The news isn’t late, you’re early.
- The ruins of ancient pagodas in Myanmar (Burma) are, ironically, being destroyed by shoddy restoration work.
- A climate scientist says civilisation came about because it was the last resort due to dramatic shifts in weather.
- I hope you haven’t unpacked your bags yet Dr Schoch and Dr Dowell, the Ukraine claims to have pyramids too.
- Why did alternative adventurer David Hatcher Childress set up his business in Kempton, Illinois? Most people go to Belize to escape taxes.
- Ellen Lloyd ponders whether giants mentioned in ancient sources really walked the earth. “Voices from Legendary Times” is available from Amazon US or UK.
- Research published in Current Anthropology suggests it is modern humans, and not Neanderthals, who branched off the line of the family tree from our earliest common ancestor.
- Native American John Mohawk has wisdom and prophecies to share about our future and our roles in shaping it.
- The thawing of Siberian bogs is releasing trapped greenhouse gases, with dire consequences for the atmosphere. For Russian sniffer dogs too, I’d wager.
- Air bubbles from an 800’000-year-old ice core drilled in Antarctica have shown carbon dioxide has increased by 35 percent in the last 200 years, implicating human industrial activities.
- Male fish in the Potomac River are developing female sexual traits at an alarmingly high frequency, with implications for the drinking water enjoyed by millions of people.
- Scientists believe they have solved the riddle of El Nino. A sunken spanish galleon full of gold from the New World wasn’t involved.
- China has launched a satellite carrying fruit and vegetables to help develop space-enhanced produce. Despite China’s one-child policy, they still have 1.3 billion mouths to feed.
- Can two Duke University scientists make science-fiction a reality by making a cloak of invisibility? I’d ask them myself, but I haven’t seen them around lately.
- New models suggest that as many as one-third of the solar systems in our galactic neighbourhood might contain terrestrial planets teeming with ocean life.
- Do these images contain evidence of seashells on Mars? Did Martians sell seashells by the seashore?
- Ah, Pravda! Humanoid robots existed in ancient civilisations. Actually, it’s not a bad read.
- People in a district of Orissa, India, are afraid of getting killed by a walking ghost, and have torn down the tree believed to be its home. Yes, destroying the ghost’s home will pacify it!
- Villagers fear a rare burst of pink flowers in the bamboo forests of northeastern India, and not because they get hayfever.
- A Japanese legend suggests Jesus escaped crucifixion and became a rice farmer in Japan. If there’s a shortage of backpacker workers, I guess Christian missionaries are the next best thing.
- Has a Japanese film crew captured footage of the Lake Van monster? If you plan on visiting Lake Van, don’t use the toilets there.
- A large fairy ring has appeared in the lawn of a Wiltshire home. Garden gnomes and a plastic pink flamingo would really compliment it.
- R. Lee writes in the American Chronicle that skeptics are being pompously precious for complaining the names they get called (such as “skeptibunkies”) are comparable to racial slurs.
- Popular Science has a serious expose on the secret technology being tested at Area 51.
- Kat says watch this video and you’ll love the cat too (in Japanese). I’d like to share the love, but the link won’t work for me.
- Richard Blandford’s “Hound Dog” is a very funny novel about an ex-con Elvis impersonator who hates Elvis (Amazon US or UK). It’s Ben Elton meets Guy Ritchie (minus Madonna).
Thanks Mike, Quicksurfer, Brian, Daniel and Kat.
Quote of the Day:
The anti-UFO activists can be offended all he or she likes, sniff and sneer at being mocked, take offense at being called a New Thug, even though that is the behavior so often being exhibited these days (golly gee, what else do you call demands for the cultural cleansing of UFOlogy by non-UFOists?) But they do not get to be so damn arrogant and full of their own importance regarding their Crusade to Rid the World of Woo.
R. Lee
