News Briefs 20-08-2008

Three months and counting...

• Keilor Valley locals unite with environmentalists and archaeologists to oppose garbage dumps. Never upset a 7-foot-tall mega wombat.
• New research suggests humans caused the extinction of megafauna, not the end of the last Ice Age. We never stopped.
• Pollution, overfishing responsible for massive increase in ocean 'dead zones'.
• Canadian journalist Will Thomas on food as a weapon and fighting back with independent organic farming. Food for thought.
• Psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar writes about the benefits of psychedelic drugs.
• Incredible video of San Pedro ceremony, a Peruvian shamanic psychedelic.
• North Dakota man faces five years in prison for $32 of Salvia divinorum leaf.
• You'll find this hard to believe, but the U.S. military is paying scientists to study mind-reading... via synthetic telepathy.
• The incredible memories of elephants may hold key to survival in the worst of times.
• Quantum 'uncollapse' muddies definition of reality. When was it ever clear?
• If we have free will, then so do subatomic particles, say two mathematicians.
• Clues to life on Mars found in prehistoric Mexican crater. Too many burritos, RPJ.
• A new pic of the Yucatan cave system known as Xibalba, the Mayan underworld.
• Pre-Hispanic tombs and well-preserved textiles found in Machu Picchu, Peru.
• Ruins of a pagan temple from the second century AD excavated in Israel.
• 5000 years ago, women were in control of Iran's Burnt City. Today, they get 20-years prison when they're raped.
• If you want to get off this planet, here are the Top 10 exoplanets.
• Larry W. Bryant's FOIA request regarding a CIA UFO cover-up in 1987 involving the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.
• Small, metallic UFOs are attacking people in Brazil with stabbing beams of light causing blood loss. Mosquitoes have gone high-tech.
• Chinese Roswell: 1947 document recently uncovered in Chengdu archives details an investigation of a crashed flying saucer in Sichuan. The official explanation -- American weather balloon!

Thanks Greg and Kat.

Quote of the Day:

Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awoke, and there I lay, myself again.. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming that I am a man.

Chuang-Tzu, 3rd century BC