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If you’re crazy cat ladies like everyone here at Techyum, then like us, you know how expressive cats can be. And I’m not just talking about the presents they leave after terrorizing the local rodent population, the gift of shredded curtains, or loving tokens of having eaten too much food too fast and being overcome with the spirit of sharing in the hallway in the middle of the night.

No, I’m talking about their adorable ears. When your kitteh is pissed off, cat guardians know that the ears are often the first indicator that you’re going to lose a pint of blood if you don’t stop petting immediately. Or, perky and inquisitive ears adorably tell you that kitteh is interested in what you have to say, especially if you’re speaking the language of can opener or treat.

To the delight of cat owners like me that like all things kitteh perhaps a bit more than I should, and definitely to the excitement of furries the world over, Japanese company Neurowear has produced a prototype of brainwave controlled cat ears to be worn by humans.

I’ve done a significant bit of research on brainwave controlled consumer products. I have covered Neurosky and OCZ for CerebralHack, visiing both companies and tested their products, including OCZ’s Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) and Neuorsky’s Brain Computer Interface (BCI) games. Video of me at Neurosky using their BCI and moving objects in the game with their headset and my brainwaves, is here.

(We love Neurosky on Techyum: don’t miss our post about their X-Wave Mind Interface Device for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)

So it’s with great interest that I’m thinking about what it would be like to wrap a set of Necomimi’s on my head. Necomimi is a combination of the Japanese words for cat and ear): they look likea cat ear headband a teenage girl might buy at Claire’s (in the mall) around Halloween. The band has a sensor on the forehead area that transmits neural impulses into the rig, which causes the ears to move based on what kind of signals it receives. The response is said to be from thoughts or moods – but in my experience with BCI, it is actually difficult to control as they require a strange combination of relaxation and focus. According to Psyorg, the ears “stand straight up when the wearer is concentrating, or wriggle and turn slightly when amused, or lay flat when tired or bored, demonstrating what the company calls, an ability to reveal emotion.”

But we may not find out how well the Necomimi works, if at all, for a while. It looks like one prototype has been made, and was taken to a conference with an exhibit hall – but the Neurowear website and their Facebook page are brand new, and quite sparse. So little is to be found about the product or the company, I would think it’s a prank – if they hadn’t shot this video of people trying out the Necomimi at the Smile Bazar convention in Shibuya, Tokyo (April 28):

Regardless, I want a pair really bad. In black. And yes, I’ve emailed Neurowear asking how to get a set of Necomimi’s for review, as I’d gladly cover them for CBSi. I really sort of need a set of Necomimi… So far, the company (if they’re really a company) has not responded to inquiries. Keep your paws crossed.

Image from Zed's Zombie Ranch on Etsy.

ParaNikki over at Paranormal Utopia posted this audio recording today that claims to be the sound of Bigfoot yowling. The recording was made on February 4 and February 5 (that is, just last week). Here’s what Nikki says:

A Mount Ranier resident has audio recording from around his home of what he believes to be the cry of Bigfoot. Washington is in fact home of the Sasquatch, named by local Native Americans, and this post is absolutely haunting. The sound was heard over several days in the area by several residents and the following sounds are what one resident was able to catch on separate occasions. Whether or not it is the cry of Bigfoot, it certainly is a fascinating recording.

[Link.]

I admit to being mildly haunted by it, but at first I thought I was about to be Rickrolled. There’s a HELL of a lot of hiss and some mechanical clicking — anyone who’s done any field recording will recognize this as the sound that comes from handling a recorder.

Then, and my ears ain’t what they used to be, as far as I can tell the howl doesn’t show up until about 0:38, and then it’s faint. You have to turn the volume wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy up, and if I were you I generally wouldn’t listen to strange bloggers who tell you to turn the volume way up. Especially since the clicking and whacking at 0:51 is likely to deafen you. Proceed cautiously.

At 0:54, the recording shifts to the next day, February 5 of this year. The second sequence starts with a slightly different-sounding cry that’s fairly clear; it sounds comparatively distinct starting about 1:25. Then at the very end, somebody whacks the recorder with ear-splitting volume, so be warned.

Bigfoot? Who knows. Listen here:

By the way, if you want to generate your own Bigfoot sighting, it turns out it’s easy as pie. Adorable!

Photo by Abbey Christine.

A while back, Gabriel Gadfly posted a great rundown of some of the various Hulks on Twitter. In case you don’t know, Hulk This and Hulk That is one of the memes on Twitter, like Phweeting. Whether or not you groove on Fake Abe Vigoda, if you’re a Tweeter then like the rest of us you likely can’t help but find very occasional amusement in such delights as Feminist Hulk, Hipster Hulk,EnviroHulk, Jesus Hulk, Bookstore Hulk, Editor Hulk, Karaoke Hulk, and the notoriously impolite Canadian Hulk.

Do we care that the quality of their satire is hugely mixed? Nah. Does it matter that they occasionally seem to be unclear on the boundary between LOLspeak and Hulkspeak? Um…yeah, kinda, but HULK TRY. THAT WHAT MATTER. It good fun, and when it comes to Twitter, the more SMASH the better.

Anyway, here’s Gabriel Gadfly’s Twitter Hulk Rundown, which makes smashy enough reading that it threatens to create its own Twitterhole. For extra fun, read the comments to note how the mere mention of Hulk leads people to start talking like the Hulk. I’m not sure if that’s awesome or creepy. Maybe a little of both. But can Hulk blame them? See? Now Hulk is doing it. HULK PRETTY SURE THAT CREEPY, NOT AWESOME, BUT HULK GRATIFIED THAT HULK NOT ONLY ONE.

What’s even smashier fun is that late last month, Empty-Handed.com compiled a list of 100 Hulk accounts. Go forth and SMASH.

Illustration from an edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Tim Dinsdale, an Indian-born Royal Air Force engineer, is one of the most famous researchers into the monster reputedly lurking in Loch Ness in the Scottish highlands. His son, Simon Dinsdale, will be continuing his father’s research, according to an article on Paranormal Utopia.

According to the article, the younger Dinsdale is now a retired police detective, says he’s seen the monster twice. However, he believes that hard evidence is needed to back up his claims.

Sadly, Paranormal Utopia doesn’t reference its source, and has no direct quotes from Dinsdale; I could find neither Simon Dinsdale nor the Dinsdale family online, and the only news hit I get is to an Indian source that times out. Until Simon D. puts out a press release or puts up a website, I don’t know where Paranormal Utopia is getting its info…in fact, it’s as murky as the waters of Loch Ness.

His father, Tim Dinsdale, is one of the small number of hardcore legends among monster hunters. In 1960, the elder Dinsdale shot what is probably the most widely discussed film footage of what might be a monster at Loch Ness, which was analyzed much over the years and often found by analysts to be, er, compelling.

At least as many critics found it debunkable, but no hoax has been revealed and no two sources agree on what the thing is — a fact made more difficult by the fact that, according to loch-ness.org, the Dinsdale family seems to disdain the film’s use or distribution.

A reasonably good analysis of the film can be found at nessie.org.uk, where it is concluded that what Dinsdale saw was “an ordinary object” (ie, a small wooden boat). After having the film submitted to them, the RAF determined that it was neither beast nor boat, but an unknown inanimate object. Other viewers have claimed they see what looks like a plesiosaur, which is the most commonly mentioned candidate for a dinosaur that could have evolved into something like what people believe they’ve seen at Loch Ness.

Attempting to prove that what he had seen was, in fact, a cryptid, Dinsdale took part in more than 50 expeditions to Loch Ness during the remainder of his life (he died in 1987).

By the way, in case you don’t know, that iconic still image you’re probably used to seeing of the Loch Ness Monster is known as “The Surgeon’s Photo.” It was taken in 1933 and first brought Nessie to worldwide attention, though it was not the first image taken of Nessie. It was exposed as a hoax in 1994 when a man named Christian Spurling revealed before his death at age 90 that he had helped two conspirators, Colonel Robert Wilson and Spurling’s stepfather Maraduke Weatherell, to create the photo using a toy submarine and a fake sea serpent head.

Just to be clear, Dinsdale’s film is completely unconnected to the Surgeon’s Photo, but those are the two most widely discussed pieces of documentation cited in favor of a monster explanation of the Nessie phenomenon, making Dinsdale’s film the “best evidence.”

Dinsdale’s footage has never been exposed as a hoax, and is still considered by Nessie believers to be the best evidence extant. In fact, Cryptomundo calls its annual monster-hunter award the Dinsdale Memorial Award. I couldn’t find a copy of the entire Dinsdale film (which is about two minutes), but here’s what appears to be 13 practically useless seconds of it.

Tim Dinsdale wrote at least a half-dozen books on the subject, including The Leviathans, Monster Hunt, The Story of the Loch Ness Monster, Project Water Horse, and The Facts About Loch Ness and the Monster. In fact, so many of Dinsdale’s books have been released as “revised editions” and with different titles in different markets (the UK vs. North America, mostly) that it’s hard to tell just how many books he wrote.

For what it’s worth, I put a Google Alert out on Simon Dinsdale. If the intrepid detective slaps any pics of Nessie on Flickr…I’m there.

In case you didn’t know, you’ve always been able to buy uranium ore for scientific and educational use. “Always” being, maybe, a strong word for it, but…you get the point.

But whether it always came in a retasked Burt’s Bees container, I’m not sure.

And unless you want to look up one morning and see F-22 Raptors dropping daisycutters on your ass, don’t even talk about putting it in your yellow cake! As delicious as it would surely be…

And also in case you didn’t know, if your devious plan is to build some sort of, you know, a, um, sort of a “device,” or even power your next super-android Ex-Mr/s. Techyum Reader or fill your subterranean lair (ie, parents’ basement) with atomic-powered harem-girl bodyguards, we at Techyum do not approve of such endeavors. You’re MAD, we tell you. MAD!!

The truth is, if you wanna do anything really dangerous with uranium, you’ll need, at the very least, to put out a Craigslist ad. And did we mention you’re mad, we tell you, mad?

If you’d like to test your Geiger counter, though, this stuff is great for doing it. I’m also betting it’d be awesome for playing high-larious pranks on terrorists, though Laffy Taffy seems to work fine for that.

Nobody told that to mad scientist and monster-hunter Kyle J. Von Bose, though.

Kyle (whose Mom will be forwarding his letters to Gitmo) headlined his Amazon.com review “So glad I don’t have to buy this from Libyans in parking lots at the mall anymore“:

I bought this to power a home-made submarine that I use to look for prehistoric-era life forms in land-locked lakes around my home town in Alaska. At first I wasn’t sure if this item would (or could) arrive via mail, but I was glad to see it showed up with no problems. Well, almost no problems.

Unfortunately my mom opened my mail, because she does not respect people’s privacy. She was pretty upset to see Uranium Ore. After a long argument and me running away from home again, she finaly stopped being such an idiot and I was able to get back to work.

The quality of this Uranium is on par with the stuff I was bying from the Libyans over at the mall parking lot, but at half the price! I just hope the seller does not run out, because I have many projects on my list including a night vision sasquatch radar, an electromagnetic chupakabra cage, a high velocity, aerial, weighted Mothman net and super heated, instant grill cheese sandwhich maker.

Nero Goldstein‘s Amazon review describes how he found an alternative household use for the stuff:

Picked this up for use in one of my kid’s ‘diversity’ projects in school (Great Success!), and stuck the leftovers in the cabinet next to the baking soda….Ran out of toothpaste, and remembered how you’re supposed to be able to use baking soda to clean your teeth, so of course, I accidentally used this instead, and Wow! all I can say is, my teeth have never been cleaner!

But if you want to feel bad for someone, feel bad for Patrick J. McGovern, Procrastinating Evil Scientist, who thinks he’s soooooooooooo funny when he calls attention to a central design flaw of this product:

I purchased this product 4.47 Billion Years ago and when I opened it today, it was half empty.

Sadly, the distributor can not help him with that. Patrick will have to take his complaint up with the manufacturer.

Anyway, for those of you out there already plotting your escape from your incarceration beneath the snows of Antarctica in a secret base guarded by a shadowy para-governmental mercenary army of genetically-engineered jarheads, you should know that according to the product description, this stuff is shipped:

…in compliance with Section 13 from part 40 of the NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules and regulations and Postal Service regulations specified in 49 CFR 173.421 for activity limits of low level radioactive materials. Item will be shipped in accordance with Postal Service activity limits specified in Publication 52…

…so if you’re outsmarting your captors and mail-ordering some, Hannibal Lecter style, make sure you file the proper forms with the Department of Supervillain Redundancy Supervillain Department….or at least have your minions minions minions do it.

Creative Commons photo by Flickr user die_gabel (Achim).

You know, I think Joystiq summed up today’s gaming-world fandango-in-a-teapot best when they said:

It’s an inspiring tale of perseverence, one that teaches a valuable lesson: if you want to be the best at something, pick something nobody else has ever heard of.

Which has always been my theory when it comes to the sport of Speed Nostril-Flaring.

Joystiq was referring, of course, to a far less obscure pastime. The target of their huzzah is 38-year-old Justin Baxter, who rescued a Cosmic Monsters console from the junkyard seven years ago and recently skunked the 1983 world record of about 105,000 by hitting 145,680.

Small World News Service has the full-on skinny, including the fact that Baxter’s most telling quote was: “I don’t have any plans to stop – I’ve got to beat my own record.”

Cosmic Monsters, in case you aren’t the biggest console-game geek in the world, is a barely-remembered Space Invaders clone so obscure it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page (!). The name also, however, was used for a rippin’ White Zombie tune (on La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1), the title of an unrelated National Geographic show and the title of an equally unrelated ’50s science fiction movie.

Weirdly, though, I remember the console game — vaguely — from my childhood, without remembering either the ’50s movie or the White Zombie song.

Kotaku’s post on the topic netted some insightful comments, like for instance:

On the one hand, I think that breaking records on obsolete games is not worth nearly as much praise as it gets.

On the other hand, most games don’t provide scores anymore, so there aren’t really any objective records to break.

…which is about as bland as it is hard to argue with, and fairly well sums up my feelings on the matter. “As much praise as it gets” seems to be a chorus of gaming-geek snickers in the form of blog posts.

Speaking of which, this all leaves an important question open: When humans have finally conquered disease, pestilence, poverty, and all forms of deprivation, will there still be ’80s video games we forgot about?

Blogger's conception of the stalker becoming the stalked -- with Plesiosauric assistance from a Creative Commons image by Flickr user Kevin Walsh.

Did you know Theodore Roosevelt came this close to hunting a South American plesiosaur? “This” close being not at all close, but possibly vaguely interested in doing so, had the thing, you know, existed. Maybe. Or it might be a hoax promulgated by an unethical promoter, 19 years later in 1922.

In any event, it makes a great story. Austin Whittall’s blog Patagonian Monsters finds the late-breaking news from 1922 in a New York Times piece on the matter. It seems:

Former US President Teddy Roosevelt was approached by the American gold prospector Martin Sheffield in 1903, who suggested that he organize an expedition to hunt a mysterious huge lizard-like monster with a curved neck.

Whitall quotes the March 31, 1922 item from the Times: Read more…

Image by Brian de Palo.

Somebody’s got a sense of humor down there in Arizona’s Verde Valley. It’s winemaker Maynard James Keenan, who named his vineyard Merkin Vineyards and his most delicious-tasting wine Chupacabra.

For those of you who might have missed the 4:15 Clue Train to Dysphemism, Arizona, a merkin is a pubic wig, typically worn in the European middle ages, legend has it, either because rampant pubic lice infestation would make prostitutes’ hair fall out or because prostitutes would actually shave, sort of, like, as prophylaxis against said pubic lice infestation, and then strap on a merkin because who would want to get with a totally hairless lady of the evening? That would be, like, weird or something. Now people wear them at Burning Man, often pink and sometimes with zebra stripes. They also name their vineyards after them, which is what Maynard James Keenan did, while naming his winery Caduceus Cellars, after one of the symbols of the Greek god Hermes that is also associated with the medical profession.

The chupacabra, of course, is a species of cryptocanine that may or may not exist but either way looks pretty tasty. Mmmmm. Especially to accompany a fine risotto with shaved truffles and toasted Bigfoot nads–

But wait, is that Maynard James Keenan from Tool? Way to know your rock and roll bands, Lester Bangs! Yes, it is! That’s Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of Tool and A Perfect Circle, who apparently knows both his cryptozoology and his pubic wigs. And that’s not all he knows! Like Keith Richards, he’s apparently deeply spiritual, writing on the Caduceus Cellars website following the naming of his cabernet Nagual del Judith after his late mother:

I am standing on a metaphorical plateau. The view from here suggests that I/we still have many mountains to negotiate. It has already been a long journey. But the successes and failures have been in balance. Which would suggest that I/we have chosen the correct path. I hold in my hands the evidence to support this statement . . . With tears in my eyes, I present to you the very first 100 percent Arizona Caduceus wine. Nagual del Judith, named after my late mother, Judith Marie, whose ashes are spread across this Northern Arizona vineyard. These vines and wines are her resurrection and her wings.

[Link.]

Nope, you didn’t misread that; he sprinkled his mother’s ashes over his vineyard, and you can buy a little piece of her in the form of Nagual del Judith.

However, that one’s not named after a hairless canine that sucks the blood out of goats in Puerto Rico, so if you don’t think it’s punk rock enough…well, go make your own damn wine.

Creative Commons photo by Wayne Parrack of Bigfoot carving in central Washington state, sculptor unidentified.

The Mande Barung (sometimes spelled Mande Burung or Mande-burung) is an apelike creature thought to reside in the tropical rainforests of the Garo Hills, which straddle Northeast India and western Bangladesh. It’s thought to be related to the Tibetan Yeti, the Chinese Yeren, the Almas of Mongolia and the Caucasus, the Bigfoot or Sasquatch of North America’s Pacific Northwest, and by extension the Skunk Ape of Florida.

Bangladesh, incidentally, has to contend with not only the Mande Barung, but a second pesky cryptohominid, pretty impressive for a country of its size. I speak, of course, of the Ban-manush or Nyalmo, about which, in case you were wondering, Wikipedia offers this convincing argument for the stark-raving-madness of crowdsourcing anything more complex than standing there looking confused.

But…what was I saying about the Mande-Barung? Ah, yes: A post on Mania.com by Nick Redfern (about whom more anon) informs me that a British team departing October 31, 2010 will begin a methodical search for the Mande Barung in the India part of the Garo Hills. The team is supported by the Center for Fortean Zoology (CFZ). A few pertinent deets from Mr. Redfern:

The 5-man team will be led by Adam Davies – the author of the monster-hunting-themed book, Extreme Expeditions – and will also consist of Dr Chris Clark, Dave Archer, field naturalist John McGowan, and cryptozoologist Richard Freeman; the latter a former keeper at England’s Twycross Zoo and the author of the book, Dragons: More Than A Myth.

Jonathan Downes, the founder and director of the , says of these strange and elusive animals: “The creatures are described as being up to ten feet tall, with predominantly black hair. Most importantly, they are said to walk upright, like a man. Walking apes have been reported in the area for many years. These descriptions sound almost identical to those reported in neighboring Bhutan and Tibet. Witnesses report that the Mande-Burung – which translates as forest man – is most often seen in the area in November.”

Read more…

Coccolithovirus, which has about 400,000 base pairs. Public Domain image from Wikipedia.

An article in The Scientist discusses the earthshaking changes in the world of virus genomes. Seriously! Giant viruses. Who knew it was gonna be such an exciting Halloween!

The big news is not (just) the size of the virus itself, but the number of base pairs in its genome. (Number of base pairs is how you measure the size of a genome, apparently). Most viruses carry their genetic material in DNA form; a virus with RNA is a retrovirus (retroviruses are less common and tend to have fewer base pairs). While humans have about 3.2 billion base pairs, the first DNA virus to be completely sequenced, Phi X 174, has only about 5,400 bases.

But now researchers reporting in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences have discovered a giant marine virus with 700,000 base pairs. It’s the first giant virus discovered in a marine organism, as The Scientist reports: