I predict that today is going to be a very long day — for me, at least.
- The remains of one of the earliest modern humans to inhabit eastern Asia have been unearthed in a cave in China.
- South Texas fossil deposits reveal evidence, including ancient teeth, that shows the area was home to numerous types of primates 42 million years ago.
- Inside our messy, reptilian brains.
- How we learned to stop having fun: Was the suppression of communal rituals and festivities about 400 years ago symptomatic of some deeper, underlying psychological change?
- Study finds that a friendly bacteria found in soil has the same mood-lifting effect as anti-depressant drugs.
- Recent experiments suggest that animals can visit the past and future in their minds, in ways similar to humans.
- Insects cultivate antibiotic-producing bacteria in their antennae.
- Allergic reaction to nitric oxide linked to hayfever.
- Researchers say they have discovered two enzymes that may safely convert blood groups A, B and AB to group O, the ‘universal’ blood used in transfusions.
- Enviro-cateclysm of the week: Study rates urban air pollution ‘more dangerous than Chernobyl’.
- Houses of the future could be made from trash. I’m way ahead of the curve on this one.
- MI6 cold war spy revealed as ‘big fish’ double agent.
- Gary McKinnon loses high court bid to avoid extradition to US for ‘biggest military computer hack of all time’.
- Homeland Security wants the master key for the Internet.
- Botched US raid led to Iran hostage crisis.
- Get your dead mummified fairy right here — they won’t last at this price.
- Serenity beats out Star Wars for the title of best sci-fi flick.
- Here’s a lost interview with Douglas Adams from 1979.
- War of the pyramid theorists. I hope there aren’t any pointy-objects around…
- Geometry on Saturn? Nature covered that a year ago in a story about geometric whirlpools.
- More on France’s UFO files.
- Anomalist Books brings Brad Steiger’s classic alternative history book World’s Before Our Own back into print. Amazon US and UK.
- 91% of Americans believe in ‘God’. And almost half dispute the theory of evolution. Richard Dawkins just rolled his eyes and muttered at a non-existent non-denominational non-deity.
- The lost trail of Moses.
A big thanks to Greg for news and wry commentary.
Quote of the Day:
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.
Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry…..There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.
Mark Twain
