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An Island of 31 Square Miles

15 years ago, there were rumors of a lone wild man living in the Amazon forest. The rumors were confirmed by sightings and, eventually, contact by Brazilian government officials who determined that he was the last survivor of an uncontacted tribe.

To protect him, they created a 31 square mile sanctuary which was meant to stop the encroachment of land-hungry settlers and loggers.

This is one of the most interesting things I’ve read in a while and you can check it out over at Slate: The Most Isolated Man on the Planet

Sickly Gecko

Yesterday when looking for tools to make a gated baby fence, I found the smallest gecko I’ve ever seen. He was hiding under one of my tool bags and was suffering from some gross mold that had eaten away part of his body. Less than an inch long, the thickest part of his body was about 1/16″. He was too weak to run for very long, so I trapped him on a scrap of paper and put him outside on the window ledge where lazy insects like to congregate. I fear he wasn’t long for this world, so I hope he got a nice last supper.

Spontaneous glass breakage

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Well, I’d heard of it before (wpedia link), but never seen it. Didn’t see it happen this time, either, but Nam said this glass pot lid (which was thankfully placed inverted on the pot for storage under the sink – this kept glass from flying around) suddenly exploded when I was in the shower half an hour ago.
The most common theories are installation damage (N/A here), thermal expansion or manufacturing impurities. However, another theory states that it might be caused by an “ultrasonic sound wave at a harmonic of the glass’ resonant frequency.”
Oh.
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