The Synapse Connections of a lifetime

Just something funny I found in MMR forum just now by a poster called UK doc:

"The secret with children is to tell them lots of rubbish so that by the time they recover from their confusion of what you were saying you have done your examination."

Was surprised by a news in yahoo today:

Mon Sep 17, 11:23 PM ET

LIMA (AFP) - Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

Could this be an alien contact? 1000 different ideas coming past my mind! The thing that caught my attention the most is the last line in the article about boiling water and stuff, there's also a strange 'odor'.

So why do the people there fall sick? It can be a totally unrelated incident, but it can also be due to some toxic materials from the meteorite. More interesting though, can it be due to some bacteria that were sitting in the meteorite?

If it's the third possibility, then it'll hit the scientific community like mad. It'll mean that there's an alien lifeform in it, like science fiction.

What's happening there? I want to know!

Would you rather take a day flight home from California or would you spend months cycling home? Recently there was a thread in Recom about this guy who decided to put some interesting twist into his life by cycling home all the way from california and meeting new friends along the way. It would be obvious to say that this attempt is insanely challenging, dwarfing out le tour de langkawi dudes, haha! Anyway, he's keeping a log of his journey online and they can be accessed here.

Initially I thought this guy has lost his mind, but after looking through the first few days of his journey, I knew he was serious. He don't look like the average athlete but he certainly has the determination to do it. Back to his journey, he did things like sleeping by the road side or in some random bush holding a pepper spray on one hand and a knife on another. It must be quite scary to be alone in somewhere you're not familiar with.

His parents are gonna hold a briefing about his charity mission tomorrow. The guys that would benefit are:

St. George's Instituition's Developement Fund,
MAA-Medicare Kidney Charity Fund and
The Naational Cancer Society.
(Targeted donation - RM1 million

He gonna cycle for a total distance of 30000 km. That's like cycling from Penang to KL 300 times! It'll end with an event called the 'Bike for Malaysia Tour' where for 3 days youths will join his last push toward taiping, the finishing line. I would join him if i'm home AND i'm fit enough to cycle for 3 days but i'm not :P Haha! So anyone who can, do support him, I think this is a great effort that deserves more publicity than all the other gov-funded 'adventures' that we had so far.