Dream Center Discovered
Scientists identify parts of brain involved in dreaming
Experts say findings are ‘astounding’ and could help understand the purpose of dreams and predict whether people are dreaming
by Nicola Davis
Coloured sagittal MRI scans of the human brain. Changes in brain activity offer clues to what the dream is about. Photograph: Simon Frazer/SPL/Getty Images
Scientists have unpicked the regions of the brain involved in dreaming, in a study with significant implications for our understanding of the purpose of dreams and of consciousness itself. What’s more, changes in brain activity have been found to offer clues as to what the dream is about.
Dreaming had long been thought to occur largely during rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep, a period of slumber involving fast brain activity similar to that when awake, but dreams have also been reported to occur during non-REM sleep, leaving scientists scratching their heads as to the hallmark of dreaming.
“It seemed a mystery that you can have both dreaming and the absence of dreaming in these two different types of stages,” said Francesca Siclari, co-author of the research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.
Now it seems the puzzle has been solved.
Pink Floyd Killer Shrimp
A Shrimp That Can Kill With Sound Is Named After Pink Floyd
by ROBIN HILTON
Synalpheus pinkfloydi, which was recently named after the band Pink Floyd, for the distinctive coloration of its claw. Arthur Anker/Courtesy of Sammy De Grave and Oxford University
Legend has it that the band Pink Floyd once played so loudly at a show that the sheer volume had killed all the fish in a nearby pond.
Now there’s a new species of shrimp, named after Pink Floyd, that can kill fish by making a loud noise. Synalpheus pinkfloydi rapidly opens then snaps closed its large claw, generating frequencies up to 210 decibels — louder than a typical rock concert and loud enough to kill small fish nearby.
It turns out, however, that its new name has nothing to do with that urban myth about Pink Floyd’s volume. Dr. Sammy DeGrave, head of research at Oxford University Museum of National History, says the inspiration for the shrimp’s name was really the color of its claw: pink. “The reference is to the line, ‘By the way, which one of you is Pink?’ from the song ‘Have A Cigar’,” DeGrave told NPR when reached over the phone. “The story is when Pink Floyd first went to America, people thought one of the band members was actually named Pink. A reporter asked, ‘Which one of you is pink?” so that’s what stuck in our mind and that’s where [the name] came from.”
Probert’s Ashes Sent To Penalty Box
NHL enforcer Bob Probert’s widow sprinkled his ashes in Red Wings’ penalty box
By Des Bieler
Bob Probert carved out a fearsome reputation as an enforcer, during a lengthy career spent with the Red Wings and Blackhawks, before dying of a heart attack in 2010 at age 45. So with Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena set to host its final game Sunday, Probert’s widow found the perfect way to honor both her husband’s memory and that of the facility in which he performed for nine seasons.
By scattering some of his ashes in the penalty box.
“This is bittersweet for me,” Dani Probert, the widow of 6-foot-3, 230-pound former player, told the Detroit Free Press before Sunday’s game, which featured numerous ceremonies and appearances from several past Red Wings stars. “I have brought some of Bob’s ashes to the game. At Christmas time, I came here with my family and the urn with his ashes and we took a photo of us sitting in the penalty box.”
Enceladus Alive!
Nasa announces one of Saturn’s moons could support alien life in our solar system
Molecular hydrogen, as found on Enceladus, is one of the essential parts of life on Earth
There might be alien life in our own solar system, Nasa has announced.
All of the necessary things to support life have been found on one of the moons that orbits Saturn.
Enceladus has chemicals that when found on Earth tend to indicate life, suggesting that there might be living things might be under its icy shell.
Scientists have long thought of Enceladus as one of the prime candidates for life within our solar system or anywhere else nearby, in large part because it is a planetary body with an ocean that covers its entire surface. But the new research gives the best look yet at that moon, showing that it has a chemical energy source capable of supporting life.
California A-flower
Photos: California Bursts With Spring Colors
The hills are alive with the colors of spring. California’s bright colors are in full bloom after one of the state’s wettest winters in years nourished wildflowers, some which had been dormant for years. Check out some of the amazing scenes from the late winter season after a series of storms that pumped life into the Antelope Valley poppy fields, Griffith Park’s hillsides, vast expanses of the Central Valley and the bright fields of flowers near the tiny town of Borrego Springs, where the spectacular wildflower display that has drawn record crowds and traffic. An estimated 150,000 people have visited the town about 85 northeast of San Diego in the past month to see the bright spring colors. The colors are expected to continue in May with different species blooming at different elevations. Send your photos to isee@nbcla.com.
Brain Grooves
The Encephalophone Is a Real Instrument You Can Play with Your Mind
Researchers at the University of Washington have found that it may also help treat neurological problems.
Today in Cool Stuff Brought to You by Science, we have the encephalophone—an invention that, despite sounding like a discarded Muppet Show prop, is actually a fascinating new instrument developed for neurological and music research.
The instrument works by translating brain waves through a synthesizer, essentially allowing users to play it with their minds. To do so, a subject wears a cap fitted with electrodes (à la every dystopian sci-fi flick you’ve ever seen) that is connected to a computer synthesizer set up. That in turn produces an array of electronic string, piano, and other instrument sounds based on brain patters. Those patterns, of course, can be tricky to wrangle—notes can be set off by facial movements as well as intended thoughts—but, as with mastering any instrument, musicians and researchers say that’s half the fun.
The device was profiled in the Seattle Times this week for its role in an ongoing project led by Dr. Thomas Deuel at the University of Washington. The Swedish neurologist and musician has been working with the institution’s DXARTS program, which fosters work between scientists and artists. It’s there, while overseeing a lab focused on the relationship between art and neurology, that Deuel and his team have been using the instrument to help treat a local choir director who lost her ability to make music after contracting a viral infection in her brain.
Banksy Snapped With Stencil In-hand…?
Was Banksy Caught on Camera at a Mall in Israel?
Footage made with a phone camera claims to show the elusive artist at work.
A woman in Israel claims to have caught the elusive artist Banksy on camera. Image via Daily Mail on YouTube
Could this be the last word on one of today’s biggest art mysteries? Has the identity of the world’s most famous street artist Banksy been revealed once and for all?
Several British tabloids, including the Daily Mail, ran stories this weekend showing footage captured with a mobile phone camera by an anonymous woman, who claims to have caught the elusive Bristol-born artist in action, working on a show that’s slated to open to the public tomorrow inside a mall in Herzlyia, Israel.
The 20-second clip shows a man appearing to be in his forties working inside an art space, and holding a stencil in his hand. He’s wearing a white Panama hat, but his spray-paint mask is lowered to his neck, such that his face is fully exposed. The man is seen looking straight at the camera. As soon as he realizes that he is being filmed, he raises his hand to obliterate his face.
Fat Faded F†ck Face
Hirst Returns
Damien Hirst Is Back With an Underwater Fantasy. Will Collectors Care?
It’s a giant financial gamble for art’s king of controversy, who is trying for a comeback.
By CAROL VOGEL
“Aspect of Katie Ishtar ¥o-landi.” Credit Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2017; Photograph by Prudence Cuming Associates
VENICE — Damien Hirst is staring into the eyes of a jade Buddha, its face seemingly abraded by the vestiges of time. “I think he looks damn good, considering he’s 2,000 years old,” he said, straining to keep a straight face. Nearby, the sculpture of a pharaoh fashioned from blue granite and displaying a gold nipple ring bears an uncanny resemblance to Pharrell Williams.
Is the face really that of the singer? “You could say that,” Mr. Hirst responded. “It’s all about what you want to believe.”
After years of uncharacteristic silence, this artist known for his love-it-or-hate-it artworks is orchestrating his own comeback. On a recent morning, dressed all in black, Mr. Hirst could be found in the soaring entrance of the Palazzo Grassi watching his crew put the finishing touches on an extravaganza worthy of Cecil B. DeMille — his first major show of new work in 10 years. Opening to the public on Sunday, April 9, and called “Treasures From the Wreck of the Unbelievable,” it is an underwater fantasy, with sculptures like the Buddha and hundreds of other objects fashioned to look as though they were antiquities dredged up from the bottom of the sea. The works will fill the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana, two museums run by François Pinault, the Parisian collector who is also the owner of Christie’s auction house.
Chesty Morgan
‘DEADLY WEAPONS’: CHESTY MORGAN, THE SECRET AGENT WITH THE 73-INCH BUST
by Heather Drain
Deadly Weapons (1974) trailer by filmow
I can’t exactly remember the first time I saw or became aware of Chesty Morgan. Which is odd, especially since she is best known for her strange assortment of bad wigs and a 73-inch, all natural bust line. It’s like she has always been a part of my life. Like one stoic, large breasted angel, whose face vacillates between confused and languid in Doris Wishman’s surrealistic exploitation film, Deadly Weapons.
Lest there is any question about what type of titular weaponry we are talking about here, the first 30 seconds will immediately set you straight. After a few seconds of some groovy, 60’s rock, a loud drone type noise emerges and then suddenly there’s Chesty, or Zsa Zsa, as she is billed in the film, with her arms outstretched like a menacing breasty crane. The rock soundtrack comes back and then we are treated to Chesty Morgan admiring and vaguely fondling her breasts in a series of modern type, circular mirrors. The psychedelic fun house effect, while maybe not the most sexy thing in the world, is great and fitting. (After all, Deadly Weapons is a keen example of a sexploitation carnival ride, so grab a ticket, strap on your lap-belt and enjoy!)
Chesty stars as Crystal, a successful advertising executive who loves chunky shoes, pantyhose and her jocular, hairy chested lover, Larry (Richard Towers). While the affection is very much shared, Larry’s tied up with some very shady, underworld types, often flanked by Tony (the great Harry Reems) and a balding gent with an eye patch (Mitchell Fredericks) that goes by the name Captain Hook. They pull a hit on one well-connected man, with a powerful little black book. Larry finds it first and slips it into his jacket, in effect pulling a silent double cross on his partners. As you can imagine, his plan does not flesh out well and once he is found out to be a fink, they ice him.
Don Rickles Gone
Don Rickles, Legendary Comic With a Gift for the Insult, Dies at 90
by
“Mr. Warmth” forged a career when he turned the tables on his hecklers, going on to make fun of everyone he encountered — even Frank Sinatra.
Don Rickles, the rapid-fire insult machine who for six decades earned quite a living making fun of people of all creeds and colors and everyone from poor slobs to Frank Sinatra, has died. He was 90.
The legendary comic died Thursday at his home in Los Angeles of kidney failure, publicist Paul Shefrin announced.
Sarcastically nicknamed “Mr. Warmth,” Rickles had mock disdain for stars, major public figures and all those who paid to see him, tweaking TV audiences and Las Vegas showroom crowds with his acerbic brand of takedown comedy. A good guy and devoted husband away from the stage, Rickles the performer heartlessly laid into everyone he encountered — and they loved it.
Black Hole Soon
Earth-sized telescope set to snap first picture of a black hole
The Event Horizon Telescope will take images of the black hole at the centre of our galaxy, and could reveal how relativity and quantum mechanics mesh
By Leah Crane
GET ready to peer into the unknown. This week, we will have our first chance to take a picture of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The image could teach us how black holes work and even how the largest and smallest forces governing the universe fit together.
The Event Horizon Telescope is switching on. It consists of eight radio observatories around the world, including telescopes in Spain, the US and Antarctica (see map). And for just four or five nights between 5 and 14 April, if the weather is clear at all of the observatories, they will all turn on at once.
“Event horizons have been part of the mythology of science, but they will become real”
Each telescope will point at Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, and measure every radio wave coming from its direction. Linking together observatories spread across such a huge area and combining their observations to filter out extra light will effectively create a powerful “virtual telescope” almost the size of Earth.
Viva Le Uwe!
Game Over, Uwe Boll
The man known as the world’s worst director is now retired and running a Vancouver restaurant. But he’s still not done waiting for the world to give him his due.
by DARRYN KING
Photographs by GRANT HARDER
In a small, cold film studio in early 2016, the man known by the Internet as the “worst director in the world” was doing what he does, well, worst.
“O.K., one more time,” said Uwe Boll (his first name is pronounced “OO-vah”), feeding lines to one of the actors in the absence of a script. “Straight in the lens: ‘. . . has been killed. By the law . . . er . . . the law enforcement? Has been shot by law enforcement.’ Yes. O.K., do it. Ready, and . . . Action!”
“This is the worst-looking set,” assistant director Michael Pohorly admitted between takes. “The budget on this set was . . . nothing. Twenty dollars for a lick of paint? It’s a $20 set.”
Ridge Studios, a former bingoplex in suburban Maple Ridge, Vancouver, had recently accommodated shoots for the Hallmark Channel specials Family for Christmas and Angel of Christmas, a 2016 Kindergarten Copsequel, and the family comedy-drama series Date My Dad. This time last year it was home to Rampage: President Down, the 30th and, for now, final film by Boll. After a failed attempt to crowdfund the film, Boll uploaded a video to YouTube titled “Fuck You All,” in which he abruptly announced his retirement from filmmaking.
James Rosenquist Gone
James Rosenquist, Pop Art Pioneer, Dies at 83
By KEN JOHNSON
“F-111” (1964-5). All Rights Reserved, James Rosenquist/Licensed by VAGA, New York
James Rosenquist, who helped define Pop Art in its 1960s heyday with his boldly scaled painted montages of commercial imagery, died on Friday in New York City. He was 83 years old.
Like his contemporaries Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Mr. Rosenquist developed a powerful graphic style in the early 1960s that traditionalists reviled and a broad public enthusiastically embraced.
The Pop artists took for their subject matter images and objects from the mass media and popular culture, including advertising, comic books and consumer products. They also employed techniques that until then had been associated primarily with commercial and industrial methods of production, like silk screening or, in Mr. Rosenquist’s case, billboard painting.
Mr. Rosenquist himself drew on his experience painting immense movie billboards above Times Square and a Hebrew National sign in Brooklyn.
It was while working in New York as a sign painter by day and an abstract painter by night that he had the idea to import the giant-scale, broadly painted representational pictures from outdoor advertising into the realm of fine art.
LaBeoufChan
A live stream of Shia LaBeouf chanting was disrupted by Nazi-themed dancing. Then things got weird.
By Avi Selk
On the day of President Trump’s inauguration, two poorly understood forces of the Internet collided in a sort of bizarre death lock — a struggle that has manifested in the real world as Nazi-costumed dances in New York, a meticulously planned theft in rural Tennessee and last month, a raid on a British rooftop.
These forces are called 4chan and Shia LaBeouf.
LaBeouf is a Hollywood star who recently restyled himself as a highly meme-able performance artist — limiting his public utterances to a string of repeat tweets, for example, or showing up to a film festival with a paper bag on his head.
4chan is the magmatic underworld of the Internet: an anonymous forum whose millions of users gave the world the delights of Rickrolling, the misogyny of Gamergate and the corruption of Pepe the Frog.
Lately, 4chan’s vast energies have been spent disrupting a single webcam. LaBeouf’s art group installed the camera outside a museum in New York on Jan. 20, inviting the public to join the star in chanting: “He will not divide us … he will not divide us.”
“He Will Not Divide Us” was supposed to last the duration of Trump’s first term.
Almost instantly, 4chan users turned the live feed into hell’s own reality show.
[Absolutely everything you need to know to understand 4chan, the Internet’s own bogeyman]
Dubbed “Season 1” on 4chan and associated forums, the New York live stream was forced to relocate after self-professed neo-Nazis and other disrupters kept making cameos — provoking LaBeouf until he was arrested and accused of assaulting a troll.
Since then, the struggle has shifted to Seasons 2 through 4 — in which trolls pursued the webcam across the United States, until the artists were forced to replace the public chanting with a live feed of a guarded flag, which forum users have twice found and tried to steal, most recently on a rooftop in Britain.
Bob Ross Beats The Devil Database
True Happiness Is Searching Through Bob Ross’ Complete ‘Joy of Painting’ Archive
These are dark days. But Bob Ross painted approximately 403 tranquil landscapes for each episode of his long-running, 21-season instructive PBS show The Joy of Painting, each peppered with babbling brooks, cloud-filled blue skies and valleys of happy little trees just so that one day, in your darkest moments, you might glean some happiness from this black world.
The artist and television host died in 1995, but he allegedly produced thousands of artworks in his lifetime, some of which he donated to PBS and others which have since been sold at auction, according to a 2012 investigation from Mental Floss. For fans looking to delve a little deeper into the works Ross created on camera, in real-time, as he painstakingly walked viewers step-by-step through each color and brushstroke so that you too might be able to paint your own masterpiece at home and know the joys of painting firsthand, look no further than Austrian coder and student Felix Auer‘s comprehensive, but “unofficial,” online database TwoInchBrush.
As Hyperallergic’s Claire Voon points out, Ross aficionados can search paintings on the database by color or season, and the site contains a section for guest painters who joined him on the show through the years, such as the artist’s son Steve or his former instructor John Thamm. Auer has gone to such great lengths to make TwoInchBrush a one-stop-shop for Ross fans, that he’s created a guide to the type of brushes the artist used to create his signature happy little trees, cute little bushes and big fluffy clouds, and even includes recommendations for paints, paint thinner, canvases and even palates to use all based on those the artist used most frequently on the show. And now that a trove of Joy of Painting episodes are available to watch in-full on YouTube, Auer includes links to the corresponding paintings in his archive whenever there’s a video available.
Hey where’s the party at?
Simulation suggests 68 percent of the universe may not actually exist
According to the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (Lambda-CDM) model, which is the current accepted standard for how the universe began and evolved, the ordinary matter we encounter every day only makes up around five percent of the universe’s density, with dark matter comprising 27 percent, and the remaining 68 percent made up of dark energy, a so-far theoretical force driving the expansion of the universe. But a new study has questioned whether dark energy exists at all, citing computer simulations that found that by accounting for the changing structure of the cosmos, the gap in the theory, which dark energy was proposed to fill, vanishes.
Published in 1915, Einstein’s general theory of relativity forms the basis for the accepted origin story of the universe, which says that the Big Bang kicked off the expansion of the universe about 13.8 billion years ago. The problem is, the equations at work are incredibly complicated, so physicists tend to simplify parts of them so they’re a bit more practical to work with. When models are then built up from these simplified versions, small holes can snowball into huge discrepancies.
Blowing up a 200-ton rock. Cool.
Asteroid Chicken
Wrong-Way, Daredevil Asteroid Plays ‘Chicken’ with Jupiter
By Hanneke Weitering
Credit: LBTO
Astronomers have found a bizarre asteroid orbiting the sun in the wrong direction while playing a risky game of “chicken” with the largest planet in the solar system.
The unnamed asteroid shares Jupiter’s orbital space while moving in the opposite direction as the planet, which looks like a recipe for a collision, astronomers said. Yet somehow, the asteroid has managed to safely dodge Jupiter for at least tens of thousands of laps around the sun, a new study showed.
This mysteriously lucky asteroid was discovered in 2015 by astronomers using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS1) in Hawaii. It was given the provisional designation 2015 BZ509 with the nickname “BZ.” Scientists noticed that the asteroid moves in the opposite direction of every planet and 99.99 percent of asteroids orbiting the sun, in a state known as retrograde motion.
Library Of The Apocalypse
Second Arctic ‘Doomsday Vault’ will allow the world’s precious books to survive Armageddon
Huge archive of digitised documents will be buried deep in an old mine buried within the permafrost of Svalbard in Norway
by Jasper Hamill
AP /Like the Seed Vault, the Doomsday Library is buried in the permafrost
It is hoped countries will choose to store digitised versions of their most important books and documents in the vast library, allowing to survive nuclear war or some other grim apocalypse.
If Britain decided to get involved in the project and put a version of the National Archive in the vault, it would mean that copies of The Sun would be preserved for all eternity – so future generations can enjoy a few episodes of Deidre’s Ye Olde Photo Casebook.
The facility is called the World Arctic Archive and is based in the same area of Norway as the Global Seed Vault, which is stocked up with seeds to enable humanity to survive if a natural disaster wipes out food supplies.
Sex With Frank
PriestHub
Confessions of a Porn-Addicted Priest
“Forgive me. I have sinned.” I’ve always counted it a privilege to hear these words, to offer forgiveness. But for years, it was tainted with self-recrimination: You’re a hypocrite. Indeed, who was I to forgive or offer counsel, when I struggled with sin that I myself refused to confess because I couldn’t give it up and wasn’t sure I wanted to? Now, I have a confession to make.
It began during seminary, scanning photo galleries of models and actresses that I was attracted to. It seemed harmless, no threat to my celibate commitment. I took that promise seriously. I had no illusions that it would be easy, and it wasn’t. This might take the edge off, I thought.
I had no fears about its effects on my everyday life. I maintained proper boundaries in my work. I was especially vigilant when I was aware of my attraction to someone. I stayed away from sexually suggestive comments, and never flirted or acted inappropriately. I was the model of propriety, even as my browsing turned from the scantily clad to the unclothed.
My busyness seemed like a grace. Studies, ministry and social life always took priority over my explorations in the developing world of online pornography. Keeping my commitments, I reasoned, would ensure it remained a harmless diversion. My self-deception continued, unconfronted.
Declare Independence
Russians Hacking American Farmers Sorta
Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware
A dive into the thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking.
To avoid the draconian locks that John Deere puts on the tractors they buy, farmers throughout America’s heartland have started hacking their equipment with firmware that’s cracked in Eastern Europe and traded on invite-only, paid online forums.
Tractor hacking is growing increasingly popular because John Deere and other manufacturers have made it impossible to perform “unauthorized” repair on farm equipment, which farmers see as an attack on their sovereignty and quite possibly an existential threat to their livelihood if their tractor breaks at an inopportune time.
“When crunch time comes and we break down, chances are we don’t have time to wait for a dealership employee to show up and fix it,” Danny Kluthe, a hog farmer in Nebraska, told his state legislature earlier this month. “Most all the new equipment [requires] a download [to fix].”
The nightmare scenario, and a fear I heard expressed over and over again in talking with farmers, is that John Deere could remotely shut down a tractor and there wouldn’t be anything a farmer could do about it.
Season 4 – He Will Not Zip Tie Us
‘He Will Not Divide Us’ Liverpool Stream Taken Down Following 4chan Trolling
By William Hicks
For the fourth time, Shia Labeouf and co. claimed the “He Will Not Divide Us” stream had found a permanent home—and for the fourth time they were proved wrong.
The Liverpool, UK, location for the protest livestream has been compromised, with members of 4chan’s /pol/ board scaling the roof of the FACT center and attempting to tear down the flag. Labeouf and his artist friends thought the flag was safe on top of a five- story building in a different country, but again they discounted the power of the Internet.
Trolls went to extensive lengths to scale the building and try to remove the flag, risking physical and legal dangers.
Three guys were able to get on the roof from another building and made their way across to the arts center. They complained that the flag was heavily zip tied to the pole and could not take be taken down without scissors.
The stream was cut off before the flag was taken down, leading to speculation the Brits had failed. But later pictures from the ground revealed the flag had in fact been removed from the pole.
Chuck Barris Gone
Chuck Barris, TV game show creator and host, dies at 87
By Madison Park
(CNN)Chuck Barris, best known as host of the TV series “The Gong Show” and creator of “The Dating Game” and “The Newlywed Game,” died Tuesday.
As host of “The Gong Show,” Barris introduced amateur performers to three celebrity judges, who could put a stop to terrible performances by striking the gong. Much like on “American Idol,” awful performances became ratings smash hits. The TV show aired from 1976 to 1980.
While his shows were wildly popular, they were not a hit with critics. Barris was panned as the King of Schlock, Baron of Bad Taste and Ayatollah of Trasherola.
Apart from game shows, Barris found success as a writer. He penned six best-selling books and a 1962 pop song, “Palisades Park,” which became a No. 3 hit in the US for Freddy Cannon.
Barris later wrote in his book “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” that he worked as a CIA assassin while working in TV — a claim denied by the agency. The book became a 2002 movie, directed by George Clooney. Sam Rockwell starred as Barris, and the cast included Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore and Clooney.
Poopipedia
What Your Poop Is Trying to Tell You
What the hell is that? Seriously, did that just come out of you or did it crawl up the pipe? If you’ve just exorcised a poo that looks nothing like what you’ve eaten recently, it could be a sign of a serious illness. It could also just be that curry from last Wednesday, so it’s good to know what to look for.
What Goes Into Your Dookie
Human feces goes by many names but is a universal byproduct of the human digestive tract. Yes even your girlfriend poops, even if you’ve never actually seen her do it. Stool is the body’s semi-solid waste product and is comprised of everything that the body could not absorb or otherwise had to expel. Which is to say “crap.”
This includes not just food waste, but also more heinous sounding stuff like dead blood cells, bile, and gastrointestinal bacteria, all covered in a mucus sheath that helps it slide out. Anytime you’ve strained and struggled to pass something that feels not only uncomfortable but actually impossible, you’ve experienced the discomfort of your body not producing enough mucus. It generally means you are dehydrated, so drink some water.
The Alexandria Quartet
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA
ONE OF THE GREAT CENTERS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, EVER
In 1960, four novels by the well-known English writer Lawrence Durrell were brought together in one volume and published as The Alexandria Quartet. Described by its author as “an investigation of modern love,” it was set in the Egyptian city of Alexandria before and during the Second World War, and was largely based on Durrell’s own experiences during his time there as a press attaché. The Quartet traced the personal lives of a number of key characters—seemingly based on real individuals, including Durrell’s second wife—from different, competing perspectives. He later claimed, however, that, out of all of the people portrayed and incidents featured, “only the city is real.”
Alexandria was the true hero of the book: an exotic, darkly seductive and sensuous city, fragrant of “offal and drying mud, of carnations and jasmine, of animal sweat and clover.” Durrell painted a picture of a cosmopolitan, Greco-Arab outpost, where East met West in a delicious collision of hotels, hashish cafés, colonial villas and squalid slums, all set between the blankness of the desert and the blue of the Mediterranean. Yet Durrell’s Alexandria was far from a product of the 20th century alone. Instead he called it a “capital of memory,” a place that still held on to the “echoes of an extraordinary history.” It was a remnant and a shadow of a much greater city, one born out of a dream two-and-a-half thousand years old.
In 331 BC, according to the Greek historian Plutarch, after successfully conquering Egypt, Alexander the Great received a vision in his sleep. A “grey-haired man of venerable appearance,” told him of “an island in the much-dashing sea in front of Egypt: Pharos is what men call it.” Alexander believed that this visitation was the Greek poet Homer, communicating from beyond the grave. When he travelled to view Pharos, he declared it to be the perfect spot for a city: a city that would bear his name, and that would become a new capital of the ancient world.
Moonbase 2037
Thousands of people could live in space colonies orbiting the Earth in 20 years, expert claims
Space colonists might live longer and eventually grow taller than humans left behind on Earth, Jerry Stone tells The Independent ahead of British Science Festival lecture
by Ian Johnston
Thousands of people could be living in floating space colonies orbiting the Earth in 20 years’ time, according to the head of a project by the British Interplanetary Society (BIS).
And, while life in space might sound unappealing to some, Jerry Stone believe it could actually be healthier than planet Earth, enabling people to live longer and, eventually, grow taller.
Mr Stone, author of the book One Small Step about the moon landings, and other members of the BIS have been updating research carried out in the US in the 1970s into how humans could start living in space in large numbers.
In a speech in Aberdeen as part of British Science Week, Mr Stone will claim humanity is now close to the point where such colonies could be built using material taken from the Moon and asteroids.
Gravity Re-done
Rules of attraction: Why it’s time to rethink how gravity works
Fresh suspicions have reopened the case against dark matter, forcing a fundamental rethink of the familiar force that keeps our feet on the ground
By Mark Anderson
Julien Pacaud
GRAVITY is supposed to be reliable. It’s the familiar force that keeps our feet on the ground and Earth’s atmosphere from hurtling into space. On grander scales, it has shaped the evolution of the universe. What a shame, then, that it sometimes lets you down. To square the whirligig rotations of galaxies and galaxy clusters with our picture of gravity, we have to invent a whole new form of matter that no one has ever seen: dark matter. To explain why the universe’s expansion is accelerating, we have to conjure up an equally mysterious essence known as dark energy.
But what if we never really knew gravity at all? What if out there, beyond where we can easily keep our eye on it, the universal force doesn’t stick to the rules?
It’s a heretical idea, if not an entirely novel one. Now though, renewed scrutiny of galaxies and surprises from the realm of quantum information theory are reinvigorating the quest to rethink gravity. Radical ideas are emerging that amount to a fundamental transformation of how we understand space-time – and what gravity really is. In this picture, dark matter ceases to exist. And dark energy, rather than being something that works against gravity, might be part of what creates it.