Forensic Evidence for Macroeconomics

First a woman gets trampled over a DVD Player and now this:

RICHMOND, Va. - People trampled, beaten with a folding chair. A woman urinating on herself. The police called, then themselves calling for backup. All to get a bargain.

The stampede erupted Tuesday when a crowd estimated at 5,500 showed up at the Richmond International Raceway to purchase 1,000 used Apple iBook laptop computers. The Henrico County school system was selling 1,000 of the 4-year-old computers to county residents for $50. New iBooks cost between $999 and $1,299.

Officials opened the gates at 7 a.m., but some already had been waiting since 1:30 a.m. When the gates opened, it became a terrifying mob scene. People threw themselves forward, screaming and pushing each other. Witnesses said an elderly man was thrown to the pavement, and someone in a car tried to drive his way through the crowd.

Blandine Alexander, 33, said one woman standing in front of her was so desperate to retain her place in line that she wet herself

Alfred Marshall would be proud.

Great Moments in Alternative Energy

Why did they think of this?

Researchers in Singapore have developed a paper battery that is powered by urine. Despite sounding gloriously silly, the breakthrough promises a cheap and disposable power source for home health tests for things like diabetes.

The battery is composed of paper, soaked in copper chloride, sandwiched between layers of magnesium and copper. The whole thing, once laminated in plastic, is just a millimetre thick, and 6cm by 3cm in size.

The researchers report that with just 0.2 millilitres of urine the battery will provide around 1.5 volts, with a maximum power output of 1.5 milli-Watts. The performance varies according to the geometry of the battery, and the materials used

Rodent Revelry

This begs the question

A Vanderbilt University research squad has illustrated what the Victorians and Mary Whitehouse knew all along: that smut sends you blind, albeit temporarily. The same apparently applies to blood and guts images, although of course eyeballing snaps of carnage does not carry the same penalty of eternal damnation as ogling smut.

Vanderbilt Uni psychologist David Zald and his team exposed guinea pigs to a barrage of 'disturbing' images interspersed with landscape or architectural snaps, telling them to scan the images for a certain target image. The press release explains: 'An irrelevant, emotionally negative or neutral picture preceded the target by two to eight items. The closer the negative pictures were to the target image, the more frequently the subject failed to spot the target. In a subsequent study, which has not yet been published, the researchers substituted erotic for negative images and found the same basic effect.

Who actually makes porno films for guinea pigs?