That old Chinese curse must work — living in interesting times is finally starting to grate on my nerves.
- NASA boffins report that an unknown object approaching the Earth from deep space is almost certainly artificial in origin rather than being an asteroid.
- Newfoundland UFO retains its ‘U’, remains a mystery. TDG feature
blogger Chris Rutkowski comments on the story. - Martin Gardner warned us to beware the bee people from Mars.
- Space is so littered with debris that a collision between satellites could set off an ‘uncontrolled chain reaction’ capable of destroying the communications network on Earth.
- Image of the day: a night-time panorama of Death Valley, featuring the mysterious ‘moving rocks’.
- Oh okay. Make that *two* images of the day: Saturn’s rings and moons don’t come much prettier than this.
- Better squeeze this one in too: The big pictures from space.
- Tomb of Ancient Egyptian mayor re-found near Cairo, a century after it was …err …re-lost.
- Mayas mastered rubber long before Goodyear.
- Aboriginal cave painting of extinct giant bird could be 40,000 years old.
- Newly-discovered pterosaur, with a wingspan of six metres, lived in the Sahara back when it was a lush and green paradise.
- The rhinosaur: Five-ton long-horned dinosaur unearthed in Mexico.
- Google Street View’s secret data-gathering on all wi-fi hotspots is to enable a lot more privacy-invasion than a photo of your house being posted online.
- Forget saving for that HDTV or 3DTV. Star Wars-style hologram TVs will put you IN the action. No mention of how many units it will take to black out the electric grid.
- Three Gorges dam is causing earthquakes and landslides.
- Three million Chinese babies are hidden by their parents every year in order to get around the country’s one-child policy
- Toxic cities mock ‘healthy’ cycle riding: Study shows cyclists in cities inhale tens of millions of toxic nanoparticles with every breath, five times more than drivers.
- Gulf of Mexico oil gusher is now worst US eco-disaster.
- Hurricanes could complicate the clean-up of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and damage other offshore pipelines, US scientists warn.
- The worst grasshopper infestation in 30 years could strike ranches and agricultural land in the Great Plains states between late July and early August.
- Hundreds die in Indian heatwave, with more deaths expected, as India faces record temperatures of up to 122F in hottest summer on record
- The End of the Line: My fight for fish.
- Nigeria’s decades-long environmental catastrophe dwarfs the Gulf oil spill.
- What to do when science clashes with beliefs? Make science impotent.
- Drug defeats ‘invincible’ Ebola virus.
- Researchers create a retina from human embryonic stem cells.
- Near-death experience? That’s not an afterlife — it’s a brainstorm.
- Alex Tsakiris and Steve Novella go head to head on the topic of near
death experiences on the latest episode of Skeptiko. - Snails on methamphetamine: Memories formed by snails under the influence of meth are harder to forget. Aren’t all memories formed under exceptional circumstances harder to forget?
- Cutting of babies’ umbilical cords should be delayed to allow more vital stem cells and nutrients to flow from their mothers, researchers have claimed.
- ‘Alpha Kid’ Mike Edwards visits James Randi to reminisce about one of parapsychology’s biggest scandals.
- Daniel Pinchbeck: The War for Control of the Story.
- Stephen Hawking’s poker game with Newton: For five nights in a row on C4, Professor Stephen Hawking talks about Britain’s finest scientific minds.
Big thanks to Greg.
Quote of the Day:
I’m working on that.
Stephen Hawking, as he paused next to the ‘warp engine’ on his tour of the Starship Enterprise.
