Time to release your inner pagan.
- The best places to celebrate the solstice.
- Robert John Langdon’s theory on Stonehenge. More.
- Human evolution: the long, winding road to modern man.
- We are all mutants: On average, thirty mutations are transmitted from each parent to each child, revising previous estimates and revolutionizing the timescale used to calculate the number of generations separating humans from other species.
- Geneticists discover technique to tackle mutant DNA
- Geeky stats about magic mushrooms — via researchers at Johns Hopkins.
- More about this renaissance of research into the benefits of hallucinogenic drugs.
- Will Timothy Leary’s papers turn us on to LSD? More. Inside the archives.
- ‘Brain surgery’ during the Bronze Age Harappan civilisation?
- Iron Age settlement found on St Kildan island of Boreray.
- Archaeologists unscramble ancient graffiti In Israel.
- Discovery of the lost town of Dunluce is an ‘archaeologist’s dream’.
- Archaeologists at the Roman Vindolanda Fort & Museum have unearthed dozens of circular huts which they believe were built during the invasion of Scotland under Emperor Septimius Severus (AD 208-211).
- Exploding cannon balls have been around longer than thought.
- Egypt’s Zahi Hawass found innocent. Detractors pile on.
- Scientists have developed a way to turn memories on and off — literally with the flip of a switch.
- Income disparity causes unhappiness.
- Cheap meat, MRSA and deadly greed: WHO warns we are facing a ‘doomsday scenario of a world without antibiotics.
- A pioneering treatment for people who have face blindness has been discovered by accident.
- U.S. soldier re-grows thigh muscle after pioneering injection of pig bladder hormone.
- Battery-free surveillance device can be implanted under the skin, transmits over huge distances via wireless.
- Introducing Kilobot, a swarm robot cheap enough to actually swarm — ala the spiders in Minority Report.
- Eat a bowl of chips for Big Brother: Researchers develop edible RFID chip.
- Lulzsec and Anonymous teaming up.
- In search of the thing that goes hum in the night.
- Neuroeconomics: sex and the City.
- The military-industrial complex: Eisenhower’s worst fears have come true.
- DARPA dreams of Star Trek’s interstellar travel.
- Menwith Hill: Opening of ‘Son of star wars’ base revives fears that space will be militarised.
- What do these three things have in common: a mysterious, donut-shaped belt of plasma wrapped around the Earth; the warp engines on the starship USS Enterprise; and CERN?
- How the hippies saved physics.
- Almost four times longer, this never-before published version of a 1982 Astronomy magazine self-interview by Lowell Observatory astronomer Robert Burnham, Jr. was found in his papers after his death. Part one and Part two.
- Incredible images from Nasa probe reveal Mercury’s surface.
- Pole-to-pole flights gather the data vital to predict climate change.
- More than five million people hit by floods in eastern China, one million acres of farmland under water.
- Warning: extreme weather ahead.
- Chinese architecture firm duplicates Austrian village, half a world way. Residents of Hallstatt – a Unesco World Heritage site – are not amused.
- North York Moors are lovely this time of year.
Quote of the Day:
A scientist may seem justified in dismissing much of the world’s established religions as puerile folk-lore. But no one has shown that the viewpoint of the scientific materialists is really much better.
Astronomer Robert Burnham, Jr.
