It is awful when you can feel the flu coming on. Sneeze your illnesses.

• Scientists crack 40 year-old DNA puzzle.
• How did oxygen get to dominate the atmosphere?
• Malaria makes people more attractive to mosquitoes.
• Mindful of symbols.
• The ancient sabretooth is not directly related to modern day cats. More here. A number of puzzling statements in the article makes me wonder, just a bit.
• Codex Sinaiticus: The earliest Bible manuscript to appear on the Internet soon
• Breaking the silence: Bilderberg exposed.
• The Nanobacteria link to heart disease and cancer.
• Britain's secret war in Antarctica.
• How do you get plants to grow on Mars?
• EU clears GM maize as animal feed.
• The Bush Gang - Get the Internet!
• Twins hold key to unravelling the maths gene.
• Sunlight used to smelt zinc.
• Only sunlight is the answer.
• Does gravity have inertia?
• The case of the tenth planet.
• Monsanto Pig.
• 911 on trial.

Quote of the Day:

History is both a cause and a cure of paranoia. In its dark beginnings we find the creation myth that tells us where we came from. And in its subsequent lists of events lie the injustices.

Jameske

Finally upgraded my computer after six years....

• Have archaeologists uncovered King David's 'mythical' palace?
• What effect will the Da Vinci Code film have upon Rosslyn Chapel?
• New analysis of Olmec pottery stirs controversy.
• What happens when extinct isn't.
• The transhuman future - how weird and how soon? A talk with Joel Garreau about his book Radical Evolution (Amazon US and UK).
• Brain workouts may tone memory.
• Sleep! wo, wo, wo - what is it good for? Say it again.
• 'Thoughts read' via brain scans.
• How to remote-control a human being. So that's what that lump was under Dubya's shirt...
• Computer teaches itself language.
• Well-known US news anchor Peter Jennings (for non-US people - the guy who hosted the recent high-profile UFO feature) dies of lung cancer.
• If alien civilisations were discovered, would you lose your religion?
• Mars Express prepares to look underground. We'll find those damn Martians soon...
• The Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter set for launch tomorrow.Meanwhile, Messenger slingshots using the Earth.
• Antarctic losing ice at a record pace.
• Alaskan people tell of climate change.
• Tsunami-surviving tribe threatened by land invasion.
• Tsunami early-warning system on track. Like that segue between news stories? Trained professional ma'am.
• Virtual reality helps calm 9/11 anxiety.
• Could Bigfoot be lurking in Indiana?
• What's going on in the House of Oil? No, not the White House...we're talking about rose-scented oil here...
• Dragons in the Tibetan sky.
• Mystery piano man remains unidentified, despite worldwide media attention.
• Man beaten with his own prosthetic leg. "You can 'ardly say he was 'armless your honour".
• Looking for a little excitement? Wait no longer, with Ragnarok scheduled for next Tuesday.

Quote of the Day:

The thundergod rode out, upon his finest filly. "I'm Thor!" he cried. The horse replied: "You forgot your thaddle, thilly".

Unknown

I really don't know, but I'm sure the answer lies at the bottom of a cup of very strong black coffee.

• Do sonar scans revealing artificial structures submerged off the southeast coast of Cyprus point to a possible location for Atlantis? Robert Sarmast, expedition leader, rejects claims his search for Atlantis is a cover for American oil prospecting.
• Does a Cryptozoologist have sonar evidence of Norway's Lake Seljord Monster, Selma?
• A bizarre freeway of fish swimming by the thousands along the shore of Englewood Beach has marine biologists puzzled.
• Crikey! There's a bloody big croc lurking in London's River Lea!
• Britain's first museum and gallery dedicated to fairies has opened in the Orkneys.
• Once scorned as mere mythology, Vedic literature is being verified by modern science. A fantastic article, and the photo galleries of underwater excavations at Dvaraka are incredible.
• The Vimana of ancient vedic texts: science-fiction or fact?
• Did ancient cultures receive visits from god-like extraterrestrials?
• The Chosen Foo: American musicians the Foo Fighters and the WWII UFO mystery from whence they got their name.
• Cyberpunk visionary William Gibson writes about U2's technology of blinding lights. U2 is a band who weren't named after a type of flying vehicle, but Dave Grohl still likes them.
• Restricted files of UFO encounters have been recovered from the Australian Government's top-secret archives. Our names haven't been mentioned yet, Greg.
• After a spate of UFO sightings over the past 50 years, the skies of Cumbria are silent. Cumbrians take note: you still have the stars and your imaginations.
• New Jersey has no such problems, and is a UFO hotspot.
• Can a single strand of hair provide proof of extraterrestrial visitors? Australia's leading UFOlogist, Bill Chalker, discusses the DNA evidence in his book Hair of the Alien (Amazon US or UK). This book is not to be confused with Donald Trump's biography.
• Saturn's moon Titan is dry as a bone, dispelling theories of hydrocarbon lakes.
• If I tell you what negative Quantum knowledge is, you will know less. The more I learn the less I know.
• Frighteningly, Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation can produce remote-controlled humans. There's something weird about my iPod earphones ...
• Syn is a beta-magazine dedicated to exploring synaesthesia, for those who experience the condition and for those who don't.
• Satire Warning: In a bizarre twist of irony, a suicide bomber was killed en route by a car bomb. To balance the satire, an old article about Bush announcing an end to America's nightmare of peace and prosperity experienced during the Clinton Administration. These articles are funny because they're so sadly true.
• Westerners laugh at Asians who mix up their Engrish. Now let's laugh at stupid white people who get kanji tattooes confused.
• Perception-distorting street art, with an anamorphosis view.

Quote of the Day:

I know enough about life that I've got the big moves down, sort of. The fine moves are moments you discover as you live life attentively.

Bill Murray

For a long time, I aspired to understand quantum physics, but today's news made me realize I'll always know less than nothing about it.

• Braveheart's Iconic Proof: the sheer courage, principle, and merit of the common man.
• Scots will be mourning William Wallace on the 700th anniversary of his death.
• The battle over William Wallace's birthplace.
• Has King David's palace been found in East Jerusalem?
• Evidence that Polynesians landed in Southern California between 400 and 800 A.D.
• Amazonian languages challenge linguistic theories.
• Ireland's largest ancient fort found outside Londonderry.
• Cracking the brain's perception code.
• Collins describes widespread environmental damage visible from shuttle.
• Your Tap Water: Will That be Leaded Or Unleaded?
• Ice shelf collapse biggest for 10,000 years.
• How lowly bacteria froze Earth solid.
• Quantum physicists decide we can know less than nothing. If anyone understands this article, please explain it to the rest of us.
• Lack of understanding of space weather will block manned missions to Mars.
• Solar flares could force shuttle crew to take cover on space station.
• Physicists add salt to make nano-sized particles with magnetic properties.
• Cassini sends photos of Saturn's auroras.
• NASA's Spitzer Finds Hidden, Hungry Black Holes.
• Scientists drill into active section of San Andreas Fault.
• Sceptics silenced by new recordings of ivory-billed woodpeckers' distinctive calls and tree rapping.
• Of the 60 amphetamines tested against Parkinson's in mice, 14 were found to reverse symptoms, with Ecstacy being the most effective.
• America's Most Dangerous Drug: How meth quietly marched across the country and up the socioeconomic ladder—and the wreckage it leaves in its wake.
• Cocaine residue in Italian water reveals high number of daily users.
• What they still call "the disaster" in geneticist Pat Hunt's lab.
• Phthalates in cosmetics, plastics, found to trigger lupus.
• New study shows Hurricane Ivan generated monster waves.
• Deadly Bacterial Infection Being Brought Back from Iraq by U.S. Troops.
• Selective breeding's first major advance in 20 years: passive animals are more productive.
• Schools are destroying the joy of reading, but Grossology is packing kids in.
• College president weighs in on why we shouldn't confuse roles of science and faith.
• Newspeak rift: 'war on terror' back this week.
• Orwellian Doublethink In London.
• Oddities stranger than fiction.
• What makes life funny?

Quote of the Day:

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Robert A. Heinlein

Let’s deviate from the main thoroughfare, and choose the less traveled path. If you see something that tickles your fancy along the way, feel free to depart from the group and explore. All of the byways in the maze converge at the end of the tour, but all journeys are unique. Enjoy the ride.

• Scientists crack 40-year-old DNA puzzle and point to ‘hot soup’ at the origin of life.
• By examining microscopic marks on fossilized teeth, scientists have pieced together the diets of two ancient prehumans.
• Prehistoric hunters and not the last ice age are the likely culprits in the extinction of giant ground sloths and other North American great mammals such as mammoths, mastodons and saber-toothed tigers. Culprits?
• An ancient lunar standstill pilgrimage that has not been made for nearly a millennium begins again on a high stony mesa in southwestern Colorado.
• Child mummy wows the Egyptologists.
• Prostitution in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Israel was glorified or mildly tolerated, according to a new analysis of the world's oldest profession.
• Chinese calendars reveal ancient science.
• Clearing -- or perhaps roiling -- the murky and often contentious waters of Mesoamerican archeology, a study of 3,000-year-old pottery provides new evidence that the Olmec may not have been the mother culture after all. So who else was around?
• Much of what ancient scribes carved in stone is lost to weathering, but a new X-ray technique promises to reveal the message. This could be interesting - maybe we need some ancient wisdom.
• Are Earth ice ages created by stars? Makes my high school science project look pathetic, but I didn't live next to an astronomer.
• Why we all need pornography. Trust me on this one.
• One in a new generation of computer climate models that include the effects of Earth's carbon cycle indicates there are limits to the planet's ability to absorb increased emissions of carbon dioxide. Yet another model.
• Senator Norm Coleman submitted a statement denouncing a final report issued by the United Nations’ Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) suggesting that the U.N. assume global governance of the Internet. Thank you Norm.
• Researchers are playing mind tricks to help dieters lose weight. Be careful there fatboy, mind tricks can have unintended consequences.
• Scientists invent a new love potion that works without fail, or so says Pravda.
• Scots bicker over birthplace of 'Scotty', a fictional Star Trek character played by the late James Doohan, a Canadian actor.
• Following the July 7 bombings in London that killed 56 people, the enforcement of laws that allow the deportation of Islamic clerics accused of whipping up hatred and violence has become more robust.
• Biotech giant Monsanto applies for a global patent on pigs.
• South Korea's pioneering stem cell scientist has cloned a dog, smashing another biological barrier and reigniting a fierce ethical debate. Come Snuppy.
• Snuppy's paving the way to our future. The Human-Techno Future: How Weird? How Soon? Author Joel Garreau describes research so cutting edge it seems mind-boggling in Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—And What It Means to Be Human is available at Amazon US and UK. I still want a 45-foot wingspan and a 10-foot tail.
• Why do men have nipples? That and hundreds of other questions are answered in a book subtitled 'Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini'. (It's also answered in the link.) It's available at Amazon US and UK.
• The London-based company Intelligent Energy will sell hydrogen hogs. Well, not quite a hog with a top speed of 50 mph.
• Sea turtles that receive the highest protection in Costa Rica and other neighboring countries are dying by the thousands at the hands of unregulated commercial fishing in Nicaragua.
• Iran told the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency Monday of its decision to resume nuclear activities. Let's think for a minute, why does Iran want uranium? Stop the presses - late input: Iran mullahs back off. Sort of, anyway.
• How close was Hitler to getting the bomb?
• A new cosmic look may cast doubts on big bang theory.
• Russian researchers claim to have solved the mystery of Crop Circles, and it's not ol' Doug and Dave.
• Deep in the forests of North America, if the stories are to be believed, lives a breed of hairy giants that are tall, dark, and ugly.
• A team of physicists from Glasgow University has landed more than £1million to help uncover whether there really is life on other planets.
• After performing an unprecedented repair, the astronaut may need another spacewalk to fix a different trouble spot.
• Scientists peering through a ground-based telescope say the surface of Saturn's planet-sized moon Titan appears dry and not awash in oceans of liquid hydrocarbons as is commonly believed.
• Scientists speculated today on a solution to a longstanding mystery of why the Moon is overloaded with nitrogen. Guess from where the nitrogen came. Aw, go on, guess.
• Dissident scientists that sing the comet electric theory of the universe are having a field day in the wake of NASA's Deep Impact comet collision earlier this month.

Quote of the Day

And justice is the one thing
You should always find
You gotta saddle up your boys
You gotta draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles
We'll sing a victory tune
And we'll all meet back
At the local saloon

We'll raises up our glasses
Against evil forces

Singing, 'Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses!'

Toby Keith/Scott Emerick

Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses

This news is part-Jameske, part-me. Let's just call it an unwanted lovechild...

• Ecstasy (MDMA) relieves symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. Tim Lawrence was saying this years ago, but the every man and his dog kept bringing up Ricaurte's flawed study to dismiss him. Notch one up to Tim.
• Oil executive threatens legal action against Ecuador, if indigenous tribes continue blockade of Amazon drilling.
• Giving birth by Caesarean reduces fertility.
• Babies born during a famine are at twice the risk of schizophrenia, new study finds.
• Shuttle crew confident about fix.
• Methane on Mars: the plot thickens.
• A 'review' of Michael Luckman's Alien Rock: The Rock 'n' Roll Extraterrestrial Connection (Amazon US and UK).
• Is the new planet discovery the 10th planet, or will it push Pluto out of the picture and keep us at nine?
• Nanotechnology kills cancer cells.
• Beware the secret heart of the European union.
• They sing the comet electric.
• Bottled water: why do people drink it? Spell Evian backwards...
• Researcher reveals critical flaw in Cisco routers, now faces FBI probe.
• Fortunes made on bombing.
• Eternal planes will keep an eye on everything we do.
• NASA showed UFO.
• Snake eater reaches 4000.
• Why are dogs jumping to their death from this bridge?

Quote of the Day:

We're playing with half a deck as long as we tolerate that the cardinals of government and science should dicate where human curiousity can legitimately send its attention and where it can not. It's an essentially preposterous situation. It is essentially a civil rights issue because what we're talking about here is the repression of a religious sensibility. In fact not a religious sensibility, the religious sensibility. Not built on some con game spun out by eunichs, but based on the symbiotic relationship that was in place for our species for fifty thousand years before the advent of history, writing, priestcraft and propaganda.

Terence McKenna

How does the 10th planet affect my daily horoscope?

• Terry Pratchett takes a swipe at J.K. Rowling. "His movements could be called cat-like, except that he did not stop to spray urine up against things."
• Army's eco-friendly bullets may not be so good for the environment after all. That, and human bodies as well...
• Francis Crick's last stand: his final paper on the neurological basis of consciousness (with Christof Koch).
• Acunpuncture found to half the rate of tension headaches.
• Bill introduced to ban human reproductive cloning.
• Cannabis may soothe inflamed bowels. Why do I wince just typing those two words?
• Scientists sound the alarm on the Arctic ice cap.
• Doubts and mystery linger over the famous Laetoli footprints.
• Laser scan reveals the advanced knowledge of those who built Scotland's standing stones.
• Researchers restore ancient Buddhist cave temples in virtual reality.
• Ancient Roman stone tablet puzzle yields clues.
• Zoroaster's Kaba: the world' most unique ancient calendrical monument?
• Ethiopia to discuss re-erection of obelisk with UNESCO.
• Ramtha/J.Z. Knight feels right at home in her small-town, and is fighting to keep it quiet.
• Russian lawmakers seek legislation to limit magical activities.
• Haunted tour gives skeptics chance to doubt.
• Chinese to launch quest to find lake monsters.
• Psychic detective says her work is very draining.
• Don't like the weather? Talk to your government representative about getting it changed.
• The curious story of how Captain Mantell died while flying after a UFO in 1948.
• Bob White puts his piece of metallic space do-do on show.
• More on our solar system's 10th Planet from National Geographic. Also more at Astrobiology Magazine.
• In light of Shuttle problems, Russians are proud of their Soyuz workhorse.
• Mars Rover spirit makes an assault on Husband Hill. Weren't these things supposed to stop working a year ago?
• Physicist says time travel is possible. Great Scott!!!
• Meet the man who survived falling out of a plane - by falling back into it.
• Blind teen amazes with his video game skills.

Quote of the Day:

Probably the last sound heard before the Universe folded up like a paper hat would be someone saying, 'What happens if I do this?

Terry Pratchett

Tis the season of discoveries.

• A tenth planet has been discovered orbiting our Sun -- and it has a moon.
• We know about this new planet because a hacker threatened to tell the public if the astronomers didn't.
• An ice lake has been discovered on Mars. Coming soon, Disney on Ice on Mars.
• The recent detection of Methane on Mars raises the possibility of life.
• Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus appears to have active ice volcanoes. I'm thinking Mexican for dinner ...
• Closer to home, the Earth's Arctic Ocean is teeming with unknown life. You can view some of the irridescent critters here. The ship isn't one of the irridescent critters, but the crew did cover its hull with glow-in-the-dark stickers.
• An unidentified sea creature has washed up on China's eastern shores. If you're visiting the area in the coming weeks, don't eat the sharkfin soup.
• What creatures will be discovered, what legends will come to life in a Northwestern China lake?
• A fifth subspecies of chimpanzee has been revealed. Please, don't make it rollerskate or smoke cigars.
• A new species of insect evolved in an instant. It's a pity humans can't do the same.
• The cullinary etiquette of eating newly discovered fauna.
• Artifacts of Ramses II have been unearthed in a Cairo suburb. Workers digging a hole for Zahi Hawass's new jacuzzi have been ordered to dig deeper.
• Tombs have been found near Teotihuacan, Mexico.
• The remains of a Roman lead-smelting site have been found in Wales. Archaeology students volunteering for the dig have been warned not to lick their fingers.
• What secrets does the rock-art of Tiahuanaco keep?
• The Caxamarca culture of Peru has its own secrets.
• Exploring the Cumbe Mayo petroglyphs of Peru.
• The Southwestern United States has the greatest concentration of prehistoric rock-art in the world.
• Why won't the Iron Pillar of Delhi rust?
• The mystery man of Stonehenge: who was he, and where did he come from?
• Mel Gibson is to make a film spoken completely in the Mayan language. The film's title, Apocalypto, is Greek, but I'll give him full marks for trying. No word on his latest project, Boudica.
• My leather jacket and lightsaber were auctioned without my permission. If anyone has seen my fedora, whip, webley revolver, and the Ark of the Covenant, please email me.
• A researcher of exopolitics claims Spielberg's image of hostile aliens in War of the Worlds is offensive to extraterrestrials. Um, I'll quietly mention that War of the Worlds was the idea of H.G. Wells, not Spielberg (Amazon US or UK).
• DNA tests of Bigfoot hair have revealed it's from a bison. Some people still believe in Bigfoot, and insist the hairy man needs a haircut.
• Dan Taylor, the Captain of the 1969 Loch Ness minisub, has passed away: an obituary from The Cryptozoologist.
• Also from The Cryptozoologist, an obituary for Mark Chorvinsky, magician, Fortean, and founder of Strange Magazine.
• We're being told military excercises were mistaken for UFOs in Central Australia recently. Uh, sure, like we haven't been told that one before.
• Perhaps the answers can be found in recently released UFO reports. Today, Tonight is evil tabloid journalism, but the story contents are important.
• Investigating the recent Eccles UFO encounter in the UK. It looks like the car from Monopoly.
• A UFO has been sighted in the skies above the UK's Bracknell Forest.
• Another UFO encounter in Exeter, USA, has tongues wagging ... again. An earlier report of previous encounters here.
• Not to be outdone by the yanks and aussies, Scotland is home to some bonny weird places.
• Whitley Strieber discusses how an alien implant affects him.
• A physicist insists that if you ride your bicycle fast enough, time travel is possible.
• A psychiatrist claims some iPod users are experiencing musical hallucinations. I feel the same way everytime I listen to commercial radio.
• Scientists have developed an in-body bone factory.
• Can subterranean farms safely grow GM crops?
• What a brilliant idea: farming the jet streams for alternative sources of energy.
• Forget about terraforming other planets: perhaps we need to terraform Earth?

Thanks Kat.

Quote of the Day:

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Mohandas Ghandi

Will it be 'deja vu all over again' for NASA?

• Ancient stone map of Rome finally yielding its secrets.
• Ancient quasi-biblical texts written by Jews, Christians and pagans are to be translated for the first time.
• Was there a golden age of linguistic perfection?
• Archaeologists discover Jacobites almost won at Culloden.
• Decline and fall? Or just making off with Constantine's head? It does look a bit worn, though you'd expect that of something 1700 years old.
• Why New Cadiz, chartered in 1528, is now a ghost town.
• Roman motorway secrets unveiled. So that's why you Brit's drive on the 'wrong side' of the road.
• Philip Gardiner's The Secret History of King Arthur and Robin Hood.
• American tribal nations' ancient prophecies are being fulfilled in modern world.
• NASA says Discovery launch was a mistake.
• Foam might have struck shuttle.
• NASA grounds shuttle fleet.
• NASA faces debris crisis.
• Cassini captures weird radio broadcasts from Saturn.
• Bacteria found to assess immune system's threat before activating genes that turn them from harmless bowel dwellers into deadly invaders of the bloodstream.
• Coral genome found to be as large as human genome.
• Scientists discover genes that could unlock secret to longer life and preventing disease.
• MIT develops 'smart bomb' cancer treatment.
• Parenting Jurassic style: the softer side of dinosaurs revealed.
• Ignoring scientists who said it wasn't possible, a pesticide-resistant GM crop has interbreed to produce Britain's first 'superweed'.
• New study on fish diversity unearths an alarming trend.
• Vital marine species under threat.
• Seismic Study Shakes Up Plate Tectonics.
• Submerged volcanos pose tsunami threat.
• Francis Crick explores the neurology of consciousness.
• Humans found to have a "robust" capacity to learn and retain new information unconsciously.
• Giant disc of water ice found near Martian north pole.
• Chandra's Neon Discovery Solves Solar Paradox.
• An asteroid, headed our way.
• Researchers Probe the Language of Bats.
• After record rains of more than 3 feet in one day, India flood toll reaches 800.
• Millions in aid money is wasted planting trees in dry countries.
• Planting trees may create deserts.
• A Stake Through the Heart of the World.
• Elite Thought and Iraqi Prisoner Abuse (including a definition of the four warrior classes) by the author of The Hidden Face of Terrorism: The Dark Side of Social Engineering, from Antiquity to September 11. Amazon US & UK.
• UN to expand crackdown on terror.
• Keeping up-to-date on newspeak: 'war on terror' is no more.
• America's Truth Deficit.
• IRA promises (again) to give up guns and violence: Will there really be peace in N. Ireland after 36 years of maiming and killing?
• As NHS patients are on 4-week waiting list for potentially life-saving CT scans, hospital scanners, and the staff who operate them, are being hired out to oil companies to make 3-D images of rock core samples.
• Warning: graphic content. A vast paedophile ring has been jailed in France.
• Campaigners hope to prove 'Satanic killers' were wrongly convicted.
• Thousands flock to Italian church after a number of parishioners claim to have filmed a miraculous walking statue of the Madonna with their video phones. Videos have been turned over to the local bishop.
• From Myth to Man: a review of Tom Harpur's The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. Amazon US & UK.
• DNA tests squelch proof of Canadian Sasquatch sighting.
• The 5th Annual Texas Bigfoot Conference, which will take place in Jefferson, Oct. 14 - 16, has an impressive line-up of speakers.
• Dr. Jeff Meldrum's evaluation of alleged Sasquatch footprints and their inferred functional morphology. (see Meldrum's bio at the Bigfood Conference link)
• Former Navy flight engineer sights huge cigar-shaped UFO near Exeter, NH.
• Atomic Saucers: Unidentified or Identified Flying Objects?
• H.P. Lovecraft and the Occult Legend of The Necronomicon: An Interview with the authors of Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind Lovecraft's Legend. Amazon US & UK.
• Late addition: Some fabulous crop circles were created in Early and Late July.

Quote of the Day:

"The DNA profile of the hair sample we received from the Yukon earlier this week clearly matches reference DNA profiles from North American bison. However, if you're a believer, we haven't disproved there is a Big Foot out there. I think it's highly unlikely that the sasquatch exists, however, it's not really scientific to disbelieve anything either. You must always maintain an objective mind."

David Coltman, wildlife geneticist at the University of Alberta

This must be conspiracy week. Find something in the news and, sure enough, there’s a conspiracy to go with it. Many are outrageous, some are silly, some are just lies, some are hogwash, some are boring, but one or two might have some merit. So, true to form, I've tried to avoid them. It ain't easy - there's probably a conspiracy associated with every one of these articles.

• The skeletons of 23 of the men and women that built Stonehenge, introduced metalworking to Britain, and spread the Indo-European language are now migrating to Sheffield for a modern evaluation.
• Archaeologists now want to hunt down the remains taken from barrows around Stonehenge: some may be in local museums, others in private hands or under people’s beds.
• Zahi Hawass let Ramses II out of his cage.
• The high cost of a road near Stonehenge has caused the council to refuse the plan.
• Discovery soared off Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad amid debris falling from the craft into orbit 140-miles above the Earth. NASA officials said Wednesday it would ground future space shuttle flights because foam debris that brought down Columbia is still a risk.
• The United States will join India, China and Australia in announcing a new pact to limit greenhouse gases as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol.
• The giving of worthless gifts gets the good girls. I want a research grant.
• The Mars Candy Co. said it is talking with major pharmaceutical companies about developing a line of cocoa-based prescription drugs. Mmmm...Snickers meds.
• Nuclear weapons in various European countries, particularly Russia, pose a serious threat to health, argues a letter in this week's British Medical Journal.
• New animal species evolved in an instant.
• Ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are threatening the survival of the North Atlantic right whale, one of the most endangered whales with an estimated population of about 350.
• Rare island birds threatened by 'super mice'. I think I saw that movie.
• Researchers would love to go inside the Earth, but they can't. However, they have detected tiny particles called geoneutrinos coming from deep within the Earth.
• An amphibious snake robot has, for the first time, allowed researchers to compare the locomotion of swimming and crawling in the same animal model.
• She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe. The Japanese develop 'female' android that reacts in a human-like manner.
• Stem cell researchers create new brain cells.
• The case for the existence of cosmic strings, one-dimensional threads of energy that can span millions of light years, has just been boosted.
• Linda Moulton Howe investigates the mystery of Six Grass Circle Formations in North Carolina.
• Sometime today, David Coltman will tell us the species of the owner of a a tuft of coarse, chocolate-colored hair plucked from the forest floor near Teslin, Yukon, near where several people earlier this month heard, or saw, what they swear was a legendary Sasquatch.
• Gary McKinnon, the British man that hacked his way into 97 US government computers, including machines belonging to NASA and the US Department of Defense, has begun his campaign against extradition.
• The Earth is growing. Our tiny blue planet sweeps up nearly 140-million tons of space debris every year. From where does it all come?
• Scientists want to build a giant space station in the Australian outback to simulate life on Mars.
• Russian space officials want to offer tourists a trip around the Moon for $US100 million.
• Is there life on Mars? If there is, NASA might be contaminating it with microbes from Earth.
• Mars plan envisions a comfy colony.
• Whatever you’re doing in the year 2036, plan on Apophis to come crashing into your planet and destroying everything.

Quote of the Day

The wronger a conspiracy is, the better it is.

Mark Twain

Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy