Big news day.
- Hideouts, sacred spaces, or a dwelling for helpful goblins? Experts baffled by mysterious underground chambers. Page 2: Gateways to the Underworld.
- Ancient Egyptian royalty wielded serious weapons.
- Archaeologists in Israel have found remains which may be the biblical City of King David, the first evidence that the ancient Jewish empire actually existed.
- An empire of the Mediterranean: There was more to Carthage than her defeat by Rome. Richard Miles’s book Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization is available at Amazon US (Kindle) & UK. Excerpt here.
- The Anglo-Saxon Invasion: Britain is more Germanic than it thinks.
- Sunday marked 100 years since Hiram Bingham rediscovered Machu Picchu.
- The Great Inca Rebellion: NOVA video preview and transcript.
- Royston Cave: a secret Templar and Masonic shrine? Work to preserve the historic carvings at Royston Cave has brought to light carvings hidden for centuries under dirt on the cave’s floor. YouTube video of Royston Cave.
- Medieval shipwreck found off Sweden – could be lost treasure ship of King Valdemar Atterdag.
- In German lake, adventurers search for dumped Nazi gold worth a billion pounds.
- Enormous water reservoir found in space is bigger than 140 trillion Earth oceans.
- Mystery of the ‘Pioneer anomaly’ solved at last.
- Race to the Moon heats up for private firms.
- Mysterious Moon swirls: nature’s graffiti?
- Photo taken from aboard the ISS shows Atlantis re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, leaving a trail of golden plasma behind it.
- Image of the Day: Martian panorama. That’s *another planet* folks.
- Cern scientists suspect glimpse of Higgs boson.
- Physicists close in on ‘the God particle’, with LHC data finding hints of a light Higgs boson.
- Flawed diamonds deliver precious details about early Earth’s tectonics.
- How radiation-tainted food spread through Japan’s markets. Would your government protect you any better?
- Big oil companies pay to eliminate environmental laws.
- Addictive personality? You might be a leader. Linden’s new book The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good is available at Amazon US.
- Robot competition kicks off in NE China.
- Networked knowledge: The world’s first search engine, decades before Google.
- “What happens when we make machines make us make them make us into them? We could be right in the middle of an autocatalytic reaction and not know it.” Sounds a lot like alchemy to me.
- Is precognition possible, and can it beat Twitter on breaking news?
- Amy Winehouse, long interested in paranormal and psychic experiences, joins ‘The 27 Club’.
- Pop stars and their conspiracy theories.
- Oslo shooter claims to be leading member of ‘re-founded’ Knights Templars. So does a splinter group of the La Familia drugs cartel…
- Knights Templar: In Mexico, like Norway, criminals look to past for legitimacy. Speaking of knights…
- The king of Arthurian tales: Nothing has yet outdone Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Robert Ettinger, who died on July 23 aged 92, was the intellectual father of the cryonics movement, whose members have themselves frozen at death pending scientific resurrection.
- Most complex behaviour yet seen in a primate — caught on video. Yep – in a million years, mandrills will re-invent rocket science and the atom bomb.
- It’s Atlantis all over again: 150 human-animal hybrids grown in UK labs. Embryos have been produced secretively for the past three years.
- Ethical rules needed to curb ‘Frankenstein-like experiments’ – or ‘Planet of the Apes-type experiments’ – on animals.
- The Myth is the Mystery: Reflections on Annie Jacobsen’s Area 51.
- Late addition: Wired: Brisbane UFO spotted in Darkest Hour ‘ball lightning’ clip.
- Scientologists, Catholics and More Money Than God.
- Debt: From ancient tool to modern weapon.
Thanks to Charlotte and Greg.
Quote of the Day:
While we might assume that the anatomical region most closely governed by laws, religious prohibitions, and social mores is the genitalia, or the mouth, or the vocal cords, it is actually the medial forebrain pleasure circuit.
David J. Linden, professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
