1. Ahmet Coskun, a German wheelchair basketball player, tested positive for a banned substance. He's the second athlete to test positive in the Paralympics this month. Coskun says he was just using the product to grow hair. Link. (Steroids do cause hair to grow...on your back, face and arms.) Via thesesites.
2. Cattle and deer have a tendency to graze in a north-south direction that aligns with magnetic north. No guesses as to why in this article. Via.
3. Meet the Candiru, aka "toothpick fish." It's a tiny little thing native to the Amazon and hunts in a stunningly horrifying way. Seriously, you probably don't want to read this. Via. You can order a Candiru t-shirt here.
4. Here's footage of John McCain soon after his release from Vietnam. Age has not been kind to him:
Dave points out that it was originally called The Cars That Ate Paris. Here's the opening scene of the movie, which demonstrates the dangers of drinking Coca-Cola while driving:
And here's the trailer:
It was actually Peter Weir's first movie, which makes this a good time to point out you can watch all of Weir's excellent Master and Commander thanks to Hulu:
This (I'm not sure how to describe it) performance of Stephen King's short story "N" is a promotion for King's new collection of short stories, Just After Sunset. The art is by Alex Maleev and Jose Villarrubia. But the voice acting and music are so excellent, that the art is really superfluous. The first 11 mini-episodes have been posted, with future episodes coming every day through the end of the month. It's the longest I've sat still for web video in ages.
As I mentioned, the art is largely superfluous. And this isn't the first time I've been disappointed with Marvel's contribution to Stephen King stories. Wizard and Glass is one of my favorite books of all time, but the Marvel adaptation was terrible.
Caffeine tablets, Red Bull, Pepsi, but eventually he falls asleep, and that's when he suffers nightmares. The LA Times has the story, called "Sleep is the enemy."