While your waiting on the football games to start here’s something I found while stumbling this morning that I found interesting. Quotes on the nature of the universe from various people throughout history.

Carl Zwanzig: “Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together….”

Douglas Adams: “There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

Albert Einstein: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

Unknown: “Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can’t remember where they leave things.”

Edward P. Tryon: “In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.”

John Andrew Holmes: “It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.”

Max Frisch: “Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn’t have to experience it.”

Kilgore Trout: “The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.”

Woody Allen: “I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.”

Douglas Adams: “In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

William J. Broad: “The crux… is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing.”

Rich Cook: “Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”

Fred Hoyle: “There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don’t know what it’s a plan for.”

Ray Bradbury: “We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.”

Christopher Morley: “My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.”

Edward Chilton: “I’m worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It’s not holding a charge.”

Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson): “The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”

This is really cool. A group of sailing enthusiasts have gotten together and spent the last 10 plus years working on the l’Hydroptere project. The premise of the project is to create an uplift on the hulls of boats by using some type of vertical pushing device or sea wing that will allow a boat to literally fly over the water. The l’Hydroptere requires 12 knots to take off and has a maximum speed of 50 knots, pretty good for a souped up Catamaran. Wonder what it costs to go for a ride.

Check out the l’Hydroptere website for more photos and videos of the flying boat.

Most of the time in our society there is an unwritten rules that says when we see a blond, especially a really hot blond, it’s automatically assumed that she is as dumb a bucket of rocks. Meet polish singer Doda Elektroda, the exception to that rule. Not only does she look like a million bucks, she’s a genius. No seriously, she’s a real genius.

To put this in perspective the average person has an IQ between 85 and 115. Someone possessing an IQ lower than 70 is said be mentally retarded while persons with IQ’s above 130 are said to be of superior intellect. Our blond singer here, well back in 2004 she apparently took the Mensa exam and scored a staggering IQ of 156, just shy of the 160 score it’s believed Albert Einstein would have scored.

There you have it folks, proof positive that not all blonds are dumb blonds (assuming of course she’s a natural blond) then we might have to reevaluate things but for now we’ll go with it. So, is there anymore “genius” babes out there?

While your thinking about that, here’s a few photos of Doda from around the net.

via: Jon Holato

A new study that’s being published in The Journal of Nueroscience indicates that low to moderate consumption of alcohol may actually improve your memory. so far the study has only observed the reaction in rats but I’m sure there will be no loss for people to participate in human testing.

“There are human epidemiological data of others indicating that mild [to] moderate drinking may paradoxically improve cognition in people compared to abstention,” says Maggie Kalev, a research fellow in molecular medicine and pathology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and a co-author of an article in The Journal of Neuroscience describing results of a study she and other researchers performed on rats. “This is similar to a glass of wine protecting against heart disease, however the mechanism is different.”

Ok, so we already knew that a glass of wine could help stave off heart disease, so now if you have a beer everyday you’ll get smarter and if you want to go for the trifecta of health and live longer, well, stay out of the gym.

Scientific American via Boing Boing