THE BIG RETORT

Somewhere in the cosmos a tiny blue planet receives an alien signal. A researcher writes "Wow!" Nearly forty years lapse. It quickly passes into legend and UFO lore. TheBigRetort investigates a mix of signals. (Picture. The View at Hilly Fields. Copyright (c) TheBigRetort.) In August 1977, a researcher with SETI - Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence - claims to have noted an unusual signal that is said (by some) to have emanated from a far-flung civilisation somewhere in the cosmos. The "Wow Signal" has entered the global lexicon but it was never authenticated and there is still to this day much debate about its alien credentials. Be that as it may... TheBigRetort notes an infinite number of details that have expunged the down-to-earth facts in the telling and retelling of this interstellar tale, which makes it all really - rather - curiously... human. 'Curious' in that the computer printout contains a handwritten date; 'rather' in that it ma...

A science paper predicts that a nearby red-star system known as Gliese 581 is the likely candidate for an extrasolar habitable world. Two years on, the alien world is indeed discovered. TheBigRetort The recent discovery of another pale-blue spot in space, which is currently circling a 'nearby' star system known as Gliese 581, has created a bit of a stir on planet Earth. But the real value is in how it was actually 'encountered'. In fact as far back as two years ago physicists Rhett Zollinger and John Armstrong addressed the ‘possible’ existence of an undetected lower mass planet inside the Gliese 581 star’s Habitable Zone; due to what the two termed ‘the dynamical stability evolution of the system‘. The pair compared studies of the three known planets in the Gliese 581 system. Of these two of the three known planets 'C 'and 'D’ were located at the edges of what is euphemistically called the Goldilocks Zone. That's the zone where water is like...

Sir Alan Sugar may feel even he has gone a bit too far if he hires former Marine Christopher Farrell. TheBigRetort lifts the lid on the Knuckleduster Sniper. Styling himself as ‘a former marine’, Christopher Farrell pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing an offensive weapon when he appeared at Plymouth Crown Court some years back. When arrested Farrell was found to possess an extendable baton and a knuckleduster in his car - and was later branded a liar by the Judge. Prosecutor Paul Frost said that around 6.30pm on February 3, police acting on a phone call visited Farrell's home and waited for him to arrive. His wife claimed he had hit her with the knuckleduster, drawing blood. They searched Farrell's blue Mercedes for weapons. They found an extendable baton and a knucklesduster. Farrell, then 28, told police they were there "trinkets" from his days in the force. The former Marine had bought the baton in the USA and the knuckleduster in 2001 in Afghanistan, but ...

Many scientists in the United States and worldwide are furious that the space agency NASA has apparently allowed a small body of Kepler scientists to sit on data that may confirm if another Earth-like planet lies within 'lens' reach of our solar system. (That's anywhere light years away.) But could the leaking of the discovery made by the Kepler scientists be due to a simple glitch in the machine? It has been argued that more time was needed for Kepler scientists to confirm the discovery of over 140 Earth-like exoplanets. Apparently the 'yearly' transits of these planets needed to be confirmed by additional research, an investigation that would, under Earth-like circumstances, take three years. Apparently it takes our planet one whole year to go around the sun and back again. It takes three such years then to confirm the findings? Not so. Dimitar Sasselov, an investigator with the Kepler group itself - accidentally on purpose? - released some of the findings to a sp...

A Texan aged 63 has won at scratch-off card games every two years since 2006. In 1993 she also won a lottery bringing her total winnings to over $20m. Which is amazingly coincidental. But what if a seemingly ordinary person somehow managed to narrow the odds and beat the system, goddamnit? An American newspaper might say slim pickin's. TheBigRetort says ... Joan Rae Ginther’s luck began in 1993, when she won $5.4 million dollars on a game known as “Lotto Texas“. Another win thirteen years later in 2006 netted her $2m. Curiously, every two years since that date, she has won at scratch off games, two cards having been bought at her local store. In 1993 she won $5.4 million; the odds: 1 in 15.8 million; in 2006 she won $2 million in a scratch off game; the odds: 1 in 1,028,338; in 2008 she won $3 million in a scratch off; odds: 1 in 909,000. Her latest win in 2010, also a scratch off, was for $10 million; odds of winning: 1 in 1,200,000. In fact experts contend that the odds of winnin...

Could Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, be involved in a gigantic cover-up? If so, he's going down... and not just in the eyes of the voter. TheBigRetort has uncovered evidence which may suggest that the recent furore over the new identity of Jon Venables may be designed solely to conceal the possibility that he has ALREADY been convicted. of a serious offence involving children long before it was announced. Just think it through for a minute.... Venables is amongst one of four people in Britain protected by what are termed ‘Mary Bell’ injunctions. Bell was convicted of the manslaughter of two boys in 1968 and given anonymity after her release. The recipients receive lifetime protection of their real identities. It was recently reported in the Daily Mail that a ‘tight-knit group alone knows the new identity of Jon Venables. It operates in a culture of ‘extreme secrecy’, so even the arresting officers may not have known who they had in their cells. However, theBigRetort believes that...

The Sun newspaper and Operation Trident. TheBigRetort discovers the (black) gangland shootout that never was. On the 1st January 2010, at approximately 5am, following a New Year’s celebration at a family owned pub, Darren Deslandes, a 34-year old housing officer, was shot dead by a black assailant. (His younger brother “junior” still lays critically injured in hospital fighting for life.) "Wild West-style shootout,” the Sun proclaimed in bold writing, with the usual nodding unspoken emphasis to the scum involved. [Sun report, since removed, http://tinyurl.com/yjb82y4 .] Or so a lazy staff reporter intimated… Far from being gun-wielding, drug dealing black street thugs, Darren Deslandes and his brother Junior were only armed with a good education and a loving family, one that had provided foster care for nine children. In fact Darren and Junior were (if anything) plucked out of the air by one piece of prima fascia 'evidence' that stands out on a three-pronged fork: they...

In a remarkable hush-hush scoop TheBigRetort has discovered that David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, regularly injects Botox in his forehead . (Chuckle.) The hope is that voters at the forthcoming general election will be hooked...? In which case the Old Etonian Toff has ironed out the wrinkles on an otherwise furrowed brow and transformed 'hisself into the Peter Pan of British no-policy politics. (Or is that the Peter Pan of English Botox?) Gordon Brown stop smiling on the way to the polls.

The secret to living a longer life, or just a load of plonk? TheBigRetort pulls the cork... Scientists claim that sirtuins, proteins, become increasingly important as people age. It is these proteins that ensure which genes should be “off” - and thereby remain silent as the ageing process continues. Paradoxically it is these same proteins that are believed to repair DNA damage as we age. The critical protein controls which genes are off and on as well as overseeing DNA repair - and there’s the rub. As we age, chromosomes get damaged and the SIR1 proteins are finally overwhelmed. It is this activity that leads to the process of aging, not time itself which moves on inexorably, unconcerned by birthdays and mankind his or herself. But can the aging process itself be slowed? Scientists are beginning to suspect so; mice with more SIRT1 proteins have the improved ability to repair their DNA and prevent the unwanted changes in genes. Resveratrol extended the lifespan in mice by 24 to 46 perc...

A controversial experiment is planned to take place tomorrow that may signal THE END of the Earth. But could experiments like the controversial Large Hadron Collider (LHC) already have taken place? TheBigRetort investigates...and discovers that someone may have got the 'maths' wrong. The LHC Safety Study Group studied the safety of the forthcoming experiment in 2003. It concluded that the planned experiments—there are a number of them--presented no danger. The group focused on two phenomena, namely the possible production of microscopic black holes, the sort that suck you in and blow you out and create additional dimensions of space, which way is up?- and also postulated other exotic phenomena - the possible production of ‘strangelets', hypothetical pieces of matter. The LHC will reproduce, in the laboratory and under controlled conditions, collisions at centre-of-mass energies less than those reached in the atmosphere by some of the cosmic rays that have been bombardin...

Recently we delivered a startling account of the major failings of Eastbourne District General Hospital and its 'aftercare' treatment... of a dead man. Michael Morgan, 51, died in December last and was swiftly cremated on the instruction of hospital officials at 'EDGH': but without the family's knowledge. Following which, they asked for the ashes. Not much to ask given the circumstances one might think, however... it was a request that met with silence. Now, finally, the family has received a response, and it looks as if someone may have removed one of the branches of its family tree. An exclusive from TheBigRetort In "Michael's Ashes" we highlighted the failings of East Sussex NHS Trust and its 'dead patient aftercare'... which was found to be a bit wanting . When Michael Morgan died and his family discovered the death and cremation (nearly three months later and only via a chance encounter) Kim Hodgson, chief executive of East Sussex Trust, i...

As the child of a black man and white woman Barack Obama is often (simply) referred to as 'black'. A description that will one day serve to display a time of ignorance - because Barack Obama is much much more. "There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America - there's the United States of America," Obama once wrote. However, note in the above paragraph from his book The Audacity of Hope that there is no capital letter on black and white. In fact, neither is a nation, and neither is a culture. Obama, born between the two, has already made the journey and knows this. And, although many in the US have leaned heavily on 'skin' difference for quite some time this presidential candidate - if elected - would help a young nation recognise that any 'difference' between them is countered by that which unites: America. Meanwhile, in 2008, a fledgling nation stands at the crossroads. A presidential candidate, b...

Around the globe the words 'domain' and 'cash parking' are synonymous with GoDaddy. So why are 70% of the reviews on the first page of Google so negative? TheBigRetort investigates... and finds the odd Bob or two. (Pictured left, Bob Parsnips, founder GoDaddy.) Google GoDaddy along with Cashparking and it quickly becomes evident that all is not well in Elsinore. (That's Denmark for all our American readers.) Indeed... the praise once heaped on the largest domain name registrar in the world has now turned to opprobrium. There is a pestilence in the land and many a brave knight quickly stirs abroad, to other domains. (Oops. We quote a writer of plays born over here.) What we mean is, here's just one of many critiques... "I like GoDaddy.com and I admire Bob Parsons, his 'bigger than life' personality and panache reflecting on GoDaddy, so it’s not personal, it’s business," one disgruntled critic wrote. He had invested in the GoDaddy C...