At tinyurl.com/7f73qe you'll see the startling statement that 57 thousand people stopped smoking after seeing Uri on TV in Germany! Wow! And, I mean, wow! Because how they determined that figure - that alone - is just incredible! Did all those folks write in, or telephone, e-mail, or send ESP signals? And if they didn't wait a couple of months, how could they possibly know whether they'd really quit? Did they take up nail-biting, crying uncontrollably, stammering, making contributions to Nigerian scammers, or heavy face-twitching, to replace the nicotine?  Inquiring minds want to know...

We're all familiar and bored with crop circles now that they've been explained as being easily created by a couple of pieces of rope and a board. However, those who cling to the UFO theory of their generation have latched on to something new... water or ice circles. This phenomenon has been observed in cold waterways in the United States and elswhere, but one was recently spotted in the UK, home to the most famous crop circles.

The UFO crowd assumes the term "unexplained" to be synonymous with "unexplainable," so of course aliens must have made them. From the Times Online article:

The cause of the rare phenomenon is unclear, with very little scientific evidence available to explain the formation of the discs. UFO-enthusiasts claim that, like crop circles, the perfect discs are created by visiting aliens, but scientists believe the extreme cold weather combined with an unusual current is the more likely reason.

On Friday, January 16th, Penn & Teller are the celebrity contestants on FOX's Don't Forget The Lyrics.  Check local listings for time. If they win, the money goes to the JREF. :) Thanks P&T!

Today, we learn that IBM has a new product. It's no big deal... just an MRI that has 100 million times the resolution of the ones we use today. Wait... let me type that out completley... 100,000,000 times the resolution. That a 4 nanometer resolution, which is more than enough to see a single virus particle.

The IBM MRFM uses a magnetic sensor tip which picks up on the minute magnetic forces of hydrogen atoms in the sample, called a resonant slice. The slice sits beneath a tiny silicon cantilever which vibrates in the presence of minute magnetic fields. Vibrations are tracked by a laser interferometer, recording 3D details of whatever's at that location. Image courtesy of IBM.