Gizmodo has a very interesting story up today about the sell of a “potential” home of Adolph Hitler in Argentina. The basis of the idea is that Hitler escaped Germany and lived out his days in this remote Argentinian home – leaving two daughters as his legaacy. Interesting story, though I don’t personally believe it. Nice house though, full story here

I found a really interesting story at The Wichita Eagle about how the end of mercury thermometers is coming soon. To me the mercury thermometer is a iconic image of both science and society, but it seems that much like the horse and buggy they are soon to be mostly a thing of the past.

Between the increase in precision in both digital and non mercury based analog thermometers and the risk associated with mercury exposure there has been a huge decrease in both the demand and use of mercury based thermometers. It seems that the 700 Federal Standards that require a mercury thermometer for calibration and measurement may be the biggest thing keeping the mercury thermometer around. Leave it to the Fed to be behind the curve, even in standards. In The Wichita Eagle story I found the most interesting thing to be the following statement regarding NIST (National Institute of Standards and Testing) testing –

The declining demand from business and industry for calibration of mercury thermometers at NIST labs tells the tale best.
“Back in the early 1900s, they employed five people to do nothing more than calibrate mercury thermometers,” Strouse said. “When I started here 20-some years ago, there was one person in the lab calibrating close to a thousand of them a year. Last year we calibrated four.”
And so far in 2011, there have been none.

A colleague shared this at work today and I wanted to share this online. It is a piece by Hans Rosling made for the BBC which visually displays the stats of age and wealth in 200 countries over 200 years. Very cool stuff.

H/T to Pseudo-Polymath for this one

Siris has a great post up about how many in the media are building stories about the AZ shooter without facts.

I am tried of there being a rush to attach the acts of the insane to voices of descent on either side or to people that have no impact on the actions of the people who are insane. The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords is a tragedy. I fear it will forever impact how elected politicians at all levels interact with the electorate. America is not a third world nation where politicians are shoot at rallies. That maybe accepted in some societies and nations, but this not one of them.

I am tired of tragedies being politicized. Politicians, pundits, and media members that attempt to attach the actions of Jared Lee Loughner with either party should be relegated to the dust bin of history and ignored. Jared Lee Loughner had no solid association with either party honestly. He has some views and opinions that many would label as those of the far right, but he had views and opinions that many would also consider those of the far left. This guy is not political, he is crazy.

Attempting blame any party, political view or group with the actions of Loughner is akin to blaming the Beatles for the action of Mason, J.D. Salinger for the actions of Dewayne David Chapman, or Jodie Foster for the actions of John Hinkley Jr. America as a nation can NOT allow the actions, views, writings, comments, and statements of the sane and rational (even if they are not mainstream or popular), to be curtailed for fear of how insane people may act, react, or conceive thoughts in their mind. We can not let the insane define what is acceptable and normal speech and what freedoms our nation will maintain and cherish.

Wired has a story up about the most complex clock in the world, built by Jaquet-Droz to celebrate the 1774 “robot” built with clock works by Pierre Jaquet-Droz. The new creations writes the time and cost about $371K to build. Full Piece Here

AP has updated the caption on a 65 year old picture from WWII. The photo has been captioned / associated with the Bataan Death March, yet it turns out the photo is actually of US military burying the dead at a prison camp (Camp O’Donnell) that was at the end of the Bataan Death March. Full post here

I am a student of and big fan of history, but Slate has a interesting story up about a part of US history I knew nothing about. During prohibition the US government had a program designed to taint industrial alcohol where it was lethal if consumed. This was designed to both discourage illegal drinking via the fear of death and also to make it harder for bootleggers to convert the industrial alcohol to “bathtub gin” and alike. Apparently, this program / policy lead to many people dying due to alcohol poisoning when the industrial alcohol was directly consumed or not properly “natured” via reverse chemistry. This is a very interesting story and I encourage everyone to give it a read and learn something about US history that few remember / know about today.

[H/T to Switched for this one]

Gizmodo has a really interesting story up about a HD TV that was developed and which worked in the 50′s. No way to connect your DVD player though. Full story here.

It seems that the piece of skull long believed to have from Adolf Hitlers skull may actually be from a woman. BBC story heree. The Russians are debating the claim though, based on access records to the piece of skull in question. Telegraph story here.