Blackouts, Eruptions, and Amendments: What's the Buzz
Our picks from the day's hottest searches.
- Brazil Blackout (+3,067%). A storm left 60 million in the dark,and now the government's busy defending its grid as the country preps for a good economy and the 2014 World Cup.
- Carl Sagan (+1,199%). His 75th birthday on Monday prompted a Stephen Hawking musical salute, and now people are surfacing up the astronomer's own musical talents.
- Mayon Volcano (+903%). Philippine's most active volcano is spewing again.
- Stupak Amendment (+563%). The US Conference of Catholic Bishops got the anti-abortion amendment into the health care bill, prompting concerns about its constitutionality and viability.
- Route 66 (+99%). The Santa Monica Pier got formal cred as the Western Terminus of the historic highway's 83rd anniversary.
Filed under: Health, Travel, Politics, Music, Weather, Science, Astronomy
Mindflex Game Moves the Web
This year, the gift trend toys with your mind.
Mattel, better known as the house of Barbie, showed up at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January with a funny-looking contraption called Mindflex. The set-up entails a small purple ball, a white-and-blue plastic "obstacle course" console, and a headset.
But not just any headset: You strap it around your forehead, then try and move the ball with your brainwaves. Telekinesis for the holiday stocking? Looks like a winner.
Mind the gender gap
Online lookups on Yahoo! for "mindflex," "mattel mindflex," and "mindflex game" are, dare we say, mind-boggling. In the past 7 days, they've made the top 5,000 searches on Yahoo!. (Scarcity's part of its appeal: Vendors cut back on toy orders this holiday season.)
While blogs think the male geek market's the primary target, the Web traffic for the game's coming mostly from prepubescent boys and women aged 35-44. Sure, some women might be doing some gift browsing, but their searches are more than double than men of the same age.
The Mattel game, which went on sale in October, has a fan base in the Eastern half of the U.S. Places most itching to play brain ball: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Connecticut, South Carolina and Minnesota.
What's behind mind control
The popularity taps into the ultimate couch-potato fantasy: moving things without moving a muscle. The sensors, explains the Mattel site, reads brainwaves using a "variation of EEG technology." PC World gets into more specifics: The game's based on NeuroSky technology, and taps into "beta-wave activity" (what deep thinkers give off when they concentrate), converts it into a signal, then transmits that "as a radio frequency."
Big dreams
Mind control may be a game now, but the hope is this technology could evolve to train athletes, personalize online communication with emotional feedback, wake up drivers falling asleep at the wheel, and even help people focus their way out of Alzheimer's or addictions. (For the worst-case scenarios, just go to the sci-fi and horror section of any bookstore.)
Worth the brain cells?
It might help already: One Amazon reviewer claimed MindFlex is helping her autistic son slow down and concentrate. Other reviewers, though, found that the allure of raising a ball up and down wore out pretty fast, and isn't worth the price tag (ranging from $59.99—sold out, of course—to as much as $120.)
By the way, if you do try it out and the ball refuses to move, don't panic: You still have brain activity. The game requires 4 C batteries.
Here's the Beef: Oldest Cut of Meat Found
The next time you're slicing up a ribeye to throw on the grill, cut carefully. Years from now, scientists may study the fossilized left-overs and make some hefty judgments about you. Homer Simpson, take note.
At least that's what's going on with a 200,000-year-old (yes, you read that right) cut of meat unearthed by archeologists. As reported by Science Daily, researchers are theorizing that in this pre-deli time, this meat-loving clan hired the first butcher. Knife skills, we're assuming, were a plus.
The reason this is such a huge find in Qesem Cave in Israel: Something different was happening here. This group had gone gourmet. Think of them as the oldest celebrity chefs, the Julia Child and Mario Batali of their time. The best cuts of meats were selected, cut up with a stone blade, and thrown on the fire to serve at their cave dinner parties. We assume with a dash of pride.
These ancient foodies are stumping scientists, who will be looking into this discovery for some time to come. Bon appétit!
Filed under: Science
Hurricane Hunters, Cloud Gazers and Weather Fiends
Twisters are getting off to a lackadaisical start this year, but no matter how late, a storm that works itself up into a hurricane frenzy will get attention. Of three Atlantic tempests knocking around, Bill's the one that fulfilled hurricane aspirations and may go beyond a Category 3.
Wild skies don't just kick people into disaster preparedness mode (witness lookups on Yahoo! for "storm doors," "hurricane shutters," and "hurricane supplies"). Nature's ferment also gets minds wondering and searches swelling about weather phenomena in general. An overview of some raging queries, below:
Getting up to (hurricane) speed
The Department of Atmospheric Services at University of Illinois explains the degrees of intensity. Thunderstorms hanging out together over warm ocean waters become a tropical depression, with winds swirling between 23-29 mph. They can gather oomph to become a tropical storm (39-73 mph) within a short period of time (a few hours to two days), then if conditions are right (or not right, depending on your perspective), the rainstorm graduates into a full-fledged hurricane.
Tracking the mighty hurricane hunter
These kinds of hunters may not shoot down and truss up their prey, but they court all kinds of danger by flying into the eye (center) of a raging hurricane. Amateur stormchasers exist, but the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (which runs the Hurricane Hunters Association site) transmits data to the National Hurricane Center. Although the employees and their equipment (like the Lockheed-Martin WC-130J plane) belong to the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce runs the program. For a profile on the first Hurricane Hunter, check here.
Alien ships and other cloudy questions
Some people love an overcast day. Figuring out all the different formations of suspended droplets number among the most popular online weather searches. Some water vapors in question now:
• Billow Clouds are among the rarest, and look like ocean waves. The same winds that cause these clouds also cause a flag to flap.
• Noctilucent Clouds, aka night-shining clouds, take on an "iridescent" glow because they reflect the setting summer sun, as seen in this NASA photo.
• Lenticular Clouds has been likened to a "fleet of alien ships" or pancakes, and typically cling to hills and mountains. Avoided by pilots but sought out by gliders since they portend high winds, they're also attractive to photographers. Check out this cluster.
• Cumulonimbus Clouds literally translate to puffy rainstorms, those familiar, darkly swelling, and foreboding vapors.
Filed under: Weather, Science, Hurricanes, Nature
Quest for a Map
It is officially not cool to call your partner who refuses directions a "cave man." The oldest map in Western Europe has been unearthed and decoded, and it's pretty good, too.
The etchings of a landscape on a hand-sized rock are 14,000 years old. Eat it, MapQuest. Archeologists were able to match the landmarks of the map to a region in Northern Spain where the portable guide was found. The carvings, which seem to point out reindeer, ibex, and a stag, led researchers to believe that it's the oldest hunting map to be discovered in Western Europe. Check out images of the ancient maps here.
Other scientists dispute the findings, announced in New Scientist, theorizing that it is typical of the art for that period. Or possibly, a spiritual map. Deep.
Still, the next time you take a drive, really, don't fear the GPS. Seems some people have been needing directions for years.
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Worst Airports For Delays 2009 | Breakout! |
| 2 | How To Survive A Recession | Breakout! |
| 3 | Ice Cream Calorie Counter | Breakout! |
| 4 | Jayson Williams | Breakout! |
| 5 | Alexandra Kerry | Breakout! |
| 6 | Chaz Bono | 10707% |
| 7 | Kelly Osbourne | 3298% |
| 8 | Jennifer Hudson | 3218% |
| 9 | Nicole Richie | 2075% |
| 10 | Thierry Henry | 1125% |

top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +413 | 1016 |
| 2 | Elizabeth Lambert | -677 | 263 |
| 3 | NFL | +66 | 235 |
| 4 | New Moon | +74 | 213 |
| 5 | Bing | +83 | 209 |
| 6 | Kelly Osbourne | +193 | 199 |
| 7 | Hulu | +7 | 139 |
| 8 | Nicole Richie | +124 | 130 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.