At midnight tonight, new Federal Communications Commission rules will bar television networks from blasting viewers with excessively loud, screamy commercial breaks. Adopted a year ago Thursday, the rules "will require commercials to have the same average volume as the programs they accompany," the FCC says. The commission was prompted to action last year when Congress passed the "Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act"—the CALM Act. So enjoy your sanity and not having that feeling of dread for 2 minutes and 2 seconds four times during "Modern Family".Loud-Ass TV Ads Are About to Be Outlawed — By Adam Weinstein, Mother Jones

You have to love this story by Dr. Vicky Forster of the Northern Institute for Cancer Research in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness month."On Christmas day in 1994, whilst the rest of my family were playing games in the lounge, I was asleep in bed upstairs feeling absolutely exhausted, despite the fact that I had only woken up a few hours previously. I had been ill for a few weeks with what the doctor thought was a chest infection. Later that week, when I still wasn’t better, my mum took me to the doctor again who sent me for a blood test."On New Year’s Eve 1994, I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and admitted to St. Bartholomew’s hospital in London for a two and a half year program of treatment..."Read the uplifting details at:

The Bone Wars was the name given to a bitter competition between two paleontologists, Yale's O.C. Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope of Philadelphia. Their mutual dislike, paired with their scientific ambition, led them to race dinosaur names into publication, each trying to outdo the other.In the heat of that competition Marsh discovered the partial skeleton of a long-necked, long-tailed, leaf-eating dinosaur he dubbed Apatosaurus  in 1877. It was missing a skull, so in 1883 when Marsh published a reconstruction of his Apatosaurus, he used the head of another dinosaur, thought to be a Camarasaurus, to complete the skeleton.

Owen Paterson, Environment Secretary, says genetically modified food should be grown and sold widely in Britain and opponents of the technology are talking "humbug". Paterson made the remarks amid speculation that ministers are ready to relax controls on the cultivation of GM crops.What?  Use science to grow food?  Can we get more Brits to re-colonize America, this time in batty anti-science states like California?  Or maybe put a few in the federal government?

How do you know 'citizen science' has gotten to be a popular term?  Two 'citizen-science projects' are charging people to analyze their poop and claiming it will make the world a better place.The American Gut Project wants to 'enroll' 10,000 people to pay money to find out what's living in their intestines. uBiome will settle for 2,000.

Sales of specialty, craft, and small-market beers have improved dramatically in sales, many of the traditional, full-calorie beers that were once the staples of most breweries have fallen behind. In the five years ending in 2011, sales of Budweiser, which was once the top-selling beer in the country for years, have fallen by 7 million barrels. Sales of Michelob are down more than 70%. Based on data provided by Beer Marketer’s INSIGHTS, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the nine large — or once-large — beer brands with a five-year decline in sales of 30% or more.What are people drinking instead? Light beer and microbrews.

The McRib, that cult-favorite pork parts delight, is back in prestigious McDonald's restaurants December 17th - unfortunately the Mayan calendar runs out on the 21st and it has been the big disaster scenario since the American presidential election Nibiru Elenin Harold Camping

North Korean archaeologists are claiming discovery of a unicorn lair. I want this to be true but the source, North Korea's news organization, is even less credible and more partisan than the Huffington Post, where I saw it.

Social authoritarians love big government and lots of regulations - they also tend to love organic food.Now they have met.  The FDA, acting under broad new authority granted by President Obama in 2011, has closed the Sunland, Inc. peanut butter plant in eastern New Mexico - and left it closed.

Bodybuilder Moustafa Ismail, 24, insists that his 31-inch arms are solely the result of training and a diet that consists of 7 pounds of protein, 9 pounds of carbohydrates and 3 gallons of water per day. Guinness World Records is a little bit skeptical and is conducting research to decide whether he will be recognized as a world record holder. Ismail had better hope he gets the guy who had to transport Ryan Braun's doping test results. Otherwise, I think he is going to lose.