Law Enforcement advance of the day: "The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) will become the first law enforcement agency to outfit cars with a device that propels and sticks a Global Positioning System (GPS) onto a fleeing car."

The department will mount the StarChase LLC device in the grill of some squad cars in the fall. "Officers in the car would control a green lazar light, similar to an aiming device that fixes on your target," said LAPD Lieutenant Paul Vernon on Friday. "A small dart-like device is propelled from the officer's car."

The LAPD is hopeful the GPS device will reduce the number of high-speed car chases through the city."

"Things I Learned From My Patients": Hilarious thread on a medical discussion board, mostly anecdotes from the ER. Here are some choice examples (astute readers may notice a few recurrent themes):

(#1) If you're on the street corner selling coke and you see the cops coming to bust you don't eat all your coke. Having been taught this valuable lesson I will now know better than to do this and wind up going to the ER in handcuffs, seizing uncontrollably, aspirating my vomit and doing all of this with a white powder moustache looking like an ad for "Got Coke?"

(#5) Never, ever leave flashlights, shampoo bottles, beer bottles or any long, circular object on the floor because someday you will fall on it and it will somehow, work its way up your rectum.

(#7) Never leave your last refill of Percocet in plain sight after your doc's office closes if one of these 3 friends is coming over for dinner:

1. some dude
2. my friend
3. that bitch

(#13) Latex paint, despite being thick and creamy, does not coat your stomach and provide the same relief as Pepto-Bismol.

(#46) When attempting a self-circumcision do not use dry ice to numb the area... and when the dry ice sticks to the... a.... area, do not attempt to remove the ice with boiling water.

(#84) If you are in police custody and are brought to the ED for evaluation, do not go to the bathroom then try to escape through the ceiling, because the styrofoam ceiling will probably collapse at some point and the NYPD standing outside the bathroom door might notice your bare behind, scantiliy covered by the hospital gown, hanging out of the ceiling.

(#125) Don't allow someone with a known poorly controlled seizure disorder to perform oral sex on you...

(#201) If somehow a ping pong ball should make its way into your rectum and you cannot retrieve it, do not mix yourself a cement enema -- as this will only make your problems worse.

(#291) If you are 13 and feeling....experimental....Don't use the dish hose from the sink as your ambassador to rectal pleasure. If you do, the spring-loaded handle thingy will open after you shove it up past the anus, making it impossible to get out.

Furthermore, it will be difficult to explain to your step-father when he discovers you how you became 'tethered' to the sink by the dish hose.

You'll have to have it surgically removed. And I'm betting nobody will volunteer to do the dishes ever again...

(#399) Don't use hedge clippers to trim your big toe nails.

(#401) If it is late at night and you are hungry, the old chinese food and hunk of cheese that have been floating in a pool of fish blood at the bottom of a cooler full of fish and bait in the sun all day are a bad choice. The amount of projectile vomiting will be impressive.

(#412) Don't use this method of home repair: An unconscious 30-year-old man was brought to the ER by ambulance. His girlfriend had found him lying naked on the floor of his bathroom and called 911. In the ER, he was found to have a large lump on the top of his head and, strangely, several scratches on his scrotum. The doctors figured the lump was possibly caused by a fall or a knock to the head. However the source of the scratches remained a mystery until he woke up and provided the doctors with the following explanation. He said he had been cleaning his bathtub while naked, kneeling on the floor beside the tub. His cat, apparently transfixed by the rhythmic swaying of his scrotum, lunged forward, sinking its claws into this pendulous target. This caused the man to rocket upward, striking his head on the top frame of the shower door.

"Placebo Showdown: Not all placebos are created equal, according to a new study. In a rare trial pitting two fake treatments against each other, researchers have found that a sham acupuncture technique provided more pain relief than a dummy pill. The two nontreatments also caused different 'side effects.'" (Via Linkfilter.)

"Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches". According to the article:

The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use sensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.

From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it -- in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex -- like a dog on a leash.

The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp's burrow. The roach creeps obediently into the burrow and sits there quietly, while the wasp plugs up the burrow with pebbles. Now the wasp turns to the roach once more and lays an egg on its underside. The roach does not resist. The egg hatches, and the larva chews a hole in the side of the roach. In it goes.

The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days. It is then ready to weave itself a cocoon -- which it makes within the roach as well. After four more weeks, the wasp grows to an adult. It breaks out of its cocoon, and out of the roach as well. Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative.