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News Briefs 17-06-2004

Go the Maroons…

  • Archaeologist solves mystery of monk who stole the bones of a saint.
  • Review of Ancient Medicine (Amazon US/UK) by Vivian Nutton, which details the story of ancient medicine from early Greece (8th century BC) to Late Antiquity (7th century AD).
  • Project Ghost Hunt has plenty of fun with pub spirits after closing time. It’s a one-liner with no extra help required.
  • Ghosts also for San Antonio Paranormal Investigators at the Jailhouse Cafe.
  • SpaceShipOne runs on rubber fuel. Flubber?
  • Not content to be doing great things with SpaceshipOne, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is also behind the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. Get your Enterprise uniform on and beam on down if you’re in the area.
  • President Bush’s Moon to Mars Commission labels NASA a ‘relic of the Apollo age‘. Sounds like NASA’s about to be torn apart.
  • Perhaps not if John Kerry is elected: “NASA is an invaluable asset to the American people and must receive adequate resources to continue its important mission of exploration.”
  • Utah rocks could help explain Martian ‘blueberries’.
  • Astrobiology continues its excellent 7-part series on the ‘Great Terraforming Debate’ with Part 3. Also see Part 1 and 2. Tres cool astrobiologist David Grinspoon is one of the participants, make sure you read my review of his book Lonely Planets as well – definitely worth purchasing, it’s a great read (available from Amazon US and UK).
  • Quantum computing a step closer as scientists confirm quantum teleportation. Where does the science end and the magic begin?
  • Octupuses have a preferred arm. I know left and right, but what do we call the ones in-between? And shouldn’t that be octopi?
  • Five UFOs in the sky above Emley.
  • Meteorite the ‘size of a house‘ explodes over Australia. Gotta love the police statement: “There was no bloody great rock sitting in the middle of the highway, anyway”.
  • Are mountain lions attacking pets in Kentucky?
  • Listen to your dreams – you never know when you might have to save someone from a rocket fuel explosion.
  • Thoughts captured in real-time.
  • Medical implants to be powered by body heat.
  • Anti-depressant nerve stimulator device approved by FDA.
  • UK and US conspiring on nukes?
  • Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe. And the funny thing is – we pay the wages of these government research organisations. Go figure.

Quote of the Day:

And along with indifference to space there went an ever more complete indifference to time. “There seems to be plenty of it,” was all I would answer, when the investigator asked me to say what I felt about time.

Aldous Huxley (‘The Doors of Perception’)

Editor
  1. Relic of the Apollo age
    Hi Greg,

    Nice update – it will be a hard act to follow. I believe you have the wrong link on the following article:

    • President Bush’s Moon to Mars Commission labels NASA a ‘relic of the Apollo age’.

    What’s a Maroon?

    Bill

    1. Fixed
      Hi Bill,

      Thanks for the heads-up, fixed now. And I will sleep fine tonight knowing that you will blow anything I can do out of the water with your update tomorrow. 🙂

      The Maroons are the Queensland rugby league team (my team), who last night pulled off a win to square the series with New South Wales (the ‘Blues’). Some of us get a bit passionate about it.
      😉

      Peace and Respect
      Greg

      ——————————————-
      You monkeys only think you’re running things

  2. Octopi is not correct
    Octopus is of Greek etymology(oktOpous), not Latin, so octopuses is the correct plural form. Some dictionaries will list both plural forms, but my college marine biology professor constantly corrected us if we said “octopi”.

    Carbonek

  3. 2005 – Crowd Control
    ‘The gun has been designed for the US Marine Corps to use for crowd control & security purposes’.

    Anyone would think they’re expecting mass riots or something…

    ‘A weapon designed to address the shortcomings of the current Taser’ is a bit of an understatement…Though I can appreciate the fact that it’s more humane to zap than to shoot, this is still an item that should cause concern because it would be deemed more acceptable to stun a crowd into submission that to fire upon them. I guess we’ll just have to wait & see how these new weapons are used…I respect the concerns put forward about innocent bystanders – but this is already an issue in any crowd-control situation.

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