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News Briefs 13-08-2004

Paraskavedekatriaphobia. Jacques Demolay – you will be avenged! (Click here only if you don’t know to what we refer.)

  • Fossils, with tiny ear bones intact, reveal for the first time how the ancestors of whales and dolphins developed their finely tuned underwater hearing.
  • We have now officially determined where Christopher Columbus isn’t buried.
  • A Belgian mission in southern Egypt discovers a 6,000-year old Pharaoh. But read the entire article to learn of an Australian that was arrested while prowling around the Sphinx recently in search of ‘the key to the universe’.
  • The Mississippi River has its mysteries, but none that can touch the one that unfolded on its banks 1,000 years ago.
  • Explorers find world’s deepest hole.
  • Is science fiction about to go blind? Somebody needs to go see Alien vs. Predator and tell the rest of us about it.
  • Heat waves in the 21st Century will be brutal.
  • Nature is mankind’s gravest threat.
  • Existing technologies could stop the escalation of global warming for 50-years and work on implementing them can begin immediately. Well, it could curtail the emissions of greenhouse gasses anyway.
  • Geologists say the end of the oil age is nigh. New recovery tech may tell a different story.
  • Gravity equations give rise to a measles model.
  • Does hunger trump GM fear?
  • Britain gave the go ahead for human cloning, granting a license to scientists bidding to become the first in Europe to create stem cells used in medical research from a cloned human embryo.
  • Iran tested an upgraded version of its conventional medium-range Shahab-3 missile, two weeks after Israel tested its Arrow II anti-missile missile.
  • There’s a war going on in Africa, people vs. giant swarms of locusts marauding through the desert states for the food supply.
  • Twist it, stretch it double, fry it to 200°C, douse it with jet fuel—the stuff survives. Destined for shape-shifting aircraft wings and artificial muscles, investor interest is booming in metal rubber.
  • A 480-pound woman died after living six-years on a couch.
  • The ancient Olympians followed the Atkins Diet.
  • Badgers threaten prehistoric burial sites in UK. Yes badgers. Oh, lighten-up, will you?
  • An unknown underwater animal has been found in the Atlantic Ocean. (with pic)
  • Dolphin groups rely on socialites to keep them together. Don’t we all?
  • Did that Texas rancher shoot and kill a Chupacabra or not? Experts from the San Antonio Zoo weigh-in on this one.
  • The claim of Russian scientists to have discovered the wreck of an alien device at the site of an unexplained explosion in Tunguska is climbing its way up and onto the more reputable news sources. But some are claiming it’s a hoax. Here’s the latest we’ve got.
  • Strange skies, glowing lights, and crop formations – in Belgium and Holland, this time. Ol’ Doug and Dave sure do get around, don’t they.
  • A Polish town plans to ask the EU for the equivalent of $126 million to help it build facilities for hundreds of visitors lured by its mysterious crop circles.
  • Hugh vortices of superheated gas have been discovered swirling like bathtub drains high above the planet.
  • The Mars Society of Australia is to begin searching for investors to help fund a proposed Mars research station in northern South Australia.
  • Japan has unfurled a delicate solar sail in space.
  • We’re closing-in on what causes planet formation.
  • A nearby star thought to harbor comets and asteroids now appears to be home to planets, too.
  • India is rethinking its plan to send a man to the moon by 2015.
  • Spinning black holes fire off violent jets.

Quote of the Day:

Your reality is lies and balderdash and I’m delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.

Baron Munchausen

  1. re: Aussie arrested in Egypt
    Bill and all of TDG,

    I’d just like to state that I am not the Australian who was arrested prowling around the Sphinx. I have an alibi. However, I can not speak on behalf of Greg Taylor.

    You’re not in trouble until you get caught.

    Rico

    “Read like a butterfly, write like a bee.” – Philip Pullman

    1. Oh c’mon Rico
      C’mon Rico, we’ve been on to you from the beginning.
      Give us your address in Cairo and TDG will take up a collection to get you home to Oz.
      Just as long as you don’t do it again.

      Or if you do it again……don’t get caught.We need all the information we can get.

      shadows

      1. Bail
        Er, how about a collection to send me from Australia to Cairo? 😉

        Pros: I won’t get caught. Being chosen to present news on TDG proves I’m an untrustworthy individual capable of incredible displays of stealth and sneakiness.

        Cons: Greg’s the boss and for that he should go. 😉

  2. At first glance…
    “Twist it, stretch it double, fry it to 200°C, douse it with jet fuel—the stuff survives.”

    Gee, with this intro, I was expecting an article about prions. Then I remembered that even 1000 degrees C doesn’t do them in.

  3. Aussie caught near Sphinx
    How did Pharoh Zahianuksumra know that the aussie was not digging near the sphinx?

    Because the Pharoh’s digging teams had taken up all the available room around the sphinx already.

    AAiek

  4. Well Done, Charlie
    Thanks Bill, for the great article on the SF author, Charles Stross. (Is science fiction about to go blind?) Ive known Charlie for several years now and know his brainpower is only matched by his thirst for good beer. Its great to see him doing so well. Anyone who enjoys his work may be interested in his online diary . His equally brilliant partner, Feorag, is Scotland’s only female cheif brewer and runs the excellent website Pagan Prattle which takes a humourous and ironic look at news featuring loonie fundementalists of every religious persuasion.

    To sit in silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men

  5. uncle fudd
    I for one can personnally verify that it is indeed a treat to beat your feet on the mississippi mud… ‘specially if they are isreali feet wrapped in fine corinthian leather, hittin’ the beach at the same time as dozens of other teams, all on sceduale after those cute nukes go off… man, what a land of milk and motza! You goys will never know what hit you, ITS ALL COMING SOON TO YOUR HOMETOWN!
    thank you yet again for the bucks for bombs, jesus what gullible fools…

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