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POPS The Guinea Pig Diaries A.J. Jacobs, the man who spent a year reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and another year following every rule prescribed by the Biblesubsequently turning his experiences into the hilarious New York Times bestsellers The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically -- chronicles his recent adventures in extreme living in The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment. With fearlessness, Jacobs immerses himself in month-long exercises in self-illumination -- from assuming the identity of a beautiful young woman to living a life of total honesty. VIDEO on Source. In Jacobs' quest for self-improvement, he embarks on nine projects that deal with every aspect of modern life: Love, work, fame, truth and, of course, nudity. The results are equal parts funny and insightful.
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POPSIs the Catholic Church a Force for Good in the World? I saw this debate on BBC yesterday and it was really good. They poll people both before and after the debate about how they see the Catholic Church and the results were a bit surprising, but then again, not. Make up your own mind. (5 parts)
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POPS50 Ugliest Cars Of All Time According To Business Week Start talking about your favorite car or truck and chances are you will be get a visceral reaction out of many Americans. Where I grew up in the Midwest, for example, saying that Toyota made a better truck than, say, Ford or GM...well, them'z was fightin' words to some. In other parts of the country, the same might be said for debates such as, "Which sports car is the fastest of all time?" We do love our cars. But, then, there are those "ugly ducklings" that should never have made it off the assembly line, and which, sadly, never blossomed into swans. This week, Businessweek assembles a slide show of the 50, all-time ugliest ducklings on four wheels...If you are passionate about autos, or just want a few laughs before heading off to nighty-nighty land, then check out this slide show. Yeesh!
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POPSSurpised? Not Really. Considering the US is, among the general population, one of the least science savvy in the world, their ignorance over this important issue is expected.
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POPSFor Lexica In four months, Ryan will have traveled through 7 countries as he covers roughly 12,000km on bike. If you've ever been to South America, you probably know that there are flat parts...and there are not so flat parts, so Ryan definitely has his work cut out for him. Though, Ryan has done extensive bike touring around the world, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process, so maybe he has "some" idea of what he is in for. This time he wants to up the ante and single-handedly raise $250,000USD to be given
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POPSScientists Create New Life Form to Clean Up Water "We're kind of making a new machine," said Dan Tarjan, a senior majoring in biology at University of Virginia. The live machine is to be entered in The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, which will be held Halloween weekend at MIT. The annual competition is built on the premise that life can be broken down into a warehouse of off-the-shelf, interchangeable parts and reassembled into creatures that have never existed. Over 100 teams will use synthetic biology (similar to genetic engineering) to show that DNA building blocks (BioBricks) don’t have to come from nature and can be designed and built from standardized parts that behave predictably. The hope is that these tiny factories will produce clean biofuels, powerful new medicines and environmental pollution sponges. Good luck to all contestants.