It’s summer time in Texas and it’s hot. Must be global warming.
- A 28,000-year-old phallus is found in Germany.
- Peruvian ‘writing’ system goes back 5,000-years. Same folks that used the yupana discussed previously on TDG.
- Australopithecus afarensis, aka Lucy, walked upright, according to an evolutionary robotics model.
- After a long legal battle, scientists are studying Kennewick Man, an ancient skeleton that could change theories about the first Americans.
- A Jewish catacomb in Rome predates its Christian counterparts by at least 100-years, indicating burial in the city’s sprawling underground cemeteries may not have begun as a Christian practice.
- Zahi is getting his stuff back, from Belgium, the USA, and Australia. BTW, he also wants the Rosetta Stone.
- A road scheme aimed at diverting traffic away from Stonehenge is becoming a money pit.
- At log last, as promised, the robots are coming. What do you want yours to do? Easy, big fellow!
- A machete-carrying mob armed with Molotov cocktails fire-bombed the headquarters of a bizarre Malaysian cult built around a giant teapot. Yes, a teapot. Go ask Alice.
- An international consortium of 7 universities and research centers are seeking an alternative to silicon-based microelectronics in using molecules of DNA. The implications of DNA-based circuits boggle the mind.
- Sex makes people healthy, cheerful, strong, beautiful and sleepy. Some of us want a smoke afterwards, too.
- The word “fail” should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase “deferred success” to avoid demoralizing pupils.
- Britain plans to replace its aging scientific research station in the Antarctic with a structure on skis so that it can move away from dangerous ice.
- Parrot proves it’s no birdbrain, but we knew that, didn’t we.
- Tuskless elephants are evolving in China due to poaching.
- A young Norwegian couple believes they can save the world’s rainforests with Eco-Porn. It gives new meaning to the term ‘tree huggers’.
- Star Trek’s Scotty dies aged 85.
- A huge dinosaur graveyard, the biggest haul of dinosaur bones found in Australia, has been discovered in Queensland.
- ForteanTimes presents an in-depth study of the Nazis’ involvement with the realm of the occult in Himmler’s Fortress of Fear.
- Scientists worry about Pentagon’s new ray gun. I hope it worries the terrorists as well.
- For 26 years, strange conversations have been taking place in a basement lab at Princeton University. Do minds affect machines?
- Here’s some nice pics of an interesting crop formation in the Czech Republic.
- At the risk of linking a Rense article, take a look at the ,Virtual Street Reality by Julian Beever. Amazing.
- Why skies are blue instead of purple.
- In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969 (you do the math) Google mapped the Moon. Small world, isn’t it?
- The dustiest disc ever seen around a nearby star is probably the result of a collision between two small planets less than 1,000-years ago.
- Mars refuses to ‘die’. After centuries of speculation about canals, icecaps, vegetation, and traces of ancient bacteria in a meteorite from Mars, scientists no search for the source of the mysterious Martian methane.
- Micro-spacecraft are being prepared to explore the planets.
- ‘E.T. blog home’: U.S. firm to send Internet diaries into space.
- SDSS-II will map the Universe, the Milky Way and dark energy. That could take some time.
Quote of the Day
That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.
Neil Armstrong
