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-   -   Real-Life Weirdness (https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=38975)

Jovus 04-28-2009 06:38 PM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Brett
Well, a lot of mercury compounds are red, including cinnabar and mercuric oxide. Often a brilliant orangey-red: cinnibar is used as a pigment under the name "vermilion". But it's news to me that any of them is known as "red mercury". Though of course triplumbic tetroxide is well known as "red lead".

Lavoisier refers to it as red mercury. Admittedly he moves away from that nomenclature quickly in his attempt to establish a coherent system, but the reference is there, especially in alchemical tradition.

Anaraxes 05-04-2009 03:32 PM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
Similar discussion going on in the GURPS forum.

William 05-16-2009 02:43 PM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
Mysterious strangers start showing up at your house. Some of them try to break in. Some of them try to talk their way in. What are they after?

As it turned out for this guy, a drug dealer had been telling people that the apartment had been used for a stash of $900,000 in cash. Yeah, a hoard in the basement does tend to draw the adventurers....

Anaraxes 05-16-2009 06:28 PM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
Quote:

Some researchers in Texas are trying an unusual approach to combat fire ants — parasitic flies that turn the pesky insects into zombies whose heads fall off.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/6420449.html
Then just add a little Science Gone Wrong, and you get Giant Radioactive Headless Zombie Fire Ants. Unless, that is, the flies mutate to become parasites of human hosts. Let the plague begin.

William 06-19-2009 04:29 PM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
US military abruptly ends an informal arrangement allowing astronomers access to data on incoming objects tracked by otherwise-classified antimissile surveillance satellites.

But they're not hiding anything they spotted, of course not. Right? :^)

Johnny Angel 06-19-2009 11:10 PM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
I seem to remember a story from a couple years ago... I think it was in Russia; a guy was riding around on a bicycle dressed as a ninja and robbing people. I found that to be somewhat weird.


In other news... What's in a name? http://www.al.com/news/press-registe...l=3&thispage=1

Anaraxes 06-30-2009 09:14 PM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
Researchers have developed a fuel cell that produces electricity from human blood.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freea...unt=35&index=8

Just the thing to power your nanotech, your Technomancer / Horror hybrid, or the Matrix.

moldymaltquaffer 07-01-2009 04:30 PM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScrol...b-9b910e70f40b

Take a Mediterranian sea cruise with heavily-armed Russians civilians who are paying some $5,000 a day for the priviledge of shooting at pirates off the coast of Africa.

No word on whether taxidermy of trophies is included, or extra.

William 07-02-2009 11:46 AM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
Mysterious pulsating slimy blob found in North Carolina sewer! I think that's about all we need to start with, right there.

(What is it actually? Well, those boring old party-pooping scientists are suggesting that it's a bio-film-covered colony of Tubifex tubifex worms. It moves because a single worm coils randomly, and stimulates the rest of the mass to do so, making it contract like a single muscle. Gee, sounds to me like a plausible motive ability for a horrible hivemind worm creature. ^_^ )

Luke Bunyip 07-02-2009 05:25 PM

Re: Real-Life Weirdness
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by William (Post 814540)
Mysterious pulsating slimy blob found in North Carolina sewer! I think that's about all we need to start with, right there.

(What is it actually? Well, those boring old party-pooping scientists are suggesting that it's a bio-film-covered colony of Tubifex tubifex worms. It moves because a single worm coils randomly, and stimulates the rest of the mass to do so, making it contract like a single muscle. Gee, sounds to me like a plausible motive ability for a horrible hivemind worm creature. ^_^ )

Aha! Obviously the flesh burrowing nightmare has been revealed.


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