The KGB are back, bigger and badder than ever, even if they are going by different initials now. No wonder Alchemical Literature features semi-immortal antagonists like Sauron and Voldemort.
- Ayahuasca inner visions: Functional neuroimaging reveals the neural basis of the intense imagery induced by the ‘spirit vine’.
- Interview with Dennis McKenna on psychedelics, rationality and dogmatism.
- Why would anyone go to Burning Man? It’s an alternate universe without brands or money.
- Mingyur Rinpoche, the millionaire Buddhist monk who renounced it all this past June.
- More than 80 percent of Oz’s dog and cat owners believe they can understand the meaning of their pet’s woof or miaow.
- Irish coroner rules man’s death was caused by spontaneous combustion.
- Pompeii shows its true colours.
- Mysterious ‘Denisovan cavemen’ had sex with humans from Borneo to the Philippines.
- Mysterious chamber under church holds clues to the Venerable Bede.
- Scott of the Antarctic: the lies that doomed his race to the pole.
- A grisly end: 800-year-old remains of witch discovered in Italian graveyard – with seven nails driven through her jaw.
- When Europe’s single currency worked – the 1480s: A new exhibition in Florence explores money, sin and the birth of capitalism.
- The world’s oldest running car is up for sale and expected to fetch £1.6m at auction.
- Here be dragons: A history of map monsters.
- A review of Ken Jennings’ Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks (Amazon US, Kindle, & UK).
- Renowned physicist Frank Close urges caution before we abandon the theory of relativity and prepare for time travel.
- Time travel in fiction: why authors return to it time and time again.
- William Gibson: beyond cyberspace.
- Stephen Greenblatt’s superb history The Swerve shows how a bibliophile’s discovery of a lost classical epic shaped the new Europe. The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began is available at Amazon US & UK, and for Kindle US & UK.
- Frankenstein’s hour of creation identified by astronomers.
- The life and times of Charles Dickens: An excerpt from Claire Tomalin’s Charles Dickens: A Life (Amazon US & UK).
- Queen bees don’t ‘rise to power’ thanks to being fed royal jelly — queens and workers have their destinies in their cells.
- French woman suing Opus Dei for years of alleged enslavement.
- Yahoo says it didn’t mean to censor Protest Wall Street emails. The truth is much more insidious.
- When net freedom meets market forces: As Bill Weasley explained to Harry Potter,
corporationsgoblins believe the rightful owner of any object is its creator, not its purchaser. - Human hyperlinks: QR codes, which are scanned by smartphones, are packed with data about products – and people.
- Enemy of the state: How Luke Harding, the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, became the reporter Russia hated. Chapter one, apparently, of Harding’s new book Mafia State (Amazon US & UK).
- Free audiobook downloads: John le Carré’s A Perfect Spy (through 27 Sept), The Constant Gardener (through 28 Sept), and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (through 29 Sept).
Thanks, xibalba and Rick.
Quote of the Day:
Nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.
Elrond, in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
