News Briefs 12-03-2007

The secret to how I gather the news is out -- I have gnome assistants. Unfortunately, they make terrible coffee (so that's my job now; the gnomes write the news instead).

• Two men who communicate with the dead, faeries and leprechauns also believe we each have our own personal gnome companions.
• The classic Gnomes, by Rien Poortvliet and illustrated by Wil Huygen, is still available if you'd like some tips (Amazon US or UK).
• If you're interested in real encounters with the wee folk, then Janet Bord's Faeries is indispensable (Amazon US or UK).
• Could the giant stone spheres of Costa Rica have once been laid out to mirror planets and constellations? John W. Hoopes isn't happy about such theories and has a debunking website.
• Mark Kimmel, who became interested in UFOs and extraterrestrials when shown a copy of Project Blue Book in 1963, has extraterrestrial messages decoded.
• Has anyone read Mark Kimmel's Trillion (Amazon US or UK)? Tell us what you thought.
• On July 4th 1997, a couple on holiday in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, saw a v-shaped craft hover above them.
• An October 2000 study by a retired aerospace scientist from NASA-Ames Research Centre suggests many encounters with UFOs by pilots in American skies have been potentially dangerous. Dangerous for their reputations, definitely.
• Is the current UFO flap a result of an increase in HAARP activity?
• Can time windows into other worlds allow us glimpses of the past or future?
• Here's video of a man bending a spoon with his mind ... or is he? Watch it and decide for yourself.
• Astrology is not a belief or a religion but an academic study, argue astrologers at a National Council for Geocosmic Research conference.
• Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, a prominent clinical psychologist at Berkeley, has dedicated her career to exploring the supernatural abilities of the mind ever since a psychic helped locate her missing harp.
• Will biology, and not physics, explain the Universe, or will Dr Robert Lanza hit the old brick wall of dogmatism and peer-group bullying?
• The Nepalese boy some claim to be the reincarnation of Buddha has gone missing again. Would it be wrong to insert a tracking chip into the reincarnation of Buddha?
• The mysterious humming noise affecting residents of Taos, New Mexico, is nagging the ears of a man in the Netherlands who moved twice to avoid it. Odd, it started in Taos shortly after I visited in October 2000.
• A team of Danish scientists say that nerves transmit impulses through sound, and not through electricity as commonly thought. That explains why pop music gets on my nerves.
• Up close and personal with the Goddess of Hongshan.
• The eastern porch of a palace associated with King Darius the Great has been excavated. No rocking chair was found.
• At last, the Battle of Thermopylae comes to the big-screen in gory high-definition splendour; Frank Miller's graphic novel 300 (Amazon US or UK) is now an epic film. The official 300 website is down, but here's the film trailer.

My humble gnome assistants don't want to be thanked.

Quote of the Day:

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

Jack Kerouac