Look at this amazing interior designed by product design firm Nendo for a Tokyo mental health clinic. What appear to be doors are actually just wall paintings; doctors and patients enter and exit the rooms through sliding bookshelves and hidden openings in the wall.

Rather than getting patients back to a ‘zero’, a neutral starting place, the traditional model for mental health care, the clinic aims to provide patients with something extra: a further richness in their daily lives that they did not have before starting treatment. The interior design is an attempt to express this philosophy in space.

SOURCE: Boing Boing

LONDON — Hundreds of British men are risking a Valentine’s Day anticlimax for their partners by stocking up on anatomy-boosting underpants ahead of the most romantic weekend of the year.

British department store group Debenhams said Thursday it had seen a 76 percent surge in online sales of the 18 pounds-a-pair ($28) underwear in the past week.

The pants work by using a lift and hold feature at the front, like a male version of the cleavage-boosting Wonderbra.

“The briefs mean that no man ever needs to feel inadequate again on the most passionate day of the social calendar,” said Rob Faucherand, head of men’s accessories buying at Debenhams.

“However we can’t be held responsible for what happens once the pants come off,” he added.

SOURCE: Reuters

ROME — Police in Sicily have called in an international team of forensic scientists and criminologists to help solve the case of a murdered Baroness, 447 years after the crime.

The investigation in Carini — a small town near Palermo — centers on the castle where Baroness Laura Lanza was killed in 1563 with her lover Ludovico Vernagallo when they were caught in bed together.

“Justice wasn’t done back then,” said Gaetano La Fata, Mayor of Carini, who has decided to reopen the case and exhume the remains of the lovers.

“We hope that DNA tests and criminal profiling will help us discover the motive behind the crime and establish whether there was more than one assassin,” he told Reuters.

The Baroness’s father Cesare confessed to the honor killing in a letter to the king, which is currently archived in the Chiesa Madre church in Carini.

“Legend has it, however, that Cesare Lanza did not act alone, but was helped by his son-in-law, Don Vincenzo La Grua,” said the Mayor.

Rumours passed down through generations of Sicilians have it that the husband was motivated by plans to marry again. La Grua may also have feared his rival, Vernagallo, would attempt to claim financial rights for fathering children with his wife.

In reopening the ‘cold case’, La Fata has asked the local police to work together with the ICAA (International Crime Analysis Association) headed by Marco Strano, psychologist and criminologist for the Italian State Police.

“The idea for the investigation began as a joke,” Strano told Reuters. “I visited Carini in June and when I met La Fata I teased him for not having resolved the murder yet, so he challenged me to solve it.”

BLOODY HANDPRINT

“There was a trial held at the time, but though both father and son-in-law had their properties temporarily confiscated, they were soon declared innocent, probably thanks to their noble status and the legal right for fathers and husbands of adulterous women to commit honor killings,” said Strano.

It is thought the two lovers are buried in a common grave under the crypt of the Chiesa Madre church in Carini.

“If we are lucky enough to find and identify their bones, it might be possible to verify the cause of death, whether they were run through with a sword or stabbed with a dagger. If there was more than one weapon used, it’s likely there was more than one murderer.”

The team of crime analysts, made up of American and Italian experts in forensic science and criminal pathology, are in the process of making a 3D computer model of the 11th century castle, including the room overlooking the Gulf of Carini where the murder took place.

“We hope to map the killer’s path from the courtyard to the crime scene, and work out whether it’s likely there were servants in that part of the building at the time who might have seen the murderer or an accomplice,” Strano said.

The investigation coincides with a project to rebuild parts of Carini Castle that have collapsed over time. The crime scene has recently been restored. A red handprint has been painted on the wall to mark the spot where — legend has it — the struggling Baroness left a bloody imprint, which reappears every year to mark the anniversary of her murder.

Mayor La Fata hopes that the project will help unravel some of the mystery that surrounds the lovers, whose story continues to intrigue visitors and locals alike.

“Several years ago we tested areas of the castle we knew the Baroness lived in with electromagnetic field meters, and the results were very strange,” La Fata said. “In certain rooms it was as if there were ghosts in the castle, as if the murdered Baroness lives on.”

SOURCE: Reuters

LOS ANGELES — A San Fernando Valley woman who doused a bikini dancer with gasoline and set her on fire has been found guilty of aggravated mayhem and torture.

A Los Angeles jury convicted 28-year-old Rianne Theriault-Odom on Thursday on two counts but acquitted her of attempted murder. The Tarzana woman faces a possible life sentence.

The victim, Roberta Dos Santos Busby, wept as the verdict was read.

Prosecutors say the two women had been feuding when Theriault-Odom doused the 28-year-old mother of two with gasoline and set her ablaze in February 2009 at a Tarzana club.

Busby testified that she suffered burns over 40 percent of her body, spent five months in the hospital and had 30 skin grafts.

Theriault-Odom claimed someone else torched the woman.

SOURCE: FOX News

Here’s a real-life horror story: Five people have been found buried alive inside their bodies. Paralyzed by brain injuries, they lay inert for years, seemingly oblivious to the doctors and loved ones around them. Four were diagnosed as vegetative. Then a European research team scanned their brains. It turns out they’re aware; they just can’t speak or move. God knows how many more are trapped like this.

On the heels of this frightening idea comes another: The scans that exposed these patients’ thoughts could expose yours. They could read your mind. “Governments are interested in the thoughts of their citizens—whether their voting intentions or their propensities to crime,” warns Colin Blakemore, an Oxford neuroscientist. In the European scans, he sees “the possibility that brain science could bring an era of surveillance that will make the epidemic of CCTV cameras look trivial.”

Relax. The brain scans are wonderful news. The patients were trapped anyway; the scans have simply restored their ability to communicate. Better yet, that communication remains voluntary. Without the patients’ cooperation, the scans would have found nothing. That’s the most marvelous thing the scans have discovered: Human minds stripped of every other power can still control one last organ—the brain.

SOURCE: Slate.com

Despite having served for years as a distinguished Pakistani diplomat, Akbar Zeb reportedly cannot receive accreditation as Pakistan’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The reason, apparently, has nothing to do with his credentials, and everything to do with his name — which, in Arabic, translates to “biggest dick.”

According to this Arabic-language article in the Arab Times, Pakistan had previously floated Zeb’s name as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, only to have him rejected for the same reason. One can only assume that submitting Zeb’s name to a number of Arabic-speaking countries is some unique form of punishment designed by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry — or the result of a particularly egregious cockup.

SOURCE: ForeignPolicy.com

LAS VEGAS — To some men, she might seem like the perfect woman: She’s a willowy 5 feet 7 and 120 pounds. She’ll chat with you endlessly about your interests. And she’ll have sex whenever you please — as long as her battery doesn’t run out.

Meet Roxxxy, who may be the world’s most sophisticated talking female sex robot. For $7,000, she’s all yours.

“She doesn’t vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else,” said her inventor, Douglas Hines, who unveiled Roxxxy last month at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lifelike dolls, artificial sex organs and sex-chat phone lines have been keeping the lonely company for decades. But Roxxxy takes virtual companionship to a new level.

Powered by a computer under her soft silicone “skin,” she employs voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. She even comes loaded with five distinct “personalities,” from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit customers’ preferences.

“There’s a tremendous need for this kind of product,” said Hines, a computer scientist and former Bell Labs engineer.

Roxxxy won’t be available for delivery for several months, but Hines is taking pre-orders through his Web site, TrueCompanion.com, where thousands of men have signed up.

“They’re like, ‘I can’t wait to meet her,’ ” Hines said. “It’s almost like the anticipation of a first date.”

Women have inquired about ordering a sex robot, too. Hines says a female sex therapist even contacted him about buying one for her patients.

Roxxxy has been like catnip to talk-show hosts since her debut at AEE, the largest porn-industry convention in the country. In a recent monologue, Jay Leno expressed amazement that a sex robot could carry on lifelike conversations and express realistic emotions.

“Luckily, guys,” he joked, “there’s a button that turns that off.”

SOURCE: CNN

This ancient text has no known title, no known author, and is written in no known language: what does it say and why does it have many astronomy illustrations?

The mysterious book was once bought by an emperor, forgotten on a library shelf, sold for thousands of dollars, and later donated to Yale. Possibly written in the 15th century, the over 200-page volume is known most recently as the Voynich Manuscript, after its (re-)discovery in 1912.

Pictured above is an illustration from the book that appears to be somehow related to the Sun.

The book labels some patches of the sky with unfamiliar constellations. The inability of modern historians of astronomy to understand the origins of these constellations is perhaps dwarfed by the inability of modern code-breakers to understand the book’s text.

If you think you can provide any insight, please participate in a fresh online discussion. The book itself remains in Yale’s rare book collection under catalog number “MS 408.”

SOURCE: Astronomy Picture of the Day