News of the Weird, June 10, 2012

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M270 (News of the Weird, June 10, 2012)
by Chuck Shepherd

Copyright 2012 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Lead Story

* No insect is in greater need of a public relations boost than the
cockroach, and Dr. Mathieu Lihoreau of Rennes, France, provided it
in a recent issue of the journal Insectes Sociaux. Roaches are highly
social, suffer when isolated, recognize members of their own
families, and appear to make "collective decisions for the greater
good" of their community, according to a review of the research in
May by BBC Nature. They act in "emergent forms of cooperation"-
-"swarm intelligence." Functioning mostly through chemical cues,
they advise their homeboys where to find food and water, where the
good crawl-into cracks are for sleeping, and how to stay attached to
their social networks. [BBC Nature, 5-2-2012]

Challenging Business Models

* Dr. Jason Burke rolled out his "Hangover Heaven" medical bus
fleet in Las Vegas in April, offering revelers a faster, clinically-
proper recovery from their night of excess drinking, for a $90-$150
fee. After giving their medical history, "patients" receive
intravenous saline, with B and C vitamins and whatever prescription
or over-the-counter drugs are appropriate, says Burke (a licensed
anesthesiologist). No drunks are served; the patient must be in the
"hangover" stage. One M.D., who hosts a radio show, told CBS
News, "I think many doctors are kicking themselves because they
didn't think of this first." [CBS News, 4-23-2012]

* No Trademark for You: (1) A restaurant set to open in April in
West Palm Beach, Fla., named with a Japanese word suggesting
"good fortune, wealth, and prosperity," was denied a trademark by
the Florida Division of Corporations. The name in question: the
Fuku. (2) In April, Alabama's alcoholic beverage control agency
rejected Founders Brewing Company's request to sell its Dirty
Bastard beer in the state, even though Founders pointed out that the
state already permits another company to sell Fat Bastard wine. The
agency acknowledged the similarity but said Fat Bastard was
approved years ago and that no one at the agency now recalls why.
[WPTV (West Palm Beach), 4-26-2012] [Associated Press via
AzCentral.com, 4-19-2012]

* In May, the Taiwan tabloid Apple Daily profiled a 27-year-old
man who said he has tripled his previous salary by becoming a
public snitch, turning in videos of litterers and spitters violating
Taipei laws that reward informants a fee of one-fourth the amount
of any fines. In the last two years, the man ("Chou") said he has had
5,000 cases result in fines, for which he has been paid the
equivalent of $50,000. He said he now teaches classes in snitching.
[Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg) via MonstersandCritics.com,
4-18-2012]

Science on the Cutting Edge

* Researchers Need to Believe: Surely the world's longest-running
science experiment is the 85-year-old continuing project to visually
ascertain whether "pitch" (a tar) is liquid. Begun at England's
Cambridge University, the project is now housed at University of
Queensland in Australia, where the custodian believes the next drop
(the ninth ever) will fall in 2013. The previous teardrop-shaped
bead descended in 2000. [Daily Mail (London), 5-11-2012]

* Dung beetles are known to researchers to roll their perfectly-made
balls with their back legs and to periodically mount the balls,
pirouette, and climb down, to be on their way. Emily Baird of Lund
University in Sweden explained why in a January issue of the
journal PLoS One: The beetles are gathering celestial readings to
help shepherd their balls home, away from predators. Baird's
specialty is learning how animals with tiny brains perform complex
tasks, and to test the dung beetle, she patiently watched 22 of them
guide their balls through an obstacle course her team created.
[Scientific American, 1-18-2012]

* People with the condition Alternating Gender Incongruity (AGI)
say they periodically, but repeatedly, sense themselves as of the
opposite gender, sometimes imagining to have "phantom genitalia"
of that gender. Professor Vilayanur Ramachandran, of the
University of California, San Diego's Center for Brain and
Cognition, tested 32 previously undiagnosed AGI sufferers and
found mild correlations with multiple-personality disorder, bipolar
disorder, and, oddly, ambidexterity. His research appeared in April
in the journal Medical Hypotheses and was reviewed by Scientific
American. [Scientific American, 4-19-2012]

Leading Economic Indicators

* Dollarwise, only about 16% of stock market transactions consist
of what most people think of as trades of company or mutual fund
shares ("real" investors, interacting with actual brokers). The rest,
according to analysis by Morgan Stanley's Quantitative and
Derivative Strategies group and covering October-December 2011,
were performed by computers acting automatically, at staggeringly
high frequency, using software algorithms, buying or selling
mindlessly based on what trading firms needed to fill out their
portfolios profitably on a second-by-second basis. [Financial Times,
4-24-2012]

* Two homeless, penniless men in Fresno, Calif., are setting a high
bar for frequency, and expense, of ambulance trips to the hospital.
A 41-year-old who says he has "a major problem with my liver" and
a 51-year-old allegedly seizure-prone man called for a combined
1,363 trips in 2011, which at the market rate would have cost them
$545,000 (apart from evaluations by the hospital, which would have
additionally cost more than $500,000), according to a February
investigation by the Fresno Bee. Taxpayers and the insured foot the
bills (reduced somewhat because the ambulance company and the
hospital take lower fees). Neither the ambulance company nor the
hospital can refuse to serve the men, and attempts to talk the men
out of the trips are either futile or too laborious for the emergency
technicians to attempt. [Fresno Bee, 2-12-2012]

Pet Mania

* The expense of caring for a pet, at least among the well-off,
appears to be recession-resistant, amounting to about $50 billion in
the U.S. for 2011, according to a trade association. Much of that
spending is on advanced medical services such as bone marrow
transplants at North Carolina State University (65 already
performed) and stent procedures to open clogged bladders or
kidneys (630 last year) at the Animal Medical Center in New York
City. Said one man, who had paid about $25,000 to treat his 10-
year-old dog's lymphoma, "I wondered if I was doing this for selfish
reasons. I asked myself, 'If I were a 10-year-old dog, would I want
to go through this?" (Unfortunately, considering dogs' short life
spans, cancer remissions are almost always short-lived.) [New
York Times, 4-6-2012]

* But sometimes, the weird news is heartwarming. KTUL-TV,
reporting in April on the Sooner Golden Retriever Rescue in Tulsa,
Okla., profiled Tanner (a Golden Retriever blind from epilepsy and
suffering seizures, incontinence, and biting frenzies), who took a
shine to the arrival of Blair (a homeless black Labrador with a
gunshot wound). Almost immediately, noted Rescue personnel,
Tanner became playful, as Blair led him around the grounds in
much the way that assistance dogs guide blind humans. Both dogs
have thus staved off being euthanized and are being considered for
joint adoption. [KTUL-TV (Tulsa), 5-2-2012]

Least Competent Criminals

* Bad Strategies: (1) James Cruz, 58, was arrested in May in West
Palm Beach, Fla., after allegedly pulling out a gun at a McDonald's
drive-thru lane in order to squeeze his car in ahead of another. The
other driver backed off, but of course got a full view of Cruz's
license plate. (2) Two weeks earlier, in Wilmer, Tex., Keithan
Manuel, 18, was arrested after he allegedly walked into the Wilmer
police station, with a white towel covering his hands, and told the
dispatcher, "[G]ive me all your money." [WTVJ-TV (Miami), 5-25-
2012] [KRLD-TV (Dallas), 5-9-2012]

Recurring Themes

* Though several cases have been reported in the medical literature
(and twice in News of the Weird), credulity is still strained by
reports that people might accidentally swallow (whole!) a typical
toothbrush (usually 7 to 8 inches long). In the most recent episode,
Ms. Bat-El Panker, 24, of Kiryat Yam, Israel, had trouble with
disbelieving doctors at her local hospital and had to go to Carmel
Hospital in Haifa, where a gastroenterologist, using ordinary tools
of the trade, manipulated the brush until it was at an angle that made
it removable without damaging her digestive tract, according to a
report on Ynet News. [Ynet News, 5-16-2012]

Thanks This Week to Brett Steidler, Tracey Nixon, Jay
Scott, Esteban Bazan, Perry Levin, and Sandy Pearlman, and to the
News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di
Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl
Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and Board of Editorial Advisors (Tom
Barker, Paul Blumstein, Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue, Emory
Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark
Neunder, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Rob Snyder, Stephen Taylor,
Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).

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