It's the National Institutes of Health, Not the National Institutes of Hijinks

Hijinks, in this case, of a very serious pathogenic nature.

The Detroit News: Feds: 2 researchers brought vials of monkeypox to DTW

The Detroit Free Press: Feds: 2 researchers smuggled monkeypox through Detroit airport 

Two researchers with the National Institutes of Health have been charged with smuggling monkeypox into the United States and lying about it — an alleged crime that was detected at Detroit Metro Airport.

According to a criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday, June 2 in U.S. District Court, one of the defendants is from the Netherlands, the other from Cameroon. Both are virus experts who work for the NIH at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana, in a lab that, according to the government, has the highest level of biosafety precautions for scientific research of known and potential human pathogens. 

The "highest level of biosafety precautions".

Well, according to federal prosecutors, they allegedly bypassed proper procedures for transporting and importing dangerous pathogens, instead bringing the materials into the country in luggage and then lying about it.

Given their scientific expertise and workplace responsibilities, the allegations are especially striking.

This is the latest in a series of biological-material smuggling incidents uncovered at the Detroit Airport.

Midwesterner: UM faces federal investigation after students from China repeatedly busted for crimes in Michigan

 USDOJ: Three Chinese National Scholars from University of Michigan Laboratory Charged for Conspiring to Smuggle Biological Materials into the U.S. 

NIH Scientists acting like Mad Scientists is just not a good look. 

Graduation 2026

Abby was awarded her degree this weekend in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Michigan.

The main graduation was on Saturday where 14,000 students earned their degrees and the University of Michigan conferred its one millionth degree since it was founded, which is quite a milestone. More on the Saturday ceremony later.

For the record, that she graduated with that degree means she is a heckuva lot smarter than I am.

In addition to that, at the smaller and much more personal graduation ceremony for the MCDB Department, on Friday evening, she walked and received her degree certificate and her thesis was announced.

She also received the award that is given to the honors undergraduate with the highest ranked thesis not just in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology but in the entire Biology Department. That make her the #1 graduate out of 600 graduates. The Review team for the award had comments that included that the thesis was not an undergraduate level but was instead a thesis at the doctoral level, which is amazing.

For the record, that means she is a heckuva, heckuva, lot smarter than I am.

The members of the lab she worked at, including the head professor of the lab, and two of her co-(and more senior) researchers and friends who had just earned their Ph.D.s were there to cheer her on. 

She's going to work in the lab this summer as an actual employed (and paid!) Research Aisstant and then she will be heading out of town to a PH.D. program in  Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology to make her mark in the world doing some cutting-edge research in the field.

To say I'm beyond proud is an understatement. 

What Happened To Trust The Science There, Lefties?

Lefties were frothing mad that Trump announced the results of a study that suggested that Tylenol taken during pregnancy could contribute to Autism.

That study was done by that well known right wing crackpot institution - Harvard University. 

Not just by some schlub at Harvard mind you, but by Andrea Baccarelli, dean of the faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of environmental health.

And before you say it's just one study (because you didn't bother to even read the abstract), the Harvard Study itself references 47 prior studies that suggest there is a neurological problem with taking Tylenol during pregnancy.

Indeed, even the manufacturer of Tylenol itself stated back in 2017 that Tylenol is not recommended to be taken during pregnancy.

 In short, there is sufficient data to suggest use of Tylenol during pregnancy is very much contra-indicated. 

So, of course, a trainload of pregnant leftist women are going on TikTok and are performatively guzzling Tylenol.   This may provide further grounds for yet another statistically significant study if they keep at it. 

Seriously, if Trump announced a cure for cancer had been discovered, Leftists would start protesting and immediately form CCM - Cancer Cells Matter in response. 

Quite A Scientific And Twisted Concept Of Morality

There is nothing worse than someone advocating  doing something to others, against their will, on the basis that doing so is moral.

 

You can certainly twist ethics and morality around to make atrocities become moral imperatives to suit your own worldview.

 

A couple scientists are proposing to do just that in a paper published in the scholarly journal  Bioethics.

 

With a straight series of keystrokes, if not a straight face, the authors Parker Crutchfield and Blake Heret in their article Beneficial Bloodsucking  propose that infecting Americans with  alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a condition caused by the bite of the lone star tick whose only effect is the creation of a severe but nonfatal red meat allergy would be not just good to do but should be required - because it is morally right, of course.

 

This is, per their world view, that as (per them) eating red meat is morally bad therefore a means to stop it, even if it is literally biological warfare, is not just good, but morally obligatory: 

The bite of the lone star tick spreads alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a condition whose only effect is the creation of a severe but nonfatal red meat allergy. Public health departments warn against lone star ticks and AGS, and scientists are working to develop an inoculation to AGS. Herein, we argue that if eating meat is morally impermissible, then efforts to prevent the spread of tickborne AGS are also morally impermissible. After explaining the symptoms of AGS and how they are transmitted via ticks, we argue that tickborne AGS is a moral bioenhancer if and when it motivates people to stop eating meat. We then defend what we call the Convergence Argument: If x-ing prevents the world from becoming a significantly worse place, doesn't violate anyone's rights, and promotes virtuous action or character, then x-ing is strongly pro tanto obligatory; promoting tickborne AGS satisfies each of these conditions. Therefore, promoting tickborne AGS is strongly pro tanto obligatory. It is presently feasible to genetically edit the disease-carrying capacity of ticks. If this practice can be applied to ticks carrying AGS, then promoting the proliferation of tickborne AGS is morally obligatory.

The problem is the underlying assumptions of morality in the Convergence Argument and its “if -- then” statement.

 

Under that sort of logic, anything is permissible, if not mandatory, so long as the person making the statement deems it to be morally required. Note especially how they hand-wave away infecting people with a biological agent to stop them form eating red meat is not considered to violate anyone's rights.

 

C.S.  Lewis really knew what he was talking about when he wrote:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

 

Yes, this is a published scientific paper advocating people be "cured" by being infected with an allergy in order to achieve the stated desired end to get people to stop eating red meat – for the best and most moral reasons, of course.

Going Fast And Breaking Things Has Consequences

While Trump is right to be proceeding with reforms, in doing so he and his administration are going a tad too fast. This is causing a lot of own-goals and public embarrassments, not to mention unnecessary disruption and collateral damage, which serves to reduce the enthusiasm and support for the reforms.

For example it has caused some major and completely unnecessary turmoil at the National Institute of Health :  The Transmitter: U.S. health agency purge includes 10 lab heads at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

This firing included one of the world's top researches on Parkinson's disease.

This firing led a lot of people to calmly ask:  "WTF?".

Well, turns out the firing was apparently a mistake caused by a "coding error" that mislabeled employees -- once people started making noise about it they were rehired.

The Transmitter: Coding error caused layoffs at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke this week, source says  

Thirty employees—including 11 lab heads—at the institute should “immediately return to work,” according to an email the institute’s Office of Human Resources sent to top administration at the institute Wednesday evening.

Reform is a good thing,  doing it stupidly and making the reformers look incompetent in doing so is not helpful to actual reform of the many, many, real problems in government agencies.

The blanket reductions and stoppages in research funding is having a major effect on good solid research in addition to the wasteful stuff that should be defunded.

"Hasten Slowly" is good advice.

Chesterton's Fence, while usually applied to progressives tearing down institutions, also applies to the Right when they tear down stuff without understanding the direct and indirect effects and implications of what they are doing.

Getting rid of fraud and waste and ridiculous programs that are little more than grants to progressive organizations along with associated graft  is a good thing, burning down the entire research "village" in order to do so is quite another.

Do it smartly, and quickly if need be, but make sure above all that you do it competently and show positive results. 

One Of The Dumbest Memes On The 'Net

This seems to be making the rounds on the net, including being posted by some who really should know better:

 

Yep, you know what they're trying to imply by this, and it is rather astonishingly dumb.

Well kids, to know why this implied comparison is nonsense, you have to recall that Newton's Second Law is F=ma.  Force equals mass times acceleration.

There's a world of difference between a plane taxiing along at 5 mph hitting a pole, and that same size plane going 586 mph hitting a building.  A very, very, substantial difference indeed.

That plane going 5mph hitting a pole is generating 90,030.7 pounds of force.

That same plane going 586 mph is generating 10,551,646.69 pounds of force.

That's a world of difference, as will be the result.

The second instance is going to cause a heckuva lot more damage than the other.

Don't believe me?  Well, watch this YouTube video on the difference in damage that occurs as a car strikes an object at progressively higher speeds.  Same objects, remarkably different levels of damage. Note that car never hit 400 mph, much less 500, and weighs a heckuva lot less than a passenger jet aircraft.

Still don't believe me?  There's an experiment you can do all by yourself, but likely only once, and it's probably really not advisable to try. 

Have someone throw an itty, bitty, little 115 gr 9mm bullet at your chest.  

Doesn't do much does it?  Bounces off, eh? Remember they claim those things can kill you.

Now, if you still think you know better, and wish to continue to ignore reality go ahead and have someone shoot you in the chest with it from a handgun. 

I expect you'll have a different result, and note the size and weight of the bullet didn't change one bit.

Remember Newton's Laws are laws, not suggestions.

Lockdowns Not Only Didn't Work, They've Caused Damage That Will Take A Generation To Unravel

 Not only did lockdowns not save lives from Covid,  they did more harm than good.

The ill-conceived Lockdowns did not just impose an economic catastrophe on the lower and middle classes and affected the mental health of millions - they've likely harmed our newest generation of children.

Ed Source:  Pandemic effects may have lowered baby IQs, study says

A new study by researchers at five universities found that babies born during the pandemic may have lower IQ scores than those born before it. Babies who came into the world before the coronavirus had a cognitive score hovering around 100, according to this study. But the test scores of babies born during the pandemic fell sharply, to around 78. That’s 22 points lower than what’s considered normal.

Let's explain just how huge such a drop of 22 points from the norm is.

Let's put it this way. 

The Dems love to rag on the military and claim military members are stupid. 

Remember when John Kerry   "told college students that if "you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Well, the US Army's IQ cut off for entry is around an 83 IQ (its complicated but pretty much that score when compared to the ASVAB minimum etc).  

The military already does not accept the lowest 23% of the population already.  (Insert leftists snide commentary about military members being dumb or "lowest of the low" (Yes a California Dem Teacher /city councilman made that comment) - when they're clearly not.  

In short, the average child born during the lockdowns and mandatory mask rules with an IQ of 78 is literally unable to serve in the military or indeed conduct themselves in what is becoming a more and more technological society that demands intelligence.

This is a horrific result of an ill-conceived and enacted policy and is going to have severe consequences for a very long time.

Pfizer Stick #2

Got the second shot yesterday.

So far I ended up tired later in the day yesterday, and had a small fever at night, but seem ok now overall, but I'm feeling really tired and seriously dragging today.

Abby busted a high fever last night which is continuing through today and the kid is not a happy camper.  Doing school via Zoom at the moment and she's dragging it in as well.

Overall the superpowers gained from the shots seem limited to the following:

a) I can now smell colors;

b) I can now watch the radio; and 

c) Being able to walk uphill both ways.

Much disappointment, that.

Got A Pfizer Stick In The Arm Today

Abby and I got vaccinated today.  It took more time to find a place giving vaccine shots than anything else really.  Distribution in Michigan is still a mess with still changing rules and arbitrary and almost Calvin-ball like procedures.

After getting turned away from one place last week for a given reason that we weren't technically in their area (a 8 minute drive away) and no there was nothing posted about a certain area before we arrived.  Also, said vaccination location spot  had been giving shots to people outside their area  - a friend of mine got his there which is what clued us in to it and they had told him that people could come get them - not so much, or there was a shift and policy change within an hour. 

So we found another location and called and made an appointment for this week and we went in today and it was very straightforward and efficient.  Held at a pediatricians office no less.

Checked in, got our temperatures checked, then went to the needle station and  sat down. Got swabbed and then got stuck with a very thin and sharp needle which was no more than a pinch.  Out of the chair  and then had to sit in the waiting room for 15 minutes before heading out and the next person got theirs administered.  No big deal and very professionally done.  Already scheduled for the follow up shot.

Humorously enough they allow you to take a video of yourself getting the shot if you want,  and one guy wanted to do so, so they asked us to move form the chairs we were sitting in after the shot so we didn't get in the video due to HIPAA regulations.  Never-mind that we had to have, and did have masks on so we were unlikely to be identified in the video but hey, whatever makes them happy.

The arm injection site was sore and actually felt like it was burning for a little bit but that since went away.  Nothing serious in the realm of side effects to report so far.

These modern vaccines are rather awesome products of modern scientific effort and Trump's Operation Warp Speed.  Be interesting to see if the mRNA technique can be successfully applied to other viral infections.

Oh, But We Should Listen To Science!

Seeing a lot of posts on Facebook that we should listen to scientists during this crisis.

Unfortunately it's the "I Love Science!" Crowd herding us along towards far worse effects than the virus alone.

So do we listen to Ferguson of the Imperial College model fame, the one who has been prophesying doom and gloom in every crisis and saying millions would die if there wasn't a lockdown?

The one who then after the governments bought into his overstated models and the lock downs were declared revised his models on the current crisis downward by over a factor of 20?

While a stopped clock may be correct twice a day, he has in my opinion been consistently wrong in each of his past predictions, so the world has been listening to the wrong scientist.

But wait there's more! It turns out that the model software itself that made these projections and scared the globe into this whole lock down mess is a bunch of hot garbage.

But wait, there's even more!

While we are told that we should listen to Science, meaning Ferguson in his projections of doom and mass death if we don't lock down, he certainly has not been following his own advice and proclamations of doom if lock down is not followed.

Instead, he's been busy stepping out of lockdown for regular shtupping of his married mistress on the side. The best part, his mistress was married and living with her husband who by her account was having the symptoms of being an active Covid-19 case.

No, you really can't make this up.

So in following the advice of scientists, do you follow what they and their models, that have been consistently proven to be wrong, say and follow their prescription of a lock dow? Or do you do as they do and treat the situation as not serious enough to bother with a lock down?

The Imperial College Coronavirus Apocalypse: It's Only A Model...Shh

It now appears that the doomsday model by The Imperial College London of the Wuhan Flu is off.

How far off? By over a factor of 20. Daily Wire: Epidemiologist Behind Highly-Cited Coronavirus Model Drastically Revises Model Also see the article in New Scientist

Ferguson’s model projected 2.2 million dead people in the United States and 500,000 in the U.K. from COVID-19 if no action were taken to slow the virus and blunt its curve.

However, after just one day of ordered lockdowns in the U.K., Ferguson is presenting drastically downgraded estimates, revealing that far more people likely have the virus than his team figured. Now, the epidemiologist predicts, hospitals will be just fine taking on COVID-19 patients and estimates 20,000 or far fewer people will die from the virus itself or from its agitation of other ailments, as reported by New Scientist Wednesday.

That's one Heckuva over-estimate.

The revised model is certainly good news, assuming it proves to be valid, especially as the 18+ months of lockdown in the original paper is apparently being revised downward drastically as the new model suggests the virus should subside in about a two to three weeks.

In short, the Wuhan Flu is still bad, no question. A lot of people are still going to die, but it's not the disaster that had been forecast. It's likely will be about another excessively bad flu season and a half worth on top of an already bad flu season, which is no joke.

New Scientist article mentioned in the Daily Wire quoting the corrections by Ferguson is here.

Statistically Insignificant Study On Firearms Is Insignificant

So according to a study, 3 million more guns purchased in a 5 month period after Newtown shooting have a correlation of 60 additional "accidental" deaths.

That's .002% of the 3 million firearms purchased leading to an accidental death, assuming that there even is a causative link between the two events.

That's so small as to be amazingly insignificant. Then add in the fact that there was already about 300 million plus firearms in circulation, the 3 million more would be the proverbial drop on the bucket.

Heck if you added 3 million more cars to the nations roads there would be far more fatalities. But that wouldn't help push the narrative for gun control.

But it got major headlines.

Washington Post: Surge in gun sales after Sandy Hook led to spike in accidental gun deaths, study says

Of course, The Washington Post and other outlets did not report the criticism of the study. Of course, the study's author pushes for more "stringent gun storage laws", rather than for gun safety training that would be an actual and effective solution to reduce accidental firearms-related deaths.

Seriously? They Needed A Study For This?

The Detroit Free Press: Study: Frequent sex may raise chances for conception

Who knew?

Anti-Vaxers Causing Measles Outbreaks In Michigan

Some diseases you thought were gone are now making a comeback due to scientific illiterates who believe that vaccinations are bad for you, and due to officials who grant waivers to permit this stupidity:

The Detroit Free Press:  Measles outbreak: Michigan parents opt for vaccine waivers

Michigan has one of the highest rates of vaccination waivers in the U.S. when it comes to its youngest school kids — a ranking that public health officials noted with frustration this week as they battled at least two vaccine-preventable diseases in two northern Michigan counties.

Looking at the comments accompanying the article, it seems there's quite a crowd of anti-vaxing idiots out there including those who seem to think a diet of whole grains and unicorn farts will stop a vial infection.  Quick hint - it didn't stop it in the age before vaccines were prevalent and people were eating "pre-industrialized" whole food, and it sure won't stop it now.

That's causing us to experience live diseases that should be but a distant memory.

But, But, He's An Expert!

A cautionary tale of what happens when a scientist steps outside of his specialty to pontificate.

The Detroit Free Press: Can giant walls protect the U.S. from tornadoes?

Sounds like a great idea right? But in a word, no.

One scientist thinks we can protect parts of the central United States from ferocious tornadoes by building several gigantic walls across Tornado Alley:

“If we build three east-west great walls in the American Midwest .... one in North Dakota, one along the border between Kansas and Oklahoma to the east, and the third one in south Texas and Louisiana, we will diminish the tornado threats in the Tornado Alley forever,” according to physicist Rongjia Tao of Temple University.

The walls would need to be about 1,000 feet high and 150 feet wide, he said. Tao is presenting his research next week at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Denver.

Apparently there's a fair bit of healthy skepticism regarding this plan:

Naysayers abound. Aside from the cost of $60 billion per 100 miles (according to Tao’s estimates) and huge engineering challenges, “it wouldn’t work,” tornado researcher Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla., said in an e-mail.

Brooks said that China has deadly tornadoes despite the east-west mountain ranges there. In addition, he said, tornadoes still occur in parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri despite the presence there of smaller east-west mountain ranges similar in size to Tao’s proposed walls.

“If his hypothesis was true, we’d already have the thing he wants to build naturally,” Brooks said.

“This is essentially a case of a physicist, who may be very good in his sub-discipline, talking about a subject about which he is abysmally ignorant,” Brooks said.

Another expert, meteorologist Mike Smith of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions, also called the theory “nonsense.”

Global warmists that similarly think they have all the simple answers, take note.

A further reason beyond those given in the article as to why this will never work: Even if it could work, we can't even build a comparatively small wall across our southern border.

Anyone really think we would be able to build a series of 1,000 foot high, 150 foot thick walls stretching for hundreds of miles? The environmental impact stage alone would take decades and the cost overruns would push this into the trillions.

Halloween Festivities At Cranbrook

As members at Cranbrooks' Science Museum, We took the kids to their Science of Halloween night.

The kids had a blast.

The staff were all in costume, including this very impressive Darth Vader:

First on the agenda was the liquid nitrogen demonstration:

He also demonstrated how it could take the bloom off a rose real fast:

He tapped the dipped rose with the mallet and it broke into itty bitty rose pieces.

One of the cool things you can do with liquid nitrogen is make ice cream! Really good and really fast ice cream:

Take cream, sugar, milk, vanilla and add some liquid nitrogen and stir - a very creamy and delectable treat we all had a chance to sample:

Now I want some liquid nitrogen....

Then we went on to the presentation on, well, the question of the possibility of surviving dinosaurs still roaming the Earth today:

During the presentation, the mad scientist had to deal with PETD (People for the Ethical Treatment of Dinosaurs) protesters:

Silly protesters, Dinosaurs taste like chicken!

It turns out some have indeed survived:

And he was hungry:

Yes, it was corny as heck, but the kids loved it and a lot of science about dinosaurs was related in the tale.
After that, the kids went and made marker robots out of cups, markers, an electric motor and some tape and voila they had robots that would make artwork automatically.

Then we toured the fossil exhibits, some of which were already dressed for Halloween.

They had a very impressive huge prehistoric turtle fossil on display -

To see how big it really is, let's get a few people in the picture:

How big is it? 17 feet wide at the flippers, 15 feet long and it weighed 4,500 pounds when alive. Most impressive.


After that, we went to the bat house to see the creatures of the night. It was dark so no pictures for you, but again a great time.

The kids had a fantastic time, and the Cranbrook Science museum is well worth a visit if you're in the area.

Double Stuff You Need To Know About, But Don't Tell The DEA

The Detroit Free Press: Oreos are as addictive as cocaine, study says

You may feel downright criminal the next time you eat an Oreo, and you have a Connecticut College student to thank for that.

Neuroscience major Jamie Honohan came up with the idea for a study, which dug into the effects of high-fat and high-sugar foods on the brain. The conclusions: The brain goes wilder for Oreos than for drugs, and the two are equally addictive — at least when it comes to rats.

Ah, science!

In any case and for the record, I absolutely oppose any attempt to have Oreos listed as a Schedule 2 drug.

If you think scenes from Breaking Bad were hardcore, wait until they start large scale home-cooking up batches of Oreos and require photo ID for purchases of flour, sugar, and other good stuff.

A Global Warming Lie Is HalfwayRound The World Before The Truth Has Got Its Shoes On

Vodkapundit notes that contrary to scientifically settled proclamations of doom, the glaciers are not melting.

Within the article Vodkapundit links to is the statement that

The melting of Himalayan glaciers caused controversy in 2009 when a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mistakenly stated that they would disappear by 2035, instead of 2350.

However the amazing part is linked by a commenter who provides a link to a Daily Mail article with the rather amazing revelation by the scientist that made the "mistakenly stated" claim originally in 2007 - he made it up for political gain.

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’

Lai admitted his lie three years after making it, and people are still claiming the Himalayan glaciers are melting and will be gone based on his lie and related scientific statements.

How many more politically convenient lies were placed in the IPCC reports that have yet to be admitted?

Dr. Crippen, I Don't Presume

New evidence is leading to possible doubt of the guilt of Dr. Crippen, the first suspect caught via morse code.

The Detroit News: DNA undermines notorious murder case

DNA evidence is casting doubt on Crippen's guilt and reopening questions about a British murder on par with Jack the Ripper's exploits. Though there have always been skeptics of the case, the evidence discovered by a Michigan State University forensic scientist has created tension between Crippen's family, skeptics of the science and especially residents in the United Kingdom with deeply held beliefs.

The tests showed the torso found in the Crippen's basement, that led to his execution by hanging in November 1910, was not his wife after all:

Female ancestors were needed to examine the mitochondrial DNA, which is in the cells that are passed on through maternal lineage.

The results: No match between Turner's living descendants and the century-old evidence. A second testing produced the same results, and additional testing showed that the torso belonged to a male.

Foran's work was announced in 2007, but it wasn't until now that the science has been peer-reviewed and published. He said he had no personal interest in the results and no one paid him to do the study. In fact, the results startled him, he said.

"I was a little surprised because it is so widely accepted that the remains were Cora's," Foran said. "But the whole identification was based on this one scar. In this day and age, no one would accept that as being a positive ID."

Assumming the tissue samples were uncontaminated after all these years, the question then becomes whose torso was it, and what was it doing in the Crippen's basement?

Based on these tests, Michigan relatives of Dr. Crippen are trying to clear his name, have him exumed from the prison burial ground where he lies, and returned to Michigan for burial.

It is quite interesting how scientific development, in this case DNA analysis, are causing new uncertainties with previously established truths, and either helping to solve mysteries from history or deepen them.

In another historical footnote,Captain Kendall
, the man who sent the wireless transmission from his ship that lead to Crippen's arrest after Kendall spotted Crippen on board, was later appointed Captain of the liner Empress of Ireland. He and was her Captain when it went down in the St. Lawrence River in 1914 after being struck by the Storstad.

Defying Expectations and Piquing The Interest Of Seafood Lovers Everywhere - NASA Finds Shrimp Deep Under Antarctic Ice

So much for that whole scientific certainty thing, and a testament to the point of both how much we still don't know about the world. Life, even in the harshest of environments adapts, evolves, overcomes, and finds a way.

The Detorit News: NASA finds shrimp dinner on ice beneath Antarctica

In a surprising discovery about where higher life can thrive, scientists for the first time found a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish frolicking beneath a massive Antarctic ice sheet.

Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist.

That's why a NASA team was surprised when they lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly of an ice sheet in Antarctica. A curious shrimp-like creature came swimming by and then parked itself on the camera's cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.

"We were operating on the presumption that nothing's there," said NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler, who will be presenting the initial findings and a video at an American Geophysical Union meeting Wednesday. "It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate."

Of course it was just one shrimp-relative, so we're hardly looking at under ice sea farming any time soon.

Yet another example of the need to constantly test your presumptions and expectations when dealing with the life and earth sciences. There's always something new and awesome out there and so much we just don't know.