Here are the top 5 stories that have me sitting in a bunker wearing an aluminum foil hat this week. Thank god for cable internet!

5. An enormous and bizarre hexagon has been spotted hovering over Saturn’s surface. Scientists are baffled. I’ll wager that it’s an environmentally-engineered biodome for Saturners who survived the prehistoric destruction of the planet’s ecosystem. Inside, they are developing spacecraft and weapons which they will use to steal our planet and suck the living souls from our flesh.
4. Pulses of yellow light have been shown to reversibly “silence” brain cells. Scientists hope that this technology can be used to treat diseases such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease, which are caused by excess neural activity. I don’t buy this whole “yellow light for fighting disease” story. It seems apparent to me that they are developing mind-controlling yellow light laser guns to turn us into zombie cavalry to send to Saturn to annihilate those soul-sucking aliens.
3. Using new models, British scientists have found that among the countries most at risk for asteroid impacts are China, the U.S. and Japan. Modelling asteroid impact, or engineering British global domination? Why else would they study the precise human and economic impacts of an “asteroid” (read: nuclear missile) impact?
2. An extremely rare, long-whiskered owl was spotted in the wild for the first time in Peru. The small, strange-looking owl was unknown until 1978 and had previously only been found caught in nets that had been left out at night. Or could it be a genetically-engineered biobot spy, designed to infiltrate conservation circles, converting unsuspecting environmentalists into avid and wasteful consumers?
1. A new antidepression initiative in England will make computer-based therapy available to the entire population starting in April 2007. Or have the computers finally convinced the health officials that this is a good idea? If I were a computer (clearly bent on global domination), I wouldn’t be trying to cheer these mildly depressed people up. I would be using my supercomputer powers to manipulate the humans to do my bidding by building a massive titanium robot body which I could remotely control to rule London by force. Wouldn’t you?
   

Due to globalization, the blond and redhead genes may disappear in a few generations. No worries though, there will still be plenty of bleach and hairdye to keep you guessing. It’s unfortunate that the homogenizing effect of globalization is extending into our DNA. Any intervention, however, would constitute eugenics, and I certainly hope we never go that route. Rather than ramble on about the situation, I have composed the following haiku.

Redheaded step-kid.
Sadly, your hand-me-down genes
Will wear away soon.

Okay, they’re chimpanzees. But holy crap! The chimps are making their own deadly weapons. They’ve been seen making spears out of sticks and using them to hunt small mammals. This is the first known case of a non-human crafting a deadly weapon. And I’d say it’s only a matter of time before they assemble a chimp army, conquer the leaders of our great nations, and unite the people of our planet in human slavery. I say we should initiate a preemptive strike on the evil chimp would-be overlords. Will you join the “Nuke the Chimps” campaign? I assure you, we will have cool T-shirts.

After a slight bout of blogger’s block, I present to you the top 5 science stories I should have posted about these past two weeks:

5. Salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter. And watch what you do with that jelly, will you?
4. Ocean discovered deep within Earth. Or haven’t you heard? And yet, if the ocean was found on Mars, Bush would have detailed half the State Department there to set up a marina and golf course.
3. MIT student invents wall-crawling device. Next, a Harvard student will invent and put to use a wall lubricant, causing the MIT student to become injured falling from Boston’s highest building. Next, the Harvard student will follow the limping MIT student to his superhero hideout, only to cleverly capture him in an elaborate scheme that will result in his slow, yet imminent demise. Zoinks, audience, will our hero be rescued? The riveting tale will continue after these messages…
2. A new symbol for radiation danger has been developed:
   Or does it mean “get the hell out of the way when a UFO is firing lasers at you, or those soulless aliens will zap the living flesh from your body and you will be reduced to a pile of rubble with only your skull intact”?

1. And, although it’s not really science, I find myself unable to avoid commenting on Astronaut Lisa Nowak’s apparent decline into jealous stalking and lovesick insanity. I attended a panel discussion featuring Lisa Nowak and the rest of the STS-121 crew prior to my September ‘06 post, Astronauts Are Cool, and I stand by that assessment. She was cool. And funny, intelligent and collected. It was these qualities (and a nice supply of diapers) that drove her from Texas to Florida to hunt down the woman who did her wrong. Yes, Lisa Nowak was misguided and led solely by her emotions, but this is a woman who was willing to risk her life by travelling into space in the spirit of exploration. And she was equipped with only nonlethal weapons: a pellet gun, pepper spray, and a really terrible outfit. So really, she meant no harm. She just wanted to kick that love-stealing woman’s butt, astronaut style. And if a male astronaut had acted the same way, it likely wouldn’t have even made the local news.
   

Can you believe that, before this week, 13% of the US population hadn’t heard the phrase “global warming”? Things might be changing since those two important words have gotten a lot of coverage this week. A few days ago, we heard about the congressional hearing which gave us more details about the Bush administration’s censoring of government scientific research on climate change. (I’ll add that the phrase “climate change” has been critical to the administration’s whitewashing of the global warming crisis.) Today, we all wake up to learn that humans are “very likely” responsible for global warming. This is front page news. Wow. I’d be surprised if we hadn’t known this for years. But it’s really great that people might start to realize that, if we don’t act fast to reverse the damage we’ve done, we’ll be sacrificing the habitability of our planet - something which we should all agree is hugely important. So, thank you to everyone who worked so hard to bring attention to this critical problem. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get completely overshadowed the next time a celebrity baby is born or the release date is announced for next Harry Potter book (oh wait, that one already happened).

Last June, I posted about the “cosmic event” that decommissioned the main camera on board the Hubble Space Telescope (See “Hubble Memory Erased by Aliens”). Fortunately, super-intelligent humans managed to fix it from Earth two weeks later. (Take that alien scum!) Now another extraterrestrial terrorist attack has occurred: two more cameras have gone offline. And this time they may never be repaired. How could we let this happen? Don’t we realize the aliens will think they’ve won? Even if Hubble doesn’t get fixed, it looks like we’re (probably) sending some astronauts up there in 2008 to make a show of it. There is still hope. If the aliens think that sabotaging the Hubble will do any serious damage to humanity, then maybe they’ll be stupid enough to think we’re actually fixing it.

(Surely I jest. Of course the information gathered by the Hubble could have huge implications for humanity. But have we seen them yet? Seriously, feel free to comment. Even I am not completely sure whether I’m pro- or anti-Hubble right now…)

Could hippies be less prone to prostate cancer than yuppies? A new drug that may stimulate the potentially cancer-fighting effects of sunlight has entered phase II trials for the treatment of prostate cancer. Sunlight stimulates vitamin D production in the skin, which has been found to improve the prognosis of patients with certain types of cancer. Vitamin D can also be taken orally, but the levels which are required to fight cancer can be toxic. The new drug provides 50-100 times more vitamin D than can safely be administered with current formulations. If the trial goes smoothly, the pill will be available in 2009. In the meantime, spending your day playing barefoot frisbee in the park is sounding a lot better than spending it hunting down that perfect chaise lounge you swear you saw at Pottery Barn. Or Crate & Barrel. Or maybe it was Restoration Hardware?

New research has found that black diamonds, or carbonato diamonds, are of extraterrestrial origin. All other known types of diamonds were formed deep within the Earth and are mined from the volcanic rock which transports them to the surface. Black diamonds, however, are not found alongside other diamonds and are found only in Brazil and the Central African Republic. The researchers determined that black diamonds contained increased hydrogen content, supporting the previous hypothesis that black diamonds were formed in supernovae. Supernovae are stellar explosions which produce extremely bright balls of plasma, often briefly outshining whole galaxies before fading to obscurity. When black diamonds reached Earth, they were an astronomic size of one kilometer or greater. So, what better way to affirm your cosmic connection than proposing with an oversized black diamond solitaire? No need to worry your intergalactic soul mate with the factoid that black diamonds are in fact cheaper than most other diamonds. And really, who cares when you could wear a piece of a fallen star on your hand? That’s got to be good luck.

A new study shows that Paxil is an effective therapy for hypochondria. Paxil (paroxetine HCl) is an anti-anxiety drug used to treat depression and various anxiety disorders. Patients who took Paxil or participated in behavioural therapy were found to have less fear about undiagnosed illnesses than those who took sugar pills. The study was funded by Glaxo SmithKline, the company that makes Paxil. Other studies funded by Glaxo SmithKline include: Paxil: A Cure for Irrational Fear of Man-Eating Leopard-Backed Foot Lice?, Investigating the Uses of Paxil to Treat Paranoid Anvil-Spotting Disorder, and Effects of Paxil on a Father’s Fear of Cardiac Birth Defects in His Unborn Children. That last one is critically important for winning back lost customers since Paxil use by pregnant women was shown to increase the risk of those same birth defects (details on the lawsuit here).

In a previous post, I expounded upon the use, toxicity and history of Botox (botulinum toxin), miracle drug and insanely potent food-borne toxin. To summarize, Botox is a diluted form of botulinum toxin, which is produced by a soil bacterium that sometimes turns up in foods, and can cause paralysis and death. Although the drug was made famous by its cosmetic use, it turns out to be an effective treatment for many things from spasmodic dysphonia to anal fissures to (potentially) depression. Given my apparent interest in the subject, I thought I’d add a new use for Botox to the list: it has now been found to be a promising therapy for writer’s cramp, the painful hand cramping resulting from too much writing or other repetitive activities using the hands. I for one routinely suffered from writer’s cramp in college. As an avid note-taker, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with throbbing hand pain. So, if there are any college students left that still write by hand, Botox could be an excellent therapy.

As for me, I’ve now switched to typing pretty much everything, so I’d benefit much more from a cure for writer’s block than for writer’s cramp. My most recent plan to finish my novel involved recruiting an army of monkeys with typewriters. Unfortunately, that plan turned out to be wrought with challenges, the foremost of which was the alarming predisposition of typing monkeys to develop typewriter-related hand cramps, and my utter lack of funds for monkey-hand cramp Botox therapy. The whole thing turned out to be a nightmare once the animal rights activists got word of my plan from the miniature typewriter manufacturer. Needless to say, I’m back to the drawing board.