Yahoo! Picks - bringing you the best of the Web since 1995

In 458 B.C., an eagle clutching a tortoise mistook "a bald head for a stone" and dropped its catch on the shiny cranium—which, unfortunately, topped the body of the Greek playwright Aeschylus. Thus did the great bird bring to a close the life of the legendary  philosopher-scribe. But what an ending! This tale and others like it may, just may, "be apocryphal." But that doesn't diminish the enjoyment to be found in reading through Wikipedia's list of outlandish historical deaths (or the rumors thereof). From burial by book to drowning by wine, the famous fatalities recounted here are sure to amaze you. We all know Isadora Duncan departed this life thanks to her overreaching scarf, but how many culturally literate folk know of Frank Hayes, the jockey who suffered a heart attack, but still won the race? Or that Henry I loved lampreys that much? Read, enjoy, and keep an eye out for large birds of prey toting reptiles and winging overhead.

No matter how settled the Web becomes, it will always retain something of the wild frontier. One muckraking cowboy can still blast into town, infiltrate the shady goings-on, and kick up a hell of a storm.

Enter Virgil Griffith. This 24-year-old grad student and "disruptive technologist" has unleashed The WikiScanner, a search tool that scours Wikipedia for anonymous edits and connects them with the IP addresses the edits came from. This means that if, say, a change was made to the Wikipedia entry for ExxonMobil and it came from ExxonMobil's IP address, The WikiScanner will reveal it. And so far, it's revealed a lot. Such governmental, religious, and corporate notables as the C.I.A., Wal-Mart, Diebold, the Vatican, and the A.C.L.U. have logged unsigned and—sometimes—eyebrow raising changes to Wiki entries.

Don't take our word for it, though. Get the lay of the land with Wired's "wall of shame." Then hop back to the site and investigate a few organizations of your own. Let the PR showdowns begin.

• "Is the phrase 'the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds' worthy of inclusion" in the exploding whale category?
• "Is apple pie really "all American"?"
• "Did Daffy Duck father any children?" (Or maybe that should be: any ducklings? Eek!)