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In December 2009, South African maskandi singer Khulekani Kwakhe "Mgqumeni" Mseleku died after consuming a poisonous potion brewed by a healer. But last week, the singer returned from the dead in the town of Mquthu, much to delight of his fans, who descended upon the village in cheering throngs. More »
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You may not know that Darth Vader lives a very questionable lifestyle off-camera. When not making Star Wars films, the Sith Lord has been known to rob banks and exploit ill-conceived Ukrainian property laws. The intergalactic ne'er-do-well's latest imbroglio takes us Orlando, Florida, where an intoxicated Vader attempted to take a nap...in the middle of the street...at 2:45 AM yesterday morning. More »
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Sure, it may not have been the vigilante Yale graduate we've all come to know and love, but a Batman (and his squadron of Bat-Men) did join the California State Guard for a blip in history. Pictured here in this Mechanix Illustrated article from January 1942 is Mickey Morgan, who made his career testing awesome wingsuits. More »
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A man painted green like the Hulk and sporting "fancy dress" was arrested last spring for selling drugs outside of a nightclub in Coventry, England. Explains The Coventry Telegraph of the Hulk's run-in with the police: More »
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Bradley Manning is an Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables to Wikileaks. Depending on your perspective, he's become a symbol for high tech whistleblowing, or dangerous cyber-crime. Either way, you should be paying attention to his pre-trial hearing, which unfolded this week. Manning's case represents a convergence of issues that shed light on the future of lawbreaking and punishment. More »
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No, this wasn't the work of Vigo the Carpathian or a bunch of overzealous Slayer fans. In the city of Luoyang, illegal manufacturing workshops dumped chemical dye in the Jian River. The dye turned the river an unpleasant shade of hemoglobin crimson. It's not clear what the health ramifications of this unholy mess will be, at least there's the cold comfort that the Earth hasn't punctured an aorta. More »
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We all know that DNA evidence can make or break a forensic investigation, but it's not uncommon for police to encounter DNA at a crime scene that doesn't match with entries in any DNA databases. But what if police didn't need any databases to track down a suspect? More »
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What do you get when you combine a fear of gray goo with a proclivity for Ted Kaczynski-style terrorism? Radicals shipping mail bombs to university professors, that's what. More »
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If Breaking Bad's central conceit — that a harried high school chemistry teacher and his former student team up to enter the lucrative world of methamphetamine production — seems too outlandish to you, here's a strange case that demonstrates just how life can mirror art. More »
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This may just be a less savory medical paper than the case of the STD-giving blow-up doll. In a recent study — "Subcutaneous Penile Insertion of Domino Fragments by Incarcerated Males in Southwest United States Prisons: A Report of Three Cases" — from the Journal of Sexual Medicine, researchers investigated a series of dire events that had nothing to do with a Van Morrison song: More »
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Well, I don't remember Alpha Flight ever going on this adventure. Three teenagers from Chilliwack, British Columbia recently decided it would be a ripping idea to lure would-be pedophiles to public places using fake internet profiles. More »
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Want to know a simple observation that helps forensic scientists figure out A.) how long a body has been dead; and B.) if it's been tampered with? Serial killers: Please don't read the section below. More »
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In an attempt to dissuade citizens from wasting emergency operators' time with stupidity this Halloween, the Hertfordshire Constabulary in England has released an example of a very unimportant phone call. In the above audio clip, a concerned chap calls 999 after mixing up the Moon with an unidentified flying object. "It's not an emergency per se," notes the caller. The hell you say? More »
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A Southern California woman who attempted to sell "a speck of lunar dust smaller than a grain of rice" to NASA officials found herself on the receiving end of an elaborate sting operation earlier this year. Life, it's sometimes like a Robert Heinlein story. More »
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Several months ago, Mark Wayne Williams was arrested in Petoskey, Michigan hanging from a building, wearing a Batman outfit and brandishing a baton, chemical spray, and weighted gloves. More »
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Given that the Smurfs have become the pint-sized cerulean emissaries for everything that is wrong with the world, it's unsurprising that their oxygen-starved countenance is being lent to crimes of dipsomaniac passion. More »
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After being arrested on Sunday for pepper-spraying a crowd, Seattle costumed defender Phoenix Jones (née Ben Fodor) unmasked himself to local press on Thursday and affirmed his intentions to patrol the streets, despite this Tony Stark-style outing. More »
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Seattle's Phoenix Jones has long been the face of the real-life superhero movement, what with his secret headquarters and GQ magazine profile. However, the hero's vigilante tactics have landed him on the wrong side of the law. Phoenix Jones: MAN OR MENACE? More »
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A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America's Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots' every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones. More »
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The Salish Sea has been depositing some gruesome things on the shores of Washington and British Columbia. Single feet (and a few pairs) keep washing up on these cold, rainy beaches. Find out how many incidents there have been over the past five years, why it's always feet, and why they wash up on this particular coastline. More »
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At this point, most of us know how to avoid Nigerian scams in our email. But a far more insidious scam seems to have hit Britain far harder than we ever thought — by targeting the dateless and lonely. More »
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With hackers, DIYers and the military using them for years, domestic police forces the world over are apparently itching to get some surveillance drones of their own. Now Australian authorities have discussed using drones alongside a new license plate recognition system, autonomously tracking vehicles of interest. More »
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Cosplay, it's a burgeoning trend in the criminal community. Hell, a fellow in New Zealand was recently sentenced to eight years for robberies while dressed up like Casper The Friendly Ghost. (Honestly, if you're going to dress up as a Harvey Comics character to freak people out, Baby Huey is the way to go). More »
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The Yale Law Journal's Betsy Cooper wrote an essay examining our favorite Jeopardy! champion (and new medical diagnoser) robot Watson, but from a new angle: Could Watson help judges make legal decisions? More »
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The besieged Mexican government has a new tool in the info war against drug cartels: animated, online propaganda comics set to electronic beats. More »
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Social media can be problematic for professionals who don't want their bosses to see unflattering college party photos. But it's even worse for people whose livelihood literally depends on anonymity, like undercover cops. What happens if the gang you've infiltrated finds your grinning mug in Facebook photos from the police union annual picnic? More »
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A group of self-identified terrorists has sent several mail bombs to nanotechnology labs and researchers in Latin America, injuring two people earlier this month in the engineering department at the Monterrey Institute of Technology outside Mexico City. In an online manifesto, the group calls itself Individualists With Savage Tendencies (this a translation from the Spanish Individualidades tendiendo a lo salvaje, or ITS), and writes about how they are trying to stop a "gray goo" scenario where self-replicating nanobots destroy the world. More »
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Two federal lawmakers have asked the General Accountability Office to look into the security of medical devices after a researcher showed how he was able to hack his insulin pump and alter settings due to security flaws in the system. More »
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C'mon folks, this is just getting ridiculous. After a Ninja Turtle held up a Wendy's in Wisconsin, a Spider-Man-masked bandit and his accomplice heisted a convenience store in Oklahoma City last week. J. Jonah Jameson was a visionary. More »
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Police have released this photo depicting a man who held up a Wendy's in Rib Mountain, Wisconsin last week. After brandishing a gun and tying up two employees, the Ninja Turtle bandit and an accomplice made off with money from the restaurant's coffers. More »
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Think you know a lot about Somali pirates? Familiar with the ins and outs of the shifting pirate finance markets?  Then send a résumé and cover letter on over to the European Union's anti-piracy task force. They're in the market for an expert on pirate culture. More »
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The United States, over the years, collected two hundred and thirty moon rocks. About half are missing. Now a lawsuit is under way to figure out who has the rights to a rock that took a turn into private hands. More »
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Hacking is a noble pursuit — it's what tinkerers do to create cool new machines and innovate. But the media is obsessed with using the word "hacker" interchangeably with "criminal." That's why IEEE Spectrum magazine has created this helpful chart (click to enlarge), in which they try to separate out the good hacks from the bad. See if you can guess which ones are good and which are bad . . . answers are on the interactive chart at IEEE, where you can check the boxes to show only good hacks, bad ones, or neutral. More »
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If you're traveling to Canada, a country whose customs officials are notorious for playing the role of morality police, you'd better leave your Japanese comics at home — whether they're in print or digital. More »
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Like pickpocketing, counterfeiting money may soon be a crime of the past. Researchers at the University of Sheffield have created a "colorless pigment" that creates rainbows and prevents replicability for use on money, passports, and other stuff you don't want copied. More »
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Although TV detectives can solve a crime with an eyelash and a laboratory full of lasers, real-life crime scene investigation still has some basic hurdles to get over. Recently, it leapt one with a bucket of soap. More »
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Some of you are undoubtedly considering a sexy, lucrative career in the rarified world of cat burglary. For all you would-be dapper scoundrels, here's a recent medical paper that'll be of interest. It's about the dangers of swallowing your prizes. More »
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This week a man from Minnesota was convicted of aiding in the suicides of two people he met online while posing as a female nurse. He gave them advice on the most painless ways to die, and entered suicide pacts with them. More »
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Enchanted mannequins coming to life to try on costume jewelry and fancy hats is all well and good. But what if your mannequins are already alive, and creepily filming you while you pee? Such was the case in Birmingham. More »
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For most of us, that familiar beep-beep as we walk away through a parking lot or garage is enough assurance that our car is both locked and safe. Often a tiny flashing light on the dashboard also alerts would be criminals that the car is protected by the latest form of antitheft security. And for the most part, that is true; a sophisticated set of encryption and electronics is at work inside. However, don't be surprised to find your state-of-the-art, antitheft-protected vehicle stolen. Complex technology doesn't necessarily raise the barrier for entry for cyber criminals; sometimes it does the exact opposite. More »
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