News Briefs 01-10-2012

RIP Entil'Zha (The One who creates the future). As Kosh said, 'He is the closed circle. He is returning to the beginning.'

• Indo-Australian tectonic plate is breaking in pieces.
• Neanderthals and humans lived side by side in Middle Eastern caves.
• 2012 and Maya prophecies: What were they thinking?
• The Vatican - in an editorial: 'Jesus' Wife' papyrus is a fake.
• Too holy for sex: Few churches have room for the idea of a sexual Jesus.
• Vatican in row over 'drunken tourist herds' destroying Sistine Chapel's majesty.
• Collected works of evolution theorist Alfred Russel Wallace go online.
• Great apes, such as gorillas, chimps and bonobos, are running out of places to live.
• The battle to find sasquatch: The Sasquatch is just waiting to be discovered in B.C., but too few want to admit or investigate it, says a Vancouver Island wildlife biologist.
• Rare albino whale puts on a show off Australia coast.
• Enslaved worker ants fight back through acts of sabotage.
• Is time travel possible? Scientists say going to the future might be possible, but going backward in time is a problem — and may collapse the universe.
• What's next for NASA? A space station -- in orbit on the far side of the moon.
• Surprisingly warm temperatures on Mars may improve chances for habitability.
• Solar system might have formed in stages after shockwaves from the young sun.
• Russians face up to their space crisis.
• The Right Stuff! Some thoughts on the UFO military panel in Las Vegas.
• Riding the Hubbell UFO roller coaster.
• Astronomers and UFOs: A Response to the Lord Martin Rees.
• Scottish scientists say global warming could be combatted by blasting the surface of asteroids to create giant clouds of dust which would act as sunscreen for the planet.
• Canada's extreme northern territories have been devoid of forests for millions of years, but ancient forests may soon return due to rising temperatures.
• Fish species are expected to shrink in size by up to 24 percent due to climate change.
• US polar bear researcher Charles Monnett cleared of scientific misconduct.
• Woods Hole scientists say BP used courts to attack their Deepwater Horizon oil spill research.
• To shield its management, BP is trying to blame blue-collar workers for the Deepwater Horizon spill.
• Deepwater Horizon settlement talks stall as US demands $18bn from BP.
• Contaminated site yields wealth of information on microbes 10 feet under.
• For decades after a woman has carried a male child in her womb or shared her mother's womb with a brother, male fetal DNA lodges itself in the far recesses of her brain.
• Women with sons may be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease because they have male DNA in their brains.
• Repeated exposure to objects like high-heeled shoes and electric razors that are typically associated with one gender or the other biases people's perceptions of whether human faces are male or female.
• Shouldn’t our wonderful powers of reason be able to overcome instinctive impediments to clear thinking? The neuroscience of fear makes clear that such hope is hubris.
• An epidemic of a deadly strain of Salmonella has swept across the whole of Africa by 'taking advantage' of the spread of HIV.
• 'Terminator-style' bionic hand is 'a complete life-changer.'
• This amazing prosthetic hand was made in the 1500s.
• Beyond the Blue Horizon by Brian Fagan; Thirst by Steven Mithen: From a prehistoric sea crossing to Australia via the first flushing loos in Crete, two compelling books examine humanity's waterlogged history.
• 'Human hamster wheel' set to cross the Irish Sea.
• There's no simple solution to the many kinds of loneliness.
• Visual cues: Our eyes tell our brains what to think.
• Chocolate gives snails super-memory, but can it do the same for you?
• Postmen failed to collect letters from a postbox at one of the UK’s busiest railway stations for 23 years.
• The stone balancers of Flagstaff.
• Meeting A Troll...
• EconoTrolls: An Illustrated Bestiary.
• The world could face a shortage of disposable nappies after an explosion and fire at a chemical plant in Japan responsible for as much as one fifth of the global market.
• October 1962: the month that modern culture was born.
• The Flynn Effect: Although personal experience might seem to suggest otherwise, apparently humans are getting smarter. Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century by James R. Flynn is available at Amazon US (Kindle) & UK (UK Kindle).

Quote of the Day:

MDMA, or methylenedioxy- methylamphetamine, was first patented in 1912 by German scientists looking for a substance to control bleeding. The US military experimented with it in the 1950s and this may have led to instances of it being used recreationally in the US in the 1970s. In 1976, an American chemist, Alexander Shulgin, who became known as the godfather of ecstasy, took MDMA himself as part of a personal investigation of psychoactive substances. Shulgin was an industrial chemist who had personal experience of psychedelics and worked closely with America's Drug Enforcement Agency. He described the feelings MDMA induced as "an easily controlled altered state of consciousness with emotional and sensual overtones". In his journal he wrote: "I feel absolutely clean inside, and there is nothing but pure euphoria. The cleanliness, clarity, and marvellous feeling of solid inner strength continued… through the next day. I am overcome by the profundity of the experience."

From the article Can MDMA help cure depression?.