Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe THE N'SYNC DEFENSE A 23-year-old San Antonio man has been cleared of charges in the shooting death of another man simply because the freed man looks like pop star Lance Bass of the boy group N'Sync. Advertisement The San Antoinio Express-News reports Richard Brown claimed he shot and killed Eric Acosta in self-defense, saying Acosta and another man had attacked him at a house party and had threatened to cut up his face because some teenage girls had once mistook him for the 'N Sync singer. The paper says Brown told the jury he feared for his life, believed Acosta had a knife and so he shot and killed the man. Prosecutors contended Brown shot Acosta in cold blood but the jury bought the N'Sync defense. SILVER FLEECE GOES TO TWO COMPANIES A University of Illinois at Chicago professor Thursday bestowed Silver Fleece awards on the diet supplement Longevity and Clonaid, the company that claims to have cloned a human being. Advertisement Longevity is sold on the Internet by Urban Nutrition Inc., which promises the product's active ingredient, 2-AEP, helps to strengthen and seal cell walls to protect takers from toxins and diseases. S. Jay Olshansky, professor of epidemiology at the UIC School of Public Health, said there's no reason for anti-aging quackery to flourish in the face of real scientific progress. The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine took issue with Olshansky's position, saying he's part of a "multi-billion dollar gerontological machine" that seeks to discredit innovative scientists. As for picking an organization deserving of the Silver Fleece award, Olshansky said there were many to choose from. "And then Clonaid announced it had cloned a human being and we just couldn't resist," he said. CATS WILL BE CATS There's a little bit of cat scratch fever in Charlotte, N.C., these days. Friends of Feral Felines hopes to save thousands of feral cats that are doing what cats do best -- scratching, marking territory and hunting. The wild furballs have upset folks who say the cats are tearing up flowerbeds and killing birds and other small critters, the Charlotte Observer reports. They want the cats removed, permanently. Advertisement Friends of Feral Felines is pushing a different idea. Instead of trying to change the laws of nature, members of the Charlotte non-profit want to amend them by helping people use humane traps to catch the cats. The group says the cats then will be neutered and returned to the wild, where they will not reproduce and eventually the problem goes away. WORKPLACE RUDENESS AFFECTS PRODUCTIVITY A hostile work environment can help ruin office harmony and reduce productivity, says University of South Florida researcher Lisa Penney. Her survey of full and part-time workers shows 69 percent of respondents had experienced condescending behavior and put-downs on the job. "Incivility is a mild, yet often harmful, form of abuse. It is not necessarily intentional and is often done without the perpetrator realizing that someone has been hurt. It can be a rude comment or something seemingly innocent like not including a co-worker when going out to lunch," Penney says. Her study also found people who experience incivility at work are also more likely to engage in counterproductive behavior.
