Four pots of coffee, four contributors, four computer crashes, 24 hours of toil, and voilà – more news than you can shake a stick at! Whew!
And, since attending a huge political bonfire and shooting off fireworks with like-minded friends – not to mention a tasty meal of bangers and mash – sounds like a lot more fun than answering the doorbell every 30 seconds, for hours on end, to dole out free candies to hundreds of astonishingly surly costumed children, let’s all make a few effigies of our least-favorite politicians, and toss them on a roaring fire this coming Thursday. Remember, remember the 5th of November!
- Big Brother landmark: More than one in 10 Brits now in DNA database.
- We’re watching you, Big Brother: Research shows that four out of five Britons believe their freedoms are disappearing.
- Europe’s own surveillance state: Defence of civil liberties is now a war on two fronts. Make that three fronts…
- I’ve a fire in my belly over Guy Fawkes.
- Psychic computer shows your thoughts on screen.
- David Nutt: Penalties for drug use must reflect relative harm.
- David Nutt’s dangerous drug list, in descending order from the most harmful.
- Scientists quit government drugs body over David Nutt sacking.
- America’s Drug Crisis: Brought to You by the CIA.
- Unlearning the CIA: The education of Bob Baer, of Syriana fame.
- Upholding the tradition of Bonfire Night: Lewes comes alive for Guy Fawkes, as 80,000 people descend on the small town each Nov 5th.
- Was there really a Gunpowder Plot, or was the whole affair a false flag operation cooked up by Robert Cecil to ingratiate himself with the king?
- Dressed as the character ‘V’, blogger ‘Guido Fawkes’ plans to march to the House of Commons on 5th November, and you’re invited to join him.
- Was this man the first terrorist of the modern age? One theory has it that terrorism began with the state, during the radical phase of the French Revolution.
- Markings on newly unearthed stone create new mystery at former stronghold of Knights Templar.
- Secret tunnels: an ancient mystery of Seti I’s tomb.
- Divers probe submerged Maya ruins in Guatemala lake.
- Copper clue may solve mystery of doomed Victorian Arctic expedition.
- Ancient atomic bombs?
- Humans, Shmumans: What Mars Needs Is an Armada of Robots and Blimps.
- The Prandtl–Glauert singularity: NASA’s Ares I-X lays a shock egg.
- Ares 1-X booster rocket found to be badly dented when it was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean.
- Findings on a mysterious haze at the Milky Way’s center.
- Einstein was right! NASA Fermi telescope uncovers proof of famous space-time theory.
- Brit space agency to probe ‘crackpot’ antigravity device.
- Mars rover Spirit has amnesia – again.
- A Mars Rover Named ‘Curiosity’.
- Newly launched satellite will predict floods, make the first global maps of the amount of moisture held in soils and of the quantity of salts dissolved in the oceans.
- Pluto on the comeback trail: the case for restoring Pluto’s planetary status. Alan Boyle’s new book The Case for Pluto is available at Amazon US & UK.
- Brit robo-sub dives to 3.5 miles on seabed volcano quest.
- Google’s ghost town: Argleton, Lancashire, appears on Google Maps but doesn’t actually exist.
- Illegal downloaders spend MORE on music than those who obey the law.
- TV finds that mortal foe, DVR, is a friend after all.
- Take a brain. Insert an algae gene. Flip a switch and watch a paralyzed mouse (or human) move and walk again.
- Scientists discover how fish oil helps arthritis.
- Plastic nerves may give new limbs feeling.
- Can cancer cures come from healing hands?
- A molecule of motivation, dopamine excels at its tasks. Great writing!
- Good Dog, Smart Dog: The increasingly complicated work of service dogs suggests there’s more to the canine brain than a good nose and an instinct to please.
- Chimps mourn at burial of elderly relative.
- Online mourning evolves.
- Via Posthuman Blues: ‘Did you know that Aldous Huxley’s dystopian classic “Brave New World” is available on LP, narrated by the author? Neither did I. Better yet, you can download it for free.’
- World’s oldest spider’s web found in amber.
- Phantom limbs make impossible moves.
- ‘Culture of we’ buffers genetic tendency to depression.
- The battle over vaccines: One scientist’s battle against the anti-vaccine movement. Before vaccines, smallpox killed 500 million, polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans every year, rubella caused birth defects and mental retardation in 20,000 newborns, measles killed 3,000 children annually, Hib meningitis left 15,000 children with permanent brain damage…. Prominent voices in the anti-vaccine crusade.
- Malaria vaccine reaches ‘milestone moment’.
- How the ancient Nazca civilisation sealed its own fate by cutting down forests.
- What lies beneath the rainforest.
- Radical North Sea shift caused by climate change.
- New finding: Methane gas is 33 times more potent than CO2. Previous climate change models have underestimated the effect of methane by failing to consider its interaction with aerosols.
- A new wrinkle in ancient ocean chemistry.
- Canada sets aside its boreal forest as giant carbon vault, banning logging, mining and oil drilling in an area twice the size of California.
- Avalanche of evidence on vanishing ice caps.
- Ben Bova: Global warming likely to resume — with a vengeance
- Giving Earth the Colbert Bump.
- The luck of the Sapiens: the weird fortuitousness of global warming.
- Star Trek’s Captain Picard explains why we love Balloon Boy.
- Balloon Boy’s vomit and the science of lying.
- How to carry a child off Mars by balloon.
- H.R. Giger: Father of the alien alienated by Hollywood. Speaking of no respect, this article’s author didn’t even include the name of the HR Giger Museum.
- Is this the world’s best body art? Stunning eye-deceiving images reveal an artist at the top of his game.
- Stephen Wiltshire: It’s like a skyline is etched in his head.
- This time-lapse footage over four days shows artist Stephen Wiltshire working on his drawing of a New York City panorama. The New York panorama will complete Wiltshire’s collection of nine works depicting some of the world’s most iconic cities—London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rome, Madrid, Frankfurt, Dubai, and Jerusalem.
- In TDG’s hosted video Excerpts from Beautiful Minds: A Voyage into the Brain autistic savant Stephen Wiltshire sketches the city of Rome – from memory.
A big thanks to Red Pill Junkie, Randall, and Greg for loads of news. (Yo Randall, email me again – your first mysteriously disappeared.) And a big thanks to all the other TDG admins — for not contributing any news! 😉
Quote of the Day:
I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of the everyday routine, the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration – whereby those important events of the past, usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, are celebrated with a nice holiday – I thought we could mark this November the fifth, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.
There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?
Cruelty and injustice…intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told…if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
V, in V for Vendetta, available at Amazon US & UK. What a bargain!
