Part of today’s news briefs were inspired by Richard Greene in The Adventures of Robin Hood: The Complete Series (58 hours, 11 DVDs), which has a richly-deserved five-star rating at Amazon US & UK.
- Document suggesting that Jesus had a wife is proven to be authentic.
- As Rome approaches 2,767th birthday, excavation reveals wall built more than a century before official founding year of 753BC.
- Tambora, 1815: Largest volcanic eruption in human history changed the 19th century as much as Napoleon.
- ‘Hubble Madness’ picks a winning image, and deep space never looked so good.
- Blood moon: Don’t miss the total lunar eclipse on April 14/15. Darkness will cover the craters and mountains in which humans have spotted faces and figures for millennia.
- Phil ‘Bad Astronomer’ Plait owns up to some Bad Skepticism.
- Melvin Morse, well-known for his research into near-death experiences
in children, gets a three year prison sentence for ‘waterboarding’ his step-daughter. - How the Freemasons got caught in a plot to topple the Castros.
- El Niño could grow into a monster, new data show — on a par with the biggest El Niño ever recorded, in 1997-98, which caused $35 billion in damages and 23,000 deaths worldwide.
- Desmond Tutu calls for anti-apartheid style boycott against the fossil-fuel industry.
- Entire marine food chain at risk from rising CO2 levels in water.
- ‘Bigfoot has Australian genes!’: The myth and mystery behind Australia’s bush monster the Yowie.
- The real Darwin fish: Why creationists hate Tiktaalik.
- Whole brain emulation: Can we really upload Johnny Depp’s brain, as depicted in Transcendence?
- The hubris of Fukushima and Chernobyl. Fukushima’s lessons, unlearned in America?
- A brief, terrifying history of viruses escaping from labs.
- Study reveals gene expression changes with meditation.
- Happy people are more productive (especially if they get chocolate).
- Occupy was right: Capitalism simply isn’t working and here are the reasons why. More details.
- An immodest proposal: A global tax on the superrich. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is available at Amazon US/Kindle & UK/Kindle.
- What is it like to live on Britain’s most expensive street? (Apparently, they really do need all that security.)
- The appalling program that allows local cops to seize (and cash in) pot-related assets, even where marijuana is legal.
- El Salvador’s battle to keep its gold in the ground.
- HIV’s grip on the American South.
- Dying to make your chips: Samsung’s cancer-stricken workers are focus of fresh debate in South Korea. (Also explains why Silicon Valley has more hazardous waste sites than any other US county.)
- Politicians have delegated power to global corporations bent on engineering a world of conformity and consumerism.
- Study: American policy exclusively reflects desires of the rich; citizens’ groups largely irrelevant.
- The US Navy just announced the end of big oil, and no one noticed.
- Correction: Seawater-to-fuel story I meant to post, instead of the one linked above.
- Statue of a homeless Jesus startles a wealthy community.
- Three expensive milliseconds.
- How Heartbleed broke the internet.
- NSA exploited Heartbleed to siphon passwords for two years.
- What the NSA’s denial isn’t telling you: it didn’t even need know about Heartbleed to vacuum your privacy and store it indefinitely.
- A look at good coding: They Write the Right Stuff (Dec 1996/Jan 1997 issue of FAST COMPANY magazine).
- An interactive map showing global cyberattacks in real time.
- The magic of metaphor: What children’s minds teach us about the evolution of imagination.
A big thanks to Perceval and Greg for loads of links.
Quote of the Day:
We live in a world dominated by greed. We have allowed the interests of capital to outweigh the interests of human beings and our Earth. It is clear [fossil-fuel energy companies] are not simply going to give up; they stand to make too much money.
Desmond Tutu
