Just got home from seeing Damien Rice perform, so the news is a wee bit late.
- The pig was always late in Chinese mythology. Happy Lunar New Year!
- The Vietnamese welcomed the Year of the Fire Pig a day earlier than the rest of Asia, all because of the moon’s orbit.
- A renowned German Indologist claims he has decoded the mysterious Indus Valley scripts. He’s renowned for being an Indologist, not a German.
- A Japanese excavation has uncovered four incredibly intact sarcophagi in the Saqqara necropolis.
- Recent discoveries in the Saqqara area shed more light on the history of this Ancient Egyptian necropolis.
- Here’s what Dutch archaeologists have been digging up in Saqqara.
- If you were thinking Zahi Hawass was oddly absent in the previous articles, that’s because he’s been forced to take three weeks off. Quick, investigate the Pyramid shafts while he’s away!
- A new archaeological site dating back to the Harappan period has been discovered.
- A well-preserved coin from 32 BC has Cleopatra on one side and Mark Antony on the other. Which one is heads and which is tails?
- The hairless Mexican Xoloitzcuintle dogs were once used as bed warmers by the Aztecs. Waking up to one of those is the reason I stopped drinking at pubs.
- A new study suggests barley may have undergone domestication twice, with important implications for the beginning of agriculture. My ex-girlfriend tried to domesticate me three times.
- Archaeologists are returning to the Savannah River to investigate the Clovis culture and 50’000-year-old artifacts.
- Native Americans share gene signature with the indigenous people of eastern Russia. It makes sense, it’s where shamanism (and the word) originated. I wonder if they’ve compared Japan’s Ainu people?
- Lasers beamed from space have detected big sloshing lakes of water underneath the Antarctic ice. Let’s hope it’s not meltwater.
- All EU nations must back proposals to cut harmful emissions by 30% by 2020 or risk jeopardising the global effort to curb climate change, calls UK’s environment minister.
- An orbiting spacecraft has sent back new evidence for the presence of water on Mars.
- Experts suggest a 150 million pound space mission should be launched to deflect an asteroid coming our way in 2036. Twelve is the magic number — 2012, 2024, 2036. Ok, I made that up.
- “Recent developments in cosmology have irreversibly changed our understanding of the structure and fate of our universe and of our own place in it,” says Stanford physics Professor Andrei Linde.
- Officials deny that tightened security measures at Prague airport were provoked by a psychic’s predictions.
- John Wenz doesn’t know if he believes in psychic abilities, but neither does he disbelieve.
- Is this photo of a Russian bigfoot legitimate or a hoax? A few shots of vodka and you’ll see it too.
- Alfred Webre, a principle investigator of civilian studies of extraterrestrial communication undertaken by the White House, Pentagon and Stanford Research Institute under President Carter, says there is no doubt about the authenticity of alien visitors.
- Virtual reality is being used to treat soldiers returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder. They make them watch Fox and CNN.
- Here’s audio streams and a transcript of veteran journalist Bill Moyers’ speech at the National Conference on Media Reform in Memphis. Listen to or read it, it’s very important.
- A new article challenges Cuba’s claims that it found the remains of Che Guevara in Bolivia ten years ago.
Thanks Kat, and especially Damien Rice and band.
Quote of the Day:
Big Media is ravenous. It never gets enough. Always wants more. And it will stop at nothing to get it. These conglomerates are an Empire, and they are Imperial.”
Bill Moyers
