Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)

Good background info and plenty of links to Mexico's own unique way of celebrating this annual event.

image www.mexicanceramic.com

Samhain

Everywhere is full of the joys of Halloween, so here's an article that also discusses Samhain, which in Scots Gaelic means 'Summer's end', which in turn is celebrated on November 1st.

Exxon-Mobil employees got fake flu shots

A rather bizarre story, especially as no-one seems to know how this was discovered, or what exactly the employees were injected with. It has been suggested that vaccinations against the avian flu may become compulsory, but news such as this will merely fuel fevered suspicion that some larger conspiracy is taking place in the background - there was even a view expressed that everyone is about to be injected with tiny RFID (radio frequency identity) chips, again under the guise of some manufactured pandemic necessity.

image RFID tags

Google Earth - Home

From time to time there's nothing I like more than to sit staring at lots of pictures, or simply scroll through random stretches of story and obscure articles, and it is at such times I turn to sites like this one - one of the greatest achievements of the net is the huge volume of images and pictures that have now become accessible and available to such a wide audience - from sharing images of your neighbourhood as viewed from space, to virtually any painting or work of art you can put a name to - we as a culture are probably able to see more images in a lifetime than all the images that have existed in the history of the world before the Internet sprang into life.

NASA World Wind 1.3.3.1

This downloadable application lets you view the Earth from satellite range, then zoom in to anywhere on the planet; Google Earth also do a nice line in this same type of technology, allowing you type an address which can then be rendered in 3-D. It's necessary for you to download World Wind as an application, although as it's over 50mb, a reasonably fast internet connection and a moderate/semi-decent video card is advisable.

Pressure grows on Bush as Libby charged with lying to grand jury

Although potentially damaging to Bush's image, it's unlikely he will become too caught up in this case, although that's not to say there won't be other problems for him looming on the horizon. It will come as some surprise to many that this case has reached this point - it's quite common for people to believe that many top politicians around the globe operate beyond the reaches of the law, but when we see the likes of Carl Rove under investigation, it would seem that such people are not as legally immune as might have been supposed.

At the time, the story caused a scandal when Libby, vice-President Dick Cheney's chief-of-staff, leaked the name and identity of a CIA operative, an extraordinary and dangerous move which has yet to be fully explained. However, it was his efforts to impede the subsequent investigation, rather than the betrayal of his own secret services personnel, that eventually landed him in hot water. If found guilty on all charges he could face up to 30 years in prison, plus more than a million dollars in fines, although somehow I think it unlikely he will face such stern censure.

Leading Historian Says U.S. ‘Empire’ To Fail

Even more gloomy news for the US - now a leading historian, Eric Hobsbawm has said in a speech that he thinks the way the US is attempting to dominate the entire globe is doomed to failure. Describing America as an empire, in sharp contrast to the views of many other historians, he compared it with the now extinct British Empire of the 19th and 20th centuries.

He makes the very good points, imo, that the US simply doesn't have the military strength in numbers to achieve all its current overseas objectives, and in agreement with others, considers the US to be politically weak. When Britain established its empire it did so by economic means, and never set about trying to dominate the entire world, settling instead for an amount of territory and peoples over which she could maintain effective levels of control.

The US in contrast was forged from the fires of revolution, with its national identity coming from that same revolutionary perspective. When asked what future lay in store for America, Hobbawm declined to say, indicating that there is hope yet for this transformational nation.

image Thomas Cole The Consummation of the Empire, 1836.

Red Planet set for close approach

Although Mars is currently battening down its hatches in the face of a giant sand-storm, it is approaching within 43.1 million miles of Earth - the closest it will be for another 13 years, in 2018 - it should be visible in the sky as a brilliant orange/red orb. The storm erupted on Thursday night, and it may well be that these and previous winds are cleaning the solar panels of the two exploration Rovers, still operating way beyond their initial life-expectancy. Apparently a small telescope will suffice for anyone wishing to take a look, and the storm should appear as a distinct brilliant yellow patch - it's quite possible that over the coming days, this same storm will spread right around the entire planet. It should appear in the eastern sky at an angle around 75 to 80 degrees, more or less, so bright and orange that even viewing from light-polluted big cities will be possible.

image http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/files/images/hi-res/6_10_tharsis_high.jpg, (although not the storm mentioned above)

Websites bolster chronically ill

Article from the BBC comenting on how inter-active websites can benefit those with long-term health problems - corresponding with fellow sufferers can provide some reassurance to those afflicted with any number of illnesses. It was also noted that websites providing information alone were not that beneficial, so I suppose it's knowing that no matter how bad you might feel, some comfort can be derived from knowing that others are in the same boat, and that other methods of coping from day-to-day can be communicated.

image lucien freud reflection (self-portrait), 1985

Data stored in live cells

Article relating how ingenious researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have copied and retrieved information of a song lyric to and from bacterial DNA. It's thought that with the short life spans of data storage that we have at the moment, a much longer lived technology must be exploited, and bacteria are one of the most hardy and durable life-forms in the game, making them an excellent medium.

Genetically Engineered Theory vs Evolution

Following hot on the heels of Intelligent Design Theory, comes another idea from the Book of Thoth site - this alternative paradigm has been around for some time, although this is the first time I've come across Genetically Engineered Theory as an on-going working title.

The basic idea is that aliens came to Earth some 450,000 years ago, and using Homo erectus as an original species, spliced their genes this way and that, ultimately generating Homo sapiens. The main apologist for this idea is Zechariah Sitchin, the Israeli writer and translator of numerous clay cuneiform tablets from the time of Mesopotamia. It has been suggested from other writers, such as Will Hart, that we might find clues to this event somewhere in what we know as our junk DNA, endless streams of code that appear to thave no direct function or purpose. This theme was also explored extensively in the X-Files, particularly in the 'Sixth Extinction' episodes, although with a markely different slant on interpretation.

Anyway,should you feel strongly enough about such things, there is a petition to sign at the end of the article.

Image Albrecht Durer The Large Turf, 1503

Is there another world in the mirror, Case physicist asks

A review of the latest book by Lawrence Krauss, a Professor of Physics and Astronomy, marking the latest attempt to come to grips with String Theory - although as he says, there is no more evidence today of extra or hidden dimensions than there was 100 years ago.

Hobbit As Monkey?. The Loom: A blog about life, past and future

Here's a novel take on Homo floresiensis - according to Dutch palaeoanthropologist, Gert van den Bergh, rather than being human, the discoveries on Flores might be more simian in apsect.

He bases his theory on the fossil's unusually long arms, leading him to think that the species may have been arboreal, spending much of its life in the tree-tops of Flores.

However, the reduced size of the dentition, and the generally gracile features of the skull and other bones makes it more human to me.

However, as we have seen, for the time being it looks as though no new digging work will take place in Liang Bua cave, as it has been declared out of bounds by a certain Teuku Jacob, to whom I have referred earlier in these pages.

Pyramid found - in the heart of Bosnia

I find it hard to believe, after viewing the picture, that no-one in the past has considered investigating this pyramid shaped mound or structure. If true, this would be an astounding discovery, although we can't yet be definite in allocating an age of 12,000 years. It will be interesting to see if there will be any follow-up to this, or whether the story will be debunked and quietly forgotten. I recall a similar announcement being made in Italy a year or two ago, but there have thus far been no updates - I would expect someone like National Geographic to take an interest in this, but only time and further research will decide whether this happens.

Clovis in the Southeast Conference - Speakers List

It's conferences like this that make me wish I lived over in the US - this should be a fascinating few days, and I just hope they report fully on what promises to be a frank exchange of views. There are probably some great posters and text hand-outs, so if you're lucky enough to have made it there, it should be a very rewarding experience.

image lithiccastinglab.com clovis culture poster

'Supernatural' from Graham Hancock

A good review of 'Supernatural', which as far as I've read is Graham Hancock at his best - clearly and eloquently written, and at 600 pages, well worth its price at Amazon.

Apart from vomitoriums and orgies, what did the Romans do for us?

Brief discourse on the rise and fall of Rome, and its comparison with the superpowers of today. The Romans introduced a great deal to this country, most surprising of which were various food items like apples and rabbits, and even take-away food in the guise of burgers.

But to this day, we are still no nearer in understanding how their hypocaust heating systems worked - it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that efficient in-house heating systems were once again discovered and deployed.

image Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema The Roses of Heliogabalus, 1888

binnall of america : audio

Two new mp3s have recently been added, both of which are of Tim Binall with Greg Bishop, author of 'Project Beta', which looks at the life of UFO investigator Paul Bennewitz.

SpaceWeather.com - image of the day

All quiet on the sun, with no sunspots appearing on its blank surface. Also a nice animation of Mars looping back on itself.

image of Mars in the night sky by andy skinner

'Axis of evil' warps cosmic background

Once again, Space turns out to be not quite the place we imagined, as this study of the cosmic microwave background has demonstrated to us.

image hubble deep field telescope

NASA Prepares for Mission to Pluto

While other nations and their space agencies may be planning trips to the Moon and voyages to Mars, NASA, bless their velcro socks, have plumped for a mission to Pluto, the small planet lying about 9 billion miles distant from the Sun.

image Pluto from Charon by Marilynn Flynn 1981 via tharsisgallery.com

Six-seat spacecraft top of Russian space plan

Excellent news from Russia, where the talk round the camp-fire is of sending a manned mission to Mars, preferably before the Americans, who in turn beat them to the Moon. It's possible they will be joined and supported in this by the Europeans and Japanese, but I doubt this will cause NASA to modify their plans to re-visit the Moon and then Mars - the space race in the 1960s was set against the back-drop of the Cold War, with the Apollo missions as good propaganda fo rthe West. However, a race of sorts is slowly beginning to take shape, as the Chinese are as intent as the US on getting to the Moon sooner rather than later.

image Viking mission picture of face on Mars, 1976, via www.racine.ra.it

Podcasts from the Psychedelic Salon . . . www.PalenqueNorte.org

There are currently over 20 different podcasts to chose from, some of which will be of interest to enthusiasts of hallucinogens and their derivatives. Terence McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck and Erik Davies are among the various speakers featured.

Riding a Beam of Light

If you enjoy travelling into space, but aren't that keen on rocket propulsion as a means of transport, there are people busily working away to build a viable alternative; this was an idea originally mooted by Arthur C. Clarke, many moons ago.

Step back 5,000 years in time at Britain's northern tip

Handy if you're planning a trip to northern Scotland but haven't got a clue what to do once you get there - and handier still if you were thinking of visiting Scotland, but were unsure if there was an abundance of prehistoric structures, stone circles and neolithic villages.

image ring of brodgar s watson via the megalithic portal

Elephants may pay homage to dead relatives

Over thousands of years, humans have honoured the bones of the dead, particularly the skull, and although elephants don't have quite the same complexity of behaviour, experiments have shown that they take great interest in skulls and ivory of their own species, when encountered in their own territories.

image Royal Society/Karen McComb

Stone Age Cemetery at Ténéré Desert, Artifacts Unearthed in Sahara

Good coverage of a discovery in the Saharan wastelands of Niger - several thousands of years ago a lake-side community lived and thrived in what was then an idyllic location. This from National Geographic...

Archaeologists have excavated a trove of Stone Age human skeletons and artifacts on the shores of an ancient lake in the Sahara. The seven nearby sites include an extensive cemetery and represent one of the largest and best preserved concentrations of ancient skeletons and artifacts ever found in the region, researchers say.

Harpoons, fishhooks, pottery, jewelry, stone tools, and other artifacts pepper the ancient lakeside settlement. The objects were left by early communities that once thrived on the former lake's abundant fish and shellfish.

"They were living on a diet rich in catfish [and] mollusks," said Paul Sereno, a University of Chicago paleontologist and National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence.

"It was a place you could walk out the door of your hut amid the sand dunes and perhaps see hippos, elephants, giraffes, and crocodiles," he added.

And towards the end of the article, we learn the following...

The team says the site's human remains were most striking. Members found hundreds of skeletons in the site's large cemetery, some still adorned with ancient jewelry.

The researchers found tools, such as precision stone blades, bone hooks, pottery stamps, and other artifacts, in graves and other site locations.

Some artifacts suggest travel and perhaps even distant trade. Stone tools made of pale green volcanic rock could have their source some 50 miles (80 kilometers) distant in the Air Mountains, an area rich with period rock art.

The ancient lakeside settlements had long escaped discovery in the remote, sweltering, windy, area of Niger's Ténéré Desert. But during a hunt for dinosaur fossils in the area in 2000, expedition photographer Mike Hettwer discovered something quite unexpected.

"'There are whole human skeletons just over there,' [Hettwer] said, pointing to a low ridge," Sereno wrote in a 2000 online dispatch from the field.

"Our jaws dropped as we tiptoed among skeletons that were buried thousands of years ago. Around the neck of one, we found a series of beads—the outline of a necklace!"

In 2003 Sereno returned to map the site and stopped counting at 173 skeletons, which easily made it the largest New Stone Age cemetery ever found in the Sahara.

The project appears to have since closed down, but a fascinating series of discoveries nonetheless.

related image from: erg-reg

Slow Wave

This is a site wherein your dreams are made 'real' by artist Jesse Reklaw, who depicts them as 4-panel cartoon strips - blogged via Mindhacks.

Venus spacecraft 'in good shape'

It looks as though Venus Express will finally be ready to depart, only a week or so behind schedule, but still within a window that extends as far as 24th November. The purpose of this mission is to analyse the Venusian atmosphere, in a search for possible clues as to the future of our own

Toe Bones Reveal World's Earliest Shoe-Wearers

The wearing of shoes make your toes weak and feeble, leading Erik Trinkaus to deduce from fossil analysis that humans have been wearing supportive footwear for around the last 30,000 years.

Be that as it may, there are more people on this earth walking round in bare feet than there are shod, so it's not all over for the human toe just yet.

image Sagebrush bark sandal from Catlow Cave, radiocarbon dated to 9,300 years old, from /www.uoregon.edu/~connolly/FRsandals.htm

Mars confounds crash site search

Someone's been busy cleaning up the surface of Mars again.

image www.abc.net.au/science/slab/mars3

Catalyst: Hobbit Update - ABC TV Science

Transcript of an interview with Professors Mike Morwood and Peter Brown, the people whose discoveries on Flores of the 'hobbit' people have provoked so much discord in the world of palaeoanthropology. Not only does it offer a completely different view of early migration out of Africa, it also raises the possibility the australopithecines survived far longer than currently thought.

Study: Modern Humans Reached Americas Last

Modern day analysis of migratory patterns of yesteryear folks everywhere. It seems that someone has confirmed that waves of humans left Africa, but with no quoted dates, this article is of use to no-one at all other than whoever got paid to write it.

Drink giants' plans to fuel binge Britain

With moves to ban smoking in all pubs, our glorious leaders tell us they are concerned for our health - and to reinforce that message they are actively encouraging a binge culture, presumably because getting completely trashed on cheap drinks is infinitely better for us than puffing away on expensive tobacco products.

Wanted: a flat, mineral-rich plot - with Earth view

More NASA news on the future of the Moon and the missions that will visit, the things they'll do when they get there, and what they'd most like to look at in the lunar sky.

At this rate, with everyone suddenly talking up the Moon, it's possible someone may land there before 2020, but with so much money being spent on expensive wars, budgetary constraints may yet postpone or jeopardise future projects.

image www.deershack.com

Syrian 'suicide' sparks theories

This is gives some more background to the story below, and concerns the mystery suicide of a top Syrian officially who died early in the week - it was expected that if Syria was implicated in the assassination of Hariri, this guy would be a key witness or defendant.

US demands action on Syria report

While US opposition to Iran continues, a report from the UN that implies Syrian connections to the truck bomb that killed former Lebanese head of state Rafik Hariri on Feb 14th this year, has vexed them yet further.

At the time there was sufficient international outcry at the slaying of Hariri, that the Syrians pulled out of Lebanon after 20 years occupancy of the country. It's thought a motive for the premier's killing was his opposition to Syria wielding too much power in Lebanon, and the decision to kill him was taken some time last year.

George Bush has appealed to the UN to take action against whoever turns out to be the guilty party, though what type of action that would entail is as yet unclear.

Icy Dione captured in close-up

Another moon of Saturn has had its portrait snapped by the Cassini space craft. With a diameter of just 1,118km (695 miles), it's the second densest object in orbit round Saturn.

image Nasa/JPL/SSI

Amazon 'stealth' logging revealed

At this rate of accelerated destruction, the Amazon rain-forest will officially cease to exist sometime next Thursday afternoon.

image www.ddbstock.com

Hurricane Wilma Is Most Powerful Storm in Atlantic History

The weather news in the Atlantic Basin continues to worsen, as this hurricane has gathered strength almost exponentially, making it the strongest on record. It's still a couple of hundred miles out to sea, and is expected to hit Florida at the weekend, although Mexico is already starting to feel the effects of this category 4/5 storm.

Hubble Searches for Oxygen on the Moon

More news of Hubble and its search for resources of use to humans on the Moon.

Astrology is scientific theory, courtroom told

There seems to be an indestructible pop-up blocking the first part of the article, so maybe if we pray hard enough it will go away. That having been said, the court-room battle over whether evolution theory should be replaced by Intelligent Design in US schools, is warming up.

The current dispute arose when the school board of Dover, Pa., decided to read a statement to classes that evolution alone cannot account for all existence and life, and that an intelligent design theory offered a viable alternative.

The 11 parents who oppose this claim that this is merely a creationist plot to destabilise education and usher in their own evangelical Christian beliefs in through the back door - the creationist universe is one constructed and run entirely by God alone, and that any ideas to the contrary are in some way evil and blasphemous.

It's quite true that evolution as currently understood cannot explain the spark that turned inanimate objects into living creatures, and nor can it explain the way species appear fully fledged, up and running from day 1 - the Cambrian explosion of life some 550 million years ago is a good example, and nearer to home, human evolution makes less sense with each passing discovery.

But at the root of this debate, which will probably see ID play an increasing role in education, are two sets of people who pretty much hate each other - the scientists and the believers, and rest assured they will find plenty to argue about for a long time to come, whatever the outcome of this trial.

image Il'ia Chashnik - The Seventh Dimension: Suprematist Stripe Relief 1925