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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 8: "ASCII Art." Several tech blogs noted today that if you enter "ascii art" into the Google search engine, you'll find an ASCII representation of Google's logo next to the results. ASCII art is a graphic-design technique that uses only the symbols and characters available on your computer keyboard to create images. The most well-known example is probably the truck made out of @ symbols.
No. 24: "death risk rankings." Carnegie Mellon researchers launched a new Web site today that compiles public data from the United States and Europe to compare mortality risks. Visitors to the site can compare the risk of dying as a 22-year-old female in New Jersey, for example, versus the risk of dying as a 22-year-old female in France. (The results indicate it's a good time to move to Europe.) They found that while men have a much higher annual death risk than women, women in their 30s and 40s have a much higher risk of getting cancer than men. Visit Deathriskrankings.com to find out your chances of dying.
No. 98: "Pentacene." This month's issue of Science (out today) contains the first published image of individual atoms within a molecule. IBM scientists were able to capture the image by using an atomic force microscope. The molecule they chose to examine, Pentacene, is a crystal structure known for its properties as an organic semiconductor. Watch a video interview with the scientists here.
Photograph of ASCII art courtesy Porsche997SBS at Wikipedia Commons.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 5: "Megan Wants a Millionaire Winner." Actually, there will be no winner on VH1's reality TV show, "Megan Wants a Millionaire." Accusations that Ryan Jenkins, one of the show's finalists, murdered his wife, former swimsuit model Jasmine Fiore, led to the "indefinite postponement" of the program. VH1 has canceled any future airings, removed all links and photos from its Web site, and made all previously aired videos unavailable on iTunes. Questions have arisen about VH1's casting procedures after it was revealed that Jenkins has a prior history of assault.
No. 42: "boycott Scotland." A Scottish justice's decision to release Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the terrorist behind the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, has prompted a "boycott Scotland" campaign. Bloggers are encouraging people to cancel any pending travel plans to Scotland and to stop buying Scottish products. Visit Boycottscotland.com for more information.
No. 55: "Hermann Ratjen." Allegations that South Africa's Caster Semenya is really a man instead of a woman have led to an uptick in searches for Hermann "Dora" Ratjen, the only verified case of gender cheating in Olympics history. As the story goes, at the request of the Nazi Youth movement, Hermann entered the competition for the Women's High Jump at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics as "Dora." Ratjen won the event, but was later outed by two women who spotted him with a five o'clock shadow. After he was exposed, Ratjen stated, "For three years I lived the life of a girl. It was most dull."
Photograph of Hermann "Dora" Ratjen courtesy of Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) via Wikimedia Commons.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 10: "world's smallest deer." The world's smallest deer is just one of 353 new species discovered in the Eastern Himalayas in the past decade, according to a new report by the World Wildlife Fund. The adult "leaf deer" measures just 20 inches tall, weighs 25 pounds, and was discovered in 1999 by American researchers. The staggering biological diversity of the Eastern Himalayas, estimated to host 10,000 plant species, is due to its location at the confluence of two continental plates. Naturally, the region is being threatened by logging and agriculture.
No. 12: "red dawn." A remake of the '80s action flick Red Dawn is slated to pit a team of American high schoolers called the Wolverines against Russian and Chinese invaders when it's released in 2010. Sparking a Google trend today is news that Tom Cruise's 14 year-old adopted son, Connor, has been cast in the film. Last year, Connor made his big-screen debut in the Will Smith film Seven Pounds.
No. 36: "angelina breastfeeding statue." Not too much to say about this Daniel Edwards sculpture of a silver, nude Angelina Jolie breast-feeding one black baby and one white baby. Happy Monday.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 15: "xbox live down" and No. 57: "cyxymu." Gamers are seeking out Google to find out why they couldn't get their Xbox Live fix yesterday. The social media blog Mashable reported that the site was down for an hour and lamented that "gaming was once again a solitary experience." It's likely the glitch was part of a larger Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack that also affected the social networking sites Twitter, Facebook, and LiveJournal. Russian patriots attempting to silence Cyxymu—a Georgian blogger who was critical of last year's war between Russia and Georgia—were behind the attack, according to the Guardian.
No. 32: "Alison Byrne Fields." John Hughes fan Alison Byrne Fields revealed on her blog yesterday that the recently deceased famous director was her pen pal for two years while she was in high school. He consoled her when her English teacher gave her bad grades, telling her to write to "please herself" and confessed that he wrote to her more than any living member of his family. In one letter, he admitted: "Truly, hope all is well with you and high school isn't as painful as I portray it."
No. 81: "Chelsea Clinton." What's it gonna be, Chelsea, yes or no? On Thursday, when a Kenyan man offered 40 goats and 20 cows for the former first daughter's hand in marriage, Hillary didn't reply with a firm "no." "My daughter is her own person, very independent, so I will convey this very kind offer," she told Fareed Zakaria of CNN. This comes after the Clintons denied rumors in early May that Chelsea would marry boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky in the town of Chilmark, Mass., on Martha's Vineyard this summer. (Yes, the same town that the Obamas will retire to at the end of August.)
Photograph of Chelsea Clinton courtesy of Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images.
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If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.):
No. 5: "Trina Thompson." A 27-year-old Monroe College graduate is suing her alma mater for $70,000 because she can't find a job. "They have not tried hard enough to help me," Thompson said of the Bronx-based college, where she majored in Information Technology. If Thompson wins her lawsuit, New York colleges could be inundated by unemployed comp lit majors looking to recoup their tuition: The city's jobless rate jumped to 9.5 percent last month.
No. 42: "Sudan Trouser woman." Meanwhile, in Sudan, women are being arrested for wearing pants. Lubna Hussein is a former U.N. worker who was picked up at a restaurant in a raid by morality police and sentenced to 40 lashes for wearing "indecent" trousers. Hussein is appealing the verdict in order to draw attention to women's rights issues in Sudan.
No. 94: "1916 shark attacks." It's shark week. The Discovery Channel's annual aquatic bloodbath kicked off yesterday with a two-hour dramatization of a spate of 1916 shark attacks on the Jersey Shore that eventually inspired Peter Benchley's Jaws. Mike Hale in the New York Times explains the misleading-but-enthralling "shell game" Discovery plays each year with Shark Week: "exploiting the queasy fear that sharks inspire while noting in passing how rarely they attack."
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sponsorship
If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 20: "Seinfeld reunion." Larry David, after previously denying rumors of a Seinfeld reunion, recently announced that there will be a meta-reunion during this season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. David told the Los Angeles Times that the former cast members will play themselves and act out the process of writing a Seinfeld episode. The season finale will feature snippets of the show-within-the-show.
No. 22: "Eminem the warning." Eminem released a new single yesterday in which he brings the escalating feud between himself, Mariah Carey, and Carey's husband, Nick Cannon, to a new level. He says he started the word-war because Carey denied sleeping with him, then disses Carey's video for "Obsessed," in which the stalker character bears a striking resemblance to Eminem. (Carey claims the song was inspired by "Mean Girls.") Finally, he warns Cannon: if "you gonna ruin my career, you better get one." Listen to the song here.
No. 29: "Hanging Gardens of Babylon." According to a new United Nations report, the U.S. military did irreparable damage to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The gardens were built in 600 B.C. by Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar to help cure his sick wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the flora of her former home in Persia. In 2003, the U.S. Military took over the former site to create Camp Alpha.
Photograph of Eminem courtesy of Kevin Winter/Getty Images.
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sponsorship
If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
No. 1: "Cash for Clunkers." The Obama administration's Car Allowance Rebate System (colloquially known as the "cash for clunkers" program) begins today, although NPR reports that some dealerships have already jumped the gun. The program allocates $1 billion to be distributed across the country to Americans who are willing to trade in their old gas guzzlers for more energy efficient cars. Visit cars.gov for the full guidelines before November 1st, when the funding for the program runs out.
No. 15: "Emma Watson Died." Googlers seem misguided this morning: Emma Watson is not, in fact, dead. She did, however, recently confirm that she was going to Brown and not, as the Daily Mail reported, Columbia.
No. 72: "Jay Z Run This Town." Jay-Z released today his much anticipated single, "Run This Town," from his upcoming album "Blueprint 3." The track was originally supposed to feature Drake, but now includes the one-two punch of Rihanna and Kanye West. Yesterday, Jay-Z announced that he would be making his first U.S. festival appearance this summer filling in for the Beastie Boys at All Points West after it was announced that Adam Yauch had cancer.
Photograph of Emma Watson courtesy of MAX NASH/AFP/Getty Images.
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sponsorship
If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 1: "Erin Andrews video peep." Searches for a secretly-filmed tape of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews undressing in a hotel room were the hottest trend on Google today. What to add to the glut of commentary, meta-commentary and meta-meta-commentary surrounding the affair? Over at Slate's sister publication Newsweek, blogger Jennie Yabroff has an interesting take: "Privacy, it seems, is the new nudity. This is why, when Jennifer Aniston poses topless for the cover of GQ magazine no one does more than shrug, but when paparazzi catch her sunbathing topless, its tabloid fodder for weeks. ... It's as though ... the only time we're truly interested in watching is when they don't want us to look."
No. 9: "world of warcraft movie." The hugely popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft (subscribers: 11 million) is becoming a movie. The film will be directed by Sam Raimi, the man behind the Spider-Man series and, most recently, the horror flick Drag Me to Hell. Reactions on the official World of Warcraft messageboards ranged from geek-out ("Best. News. Ever!") to skepticism ("You understand that this man ok-ed the dance scene in Spider-man 3?").
No. 10: "Three Body Problem." It's not what you have on your hands after a triple-homicide: Solving the Three-Body Problem was in fact a crucial mathematical prerequisite for the 1969 Apollo 11 landing. Before we put a man on the moon, mathematician Richard Arenstorf needed to predict precisely how three bodies—the Earth, the moon, and the Apollo 11 spacecraft—would interact in space. Not an easy task, but Arenstorf solved the problem, received the NASA Medal of Scientific Achievement, and the rest is history.
Photograph of director Sam Raimi by FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty.
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sponsorship
If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)
No. 15: "Angelas Ashes." Frank McCourt, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Angela's Ashes, died yesterday at age 78. McCourt wrote the book chronicling his miserable childhood in Ireland after more than three decades teaching in New York City public schools. In 2007, McCourt wrote in Slate that "when the book was published in Ireland, I was denounced from hill, pulpit, and barstool. ... Citizens claimed I had disgraced the fair name of the city of Limerick, that I had attacked the church, that I had despoiled my mother's name, and that if I returned to Limerick, I would surely be found hanging from a lamppost."
No. 46: "nomura s jellyfish." What's with July and huge sea creatures? Last week a 20-foot-long shark washed ashore in New York while jumbo flying squid terrified residents of Southern California; now massive Nomura's jellyfish are ballooning up from the deep off the coast of Japan. The jellyfish can grow as large as 6 and a half feet in diameter and weigh as much as 450 pounds—big enough to destroy Japanese fishermen's expensive nets. This is the third invasion in less than five years: During the 2005 episode, an estimated 300 million to 500 million of the jellyfish passed through Japan's Tsuhima Strait daily.
No. 59 "Michael Collins." As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin traipsed about the surface 40 years ago today, Michael Collins—the oft-forgotten third Apollo 11 astronaut—was sailing around the dark side of the moon in the command module. "I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life," Collins wrote in his 1969 memoir Carrying the Fire. "If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side."
Photograph of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins courtesy of NASA/Getty Images