“Ten years later, we’re still picking up the pieces. And if you can’t remember what happened … maybe you’re lucky.” (ESPN) Extraordinarily (and unfortunately?), everyone I ask remembers exactly where they were when they heard the verdict, as with 9-11 or (for those old enough) the Challenger space shuttle disaster or the assassination of JFK.

“Nessie’s turned into a real recluse. The men from Mars no longer pay us flying visits. And the spooks have been spooked. Why have all the sightings dried up? Sean Thomas investigates the mysterious death of the paranormal.” (Guardian.UK)

Catalytic cotton chows down on dirt.: “In the classic 1951 film, The Man in the White Suit, Alec Guinness played a scientist who invents a fabric that never gets dirty or wears out. A chemist’s pipe dream perhaps, but the prospect of self-cleaning clothes might be getting closer.

Scientists have invented an efficient way to coat cotton cloth with tiny particles of titanium dioxide. These nanoparticles are catalysts that help to break down carbon-based molecules, and require only sunlight to trigger the reaction. The inventors believe that these fabrics could be made into self-cleaning clothes that tackle dirt, environmental pollutants and harmful microorganisms.” (Nature)

“The first virus to spread from one cell phone to another has been created, the Russian anti-virus software vendor Kaspersky Labs announced on Tuesday.

Cabir has no malicious capabilities and affects only a small slice of ‘smart’ phones that run on both the sophisticated Symbian operating system and have a Bluetooth connection. It has been written by a group called 29a.

The virus is an ‘interesting milestone’, says Graham Cluley, a consultant at the anti-virus software vendor Sophos in Oxford, UK, because it is the first virus to spread through a cell phone network.” (New Scientist)

“The finding casts serious doubt on the reliability of victim testimonies in cases involving psychological trauma.” (New Scientist) While prior research cast doubts on the accuracy of recall of traumatic events, critics felt the studies, necessarily, could not be naturalistic enough and that real trauma might actually focus the memory. But a new study by Yale researchers, partially funded by the Pentagon, studied over 500 military personnel at mock POW camps designed to train subjects to withstand capture. 24 hours after the subjects’ release from the camps, their ability to recognize their interrogators was abysmal.

After more than 80 years without surnames, picking one is as much about personality as it is ancestry: “For more than 80 years, everyone in Mongolia was on a first-name basis. After seizing power in the early 1920s, the Mongolian Communists destroyed all family names in a campaign to eliminate the clan system, the hereditary aristocracy and the class structure.

Within a few decades, most Mongolians had forgotten their ancestral names. They used only a single given name — a system that eventually became confusing when 9,000 women ended up with the same name, Altantsetseg, meaning ‘golden flower.’

By the mid-1990s, Mongolia had become a democracy again, and there were growing worries about the lack of surnames. One name might be enough when most people were nomadic herdsman in remote pastures, but now the country was urbanizing. The one-name system was so confusing that some people were marrying without realizing they were relatives.

In 1997, a new law required everyone to have surnames. The law was largely ignored, but then a system of citizenship cards was introduced. Slowly the country of 2.5 million began to adopt surnames.” (Globe and Mail)