This must be conspiracy week. Find something in the news and, sure enough, there’s a conspiracy to go with it. Many are outrageous, some are silly, some are just lies, some are hogwash, some are boring, but one or two might have some merit. So, true to form, I’ve tried to avoid them. It ain’t easy – there’s probably a conspiracy associated with every one of these articles.
- The skeletons of 23 of the men and women that built Stonehenge, introduced metalworking to Britain, and spread the Indo-European language are now migrating to Sheffield for a modern evaluation.
- Archaeologists now want to hunt down the remains taken from barrows around Stonehenge: some may be in local museums, others in private hands or under people’s beds.
- Zahi Hawass let Ramses II out of his cage.
- The high cost of a road near Stonehenge has caused the council to refuse the plan.
- Discovery soared off Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad amid debris falling from the craft into orbit 140-miles above the Earth. NASA officials said Wednesday it would ground future space shuttle flights because foam debris that brought down Columbia is still a risk.
- The United States will join India, China and Australia in announcing a new pact to limit greenhouse gases as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol.
- The giving of worthless gifts gets the good girls. I want a research grant.
- The Mars Candy Co. said it is talking with major pharmaceutical companies about developing a line of cocoa-based prescription drugs. Mmmm…Snickers meds.
- Nuclear weapons in various European countries, particularly Russia, pose a serious threat to health, argues a letter in this week’s British Medical Journal.
- New animal species evolved in an instant.
- Ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are threatening the survival of the North Atlantic right whale, one of the most endangered whales with an estimated population of about 350.
- Rare island birds threatened by ‘super mice’. I think I saw that movie.
- Researchers would love to go inside the Earth, but they can’t. However, they have detected tiny particles called geoneutrinos coming from deep within the Earth.
- An amphibious snake robot has, for the first time, allowed researchers to compare the locomotion of swimming and crawling in the same animal model.
- She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe. The Japanese develop ‘female’ android that reacts in a human-like manner.
- Stem cell researchers create new brain cells.
- The case for the existence of cosmic strings, one-dimensional threads of energy that can span millions of light years, has just been boosted.
- Linda Moulton Howe investigates the mystery of Six Grass Circle Formations in North Carolina.
- Sometime today, David Coltman will tell us the species of the owner of a a tuft of coarse, chocolate-colored hair plucked from the forest floor near Teslin, Yukon, near where several people earlier this month heard, or saw, what they swear was a legendary Sasquatch.
- Gary McKinnon, the British man that hacked his way into 97 US government computers, including machines belonging to NASA and the US Department of Defense, has begun his campaign against extradition.
- The Earth is growing. Our tiny blue planet sweeps up nearly 140-million tons of space debris every year. From where does it all come?
- Scientists want to build a giant space station in the Australian outback to simulate life on Mars.
- Russian space officials want to offer tourists a trip around the Moon for $US100 million.
- Is there life on Mars? If there is, NASA might be contaminating it with microbes from Earth.
- Mars plan envisions a comfy colony.
- Whatever you’re doing in the year 2036, plan on Apophis to come crashing into your planet and destroying everything.
Quote of the Day
The wronger a conspiracy is, the better it is.
Mark Twain
Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy
