Month: March 2018

Enlarge / A couple on a beach in the Fench Caribbean island of Martinique. They should keep their shoes on. (credit: Gety | AFP)

The British Medical Journal has dumped a case report containing graphic photos of a couple’s rear-ends infested with parasitic worms—after those sensitive shots were scooped up by several British tabloids, much to the distress of the couple.

The unlucky pair had picked up the unusual infection on vacation, sunbathing on the beaches of Martinique. At the time, the wife reported feeling a burning sensation on her behind, according to Cambridge News. The next day she awoke to find a rash of “red pinprick marks” there, caused by hookworm larva burrowing into her buttocks. Her husband later developed a similar rash on his rump from an infection.

The couple immediately sought treatment and received unhelpful antibiotics and an anti-fungal agent. After an undoubtedly uncomfortable 10-day trip home on a cruise ship, they went to a hospital in Cambridge for treatment. There, they finally received ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug.

Williams Advanced Engineering

Other than Ferrari, no Formula 1 team has won more World Constructor Championships than Frank Williams' eponymous organization. In fact, it's responsible for a car that many agree was the most technologically advanced F1 racer ever to turn a wheel, the active suspension FW14B. Success at the track has been hard to come by in recent years—Williams last won a race in 2012—but designing and building race cars isn't the only thing that happens at its base in Oxfordshire, England. Williams Advanced Engineering, a sister business to the F1 team, has just revealed a rather clever new electric vehicle platform.

The new platform is called the FW-EVX, and it's an integrated design that includes the batteries and their associated cooling, suspension for up to four motors, and crash structures in a scalable design that could be used in midsize or larger electric vehicles. What makes the FW-EVX particularly interesting is that it's extremely lightweight, thanks to extensive use of carbon fiber, not just structurally but also in the suspension.

Enlarge / One of the many games an Illinois student won't be able to play after threatening a school shooting.

A DuPage County, Illinois judge has barred a suburban Chicago-area student from playing violent video games during his home detention at the State's Attorney's request, after the 16-year-old made threats to commit a school shooting.

The Chicago Tribune reports on the case of the unnamed Lake Park High School student, who was allegedly playing a violent game in a February 23 Snapchat post where he wrote, "Y’all need to shut up about school shootings or I’ll do one."

A DuPage County state's attorney spokesperson confirmed to Ars that Assistant State's Attorney Louisa Nuckolls made a motion to bar the student from social media and violent video games as a condition of his release into home detention. Judge Robert Anderson overruled an objection from the student's public defender and admonished the parents, according to the spokesperson, assigning them responsibility for "keeping him off those games."