the/diseased/republik

according to a recent study, Biologists have found that plants are able to recognize their own relatives. "Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but they're accommodating when potted with their siblings. [...] Though they lack cognition and memory, the study shows plants are capable of complex social behaviours such as altruism towards relatives, says Dudley. Like humans, the most interesting behaviours occur beneath the surface."

A gigantic bird-like dinosaur weighing as much as a car towered over its relatives about 70 million years ago, a new finding suggests. The unearthed beaked dinosaur was not full-grown, yet it tipped the scales at more than 3,000 pounds. Paleontologists who discovered its remains estimate the behemoth was just 11 years old when it perished. Chinese scientists unearthed the skeletal remains of the dinosaur, now named Gigantoraptor erlianensis, in the Erlian Basin of Inner Mongolia, China. Gigantoraptor was also much ganglier than other dinosaurs. Typically, larger dinosaurs had proportionally stouter limbs and shorter lower legs than their smaller relatives. Relative to its size, Gigantoraptor had unusually slender limbs and lengthy legs.

if you know me you know i love cats. i love dogs too, they just wont fit in my tiny apartment. i need a house for more critters. anyway, just wanted to share a couple of funny cat piks i had found...

Zenith , n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though from this view of the matter there was once a considerably dissent among the learned, some holding that the posture of the body was immaterial. These were called Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists. The Horizontalist heresy was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the philosopher-king of Abara, a zealous Verticalist. Entering an assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, he cast a severed human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the heels outside. Observing that it was the head of their leader, the Horizontalists hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever opinion the Crown might be pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its place among fides defuncti .

Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who operate from bases there, Turkish security officials told The Associated Press. Now what about that bunker you were digging? The reports came amid worries Turkey might launch an offensive against the rebel bases, touching off a conflict with U.S.-backed Iraqi Kurds in one of Iraq's most stable regions. The U.S. is urging itsNATO ally not to strike, and Turkey's foreign minister denied any incursion occurred. read more | digg story

Oetzi, the 5,100-year old mummified iceman found in a Tyrolean glacier in 1991, bled to death after being hit in the back by an arrow, Swiss scientists said Wednesday following X-ray. "A lesion of a close-to-the-shoulder artery has been found thanks to a CT scan," read more | digg story

Neighbors of convicted tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown reported police SWAT teams and at least one armored vehicle converging on a field near their Plainfield home this morning. An Associated Press photographer in a plane over the Browns’ property this morning was told to leave the airspace. On the ground, state police set up a checkpoint at Stage Road and Route 12A and would not let reporters pass.The Browns insist federal income tax laws are invalid and have holed up in their hilltop home on 110 acres in Plainfield, which has a watchtower, concrete walls and the ability to run on wind and solar power. Brown said he has stockpiled food and supplies.They were convicted in January of scheming to hide $1.9 million of income between 1996 and 2003. They also were convicted of using $215,890 in postal money orders to pay for their residence and for Elaine Brown’s dental office. The money orders were broken into increments just below the tax-reporting threshold.U.S. District Judge Steven Mc

"Fortunately, I'm adhering to a very strict drug regimen to keep my mind limber..."

In a move that has executives from movie studios and record labels grinning from ear to ear, AT&T has announced that it will develop and deploy technology that will attempt to keep pirated content off its network. The move is spurred in part by the company's decision to offer IPTV television service as part of its U-Verse package , AT&T senior VP James W. Cicconi told the Los Angeles Times . Despite the major technical problems inherent in such a program, AT&T is moving ahead. By making themselves into the arbiters of copyright law, the company risks being drawn into a costly "arms race" with programmers who don't like the idea of a massive corporation (and one which appears to have turned over information to the NSA ) peeking into their packets and deciding which ones go through. This is exactly the situation that Dr. Greg Jackson, CIO of the University of Chicago, warned Congress about last week . "The only successful, robust way to address probl