Sadly, Slayer's holiday jumper has sold out. This is the perfect evolution of the black heavy-metal t-shirt, something for an aging headbanger cohort. I hope they do pajamas and hot water bottle cozies next.

Slayer Christmas Holidays Jumper (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Here's a story that combines two favorite bits of volcano news into one interesting discovery. You know those great, freaky photos of volcanic lightning? (In case you don't, I've got one posted above.) Remember how the Icelandic volcanic eruptions totally screwed up everybody's airplane travel plans?

Apparently, studying volcanic lightning could lead to better eruption detection systems that could make it easier to predict how big a plume of ash off that volcano will be—knowledge that can help airlines and travelers be better prepared. At Nature, Richard Monastersky reports:

The researchers found that the amount of lightning correlated with the height of the plume, something they could not test using more limited data collected during an eruption at Alaska’s Mount St Augustine in 2006. This observation is important, says Behnke, because systems to monitor lightning could provide an estimate for the size of an eruption, which is not always easy to assess for remote volcanoes.

During a previous eruption at Mount Redoubt in 1989 and 1990, for example, the size of the plume wasn’t known and a plane nearly crashed after passing through the ash cloud and temporarily losing all power from its engines. Behnke and her colleagues suggest that VHF stations similar to the ones they installed at Mount Redoubt could be used to monitor volcanoes to give early warning of an eruption and an estimate of its size.

Read the rest at Nature.com

Motörhead has officially disavowed the "Complete Early Years Box Set" new $600 product issued by the band's former label, a division of Universal Music Group, which controls the rights to the band's early recordings. Quoted on CNN, the band's frontman Lemmy Kilmister said "Unfortunately greed once again rears its yapping head. I would advise against it even for the most rabid completists!" (I can't locate an underlying source for this quote -- it's not clear whether the band published the statement somewhere, issued a press-release, or were interviewed by CNN). Writing in this Motörhead forum, a fan called Juggernaut describes the set as a "re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-release."

Housed in a Motörhead-style skull with red light-up eyes, the package includes the eight early albums -- from the self-titled debut to "No Remorse" -- plus the band's early singles, along with some posters and a photo book.

"Motörhead have no control over what's done with these early songs, and don't want fans to think that the band is involved in putting out such a costly box set," the band said.

CNN notes that the band has a new DVD/CD set out called "The Wörld Is Yours," which they do endorse.

You may recall that Elvis Costello recently decried his own label's box set reissue of his discography, and exhorted his fans to buy a Louis Armstrong box-set instead, and, if necessary, to acquire his own music by "unconventional means."

Motorhead: Don't buy our new box set