If you were looking for a way to scare a spoiled brat into submission, look no further that the monster train of Kyoto, an eerie attraction where yokai (Japanese monsters) become real. For kids at least, because any grown-up can tell they’re actually actors wearing white kimonos and scary masks. The custom was introduced by the Keifuku Electric Railroad company, in 2007, and was so popular that it became an eagerly awaited yearly tradition.
The outside of the train is painted with traditional Japanese monsters, while the interior is fitted with spooky blue lights and human hands hanging from the ceiling. As the Yokai Train leaves the station, a spooky sounds can be heard coming from the speakers, and the monsters make their entrance. Some are dressed in white kimonos and wear white masks and triangular white crowns (which means they are dead), while others sport creepy masks and torn rags. Some of the older kids react pretty well to the yokai, but the younger ones cry and scream while their mothers and the other adults watch and smile. It sounds a bit cruel, but by the last station of the tour most children make friends with the monsters.
It’s said the Yokai Train, like other themed train rides, was introduced to revitalize the urban areas it passes through, but there are those who say it’s just a way to scare children so they can feel cooler in the hot summer nights. If you’re in Kyoto this August and are up for a ride on the Yokai Train, you should know it will run until August 28th, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.
Source: Oddity Central
Video: YouTube
As Carl Sagan once noted, they might find amusement in some talent we have that they lack and use us as entertainment, just as we keep sea lions in captivity because of their remarkable ability to balance rubber balls on their noses.
All of these scenarios and more are fleshed out in a new article in the journal Acta Astronautica by researchers at Pennsylvania State University. One possibility they’ve raised has garnered more attention than any other: An extraterrestrial civilization might notice our planet by detecting changes in the spectral signature of Earth — the light radiated by our planet and atmosphere — caused by greenhouse gas emissions. And they might frown upon our behavior.
The group’s thinking goes like this: From the rate of change of the chemical composition in our atmosphere, the aliens will deduce our rapid expansion and, because of that, possibly view us as a threat, thinking we’ll soon pursue resources on other worlds.
“If [they] doubt that our course can be changed, then they may seek to preemptively destroy our civilization in order to protect other civilizations from us,” the researchers write. (Several media outlets have inaccurately reported that NASA is behind the new report. One of its authors, astrobiologist Shawn Domagal-Goldman, recently began working at NASA, but wrote the paper with former colleague Seth Baum and others at Penn State, whose institution was solely responsible for funding their research.)
“This is a highly unlikely scenario,” said Jacob Haqq-Misra, a meteorologist and astrobiologist at Penn State and a co-author of the new paper. “We’re not really saying this is going to happen, but it’s a possibility. The motivation for explaining this possibility is that we are doing this technology already. We are looking at other planets and their spectral signatures.”
Haqq-Misra explained that astronomers are currently capable of detecting spectral changes in light coming from large (Jupiter-size) planets up to 200 light-years away. In galactic terms, this is a very small neighborhood (the Milky Way is 100,000 light-years across). However, more advanced civilizations would be capable of seeing much farther.
“How far you can see depends on how big your telescope is,” he told Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site to SPACE. “So this is a realistic scenario: What if ET looked at Earth?”
In fact, we already know what they would see.
“People have looked at Earth’s radiation reflected back to us from the moon, and you can actually observe the oxygen and methane and ozone in our atmosphere. So we know the spectral signature they would see, and the changes,” said Haqq-Misra, whose primary research involves studying the atmospheric changes caused by life.
That aliens would react negatively to seeing signs of our rapid expansion is only one hypothetical outcome, he explained. Perhaps aliens are actually nice. “They might think: These guys are not going to make it. They might need our help.”
“But, to delve into some alien sociology, we are extrapolating human civilization to some future point and saying what we might do,” Haqq-Misra said. Humans don’t work well with others whom we view as a threat.
After all, we seem to have killed off all our prehistoric competitors.
Whatever the outcome, the new research is another reminder that you don’t survive long in this universe if you can’t figure out how to live within your means.
“The bottom line is, if there are intelligent civilizations out there, they pretty much have to have figured out how to grow in a sustainable way,” Haqq-Misra pointed out. “We’re not doing that, and [other civilizations] might make some moral judgment on how we’re managing our resources.”
Article: Natalie Wolchover
Source: SPACE.COM
Image: Discovery Channel/Darlow Smithson Productions Ltd.
Lyle Monroe Bensley is being held in Galveston County Jail after allegedly breaking into a woman’s apartment and biting her on the neck, police said. The woman, whose name has not been released, broke free and fled the apartment, speeding to safety in a neighbor’s car early Saturday.
When police arrived on the scene, they found Bensley, wearing only boxer shorts, hissing and growling in the parking lot. He quickly scaled two fences before he was captured, yelling all the while that he “didn’t want to have to feed on humans,” Capt. Jeff Heyse of the Galveston County Police Department told ABCNews.com.
“I’ve dealt with some really strange people,” said Heyse. “You know, guys who think they’re Jesus and that. But I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Even in jail, Bensley warned guards to restrain him for their own protection, gnashing his teeth with a “need to feed,” police said. It’s unclear whether Bensley was intoxicated or on drugs at the time of the attack, but police said a psychiatric evaluation is pending.
Bensley’s alleged vampire-inspired attack and apparent lament for his superhuman needs brings to mind movies from the “Twilight” Saga and the HBO series “True Blood,” both of which have a devoted following. That culture, some experts said, could serve as inspiration for people who suffer from mental illness.
“The content of a psychotic episode very often draws from the real world,” said Josh Klapow, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health. “Vampires are very prominent in our society right now from a pop culture standpoint. And that information can feed into hallucinations.”
‘Vampire’ Attack Raises Questions About Pop Culture’s Influence on Behavior
Hallucinations — multisensory experiences not based in reality — can stem from substance abuse, mania brought on by bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia. And vampires, Klapow said, are good fodder.
“If you look at the content of these sorts of hallucinations, even though the characters are slightly different, the themes tend to be similar,” he said, describing the commonly reported illusions of being a powerful religious figure, like Jesus, or a supernatural being. “The richer the content, the more prevalent it is, and the more nuances there are to it, the easier it becomes to run with.”
For the victim of the alleged attack who, after hearing a noise in her apartment, was punched in her bed, dragged into a hallway, pinned against a wall and bitten, the ordeal was horrific. She had never met Bensley and didn’t know why he attacked her, police said.
Bensley was charged with burglary with intent to commit assault. His bond is set at $40,000.
Article: Katie Moisse
Source: ABC News
Image: Galveston County Sheriff’s Office
He captured the magical moment through a window at the International Space Station during the annual Perseid meteor shower, the Daily Mail reported.
The budding astronaut photographer posted the picture on Twitter with the message: ‘What a “Shooting Star” looks like #FromSpace Taken yesterday during Perseids Meteor Shower…’
The tiny Perseid meteors are the remnants of asteroids, and this particular kind is named after the part of the asteroid they break away from.
This particular meteor shower comes from the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle.
Scientists estimate that the annual Perseid meteor shower has been watched by stargazers on Earth for at least 2000 years.
In ideal conditions, up to 100 of the small “shooting stars” an hour can be seen from Earth.
Source: Yahoo!7 News
But a Staten Island plus-size model said she enjoyed nursing babies so much that when her three children got older she started collecting dolls that she treats like real infants.
Marilyn Mansfield has turned her apartment into a silent nursery filled with 300 lifelike dolls who she looks after as if they were living, changing their clothes, washing their hair and taking them to the park.
The married 33-year-old woman said she does not leave the house without one of her dolls and often shocks strangers who come to coo at one of her ‘babies’.
‘I don’t do it for the shock value. I do it for myself because it makes me happy,’ she said.
‘I just loved when my kids were babies – and these babies stay babies forever,’ she told the New York Post.
‘I buy them clothes. They never grow out of them and they never get dirty.’
As well as handmade lifelike dolls known as ‘reborns’ that have human hair, weigh the same as babies and cost up to $2,000, Mrs Mansfield has a collection of 300 dolls worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
‘I know they’re not alive, but their facial expressions give them all their own personalities,’ she said.
‘When women hold babies, they release hormones. I think that’s what it is for me – it makes me feel good.’
Mrs Mansfield, who is featured in TLC show ‘My Collection Obsession’, which premieres next Sunday, said that her children are not jealous of the playthings.
Her seven-year-old son has his own doll collection and her 12-year-old daughter helps her mother change and wash the dolls.
She said that her husband has no interest in the dolls, but has grown used to their large ‘family’.
Mrs Mansfield has mixed reactions when she takes the dolls out in public.
‘People will come over and ask me, “How old is he?”’ Mrs Mansfield said.
‘I’ll try to ignore them. If they keep on, I’ll say, “Look, it’s not a baby.”’
One woman who saw one of the dolls in a store recently said: ‘Your baby looks a little pale. Is he OK?’
‘She touched him and screamed when she found out it was a doll,’ Mrs Mansfield said.
Article: John Stevens
Source: Daily Mail
Image: AFP/Getty Images
So it is perhaps no wonder the notorious street artist decided to wade into the debate embroiling News International and offer his own humorous take on the media’s woes.
In his latest stunt, the Bristol-based artist tagged a wall with a playful take on Rupert Murdoch’s phone hacking scandal and posted the photo on his website.
It has now caused a sensation on Twitter with followers branding it ‘brilliant’ – although it is not clear where exactly in east London the art is situated.
It depicts a water tap being called – a tap phoned – with a simulated phone ringing ‘Brinngg, Brinngg’ as well as a confused person with a thought bubble which reads ‘Oh no… my tap’s been phoned.’
Since Banksy made his name with his trademark stencil-style ‘guerrilla’ art in public spaces – on walls in London, Brighton, Bristol and even on the West Bank barrier separating Israelis and Palestinians – his works have sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
He has dozens of celebrity collectors including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Christina Aguilera.
Last month, another piece was spotted relating to the conviction of notorious graffiti artist vandal Daniel Halpin on the corner of Jeffrey’s Street and Kentish Town Road, Camden, within walking distance of where self-styled ‘King of the Taggers’ Halpin lived.
Halpin, 26, hit the headlines earlier in June when he was convicted of a string of spray paint attacks across England between 2007 and 2010.
His TOX ‘tag’ covered trains, buses, bridges, walls and even a funeral home. At his trial, the prosecution mocked him for being ‘no Banksy’ because he lacked the necessary artistic skills. Banksy depicted a young boy creating bubbles in TOX’s name on a wall.
Article: Emily Allen
Source: Daily Mail
Images: http://www.banksy.co.uk
The two-metre snake, which had been hiding in the bonnet, climbed out of the Tennessee family’s car but they were too scared to stop.
“We were going down the interstate, going fast, and the baby was in the car,” said driver Rachel Fisher.
“We didn’t even think about stopping.”
However, animal rights groups say the should have stopped and returned the snake to the ground.
Experts at Memphis Zoo believe it was a non-poisonous gray rat snake.
Source: Yahoo!7
Video: YouTube
Formations in fields have been documented more than 10,000 times in the late 20th century. They have been credited to everything from paranormal activity to human hijinks to the weather–and in some cases, even wallabies (more on that later).
Further fueling the mystery is that the farmland designs are done in secret, usually in the dark–and often by jokers who want to make it seem like Martians were at work. It wasn’t until 1991 that the first pranksters admitted to have created at least some of the crop circles as a UFO hoax. What’s confounded scientists is trying to explain just how the art is done without any marks left by the makers, all typically in just one night.
The question led researcher Richard Taylor of the University of Oregon to rule out at least some traditional explanations of the tools involved in creating the circles. Taylor contends that in the modern age, planks and ropes (to flatten plants) and even bar stools to jump from one area to another undetected, are just too cumbersome to produce results in the comparatively brief period of their creative incubation.
Instead, he argued that latter-day crop-circle auteurs use high-tech gadgets such as GPS monitors to place the shapes and magnetrons (tubes that use electricity and magnetism to generate intense heat) to cause the cropstalks to fall over at high speed.
Can any of this speculation be proven? Not really–at least not until a certified crop-circle fabricator steps forward to claim responsibility and reveal the various tricks of the trade. But as Matin Durrani, editor of Physics World, put it, at least Taylor gives us an explanation that doesn’t hinge on the hadiwork of alien life forms. Taylor “is merely trying to act like any good scientist–examining the evidence for the design and construction of crop circles without getting carried away by the side-show of UFOs, hoaxes, and aliens,” Durrani writes.
Fair enough. Still, some crop circles have a fairly reasonable explanation. The Harry Potter “maize maze” was designed by a York, England, farmer, not little green men.
Meanwhile, some formations in Australian poppy fields have been blamed on wallabies. Yes, those kangaroo-like animals apparently eat the legally grown opiate, become “high as a kite,” and hop around to create their own circle work.
But all the speculation over the origins of these works of art designed for the aerial viewer shouldn’t obscure the central nature of their achievement: They are, in a word, crop-tastic.
Article: Claudine Zap
Source: The Upshot
Image: AP Photo/Keystone/Sandro Campardo
