Delaware Goofy News Roundup

It seems that Delaware has been getting its due out on the internets this past week. Fark has just been filled with plenty of Delaware goodness.

Nanobombs at University of Delaware

Fark(search on Delaware to see link) picked up a story from the University of Delaware about a professor using carbon nanotube "nanobombs" to destroy cancerous tumors. Besides being an abuse of the word nanotechnology and the prefix "nano", close reading of the articles shows that they haven't actually killed any cancer cells with this technique yet.

"They recreated the explosions in solutions including water, phosphate and salt, which meant the nanobombs could be used in the human body."

As with all cancer treatments, getting the treatment to the tumor and then activating it is the hard part. I wish the researchers good luck in their attempts. As for abuse of the term nanotechnology - I am 1.75 billion nanometers tall, but I don't see anybody declaring me a work of nanotechnology.

Delaware is not the smallest state

The above story also generated quite the discussion on Fark about which state is actually the smallest, since the poster incorrectly stated that it was Delaware. By area, the smallest state is of course Rhode Island, but the Fark discussion lent credence to the rumor that Americans don't know their geography, as several other "smallest" states were mentioned in all seriousness.

Delaware gets kudos for things we would never do.

Apparently there is a sardine festival in Aberdeen Gardens that somebody from Delaware attended. Why is Delaware attendance important? Because it was the first line in the article and mistakenly implied that the festival was in Delaware. As far as I know there is no official sardine festival in Delaware. I guess this is our loss.

Delaware has Punkin Chunkin!

What Delaware does have is the World Punkin Chunkin contest, where people build sometimes huge machines to hurl pumpkins thousands of feet. I feel compelled to report this so that fans of flying pumpkins can make their plans accordingly. There have been rumors year after year that the farm where it is held will be sold so this may be the last year that it is in Delaware. I hope we don't lose it. If we do maybe we can bid on the sardine festival.