Click here to support the Daily Grail for as little as $US1 per month on Patreon

News Briefs 02-08-2011

After lunch for some but before for others. As Douglas Adams said, time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

  • Indian man has hysterectomy after doctors find uterus.
  • Swede held for building nuclear reactor in his kitchen.
  • Rome’s Pantheon may have been built as a massive sundial.
  • Neanderthal man died out 40000 years ago after being overwhelmed by a wave of mass migration.
  • SpaceX founder wants man to be a multi-planet species.
  • Pair of green-fingered grafters create human trees.
  • Crop circles are now made using lasers, microwaves and GPS technology.
  • When patents attack.
  • Polar bears traced to one brown bear.
  • The invasive species war.
  • What caricatures can teach us about facial recognition.
  • Neural engineering: the cutting edge of prosthetics.
  • Forty-four trillion watts.
  • Utopianism and cornucopianism in the early modern era and the space age.

Quote of the Day:

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

Mark Twain

  1. Swedes
    Yes, we åre ä cräzy löt. But I ålsö feel inspired nöw. I think I might try build ån H-bömb in my kitchen. I höpe nön öf the ingriedients åre mööse? LÖL!

  2. Microwaved Crop Circles
    I remember Jacques Vallee’s guest blogpost @ Boing Boing where he proposed that very same theory, only instead of invoking anonymous artists he laid the finger on military researchers. All the geeky Dawkin fanbois jumped on him worse than if he had said the Virgin Mary made the circles.

  3. A Multi-Planet Species.
    Humanity’s future is indeed among the stars, on distant worlds that we will either adapt for ourselves, or adapt ourselves for. The only thing that will happen if mankind remains earthbound is our extinction.

  4. Neanderthals overwhelmed
    The evidence is piling up that the one trait that gained us our place as the dominant species, was NOT our big brains, but our big libido 😛

  5. Caricatures and facial recognition
    I don’t have the habit of blowing my own Mexican corneta, but… I wrote about the same thing back in 2008 –although my focus was not facial recognition, but the prevalence of prejudice and racism

  6. Neanderthals did not die out
    As recent studies have shown, the Neanderthals did not die out. Their DNA is amongst most if not all non-African people. The (non-African) humans and the neanderthals blended, and they both survived, in a mixed form. Sure, the ‘pure’ Neanderthals, and the ‘pure’ non-African humans, are no more, but they both remain among us. I am part Basque – if there were no more pure Basque would we say the Basque died out? As I am a mix of many sub-races, we must conclude that all these sub-races obtain – otherwise, I apparently have NO ethnicity. I am part African, and part Neanderthal. We’re still here, thank you very much.

    ~a.

    1. Me too!
      I once read a book about the Neanderthals (what little is known of them) and the more I read the more I felt myself identifying with that which was written! I also have copper-coloured hair. I’m still here too!

      Regards, Kathrinn

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Mobile menu - fractal