We’ve swapped news days, but we haven’t swapped bodies. So why do I feel like a pint of Guinness and some Yeats?
- A picture of Isaac Newton’s eschatological notes, as mentioned by Jameske yesterday. I feel fine.
- A new episode of Dr Who recently saw the intrepid Timelord visit the end of the universe. He had a few Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters too, no doubt.
- The Heavy Stuff doesn’t get much heavier than the conundrum of where does space disappear to when a person experiences missing time?
- In 1967, an Italian immigrant saw a UFO in Canada, and collected a souvenir. Greg would’ve nicked the hood ornament.
- A geneticist believes he can settle the Etruscan controversy, claiming they were immigrants from Anatolia.
- The medieval maze known as Julian’s Bower has been returfed and reopened to the public. The landscapers have yet to return.
- A Wiccan in Glasgow has combined witchcraft with beauty therapy, reviving an ancient tradition. No magic mirror involved.
- The two-million-year-old skull of a pygmy giant panda, the ancestor of today’s endangered giant panda, has been discovered in a Chinese cave by University of Iowa anthropologists.
- A pre-Qin dynasty tomb has been excavated in China, and its occupants may have been buried alive. Emperor Qin can’t be blamed for that one.
- CT scans will help identify the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut (1473-1458 BC), but Zahi Hawass thinks he knows which one it is.
- A brilliant article about the race to recover the Nile’s mysterious Kingdom of Kush, which includes parts of what is today war-torn Sudan.
- Human rights abuses and mass slaughter continue unchecked in Sudan, but at least Sudanese authorities managed to catch 12 people accused of smuggling antiquities, including two entire mummies.
- The Pentagon is distributing playing cards to American troops, showing the locations of archaeological sites so they don’t destroy them. Now they’ll just loot them.
- A team of Danish researchers report that spring is arriving in the Arctic weeks earlier than it did a decade ago.
- The ESA is asking for six volunteers to spend 520 days in an isolation tank to simulate the round trip to Mars. The thought of being locked up in a Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore frightens me.
Quote of the Day:
Being prepared to receive what thought is not prepared to think is what deserves the name of thinking
Jean-Francoise Lyotard