Bill's gone away for the weekend, but he will arise again next week. Hrmm, sounds familiar ...

• The Pagan roots of Easter. Mmmm, pagan chocolate.
• Did Jesus die from crucifixion, or of old age? Is He buried in Kashmir? Did He go to India?Investigating the possibility that Jesus Christ travelled to the East and did not die on the cross. So far he hasn't been seen in any 24-hour convenience store, but a waitress saw the image of Jesus Christ in a cleaning cloth.
• A teacher has a new theory that could prove the Turin Shroud is a fake.
• When is Spring supposed to start this year? I don't know what you guys are smoking, but it's the start of Autumn down here.
• Is Satanism on the rise in France? Or are they watching too many Hollywood horror films?
• Fighting demons with Islam. Fighting Islam with Christianity. Fighting Christianity with Judaism. Fighting Judaism with Islam. Round and round we go ...
• Two members of the Georgia Paranormal Research Council discuss what they've found. There are shadows among us, and they've written a book about it (available from their website).
• Do you want to be immortal? There can be only one.
• Why reincarnation mystifies scientists. I guess they just can't accept the fact that one day they might be reincarnated as a bestselling alternative archaeology author.
• A UFO has been witnessed over Penghu Harbour, China. It's interesting to note that China has more UFO organisations than any other country in the world, including the United States.
• Atmospheric sprites have been caught on film, dancing high above thunderclouds. It'd take phenomenal eyesight for someone to see through thunderclouds and mistake sprites for UFOs!
• The Northern Hemisphere gets all the attention, what with its Spring Equinox and UFO sightings. The Southern Hemisphere (which is really on top) has just as much paranormal phenomena to offer.
• Brian Appleyard discusses the phenomenon of extraterrestrial visitations.
• First light of distant planets has been seen by astronomers.
• A merman has been spotted in the Caspian Sea. Looking for his mermaid, no doubt.
• Brilliant video of an octopus strutting around on two legs. I love these guys.
• Elephants learn through copying other elephants, making them the only other known animal species apart from the ape and we humans that do so.
• A study will debate the use of non-human primates in science experiments. I like how they stress non-human primates.
• Big Cat fever is hitting the UK, with a man attacked by a panther in his garden, and now a new sighting in the countryside.
• Soft tissue has been extracted from the remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
• In Cambodia, looters are destroying Angkor's ancient ruins. Elsewhere, Cambodian soldiers have found 154 miniature Buddhas.
• Neolithic excavations in the UAE desert have revealed the area was lush with vegetation and water up to 7000 years ago. Does this have implications for the Sphinx?
• Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning because you keep hitting the snooze button? This clock may be for you. Me, I'd rather be woken by many beautiful women gently playing violins and cellos.
• Greek prison guards will go on strike, demanding authorities replace their 1911 US Cavalry revolvers. Apparently they're not allowed to fire the antique guns, so inmates aren't scared of the guards anymore! If you're a collector, I'd be contacting your nearest Greek embassy now.
• A black high school teacher in Utah was sent a KKK recruitment letter. I hope there's a return address and the authorities lay charges.
• Toy non-proliferation talks stall.

Thanks Kat and Max.

Quote of the Day:

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.

Oscar Wilde

It's getting close to the day when "wildlife preservation" will mean using formaldahyde.

• Here's of a more innocent age when a Midlands housewife could have her pregnancy announced by a tall, fair-haired Venusian without even upsetting her husband.
• The latest edition of New Scientist is now available online. Check it out here. The lead story covers turning a blob of jelly into a thinking, feeling liquid brain.
• It's crucifixion season in the Phillipines.
• Fear stalks the streets of a London suburb after a resident is attacked by a black cat the size of a labrador.
• Here comes Easter, but bunnies and eggs have nothing to do with Jesus Christ - and he has nothing to do with Easter.
• "For the first time in history you will be able to save your favourite four legged companion for all of time". Cryo-pet Industries.
• A controversial visiting exorcist says Melbourne's demons are the most vicious in the world. Wait, I thought that was the spiders...or the snakes...or the frogs...or...
• In Washington State, big believers resume the hunt for Bigfoot.
• There is more to conspiracy theories than mass psychology. They are also big business.
• The leader of a secretive Spanish sect who said he was the true Pope and that the Vatican was controlled by the devil has died, a town hall official said Tuesday.
• The Texas Bigfoot Research Center has a website full of information on sightings in the Southwest - but how do we know it isn't Bill on one of his Philadelphia experiments?
• The possibility of communicating with aliens raises one tricky question: what on Earth should we say to them?
• Sixteen years after the hope, hype and recriminations, cold fusion is news again. Investigating a scientific controversy that won't go away.
• Scientists studying the Anasazi calender have concluded they were far more familiar with astronomy, science and possibly math than previously given credit for.
• Seeking to re-create the success of the Ansari X Prize, NASA announces a set of competitions for cunning aerospace inventors. The first challenges: to construct a Space Age tether and a wireless power supply.
• What could be better than seeing the first tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered? Watching it being taken apart.
• Elephants learn some of their calls through imitation which makes them the only land mammal, other than primates, that can undeniably copy sounds.
• Europe has agreed to support India in its quest to send a probe to the Moon.
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was written by Robert Louis Stevenson under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug similar to LSD, according to new research.
• SkyNet getting closer - the US Defense Dept. wants a robot plane that can shoot down other countries' robot planes.
• An advocate of endangered species trophy hunting has been named protector of the US's rare wildlife.

Quote of the Day:

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.
William Blake

So, if superionic water glows bright yellow then perhaps the sun is covered in an ocean of it?

• Giant planets may host superionic water.
• Swiss glacier to get a heat shield.
• Cosmological bogeyman puzzles physicists.
• The good and bad of string theory.
• Building castles in the air.
• Darwin's theory reigns supreme, but many feel it does not tell the whole story.
• Is the Earth really finished?
• Glow of alien planets glimpsed at last.
• Too little sun causes harm, cancer specialists say.
• Research on twins supports God gene.
• Heavenly light show caught on film.
• UFO propulsion system: bending time and space.
• Same face builds trust, not lust.
• Human variety: a revival of racial science.
• Can the spread of nuclear weapons make us safer?
• The new chief inquisitor on campus.
• Found, in an Oxfordshire field: the lost emperor who briefly ruled western Europe.
• Mystery minerals formed in fireball from colliding asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs.
• North Sea crater shows its scars. Ever opened a 1.5l bottle of Grolsh?
• Whilst a sense of meaning fosters health and longevity, not all of our sources of meaning do us good.
• Eighty-thousand houses need to be demolished yearly for the next decade if the UK is to meet its climate change commitments.
• Wrinkles could be less than skin deep.
• Rogue weeds defy rules of genetics.
• Mummy specialists uncover secrets of ancient Egyptian queen.

Quote of the Day:

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Voltaire

The latest issue of Fortean Times (#195) is out for sale, so pick yourself up a copy if you get the chance. This month's mag has a headline story on the UK myth of the 'Black Dog', as well as other articles on Scotland's murdering cannibals and the legacy of the multi-talented Alfred Lawson. See the latest issue page for details - remember too that a new issue means new archived feature content available from the front page of the site.

Let's all have a go, sans dictionary: What exactly is virginity?

• With no words for want, worry, wealth, or when, nomadic Moken remain close to nature.
• Women and men differ genetically almost as much as humans differ from chimpanzees.
• Protein recovered from dinosaur eggs. Looks like we'll soon be needing a review of Crichton's Jurassic Park.
• Silver coin offers solid evidence for a long-dismissed claim that Domitianus had indeed declared himself an emperor at a time of upheaval in the Roman Empire.
• Archaeologists date Afghanistan's Bamiyan Buddhas.
• The tomb of a four-year-old heir of the Medicis has mysteriously disappeared.
• At Rosslyn chapel, present-day Knights Templar are just the Rotary Club in fancy dress. Knight says, "There's no hocus pocus here."
• Saladin and Sir Ridley: Kingdom of Heaven will soon bring the Knights Templar and the Crusades to the big screen, but what's historical fact and what's fiction?
• Scientific genius isn't just about I.Q. It helps to be an outcast with nothing invested in the status quo, and no academic position or reputation to lose.
• Son's disease propels stem cell pioneer to continue research - in an unmarked Harvard lab, kept secret for fear of protesters.
• Gigantic ripples in space-time - larger than the observable universe - may be the cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
• Light may arise from relativity violations.
• Parallel Universes & The Suppression of Ether Physics.
• Emerging vision of the body electric is providing fixes beyond the ken of the medical mainstream.
• Will a 19th-century invention, the Stirling engine, become the 21st-century's solar powered alternative-energy miracle?
• Have hackers recruited your PC? More than one million computers on the net have been hijacked to attack websites, pump out spam and viruses, and worse.
• Just don't call it "telepathy": Neuroscientist says "distant neural signaling" is a real phenomena.
• Love at first smell: Males previously rejected by females were rendered irresistible after the synthetic perfume had been applied.
• Why colonize the Moon before going to Mars?
• Tsunami victims, Iraqis to get first taste of recycled water from space technology.
• The Gift Of ADHD?
• Bust-Up chewing gum is said to fight aging, reduce stress, help circulation, tone muscles, and oh yeah, it increases the size of women's breasts while also improving their shape and tone. Who wants to volunteer for the clinical trial?
• U.S.'s Billion Dollar Abstinence Education Program Yields Results: Adolescent Virginity Pledgers More Likely to Engage in Risky Sexual Behavior.
• New report says UK's I.D. card plans too risky.
• A special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret names Depleted Uranium as the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Of 580,400 U.S. soldiers who served in the first Gulf War, 11,000 are now dead, and as of the year 2000, 325,000 were on permanent medical disability.
• Network of top scientists helped 'Angel of Death' Mengele.
• Hitler's Mein Kampf sells 50,000 copies in Turkey in three months.
• Collective Narcissism - Narcissism, Culture, and Society.
• 'The Military Unleashed My Mind' Says Paul H. Smith, author of Reading the Enemy's Mind: Inside Star Gate--America's Psychic Espionage Program.
• London Druids celebrate rites of spring.
• Iceland grants citizenship for former world chess champion Bobby Fischer.
• Smitten Bigfooters keep making tracks into Oregon's Blue Mountains.
• New cameras, Internet connections, sophisticated DNA and fingerprint examinations have already produced a wealth of new information which has researchers convinced modern technology is on the verge of proving Bigfoot's existence.

Quote of the Day:

A major truth about the Grail, often overlooked, is that it can take different forms. It is not just 'one thing', contrary to popular belief.

Karen Ralls, PhD, medieval historian and Celtic scholar

Popping my head in quickly before I disappear into the wilds of Northern Australia (where, if Grandma Grail is to believed, I may be able to spot the odd UFO or black panther). There is plenty of fresh content up at the website of author Ian Lawton, the easiest place to get a handle on what's new is, appropriately enough, at the What's New section of his website. There are new extracts and commentaries available related to each of Ian's books - check the latest updates to the Giza: The Truth, Genesis Unveiled and The Book of the Soul sections of the site for the full run-down.

Issue 51 of Atlantis Rising is completed and likely to be on news-stands in mid-April. However, for those with bandwidth to spare, you can skip the wait (and news-stand price) by going to the Atlantis Rising website and downloading the PDF file of the entire issue for free. Some of the contents in this issue:

• Some guy called Greg Taylor does an essay on whether the Ku Klux Klan will be in Dan Brown's next book.
  
• Archaeologist Greg Little looks at new evidence for Atlantis in the Bahamas.

Looking after the Daily Grail while Greg's away getting in touch with his inner yowie has given me a greater admiration for the work he puts into this website. I have enough trouble getting out of bed Monday mornings ...

• Scientists warn that climate change is inevitable. Is this a valid reason to continue polluting our environment?
• The US is exporting its nitrogen pollution to other parts of the world.
• Environment and development ministers from the G8 promise to tackle illegal logging. Promises, promises ...
• Every home will one day be a factory. Reminds me of the Lucky Dragon Nanofax, from All Tomorrow's Parties (Amazon US or UK) by William Gibson.
• Nano-probes allow an inside look at cell nuclei.
• NASA will have a four-person rescue team in case something goes wrong with the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Thunderbirds are go!
• Hourglass-shaped craters on Mars show evidence of glaciers.
• Saturn's moon Enceladus (why do I suddenly have a craving for mexican food?) has an atmosphere.
• A young mathematician has solved a crucial part of a puzzle that has haunted number theorists for decades.
• A fireball created in a particle accelerator has the characteristics of a black hole. Haven't these guys played the Half-Life computer game?
• Watch out for the animatronic T-Rex at London's Natural History Museum.
• A detailed 3D image of the UK's one and only space impact crater.
• Are you a man who thinks like a woman, or a woman who thinks like a man? Take this test to find out.
• What makes us human? Comparing the human genome to the genomes of other great apes.
• An interview with Bert Roberts, one of the Australian scientists who discovered Homo Floresiensis.
• Major petroglyph sites in the USA are finally being documented by archaeologists. Beautiful photos in the first link.
• What will extraterrestrials look like? Just like you and I, only with bumpier foreheads.
• Richard Dolan investigates the UFO phenomenon from a historian's perspective, and believes the fringe is the place to be.
• The mystery chupacabra with mangey fur is back. Excellent photo, including a pic of a similar unknown animal with healthy fur.
• A German tourist's photographs of a Tasmanian Tiger appear to be a hoax.
• Rare white lions return to Timbavati. None of them have been named Kimba. Sadly, it's only a matter of time before some wanker shoots them.
• Remember the bridge in Scotland where dogs leap to their deaths? Hendrix the collie-cross plummeted 40 feet and survived.
• A girl partially turned into a lizard from the evils of television. I've turned into a Lounge Lizard from time to time myself.
• Television mysticism is blamed for an increase in asylum tensions. Reality tv will do that to anyone.
• Members of the Knights Templar are annoyed with Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code ... or are they worried about all the attention?
• The legend of the one-eyed dragon with a pearl in its mouth.
• Ancient Egyptian seafaring ships have been discovered in a cave.
• Are scientists concerned about the ground collapsing underneath the Axum Obelisk, or are they looking for something else?
• A scud missile complete with launcher truck is available on Ebay.
• A British politician is mistaken for an extra on the set of Dr Who. George W. Bush had the same problem with Lost (he's the Monster in the jungle).

Thanks Max.

Quote of the Day:

A truth is not hard to kill, and a lie well told is immortal.

Mark Twain

Book Review - State of Fear by Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton's State of Fear is rapidly climbing the best seller lists. I had asked TDG member X_O to review the novel but I was not around when he published it on his blog. Now that I've returned, I am reposting the review:

STATE of FEAR by Michael Crichton

A review by X_O

State of Fear is available at Amazon US and UK.
Thanks X_O.

I was just putting the final polish on the news post when one of Greg’s demons perched her hideous self atop my printer, grinned her fangs, and hissed, “Publish the news now or I’ll rip your heart out and eat it.”

Here’s what happened next ………..

• The first reconstruction of a complete Neanderthal skeleton reveals more clearly than ever the similarities and differences between us and them.
• Tsunami reveals the reality of generations of legends hidden by the water off India.
• The best excavations in Egypt today seem to be inside the Cairo Museum.
• Droppings reveal the health of Scotland's ancient inhabitants.
• An Atlantis investigator explains and vindicates the dialogues of Plato’s Timaeus and the Critias. If this article interests you, be sure to see the additional articles listed in the box to the right on the website.
• Archaeologist discovers ancient ships in Egypt.
• How much can your mind keep track of?
• Are supernatural beings causing jail deaths?
• Stalin's secret files on Hitler have been found.
• Lightning may not strike twice but earthquakes do. A repeat of the Indian Ocean quake that caused the December's Indian Ocean tsunami is likely.
• The USDA may approve rice with human genes in Missouri.
• Biologists with the Idaho National Guard have discovered a new species of fairy shrimp living in the oft-dry lake beds of Idaho's desert. What a grim life.
• An autonomous robot has found life in one of the most lifeless places on Earth: the Atacama desert in northern Chile.
• Vampire bats fly, drink blood — and run.
• Worldwide protests target Canada's seal hunt.
• A Finnish subsidiary of John Deere is building giant spiderbots. See pic - does it remind you of anything?
• 'Vampire' flogged, stabbed and hanged in public.
• Despite UN atomic watchdog efforts, Pakistan is reviving the nuclear black market. Somebody remind me why we have a UN.
• Russian oligarchs want immortality.
• Genetic differences between men and women are more extensive and profound than previously believed, according to a study that unravels the chemistry of the sexes.
• Need a building? Just add water.
• Giving inspiration to the romantically challenged, an inventor has attached electrodes to regular eating utensils that can pick up on whether the person across the table feels uncomfortable or pleased.