Click here to support the Daily Grail for as little as $US1 per month on Patreon

News Briefs 17-12-2004

By Billon

On this night so cold and dreary, the news near-done, my tired eyes bleary,
From seeking lore and science behind the cyber-veil.
Startled now, and nearly falling, in my mind some thing is calling,
Within my brain some ghoul is crawling, demanding now with piercing wail,
” ‘Tis just Greg’s demon,” I muttered, “calling for The Daily Grail.
More time,” I begged, to no avail.

—with apologies to E. A. Poe

  • It may be freezing cold and covered in ice now but 70-million years ago the Arctic Ocean was as tepid as the Mediterranean.
  • Catastrophic flooding from an ancient lake may have triggered a cold period.
  • Here’s one less thing for you to worry about. A French Egyptologist claims that he has conclusive evidence of the builder of the Sphinx.
  • China leads Europe by more than 2,000-years in pig iron casting.
  • How did they know how to fire ceramics 7,000-years ago? Researchers seek to unlock the mysteries of ancient potters.
  • Grave robbers ransack Holy Land history. Haven’t they always done so?
  • Here’s a quick study on the (The Da Vinci) Code vs. Fact. If you know the one of the hundred or so people in the world that haven’t read it yet, it’s available from Amazon US and Amazon UK for Xmas delivery.
  • When Jesus walked in Japan.
  • The shroud’s second image – a growing body of evidence is calling for reassessment of the Turin shroud.
  • Americans have been eating food with a GM content for more than seven years without harm and even, significantly, without a single lawsuit alleging harm. Nobody grew horns either.
  • Cuban President Fidel Castro’s granddaughter has become an U.S. citizen.
  • The United States has eased sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan to facilitate literary and scientific exchanges.
  • A Texas professor searches for the human soul.
  • The rest of you relax, this one is for Shadows and me. If you’ve got roses, you need ladybugs. Probably not in Australia though.
  • The recent extraordinary behavior of one of the world’s most notorious volcanoes, Mount St Helens in the US, may mean it is preparing for a dramatic eruption. Or it may just like to worry people.
  • Scientist to study Hobbit morphing.
  • Life expectancy at birth could reach 100-years over the next two generations. It could be much longer if you listen to the Prophet of Immortality.
  • Life is fragile. A research team discovers the first evidence of life in a rock glacier.
  • Alcohol vulnerability is linked to action of insulin.
  • Vitamin E in plant seeds could halt prostate and lung cancer, but pills don’t work.
  • Got herbs? Herbal remedies found to contain toxic heavy metals.
  • The French government has banned broadcasts by a satellite TV channel run by the militant Hizbullah organization on the grounds of anti-Semitism.
  • Ancient and modern tattoos celebrated in photography book. (photo gallery)
  • Demystifying the quantum properties of exotic materials.
  • If you look into the eyes of someone who is frightened, your brain will pick up on the fear in a split second. This needed a study? Did they think those people playing Texas Hold ‘Em on TV were wearing sunglasses because the sun was out?
  • A bipedal robot learns to run (with video). Okay then, how about a fish-shaped robot for underwater research? Last chance – how about a smart scarecrow?
  • T-ray vision sees through clothes. I want one.
  • The Google Internet Library is called a revolution. Oh no, then everyone could read the books.
  • Mathematicians have made a crochet model of chaos. Mathematicians have never been known for cleverness that the rest of us understand.
  • Stand-by for the Top [insert number here] lists: The Top Ten Space Urban Legends, the Top Five Space-Related Costumes for Adults, the Top Ten Science Discoveries of 2004, the Top Cryptozoology Stories of 2004, and the Top 50 Cryptids From Around The World (no, you don’t, but you will know what a cryptid is).
  • The Megatsunami: A possible modern threat.
  • 2004 is among the hottest years on record. Modern record, anyway.
  • Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) takes on Global Warming in latest work. State Of Fear is available at Amazon US and Amazon UK.
  • An Australian report damns Kyoto.
  • Global Warming melts dreams of a White Christmas. Forgive me – but i love this stuff. ;o)
  • Now that we have Global Warming, bundle up because it’s going to get colder.
  • The daring visionaries of crackpot aviation.
  • Need energy? Plant will make clean power from turkey droppings.
  • NASA eyes the ice changes around Earth’s frozen caps.
  • UFO over Sunraysia? Alien boom spawns theories. The UFO cited in northwest China still baffling.
  • ‘Ultrasound’ may explain a solar weather mystery.
  • Holiday Sky Show: Five planets to shine in predawn.
  • Russian scientists are selecting volunteers to be locked in a capsule for 500-days to test plans for a trip to Mars.
  • A Cassini scientist sees evidence that Saturn’s outer rings could be disappearing.
  • Russia intends to send a neutron gun to Mars aboard a US space mission scheduled to be launched in 2009.
  • Reaching Toward Neptune: Two ways to explore an ice giant.
  • A US firm is proposing to use guided missile technology to make a precision, automated landing on the Moon.
  • Where did life come from? Look at algae, beetles, sponges, jellyfish, snakes, condors, and giant sequoias. If you didn’t know better, you would be hard-pressed to believe that they all came from the same universe, much less the same planet.
  • The outer reaches of our solar system may have been shaped long ago by a close encounter with another star that tore up both nascent planetary systems like colliding buzz saws.

Quote of the Day:

Hey Santa, how much for your list of naughty girls?

Greg Miller

Bill
Related

16 Comments

  2. That Macleans article sure is
    That Macleans article sure is rough. “Sticking to facts” shouldn’t include so much sarcasm. Still, can’t expect too much from a pop magazine and a 2 page blurb.

  3. Frenchman ‘knows’ who built the Sphinx?
    Not according to the programme I watched the other night, here in the UK.

    Some nice theories from Mr. Dobrev, but with wild filling in of the blanks of our knowledge of the history of the Giza Plateau and those involved in the buildings.

    I could put up with many of the errors contained in the programme, but the one that raised my ire was the brief reference to a ‘wild’ theory that the Sphinx was older than thought. That the rear of the Sphinx’s enclosure exhibited water erosion was not disputed, but instantly dismissed by an ‘expert’ (I missed his name and credentials) who determined that the erosion, which he stated was due to both water and wind abrasion, had taken place well within the last 2000 years.

    The fact that the area has been very dry, and the Sphinx enclosure filled with sand during the last 2000 years was not mentioned. Something so important, something that could destroy Vassil Dobrev’s theory in an instant, deserved much more that this, and the programme maker at least, should have understood this issue.

    I know as an old timer on the T.D.Grail circuit, that I should not be surprised at this sloppy investigation, but I lived in hope! Needless to say, it put me off watching the live ‘Golden Mummy excavation’ that followed on the following day, and from other comments from Grailers, this was a good choice on my part.

    But ever the optimist, I live in hope of a proper and unbiased investigation in the future, not just for the Sphinx, but the Giza Plateau as a whole.

    Nostra

  4. Da Vinci Code v fact
    I have not read the book yet, so have no axe to grind. However the code v fact article seem a little bias to me. I also recall that the Friday 13th part was fact, not fiction as inferred.

    Nostra

    1. fact vs. fiction
      Let’s take on some of their “facts”. They remind me of a certain other person I know who seems to think that his opinion is fact, whereas others’ opinion are opinion.

      “FACT” 1: “and the idea Christians did not think their saviour was divine — not a chance”

      See Adoptionism — early Christian heresy — also Ebionism. Brown is essentially right about the diversity of early Christology, even if he mis-states his history.

      “FACT” 2: “What 80 gospels?” Hmmm, that looks like a question, not a fact.

      I will be glad to send them a copy of Willis Barnstone’s _The Othe Bible_, which is a collection of pseudipigrapha, apocrypha, and gnostic scripture. It contains at least 80 pieces of Biblically/canonically excluded literature. Even if we narrow our search to Gospels alone and exclude infancy narratives, I see about a dozen in this book. Dan Brown may be loose with his numbers but his point stands.

      “FACT” 3: “The Crusades’ complex mix of motives did not include archaeological research”

      We don’t know that for sure. In fact, some Templar artefacts found underneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (such as spurs from their boots) suggest they may well have been excavating underneath.

      “FACT” 4: Friday the 13th has to do with Jesus

      Perhaps, but it is the case that the Templars were first arrested on Friday the 13th, 1307, and that’s fact, too.

      A lot of what they call “FACTS” I call smarky comments, which do not constitute facts, even if they point to things that may be partially true (which is true in most cases).

      Steven Mizrach
      Academic, Pop Culture Junkie, Grail Recycler

    1. E. A. Poe
      Hi Shadows,

      Thank you Shadows.

      I wish Greg would quit sending that demon over here when the news update is the slightest bit late. She wouldn’t leave this time until I made her a sandwich and got her a beer. I don’t like her, but I think Jameske has made friends with her. ;o)

      As for the pseudo-Poe, I’ll do it again sometime.

      Bill

      1. is this a secret?
        Oh Bill, is this supposed to be a secret? You won’t get into trouble for telling me will you?
        Jameske is Irish and has those winning Irish ways about him, he can’t help it, it is like walking around with a deadly weapon.
        Its a bit like the Aussies used to say about the Yanks during the second war when they invaded Oz and went off with all the women.
        “They’re over-paid; over-sexed, and over here”.
        The Yanks were taller, better fed,more handsome due to a better conglomerate of genes, better dressed and better paid, and they had that accent to die for.
        And something even more precious than that.They treated the Aussie women like women, calling them all Ma’am.
        No Aussie sheila had ever been called Ma’am in her life until then.
        That’s when the Aussie love affair started with the Americans and I don’t think has ever finished.

        shadows

  6. lady beetles
    Good story on lady beetles.I see plenty around here.
    Everything I know about roses I learned from the Texas Rose Rustlers, a group of people who go out and rustle roses from old cemetaries and parks and old houses where they have been planted maybe a hundred years ago and take cuttings home and try to propagate them.
    Thanks for that link Bill, I will pass it on to my rose people.

    shadows

  7. turkey droppings
    Talking about turking droppings………
    this morning something ran over my roof.It jumped and landed on the roof and then I heard it run off on its FEET.
    I emphasise feet because I know the sound of possums’ feet and I don’t think it was a koala because koalas drop to all fours when they run and this ran on two BIG FEET.
    It maybe swung from the big mango tree on the footpath onto the umbrella trees in my yard and then onto the roof where it took off on TWO BIG FEET.
    Having lived with possums in the roof and koalas in nearby trees I can assure you that this was not either.
    But it had BIG FEET.
    There will be a reward offered to the person or persons who can identify for me the owner of the big feet.
    Thank you,

    shadows

      1. Devonshire devil
        Hi Bill,
        I thought about the Devonshire devil, is that the one they called Springheeled Jack?
        There are no prints that I can see because my the trees in front of the house are close to the road so it would have had to jump over the fence.
        I thought of the cat next door but it sounded too heavy for a cat.I have a tin roof and if it was a cat it would have had to have bounded slowly to get the effect I heard.
        I can give you second prize for that answer Bill but not first prize you understand don’t you?

        shadows

        1. Devonshire devil
          Hi Shadows,

          I’m not familiar with Springheeled Jack.

          If you’re not buying into the Devonshire devil, lets try something more conventional.

          If it was on my roof, my first guess would be a possum, my second would be a cat. Third guess would be a raccoon, but y’all probably don’t have raccoons there. I never would have guessed koala. Y’all have some strange varmints down there.

          Bill

          1. not a raccoon
            Hi Billy,
            Nope we’all don’t have them sort of varmints down here, them raccoons, although they look very pretty in the pictures.
            I live in a koala corridor where the koalas move from one feeding area to another and often dogs have them treed around here.
            I suspect it was a koala as they are bottom heavy and this was a heavy step.I really should go and see where it could be in case local dogs get it.
            My dogs would get eaten by a koala as the dogs are so tiny and koalas are so ferocious.I have had a few nasty bites from them over the years when trying to save their little lives for them.And then they piddle all over you.Not my favourite creatures.
            Actually it really sounded like a wombat, but I can’t imagine any wombat I have known climbing on a roof, or even moving at any speed.
            The American animals I love best are armidilloes.To me they look like something from another planet.
            And then you have prairie dogs which I have actually seen, and mountain lions and bears.Great animals.
            I watched Equinox the movie the other day,and at the end the bloke stands atop the Grand Canyon.At least I think it is the GC.
            Stuuuunnninnngg!!!!!!!!!!!!
            A couple of cousins of mine, both professors used to do bus trips around America in their holidays every year.Over 50 years I think they covered every part of America and can speak with authority about any place.I am so jealous of them.
            Not to mention Texas for roses, the best rose growing place in the world.
            Oh well, when the temperature drops down to a breathable level I will go and look for tracks.
            Options still open.

            shadows

  8. UFO over Mildura
    I too have had a UFO experience similar to that of the people in Mildura.When they said that it could have been a satellite only it was moving I recalled my sighting.
    Some years ago when I lived in the country I used to go up the paddock at night with my dogs to star gaze.
    I used to try and identify the constellations but was not very good at it.
    One night I was watching a group of three stars wondering if I could fit them into a constellation when suddenly one of the stars moved.It travelled in a twisted sort of path around the other two stars and then stayed there looking the same as it was before.
    I was fascinated and could not take my eyes off it, realising that I had seen this object move in a strange way.
    Then one of the other stars in the group began to blink off and on, for 2 or 3 times, and the first star blinked back to match it.
    I felt that I had witnessed something not of this world and watched for about another hour but did not see any more movement.
    That is the sum total of my UFO viewing but it was a good one.
    I think UFO stories are probably my very favourite of all stories.

    shadows

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Mobile menu - fractal