To: scocca@gawker.com

An Australian newscaster said he managed to wear the same suit almost every day for a year without anyone noticing, despite the fact that viewers often criticize his female co-host for her sartorial choices.

Officials at Chicago's O'Hare Airport intercepted a package containing eighteen severed human heads a couple week ago, and are getting a little tired of everyone acting like it's weird.

During the Cold War, the U.S. Army pursued a research program that used soldiers as lab rats to test the effects of various chemical agents—ranging "from tear gas and LSD to highly lethal nerve agents, like VX." As a huge class action suit against the government by those who were experimented upon nears its trial date, the New Yorker has dropped a huge piece full of details on just how much crazy shit our military was doing in a single secret facility in Maryland.

Earlier this week, the Arizona Department of Transportation took a page from the Whimsical Ideas Book of a wide-eyed substitute teacher and announced a "Twitter challenge," asking people to submit haikus to help promote dust storm safety.

Back on February 8th, a British telecommunications company let one quarter of its 12,000 employees work from home. The results of that experiment are in, and it seems that, basically, everything is more amazing when you can futz around in your pajamas all day instead of putting on clothing like a respectable human being.

Tacoma Community College music instructor Kevin Gausepohl has some unconventional ideas about vocal instruction. But let's not dismiss them out of hand.

Anyone who knows anything about anything knows that birds, of all animals, are not to be trusted. Have you seen a bird, recently, doing its little bird things (pecking?), acting as though its brain is the size of a Sno-Cap? Well, guess what: birds can do math. Higher math.

You know how you spend every minute of your waking life desperately afraid that you will be found out as a laughable fraud and all your accomplishments discovered to be built on a foundation of luck and lies? Well! As it turns out, even babies can tell how unbelievably full of shit you are.

Here is a fact about New York City: it is filled with jerks. Here's another fact about New York City: it is filled with rats. Here's a third fact, recently discovered by scientists: rats are actually super nice, possibly (probably) even nicer than New Yorkers.

College is a time for experimentation—a time to fornicate with people of other faiths, try new brands, and learn about adult-world technologies.

A soldier tries to sleep. But he is not safe in his dreams. Jolted awake by a nightmare, the combat veteran fumbles in the dark for his 3-D glasses. He puts them on. Around him are the faces of people whom he trusts. They fight the darkness with him. The soldier's re-lived this scene in his head and the laboratory over and over again, until it has become reassuringly familiar. The soldier knows that his pixelated friends will take him away from these troubled dreams. When the scene is over, he takes off his goggles and looks around him. The soldier is home.

Our mom says that "anything's possible if you put your mind to it," and she's never wrong, so we're fairly certain that there is some way to transform human poop into gold. But mixing the poop with fertilizer and putting it on a heater is not that way, as Irish wannabe wizard Paul Moran recently discovered.

A computer programmer testing the "Infinite Monkey Theorem"—that, with enough time, a monkey randomly mashing a typewriter would eventually type the complete works of Shakespeare—says his virtual monkeys will soon complete the works, way ahead of their infinity deadline!

Just last year it seemed almost inevitable that genetically engineered Frankenfish would soon be readily available to American consumers. But some lawmakers, like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, are a little creeped out by the idea and are holding up FDA approval. Murkowski told the AP that the idea of eating Frankenfish "kind of gives me the heebie jeebies."

While the rest of America watches the economy go down the shitter all over again, the Pentagon is busy blowing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on toys that don't work. Perhaps you've heard about the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 and its alleged Prompt Global Strike™ capabilities? It failed for a second time during a test flight yesterday off the coast of California.

Slate editor David Plotz explores a crucial technological puzzle in an article today: What happens when you befriend hundreds of strangers on Facebook, then lie to them and say it's your birthday? Turns out they wish you happy birthday, which proves the internet is destroying us all.

The quarterly Electric Literature has taken many of last year's thickest and most acclaimed novels (such as Jonathan Franzen's Freedom) and put bullets through them. Literally. Maybe Kindle lovers should be walking around in Kevlar vests.

Click to viewA college student wore a pair of jeans for 15 months and then compared them to a pair he wore for 13 days. They had the same amount of bacteria! So you can postpone laundry one more day. [via]

After blowing $1 billion on an electronic "virtual fence" along the border with Mexico, the Department of Homeland Security yesterday finally ditched the $7 billion project in favor of surveillance drones and human patrols. Bravo, DHS. Money well spent. [NYT]