Yeah! We’re big big fans of Heroes and most certainly think it’s one of the breakaway hits so far this season, so we were happy to hear that NBC recently announced they are upping their order of episodes up to 22, giving Heroes a full first season. This is a great sign for a show that’s only just getting to their third aired episode of the season. Heroes is pulling in viewers, averaging around 13.5 million, putting it at the top of it’s Monday time slot and number 1 as the new series among the coveted adults 18-49 demo (tied with an ABC show we don’t care about).

Read more: NBC picks up Heroes for a full season (Via TV Squad)

CERN is close to launching their latest experiment, a 27km-long circular particle accelerator, which will be used to (hopefully) replicate a miniture version of the Big Bang. The experiment will run for over 10 years, with the first useful bits of information being returned within the first year. Don’t worry, the probability of the Earth being destroyed during the experiment is only 10 to the minus 40th power.

Read more: Baby bang experiment has small chance of destroying Earth

If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Words to live by I’m afraid. Still, many seem to think they’ve gotten lucky, falling into a $5,000 home theater system or LCD HDTV for say, $300, out of the back of a van driven by 2 cagey salesmen carrying a slick magazine story on the item, a fake domain and a story about wanting to just go grab some beers and head to a strip club. I’ve been approached before and I’ve always wondered to myself how well these scam artist’s business went. Now I know, business is doing quite well. While surfing around, I came upon this huge post at an audiophile’s forum, from many users claiming to have been scammed by these parking lot crooks, usually describing the same MO, two guys in a van or SUV, selling an extra $2000-$5000 home cinema system that they don’t want to tell their boss about. Remember all, never buy anything from anyone whose storefront is on 4 wheels and in the mall parking lot.

Read more: Lots of people getting scammed with fake home theater systems

Whosa whasa happenin’ now? I missed this yesterday, but, in recent statements from Kazakhstani officials, one of the (no doubt highly important and numerous) topics that the visiting Kazakhstani president will cover on his official state visit with George Bush will be that of Borat / Ali G’s frowned-upon portrayal of his country. Even though more people in the west are aware of Kazahkstan now than ever before, mostly thanks to Ali G, the Kazakhstani (ok I’m not typing this again) president feels that his country’s image is being tarnished which they are planning to defend via legal action against Borat AKA Ali G AKA Sacha Baron Cohen.

Read more: Bush to hold talks over Borat / Ali G | Stop Borat

Steve Irwin, AKA the Crocodile Hunter, has died today after a stingray being filmed for his latest underwater documentary stung Irwin, resulting in the barb piercing his chest. Irwin, the animal handler / television personality everyone loved to hate, was 44 and is survived by his American wife Terri, who was often seen in Irwin’s documentaries, and his two children, Bindi Sue and Robert.

Read more: Crocodile Hunter dies after accident with stingray

An elderly man on welfare, who regularly searched through convenience store trash bins in the hopes of finding a winning lottery ticket hit the jackpot in October 2005. While searching through a local store’s trash he found a discarded lottery ticket worth $1 million, which he immediately claimed, sparking a fierce battle between the ticket’s original purchaser, who states he threw away the ticket by accident and was entitled to the money, rather than Edward St. John, the 83 year old pensioner who lives in subsidized housing in the Blackstone, Massachusetts area. The court battle was fierce, with an April 2006 decision of the Massachusetts Lottery Commission concluding that a lottery ticket is like cash, requiring only possession to show ownership. Shortly after, Kevin Donovan, the 49 year old who claimed ownership of the winning ticket passed away after suffering a massive heart attack. At this point, Donovan’s family took up the case, challenging the commission’s ruling and attempting to lock-up the winnings in court for as long as necessary to reclaim the winnings. This meant that the longer the court case was open, the chances of St. John’s passing grew, meaning there was a great chance he wouldn’t live to enjoy the payoff from his found ticket. This prompted him to settle with Donovan’s family for the sum of $140,000 or $7,000 annually for the next 20 years, with St. John getting $43,000 annually for the next 20 years, before taxes of course. St. Johns plans to share the money with his older brother and will have to move out of his house now that his annual income exceeds the maximum allowed for government subsidized housing.

Read more: Man finds winning lottery ticket in the trash, gets sued by the person who threw it away

To be filed in the “when hell freezes over” category, India’s highest court last week demanded that Coca-Cola, along with PepsiCo, supply details of it’s chemical composition and ingredients, after a study there claimed they both contained high levels of pesticides. According to the report, the amount of pesticide residue contained within the soda has grown more than 25 times the amount found 3 years ago in a similar study performed by Indian researchers. The two companies are regular targets for politicians in India, who regard western food products as a threat to Indian heritage and aren’t too happy with the two companies’ relative monopoly of the Indian soft-drink market. It’s highly doubtful that either company will reveal their recipes, so really all anyone can do is sit-back and see if Indian officials are able to actually pass a law banning the sale of the two largest soda-brands on the planet (or see how thick the envelopes full of cash handed to them will be). According to some reports from Coca-Cola, the only two people in the world with access to the bank vault containing Coke’s secret recipe aren’t even allowed to travel on the same aircraft together. The last time a report like this surfaced, schools banned cola sales and Coke’s sales dropped by 11% in the subsequent financial quarter.

Read more: Coke and Pepsi might have to reveal their secrets in India

Chuck Shephard is the father of odd-news reporting, starting in the 1970s with his zine “View from the ledge”, Chuck has been collecting, reporting and syndicating odd news bites long before Fox News was ending their broadcasts with their feel-good puff pieces or stupid crook stories. Chuck’s column is currently published in over 250 daily and weekly newspapers throughout the U.S. and Canada. Posting weekly round-ups on his site and daily blasts via his blog, Chuck documents just about every odd or strange news snippet you could imagine, from dead cow carcasses mysteriously placed in trees to incompetent crooks to just plain weird tales of a detiriorating society. Chuck works from morning until night documenting judgment-challenged people committing weird news and is an inspiration to all of us here at Bunch of Nerds. One such example of Chuck’s work:

Ernest G. Johnson, 42, was arrested in Shreveport, La., in May after he, posing as an insurance company employee, roamed the corridors at LSU Hospital seeking to photograph women wearing casts. Said a police detective, “It’s like all he wants is to be in the presence of a woman with a cast on and have her attention.”

Read more: [News of the Weird | News of the Weird breaking reports]

We love Arrested Development here at Bunch of Nerds, as many of you (hopefully) do. Naturally with it’s horrid treatment by Fox (boooo, hisssss) we were pretty bummed out when the final nail in it’s coffin was hammered in, resulting in the show’s cancellation. But with the latest Emmy nominations comes a bit of interesting gossip that the idea of an Arrested Development movie is (still) being tossed around. Though the chances are pretty slim, it’s still great to know there’s SOME sort of life left in Arrested Development, though how much money is actually left in the property remains to be seen.

…I’m pretty sure that, obviously it rests on Mitch [Hurwitz], any sort of project like that would have to come from him. It would be something that he would be really passionate about. If the story was right and you felt like that the story was right, and by story I mean money, was large enough, then he’d do it…

[Will Arnett on an Arrested Development movie]

Indie superstars Introversion Software have confirmed their next title, Defcon, will finally see the light in September 2006. After missing their previously announced deadline for April, and having a problematic Alpha/Beta testing phase, it’s good to finally see the War Games inspired title coming out! I know a group of dudes waiting for some online multi-player thermonucleur destruction (of the virtual, digital kind of course).

[Defcon | Introversion confirms Defcom September release]