The lost city of Atlantis
A research team may have found the lost city of Atlantis in the marshlands of Doñana National Park in Spain which were flooded by a tsunami thousands of years ago. They used satellite photography, digital mapping, deep-ground radar, and underwater technology to survey the site north of Cadiz and found a submerged city in the marshland. The city’s layout is similar to the description given in Plato’s dialogues Timaeus and Critias from 360 BC, a book we totally own, bound in leather and kept in our mahogany-scented apartments.
Meanwhile in England
Graham Waspe, a blind man from England, had no intention of getting rid of his loyal guide dog, Edward the Labrador, when the dog lost his eyes due to cataracts after many years of service. Instead Waspe got Edward the guide dog a guide dog of his own. Yo dawg, that’s adorable.
Michael George Allan of Trafford, England, broke into the local Altrincham police station and was discovered and arrested by an officer at 4 A.M. Police say they will be tightening security after this break-in and in light of the event last month when a man brought a hand grenade into the station, sparking an evacuation. This break-in was a bit less serious. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Allan was wearing a policeman’s hat and jacket and was eating a bowl of porridge, as one does when one breaks into a police station. Who needs an evidence room full of contraband when you can get a hot meal and a fancy outfit?
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- The lost city of Atlantis may have been found. (Reuters, NatGeo, picture via wearscience via TDW)
- A guide dog who went blind now has his own guide dog. (Urlesque, video at Asylum)
- Man unable to resist the siren call of police hats and porridge. (Arbroath)
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- Headline of the Day: “Great T*ts Also Have Age-Related Defects” We see what you did there, ScienceDaily. (via BioTV)
- Well, this is infuriating: Makena, a drug which prevents premature births and currently costs $10 to $20 per injection is going to skyrocket in price to $1,500 per injection now that KV Pharmaceuticals — who didn’t even do the research and development for the drug — were granted seven years of exclusive monopoly to be the only manufacturer of the drug. Just in case you had any doubt the FDA is beholden to lobbyists. (Yahoo)
- 80,000 to 100,000 protesters gathered at the Wisconsin Capitol on Saturday, accompanied by 50 tractors and a donkey. No arrests were made. Oh, Wisconsin, with your politeness and your tractors and your donkeys. (HuffPo)
- Good news: Epitonic is back. The free music (legally free, not stealing stuff “free”) website was one of my favorite sites back in 1999, offering free music from unsigned and indie bands, including some well-known artists like Cat Power, Radar Brothers, and Built to Spill. They closed down in 2004 but have returned thanks to a Kickstarter campaign. (Gizmodo)
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- Kyle Conroy put together this spreadsheet showing how much money a person would have if they bought Apple stock instead of Apple products on the day of their release. Yeah, but can Apple stock surf for porn? Didn’t think so. (KyleConroy via CrunchGear, picture via Technabob)
- Some hackers figured out how to exploit the automated system Microsoft was using to send out promo codes for 160 point Microsoft Points cards and Xbox Live Gold free trial subscriptions. They then distributed the information, used the codes themselves, and sold many of them on Ebay. Early estimates peg Microsoft’s losses at $1 to 1.2 million. (Hackaday)
- Newly released figures from the The PC Gaming Alliance estimate that the PC games market reached a new record of $16.2 billion in sales in 2010, a 19% increase over 2009. They expect sales to reach $23 billion by 2014, when we’ll all be playing The Sims 5 in our flying cars. Or should be. (RockPaperShotgun)
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