, 10,000 farm followers will help manage Wimpole Home Farm, in Cambridgeshire. They will be asked to make 12 major monthly decisions during the course of the year as well as other choices. The National Trust says its MyFarm project aims to reconnect people with where their food comes from."

An anonymous reader writes "Employees at Foxconn facilities in China, used to manufacture the iPhone and iPad, were forced to sign a pledge not to commit suicide after over a dozen staff killed themselves over the last 16 months. The revelation is the latest in a series of findings about the treatment of workers at Foxconn plants, where staff often work six 12-hour shifts a week, 98 hours of overtime in a month, and live in dormitories that look and feel like prison blocks."

Lanxon writes "Designer Dominic Wilcox has come up with a Pinocchio-style 'finger-nose stylus' that lets you use your phone hands free, reports Wired. He came up with the design after he found that he wanted to use his touchphone in the bath. A wet hand is not a good touchscreen navigation device, so he found himself using his nose to scroll, but found it hard to see precisely where his nose was touching the screen. The solution was to create a nose extension 'finger' that would allow for navigation while holding the phone firmly in his one dry hand."

When an attendant on Hong Kong Airlines tells you to return your tray to its upright position, you'd better listen. The airline is training cabin crew in a form of kung fu called wing chun to aid them in dealing with drunk or unruly passengers. Lumpy Tang, winner of this year's Most Unfortunate Name contest, and newly hired attendant, says, "You cannot predict what will happen on the plane, so wing chun is good because it's so fast. I feel safer because I can defend myself and I'm happy to be one of the first cabin crew to learn wing chun in the world."

As a penetration tester Kevin Finisterre has hacked into everything from air-conditioning systems to some of the biggest banks in the world. But hacking into a police cruiser has to be one of his most unusual jobs. Hired by an unnamed municipal government, Kevin found that several IP addresses used by the city's police department would connect him into a Linux device carried in police cars. "Using little more than FTP and telnet commands, he then tapped into a digital video recorder used to record and stream audio and video captured from gear mounted on the vehicle's dashboard. He was shocked by the resulting live feed that eventually appeared on his computer screen."