Hate Crime

Mississippi man was sentenced to life in prison for the 2011 murder of an African-American man. The judge called it an “inexcusable, despicable crime”. Deryl Dedmon pleaded guilty to the murder and “hate crime charge” before the judge in Jackson that was held on Wednesday. The African-American man died (Anderson) died after Dedmon beat and ran over him with his truck. Dedmon was a part of a group of seven while youths for a prominently white community and after partying and drinking one night decided to find some African-Americans and hurt them. Authorities say that Dedmon allegedly “boasted” and laughed about the killing after. Anderson was a line worker at a Nissan plant and sang in his church choir. "James Anderson lost his life for no other reason than the color of his skin," said Morris Dees, chief trial counsel for the law center . "Those responsible must be held accountable for their callous and deadly actions. We are filing this lawsuit today to ensure his family gets a measure of justice."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/21/justice/mississippi-hate-crime/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 

The Cinnamon Challenge

         The “cinnamon challenge” is where people try and swallow 1teaspoon of cinnamon. A Michigan student was hospitalized this week after taking part in the ‘cinnamon challenge’. A high school principal is warning students not to participate and mailing parents about its dangers. The cinnamon induces vomiting, choking, coughing and sometimes hypoxia. There is a Facebook page for this challenge and it says that participants will experience ‘dragon breath’ (exhaling a cloud of cinnamon). Cinnamon does not dissolve in liquid. On the Dr.Drew show they had the record holder, Mick, 24seconds. Dr. Drew said that kids do “stupid stuff, like planking and owling” but said that this was nothing to mess with. The cinnamon collapsed the students left lung and gave her an infection in her nose resulting in pneumonia. She spent 5 days of her winter break in the hospital.

http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-michigan-teen-hospitalized-after-attempting-cinnamon-challenge-20120313,0,2796754.story

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c3#/video/health/2012/03/10/drew-cinnamon-challenge.cnn

Invention to Shut People Up

Kazutake Kurihara of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Koji Tskada of Ochanomize have created a “SpeechJammer” gun! It can silence people more then 30 meters away. The device records its targets speech and fires their words back at them with a 0.2-second delay which affects the brains cognitive process and causes speakers to stutter until they get silenced completely. They say “In general, human speech is jammed by giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds. This effect can disturb people without any physical discomfort, and disappears immediately by stopping speaking." They say it could be used to silence people in public libraries that are being to loud.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/02/japan-invents-speech-jamming-gun-that-silences-people-mid-sentence/