Doll wars

A battle is brewing between the makers of rival high-end custom sex dolls.

Matt McMullen, owner of Abyss Creations, which produces Real Dolls, says a former co-worker ripped off his idea, duplicating the business he worked so hard to start.

“Real Doll is a very realistic, life-size, anatomically correct silicon person,” McMullen says.

The dolls don’t come cheap, though. It costs about $6,500 to own one of McMullen’s “Real Dolls.” McMullen created the vixens nearly 12 years ago and now produces them in his San Marcos, Calif., workshop.

“There was no doll like this in the world when I came out with it,” he claims.

But McMullen is facing major competition from his former friend and colleague Matt Krivicke. Krivicke ran McMullen’s company for about two years, and last September he launched Lovable Dolls out of his garage.

“They’re used for anything you can imagine … and beyond,” Krivicke says. “Somehow the Lovable Doll looks sharper … more in focus.”

Now the two are facing off in court. Krivicke says McMullen owes him “$30,000 to $100,000″ from the time that he worked for McMullen. McMullen has filed a countersuit claiming Krivicke ripped off his ideas.

“It’s the worst betrayal of my life,” McMullen states. “With forethought and with planning, he used my company’s resources and knowledge and customer base to form his own company while he was

still working here.”

But Krivicke counters, “All of the internal stuff from my doll is completely different what the Abyss dolls are.” The trial is set for September in a North County, Calif., court. In the meantime, both men will continue creating their dolls.

via – myfoxla

$6,500? All three of these dolls seem pretty real to me, once you get them running and put them on FOX … although you could tell the one on the left in the red dress has a bad motivator.

9/11 Blueprint for Truth presented by Architect Richard Gage, AIA

Long video. Any new evidence, or is this just more of the same debate? Pictures of angled cuts on columns of demolished buildings, description of how the core columns may have been accessed…

Stem cell breakthrough gets closer to the clinic

The technology for versatile, grow-in-a-dish transplant tissue took a step toward clinical use Thursday when researchers announced they have found a safe way to turn skin cells into stem cells.

Researchers say the method is so promising they hope to apply for approval to begin clinic trials by the middle of next year.

“This is the first safe method of generating patient specific stem cells,” said study author Robert Lanza, the chief scientific officer at Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine International.

“This technology will soon allow us to expand the range of possible stem cell therapies for the entire human body,” Lanza told AFP.

“This allows us to generate the raw material to solve the problem of rejection (by the immune system) so this is really going to accelerate the field of regenerative medicine.”

The research builds on an award-winning breakthrough in 2007 by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University.

Yamanaka and his team introduced four genes into skin cells, reprogramming them so that they became indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells.

That achievement conjured the distant vision of an almost limitless source of transplant material that would be free of controversy, as it would entail no cells derived from embryos.

But the downside of the technique for creating these so-called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) is that the genes are delivered by a “Trojan horse” virus.

Reprogramming cells using a virus modifies their DNA in such a way that they cannot be given to patients without boosting the risk of cancer and genetic mutation.

Other researchers have succeeded in delivering the genes with a method called DNA transfection or using a chemical wash, but these techniques also posed health risks.

via Stem cell breakthrough gets closer to the clinic – Yahoo! News.

Activity at NKorean missile site: North Korea could nuke Hawaii

US satellite photos have revealed vehicle activity at a site in North Korea suggesting the regime may be preparing to launch a long-range ballistic missile, two US defense officials said on Friday.

The vehicle movements resembled work done before North Korea fired a long-range rocket last month, the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

The officials offered no other details but said the United States was closely monitoring North Korea’s missile sites and other sensitive facilities amid rising tensions on the peninsula.

The officials also said there was no steam or other tell-tale sign coming from the Yongbyon plutonium reprocessing plant but it remained unclear if the regime had restarted work at the plant.

Tensions have been running high since Kim Jong-Il’s regime tested an atomic bomb for the second time and renounced the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.

North Korea on Friday fired a short-range missile, its sixth since Monday, and threatened to take new measures to defend itself if world powers impose sanctions over its nuclear test.

In April, the launch of the long-range rocket was portrayed by Pyongyang as a peaceful move to test a communications satellite. But the United States and its allies said the launch was meant to be a test of a long-range missile.

Japan said the rocket flew over its territory while the boosters landed safely in the waters off its coasts, and that it had not moved to intercept the rocket — something North Korea had warned would be seen as an act of war.

Pyongyang’s Taepodong-2 missile could theoretically reach the US states of Alaska or Hawaii at maximum range, though experts say North Korea has likely not managed to configure a warhead for it yet.

via Photos show activity at NKorean missile site: US – Yahoo! News.

Warship fires on village by mistake

The Russian navy said on Friday that one of its anti-submarine ships had fired artillery at a village by mistake, state RIA news agency reported.

The navy said no-one had been injured when a small anti-submarine ship on Thursday opened fire on a village in the Vyborg region of St Petersburg.

“On the 28 May, a small anti-submarine ship from the Baltic fleet was working on a host of exercises in the gulf of Finland including artillery fire at aerial targets,” RIA quoted a navy spokesman as saying. “No-one was injured.”

via Warship fires on village by mistake – Yahoo! News.

Toothy sharks once ruled Tuscany

Some three million years ago, eel-like sharks snaked through the region that now supports Tuscany’s finest vineyards, suggest fossils recently found in the clay soil of the Chianti region.

Hundreds of fossilized teeth belonging to primitive shark-like creatures have been uncovered by amateur paleontologists near the village of Castelnuovo Berardenga, not far from Siena.

“It all started in 2001. We were poking around the Crete Senesi (in the Tuscany region), in a landscape made of green vine waves and ridges of clay, when we saw a tooth cropping out of the soil,” Simone Casati, president of the Mineralogy and Paleontology Group of Scandicci, told Discovery News.

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“Since then, we have found an exceptional number of fossilized fish teeth from the Pliocene epoch. Indeed, about three million years ago, before the sea started to retreat to its current location some 100 kilometers (62 miles) away, the site was a sort of underwater canyon populated by hundreds of deep-water creatures,” Casati said.

Studied by Franco Cigala Fulgosi, from the Department of Earth Sciences of Parma University, the teeth turned out to belong to Chlamydoselachus lawleyi, a species which strongly resembles the living frilled shark Chlamydoselachus anguineus.

With a snake-like body, flat head and large toothy mouth, the shark has changed little since prehistoric times. Like primitive sharks, it has six gills, whereas most modern sharks have five.

Living at depths of about 2,000 feet, these five-foot sharks seem to prefer the cold waters of deep and upwelling regions. Making great vertical migrations at night, they have been often captured in Japan’s Suruga Bay.

“The teeth unearthed in Tuscany belong to a species which differs from the living frilled shark only by its larger size,” Cigala Fulgosi, an authority on fossil sharks, told Discovery News. “The teeth suggest an animal approximately 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) in length.”

via Toothy sharks once ruled Tuscany – Discovery.com- msnbc.com.

Wasn’t there something like this in The Princess Bride?

Russian power station worker Dmitry K ‘murdered six people with home-made electric chair’

A Russian man killed at least six people with a home-made electric chair, police have revealed.

The power station worker, identified only as Dmitry K, is also accused of designing an electric carpet which would kill anyone who stepped on it.

The 30-year-old lured his victims by posting an advert on an internet website claiming he wanted to buy computer parts, detectives said.

Once at his house, he asked them to sit in an improvised electric chair before tying them up and hitting a button on his computer to activate the current.

After the victim was dead, he took the body to a forest and burned it.

Police only tracked the killer down to his house in in the city of Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, after finding the remains of a 23-year-old student.

The man had been so badly burnt that officers were only able to identify him from dental records.

They also found fingerprint evidence which linked the victim to Dmitry K.

He has admitted the murder – but detectives suspect him of killing at least five other people.

Investigator Vladimir Davydov said: ‘We are fairly sure that there were many more victims.

‘He attacked this victim in his garage, tied him into his death chair and sent a huge electric charge through his body.’

Dmitry K told investigators he would admit other murders if they could find the bodies.

He also claimed he had designed a device which would remotely stop cars passing by his house – and then electrocute drivers when they stepped on his door mat.

He had been planing a machine to erase people’s memory with an electro-magnetic ray, he added.

via Russian power station worker Dmitry K ‘murdered six people with home-made electric chair’ | Mail Online.

Sounds like a bad horror movie plot. If your car stops for no reason when passing by a house in Russia, you know what to do now, right?

Mice Given ‘Human’ Version of Speech Gene

They may not be the talking mice of cartoons, but real mice carry a “humanized version” of a gene thought to be involved in speech, a new study suggests.

The finding could help shed light on how humans evolved language and speech. Mice are often used to study the causes and effects of human diseases because they share many genetic similarities with us.

“In the last decade or so, we’ve come to realized that the mouse is really similar to humans,” said co-author of the new study, Wolfgang Enard of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthrophology. “The genes are essentially the same and they also work similarly.”

Enard and his colleagues used this genetic similarity to gain insights the evolution of human speech.

“With this study, we get the first glimpse that mice can be used to study not only disease, but also our own history,” Enard said.

… The researchers introduced the human substitutions into the FOXP2 gene of mice, which is essentially identical to that of chimps. The mice with the human FOXP2 gene didn’t start babbling like babies of course, but they showed changes in brain circuits that have previously been linked to human speech. The genetically altered mouse pups also showed differences in ultrasonic vocalizations they use when placed outside the comfort of their mothers’ nests. But not enough is known about mouse communication to read too much into what those changes mean, Enard noted.

via Mice Given ‘Human’ Version of Speech Gene | LiveScience.

Male Or Female? Coloring Provides Gender Cues

Our brain is wired to identify gender based on facial cues and coloring, according to a new study published in the Journal of Vision. Psychology Professor Frédéric Gosselin and his Université de Montréal team found the luminescence of the eyebrow and mouth region is vital in rapid gender discrimination.

“As teenagers, dimorphism (systematic difference between sexes) increases in the nose, chin, mouth, jaw, eyes and general shape of faces,” says Nicolas Dupuis-Roy, lead author of the study. “Yet we aren’t conscious of how our brain recognizes those differences.”

To discover those reference points, Dupuis-Roy and colleagues showed photos of 300 Caucasian faces to some 30 participants. Subjects were asked to identify gender based on images where parts of faces were concealed using a technology called Bubbles.

The investigation found that eyes and mouths, specifically their subtle shading or luminance, are paramount in identifying gender. Unlike previous studies, which found the gap between the eyelid and eyebrow as essential in gender ID, this investigation found the shades of reds and greens around mouths and eyes led to faster gender discrimination.

“Studies have shown that an androgynous face is considered male if the skin complexion is redder, and considered female if the complexion is greener,” says Dupuis-Roy. “However, it is the opposite for the mouth. A woman’s mouth is usually redder. Our brain interprets this characteristic as female.”

via Male Or Female? Coloring Provides Gender Cues.

To Mow, or Not to Mow? Man arrested for mowing grass

An Ohio man arrested for mowing unkempt grass at a public park said he just wanted to make his city look nice. John Hamilton said he took control of the situation because the grass in Sandusky’s Central Park was about a foot high. According to a police report, a witness said Hamilton was blowing grass onto the sidewalk and shredding trash in the park that had not been picked up.

Police said they arrested 48-year-old Hamilton after he refused to stop mowing and charged him with obstructing official business and disorderly conduct.

City Manager Matt Kline called the arrest unfortunate and said he understands Hamilton’s frustration. Kline said budget cuts have left Sandusky understaffed for seasonal maintenance work.

-via YahooNews, also see Foxtoledo for more.

What is it with Ohio and mowing?

Canton, Ohio passed a law  [June 2008] in which residents who are ticketed a second time for having lawn that is too high can be fined up to $250 dollars and be sentenced to a maximum of 30 days in jail. – jm2c

Mowing is a dangerous business. About 77,000 people are rushed to the emergency room each year due to mowing. In 2007 there was the drunken mower chased by a police car. In June 2008 an Elkhart man was arrested for mowing nude. Aug 2008 a Brooksville man wash shot while mowing.

Not mowing is also dangerous. Anita Felix is wanted by the law for not mowing.