I'm filling some downtime in book-writing by doing some book-writing...

• American space monkeys covered up spy satellite launches. If you're not seeing this in your mind after that headline, I'm disappointed in you.
• Lightning may cause headaches.
• The true story of a 1967 'extraterrestrial contact' incident that changed our view of the cosmos.
• James Randi: Let Survival of the Fittest "act itself out" on those with low IQ and mental aberrations.
• Is it time to give up on skepticism?
• How to be a bad skeptic.
• Third-largest asteroid impact crater discovered in South Australia.
• The top 10 largest meteor craters on Earth.
• Neuroscientists hack into brainwaves to open new frontiers.
• The Singularity is not near.
• Software program could reconstruct the earliest human languages.
• Thousands of dolphins swarm into super mega-pod off San Diego coast.
• Yo dawg! Canines recognise each other in a crowd.
• Haunted house donated after failing to find a buyer.
• TV channel faces fine over psychic claims.
• The first bionic hand that can feel. As long as it can crush the skulls of my enemies, that's all I need.
• The universe may end in a 'Big Slurp'.

Quote of the Day:

If you think you know what the hell is going on, you're probably full of shit.

Robert Anton Wilson

Valued at approximately $6,500 per gram, it's a safe bet that a whole lot of Russians are now looking for meteor fragments.

• Estimates raised for nuclear-sized asteroid blast that hit Russia.
• Meteor's random destruction was caused by infrasound waves, which have not previously been studied in a cityscape.
• 'Wake-up call' revives detection efforts.
• Ed Lu’s plan to save the world.
• Ancient asteroid strike in Australia changed the face of the Earth. More.
• Society's key to finding the next Earth: The Ars guide to exoplanets.
• Scientists studying a bulge on the Earth's surface where the crust is missing have found the exposed mantle contains more magnesium than usual making it lighter.
• Global health threat seen in overuse of antibiotics on Chinese pig farms.
• Laser intended for Mars now used to detect 'honey laundering'. More than a third of honey consumed in the US is smuggled from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals.
• Manuka is the best honey for stopping bacterial infections in wounds but not all honeys labelled manuka are the real thing.
• Cell phone tracking system reveals how traffic jams start.
• How neuroscientists are hacking into brain waves.
• Do colors look the same for all of us? A wide-ranging video on perception.
• Paranoid movie watches you watch it and changes to your liking.
• Chimps have better short-term memory than humans.
• Lab chimps successfully treated with anti-depressants.
• Sea bed to be mined for antibiotics.
• Refresher course needed: T. rex did NOT look like Barney. It looked like Jurasic Park's 9,000-pound animatronic T. rex.
• MIT's new nanocapsule medicine could sober you up in seconds.
• Mosh pit madness -- it's a gas.
• Environmental concerns dominate the media in China as newspapers warn of the dangers of toxic smog and polluted ground water.
• Nearly one fifth of all reptiles — turtles, snakes, lizards and crocodiles — are headed toward extinction. Cool photo!

Quote of the Day:

Wouldn’t it be silly if we got wiped out because we weren’t looking? This is a wake-up call from space. We’ve got to pay attention to what’s out there.

Edward Lu, former NASA astronaut who's leading one effort to detect Earth-threatening asteroids and comets.

“Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.”

• LHC goes dark.
• After Higgs.
• Speed of supermassive black holes revealed.
• Tiny mutation helps us sweat the small stuff.
• Life… begins.
• How to work in a vacuum, redefined.
• Cosmic ray mystery solved by supernova.
• Unprecedented asteroid flyby.
• The first lunar family.
• It came from above… Asteroids!
• It came from the deep… Supervolcano!
• Wilbur receives sixth sense.
• A snapshot of photosynthesis.
• Teaching a man to fish for prozac perch will be a piece o' cake.
• The end of the forced restart?
• A rogue sun traveling at millions of miles an hour…
• This week’s proof of the looming robot uprising… garden ‘bots.

Many thanks to GT for filling in last week!

Quote of the Day:

“They must have seen ahead what now appears:
 They would bring empires down about our ears. 
And by the example of our Declaration, 
make everybody want to be a nation.”

R. Frost

• Eff Hallmark! Print your loved one a real heart with a new 3D printing process.
• Love potions or wizards NOT welcome in Chechnya.
• When it comes to mental illnesses, love is more fun than schizophrenia.
• The perks of being a sea-slug: Disposable penises.
• What better setting for a romantic night than a UFO-shaped hotel room? "I come in peace, Earthling!" "You'd better not, honey."
• The Day the Earth Stood Still: A conditioning campaign by the CIA?
• Canadian miner claims he was infected by an extraterrestrial life form. I saw that X-Files episode, too.
• Biological intelligence: just a pimple in the Cosmos's puberty.
• Brace yourselves for some stormy (space) weather.
• Teenage kid develops cancer treatment. And what have YOU done this morning?
• Cloudy, with a chance of zombies.
• Searching for consciousness in an injured brain.
• Wikinomicon: Is it time for the Occult to go open source?
• After 150 years, Julia Pastrana --a.k.a. 'the monkey lady'-- returns home.
• Ketchum's Bigfoot DNA paper released this week. Vanity publication? (Here's Loren's take).
• Red Pill of the Day: Back to the Future at Twitter speed. *Puffing* Was it good for you?

Thanks to Perceval & Inannawhimsey

Quote of the Day:

"The Encyclopedia Galactica, in its chapter on Love states that it is far too complicated to define. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of love: "Avoid, if at all possible.""

~From the film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

I think I remember how to post the Grail news, it's like riding a bike. Although that's what Albert Hofmann said...

• There's still birthday cake leftover from yesterday for Charles Darwin & Abe Lincoln. Both men would be 204 years old and a day.
• The blobfish is one creature that missed the evolution memo.
• Rupert Sheldrake sets science free (Amazon).
• Government crusade against comic books was based on lies.
• Skeptiko hosts Chaos theory pioneer & DMT researcher Ralph Abraham.
• Brain rhythms help you avoid going bump in the night.
• Russell Targ talks about the Reality of ESP (Amazon/Kindle).
• Radford University students get their very own psychomanteum.
• Michael Prescott examines the Near Death Experience of Peter N.
• Soviet shamanism: thankfully there are more shamanists than communists in Siberia today.
• Collection of shaman stones found in Panama cave.
• Excavations of a Swiss dolmen grave reveal Neolithic rituals.
• Limestone chapel of queen Hatshepsut opening to the public.
• Australia's best fossil deposits buried by beaurocratic red tape.
• NASA's 'crazy' robot lab, where even making toast is an adventure.
• I missed the UFOs in Melbourne recently, I was staying at a hotel.

Tip o' the hat to Rob Brezsny, David Metcalfe, & three huzzahs to Perceval for covering the news during my alien abduction Cirque du Soleil training.

Quote of the Day:

I cannot endure to read a line of poetry. I have tried to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have almost lost my taste for pictures and music. I lament this curious loss of my higher aesthetic tastes. . . My mind seems to have become a machine for grinding general laws, out of larger collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive.

~ Charles Darwin

Glad to see that even God requires two-weeks notice...

• Pope retires for the first time in six centuries, Internet becomes an open mic for every wanna-be stand-up comedian on Earth.
• HE is not amused: hours later, lightning strikes St Peter's Basilica. Guess at least we know now that God doesn't like ex-Benedict.
• Bookmakers have Richard Dawkins at 666/1 to become the next Pope.
• I'll believe that's a possibility when squid fly.
• Montana TV station airs emergency alert for zombie apocalypse.
• SETI finds no alien signals from exoplanets.
• Scientist explains the weird shiny thing found on Mars.
• How the streetlight effect keeps scientists in the dark.
• Jacques Vallee guest-posts at Boing Boing: "What Ockham really said".
• "Leave the ghost and UFO hunters alone!" say paranormalists. Your thoughts? (I am cited out of context and misquoted both in the story and in the comments, but interesting nonetheless).
• They see dead people.
• It's official: scientists have figured out what killed the dinosaurs.
• Today's fun science: A supersonic ping-pong ball would smash a hole right through the paddle.
• An open letter to Penn & Teller about their appearance on the Dr Oz show.
• Ridley Scott and X-Files producer team up for a PKD series on SyFy.
• Ceremonial magician Donald Tyson talks to Erik Davis on the latest Expanding Mind podcast.
• Your daily dose of wrongness beyond wrongness: Rappin' for Jesus (warning: the 'N'-bomb is dropped multiple times).

Quote of the Day:

Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.

Robert Anton Wilson

Are you sure you want to play this game?

• Planetary Resources is looking for a few good asteroid miners.
• Video: How big is the universe … compared with a grain of sand?
• Retired silversmith uncovers the largest collection of ancient rock art ever found in the Scottish Highlands.
• What is life? Physicist Erwin Schrödinger sparked a revolution in biology 70 years ago.
• Chemical romance: Could a new love drug cure divorce?
• Alarm bells after UFO appears and circles over the world's largest oil refinery.
• South Pole turning into waste dump.
• Geoengineering is being tested, albeit inadvertently, in the north Pacific. Soot from oil-burning ships is dumping about 1000 tonnes of soluble iron per year across 6 million square kilometres of ocean, new research has revealed.
• MIT engineers have created genetic circuits in bacterial cells that not only perform logic functions, but also remember the results, which are encoded in the cell's DNA and passed on for dozens of generations.
• The largest prime number yet discovered – all 17 million digits of it.
• Monkey midwife: black snub-nosed monkey seen helping another monkey give birth.
• An environmental catastrophe is occurring on the high seas, and governments have finally decided to do something about it.
• For the past two years, Taronga Western Plains Zoo has been storing the sperm and eggs of coral from the Great Barrier Reef.
• US Supreme Court to decide seed battle between Indiana farmer and Monsanto.
• Raytheon's Riot program mines social network data like a 'Google for spies', tracking people's movements and predicting future behaviour.
• Secret history of drones: The prototype of the drones now used in Afghanistan was actually conceived in 1916.
• Five Homeland Security 'bots coming to spy on you (if they aren't already).
• DHS 'watchdog' OKs suspicionless seizure of electronic devices along US border (which stretches 100 miles inland from the actual border).
• Recycled cellphones tend to hang on to their former owners' personal data. A new algorithm aims to wipe them clean.
• Webcam and CCTV security flaw exposes us to prying eyes.
• Children are writing malicious computer code to hack accounts on gaming sites and social networks.
• Historian Greg Jefferys, who has a degree in archaeology, says he has new evidence that not all crop circles have a human origin.
• Legendary creature effects artist Stuart Freeborn, creator of the ape-filled 'Dawn of Man' sequence in '2001: A Space Odyssey' and of Yoda, Chewbacca, and other 'Star Wars' characters, dies at age 98.
• DC Comics is turning the Occupy Movement into a superhero title.
• CEOs with big signatures are more likely to be narcissists.

Quote of the Day:

Sherlock Holmes, studying James Moriarty's signature: Are you familiar with the study of graphology?

Professor Moriarty: I have never given it any serious thought. No.

Sherlock Holmes: The psychological analysis of handwriting. The upward strokes on the p, the j, the m indicate a genius level intellect, while the flourishes on the lower zone denote a highly creative yet meticulous nature. But if one observes the overall slant and pressure of the writing, there's a suggestion of acute narcissism, a complete lack of empathy, and a pronounced inclination toward moral insanity.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Avagoodweegend.

• The coming solar superstorm: "Don't panic" say authorities. Zarwinoop's announces The Guide's lawyers will be in contact forthwith.
• SETI conducts first ever targeted search for intelligent life on Earthlike planets. Next up: a good Italian restaurant.
• The most realistic fake UFO video ever.
• Forget solar storms or snow storms - start worrying about the coming global spider-storm. Paging Mr Fort...
• NASA astronauts confirm knowledge of UFOs
• By the year 2100 the human race will have lost about half the languages in use today. So how do we revive a lost language?
• Massive star burps, then goes supernova. I think we've all felt that way.
• Could new hi-tech spectacles 'cure' colour blindness?
• The ancestor of all placental mammals was small, furry and probably ate insects. So basically, my cat has not evolved.
• African-American buys Cameroon archaeological treasures on eBay, returns them to their home country.
• Real-life vampire addicted to blood, doctors claim.
• Controversial 'conspiracy sculpture' at Denver Airport under threat.
• 9/11 Truther defaces iconic Louvre painting.
• The 100 richest people in the world are worth two trillion dollars. That's enough to give every man, woman and child in Australia $100,000 each.
• Image(s) of the day: Once upon a time…

Quote of the Day:

To search expectantly for a radio signal from an extraterrestrial source is probably as culture-bound a presumption as to search the galaxy for a good Italian restaurant.

Terence McKenna

Smash! Smash!! Suh-MAASH!!!

• Physicists create crystals that are (nearly) alive. I for one welcome our new geometrically-patterned overlords.
• (Video) The land of walking statues: What really happened on Easter Island? --the cartoon intro is pure gold.
• Oh boy: ANOTHER weird shiny object found on Mars. What's the excuse this time, NASA?
• How the discovery of pulsars shaped our protocols to search for ET.
• Richard Dolan: Reason & Faith in Ufology.
• Linda Moulton Howe & Robbie Graham analyze the movie Hangar 18.
• Former head of CIA diplomatically repudiates Brandon Chase's claims about Roswell.
• US military advisor suggests pardon for UFO hacker Gary McKinnon.
• Tiniest. Drone. Ever!
• 8 things you didn't know about Ninjas --the 9th is that there's a Ninja behind you!
• Stigmata or psychic attack?
• Yoda, young Han Solo or Boba Fett? What's your favorite Star Wars spinoff prospect? Mine is the torrid romance between Mon Mothman & Admiral Ackbar.
• Mermaids scare off workers in Zimbabwe.
• Wolfmen & Warfare, by Nick Redfern. Is Nick a fan of Operation Darkness?
• Time to face it, cat-loving Grailers: dogs are smarter.
• Red Pill of the Day: Sympathy for Slenderman --he will haunt your dreams... in a cute kind of way.

Thanks to Redington & Susan.

Quote of the Day:

"Read not the Times, read the Eternities"

~Henry David Thoreau

The latest Hermetic Library Anthology album 'Magick, Music and Ritual 6' (some NSFW lyrics).

• Does probability come from quantum physics? Lay your bets.
• Physicist Lawrence Krauss says teaching Creationism is a form of child abuse. You're next, Santa.
• Sharon Hill, creator and editor of Doubtful News interviewed on Binnall of America
• Atheists start running secular 'Sunday Sermons'.
• Printed children next? Scottish researchers successfully print human embryonic stem cells.
• Behemoth. Male silk moth controls a robot to track down mates.
• Moles smell in stereo.
• WGW? Earthworms could make climate change worse, but sea urchins could make it better.
• Those versatile sea urchins can also make cannabis better. (I've tested worms - they make it worse).
• Groundbreaking encryption app set to revolutionise privacy.
• Russian scientists claim discovery of Siberian 'Loch Ness Monster' bones.
• Does the Internet harm organized religion/help pagans?
• Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation.
• The Telegraph's excellent obituary of the great Reg Presley.
• Did Richard III have a Brummie accent?
• After Richard III, archaeologists set their sights on Alfred the Great, but the princes in the tower are staying six feet under.
• 'Possessed' girl vomited stones, bones, human hair, braids, grains, thorns, soap and more.
• 12 scientific findings that were actually faked.
• Do You Love Me? A short film collaboration between Director Chris Wilson and Cleverbot, a talking AI robot.

Quote of the Day:

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the ocean in a drop

Rumi