More things that don't make sense

Number 14: Why are intelligent people from serious news sites fooled into thinking newscientist.com is a reputable news source?

New Scientist fell prey to the N Things meme a couple of years ago - or I started noticing it a couple of years ago. Either way I wish they would concentrate on more pithy articles instead of these, sensationalist borderline crank science (insufficiently reviewed TOEs) and the dreary engagement with religion and philosophy.

I found The Bloop to be particularly interesting.<p><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327246.500-13-more-things-the-bloop.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327246.500-13-more-t...</a>

Magnetic monopoles don't seem rational. It would be like asking for something with only a front side, no back side.<p>Whereas a charge is something completely different. It's basically, a ratio of electrons to protons.

re #11 (Existence of monopoles): <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090903163725.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090903163725.ht...</a> (second result on Google News)

I find several of these interesting: Dark flow, high-energy photons travelling more slowly, and the lack of gravitational waves are especially intriguing (moreso than the others for no particularly deep reason other than these are the ones I prefer to think about). However, the pop-science nature of the article is a bit annoying.

The segment about the bloop is worth the 'n things' pattern.

I was under the impression that Morgellon's was viral media for A Scanner Darkly.