Why is it June already, and what happened to March, April and May??? o_O
- The 4700-year-old Silbury Hill is under threat from ramblers who now have the right to roam. Julius Caeser passed a similar law.
- A 1000-year-old citadel was uncovered in Hanoi during the construction of a carpark.
- The recent earthquake on May 27th killed thousands of Indonesians, and it also badly damaged the Prambanan temple complex.
- Chinese archaeologists have unearthed an ancient city that has remained buried beneath the Taklimakan sands for 2200 years.
- Giant clouds of dust whipped up by desert storms in Africa can carry infectious organisms to other continents, scientists claim. Toto has rabies?
- A hidden ecosystem has been discovered beneath an Israeli cement quarry. I was hoping for Fraggles.
- The Earth’s tropical zone has expanded further from the equator since 1979, providing evidence of global warming.
- Scientists claim to have discovered how to achieve invisibility without breaking the laws of physics. If they’re male undergrads, I’m sure they’ll be breaking other kinds of laws.
- An exotic theory that proposes the existence of an extra fourth spatial dimension, could be tested using a satellite to be launched in 2007. Is it wise to open a door not knowing what’s on the other side?
- Nearly 50 tons of red rain showered India in 2001, and now the race is on to figure out what it is, and why Peter Gabriel hasn’t booked a concert in Delhi.
- On film he’s married an alien, played a conehead, busted ghosts, and now he’s produced a documentary on UFOs: Dan Ackroyd Unplugged On UFOs. It’s a serious doco, by the way.
- Bob Park, a vocal critic of spaceflight, claims that intelligent alien civilizations do exist, but they have not colonized the galaxy because they don’t want to. Imagine the frightening possibility of a planet populated by Bob Parks!
- A study has found that music can significantly ease a patient’s perception of chronic pain. Most music in the Top 40 will make the pain worse.
- In his book the Singing Neanderthals, Steven Mithin suggests neanderthals had a musical culture (Amazon US or UK). [Insert heavy metal pun here].
- Is this photograph one of the most powerful UFO images ever captured?
- Babies born in winter are more likely to be bigger, brighter and more successful adults than their summer counterparts, according to Harvard researchers. I prove that theory wrong, but then again, my pessimism proves them right!
- A pregnant British woman is fighting to have her baby induced so it’s not born on the 6/6/06. Idiots, it’s not 6/6/6, it’s 6/6/2006. Gosh!
- Hopefully these June 6th conspiracies are on the doctor’s waiting room coffee table for her to read.
- Was Aleister Crowley the father of Barbara Bush, mother of George Dubya Bush, and is the occultist rolling in his grave?
- In a paddy-lined valley in the far north of Japan is a municipal signpost inscribed, Tomb Of Christ: Next Left. The Holy Grail is a Tamagotchi.
- Weird plaques embedded in downtown St Louis point to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but no one knows who made them. Known as Toynbee Plaques, they’ve mystified everyone for two decades, and are also found in Pittsburgh.
- An excellent interview with Carol K. and Dinah Mack, authors of A Field Guide to Demons: Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits (Amazon US or UK).
- My favourite storyteller Neil Gaiman was recently in Sydney, and here are wmv videos of his Graphic Books presentation with Audrey Niffenegger, and the Meet the Writers presentation with Jonathan Stroud. If you need me, me and Neil’ll be hanging out with the Dream King.
Quote of the Day:
Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.
Neil Gaiman