Faces of Meth, why?

We talked about this some time ago....

Does use of methamphetamines (crystal meth) cause sores on the body (e.g. face, arms) and what would they look like?
One of the complications that can arise from using crystal meth is formication, which is the sensation that insects are crawling on the skin. This causes the user to pick and scratch at the skin leading to sores that can lead to a staph infection. If infected, the sores become enflamed, swollen, and pus-filled. The sores are most commonly found on the face and arms, though they may be present anywhere on the body. - source: University of BC, health page

Here is something about Meth "causing" teeth to fall out.

iloveegg

I have no idea what and why this is, but it's pretty funny and really random. It also fits in nicely with our rainbow design and our mission statement(?). They have two English sites, here you can see all the episodes, and here is all kinds of random stuff.

PWNED?!

Scientists develop technique to induce out-of-body experiences

From The Guardian:

Scientists have induced the age-old phenomenon of out-of-body experiences in healthy volunteers for the first time.

The technique, which uses a virtual-reality-style set up of cameras linked to a head-mounted video display, will help researchers understand how the brain assimilates sensory information to determine the position of its body.

...

In his experiment participants wore goggles containing a video screen for each eye. Each screen was fed images from a separate camera behind the participant and, because the two images were combined by the brain into a single image, they saw a 3D image of their own back.

Dr Ehrsson then moved a plastic rod towards a location just below the cameras while the participant's real chest was simultaneously touched in the corresponding position. The participants reported feeling that they were located back where the cameras had been placed, watching a body that belonged to someone else.

Full Article...

Day in the Life of a Procrastinator

I can really relate to this.

Schmidt Sting Pain Index and the Bullet ant

The Schmidt Sting Pain Index or The Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index is a pain scale of Hymenopteran stings. It is mainly the work of Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist for whom the index is named. Schmidt has published a number of papers on the subject and claims to have been stung by the majority of stinging Hymenoptera.

Subsequently, Schmidt has refined his scale, culminating in a paper published in 1990 which classifies the stings of 78 species and 41 genera of Hymenoptera. Notably, Schmidt described some of the experiences in vivid and colorful detail:

• 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
• 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
• 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
• 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
• 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
• 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
• 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
• 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of Hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
• 4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).
• 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.

The sting of the Bullet ant is described as causing "waves of burning, throbbing, all-consuming pain that continues unabated for up to 24 hours.

The ants are also used for initiation rites by some indigenous people in the Amazon.

That zinger at the end of the video is great.

horoscopes just tell you what you wanna hear

cybr adds: Derren Brown is a very gifted illusionist and skeptic of the paranormal. He has an interesting wiki page. All this works through the tendency of people to rate sets of statements as highly accurate for them personally even though the statements could apply to many people, the so called Forer effect.