Credi-Bull #23

Credi-Bull - a story that might be fact, and might be fiction. When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night". Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

A team of interns with NASA's Lunar and Planetary Science Academy is investigating a phenomenon called 'roving rocks' at Death Valley in California.

These stones are a sedimentary rock called dolomite, and range in size from less than one pound to a maximum of seven hundred pounds. The rocks have a very unusual property - they move thanks to a mysterious force.

The rocks aren't rolling downhill - most specimens actually travel uphill, some moving in pairs several hundred yards and negotiating around obstacles.

The NASA research team has a number of theories to explain the roving rocks - everything from high winds to moist, low-friction clay, to ice and snow, but nothing has been definitively proven.

So - the mysterious roving rocks of Death Valley - credible, or just bull? Vote in the comments.

Credi-Bull #22

Credi-Bull - a story that might be fact, and might be fiction. When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

There are a wide variety of service dogs, helping patients with Hearing Impairment, Autism, and Epilepsy.

Seizure Dogs sniff out minute changes in a person's biochemistry just before a seizure, and can give warning. Service animals seem a modern idea, but a new article about ancient Rome says differently.

Many Romans kept pets; mice, goats, dogs, and a variety of birds. Julius Caesar is known for many things, including epilepsy - a condition he did not have. Instead, it's widely believed that Caesar suffered from malaria, which can also cause seizures.

An emergency letter sent by one of Caesar's military physicians from Xanten to Trier during the military campaign in 42BC mentions Caesar's prized sturnus (a starling - a small bird known for its creative songs and mimicry).

The doctor ordered that the bird be carried by the fastest courier available, rushed to Trier by the next sunset. The starling was said to alert Caesar with a specific call just before the emperor would succumb to a seizure.

So - - Ancient Roman Seizure Starling - Credible or just Bull? Vote in the comments.

Credi-Bull #21

Credi-Bull - a story that might be fact, and might be fiction. When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

The American Great Plains is a vast expanse of open terrain of half a million square miles - perfect land for farming and a prime location for tornadoes.

One thousand tornados hit the US every year. The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 was one of the deadliest tornadoes ever, killing almost 700 people.

In early 1926, President Calvin Coolidge directed the Army Corps of Engineers to solve the tornado problem.

Head Engineer General James Harbor attacked with an innovative weapon - trash. Several U.S. cities had just completed extensive landfills stable enough to build housing developments on top of. General Harbor's plan would ship trash from all over the US to the great plains states for fifteen to twenty years, drastically modifying the topography.

Extensive wind tunnel experiments would allow the engineers to strategically place a series of rolling hills up to 100 feet tall across the great plains, creating windbreaks sufficient to dissipate a storm before it could ever become a deadly tornado. Budget cuts meant General Harbor's plan died on the drawing board, but modern computer models tell us the idea has promise.

So - Did the U.S. consider landfills to solve the tornado problem once and for all? Credible, or just bull?

Real or Fake? Vote in the 'comments' section.

Credi-Bull #20

'Global Warming' is a term we're all familiar with - and it's a phenomenon that most scientists will agree is an actual phenomenon, even if they continue to argue about whether or not mankind is to blame.

It's easy to argue from either position - mankind does release billions of tons of CO2 emissions into the environment every year, but the same could be said of the hundreds of volcanoes on the planet. In fact, an average of twenty volcanoes are erupting at any moment.

Ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica plot very clear points on the graph of climate change and how variable it is. The Earth has had very stable weather for the past 10,000 years - and it's no coincidence that this point marks the beginning of human history.

As every last crystal of ice on the planet slowly melts, the coastlines of the planet will change drastically - and many lowland plains currently used for cultivation will be flooded.

One solution to flooded farmland is something originally invented in ancient Bangladesh hundreds of years ago - floating plots of farmland. The Bengali used buoyant plots nearly one hundred feet long to grow everything from mango to jackfruit and dates.

So - floating farmland in the ancient past: Credible or just Bull?

Credi-Bull #19

Credi-Bull - a story that might be fact, and might be fiction. When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

Women spend an average of 70% more time personal grooming than men, and almost half of this grooming is hair removal. It's a common myth that women have less body hair than men - the follicle count for both sexes is the same - around 5 million hairs.

Hair removal for women in the United States came into fashion in the 1920's, when changing fashions revealed more bare skin, demanding more personal time spent grooming, and more money spent in beauty salons waxing and plucking.

Our millions of hairs aren't just an unwelcome remnant from the early days of humanity - hair still serves useful purposes, controlling sweat, managing debris and protecting the skin from abrasion.

Newly published research indicates that hair removal may actually have negative effects for women, especially those trying to conceive a child.

When a hair is plucked, the root is torn from the body - the dermis layer of the skin senses this as an injury, and a series of chemicals are released to repair the damage. When thousands of hairs have been plucked, (such as during a leg waxing) the amount of chemicals released may result in a change to hormone levels, especially the class of hormones known as Androgens. These Androgens could result in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), a leading cause of female infertility.

This research may lead women to an odd decision - keep themselves groomed and infertile, or keep themselves ungroomed - possibly making sex more awkward until the popular fashion surrounding female body hair eventually adjusts to more reasonable standards.

Real or Fake? Vote in the 'comments' section.

Credi-Bull #18

Credi-Bull - a story that might be fact, and might be fiction.

When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

Welcome to Hell - officially named New Castle, Colorado - a mining town founded in the late 1800's.

This town burns from below - with poisonous gases such as sulfur dioxide, methane, and carbon monoxide steaming from cracks in the ground.

In early history, this place would have been feared as a portal into the underworld. This isn't a story from Greek myth, but a very real problem known as a 'coal seam fire'.

An exposed seam of coal can ignite for a variety of reasons, usually through human activity - industrial accidents such as an underground gas explosion or burning landfill trash. Some coal fires are thought to spontaneously ignite from brush fires or simply with the correct temperature conditions and coal type.

There are hundreds of coal seam fires around the world, with at least one hundred different fires burning right now across nine U.S. states, with no real way to extinguish them.

The oldest known subterranean coal fire is Australia's 'Burning Mountain', estimated by scientists to have been burning for 6,000 years - it was originally mistaken for a volcano.

Real or Fake?
Vote in the 'comments' section.

Credi-Bull #17

Credi-Bull - a story that might be fact, and might be fiction.

When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

Marie Curie is well known in scientific circles - she won the Nobel Prize not once but twice, in Physics and Chemistry. She was the first woman to win the award. Along with her husband Pierre she discovered the elements 'Polonium' and 'Radium'. They also coined the term 'radioactivity'.

Not a lot was known about radioactivity in the early 1900's, so Marie worked closely with her radioactive test samples wearing no protective gear. She kept radioactive samples in her pocket and desk drawer, and was known to enjoy the blue-green glow the samples gave off.

Marie died of Aplastic Anemia in 1934 at age 67, a condition almost certainly linked to her years of exposure to radioactivity. Even now - more than seventy years after her death, Marie's work papers, cookbook, and other implements are still dangerously radioactive, and can't be handled without protective gear.

But what happened to Pierre? Details are murky, and espionage may have played a role. Pierre didn't have a chance to grow old with Marie or waste away from radiation exposure. Instead, the official cause of death states that Pierre died in 1906 at age 47 when he was run over by a horse-drawn carriage.

Real or Fake?
Vote in the 'comments' section.

Credi-Bull #16

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

George Campbell is a man on a mission - he is developing a class action suit against the U.S. Postal Service. The crux of the case that just over ten thousand of the fifty thousand new postal scales purchased by the USPS last year were shown to have a fault of .001 ounces.

This is a small measure, but Campbell's concern is the 'Forever Stamp' which guarantees to: "always be valid as First–Class postage on standard envelopes weighing one ounce or less, regardless of any subsequent increases in the First–Class rate."

"The problem isn't the scales really, it's the contract that a Forever Stamp makes with the American Citizen who's redeeming it. We had the right to send one ounce, forever, and we were cheated by bad scales."

The faulty equipment is scheduled for replacement, but a speedy resolution is beyond the current budget - all scales will not be replaced until 2013.

Meanwhile, Campbell's quest goes on. To qualify for a Federal Class Action Suit in the U.S., the controversy must be proved to exceed $5,000,000. Campbell is working hard to collect names, though he claims the USPS is blocking his access to the names of its patrons who purchased the stamps.

Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed there on Saturday).

Credi-Bull #15

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

Pious geeks in Lothburn, Ohio have turned to computers to transmit their worship. Using what they call the "Lost Text Prayer Method", they transmit their hopes, dreams, and well-wishings via PC keyboards.

Clicking their mouse on a blank portion of screen, these techies type their Hail Mary's into the ether that is WiFi. Nothing can be seen of what they type... At least, not by mortals.

"Prayer is prayer, no matter the medium," declares Arthur Small, the leader of the group.

Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed there on Tuesday).

Credi-Bull #14

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

The 2006 World's Fair and Expo was held this August in Stockholm, Sweden. The most popular attraction was the 5.5 meter (that's 18 feet tall) Mommy robot, named M.A.R.Y.

For a small fee, fair visitors could go for a 'ride' on MARY - she can cradle and rock a full-grown adult in her arms, which are covered with a space-age foam and synthetic skin that feels like the real thing. MARY sings lullabies in eight languages and smells of vanilla. Extra security was required when a participant from Belgium refused to end his turn, demanding a nap.

Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed there on Monday).

Credi-Bull #13

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction..

When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

The folks from Cyan Worlds and Ubisoft (who brought us the amazing Myst games) have begun work on a music-themed PC game set in the 1970's. Based entirely on 'The Eagles' album Hotel California, the game will feature all members of the band (for that album) - Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Don Felder, and Randy Meisner.

The story centers around the mysterious Hotel California, where the band arrives late one night seeking shelter from a storm. The hotel is a nexus of dark otherworldly forces, and once inside, the occupants can never leave.

The hotel itself is based on the architecture of the historic Hotel California in Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Mexico - and is a network of secret doors and underground passages. Players will control each of the band members in turn, all with a ghostly puzzle of their own to solve - each song on the album being a puzzle.

The lyrics are the clues - such as these, for the master puzzle -

We are all just prisoners here / Of our own device / And in the master's chambers / They gathered for the feast / They stab it with their steely knives / But they just can't kill the beast / Last thing I remember / I was running for the door / I had to find the passage back to the place I was before / Relax said the nightman / We are programed to recieve / You can check out any time you like / But you can never leave...

Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed there on Monday).

Credi-Bull #12

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night."..Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

Raven-Symoné Pearman, of Disney's That's So Raven.recently signed a five million dollar deal with Disney, renewing her contract for the next three years.

However - there was a surprising new addition to the contract - a clause which now appears in all Disney agreements for women, such as the ones signed by the stars of the new show Hanna Montana.

For life - they must agree to never appear in Playboy or any other nude pictorial, online or otherwise, including a clothed shot on such a magazine's cover.

Real or Fake?

(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed there on Monday).

Credi-Bull #11

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction...

When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night." Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!

America's Funniest Home Videos is a program on ABC, made up of humorous and often dangerous clips sent in by viewers - first prize is 10,000 dollars. One of last year's winners was recently approached by ABC, who insisted the family return the $3000 second place prize they'd accepted.

The Rhodes family's winning clip was of their son Josh skateboarding out of a skate park and into the street, over a small barrier, knocking a barrel of water over and then falling into an open construction pit. Josh jumped right up, triumphant.

It's funny cause he's just fine! Or was he? One of the contest rules states that the person in the clip must have avoided serious injury. This is reinforced by having the finalists show up to the awards episode in person.

Later the same day, Josh died from internal bleeding on the way to the hospital - the boy who showed up in person at the finalist episode was a look-alike cousin.

Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed there on Monday).

Credi-Bull #10

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

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When playing, please avoid definitive answers like "I know this is true, I saw it on the news last night." Instead, couch your vote as a "guess" - this will help ensure that everyone gets an unbiased chance to play!
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During World War II, the 'HM Fort Roughs' was constructed - a floating island. The fort was towed to international waters and its pontoon base was intentionally flooded. It sank to a resting place on the sandbar.
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In 1967, the fort was invaded by Paddy Roy Bates, who ejected a squatter group and claimed sovereignty on what he now called Sealand. Since then, Sealand's claims of sovereignty encompass the area of Roughs Tower and surrounding territorial waters.

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In the late 70's while Bates was away, the Prime Minister of Sealand and several others staged a coup, holding Bates' son Michael captive. Bates enlisted armed assistance and retook the fort in a helicopter assault. He then held the invaders captive as prisoners of war before eventually releasing them - after insisting that at least one man pay a ransom.

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Real or Fake?

(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed Monday).

Credi-Bull #9

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

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Jay Jacobson, once a renowned cult deprogrammer from Flagstaff, Arizona has recently been charged with brainwashing in a case currently pending at the State Appeals Court.

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It seems that Jacobson, now 53 - has 'found religion' after over thirty years of agnosticism. The case is focused on the fact that the religion that Jacobson found was itself considered a cult group - The Holy Children of the Immaculate Perception.

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In a case that may end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, Jacobson is being tried for 'brainwashing' 127 college students from nearby Northern Arizona University, convincing them to sell their worldly possessions and join THCIP. "It was never a problem when I was helping people find Jesus." Jacobson claimed in a statement on Tuesday.

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Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed Monday).
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Visit Credi-Bull Central to read the past stories you may have missed!

Credi-Bull #8

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

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Grigori Rasputin was a Russian mystic who was embroiled in the politics of the 1800's and played a controversial role in the lives of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Tsarina Alexandra.

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Rasputin is often called the Mad Monk, although he was never a monk and was married. He was believed to have been a psychic and faith healer, and led a scandalous life with his mostly female followers, was frequently

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seen picking up prostitutes and drinking himself into a stupor.

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He was later murdered by a group of Russian nobles and has since been portrayed by Christopher Lloyd in the animated feature Anastasia.

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More recently - despite his questionable history there is a division within the Russian Orthodox Church over a campaign to canonise Rasputin, with the eventual goal of making him a Saint.

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Real or Fake?

(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed Monday).

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Visit Credi-Bull Central to read the past stories you may have missed!

Credi-Bull #7

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.
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The world's most dangerous ink-jet printer cartridge has been developed by some close friends of the British MOD Squad. The ink is stable while a liquid, but once printed on paper, forms an explosive fuse when dry.

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The developers suggest such uses as precison fireworks, triggering vehicle air bags or for conventional high explosives. Theoretically, an array of these ink-and-paper fuses could form a miniature rocket engine useful for adjusting the position of spacecraft in orbit.

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Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed Monday)
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Visit Credi-Bull Central to read the past stories you may have missed!

Credi-Bull #6

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

Today's installment comes with a picture - (just think of it as a video Daily Double, for those Jeopardy fans out there...)

Smokey Robinson, a member of Motown group 'The Miracles' and a solo artist, Robinson recorded seventy Top 40 hits for Motown between 1959 and 1990, and also served as the company's vice-president from 1961 to 1988.

A little known fact about Mr. Robinson is that he also offers a great array of soulful and scrumptious food products, including the Culinary Hits "Down Home Pot Roast", "Chicken & Sausage Gumbo", and "Red Beans & Rice".

Just like the Grammy Living Legend’s music, it is soulful and delicious!

Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed Monday)

Visit Credi-Bull Central to read the past stories you may have missed!

Credi-Bull - Real or Fake?

This one is fake!

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Thanks for playing folks!

Credi-Bull #5

Credi-Bull - a news item that might be fact, or might be fiction.

Doctors in Germany have reported a recent breakthrough on the treatment of some types of congenital blindness.

In a backwards-seeming concept, patients eyes are exposed to direct sunlight for short, precisely measured durations (3.221 seconds) across a series of treatment cycles.

The sunlight causes a specific type of damage to the retina (A-Wave Macular Degeneration) which activates latent regenerative proteins from the Choroid and Fovea ocular regions.

68% of patients showed a 15% increase in light sensitivity over a six month treatment program.

Real or Fake?
(Vote in the 'comments' section, answer to be revealed tomorrow)