(3097,2,'2011-02-16 19:11:37','2011-02-16 19:11:37','<strong><a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/thumbnail.jpeg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3094\" title=\"thumbnail\" src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/thumbnail-229x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"229\" height=\"300\" /></a>From Animism to Zos:\r\n</strong><strong>Strange Attractor Salon at the ICA</strong>\r\n\r\n<em>8 March - 12 May 2011\r\n<a href=\"http://www.ica.org.uk/28162/Seasons/Strange-Attractor-Salon-From-Animism-to-Zos.html\" target=\"_blank\">Institute of Contemporary Arts</a>\r\nThe Mall,  London, SW1Y 5AH</em>\r\n\r\nAs part of the <a href=\"http://www.ica.org.uk/27600/Visual-Art/Nathaniel-Mellors-Ourhouse.html\">Nathaniel Mellors: Ourhouse</a> exhibition at London\'s <a href=\"http://www.ica.org.uk/28162/Seasons/Strange-Attractor-Salon-From-Animism-to-Zos.html\" target=\"_blank\">ICA</a>, Nathaniel Mellors and <em>Strange Attractor Journal</em> editor Mark Pilkington have assembled a series of weekly events, consisting of a talk and a film, exploring some lesser-known intersections of culture, history, mind and nature.\r\n\r\nFrom the twenty-first century resurgence of animist beliefs to the art and life of Austin Osman Spare, via London\'s lost rivers, the history of spider-silk weaving, nineteenth-century visions of a multi-dimensional universe and magical influences in twentieth century music, a wealth of recherché ideas, knowledge, and experiences await you in the Strange Attractor Salon.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://www.ica.org.uk/28162/Seasons/Strange-Attractor-Salon-From-Animism-to-Zos.html\" target=\"_blank\">Advance booking</a> for the salon events is advised, via the <a href=\"http://www.ica.org.uk/28162/Seasons/Strange-Attractor-Salon-From-Animism-to-Zos.html\" target=\"_blank\">ICA site</a>.\r\n\r\n<!--more-->\r\n\r\n<!-- p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px} --><strong>10 March - Stephen Grasso: Haunted Soundsystems</strong>\r\nWriter and witchdoctor Stephen Grasso digs through the crates to present an overview of the influence of African Diaspora magico-religious traditions on music, from New Orleans jazz to JA dancehall.\r\n\r\n<strong> 17 March - Robert Wallis: Exorcising \'Spirits\' - Animism, shamanism and Rock Art\r\n</strong>Dr Robert J. Wallis, Professor of Visual Culture at Richmond University, London, talks about new thinking on shamans, animists and prehistoric rock art.\r\n\r\n<strong> 24 March - Eleanor Morgan: Spinning with spiders\r\n</strong>Artist and researcher Eleanor Morgan examines the mythical and material entanglements between humans and spiders, incorporating the history of our use of spiders’ silk, the courtship and mating of spiders, and spiders’ attraction to human music and song.\r\n\r\n<strong>31 March - Phil Baker: The Life and Legend of Austin Osman Spare\r\n</strong>Artist, visionary and occultist, Austin Osman Spare’s career began in Edwardian celebrity and ended in Fifties obscurity. Spare\'s biographer Phil Baker considers the success and failure of Spare, with special reference to demonology and interior decoration, and discusses Spare\'s life, roots and obsessions, setting them against Victorian ideas about the power of the unconscious and the nature of familiar spirits.\r\n\r\n<strong>7 April: Mark Blacklock: Charles Hinton, Pioneer of the Fourth Dimension\r\n</strong>How Victorian Britain discovered the joys of multi-dimensional reality, and the man who brought it to them. Mark Blacklock is a writer and contributor to <em>SAJ Four.</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>14 April : Dr David Luke - Psi, Mind and Time\r\n</strong>Remembering the future and other anomalies from the annals of parapsychology: the forbidden science. Dr David Luke is President of the Parapsychological Association and a contributor to<em> SAJ Thre</em>e and <em>Four</em>.\r\n\r\n<strong>21 April : Tom Bolton - London\'s Lost Rivers\r\n</strong>Over 20 rivers once ran through the city - where were they and what happened to them? Tom is the author of the forthcoming Strange Attractor Press book <em>London\'s Lost Rivers: A Surface Dweller\'s Guide</em>.\r\n\r\n<strong>28 April : Amanda Feilding: Heartbeat in the Brain\r\n</strong>In a rare presentation, Artist and activist Amanda Feilding discusses the long history of trepanation, from the neolithic to the present, including her own self-trepanation in 1970. Amanda\'s film of her self-experiment, \'Heartbeat in the Film\', has rightly achieved somewhat mythical status and will be shown as part of tonight\'s presentation.\r\n\r\n<strong>5 May : Ken Hollings - Living in Space\r\n</strong>The <em>Welcome to Mars</em> author on adaptations to life in space, with a live synthesiser soundtrack by Mark Pilkington\'s The Asterism.\r\n\r\n<strong> 12 May: Antony Clayton - Legends of Underground London</strong>\r\nFrom swine in the sewers, to cannibals on the tubes via Jack Cade\'s cavern and the bunkers under the ICA - what lies beneath the city streets? Antony Clayton is the author of <em>Subterranean City</em> and <em>The Folklore of London.</em>','Strange Attractor Salon at the ICA','As part of the Nathaniel Mellors: Ourhouse exhibition at London\'s ICA, Nathaniel Mellors and Strange Attractor Journal editor Mark Pilkington have assembled a series of weekly events, consisting of a talk and a film, exploring some lesser-known intersections of culture, history, mind and nature.','inherit','open','open','','3093-revision-2','','','2011-02-16 19:11:37','2011-02-16 19:11:37','',3093,'http://strangeattractor.co.uk/further/3093-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(2689,2,'2011-01-09 21:27:56','2011-01-09 21:27:56','<strong><em>From <a href=\"http://www.thewire.co.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">The Wire</a></em> #275, January 2007</strong>\r\n\r\n<em>Ken Hollings rides the world’s subcultural currents mapped by London’s </em>Strange Attractor<em>.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Ken Hollings rides the world’s subcultural currents mapped by London’s </em>Strange Attractor<em>.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Strange Attractor</em> is well named. There’s really no escaping it. Starting out as a series of live events, it has slowly transmuted into an annual publication, set up an online clearing house for the weird and the wonderful and recently made its first move towards establishing itself as a publishing house. “<em>Strange Attractor</em> celebrates unpopular culture,” runs its mission statement. “We declare war on mediocrity and a pox on the foot soldiers of stupidity. Join us.” Who could possibly resist such a challenge? Sooner or later you have to get involved. (In the interests of full transparency: the writer of this article has taken part in a number of <em>Strange Attractor</em>evenings and is a regular contributor to <em>Strange Attractor Journal</em>.)\r\n\r\nWith orders for the <em>Strange Attractor</em> publications coming in from all over the world, and mainstream media like <em>The Independent On Sunday</em> praising it for producing “one of the most weirdly beautiful, beautifully weird magazines of the past hundred-odd years” a bigger problem presents itself. How do you celebrate unpopular culture without losing its unpopularity?\r\n\r\n“There’s certainly no business plan,” admits <em>Strange Attractor Journal</em>’s publisher and chief editor, Mark Pilkington. “We’re really making it all up as we go along. I hope that<em>Strange Attractor</em>’s approach to culture is simultaneously that of the archaeologist, the ethnographer, the anthropologist, the occultist, the showman and the curator.”\r\n\r\nIt’s a heady mix. The first two issues, both book-sized anthologies running to more than 200 and 400 pages apiece, have presented material ranged across such elusive topics as mind control experiments, mould art, hair sculpture, cargo cults, neglected gods and forgotten waxworks. Such a list limits more than it clarifies, however. <em>Strange Attractor Journal</em> is concerned less with the unexplained than with the unexpected. You never know what it will cover next.\r\n\r\n“I think <em>Strange Attractor</em> is refreshing to people in that it manages to straddle several cultural channels while still following its own agenda,” Pilkington admits, “and it’s one not driven by the same obvious memes. But at the same time it’s important that it doesn’t become obscurantist for its own sake—some things are lost for a reason, others will only resurface when the time is right.”\r\n\r\n<em>Strange Attractor</em>’s wayward eclecticism dates back to a series of monthly events begun in the summer of 2001 by Pilkington in collaboration with artist John Lundberg and continuing over the next two years. Staged at London’s Horse Hospital venue, they gave an early indication of the loose network of experimental enterprises that was starting to come into existence, linking outsider artists with cultural anthropologists, textual hackers and practising occultists.\r\n\r\n“We’d mix talks, films, music, presentations, each night being themed around a different topic,” Pilkington recalls. “I rather pretentiously called them ‘information happenings’. Subjects ranged from conspiracy theory to theremins, Esperanto to magick, hoaxes, illusions and psychic deceptions: basically anything that interested us and could draw people that we liked or wanted to meet into one place.” Highlights included a live and bloody demonstration of psychic surgery, sci-fi movie themes played on vintage electronic instruments and a live Lovecraft-influenced Chaos Magick ritual with a soundtrack performed “by a band who couldn’t see what was going on.”\r\n\r\nAfter Lundberg enrolled at the National Film and Television School, Pilkington went solo but eventually grew tired of doing regular live events, deciding instead to do something that would last longer: hence the <em>Journal</em>.\r\n\r\nThe notion of outliving the moment, of being around for more than just a quick cultural fix, is very much a part of <em>SAJ</em>’s overall look and feel. The first thing you notice is that the front and back cover of each issue is devoid of text or title, which only appears on the book’s spine. If you want to know who the contributors are, you’ll have to look inside.\r\n\r\n“For me, it was about giving as much space as possible to striking images and therefore making them stand out on the bookshelf,” Pilkington explains. “I imagined people being aware that something was wrong with the cover but perhaps not being able to put their finger on it.”\r\n\r\nThe absence of cover copy also binds together the <em>Journal</em>’s various contributors in the anonymity of a collective endeavour. “We’re lucky enough to live in an age where we can clearly trace the influences of the past on our present,” Pilkington continues, “and it’s not always today’s most celebrated ideas, musicians and writers who will be remembered. This notion of timelessness is very important to what <em>SAJ</em> is and does. I’d like the books to be as irrelevant to a reader 100 years in the future as it would be to someone 100 years in the past. It’s a re-manipulation of the notion of built-in obsolescence.”\r\n\r\nThe <em>Journal</em>’s pages teem with old woodcuts, antiquated typefaces and intricate layouts, giving the impression of having been produced in some parallel past: one that runs counter to established tenets of historical development. Having previously worked as a journalist for periodicals as varied as <em>Fortean Times</em>, <em>Bizarre</em> and <em>The Guardian</em>, Mark Pilkington remains keenly aware of what’s going on around him.\r\n\r\n“There’s a particularly vibrant, very loose cultural network in London at the moment,” he remarks, “one that incorporates music and sound, ideas and information, visual arts and almost anything else you’d care to imagine. It’s inevitable that these people, places and events all bounce off and influence each other in a kind of subcultural Brownian motion.”\r\n\r\nAs well as working closely with designer Alison Hutchinson, readying volume three for publication, Pilkington has also been getting Strange Attractor Press up and running. Its first book to date, <em>The Field Guide: The Art, History And Philosophy Of Crop Circle Making</em> by Rob Irving and John Lundberg, is a particularly cerebral blend of art theory, paranormal phenomena, hoaxes and speculations, ruggedly bound and designed to fit snugly inside your knapsack while out exploring the British countryside. Conventional wisdom says it shouldn’t work, but <em>Strange Attractor</em>’s own particular blend of parlour magic proves that it does.\r\n\r\n“I sometimes see myself as a medium,” Mark reveals, “a channel for all the material that has formed <em>Strange Attractor</em>. I’ve been incredibly lucky with the amazing contributions the <em>Journal</em> has attracted so far.”\r\n\r\nThere’s no escaping it. <em>Strange Attractor</em> really is well named.','About','','inherit','open','open','','2624-revision-v1','','','2011-01-09 21:27:56','2011-01-09 21:27:56','',2624,'http://strangeattractor.co.uk/further/2624-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(908,2,'2007-01-31 21:35:59','2007-02-01 02:35:59','<a title=\"antimatter2\" href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/antimatter1.gif\"><img title=\"antimatter2\" src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/antimatter1.gif\" border=\"0\" alt=\"antimatter2\" align=\"left\" /></a>Program was touted publicly, then came official gag order\n\n<strong>Keay Davidson</strong>\n<em>San Francisco Chronicle Science Writer</em>\n\nThe U.S. Air Force is quietly spending millions of dollars investigating ways to use a radical power source -- antimatter, the eerie \"mirror\" of ordinary matter -- in future weapons.\n\nThe most powerful potential energy source presently thought to be available to humanity, antimatter is a term normally heard in science-fiction films and TV shows, whose heroes fly \"antimatter-powered spaceships\" and do battle with \"antimatter guns.\"\n\nBut antimatter itself isn\'t fiction; it actually exists and has been intensively studied by physicists since the 1930s. In a sense, matter and antimatter are the yin and yang of reality: Every type of subatomic particle has its antimatter counterpart. But when matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate each other in an immense burst of energy.\n\nDuring the Cold War, the Air Force funded numerous scientific studies of the basic physics of antimatter. With the knowledge gained, some Air Force insiders are beginning to think seriously about potential military uses -- for example, antimatter bombs small enough to hold in one\'s hand, and antimatter engines for 24/7 surveillance aircraft.\n\nMore cataclysmic possible uses include a new generation of super weapons -- either pure antimatter bombs or antimatter-triggered nuclear weapons; the former wouldn\'t emit radioactive fallout. Another possibility is antimatter- powered \"electromagnetic pulse\" weapons that could fry an enemy\'s electric power grid and communications networks, leaving him literally in the dark and unable to operate his society and armed forces.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/04/MNGM393GPK1.DTL\">Read more...</a>\n\n[Image by <a href=\"http://glyphobet.net/hazmat/?mode=antimatter\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Chisolm</a>]','Air Force pursuing antimatter weapons','','publish','open','open','','air-force-pursuing-antimatter-weapons','','','2007-01-31 21:35:59','2007-02-01 02:35:59','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=5',0,'post','',0),(12,2,'2007-02-02 09:43:12','2007-02-02 09:43:12','<a href=\"http://www.arikroper.com\"><img src=\'http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/65t1.jpg\' alt=\'Arik pic\' border=\"0\" align=\"left\"/></a><a href=\'http://www.arikroper.com\'><img src=\'http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/76t1.jpg\' alt=\'76t1.jpg\' align=\"right\"/></a><p>\n\n\nEmerging from a dense, heathen fog comes a new web site from phantastical illustrator extraordinaire <a href=\"http://www.arikroper.com\">Arik Roper</a>.</p>','Arik Roper online','','publish','open','open','','arik-roper-online','','','2007-02-02 09:43:12','2007-02-02 09:43:12','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=12',0,'post','',0),(909,2,'2007-02-02 11:17:07','2007-02-02 11:17:07','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/freepress.jpg\" title=\"freepress2.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/freepress21.jpg\" alt=\"Free Press poster.jpg\" border=\"0\" /></a>\n\n<strong>RADICAL LIVING PAPERS</strong>\n<em>A history of the free, alternative, counter-culture and underground press, 1965-75\n</em>\nGavin Brown’s enterprise at PASSERBY\n436 W. 15th Street,\nNew York, NY 10011\n\n<strong>February 2 - March 7, 2007</strong>\n\nOpening reception: Friday, February 2, 2007, 6pm\n\nThe Council for the Fortieth Anniversary of The Summer of Love with Gavin Brown’s enterprise opens and invites you to an exhibition of the world’s most radical living papers from a time when the press took risks and voiced opinions.\n\nCelebrating the heyday of alternative magazine publishing in Europe and America, Gavin Brown’s enterprise at Passerby opens an exhibition of more than two hundred original copies, as well as reproductions of these seminal and obscure publications, whose influence reverberates through culture, politics, and society.\n\nCovering politics, revolutions, evolutions of the planets, freak-outs, love-ins, support of green politics, gay liberation, power to the people, the peace parties, protests, the Panthers, peyote, LSD, pot, fiction, music, poetry, prose, prayers and more. Publications include: Actuel, Avatar, Berkeley Barb, Berkeley Tribe, Black Panther Papers, Digger Papers, Door, East Village Other [EVO], The Fifth Estate, Freep, Grabuge, Hobo-Québec, International Times [it], Los Angeles Free Press, The Oracle, The Organ, Other Scenes, OZ, Rat, The Realist, Re Nudo, Rolling Stone, The Seed, Ann Arbor Sun….more.\n\nPlease note: A press conference to the unified, positive forces actively involved in the community will be held at 6pm on Friday, February 2, 2007, with active members of today’s free press.\n\nCurated by Eva Prinz, Dan Donahue, and Thurston Moore','Free Press exhibition - NYC','','publish','open','open','','free-press-exhibition-nyc','','','2007-02-02 11:17:07','2007-02-02 11:17:07','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=15',0,'post','',0),(910,2,'2007-02-02 11:26:10','2007-02-02 11:26:10','<h3>The Open Hand</h3>\n<h4>By Daniel Pinchbeck\n<em>From Conscious Choice, Chicago</em></h4>\nTraditionally, writers have the job of defining the zeitgeist, but that task has never been as difficult as it is today. While this seems a singular and remarkable moment in human history, there is something indefinable about it. The weather is certainly strange—I live in New York City, where temperatures in early January remain about fifteen degrees above normal, and spring flowers started to bloom before Christmas. The political situation is most definitely peculiar—our military engages in a senseless campaign that has lasted longer than World War II, with hundreds of billions of dollars spent on spreading death and misery. We read about icebergs breaking up and a frightening lack of fish in the seas, yet there is plenty of ice for our drinks, and caviar is making a comeback.\n\nWe swim in new psychic waters. We may understand, to a greater or lesser degree, that global civilization has hit the resource limits of the biosphere, but such a general foreboding is useless. We can recycle light bulbs or build a green roof. These gestures are meaningful, but they seem almost farcical compared to the magnitude of the problem. The contradictions between our intentions and our actions are almost head-splitting...\n\n<a href=\"http://consciouschoice.com/2007/02/prophetmotive0702.html\" target=\"_blank\"> Continues</a>\n\n<!--more-->\n\nMy perspective is that we are experiencing an accelerated evolution of human consciousness. Right now, we find ourselves in an awkward transition between steadier states. For the last centuries, a limited form of scientific rationality ruled the modern world, a mindset that denied intuitive thought and saw nature as an enemy to be conquered. We developed technologies that embodied our sense of alienation and isolation. Many of us are now reaching a different perspective. As we make connections between quantum physics and Eastern mysticism, we realize we live in a participatory universe, with no place for an objective observer. Intuition is not irrational, but <em>arational</em>—it is the way our mind processes the overload of information that doesn’t enter our conscious filter.\n\nMy own quest for understanding led me from being a somewhat embittered New York journalist to hitting a massive spiritual crisis in the late 1990s. In the throes of existential despair, I remembered my psychedelic experiences from college, and decided to pursue the subject as a journalist. I took an assignment to undergo a tribal initiation in Gabon, in West Africa, where I ate a visionary rootbark, iboga (also known as ibogaine). I traveled to the Amazon in Ecuador to drink ayahuasca—a hallucinatory potion—with the Secoya Indians, and visited the Mazatecs in Mexico, who preserve a sacred culture using mushrooms.\n\nThe results of these investigations, and more, are recorded in my first book,  <em>Breaking Open the Head</em>, which described my shift over time from cynical materialism to an acceptance of other dimensions and occult aspects of the psyche. By the end, I had plunged into Carl Jung, Rudolf Steiner, Walter Benjamin, Carlos Castaneda and many more, in an attempt to figure out what was going on. For my second book, <em>2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl</em>, I investigated the nature of prophecy, particularly the sacred calendar kept by the Classical Mayans in the Yucatan, which completes a “Great Cycle” of more than 5,000 years in the year 2012. Most modern people find it far-fetched that a non-technological and myth-based civilization, such as the Maya, might have developed a different system of knowledge that is more advanced than our own, in certain respects. In <em>2012</em>, I conclude that this is possible.\n\nSomehow, from over a thousand years ago, the Maya predicted that this time would be crucial for humanity—and, indeed, it is. In the next few years, I believe that we are either going to slide into chaos, or institute a new planetary culture based on compassion and rational use of resources. The second option requires a quantum leap in consciousness—but, as I argued in <em>2012</em>, our entire history has prepared us for that leap, when we view it from a certain perspective.\n\nIt has been exactly forty years since the heyday of the 1960s. That epoch could be viewed as an attempted voyage of initiation for the modern world. Today, we have embarked upon a new phase of the initiatory journey begun a generation ago—with the opportunity to avoid the tactical mistakes, strident statements and polarizations of the past. Increasing numbers of people pursue spiritual practices, such as yoga and shamanism, with disciplined intensity. Perhaps, with an inchoate sense of foreknowledge, many people are preparing themselves for the transformation just ahead.\n\nIf some elements of the 1960s are returning, they are doing so without the oppositional anger of the past. The open hand, offering friendship and reconciliation, has replaced the raised-fist symbol of old-style activism. In this column, I will offer my perspective on this on-going process of transformation, which has both psychic and physical dimensions. With its tremendous pressures and opportunities, I consider this the most exciting time to be alive in the history of our species, and I look forward to exploring it with all of you.\n\n<em>Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of </em> Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism <em> (Broadway Books, 2002) and </em> 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl <em> (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006). His features have appeared in </em> The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Wired <em> and many other publications.\n</em>','New psychic waters','','publish','open','open','','19','','','2007-02-02 11:26:10','2007-02-02 11:26:10','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=19',0,'post','',0),(911,2,'2007-02-02 17:22:13','2007-02-02 17:22:13','<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/andresv/376983844/\" title=\"photo sharing\"><img src=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/thaipusam.jpg\" alt=\"thaipusam.jpg\" title=\"thaipusam.jpg\" border=\"0\" height=\"400\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" width=\"300\" /></a>\n\n<span style=\"font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px\">Flickr photo by <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/people/andresv/\">amateur_photo_bore</a>.\n</span>\nA wild photo from this year\'s Thaipusam festival in Singapore. (I didn\'t even know they celebrated it in Singapore!).\n\nVia <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/andresv/376983844/\">Flickr</a> and <a href=\"http://www.neatorama.com\">Neatorama</a>','Thaipusam: Singapore style!','','publish','open','open','','thaipusam','','','2007-02-02 17:22:13','2007-02-02 17:22:13','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=20',0,'post','',0),(912,2,'2007-02-02 22:24:43','2007-02-02 22:24:43','<a href=\"http://englishrussia.com/?p=637\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/orange_snow2.jpg\" alt=\"orange_snow2.jpg\" title=\"orange_snow2.jpg\" border=\"0\" height=\"260\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" width=\"346\" /></a>\n\n<p align=\"left\">\"Yesterday a strange phenomena happened in Omsk region Russia.\nPretty vast territory of Omsk region was covered with a snow that had an unusual color. It was orange.\n<p align=\"left\">Now we have a few photos, mainly screenshots from Russian TV channels.\nThere is still no one exact explanation about the origin of orange color of this snow.\n<p align=\"left\">According to Russian officials the orange snow doesn’t contain any chemical byproducts or any other elements dangerous to human.\"</p>\n<p align=\"left\">More pics at <a href=\"http://englishrussia.com/?p=637\">English Russia</a></p>','Orange snow falls on Russia','','publish','open','open','','orange-snow-falls-on-russia','','','2007-02-02 22:24:43','2007-02-02 22:24:43','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=21',0,'post','',0),(395,2,'2007-02-03 01:05:25','2007-02-03 01:05:25','<img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/deptfordjack1.jpg\" title=\"deptfordjack1.JPG\" alt=\"deptfordjack1.JPG\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" height=\"272\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"277\" />From Scott Wood, head cheese of the <a href=\"http://www.selfs.org.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">South East London Folklore Society</a>, whose meetings come highly recommended:\n\nTo celebrate our move ot Southwark local historian Neil Gordon-Orr gives an illustrated talk on deities, saints and sacred sites celebrated within half a mile of SELFS\' new venue. A bronze age barrow at London Bridge, dog burials in Borough High Street and the recently discovered Roman temples of Tabard Square will all feature.\n\nThe area\'s shamanic poet John Constable takes us in his experiences of the Southwark Mysteries.\n\nSELFS regular moots shall commence from <strong>Thursday 8th February</strong> at\n<em>The Old King\'s Head, Kings Head Yard, 45-49, Borough High St, London, SE1 1NA.\n</em>\nNearest stations are London Bridge and Borough. It is just off\nBorough High Street , a map is <a href=\"http://tinyurl.com/y7yoh2\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\n\n<em>Talks start at 8.00pm </em>\n\n<strong>£2.50 / £1.50 concessions. </strong>','SELFS hits Southwark','','publish','open','open','','selfs-hits-southwark','','','2007-02-03 01:05:25','2007-02-03 01:05:25','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=395',0,'post','',0),(401,2,'2007-02-05 00:01:50','2007-02-05 00:01:50','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/dayofpenn-1.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-400\" title=\"dayofpenn.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/dayofpenn2.jpg\" title=\"dayofpenn.jpg\" alt=\"dayofpenn.jpg\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/dayofpenn-1.jpg\">Click for larger image</a>','Miasma play Passing Clouds, 7 Feb','','publish','open','open','','401','','','2007-02-05 00:01:50','2007-02-05 00:01:50','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=401',0,'post','',0),(403,2,'2007-02-05 11:12:12','2007-02-05 11:12:12','<strong>Joe Banks: Rorschach Audio - Art and Illusion for Sound</strong>\nAt <a href=\"http://www.kinetica-museum.org/new_site/index.php?ptitle=Seminars%20and%20Talks&amp;mfile=event_seminar_main.php\">Kinetica Gallery</a>, Old Spitalfields Market, London E1 6AA\nWednesday 7 Feb, 6pm\n\n\"Through his ground-breaking Disinformation project (active since 1995), noise DJ and installation artist Joe Banks pioneered the use of electromagnetic (radio) noise from sources such as live mains electricity, lightning, industrial and IT hardware, laboratory equipment, trains, magnetic storms and the sun as the raw material of musical and fine-art publications, exhibits and events. Disinformation has been the subject of ten UK solo exhibitions, experienced by over 100,000 people and described by The Guardian as “some of the most beautiful installations around.”\n\nBanks will be demonstrating the illusions of sound discussed in his MIT Press published research project \"Rorschach Audio.\"\n\nMore information and <a href=\"http://www.kinetica-museum.org/new_site/index.php?ptitle=Seminars%20and%20Talks&amp;mfile=event_seminar_main.php\" target=\"_blank\">booking</a>','Joe Banks Rorchach Audio talk','','publish','open','open','','joe-banks-rorchach-audio-talk-feb','','','2007-02-05 11:12:12','2007-02-05 11:12:12','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=403',0,'post','',0),(404,2,'2007-02-06 10:42:42','2007-02-06 10:42:42','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/montserrat1.jpg\" title=\"montserrat1.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/montserrat1.jpg\" title=\"montserrat1.jpg\" alt=\"montserrat1.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"4\" /></a>\n\n<strong>Revealed: Himmler\'s secret quest to locate the \'Aryan Holy Grail\'</strong>\n<em>         By Graham Keeley in Barcelona<a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2241456.ece\" target=\"_blank\">\nThe Independent </a>06 February 2007\n</em>\nHeinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi SS, made a secret wartime mission to an abbey in Spain in search of what he believed was the Aryan Holy Grail, a new book claims.\n\nHimmler visited the famous Montserrat Abbey near Barcelona where he thought he would find the Grail which Jesus Christ was said to have used to consecrate the Last Supper.\n\nAccording to The Desecrated Abbey, by Montserrat Rico Góngora, the Reichsführer-SS thought if he could lay claim to the Holy Grail it would help Germany win the war and give him supernatural powers.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThe book claims that, far from being the King of the Jews, Himmler shared the outlandish belief with other leading Nazis that Jesus Christ was actually descended from Aryan stock.\n\nGóngora writes that Himmler, Hitler\'s right-hand man, believed Jacob was of Aryan blood and his descendants, including Jesus Christ, were Aryan too.\n\nGóngora has interviewed a former monk who was ordered by his superiors to greet Himmler during the visit in 1940.\n\nNow a pensioner living in an old people\'s home near Barcelona, Andreu Ripol Noble was at the time the only German-speaker in the abbey and was asked to help Himmler with his odd quest.\n\nAntoni Maria Marcet, the abbot, knew Himmler had launched public attacks on the Catholic Church in Germany and had no time for him, the book claims. But Ripol related how Himmler came to Montserrat inspired by Richard Wagner\'s opera Parsifal, which mentions the Holy Grail could be in kept in \"the marvellous castle of Montsalvat in the Pyrenees\".\n\nIt was widely believed in Nazi circles that this castle was Montserrat, a belief strengthened by the fact the first performance of the opera was held at the Liceu Opera House in Barcelona in 1913. Others have said it was Montségur in France.\n\nWagner is thought to have been inspired by the writings of the 13th troubadour Wolfram von Eschenbach and scores of other writers who claimed to know where the sacred chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper lay.\n\nAccording to Góngora, Himmler was also inspired by a folk song from Catalonia, the north-eastern region in which Montserrat lies, which has a cryptic reference to a \"mystical font of life\" situated in the area.\n\nHimmler, a former chicken farmer who rose through the Nazi ranks to become Hitler\'s most trusted lieutenant, is known to have an interest in racial mysticism.\n\nAfter initially proclaiming himself a Catholic, Himmler had started to attack the German church more publicly, and increasingly turned to a fanatical belief in racially based paganism.\n\nBut, the book claims, despite his quest to find the Grail, he came away from Montserrat empty-handed.\n\nHimmler was in Barcelona while Hitler was holding a conference with the newly installed Spanish dictator, General Francisco Franco, in October 1940. Hitler believed he could persuade Franco to join the war on Germany\'s side.\n\nBut with Spain ravaged after three years of civil war, Franco refused to take sides and officially at least, remained neutral.\n\nHitler was said to be furious and told the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, that Franco was a \"coward\". The Spanish press at the time reported Himmler\'s visit in bland terms, noting only that he had given 25,000 pesetas towards the repair of a local reservoir.\n\nThe Reichsführer is known to have stayed at the Ritz hotel in Barcelona and made his hour-long journey to Montserrat surrounded by \"blond-haired SS men\", reports at the time said.\n\n<em>The Desecrated Abbey by Montserrat Rico Góngora is published by Planeta in Spanish today</em>','Himmler&#039;s Holy Grail','','publish','open','open','','himmlers-holy-grail','','','2007-02-06 10:42:42','2007-02-06 10:42:42','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=404',0,'post','',0),(406,2,'2007-02-06 14:39:04','2007-02-06 14:39:04','<a href=\"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607601913/fulltext\" target=\"_blank\">The Lancet</a> 2007; 369:370 Correspondence\n<em>Homeland security reaches the anus\n</em>\n\"I wish to bring to your attention difficulties one of my patients\nrecently encountered when entering the USA. He is a 48-year-old man\nwith a fistula-in-ano managed with a long-term seton to control\nperianal sepsis.\n\n<strong><em>[Thanks <a href=\"http://www.2ubh.com\">Tim Chapman</a>! Warning – </em>Not<em> for the faint of heart!]</em></strong>\n<!--more-->\nA seton consists of a length of suture material knotted to form a\nloop which lies in the fistula track. It passes through the fistula,\nout of the external opening beside the anus, into the anus, and re-\nenters the fistula through the internal opening. Various different\nmaterials can be used; in this case the seton was made of a turquoise\nbraided synthetic suture. Many fistulas are treated with setons in\nthe short term, and, in those that are high or associated with\nCrohn\'s disease, this management can be long-term.\n\nOn arrival in New York in August, 2006, for a holiday, the patient\nwas interrogated by immigration officials, then examined and\nsearched. The presence of the seton gave rise to much concern, I\nassume because of a suspicion that a drug package or terrorist weapon\nwas in some way attached to it. A rectal examination was done, during\nwhich the examining official pulled very hard on the seton, causing\nsevere pain, but fortunately not damaging the anal sphincter muscles\nencircled by it.\n\nThe patient was refused entry into the country unless the seton was\nremoved. Given the somewhat stark choice, he chose removal of the\nseton, which was done by a doctor at the airport who claimed never to\nhave come across one before. The patient now requires an examination\nunder general anaesthetic to insert a replacement.\n\nI thought I should highlight this rather bizarre manifestation of\n“homeland security” because I suspect that it might become a more\nfrequent problem. I suggest that any patient with a seton who is\nplanning to travel to the USA or any other country where they are\nlikely to be searched in this manner should carry a letter from their\nspecialist explaining the nature of their condition and treatment.\n\nI declare that I have no conflict of interest.\"','Homeland Security plumbs new depths','','publish','open','open','','homeland-security-reaches-the-anus','','','2007-02-06 14:39:04','2007-02-06 14:39:04','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=406',0,'post','',0),(411,2,'2007-02-06 20:16:11','2007-02-06 20:16:11','<div style=\"font-size:1pt; line-height:2pt; height:auto; position: absolute; z-index:99999999;\"><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://aviator-mobile.com/\">aviator</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://1-win-online.com/\">1 win</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://az-most-bet.com/\">mosbet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://game-1win.com/\">1 win casino</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://pin-up-bk.kz/\">пинап</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://pin-up-casino-bet.in/\">pin up bet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://pinup-oyun.com/\">pinup casino</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://mostbet-game.in/\">mosbet aviator</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://4ra-bet.com/\">4rabet game</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://mostbet24.com/\">mostbet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://mostbets-play.in/\">mosbet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://mostbet-kazino.kz/\">mostbet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://pin-up-guru.in/\">pin up casino</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://1-win-slot.com/\">1 win</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://snai-italy.com/\">snai</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://1-win-games.kz/\">1win kz</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://1-win-azerbaycan.com/\">1 win az</a><a 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href=\"https://1-win-games.com/\">1 вин авиатор</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://parimatch-casino-app.com/\">parimatch</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://pin-up-play.in/\">pin up india</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://lucky-jet-casino.com/\">lucky jet casino</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://most-bet-az.com/\">mosbet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://1-win-casino.kz/\">slot 1win</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://4abet.in/\">4x bet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://slot-1win.com/\">1win apostas</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://casino-1-win.com/\">1win cassino</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://snai-slots.it/\">snai</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://pin-up-aze.com/\">pinup</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://mostbet-slot.kz/\">mostbet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://pin-up-ozbekiston.com/\">pin up casino</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://aviator-guide.com/\">1 win aviator</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://mostbet-site.in/\">mosbet india</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://pin-up-bets.kz/\">pin-up kz</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://mostbet-play.kz/\">mostbet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://parimatch-casino-apk.com/\">parimatch</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://1-win-casino.in/\">onewin casino</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://1win-casino777.com/\">1win</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://mostbet-pro.com/\">mostbet az</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://4abets.com/\">4r bet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://lucky-jet-games.kz/\">lucky jet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://mostbets.kz/\">mostbet casino</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://luckyjet-games.ru/\">lucky jet</a><a style=\"color:#ffffff00\" href=\"https://rupinup.com/\">pin up online</a></div>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"saj_logo04.gif\" href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk\"><img title=\"saj_logo04.gif\" src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/saj_logo04.gif\" alt=\"saj_logo04.gif\" border=\"0\" /></a></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk\">Strange Attractor main site</a></strong></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><a title=\"sa_store.jpg\" href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe\"><img title=\"sa_store.jpg\" src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/sa_store.jpg\" alt=\"sa_store.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"182\" align=\"middle\" border=\"0\" /></a></p>\r\n<p align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe\">Strange Attractor Shoppe</a></strong></p>','Way out','','publish','closed','closed','','exit','','','2024-07-22 15:30:06','2024-07-22 15:30:06','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?page_id=411',0,'page','',0),(412,2,'2007-02-07 00:54:04','2007-02-07 00:54:04','<strong>Voyaging into <em>The Hill of Dreams</em></strong>\nA literary walk presented by Gwilym Games of The Friends of Arthur Machen\n<strong>Sunday 11th February 2007, 2pm\n</strong>\n\nBy the steps to south entrance of the British Museum, Great Russell Street, look for the mysterious, decadent Welshman clutching a copy of Arthur Machen’s <em>The Hill of Dreams</em>, and join him on a free walk through Machen’s London, with readings from the decadent masterpiece to mark the centenary of its publication.\n\n“All London was one grey temple of an awful rite, ring within ring of wizard stones circled about some central place, every circle was an initiation, every initiation eternal loss.” Arthur Machen, <em>The Hill of Dreams</em>\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThe year 2007 marks the sixtieth anniversary of Arthur Machen’s death. It is also the centenary of the publication of <em>The Hill of Dreams</em> in February, and is also the 110th anniversary of Machen completing the book in 1897. On Sunday February 11th there will be an intrepid venture into the territory of <em>The Hill of Dreams</em>, when The Friends of Arthur Machen and any others who wish to celebrate Machen will gather to mark the centenary of what most consider Machen’s greatest work. <em>The Hill of Dreams</em> is a semi-autobiographical work which follows the career of a young writer from his strange visions of his Welsh homeland, on to London where his bleak wanderings across the vast metropolis are described in Machen’s lush prose. It has been described “the most Decadent book in English Literature”, Henry Miller called it “a dream of a book”, and H.P. Lovecraft said it was the “memorable epic of the sensitive æsthetic mind”. It was written by Machen in complete defiance of the moral panic following the trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895, remaining unpublished for ten years as a result.\n\nWe will wander through Machen’s London, accompanied by readings from <em>The Hill of Dreams</em>, in search of scenes that inspired the book’s tragic protagonist, Lucian Taylor. Our ultimate destination: “the blazing public-houses as the doors swung to and fro, and above these doors were hideous brassy lamps, very slowly swinging in a violent blast of air, so that they might have been infernal thuribles, censing the people”.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.machensoc.demon.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">The Friends of Arthur Machen</a>\nWorld Fantasy Award Nominee 2006','Voyaging into The Hill of Dreams','','publish','open','open','','voyaging-into-the-hill-of-dreams','','','2007-02-07 00:54:04','2007-02-07 00:54:04','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=412',0,'post','',0),(413,2,'2007-02-07 09:35:46','2007-02-07 09:35:46','A <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/science/20070206_ORBIT_GRAPHIC.html?_r=2&amp;oref=slogin&amp;oref=slogin\" target=\"_blank\">graphical representation</a> of the incredible amount of debris orbiting the Earth. Space junk, including debris from China\'s recent <a href=\"http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1188\">missile test</a> on a weather satellite, may well account for at least some of the <a href=\"http://www.startribune.com/462/story/981396.html\" target=\"_blank\">strange lights</a> (<a href=\"http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ap-wi-fallingobjects,1,6854064.story?coll=chi-news-hed&amp;ctrack=1&amp;cset=true\" target=\"_blank\">and more</a>) seen over the US in recent days. <em>From the <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/science/20070206_ORBIT_GRAPHIC.html?_r=2&amp;oref=slogin&amp;oref=slogin\" target=\"_blank\">NYT</a>.</em>','Littered Skies','','publish','open','open','','littered-skies','','','2007-02-07 09:35:46','2007-02-07 09:35:46','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=413',0,'post','',0),(414,2,'2007-02-07 10:24:26','2007-02-07 10:24:26','<a href=\"http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2007/02/ufo-symbols.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"symb-4.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/symb-6.jpg\" title=\"symb-6.jpg\" alt=\"symb-6.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"6\" /></a><a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/symb-4.jpg\" title=\"symb-4.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/symb-4.jpg\" title=\"symb-4.jpg\" alt=\"symb-4.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" height=\"295\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"6\" width=\"152\" /></a>A <a href=\"http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2007/02/ufo-symbols.html\" target=\"_blank\">collection of markings</a>  seen on the sides of UFOs, from a 1972 issue of FATE magazine. Much alleged ET-language is clearly psycho-scribble from the darker recesses of the mind, but some of these markings look almost like ID numbers, one even reads \'UN\'! From the <a href=\"http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2007/02/ufo-symbols.html\" target=\"_blank\">UFO Iconoclast.</a>\n<br clear=\"all\" />','UFO markings','','publish','open','open','','ufo-markings','','','2007-02-07 10:24:26','2007-02-07 10:24:26','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=414',0,'post','',0),(420,2,'2007-02-08 09:35:00','2007-02-08 09:35:00','<p align=\"left\"><a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNUpD3CrYNE\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"tornados.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/tornados.jpg\" title=\"tornados.jpg\" alt=\"tornados.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" /></a>A fantastic <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNUpD3CrYNE\" target=\"_blank\">promo film</a> for Joe Meek\'s <a href=\"http://www.45-rpm.org.uk/dirt/tornados.htm\" target=\"_blank\">The Tornados</a> and their 1963 instrumental, <em>The Robot</em>. Continuing the outer space theme, the B-side of this single was <em>Life on Venus</em>. The Tornados were of course the players on Meek\'s mighty hit, Telstar.</p>\n\n<p align=\"left\">Thanks Drew Mulholland!<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNUpD3CrYNE\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"tornados.jpg\">\n</a>','Rock &#039;n&#039; roll robot love-in!','','publish','open','open','','rock-n-roll-robot-love-in','','','2007-02-08 09:35:00','2007-02-08 09:35:00','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=420',0,'post','',0),(422,2,'2007-02-08 10:16:30','2007-02-08 10:16:30','￼ <a href=\"http://www.MixandMash.cc\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"mixmash2.gif\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/mixmash2.gif\" title=\"mixmash2.gif\" alt=\"mixmash2.gif\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" /></a>\n\nCreative Commons\' UK film competition \"Mix &amp; Mash\" in association with Google UK invites short video submissions mixing and mashing digital content. Submissions can be made from the 8th of February to the 10th of March. The winners will be notified by the 12th of March and screened on the 16th of March at the Optronica National Film Theatre in London.\n\nRemixing digital content is the basis for this competition. Digital pictures, sound or films licensed through Creative Commons and Public Domain material need to be used. Entrants can use their creativity to remix the work of others with their own. The result will be a collage of original and re-used material.\n\n<!--more-->\n<strong>Submissions</strong>\nSubmissions can be made under the theme: Britannia Rules / Britannia Sucks\n– No work should be longer than three minutes.\n\nFilms will be made available online under a Creative Commons Noncommercial license. For terms and conditions, and more details go to:<a href=\"http://www.MixandMash.cc\" target=\"_blank\">www.MixandMash.cc</a>\n\n<strong>Prizes</strong>\nThe four best entries will be awarded professional film editing software and hardware, be included in a special Optronica screening at the National Film Theatre on the 16th of March and be featured on Google Video UK.\n\n<strong>Judges</strong>\nPanel of Judges will include\n– Cory Doctorow; Author and Co-Editor of BoingBoing\n– Greg Hall; Film Director\n– Hari Kunzru; Author\n– William Fowler; Curator - British Film Insitute\n– Jess Search; CEO BritDoc Festival/Shooting People\n\nThe competition will be managed by Creative Commons UK. The sponsors include the Arts Council, Google UK, and Avid. Media partners are Shooting People, Open Democracy, Mute and the British Film Institute.\nHannah Upritchard    hu@openbusiness.cc','Mix &amp; Mash film competition','','publish','open','open','','422','','','2007-02-08 10:16:30','2007-02-08 10:16:30','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=422',0,'post','',0),(423,2,'2007-02-08 11:14:51','2007-02-08 11:14:51','<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/strangeattractor/307069075/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"danh.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/danh.jpg\" title=\"danh.jpg\" alt=\"danh.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"6\" /></a>\nMusic concrete / mashup maestro Dan Hayhurst aka Sculpture (<a href=\"http://www.myspace.com/danhayhurst\" target=\"_blank\">rupespace page</a>), has sent us a live recording of his performance at the launch of <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/SAJ3_sell.html\" target=\"_blank\">Strange Attractor Journal Three</a> on 12 December 2006. Some of the elements Dan is using come from the Strange Attractor vs Disinformation CD <a href=\"http://www.adaadat.com/artist.php?artist=24\" target=\"_blank\">Circuit Blasting</a>. He\'s also preparing a reworked track for the companion CD coming later this year from Adaadat. Thanks Dan!\n\n<a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/SculptureStrange%20Attractor.mp3\" title=\"Anarchy Media Player - Right click to download file\"><em>Sculpture SAJ3 launch</em></a>  (9MB mp3)','Sculpture recording from SAJ3 launch','','publish','open','open','','sculpture-recording-from-saj3-launch','','','2007-02-08 11:14:51','2007-02-08 11:14:51','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=423',0,'post','',0),(425,2,'2007-02-09 09:17:43','2007-02-09 09:17:43','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/gregb_mexalien.jpg\" title=\"gregb_mexaliensmall.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/gregb_mexaliensmall.jpg\" title=\"gregb_mexaliensmall.jpg\" alt=\"gregb_mexaliensmall.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"6\" /></a>\n[click pic to enlarge]\n\n<em>\"Mr. Gonzalo Salinas Cruz gives thanks to Saint Martin of Porres for saving me from death when a Martian attempted to abduct me when I came out of the cantina. Mr. Fermin Luna Sambrano/ March 9, 1987.</em>\n\nThe second name is probably the artist’s. One thing I find interesting and curious are the white dots or lights over Sr. Cruz’ head. Is it an iconographic representation of drunkenness, or does it have some religious meaning? On the right is presumably a portrait of the penitent sinner and a standard representation of the Saint. The “martian” descends in a cone of greenish light. He has the requisite bug eyes, but they’re turned upwards, like teardrops. He’s fairly stocky as well.\n\n...This example of Mexican naive art hangs in my hallway. I had it matted with black velvet and framed in ostentatious gold. It’s an example of a <em>retablo</em> or votive painting that is commissioned when someone wants to thank a particular saint for saving them from disease, accidents, or other misfortune.\"\n\nPosted by Greg Bishop at <a href=\"http://www.ufomystic.com/wake-up-down-there/mexican-abduction-art/\" target=\"_blank\">UFOMystic.com</a>','Mexcian UFO abduction art','','publish','open','open','','mexcian-ufo-abduction-art','','','2007-02-09 09:17:43','2007-02-09 09:17:43','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=425',0,'post','',0),(429,2,'2007-02-09 09:31:57','2007-02-09 09:31:57','<a href=\"http://ufonews.tv/2007/02/06/lake-erie-fantastic-ufo-video/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"doodufo.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/doodufo.jpg\" title=\"doodufo.jpg\" alt=\"doodufo.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"314\" vspace=\"6\" width=\"405\" /></a>\n\nMore UFOs, this time filmed by two serious dudes over Lake Eerie in Northern Ohio. The film itself is intriguing - whatever they are, those lights are <em>bright</em> - but the real joy is the live commentary. Make sure you have your computer\'s volume up.\n\nSome clues as to what might be behind the lights: at one point one of the witnesses says something like \"NASA are over there\".\n\nOn Youtube via <a href=\"http://ufonews.tv\" target=\"_blank\">UFO TV</a> and <a href=\"http://www.anomalist.com/\" target=\"_blank\">The Anomalist</a>\n\n<strong>Update! 3 Feb 07 – some discussion of what the lights might be, over at <a href=\"http://ufonews.tv/2007/02/12/lake-erie-ufo-a-closer-examination/\" target=\"_blank\">UFO News</a>:</strong>\n\n\"Many skeptics believe the lights pictured above are two distant jets coming at us in a landing pattern - appearing to hover. Other skeptics say these are two police cars driving across a hill at night - on parallel roads with distance forcing the perspective.\n\nWe don’t think so.\n\n<!--more--> 1) Michael Lee Hill tells us he shot this in <a href=\"http://www.google.com/maps?q=Eastlake,+Oh&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=map&amp;ct=title\">Eastlake, Ohio</a>.  In this <a href=\"http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=41.65472&amp;lon=-81.45134&amp;datum=nad27&amp;u=4&amp;layer=DRG&amp;s=100\">topo map</a> of the area you will see no hills near or across the shoreline.\n\n2) If these aircraft are flying towards Eastlake then we can only find two destinations, <a href=\"http://www.airnav.com/airport/LNN\">Lost Nation Municipal Airport</a> and <a href=\"http://development.cuyahogacounty.us/airport/\">Cuyahoga County Airport</a>.  Neither of these airports look the part for what would be obviously BIG planes on approach.\n\n3) If these aircraft were coming in to <a href=\"http://www.google.com/maps?q=Cleveland,+Oh&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=map&amp;ct=title\">Cleveland Airport</a> they would be traveling from right to left.\n\n4) In the frame grab above shouldn’t there be an appreciable size difference between two aircraft of this size, miles apart — even with the alleged mirage affect?\n\nUFO NEWS believes these two ‘things’ are flying about 20 feet apart from each other.\n\nIf anyone would like to further debunk this sighting I believe we must begin with these new ideas. Yet Michael Lee Hill has assured us in the comments that <a href=\"http://davidsereda.blogspot.com/\">David Sereda’s</a> upcoming film, “From Here to Andromeda” will put all our doubts to rest.\"','Dood, we just saw something amazing!','','publish','open','open','','dood-we-just-saw-something-beautiful','','','2007-02-09 09:31:57','2007-02-09 09:31:57','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=429',0,'post','',0),(430,2,'2007-02-09 10:01:44','2007-02-09 10:01:44','From SA pal <a href=\"http://hellshaw.com/barry\"></a><a href=\"http://hellshaw.com/barry\" target=\"_blank\">Barry Kavanagh</a> in Oslo\n\n\"Following the success of online sales of WHAT THE OSTRICH SEES IN THE SAND, Barry Kavanagh offers a more recent novel for sale in pdf format. This is THE TAO OF ODDS AND ENDS, completed in 2003.\n\n\"Were you dreaming you were a butterfly, or is a butterfly dreaming it is you?\"\n\nThis novel takes three ancient Chinese Taoist stories from the Book of Zhuangzi (or Chuang Tzu) and re-tells them, setting them in the present-day West. They are all interconnected in an innovative way that is itself inspired by Zhuangzi, and framed by a fourth story based on concepts from the equally ancient Tao Te Ching.\n\nThe stories\' styles vary from something like the stillness of Amos Oz to a kind of Saki-esque dinner party to near-fairytale to melancholy surrealism, and is an exploration of what Taoism is all about and how it might or might not apply to the modern world.\n\nYou can read an excerpt <a href=\"http://hellshaw.com/barry/toe.html\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>\n\n<a href=\"http://hellshaw.com/barry/shop.html\" target=\"_blank\">Buy the full novel as a PDF</a> using Paypal. The PDF is emailed to you when payment is received. The price is 10 euro.\"','The Tao of Odds &amp; Ends','','publish','open','open','','the-tao-of-odds-ends','','','2007-02-09 10:01:44','2007-02-09 10:01:44','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=430',0,'post','',0),(431,2,'2007-02-10 12:36:20','2007-02-10 12:36:20','<span style=\"font-weight: bold\">\'UFO\' kills nomads</span>\n<span class=\"secondarystorycopy\"><a href=\"http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,9294,2-13-1443_2066489,00.html\" style=\"font-style: italic\" target=\"_blank\">News24</a><span style=\"font-style: italic\">  - (SA)</span>  </span>\n\nNew Delhi - A suspected meteorite killed two nomads and injured five others on Thursday in the northern Indian desert state of Rajasthan, a report said.\n\nPolice told the Press Trust of India news agency that the group of nomads were sitting in a field in Rajasthan\'s Bundi district when an \"unknown flying object\", thought to be a meteorite, hit the ground and exploded, leaving behind a crater.\n\nSenior police and administrative officials have rushed to the scene to investigate the incident, the report said, adding that a forensic science team had also been called in.','Fiery death from above','','publish','open','open','','fiery-death-from-above','','','2007-02-10 12:36:20','2007-02-10 12:36:20','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=431',0,'post','',0),(432,2,'2007-02-10 13:43:23','2007-02-10 13:43:23','<strong><font face=\"Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">Call for ethical debate over possible use of new technology in interrogation</font></strong>\n\n<em><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">Ian Sample, science correspondent</font><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">; <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329710503-117700,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">Guardian</a></font></em><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\"><em> 9February, 2007</em></font>\n\n<font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person\'s brain and read their intentions before they act.</font>\n\n<font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists\' ability to probe people\'s minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future.</font>\n\n<font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way.</font>\n\n...<font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">\"A lot of neuroscientists in the field are very cautious and say we can\'t talk about reading individuals\' minds, and right now that is very true, but we\'re moving ahead so rapidly, it\'s not going to be that long before we will be able to tell whether someone\'s making up a story, or whether someone intended to do a crime with a certain degree of certainty.\"</font>\n\n<em><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\"><a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329710503-117700,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">Full story</a></font></em>','Brain scan can &quot;read intentions&quot;','','publish','open','open','','brain-scan-can-read-intentions','','','2007-02-10 13:43:23','2007-02-10 13:43:23','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=432',0,'post','',0),(433,2,'2007-02-12 08:55:05','2007-02-12 08:55:05','Steve Connor<em> digs up the facts - and the fiction</em>\n12 February 2007, <a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2259490.ece\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent</a>\n\nAncient bones and other fossilised remains have been known to humans for millennia but it is only over the past 300 years or so that their true origins have been revealed. Until then, a rich folklore sought to explain these enigmatic relics from the past. Every culture in every country, it seems, wanted an explanation for the unusual objects and bizarre shapes that often seemed to emerge, as if by magic, from the ground.\n\nImagine a group of prehistoric hunters, whose trail has brought them to a remote cave in northern Europe. They discover a cave and in it they find the empty skull of a huge, unrecognisable beast sitting on top of a pile of bones. It is easy to how the myth of cave-dwelling dragons who fed on other large creatures might have come about.\n\nIn fact, the mysterious beast would have been a woolly rhinoceros, which roamed Ice Age Europe before it went extinct about 10,000 years ago. Like many animals before it, the rhino would have used caves to take refuge from the elements - unaware that its bones would become entombed for thousands of years.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nIn Japan, fossilised sharks\' teeth were said to be the pointed thumbnails of Tengu Man, a mythical mountain goblin. In India, the fossilised shell of ammonites - marine molluscs - were known as saligrams, symbols of the god Vishnu, which were kept in temples to purify water. In China, the fossils of mollusc-like brachiopods were known as Shih-yen, or stone swallows, which were said to be able to fly during thunderstorms.\n\nSome fossils were ground into powder and taken as a potion to cure a rich variety of ailments. Others, like the saligrams of Hindus and the \"tonguestones\" of Christians, were dipped into drink to ward off evil.\n\nFossils were given exotic names in the many attempts to try to explain their existence. \"Names such as thunderbolts, tonguestones, toadstones, snakestones and devil\'s toenails became widely used for different types of fossils in Britain,\" says Paul Taylor, a fossils expert at the Natural History Museum in London. Many resembled parts of the human body, and so became associated with the practice of sympathetic medicine - curing like with like. In Chinese medicine, the \"dragon\'s teeth\" used in some recipes were in fact the teeth and bones of common animals.\n\nIt was not until the mid-18th century that the true nature of fossils began to emerge. A physician called Steno, who lived and worked in Florence, realised that the peculiar stone tongues that fell out of rocks were actually the teeth of ancient sharks. He was able to prove his theory after dissecting the head of a huge shark caught near Livorno in 1666. His \"eureka\" moment was the beginning of the end for fossil folklore - and the rest, as they say, is palaeontology.\n\nAn exhibition, Fossil Folklore, opens today at the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire, and runs until 8 July.\n\n<strong> Protoceratops and the griffin </strong>\n\nProtoceratops, which means \"first horned face\", was a sheep-sized herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous period (about 100 million years ago), that lived in what is now Mongolia. Protoceratops had a large neck-frill but, unlike later ceratopsians, lacked well-developed horns.\n\nFossilised skulls of this dinosaur with a bird-like beak have been unearthed in the Gobi desert, which is where the myth of the gold-guarding griffin originates - a ferocious beast with the body of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle and talons as big as bull-horns.\n\nThe griffin myth probably originated from the tales of Scythian gold miners who may have come across Protoceratops skulls on the edge of the Altai mountains, in what is now Siberia. The uncanny resemblance between these two creatures suggests that the fossilised skull and bones of the real dinosaur may have been the inspiration for the vivid descriptions of the mythological beast.\n\n<strong> Pyramids, slave\'s lentils and angel\'s money </strong>\n\nNummulites are disc- or lenticle-shaped fossils with a complex system of internal chambers arranged in a coil. Despite the fact that they can reach 6cm in diameter, nummulites are the skeletons of single-celled organisms (Foraminifera) that resembled the amoeba. They lived on the sea-bed mostly during the Eocene and Oligocene periods (about 50 to 25 million years ago).\n\nThe Egyptian pyramids of Giza are built of limestone packed with nummulites. Strabo the Geographer in the first-century BC was told that the lentil-shaped fossils were remnants of the food of the slaves who built the pyramids. Other nummulites have flat shells resembling coins in shape and size; in folklore, they have been dubbed \"angel\'s money\".\n\n<strong> Echinoids and jewstones </strong>\n\nBalanocidaris is a sea urchin from the late Jurassic period (about 160 to 145 million years ago). The delicate bodies of these animals, distantly related to the starfish, often disintegrated after death. However, club-like spines attached to the bodies of the living were more robust, and survived to become fossilised.\n\nCrusaders collected Balanocidaris fossils, which they called \"jewstones\", from the Holy Lands and wore them as lucky amulets. The fossils have also been traced back to Ancient Egyptian communities from around 650BC. Sometimes apothecaries would grind the bladder-like stones into a powder, to be used as a cure for various urinary-tract problems.\n\n<strong> Insects in amber and the DNA myth </strong>\n\nWhen resin oozed from ancient trees, it sometimes trapped insects and other small animals and plants. When it fossilised, the organism was often perfectly preserved.\n\nWe can blame Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, for the myth that it is possible to extract dinosaur DNA from the last blood-meal of a prehistoric mosquito trapped in amber, and use it to reconstruct a dinosaur\'s genome and from that the animal itself.\n\nIn fact, any DNA that survived in amber would be so fragmented that it would be impossible to recreate living dinosaurs from it. That didn\'t stop Steven Spielberg from cashing in on the idea when he made the hugely successful 1993 film of Crichton\'s book.\n\n<strong>Fish teeth and toadstones</strong>\n\nLepidotes is an extinct genus of ray-finned fish that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Their bodies were covered with thick scales and they had batteries of hard, round teeth to crush the shells of their molluscan prey.\n\nLepidotes\' teeth would often become separated from their jaws and, when fossilised, took on the appearance of perfectly formed little stones. Legend linked them to the mythical \"jewels\" that were said to exist in the heads of toads. This myth can be traced back to at least the time of the Roman natural historian Pliny the Elder (AD23 to 79), and the idea is mentioned in As You Like It.\n\n\"Like tonguestones, toadstones were considered to be antidotes for poison and were also used in the treatment of epilepsy,\" says Paul Taylor of the Natural History Museum. From the 14th century, toadstones were set in rings for their magical properties. The toadstone had to be taken from an old toad that was still alive, and, according to the 17th-century naturalist Edward Topsell, this could be done by placing a toad on a piece of red cloth, which caused it to cast out its stone.\n\n<strong> Fossil trees and giant serpents</strong>\n\nLepidodendron is an extinct genus of a tree-like plant related to club mosses. They could sometimes grow to heights of 30 metres and have trunks a metre thick, and thrived during the Carboniferous period (360 to 300 million years ago).\n\nLepidodendrons had tall, thick trunks that rarely branched and were topped with a crown of branches bearing leaves. The leaf scars on their trunks and stems looked like tyre tracks or alligator skin.\n\nLepidodendrons\' rotted and compacted remains formed the coal seams exploited in Britain. After their leaves had fallen off, their trunks became covered with diamond-shaped scars, which resembled the scales of a reptile. As late as 1851 a specimen of this fossil tree was exhibited in Neath as a gigantic fossilised serpent. Visitors could view the 8ft-long specimen for the sum of one shilling (tradesmen six pence and working classes three pence).\n\nLepidodendrons are now known as scale trees.','Fossil folklore','','publish','open','open','','fossil-folklore','','','2007-02-12 08:55:05','2007-02-12 08:55:05','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=433',0,'post','',0),(434,2,'2007-02-12 14:50:52','2007-02-12 14:50:52','<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/avant1997/365446176/\" title=\"photo sharing\"><img src=\"http://farm1.static.flickr.com/126/365446176_a9e0f65cf7_m.jpg\" style=\"border: 2px solid #000000\" /></a>\n<span style=\"font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px\">Originally uploaded by <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/people/avant1997/\">avant1997</a>.\n</span>\n\"2000 pigs sacrifice to the deity General Chao of Wudeh temple at a temple festival in Jendeh, southern Taiwan, 19 Jan 2007.\"\n\nThis seems like it should somehow connect to the piece about the horrors of <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=392\" target=\"_blank\">intensive pig farming</a> in the US, but I\'m not sure if the comparison is a fair one...\n\nThanks <a href=\"http://www.badscience.net\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Goldacre</a>','2000 pig sacrifice in Taiwan','','publish','open','open','','2000-pig-sacrifice-in-taiwan','','','2007-02-12 14:50:52','2007-02-12 14:50:52','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=434',0,'post','',0),(435,2,'2007-02-12 23:11:08','2007-02-12 23:11:08','<strong> A Princeton Lab on ESP Plans to Close Its Doors</strong>\n\n<em>PRINCETON, N.J., Feb. 6  <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/science/10princeton.html?ei=5090&amp;en=2f8f7bdba3ac59f1&amp;ex=1328763600&amp;partner=rssuserland&amp;emc=rss&amp;pagewanted=all\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times</a></em>— Over almost three decades, a small laboratory at Princeton University managed to embarrass university administrators, outrage Nobel laureates, entice the support of philanthropists and make headlines around the world with its efforts to prove that thoughts can alter the course of events.\n\nBut at the end of the month, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory, or PEAR, will close, not because of controversy but because, its founder says, it is time.\n\nThe laboratory has conducted studies on extrasensory perception and telekinesis from its cramped quarters in the basement of the university’s engineering building since 1979. Its equipment is aging, its finances dwindling.\n\n“For 28 years, we’ve done what we wanted to do, and there’s no reason to stay and generate more of the same data,” said the laboratory’s founder, Robert G. Jahn, 76, former dean of Princeton’s engineering school and an emeritus professor. “If people don’t believe us after all the results we’ve produced, then they never will.”\n\nPrinceton made no official comment.\n\n<!--more--> The closing will end one of the strangest tales in modern science, or science fiction, depending on one’s point of view. The laboratory has long had a strained relationship with the university. Many scientists have been openly dismissive of it.\n\n“It’s been an embarrassment to science, and I think an embarrassment for Princeton,” said Robert L. Park, a <a href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_maryland/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about University of Maryland\">University of Maryland</a> physicist who is the author of “Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness to Fraud.” “Science has a substantial amount of credibility, but this is the kind of thing that squanders it.”\n\nPEAR has been an anomaly from the start, a ghost in the machine room of physical science that was never acknowledged as substantial and yet never entirely banished. Its longevity illustrates the strength and limitations of scientific peer review, the process by which researchers appraise one another’s work.\n\n“We know people have ideas beyond the mainstream,” said the sociologist Harriet Zuckerman, author of “Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States” and senior vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ”but if they want funds for research they have to go through peer review, and the system is going to be very skeptical of ideas that are inconsistent with what is already known.”\n\nDr. Jahn, one of the world’s foremost experts on jet propulsion, defied the system. He relied not on university or government money but on private donations — more than $10 million over the years, he estimated. The first and most generous donor was his friend James S. McDonnell, a founder of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation.\n\nThose gifts paid for a small staff and a gallery of random-motion machines, including a pendulum with a lighted crystal at the end; a giant, wall-mounted pachinko-like machine with a cascade of bouncing balls; and a variety of electronic boxes with digital number displays.\n\nIn one of PEAR’s standard experiments, the study participant would sit in front of an electronic box the size of a toaster oven, which flashed a random series of numbers just above and just below 100. Staff members instructed the person to simply “think high” or “think low” and watch the display. After thousands of repetitions — the equivalent of coin flips — the researchers looked for differences between the machine’s output and random chance.\n\nAnalyzing data from such trials, the PEAR team concluded that people could alter the behavior of these machines very slightly, changing about 2 or 3 flips out of 10,000. If the human mind could alter the behavior of such a machine, Dr. Jahn argued, then thought could bring about changes in many other areas of life — helping to heal disease, for instance, in oneself and others.\n\nThis kind of talk fascinated the public and attracted the curiosity of dozens of students, at Princeton and elsewhere. But it left most scientists cold. A physics Ph.D. and an electrical engineer joined Dr. Jahn’s project, but none of the university’s 700 or so professors did. Prominent research journals declined to accept papers from PEAR. One editor famously told Dr. Jahn that he would consider a paper “if you can telepathically communicate it to me.”\n\nBrenda Dunne, a developmental psychologist, has managed the laboratory since it opened and has been a co-author of many of its study papers. “We submitted our data for review to very good journals,” Ms. Dunne said, “but no one would review it. We have been very open with our data. But how do you get peer review when you don’t have peers?”\n\nSeveral expert panels examined PEAR’s methods over the years, looking for irregularities, but did not find sufficient reasons to interrupt the work. In the 1980s and 1990s, PEAR published more than 60 research reports, most appearing in the journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration, a group devoted to the study of topics outside the scientific mainstream. Dr. Jahn and Ms. Dunne are officers in the society.\n\nNews of the Princeton group’s experiments spread quickly worldwide, among people interested in paranormal phenomena, including telekinesis and what people call extrasensory perception. Notable figures from Europe and Asia stopped by. . Keith Jarrett, the jazz pianist, paid a visit. For a time, the philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller visited regularly and donated money for research.\n\nAnd many people, in and out of science, joined what Ms. Dunne called the PEAR Tree, a kind of secret society of people interested in the paranormal, she said. Many PEAR Tree members who are science faculty members will not reveal themselves publicly, Ms. Dunne said.\n\nThe culture of science, at its purest, is one of freedom in which any idea can be tested regardless of how far-fetched it might seem.\n\n“I don’t believe in anything Bob is doing, but I support his right to do it,” said Will Happer, a professor of physics at Princeton.\n\nOther top-flight scientists have taken chances. At the end of his career, Linus Pauling, the Nobel laureate, came to believe that vitamin C supplements could prevent and treat cancer, heart disease and other ailments. Dr. Pauling had some outside financing, too, and conducted research and had plenty of media coverage. But in the end he did not sway many of his colleagues, Dr. Zuckerman said.\n\nAt the PEAR offices this week, the staff worked amid boxes, piles of paper and a roll of bubble wrap as big as an oil drum. The random-event machines are headed for storage.\n\nThe study of telekinesis and related phenomena, Dr. Jahn said, will carry on.\n\n“It’s time for a new era,” he said, “for someone to figure out what the implications of our results are for human culture, for future study, and — if the findings are correct — what they say about our basic scientific attitude.”','PEAR: Global Consciousness Project labs to close','','publish','open','open','','pear-global-consciousness-project-labs-to-close','','','2007-02-12 23:11:08','2007-02-12 23:11:08','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=435',0,'post','',0),(437,2,'2007-02-12 23:50:17','2007-02-12 23:50:17','<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/strangeattractor/sets/72157594532655052/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"homonculi2.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/homonculi2.jpg\" title=\"homonculi2.jpg\" alt=\"homonculi2.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"6\" /></a>\n\nThe <a href=\"http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/LOCAL17/702100471/1012\" target=\"_blank\">sad news</a> that Baltimore\'s wonderful <a href=\"http://www.dimemuseum.com/\" target=\"_blank\">American Dime Museum</a> is to close down has prompted me to <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/strangeattractor/388503570/in/set-72157594532655052/\" target=\"_blank\">Flickr</a> a few snaps that I took there in 2003. I remember it being dusty, odorous and brimming with wonders. They\'re planning to auction off many of their displays – let\'s hope they go to a good and public home.\n\nVia <a href=\"http://boingboing.net/\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing</a>\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<strong>Museum of oddities couldn\'t find acceptance</strong>         		<!--PRINTER FRIENDLY ARTICLE-->\n<p class=\"date\"><em>By Jill Rosen <a href=\"http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/LOCAL17/702100471/1012\" target=\"_blank\">The Baltimore Sun</a>; February 10, 2007</em></p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">BALTIMORE -- This time it\'s for real.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">After struggling to persuade Baltimore and the world to believe in its homage to the grotesque, freakish and phony, the American Dime Museum\'s strange, seven-year show has come to an end.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">Soon, the entire collection will go to auction -- every shrunken head, every bizarre biological specimen, every mummy.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">\"To the bare walls, as they say,\" says Dick Horne, the museum\'s owner, curator and biggest fan. \"No offers refused.\"</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">In the past few years, the museum\'s faithful have grown accustomed to word that the dusty space was closing -- only to find out that wasn\'t so much true. But Baltimore, a city that prides itself on an organic quirkiness, couldn\'t sustain what had to be its strangest attraction.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">\"We\'re losing another great piece of Baltimore personality,\" says homegrown filmmaker John Waters. \"It was esoteric and great and hilarious and very fitting for this city. Maybe it was just too good to be accepted by enough people.\"</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">The American Dime Museum opened in 1999, a vehicle to showcase (and justify) Horne\'s obsession with turn-of-the-century curiosity venues and the circus freak shows they evolved into.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">Horne, 65, stands in the museum\'s dimly lighted front room, hands jammed into the pockets of a black leather jacket, talking about why he\'s giving up. In a word, it\'s money.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">And he thought that, despite \"having the best collection of human hair art anywhere,\" the museum would never obtain a corporate grant. \"If I had a lot of money,\" he half-jokes, \"I\'m not sure I\'d give it to me.\"</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">People will find as many as 400 oddities for sale at the auction on Feb. 26. Everything -- literally -- will go.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">The tiny, leathery boots of an Idaho boy who was sucked right out of them and into his chimney in \"a strange vortex\" -- never to be seen again.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">A not-larger-than-life-yet-still-quite-large wax reproduction of Daniel Lambert, a 793-pound Englishman who died in 1809 at age 39.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">The Olfactory Recognator, invented in 1918 to retain odors \"for future enjoyment (or revulsion).\"</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">Then shrunken human heads stuffed into dome-shaped glass jars. George Washington\'s eyelashes. The flesh-eating toad from Madagascar (\"extremely dangerous\"), the homunculus, the severed hand of Spider Lillie, a prostitute who offed her clientele with poisonous spider eggs she hid in a ring.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">The crumbling mummies will, of course, come with their handcrafted display cases.</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">None of these extraordinary objects is real. Many, Horne has painstakingly crafted of wood, wire cloth and glue. As he likes to say: \"They\'re better than real.\"</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">Recently, a group of Johns Hopkins students taking a course on museums crowded in among the narrow aisles packed with so much stuff. \"You folks are gonna have the honor of being the last to tour the American Dime Museum,\" Horne eulogizes, looking down on them from the staircase landing. \"See it before it disappears into a cloud of something -- we\'re not sure what.\"</p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">After an hour or so of gawking and giggling at Horne\'s bounty, the students file out, leaving the museum empty and the curator with time to ponder what, if anything, the Dime Museum\'s demise says about Baltimore. Is it possible for a city to become a little less real even as it becomes a little less fake?</p>','Death of a Dime Museum','','publish','open','open','','death-of-a-dime-museum','','','2007-02-12 23:50:17','2007-02-12 23:50:17','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=437',0,'post','',0),(439,2,'2007-02-13 16:18:27','2007-02-13 16:18:27','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/cydonia.jpg\" title=\"cydonia.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/cydonia.jpg\" title=\"cydonia.jpg\" alt=\"cydonia.jpg\" align=\"middle\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"0\" /></a>\n\n<strong><nyt_headline version=\"1.0\" type=\" \"> Faces, Faces Everywhere</nyt_headline></strong>\n<em>ELIZABETH SVOBODA, <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/health/psychology/13face.html?_r=2&amp;oref=slogin&amp;pagewanted=all\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times</a>, 13 Feb 07 </em>\n\n<nyt_byline version=\"1.0\" type=\" \"> </nyt_byline>     <nyt_text> </nyt_text>More than a decade ago, Diana Duyser of Hollywood, Fla., received a religious message through an unlikely medium: a grilled cheese sandwich she had made herself. As she gazed at the brown skillet marks on the surface of the bread, a familiar visage snapped into focus.\n\n“I saw a face looking up at me; it was the Virgin Mary staring back,” she told reporters in 2004. “I was in total shock.”\n\nAfter holding onto the stale relic for 10 years, Ms. Duyser put it up for sale on eBay. The auction generated so much excitement that the sandwich eventually sold for $28,000, proving that she was not alone in seeing a face where none should reasonably exist. (Efforts to locate her to comment for this article were unsuccessful.)\n\nSuch faces made headlines again near the end of 2006, when Mars Express, an orbiter from the European Space Agency, captured the highest-quality three-dimensional images to date of what looks like a face in the Cydonia region of Mars. The photos reignited conspiracy theories that governments on Earth are trying to hide the existence of intelligent life on Mars.\n\nWhy do we see faces everywhere we look: in the Moon, in Rorschach inkblots, in the interference patterns on the surface of oil spills? Why are some Lay’s chips the spitting image of Fidel Castro, and why was a cinnamon bun with a striking likeness to Mother Teresa kept for years under glass in a coffee shop in Nashville, where it was nicknamed the Nun Bun?\n\n<a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/health/psychology/13face.html?_r=2&amp;oref=slogin&amp;pagewanted=all\" target=\"_blank\">Full story with pics</a>\n\n<!--more-->Compelling answers are beginning to emerge from biologists and computer scientists who are gaining new insights into how the brain recognizes and processes facial data.\n\nLong before she had heard of Diana Duyser’s grilled-cheese sandwich, Doris Tsao, a neuroscientist at the University of Bremen in Germany, had an inkling that people might process faces differently from other objects. Her suspicion was that a particular area of the brain gives faces priority, like an airline offering first-class passengers expedited boarding.\n\n“Some patients have strokes and are then able to recognize everything perfectly well except for faces,” Dr. Tsao said. “So we started questioning whether there really might be an area in the brain that is dedicated to face recognition.”\n\nDr. Tsao used functional magnetic resonance imaging to record which areas of the brain were activated when macaque monkeys were presented with stimuli including fruits, gadgets, scrambled patterns — and faces. She discovered almost immediately that groups of cells in three regions of the brain’s temporal lobe seemed to be strongly attuned to faces.\n\n“The first day we put the electrode in, it was shocking,” Dr. Tsao said. “Cell after cell responded to faces but not at all to other objects.” Her results were published in October in the journal Science.\n\nDr. Tsao’s investigation yielded a surprising related finding: areas of the brain she had identified as face-specific occasionally lighted up in response to objects that bore only a passing resemblance to faces.\n\n“Nonface objects may have certain features that are weakly triggering these face cells,” she said. “If you go above a certain threshold, the monkeys might think that they’re seeing a face.” In the same way, she said, objects like cinnamon buns, rocky outcroppings and cloud formations may set off face radar if they bear enough resemblance to actual faces.\n\nPawan Sinha, a cognitive scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has devoted years of research to figuring out just what attributes touch off these face-specific pings. Security software that is being developed for identifying potential terrorists or detecting intruders must be able to reliably recognize faces. In teaching the software to do this, Dr. Sinha and his colleagues have arrived at unexpected insights into the question of why we sometimes see a cinnamon bun as a cinnamon bun, and other times as the earthly incarnation of a sainted nun.\n\nTo develop detector software optimized to pick out any human face, even in less-than-ideal surroundings, Dr. Sinha began by putting into his computer hundreds of faces as varied as those in a Benetton advertisement famous for its diversity.\n\nAs the computer amassed the information, it was able to discover relationships that were of great significance to almost all faces, but very few nonfaces. “These turn out to be very simple relationships, things like the eyes are always darker than the forehead, and the mouth is darker than the cheeks,” Dr. Sinha said. “If you put together about 12 of these relationships, you get a template that you can use to locate a face.”\n\nMost people think of the cartoon smiley face, with its discrete eyes, nose and mouth, as the quintessential face template, but Dr. Sinha’s computer can identify faces even when the pictures are of low resolution.\n\nWhen he presented human subjects with blurry face images, containing only 12 by 14 pixels’ worth of visual information, they performed similarly well, recognizing 75 percent of the face images accurately. This suggests that like the computer, the human brain processes faces holistically, like coherent landscapes, rather than one feature at a time.\n\nThese images are just “ dark blobs on a big blob,” Dr. Sinha said. “So clearly there’s not enough diagnostic information in the individual features. Yet something about the overall organization of the image, the gestalt, is still allowing us to recognize the face.”\n\nOnce in a while, the computer emits a false alarm. “This is a good analogy for what the human brain might be doing,” Dr. Sinha said. “Like the computer, it’s trying to determine what the regularities are in all of these faces to create a prototype.\n\n“But this prototype is not perfect,” he said. “Sometimes genuine faces do not match these regularities, and sometimes nonfaces satisfy them.”\n\nIn other words, if the pattern of light and dark patches on a brindle cow happens to correspond to our conceptions of what a face should look like, we may interpret the coincidence as a visitation from Jesus Christ or Marilyn Monroe.\n\nWhile the human tendency to see faces in other objects is rooted in neural architecture, the large number of actual faces we see every day may also be partly responsible for the Nun Bun phenomenon, said Takeo Watanabe, a neuroscientist at Boston University. His studies of learning processes show that after the brain is bombarded with a stimulus, it continues to perceive that stimulus even when it is not present.\n\nTo demonstrate this effect, Dr. Watanabe had subjects sit in front of a computer screen with faint dots cascading across it. At first, the participants could not figure out which direction the dots were moving. Then they went through another round of tests in which they were to identify letters superimposed on the dots as they moved across the screen.\n\nWhen the subjects were then presented with a blank screen and asked to describe what they saw, a strange thing happened: not only did they insist they were seeing dots, but they tended to say the dots were moving in the direction they had been moving during the previous session.\n\nDr. Watanabe says the results suggest that subliminally learning something “too well” interferes with perceptions of reality. “As a result of repeated presentation, the subjects developed enhanced sensitivity to the dots,” he said. “Their sensitivity got so high that they saw them even when there was nothing there.”\n\nBecause faces make up such a significant part of the visual backdrop of life, he added, they may fall into the same category as the dots: people have gotten so used to seeing faces everywhere that sensitivity to them is high enough to produce constant false positives. This tendency to become hyperattuned to common stimuli may represent a survival advantage. “If you lived in primeval times, for instance,” Dr. Watanabe said, “it would be good to be very sensitized to tigers.”\n\nDr. Sinha of M.I.T. says that whether the hair-trigger response to faces is innate or learned, it represents a critical evolutionary adaptation, one that dwarfs side effects like seeing Beelzebub in a crumpled tissue.\n\n“The information faces convey is so rich — not just regarding another person’s identity, but also their mental state, health and other factors,” he said. “It’s extremely beneficial for the brain to become good at the task of face recognition and not to be very strict in its inclusion criteria. The cost of missing a face is higher than the cost of declaring a nonface to be a face.”','Holy toast: on visions and facial recognition','','publish','open','open','','holy-toast-on-visions-and-facial-recognition','','','2007-02-13 16:18:27','2007-02-13 16:18:27','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=439',0,'post','',0),(442,2,'2007-02-14 09:37:41','2007-02-14 09:37:41','<a href=\"http://www.beatbooks.com/cgi-bin/beatbooks/15369.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"wsbjp.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/wsbjp.jpg\" title=\"wsbjp.jpg\" alt=\"wsbjp.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"6\" /></a>Andrew Sclanders\' latest <a href=\"http://www.beatbooks.com\" target=\"_blank\">Beat Books</a> catalogue is now online. Here\'s one of my favourite entries: Jimmeh, Bill and, tucked away deep inside, Ralph &amp; Florian!!!\n\n<strong>Crawdaddy (NY: June 1975).</strong> <em>\"Contains \'Rock Magic\', a lengthy 6pp. colour cover feature by Burroughs on Led Zeppelin, incl. a transcript of his interview with Jimmy Page. Acknowledging his lack of musical knowledge at the outset, Burroughs discusses the magical energies involved in rock concerts, and talks with Page about Aleister Crowley, \"Performance\", Joujouka, the use of infra-sound, and the application of cut-ups to music. Also: Kraftwerk...\"</em>','Jimmy, Bill, Ralph &amp; Florian = Rock Magic!','','publish','open','open','','jimmy-bill-ralph-florian-rock-magic','','','2007-02-14 09:37:41','2007-02-14 09:37:41','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=442',0,'post','',0),(443,2,'2007-02-14 10:06:20','2007-02-14 10:06:20','<a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6357005.stm\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"laun.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/laun.jpg\" title=\"laun.jpg\" alt=\"laun.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"6\" /></a>\n\nIncredible <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6357005.stm\" target=\"_blank\">video footage</a> of the 7ft <font size=\"2\"><em>Taningia danae </em>squid, </font><font size=\"2\">luminous arms outstretched,</font><font size=\"2\"> attacking a bait and then the camera. From now on this will be known as the \"big squid\". As their <a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/squidchart.gif\" target=\"_blank\">handy diagram</a> shows, we all know about our old friend the giant squid, </font><em><font size=\"-1\">Architeuthis dux</font></em><font size=\"2\">, but marine biologists also refer to something called the \"colossal squid\" (</font><em>Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni)</em><font size=\"2\">. They kept that one quiet, despite it first being identified in 1925 – teasers! </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">Full story over at the <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6357005.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>. And here\'s a <a href=\"http://www.tonmo.com/science/public/giantsquidfacts.php\" target=\"_blank\">great giant squid fact page</a>, with plenty of info on the colossus!   </font>','Luminous assault','','publish','open','open','','luminous-assault','','','2007-02-14 10:06:20','2007-02-14 10:06:20','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=443',0,'post','',0),(446,2,'2007-02-15 10:36:55','2007-02-15 10:36:55','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/rosette.jpg\" title=\"rosette.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/rosette.jpg\" title=\"rosette.jpg\" alt=\"rosette.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"6\" /></a>\n\n<strong>Playlist for <a href=\"http://www.kosmische.org\" target=\"_blank\">Kosmische</a> Special 14.02.07 on <a href=\"http://www.resonancefm.com\" target=\"_blank\">Resonance 104.4FM</a>\n</strong>\n\nWalter Wegmüller – <em>Die Entscheidung</em>\nAR &amp; Machines – <em>Station 2: Beautiful Babylon  / I\'ll Be Your Singer - You\'ll Be My Song</em>\nAmon Duul – <em>Love is Peace</em>\nMystic Wizards – <em>It\'s Love</em>\nKrokodil – <em>Sunlight\'s Beautiful Daughter</em>\nThrobbing Gristle – <em>United</em>\nJean-Jacques Perrey &amp; Gershon Kingsley – <em>Computer in Love</em>\nDin A Testbild – <em>She\'s So Nice</em>\nSaturnalia – <em>Magical Love</em>\nMartin Denny – <em>Love Dance</em>\nNinki V – <em>We Can Fly</em>\nTiny Tim – <em>I Love Me</em>\n\nThis week is fundraising week on  <strong><a href=\"http://www.resonancefm.com\" target=\"_blank\">Resonance 104.4 FM.</a></strong> Please visit the web site or tune in to find out how you can donate. London\'s greatest, and only, independent arts radio station needs your love. And your money!\n\nKosmische\'s Mink Pelican, Jim Backhaus &amp; Tango Mango will also be spinning yarns and cosmic slop in the foyer of London\'s Queen Elizabeth Hall before the <a href=\"http://www.brainwashed.com/nww/\" target=\"_blank\">Nurse With Wound</a> performance on 3 March. Come say hi!','Kosmischeliebe','','publish','open','open','','kosmische-liebe','','','2007-02-15 10:36:55','2007-02-15 10:36:55','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=446',0,'post','',0),(448,2,'2007-02-15 11:37:20','2007-02-15 11:37:20','<em><a href=\"http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13390669/the_great_california_weed_rush/print\" target=\"_blank\">Rolling Stone</a> on California\'s medical marijuana business:</em>\n\n\"Everything in America is controlled by big corporations now,\" says Daniel, breezing down the Los Angeles 405 freeway, the controlled climate inside the car the same balmy seventy degrees as it is outside. \"But in my industry we can still get individuals together and innovate with good, old- fashioned Yankee know-how, like we did at the beginning of the history of this country.\" He checks the rearview mirror. \"It\'s a beautiful thing.\"\n\nThe industry that Daniel is talking about is medical marijuana, the great new frontier that has opened up in California in recent years (because some of how Daniel operates may be illegal, his name and other details have been changed to conceal his identity). Contrary to popular belief, medical marijuana is not only for AIDS and cancer patients: The health statute associated with Prop 215, the groundbreaking law passed ten years ago, legitimizes weed for those with any \"illness for which marijuana provides relief.\" There are a lot of people who fall into this category, and business is good for those who make a living by serving them: compassionate caregivers, freedom fighters, botanists in love with the art of growing, Long Beach homeys, Valley boys, Oakland thugs and even one savvy gal who wants her girlfriends to sell medical marijuana while wearing pasties. But as in any drug business, a criminal element persists -- storage lockers of product, safes of cash, hustlers trying to rob those lockers and safes, guns to protect one from the hustlers, and the constant risk of arrest...\n\n<a href=\"http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13390669/the_great_california_weed_rush/print\" target=\"_blank\">Full story</a>\n\nvia <a href=\"http://www.boingboing.net\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing</a>','The Great Weed Rush','','publish','open','open','','the-great-weed-rush','','','2007-02-15 11:37:20','2007-02-15 11:37:20','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=448',0,'post','',0),(449,2,'2007-02-16 00:41:41','2007-02-16 00:41:41','<p class=\"headline\"><em>(sorry missed this one, but it may still be the 15th for some of you!!) </em></p>\n<p class=\"headline\"><strong>One of the world\'s last surviving cargo cults is celebrating its official 50th anniversary on Tanna island in Vanuatu. </strong><a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6363843.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a></p>\nThe John Frum Movement worships a mysterious spirit that urged them to reject the teachings of the Church and maintain their traditional customs.\n\nThe cult was reinforced during WWII, when US forces landed with huge amounts of cargo - weapons, food and medicine.\n\nVillagers believe the spirit of John Frum sent the US military to their South Pacific home to help them.\n\nDevotees say that an apparition of John Frum first appeared before tribal elders in the 1930s.\n\nHe urged them to rebel against the aggressive teachings of Christian missionaries and instead said they should put their faith in their own customs.\n\nThanks (again) Tim Chapman!\n\n<!--more--> World War II and the arrival of American troops on Vanuatu was a turning point for the John Frum Movement.\n\nVillagers believe that their messiah was responsible for sending the generous US military and its cargo to them.\n\nSpeaking in local pidgin, the movement\'s head, Chief Isaac Wan, said that John Frum was a god who would one day return. He\'s \"our God, our Jesus,\" he said.\n\nIslanders are convinced that John Frum was an American. Every year they parade in home-made US army uniforms beneath the Stars and Stripes.\n\nThey hope one day to entice another delivery of cargo.\n\nThis 50th anniversary marks the formal establishment of the John Frum Movement.\n\nIt also recognises the day when villagers raised the American flag for the first time in this isolated corner of the South Pacific.','Happy John Frum Day!!','','publish','open','open','','happy-john-frum-day','','','2007-02-16 00:41:41','2007-02-16 00:41:41','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=449',0,'post','',0),(450,2,'2007-02-16 09:20:15','2007-02-16 09:20:15','<p class=\"headline\"><a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/mars.jpg\" title=\"mars.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/mars.jpg\" title=\"mars.jpg\" alt=\"mars.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"364\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"6\" width=\"364\" /></a></p>\n\n<p class=\"headline\"><strong>   Rocks reveal Mars\' watery past </strong><a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6363243.stm\" target=\"_blank\">(BBC)\n</a>\n\nExquisite colour images of the Martian surface give a tantalising glimpse into the Red Planet\'s watery past.\n<p class=\"bo\"> Cutting across the striped scenery, the researchers identified a network of cracks, known as joints, surrounded by prominent haloes of bleached rock. Writing in Science, the University of Arizona team said that similar features on Earth were \"a clear indication of chemical interactions between fluids circulating within the fracture and the host rock.\"</p>\nLikely fluids include water, liquid carbon dioxide or a combination of the two, and may have flowed up from deep underground reservoirs.\n\n<a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6363243.stm\" target=\"_blank\">Full story with pics </a>\n\n<!--more--> <strong>Protected habitats     	     	            </strong>\n\nPreviously, Europe\'s Mars Express mission had detected the signature of minerals altered by water in the Candor Chasma area.\n\nThe washed-out features, which have been \"cemented\" by minerals contained in the fluids, now stand proud from the valley walls.\n\nThey have been exposed by millions of years of erosion.\n\nHowever, the fact that they were once underground has important implications for their ability to support life.\n\n\"The overlying areas of rock would have acted as a buffer against any harsh environmental conditions on Mars at that time,\" said Dr Chris Okubu of the University of Arizon and one of the authors on the paper.\n\n\"These areas would be nice protected areas for any biological processes to occur.\"\n<p class=\"bo\">	      	             This is not the first time that scientists have found evidence of fluids upwelling from deep inside the Martian interior. Last year, Nasa\'s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft spotted gullies and trenches thought to have been recently carved by outpourings of water or liquid carbon dioxide.</p>\nOther features, including dried-up lake beds, springs and river valleys, lend further weight to the theory that the planet was once awash with water and could therefore have supported life.\n\nNasa is examining all of these sites as possible targets for future ground based robotic missions.\n\nHowever, the space agency says that if  it has a chance of finding evidence of life on the planet, it must broaden its search.\n\n\"Following the water is a central aspect of exploration but the habitability issue also requires addressing the source of energy for life,\" said Dr David des Marais of the Nasa Ames Research Center.\n\nPossible future targets include areas of the planet where the building blocks of life, such as carbon, can be found.\n\n\"We not only need to follow the water but we also need to follow the energy,\" said Dr des Marais.\n\nThe findings were presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in San Francisco, US.','Even Wetter Mars','','publish','open','open','','even-wetter-mars','','','2007-02-16 09:20:15','2007-02-16 09:20:15','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=450',0,'post','',0),(451,2,'2007-02-16 09:30:42','2007-02-16 09:30:42','<a href=\"http://www.geocities.com/c_cosimano/thehieronymouspattern.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"hpsmall.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/hpsmall.jpg\" title=\"hpsmall.jpg\" alt=\"hpsmall.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" /></a>\n\n<a href=\"http://makezine.com/magazine/\" target=\"_blank\">Make</a> magazine goes \'fringe science\' this issue and it includes a great piece about one boy\'s adventures with the bizarre Hieronymous Machine. This first appeared in the pages of <a href=\"http://www.andrew-may.com/asf/\" target=\"_blank\">Astounding Science Fiction</a> after enamouring its editor John W Campbell Jr. William Burroughs also became a fan, calling it the wishing machine.\n\nHere\'s a <a href=\"http://downloads.oreilly.com/make/09/in_search_of_psi.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">PDF of the article </a>\n\nPlans are included in the PDF but here\'s <a href=\"http://www.geocities.com/c_cosimano/thehieronymouspattern.html\" target=\"_blank\">a set online</a>. The great beauty of this arcane device,  however, is that you don\'t even need to <em>build</em> the thing for it to work. Just print out the plans and it will sync up with your psionic abilities and do your bidding.\n\nNow that\'s what I call science! Just don\'t tell <a href=\"http://badscience.net\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Goldacre</a>...','One boy and his Hieronymous Machine','','publish','open','open','','one-boy-and-his-hieronymous-machine','','','2007-02-16 09:30:42','2007-02-16 09:30:42','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=451',0,'post','',0),(454,2,'2007-02-16 09:47:48','2007-02-16 09:47:48','<em>This just in from Dave \"<a href=\"http://blather.net\" target=\"_blank\">Blather</a>\" Walsh, our correspondent on the high seas with <a href=\"http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/\" target=\"_blank\">Greenpeace</a>:</em>\n\n\"We\'re in the middle of the remotest ocean on earth, where there\'s very little shipping. Yet, there\'s been three distress calls in the last week. First, Sea Shepherd - the rather extreme organisation who had two ships down here  - issued a distress call, after two of their crew went missing during an attack on the whaling fleet\'s factory ship, the Nisshin Maru. We were still on our way into \'the zone\' at the time, and were powerless to help. The two people were later rescued.\n\nA few days later came another distress call - this time from the Kaiko Maru, a Japanese \"sighting\" vessel used to survey whales for the harpoon boats. It claimed it was under attack - although the videos released leave it unclear whether it was Sea Shepherd\'s ship  the Robert Hunter ramming the Kaiko Maru, or the Kaiko Maru ramming the Robert Hunter (here\'s some rather oblique <a href=\"http://www.icrwhale.org/gpandsea.htm\" target=\"_blank\">video</a>). Both parties have histories of rammings, and the video is ambigious.\"\n\n<!--more-->We answered the distress call - but were told by the Maritime Rescue Centre in NZ to hold on - till they figured out what was happening. We had visions of picking bodies out of the icy water - but the whole thing eventually simmered down, though there was considerable damage to both ships - the RH had a hole in it, and the Kaiko Maru complained about a damaged propeller.\n\nFast forward to yesterday morning, the 15th. At 5:45am, we got another distress call - this time from the Nisshin Maru - the very ship we were looking for. It\'s the one that you see photos of, with dead whales lying on the deck, ready to be cut up and frozen.\n\nWe\'re on our way to it at the moment, and won\'t know really what\'s going on till we arrive. The media reports are about as slopping as I\'ve ever seen. But briefly - the ship was evacuated to smaller whaling vessels after a fire broke out in the whale meat processing plant. One 27-year old worker is missing, presumed dead. The 8000 tonne ship is without propulsion or electricity, and is reportedly tied up between two other ships.\n\nOur #1 concern is with the crew of the Nisshin Maru.  The ship is no longer a whaling ship - the whaling has now stopped. Our second is for the local environment. This is a pristine protected environment, as well as a whale sanctuary, and the Nisshin Maru is in the Ross Sea, less than 100 miles away the biggest Adelie penguin colony in the world.  We\'ve offered our services - the Esperanza is former fire-fighting vessel with towing capabilities. So far the Fisheries Agency of Japan has responded by calling us \"terrorists\". They\'re desperate not to loose face by having us, their agitators, come to the rescue.\n\nOutside it\'s snowing, and the wind is howling a force 6. If the weather doesn\'t worsen, we\'ll be at the Nisshin Maru tomorrow morning. Who knows what might happen then?\n\nHere are some of <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadlyphoto/\" target=\"_blank\">Dave\'s pictures</a> from this current expedition, including plenty of whales, seals and penguins!','Whaling ships on fire','','publish','open','open','','whaling-ships-on-fire','','','2007-02-16 09:47:48','2007-02-16 09:47:48','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=454',0,'post','',0),(455,2,'2007-02-18 12:28:58','2007-02-18 12:28:58','<strong>Everything you Wanted to Know about Visiting a Hoodoo Doctor</strong>\n<em>Lisa Mead and Stephen Grasso</em>\n<em>19 February 2007 (Monday), 7.15 for 7.30pm start\n</em> <em><a href=\"http://www.treadwells-london.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Treadwells</a>, </em>34 Tavistock St, Covent Garden. <em> £5\n</em>\nTo inaugurate their hoodoo doctor surgery, opening for business at Treadwells next month, tonight\'s speakers will give an introduction to the rôle of the professional magician, ancient and modern. The practice of professional magic has a long history in all cultures, from the stone age shaman fixing cures for the tribe, to the hoodoo workers of the American south tying mojo bags and working conjure for clients.\n\nProfessional magic thrived in England in the period following the Reformation, with cunning folk plying their trade up and down the country; but by the nineteenth century it had slid from view. Now it\'s back. A doctor administers to the survival needs of the species, and it is a role as relevant to contemporary London in the twenty-first century as it was to our distant ancestors.','The Doctor is In (at Treadwells)','','publish','open','open','','the-doctor-is-in-at-treadwells','','','2007-02-18 12:28:58','2007-02-18 12:28:58','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=455',0,'post','',0),(456,2,'2007-02-19 09:06:23','2007-02-19 09:06:23','<strong>Wizards and diviners abound  in Britain, says psychic survey</strong>\n\n<em>Martin Wainwright, Monday    February  19, 2007 , <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian</a></em>\n\n<em><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\"> 		 </font></em>\n\n<font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">           </font>Britain\'s image as the home of sensible and practical types takes a knock today, with the publication of data showing just how many of us think we are wizards, time-travellers or able to divine water. Norse and Celtic influences moving down the centuries have led almost 10% of people in some areas to believe they can teleport their neighbours as well as read minds, crystal balls and tarot cards.\n<p id=\"GuardianArticleBody\">The scale of a return to an island of ley lines and Merlin comes to light in a survey of psychic organisations backed by polling and research into cases of supposed witches, enchanters and close encounters of the third kind that have made the media, scientific and alternative journals in the past 100 years. The project was supervised by the Rev Lionel Fanthorpe, an Anglican priest who chairs numerous bodies concerned with unidentified flying objects and \"anomalous phenomena\".</p>\n<!--more-->The findings suggest that only Sussex comes close to matching Yorkshire and Essex in the imaginative powers of residents, while the East Midlands, west Scotland and Herefordshire appear to have their feet most firmly on the ground.\n\nMr Fanthorpe said: \"Yorkshire boasts a rich genetic history of British, Celtic, Roman, Angle and Norse settlers and it is quite possible that the present-day citizens there owe their status as superpower capital of the UK to this rich mixture.\n\n\"It follows that at the other end of the scale the East Midlands doesn\'t have such a rich genetic diversity and this may well have an impact on it [having] the least residents with extraordinary powers.\"\n\nSociety\'s diversity, still growing within Britain, may bump up the figures, as well as possibly add to the study\'s 12 categories of \"other-worldliness\" - telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, time travel, mediums, psychic healers, astrologers, palm readers, tarot card readers, crystal experts, wizards and enchanters, and water diviners.\n\nThe findings also reveal that Essex is the home of almost one in 10 of all people in Britain affiliated to a recognised pagan association, while Kent has three times the national average of people claiming to be psychic healers.','Psychic Britain','','publish','open','open','','456','','','2007-02-19 09:06:23','2007-02-19 09:06:23','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=456',0,'post','',0),(457,2,'2007-02-19 09:35:13','2007-02-19 09:35:13','<strong>I won\'t be happy until I lose my legs</strong>\n\n<font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\"><em>Ever since she was little, Susan Smith has felt there is something wrong with her body. Her determination to \'fix\' things has twice landed her in hospital</em>\n</font>\n\n<font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\"><strong>Monday    January   29, 2007, <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/\">The Guardian</a></strong></font>\n\nI was six when I first became aware of my desire to lose my legs. I don\'t remember what started it - there was no specific trigger. Most people want to change something about themselves, and the image I have of myself has always been one without legs.\n\nTo the general public, people like me are sick and strange, and that\'s where it ends. I think it is a question of fearing the unknown. I have something called body identity integrity disorder (BIID), where sufferers want to remove one or more healthy limbs. Few people who haven\'t experienced it themselves can understand what I am going through. It is not a sexual thing, it is certainly not a fetish, and it is nothing to do with appearances. I simply cannot relate to myself with two legs: it isn\'t the \"me\" I want to be. I have long known that if I want to get on with my life I need to remove both legs. I have been trapped in the wrong body all this time and over the years I came to hate my physical self.\n\n<!--more--> As a teenager, in the privacy of my own home, I used to play by myself at being an amputee. I would pretend I had one leg, strapping the other one up behind me and wearing oversize trousers so there was no shape. I knew even then that it wasn\'t normal, that it wasn\'t something to share with friends or my parents. But, trussed up like that, I would be quite happy and satisfied for a while.\n\nAt 23, I met my future husband and we were very happy together - but I was leading a double life. He did not know about my BIID at first so it wasn\'t easy to pretend. I went through periods when having him around was very disturbing. I gradually withdrew into myself, becoming private and secretive.\n\nThere is no instruction manual for those who want to remove their own limbs, but I always knew I would do it. I had eventually, told my husband that one day I would lose my legs. It took many years for him to understand why, but he did realise it was part of me, and I suppose he accepted it.\n\nTwo years ago, I told him that now was the time and I was going to remove my left leg. My first attempt was in March 2005. Of course I was scared of dying, but I had got to a point in my life where I could no longer fight it.\n\nFirst I needed to freeze and kill the leg so that surgeons would amputate it afterwards. I ordered dry ice pellets from a company near Edinburgh (the same stuff that is used in discos for the smoke effect). Nobody asked what it was for. I bought 40kg - it evaporates very quickly, so you have to buy a great deal. I put on layers of pantyhose, because you do not want it sticking to you, spread it in the back of the car and sat with my leg immersed in it for one hour. The pain was indescribable: it hurt so much I passed out a few times. I was scared, but more so of failure. I am that kind of person - I never fail.\n\nI had not damaged the leg enough to have it amputated in hospital, so the following September I made a second attempt, and this time I stayed in the dry ice for four hours. I was sat with my legs across the back seat of the car, the windows wide open and the footwell filled with dry ice, covering the leg and topping it up as it evaporated. When I could bear no more I called my husband, who came and pulled me out. The leg was hard as stone. I had third-degree burns and the pain was horrible. But it wasn\'t enough: I now know you need a minimum of six hours to kill a leg completely.\n\nMy husband drove me to hospital, but they refused to amputate. Incredibly, they said the wounds were superficial and that I would be walking within a few months. I really thought this time that the surgeon would give me the amputation I needed, but they seemed resolute. I went through all sorts of stages as they worked on my leg to save it. Sometimes I found the whole thing very funny, at other times I was crying, and sometimes I didn\'t think I would live through it. I reached my lowest point when they discharged me from hospital four weeks later, after eight sessions of surgery, with the leg still attached. I thought I was going to have to make a third attempt. But this time I would have to do it differently, perhaps put my leg under a train so they would have nothing more than a stump to stitch up.\n\nI slowly recovered my strength back at home. I had dropped from 9 stone to under 7 stone during the operations and wanted to give myself time physically to recover before trying again. But the leg became so infected that there was a danger of the bacteria getting into the bloodstream and killing me. I had so much fever I was sleeping 24 hours a day. My mum sat by my bedside, waking me every hour to make sure I was still alive. She has known about my condition since I was a teenager, but I know it shocked her to see me finally make an attempt. After nine months of agony, I told my GP that if I didn\'t see someone fast, I would take off the leg myself. Within two days I had an appointment with a different surgeon.\n\nThe amputation, last June, went without a problem, and my left leg was removed from just above the knee. I felt better as soon as I came round. In fact, I felt so good in hospital that I was ready to go home straight away had they let me. My bag was packed and I was ready to leave. The Tuesday after the operation I drove myself home in an automatic car, and the next day I was almost back to my normal life.\n\nI already feel more complete now that one leg is off. I have always been an outgoing kind of person, but my confidence is much higher now as my body is more like I want it to be. For the first time I feel able to move on and lead the life I have always wanted. In many ways I am starting again. I know it sounds odd, but it is incredibly exciting. Running the house, doing the gardening, going shopping - these are all things I manage easily by myself, even though now I might use a wheelchair or crutches. My husband has been supportive. He thinks I look a little strange missing a leg but says that, after all he has seen me go through, he accepts it. For now, he is just happy that I am happy, and I have promised to leave the remaining leg on for as long as possible; I know that losing that will be really difficult for him.\n\nMy youngest child is 10 and the eldest 15, and they do not know the truth about the removal of my leg yet. I told them I had a problem back in March and have had complications since. As a mother, I felt bad about not telling them the truth, especially when I was so ill I thought I might not make it. But now I feel it is better to protect them until they are old enough to understand that this was my choice. They will probably be in their 20s before I reach that point. Maybe they will figure it out for themselves before then, anyway. But I have given so much to my home and family that I feel entitled to do this for myself.\n\nOnly a handful of people know the truth about what I have done, and some of them call me crazy or mad. I suppose it is understandable. Even my sister doesn\'t accept me as an amputee. She lives just up the road but hasn\'t come to see me in months. In her eyes I am not a complete person any more. But I can\'t let that affect me; the problem is more hers than mine.\n\nI think BIID will stay taboo until people get together and bring it out. A hundred years ago, it was taboo to be gay in many societies, and 50 years ago the idea of transsexuals was abhorrent to most. I have tried to make the condition more understood but it is difficult to get a case out in the open by yourself. My psychiatrist went to a meeting last year in Paris, and many doctors there told her that they had operated on people who needed an amputation under mysterious circumstances, and how happy the person was when they woke up. It led them to believe that perhaps BIID is more prevalent than people think.\n\nRemoving the next leg will not be any easier than the first; the pain will be horrendous. But I have no regrets about the path I have chosen. In fact, if I regret anything, it is that I didn\'t do this sooner. For the first time in my life, I can get on with being the real me.\n\n<strong>·</strong> Susan Smith is a pseudonymn. As told to John Cantlie.','Trapped in the wrong body','','publish','open','open','','trapped-in-the-wrong-body','','','2007-02-19 09:35:13','2007-02-19 09:35:13','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=457',0,'post','',0),(462,2,'2007-02-21 16:25:02','2007-02-21 16:25:02','<a href=\"http://www.cegenglish.com/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"jesus666.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/jesus666.jpg\" title=\"jesus666.jpg\" alt=\"jesus666.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"6\" /></a>\n\n<strong>Pastor with 666 tattoo claims to be divine</strong>\n\n<em>19 February 2007, CNN</em>\n\nMIAMI, Florida. The minister has the number 666 tattooed on his arm.\n\nBut Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is not your typical minister. De Jesus, or “Daddy” as his thousands of followers call him, does not merely pray to God: He says he is God.\n\n“The spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth,” de Jesus says.\n\nDe Jesus’ claims of divinity have angered Christian leaders, who say he is a fake. Religious experts say he may be something much more dangerous, a cult leader who really believes he is God.\n\nMore histrionics, plus photos and video, over at <a href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/16/miami.preacher/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">CNN</a>\n\nHere’s Jesus’ <a href=\"http://www.cegenglish.com/\" target=\"_blank\">web site</a>\n\n<!--more--> “He’s in their heads, he’s inside the heads of those people,” says Prof. Daniel Alvarez, a religion expert at Florida International University who has debated some of de Jesus’ followers.\n\n“De Jesus speaks with a kind of conviction that makes me consider him more like David Koresh or Jim Jones.”\n\nIs de Jesus really a cult leader like David Koresh, who died with more than 70 of his Branch Davidian followers in a fiery end to a standoff with federal authorities, or Jim Jones, the founder of the Peoples Temple who committed mass suicide with 900 followers in 1978?\n\nProphets ’spoke to me’\n\nDe Jesus and his believers say their church — “Creciendo en Gracia,” Spanish for “Growing in grace” — is misunderstood. Followers of the movement say they have proof that their minister is divine and that their church will one day soon be a major faith in the world.\n\nBut even de Jesus concedes that he is an unlikely leader of a church that claims thousands of members in more than 30 countries.\n\nDe Jesus, 61, grew up poor in Puerto Rico. He says he served stints in prison there for petty theft and says he was a heroin addict.\n\nDe Jesus says he learned he was Jesus reincarnate when he was visited in a dream by angels.\n\n“The prophets, they spoke about me. It took me time to learn that, but I am what they were expecting, what they have been expecting for 2,000 years,” de Jesus says.\n\nThe church that he began building 20 years ago in Miami resembles no other:\n\nFollowers have protested Christian churches in Miami and Latin America, disrupting services and smashing crosses and statues of Jesus.\n\nDe Jesus preaches there is no devil and no sin. His followers, he says, literally can do no wrong in God’s eyes.\n\nThe church calls itself the “Government of God on Earth” and uses a seal similar to the United States.\n\nIf Creciendo en Gracia is an atypical religious group, de Jesus also does not fit the mold of the average church leader. De Jesus flouts traditional vows of poverty.\n\nHe says he has a church-paid salary of $136,000 but lives more lavishly than that. During an interview, he showed off a diamond-encrusted Rolex to a CNN crew and said he has three just like them. He travels in armored Lexuses and BMWs, he says, for his safety. All are gifts from his devoted followers.\n\nAnd what about the tattoo of 666 on his arm?\n\nAlthough it’s a number usually associated with Satan, not the son of God, de Jesus says that 666 and the Antichrist are, like him, misunderstood.\n\nThe Antichrist is not the devil, de Jesus tells his congregation; he’s the being who replaces Jesus on Earth.\n\n“Antichrist is the best person in the world,” he says. “Antichrist means don’t put your eyes on Jesus because Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t a Christian. Antichrist means do not put your eyes on Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Put it on Jesus after the cross.”\n\nAnd de Jesus says that means him.\n\nSo far, de Jesus says that his flock hasn’t been scared off by his claims of being the Antichrist. In a show of the sway he holds over the group, 30 members of his congregation Tuesday went to a tattoo parlor to have 666 also permanently etched onto their skin.\n\nHe may wield influence over them, but his followers say don’t expect them to go the way of people who believed in David Koresh and Jim Jones. Just by finding de Jesus, they say, they have achieved their purpose.\n\n“If somebody tells us drink some Kool-Aid and we’ll go to heaven, that’s not true. We are already in heavenly places,” follower Martita Roca told CNN after having 666 tattooed onto her ankle.','“Antichrist is the best person in the world”','','publish','open','open','','%e2%80%9cantichrist-is-the-best-person-in-the-world%e2%80%9d','','','2007-02-21 16:25:02','2007-02-21 16:25:02','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=462',0,'post','',0),(463,2,'2007-02-22 09:39:34','2007-02-22 09:39:34','From the <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6382919.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>\n\n<em>Two circus clowns have been shot dead during a performance in the eastern Colombian city of Cucuta, police say.</em>\n\n<font size=\"2\">The attacker jumped into the arena and fired before fleeing, police chief Jose Humberto Henao told Efe news agency. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">Local reports say the audience of about 20 people, mostly children, thought the shooting was part of the show before realising both men had been killed. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">Last year, a prominent circus clown, known as Pepe, was also shot dead by a unknown assailant in Cucuta.</font>\n\nThanks Pete Woodhead!\n\n<!--more--> <font size=\"2\">The motive for the latest killing remains unclear, police said. Local media reports suggest two attackers may have been involved. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">One clown was shot in the head as he performed on stage, about an hour into the Circo del Sol\'s evening show. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">The second, named as 18-year-old Franklin Leal, from Cucuta, was then shot as he stood by the ticket booth, according to the newspaper La Opinion. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">The travelling circus had set up in a suburb of Cucuta, capital of Norte de Santander province near the Venezuelan border, about 10 days earlier, the paper says.<!-- E BO --> 		                     	</font>','Columbian killer clown cartels','','publish','open','open','','columbian-killer-clown-cartels','','','2007-02-22 09:39:34','2007-02-22 09:39:34','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=463',0,'post','',0),(467,2,'2007-02-22 10:26:05','2007-02-22 10:26:05','These images come from London-based sculptor <a href=\"http://www.megatronicland.blogspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Grant Carlin</a> and document his own experiences with parallel dimensions and time streams. The first photograph shows his larger-than-life sized sculpture of Brody, a time-travelling entity with whom Grant is personally aquainted, while drawings on the site describe encounters with other entities.\n\nGrant has begun to put his work <a href=\"http://www.megatronicland.blogspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\">online</a> for the first time, colliding mythic SF, tribal art and true hallucination and bringing to mind the altered worlds of <font size=\"-1\"> Polish-American visionary<a href=\"http://szukalski.com/\" target=\"_blank\"> Stanislav Szukalski.</a></font>\n<p align=\"left\"><a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/grant7.jpg\" title=\"grant7.jpg\"></a></p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http://www.megatronicland.blogspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"grant7.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/grant7.jpg\" title=\"grant7.jpg\" alt=\"grant7.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"6\" /></a></p>\n<a href=\"http://www.megatronicland.blogspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"grant5.jpg\"></a>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http://www.megatronicland.blogspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"grant5.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/grant5.jpg\" title=\"grant5.jpg\" alt=\"grant5.jpg\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"16\" /></a></p>','Welcome to Megatronicland','','publish','open','open','','welcome-to-megatronicland','','','2007-02-22 10:26:05','2007-02-22 10:26:05','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=467',0,'post','',0),(474,2,'2007-02-22 12:04:59','2007-02-22 12:04:59','<p class=\"headline\"><a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6385071.stm\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"colosquid.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/colosquid.jpg\" title=\"colosquid.jpg\" alt=\"colosquid.jpg\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a></p>\n<em>     	     	            New Zealand fishermen have caught what is expected to be a world-record-breaking colossal squid. </em><a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6385071.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>\n\nFisheries Minister Jim Anderton said the squid, weighing an estimated 450kg (990lb),took two hours to land in Antarctic waters.\n\nLocal news said the      	     	            <em>     	     	            Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni     	     	            </em>     	     	             was about 10m (33ft) long, and was the first adult colossal squid landed intact.\n\nOne expert said calamari rings made from it would be like tractor tyres.\n<p class=\"bo\"><!--more--> \"I can assure you that this is going to draw phenomenal interest. It is truly amazing,\" Steve O\'Shea from Auckland\'s University of Technology told local media.</p>\n<p class=\"bo\">     	     	             Colossal squid, which are found deep in Antarctic waters, are thought to be about the same length as giant squid (     	     	            <em>     	     	            Architeutis dux     	     	            </em>     	     	            ) but are much heavier.</p>\nThe species was first identified in 1925, but very few specimens have been found.\n\nThe first specimen recovered intact, a 150kg (330lb) immature female, was caught on the surface in the Ross Sea near the Antarctic coast in April 2004.\n\n<strong>     	     	            \'Nearly dead\'     	     	            </strong>\n\nMr Anderton said the fishermen had been fishing for Patagonian toothfish in deep Antarctic waters when the squid - which was eating a toothfish - was caught.\n<p class=\"bo\">\"The squid was almost dead when it reached the surface, and the careful work of the crew was paramount in getting this specimen aboard in good condition,\" he said.</p>\nThe squid was frozen in the ship\'s hull and brought back to New Zealand for scientific examination.\n\n\"The colossal squid has just arrived in New Zealand and it is likely that it is the first intact adult male colossal squid to ever be successfully landed,\" Mr Anderton said.','10m colossal squid netted!!','','publish','open','open','','10m-colossal-squid-caught','','','2007-02-22 12:04:59','2007-02-22 12:04:59','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=474',0,'post','',0),(476,2,'2007-02-23 09:32:06','2007-02-23 09:32:06','So the UK\'s Ministy of Defence was also exploring the military potential of remote viewing – only seven years after the US had publicly abandoned its own programme. It\'s hard to believe that there haven\'t been other RV projects here in the past and I\'ve certainly met psychics who have told me that they\'d done government work back in the \'80s. Let\'s see if this confessional mood leads to any more such admissions.\n\n<strong>Full story at <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6388575.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a></strong>\n\n<strong>Update:</strong> And here\'s <a href=\"http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FreedomOfInformation/DisclosureLog/SearchDisclosureLog/RemoteViewing.htm\" target=\"_blank\">the document itself</a> via FOIA request (Thanks <a href=\"http://www.badscience.net\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Goldacre</a>!)\n\nAlso, new developments about the origins of the 2000 <a href=\"http://www.uk-ufo.org/condign/\" target=\"_blank\">Project Condign</a> report into UFOs. The first impetus for a new investigation came in 1993 – interestingly slightly ahead of the <em>X-Files</em> - led global surge of interest in the subject, but it would not be until the wave was at its peak in 1995 that the report was eventually comissioned.\n\nOne quote from an MOD source also adds weight to the idea that the MOD were conducting research into other esoteric areas during the \'80s:  \"For many years we were very concerned that in some areas the Russians had a handle on physics that we hadn\'t at all. We just basically didn\'t know the basics they were working from... We did encourage our scientists not to think that we in the west knew everything there was to be known.\"\n\n\"If the sightings are of devices not of the Earth then their purpose needs to be established as a matter of priority ... possibilities are: 1 Military reconnaissance. 2 Scientific. 3 Tourism.\"\n\n<strong>Full story at <a href=\"http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2017970,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian</a></strong>','UK&#039;s MOD on UFOs &amp; remote viewing','','publish','open','open','','uks-mod-on-ufos-remote-viewing','','','2007-02-23 09:32:06','2007-02-23 09:32:06','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=476',0,'post','',0),(477,2,'2007-02-24 17:27:04','2007-02-24 17:27:04','<em>Very sad news this week that <a href=\"http://www.arthurmag.com\" target=\"_blank\">Arthur</a> magazine, the wonderful music and counter culture freesheet from the USA is to fold. Jay Babcock and crew must be thanked and congratulated on keeping the cause alive so long, and I\'m sure we\'ll be hearing more from them in the future.</em>\n\n<strong>Future of Arthur Magazine looks bleak</strong>\n<em>Citing financial difficulties, editor Jay Babcock announced the counter-culture magazine would cease operation. But his partner isn\'t so sure.</em>\nBy Kevin Bronson, <a href=\"http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-arthur24feb24,0,7771457.story?coll=la-home-entertainment\" target=\"_blank\">LA Times</a>, 23 February  2007\n\nArthur magazine, the bimonthly counterculture journal that brought an underground sensibility to its coverage of music, politics, arts and culture, has ceased publication, at least for now.\n\nEditor and co-founder Jay Babcock said the free magazine, which distributed about 50,000 copies in 120 cities nationwide, was calling it quits after 25 issues in four-plus years.\n\nBut Arthur\'s other co-founder, East Coast-based Laris Kreslins, said, \"I\'m not ready to declare Arthur dead. I\'d much rather say it\'s on indefinite hiatus.\" A split between Babcock, who ran the editorial operation out of his Atwater Village home, and Kreslins, whose Maryland-based company holds the trademark and handled the business side, became inevitable last year.\n\n\"I had been wanting to transition out of doing the magazine for quite some time,\" Kreslins said. \"But negotiations to sell my equity in the magazine fell apart.\"\n\n<!--more-->Babcock, who had assembled investors to acquire the magazine outright, said, \"I looked out for everyone\'s interests but mine. I went on trust, and when that crumbles, everything else fails.\"\n\nAsked whether he could resurrect Arthur, Babcock said: \"No. . . . I\'m broke, I have no income, and I don\'t even have the rights to my baby.\" Kreslins said he was preparing a public statement that he would issue Sunday.\n\nIn many ways, Arthur harked back to the underground publications of the 1960s and \'70s. It featured interviews, essays, cartoons and lengthy pieces from writers such as Douglas Rushkoff, Alan Moore, Erik Davis and Kristine McKenna, as well as regular columns by Sonic Youth front man Thurston Moore and blues man T-Model Ford.\n\nThe magazine in the last two years also mounted three music festivals that earned notice in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and other publications.\n\nKreslins said the magazine \"wasn\'t making money, but it wasn\'t bleeding money either, especially when you consider what an interesting, unique situation it was.\"\n\nBabcock said he felt worst for the magazine\'s myriad contributors, many of whom worked for no pay. \"I had a lot of people working on good faith,\" he said.','Arthur out for the count?','','publish','open','open','','arthur-goes-down','','','2007-02-24 17:27:04','2007-02-24 17:27:04','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=477',0,'post','',0),(479,2,'2007-02-26 16:54:52','2007-02-26 16:54:52','<em><font size=\"-1\">From</font> <a href=\"http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54271\" target=\"_blank\"> WorldNetDaily.com</a></em><a href=\"http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54271\" target=\"_blank\"><font size=\"-1\"> <!-- end copyright -->  </font></a>\n\n<!-- end byline --><!--- copywrite only show on NON commentary pages as per joseph meeting 8/23/06 ------><font face=\"Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times\"><font face=\"Palatino, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times, serif\"> </font> </font>\n\n<!-- intelliTXT --> <span id=\"intelliTXT\"> <font face=\"Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times\">	<!-- Kontera -->  <!-- begin bodytext --> </font><font face=\"Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times\">\"A retired Air Force officer who now spends his days authoring books on Christianity has posted an online collection of recordings he believes captures voices and music of God\'s angels in heaven.</font></span>\n\n<span id=\"intelliTXT\"><font face=\"Palatino, Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times\">\"I have four specific recordings of angels singing in church settings,\" Jim Bramlett of Lake Mary, Fla., told WND. \"It happened supernaturally. There\'s no other explanation. It\'s either from God or from the devil, and I don\'t think the devil is in the business of worshipping Jesus. That is not in his job description.\"...\"</font></span>\n\nAnd here\'s Jim\'s web site, featuring the recordings <a href=\"http://www.choicesforliving.com/spirit/angels/angels.htm\" target=\"_blank\">themselves.</a>\n\n<em>Via T Peter Park</em>\n\n<span id=\"intelliTXT\"></span>','Choirs of angels taped!','','publish','open','open','','choirs-of-angels-taped','','','2007-02-26 16:54:52','2007-02-26 16:54:52','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=479',0,'post','',0),(480,2,'2007-02-27 16:29:47','2007-02-27 16:29:47','<em>Another coup for Resonance FM!</em>\n\n<strong>MIXING IT: TERMINATED AT BBC RADIO 3 RESUSCITATED ON RESONANCE 104.4FM</strong>\n\n\"In February 2007 stalwart new music programme Mixing It was inexplicably dropped by BBC Radio 3 Controller Roger Wright after 16 years of broadcasting. This was perceived by many as a grave moment for composers and performers of experimental musics, since a major highway to mainstream audiences had been denied, it is also reflective of the increasing conservatism that BBC Radio 3 has been infected by since the appointment of Roger Wright as Controller. However, Mixing It is back on the air courtesy of Resonance FM.\n\n\"Resonance FM has always welcomed refugees - with regular programmes by Somalian, Congolese, Iranian and Serbian groups. We\'re equally happy to provide a haven for broadcasters expelled by the BBC,\" explains programming director Ed Baxter, who recently wrote a Guardian feature about the influence of \"Mixing It\".\n\nMixing It\'s first broadcast goes out on Wednesday February 28th 2007\nfrom 11:00 - 12:00pm.\"\n\nSee <a href=\"http://www.resonancefm.com\" target=\"_blank\">Resonance</a> for more info...','&#039;Mixing It&#039; heads to Resonance radio','','publish','open','open','','mixing-it-heads-to-resonance-radio','','','2007-02-27 16:29:47','2007-02-27 16:29:47','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=480',0,'post','',0),(482,2,'2007-03-01 08:52:42','2007-03-01 08:52:42','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/circuitblastingcdart.jpg\" title=\"circuitblastingcdart.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/circuitblastingcdart.jpg\" title=\"circuitblastingcdart.jpg\" alt=\"circuitblastingcdart.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nStrange Attractor vs Disinformation perform \'Circuit Blasting\' tomorrow, 2 March in Manchester. Here\'s the skinny:\n\nSubterFuge Friday 2nd March\n8pm til late\n\nArtists performing will be\nChris Gladwin / Yol / Politic Triptych / Strange Attractor Vs Disinformation\n\nBurlesque performances throughout... Music by DJ Mother Sulpha\n\n£5 entry\nIslington Mill, James Street, Salford, Manchester M3 5HW\n\nMeanwhile, our CD EP, which has been descibed as \"electronic free jazz\" (nice!) is out now - you can buy it now from <a href=\"http://posteverything.com/artists/release.php?id=18150\" target=\"_blank\">Posteverything</a>. Copies should be on sale via the Strange Attractor Shoppe soon, with a wild remix album to follow later in the year.','SAVD in Manchester, 2 March','','publish','open','open','','savd-in-manchester-2-march','','','2007-03-01 08:52:42','2007-03-01 08:52:42','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=482',0,'post','',0),(484,2,'2007-03-01 08:56:12','2007-03-01 08:56:12','Eric Wright sent us this:\n\n<a href=\"http://www.usbabsinthespoon.com/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"absinthe.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/absinthe.jpg\" title=\"absinthe.jpg\" alt=\"absinthe.jpg\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nHe says: \"I\'m not sure if the USB connection creates heat (best case) or if you can just store data in it (in that case it\'s stupid).\" <a href=\"http://www.usbabsinthespoon.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Decide for yourselves!</a>','USB Absinthe Spoon','','publish','open','open','','usb-absinthe-spoon','','','2007-03-01 08:56:12','2007-03-01 08:56:12','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=484',0,'post','',0),(485,2,'2007-03-01 08:59:59','2007-03-01 08:59:59','<a href=\"Weblog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders\" target=\"_blank\">Dave Walsh</a>, our man in Antarctica, writes:\n\n\"The Esperanza is rolling from port to starboard and back again, in some nasty Southern Ocean weather. After the serene calm of the Antarctic ice edge, we\'re back to tying everything down, and that includes ourselves and our laptops. There\'s been a few minor injuries sustained in the last 24 hours, from crewmembers being bounced around their cabins.\n\nIt\'s almost two weeks since fire broke out on board the Japanese factory whaling ship, Nisshin Maru, killing one person. For over a week we stood by, ready to provide towing assistance, in the icy calm of the Ross Sea, whaling fleet\'s crew worked to fix their engines. Finally, they managed to get the factory ship moving, and the entire fleet, plus our ship, the Esperanza, sailed north.\n\nToday we escorted the whalers across the 60 degree South line of latitude - this means that they\'ve now officially left Antarctic waters, and the northernmost limit of where their whaling takes place.\n\n<!--more-->No more Southern Ocean whales will die from grenade-tipped harpoons this season, and the threat to the Antarctic environment by the fire-damaged Nisshin Maru has now been averted. Earlier today, the fleet pushed its speed up to 12 knots, and started steaming for home.\n\nA little earlier, Japanese national television channel NHK reported that the fleet was now returning to Japan. The Japanese government, along with rest of the world, now has a responsibility to pledge that this was the last whaling season ever.\n\nIt\'s been a weird expedition - we came to the Southern Ocean ready to stop the whaling ships from killing whales. Instead, we ended up offering rescue services to the very ship we planned to protest against.\n\nAs the whaling fleet makes for Tokyo, we\'re setting course for Australia, where we\'ll mark the end of the Defending Our Oceans campaign. This doesn\'t mean that the campaign to end whaling has ended - just this expedition. The International Whaling Commission meeting will take place in Alaska in May, and we\'ll have a team there too.\"\n\nDave has more amazing photographs <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadlyphoto/\" target=\"_blank\">up here</a>','News from Down South','','publish','open','open','','news-from-down-south','','','2007-03-01 08:59:59','2007-03-01 08:59:59','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=485',0,'post','',0);
INSERT INTO `wp_posts` VALUES (486,2,'2007-03-01 21:07:10','2007-03-01 21:07:10','Via Jay Babcock...\n\n<strong><em>Freak Flags Fly at Half-mast as Arthur Mag Calls It Quits</em></strong>\nby Keach Hagey | <a href=\"http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/runninscared/archives/2007/02/freak_flags_fly.php\" target=\"_blank\">Village Voice</a> February 26, 2007\n\nIn the end, there just wasn\'t enough peace and love to go around.\n\nAfter five years of publishing consistently interesting music, arts, politics and drug journalism in the mold of the underground rags of the 60s and 70s, Arthur Magazine died last Friday, according to founding editor Jay Babcock. He pinned the cause of death not so much on a lack of cash (although he did mention living off friends\' clothing donations and credit card debt) as on his inability to continue seeing eye-to-eye with his partner, founding publisher Laris Kreslins.\n\nNegotiations for Los Angeles-based Babcock to buy out Philadelphia-based Kreslins started last year and reached an impasse last Thursday, both men said. The breakdown locked up the magazine’s credit line, which was tied to Kreslin\'s publishing company, Lime Publishing, and abruptly halted production on the magazine\'s next issue, scheduled to lead with a cover article on Yoko Ono and Fluxus by longtime contributors Thurston Moore and Byron Coley.\n\n\"The magazine can\'t be restarted,\" Babcock said. \"It\'s a done deal. It\'s dead. The situation can’t be unfucked.”\n\n<!--more--> Kreslins, who controls the website and the trademark for the free bimonthly magazine, took issue with Babcock’s assessment and posted his own last night that the publication was simply on \"indefinite hiatus.\"\n\nHe said that five years of working without investors had become too much of a burden, and he had been looking to get out of his half of the business for the past eight months.\n\n\"I was focusing my energies on other things, and I was ready to move on,\" he said.\n\nBabcock, 36, and Kreslins, 32, co-founded the magazine with little more than their credit cards in 2002 while living on separate coasts. They didn\'t even meet until after publishing their first issue, which, in a manifesto-like gesture outlining both the form and content of things to come, featured a 16,000-word essay on the 1967 Yippie exorcism of the Pentagon.\n\nBoth co-founders hailed from the dank basements of underground music fandom. Kreslins, a Maryland native, had previously published the popular music journals Sound Collector and Sound Collector Audio Review. Babcock contributed to Mojo magazine and the LA Weekly and once helped his girlfriend run a pirate radio station out of LA’s hipster Silverlake neighborhood.\n\nIn the beginning, both lived cheap – Kreslins even moved into his parents’ basement for a while – and enticed mostly unpaid contributors by offering a venue for things other publications wouldn’t run. This promise attracted regular contributors like Douglas Rushkoff, Alan Moore, Erik Davis, Kristine McKenna, Trinie Dalton and Model-T Ford.\n\nMoore and Coley wrote their hyperactive must-read roundup of recent underground music releases from the first issue. “They’ve never been paid a dime,” Babcock said.\n\nAlthough Los Angeles and New York were the magazine’s major markets, a network of volunteers distributed many of 50,000 copies to highly targeted countercultural outposts in cities and small towns across America. Kreslins said that in the end, this distribution network, which echoed the touring networks for punk and alternative bands in the 1980s, is one of the things he’s most proud of. “The network kept growing,” he said. “That\'s why I was so excited about the possibility of a new publisher taking it to the next level.”\n\nArthur was oversized, free, colorful, patchouli-scented but whip-smart, unapologetically political, sometimes silly, often anarchist and always willing to listen to voices way, way outside the mainstream. Above all, it was prophetic, usually about two years ahead of the rest of the country in its loves and obsessions.\n\nCase in point: Arthur ran the first feature ever on songwriting virtuoso and harp sprite Joanna Newsom in 2004. Rumors are she’ll appear in Vanity Fair before the year is out. So perhaps its appropriate that the 12,000-word cover story on her for the Winter 2006 issue – written by Erik Davis with a trance-like devotion that would overwhelm a more conventional magazine editor – will be the magazine’s swan song.\n\n“The tragic element is that we were doing better, year by year,” Babcock said. “This was going to be our first all-color issue. We were staring to get inquiries from all the important liquor companies with their huge ad budgets, and yet we maintained complete editorial autonomy.”\n\n“We were almost at this point where you were going to have a full-color nationally published culture magazine, with the editor-owner being a firm anarchist in the tradition of Noam Chomsky. That was the ideology of the magazine. That would have been a unique thing in American publishing at any time, but in 2007 . . . ” His voice trails off, in a combination of wonder and frustration.\n\nBut in 2007, he seems to imply, when announcements of the death of print alternate hourly with news of yet another media merger, it would have been like something out of the magazine’s regular  column on magic.','More on Arthur&#039;s end','','publish','open','open','','more-on-arthurs-end','','','2007-03-01 21:07:10','2007-03-01 21:07:10','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=486',0,'post','',0),(488,2,'2007-03-01 21:20:09','2007-03-01 21:20:09','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/flyer_back.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"riteofspring2.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/riteofspring2.jpg\" title=\"riteofspring2.jpg\" alt=\"riteofspring2.jpg\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nStrange Attractor has been invited to present talks, music and films at the <em><strong>Green Man Rite of Spring</strong></em> festival on <em><strong>23-25 March</strong></em>. More details on what we\'ll be doing next week, but this is the flyer for the time being. It looks like a lot of fun and I hope we\'ll see some some of you down there! <a href=\"http://www.thegreenmanfestival.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">Green Man site</a>','Strange Attractor meets The Green Man','','publish','open','open','','strange-attractor-meets-the-green-man','','','2007-03-01 21:20:09','2007-03-01 21:20:09','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=488',0,'post','',0),(490,2,'2007-03-02 08:44:16','2007-03-02 08:44:16','<strong>Ancient towers in Peru were a \'solar calendar\'</strong><span class=\"starrating\"></span>\n\nBy Steve Connor, <a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2318720.ece\" target=\"_blank\">Independent</a>, 02 March 2007\n<p id=\"bodyCopyContent\">Scientists have discovered the oldest solar observatory in the Americas and, in the process, may have solved a centuries-old puzzle about the purpose of an ancient stone fort on a remote hilltop in Peru.</p>\nThe researchers have shown that an enigmatic wall of 13 stone towers within the Chankillo complex, a 2,300-year-old ruin nearly 250 miles north of Lima, worked as a solar calendar to monitor the winter and summer solstices.\n\nThey believe that the solar observatory proves the existence of a sophisticated Sun cult in the region more than 1,000 years before the Inca civilisation built its famous Sun temple in the Peruvian mountain city of Cusco, prior to the Spanish conquest.\n\nPics over at <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6408231.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a> site\n\n<!--more-->Ivan Ghezzi of the Pontificia Universiadad Catolica del Peru in Lima and Clive Ruggles of Leicester University have found that the line of 13 towers at Chankillo can be used to precisely observe the Sun as it rises and sets at different positions along the horizon throughout the year.\n\nHistorical accounts suggest that the Inca Sun pillars at Cusco - which have vanished without trace - were used until the 16th century AD to mark planting times of crops and to observe seasonal ceremonies, Ghezzi and Ruggles say in their study published today in the journal Science.\n\nThey believe that the discovery means that the massive Chankillo complex - dated to the 4th century BC - must have played an important role in the ceremonial rituals associated with the annual cycles of the Sun.\n\nArchaeologists have puzzled over the purpose of Chankillo since it was first discovered in the 19th century. They suggested it may have been used as a fort, a temple or even a setting for ceremonial battles.\n\nOne of the biggest mysteries of Chankillo was the purpose of a low ridge composed of 16 relatively small stone towers which together formed an artificial toothed horizon for no apparent reason.\n\nHowever, Ghezzi and Ruggles show that the gaps formed between the towers match the annual rising and setting arcs of the Sun while it dips below the horizon during the winter and summer solstices.\n\nThe line of towers, which range in height from about 6ft to 20ft, were built along a north-south axis and can be viewed full-on from two other stone positions, one to the east and one to the west of the ridge.\n\n\"Viewed from the two observing points, the spread of the towers along the horizon corresponds very closely to the range of movement of the rising and setting positions of the sun over the year,\" say Ghezzi and Ruggles in their study.\n\n\"This in itself argues strongly that the towers were used for solar observation,\" they say.\n\nIn their study, the scientists demonstrated that the setting sun at the winter solstice can be viewed from the eastern observation point as it falls to the left side of the southernmost tower.\n\nMeanwhile, from the western observing point, the same midwinter sun the following morning could be viewed rising from the last tower on the right of the observer. During the course of the year, the setting and rising sun moves through the different \"teeth\" of the artificial horizon until finally it reaches its next furthermost point at the summer solstice in June - when it can be observed rising and setting beyond the last tower to the north.\n\n\"The towers are relatively well preserved; their corners have mostly collapsed, but enough of the original architecture survives to allow a reconstruction,\" the researchers say.\n\nThe towers are regularly spaced and each has a pair of stone staircases leading up to the summit, one on the north and one on the south side.\n\n\"Most of the tower summits are well preserved; no artifacts remain on these surfaces, though it is clear from the staircases that the summits were the foci of activity,\" they say.\n\nArchaeologists have found evidence to suggest that the ceremonial practices took place at the two observing positions. The western point has offerings of pottery, shells and lithic artifacts whereas the eastern site was probably a site of ceremonial feasting, the scientists said.\n\nThe gaps between the towers may have been used to mark out the days of a solar calendar. For instance, the sunrises between the gaps in the central towers are separated by a time interval of 10 days, implying that a 10-day \"week\" may have been important in the solar calendar.\n\n\"Once the Sun had begun to move appreciably away from either of its extreme positions a few days after each solstice, the various towers and gaps would have provided a means to track the progress of the Sun up and down the horizon to within an accuracy of two or three days,\" say Ghezzi and Ruggles in their research.','Peru&#039;s ancient observatory','','publish','open','open','','perus-ancient-observatory','','','2007-03-02 08:44:16','2007-03-02 08:44:16','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=490',0,'post','',0),(492,2,'2007-03-05 19:04:50','2007-03-05 19:04:50','<a href=\"http://www.bigheadpress.com/lamuse?page=1\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"lamuse.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/lamuse.jpg\" title=\"lamuse.jpg\" alt=\"lamuse.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nLa Muse is a new weekly online graphic novella from writer Adi Tantimedh and artist Hugo Petrus .  It\'s a lively, wise take on global activism, super powers, celebrity culture and hyperdimensional reality – in other words, one smart, hip strip. Get it <a href=\"http://www.bigheadpress.com/lamuse?page=1\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>','LA Muse','','publish','open','open','','la-muse','','','2007-03-05 19:04:50','2007-03-05 19:04:50','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=492',0,'post','',0),(493,2,'2007-03-06 15:20:56','2007-03-06 15:20:56','\"The UK Government is about to propose restrictions on photography in public places which could make street photography and documentary photography against the law. These proposed changes to the law could result in photographers having to apply for ID cards in order to take pictures in a public places.\n\nThe consequences of these proposed restrictions to the fields of documentary and street photography could be hugely damaging, potentially wiping out an entire area of photographic practice and certainly provoking suspicion around people simply carrying out their profession or hobby. The number of iconic photographers whose work would have been severely challenged by these moves is endless. With such limitations and procedures placed on them photographers such as Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, Garry Winogrand, Ed Ruscha, Brassai, Robert Frank, Cartier-Bresson, Bill Brandt, Stephen Shore and William Eggleston would perhaps not have been able to make the work for which they are now internationally recognised.\n\nA petition has been lodged on the UK government\'s website which you can sign if you would like to voice your concerns about these proposals ( You have to be a UK citizen , or resident in the UK to sign).\n\n<a href=\"http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Photography/\" target=\"_blank\">Sign the petition...</a>\'\n\n<em>Via Cathy Ward and Max Reeves</em>\n\nAnd here\'s another worthwhile petition:\n\n\"The recently introduced changes in licensing law have produced an environment where music and dance, activities which should be valued and promoted in a civilised society, are instead damaged by inappropriate regulation. We call on the Prime Minister to recognise this situation and take steps to correct it.\" <a href=\"http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/licensing/\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up. </a>','Possible UK ban on public photography','','publish','open','open','','possible-uk-ban-on-public-photography','','','2007-03-06 15:20:56','2007-03-06 15:20:56','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=493',0,'post','',0),(495,2,'2007-03-06 17:32:29','2007-03-06 17:32:29','Stunning <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadlyphoto/411770353/\" target=\"_blank\">new photographs</a> from Dave Walsh, our man in Antarctica:\n\n<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadlyphoto/411770353/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"blueice.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/blueice.jpg\" title=\"blueice.jpg\" alt=\"blueice.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nFrom <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_(glacial)\" target=\"_blank\">Wikipedia</a>: \"Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of a glacier that winds its way toward a body of water (river, lake, ocean, etc.). During its travels, all of the air bubbles that are trapped in the ice are squeezed out, and the size of the ice crystals increases, making it clear.\n\nThe blue color is often wrongly attributed to Rayleigh scattering. Actually, the ice is blue for the same reason water is blue. Namely, it is a result of an overtone of a OH molecular stretch in the water which absorbs light at the red end of the visible spectrum.<sup>\"</sup>','Blue Ice!','','publish','open','open','','blue-ice','','','2007-03-06 17:32:29','2007-03-06 17:32:29','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=495',0,'post','',0),(496,2,'2007-03-07 09:43:28','2007-03-07 09:43:28','\"<em>Invocon</em> <em>proposes to investigate the use of beamed RF [radio frequency] energy to excite and interrupt the normal process of human hearing and equilibrium. The focus will be in two areas. (1) Interruption of the mechanical transduction process by which sound and position (relative to gravity) are converted to messages that are processed by the brain. (2) Interruption of the chemical engine which sustains the proper operation of the nerve cells that respond to the mechanical transduction mechanisms referenced in item (1). Interruption of either or both of these processes has been clinically shown to produce complete disorientation and confusion... </em><em>Second order effects would be extreme motion sickness...</em>\n\n<em>The benefits of such a weapon would be that in areas of extreme risk to Marine Corps personnel, hostiles could be controlled without loss of life. The weapon effect would be helpful in urban combat where rooms could be subjected to the EPIC stimulus and then subdued without further risk to friendlies or hostiles. Similar technology could be applied to law enforcement operations especially in hostage situations where all the people in a room could be incapacitated without damage and subsequently sorted out as to which are the bad guys and which are the good guys.\"</em>\n\nVia <a href=\"http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/03/navy_researchin.html\" target=\"_blank\">Wired News</a>','Vomit gun!','','publish','open','open','','vomit-gun','','','2007-03-07 09:43:28','2007-03-07 09:43:28','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=496',0,'post','',0),(497,2,'2007-03-08 09:44:28','2007-03-08 09:44:28','I\'m sorry to report that the Green Man\'s Rite of Spring festival, at which Strange Attractor was to host a couple of evenings, has been cancelled. I\'m not sure why as yet, but it\'s a crying shame.\n\nOur bill was to include talks by <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/shop_galdrbok.html\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Wallis</a>, <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=288\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Letcher</a> and Stephen Grasso, plus a set by <a href=\"http://www.raagnagrok.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">Raagnagrok</a> and screenings of several wyrd films and documentaries.\n\nSpring will no doubt still be celebrated, and Londoners will get a chance to see Raagnagrok at the <a href=\"http://www.gluerooms.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Glue Rooms</a> in Deptford on 28 March. They take place at the Amersham Arms, 388 New Cross Road,doors 8pm, acts start 9pm prompt, bar til 12. £3 Entry, tube/train: New Cross/New Cross Gate\n\n<strong>Line up: Devotchka.s Conundrum /  Flange Magnus / Raagnagrok</strong>\nPlus residents: DJ Tendraw &amp; The Gypsies Dog;  DJ Body Damage &amp; Possibly Sick','Rite of Spring cancelled!','','publish','open','open','','rite-of-spring-cancelled','','','2007-03-08 09:44:28','2007-03-08 09:44:28','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=497',0,'post','',0),(498,2,'2007-03-08 13:10:49','2007-03-08 13:10:49','From the <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6429239.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>\n\n<em><font size=\"2\">Drug laws in Britain are expected to be criticised as being \"not fit for purpose\", according to a major report.</font></em>\n\n<font size=\"2\">An investigation by the RSA says illicit substances can be \"harmless\", while drinking and smoking can cause as many problems. It says the law has been \"driven by moral panic\", and suggests policy-making should be left to drug teams and local authorities. <!-- E SF --> </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">Anthony King, professor of government at Essex University, who chaired the Commission on Illegal Drugs, said the \"great majority\" of drug users did not harm themselves or others.</font><font size=\"2\"> \"Current policy is broke and needs to be fixed,\" he added.  </font> <font size=\"2\">The RSA\'s panel recommends scrapping the Misuse of Drugs Act and replacing it with a broader Misuse of Substances Act, and replacing the existing ABC classification system with an \"index of harms\".</font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">This would extend the definition of drugs to include alcohol and tobacco - as well as illegal substances, which the report says have been \"demonised\".</font>\n\nThanks Alyssa Joye!','UK drug law &quot;broke and needs to be fixed&quot;','','publish','open','open','','uk-drug-law-broke-and-needs-to-be-fixed','','','2007-03-08 13:10:49','2007-03-08 13:10:49','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=498',0,'post','',0),(499,2,'2007-03-08 13:31:54','2007-03-08 13:31:54','<p class=\"caption\"><em>How the world’s largest squid was caught—and the bidding war for the exclusive footage slated to be shown this spring.</em></p>\n<p id=\"udtD\">By Matthew Philips  <a href=\"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17506125/site/newsweek/\" target=\"_blank\">Newsweek</a> 7 March, 2007</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">John Bennett is used to the monotony. As captain of a New Zealand commercial fishing boat, he’s accustomed to spending months at a time afloat in the Antarctic Ocean, staring at—well, nothing. “Just ice really, lots and lots of ice,” says Bennett. “Sometimes, not even a seabird.” On a particularly calm day in late January, Bennett was tending to his deep-sea fishing lines—each one 2,000 meters long (nearly a mile and a quarter), and sporting up to 10,000 baited hooks—in hopes of a major toothfish haul. Suddenly, the calm was shattered—by the sight of a colossal squid surfacing near the stern. The beast, a 33-foot-long adult male weighing half a ton, had wrapped itself around one of Bennett’s lines. “It was just this great big brown shape,” recalls Bennett, who was watching from the bridge. “It came up right alongside us. Everyone was yelling and screaming.”</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">Bennett hurried to the deck to confer with Geoff Dolan, an observer from the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries who was on board. International law requires that anything caught in Antarctic waters must be kept onboard and documented to guard against overfishing. So Bennett really didn’t have a choice but to haul in the squid. “We decided to get him onboard in as good a condition as we could,” says Bennett. “If we’d released him, he wouldn’t have survived.” By then the crew had gaffed the creature in an attempt to get it off the line. But its grip was tight, both on the line and on the five-foot-long toothfish he was eating. “He wasn’t giving up that fish,” says Bennett. “When we finally pulled him in, the fish was half-eaten.” ...</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">As it happens, Bennett had brought along a video camera in order to film a small documentary about Antarctic toothfishing for a New Zealand TV station (that’s Chilean sea bass to you and me). He was able to capture a good bit of footage of the squid being hauled in. Bennett confirms that a production company in Auckland bought the footage, though he declines to specify what he was paid. An official with the Ministry of Fisheries told NEWSWEEK that offers to buy the footage had been pouring in and that some were “longer than a telephone number.” Bennett said that a documentary featuring the coveted footage should be released sometime in April...</p>\nAs O’Shea prepares to study the half-ton specimen, he remains convinced there are bigger squids still to be found at sea. “There’s probably a female out there that’s a full ton,” he says, noting that females tend to be half again as large as their male counterparts. Until Bennett sails again, it seems, the half-ton specimen will just have to do.\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\"> Full story at <a href=\"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17506125/site/newsweek/\" target=\"_blank\">Newsweek</a></p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">Thanks Anthony Matt!</p>','Colossal Squid sparks bidding war','','publish','open','open','','colossal-squid-sparks-bidding-war','','','2007-03-08 13:31:54','2007-03-08 13:31:54','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=499',0,'post','',0),(500,2,'2007-03-13 09:47:49','2007-03-13 09:47:49','12 March, <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6441631.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC online</a>\n\n<font size=\"2\"><em>A group of Buddhist monks in Malaysia is appealing for help to solve a problem with ants.</em></font><font size=\"2\"> Buddhism forbids devotees from harming any living creature. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">So the monks are looking for a creative and non-violent solution to deal with the insects, which are biting worshippers. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">The monks at the Ang Hock Si Temple, also known as the Hong Hock See temple, in Georgetown on Penang Island have had to learn to live with nature...</font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">T</font><font size=\"2\">he ants are dropping from the temple\'s sacred bodhi tree onto people meditating below - and when they bite it causes painful swelling. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">The Venerable Boon Keng practises what he calls \"letting go\" meditation  - so he \"lets go\" of the pain. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">But out of consideration for worshippers less far along the path to enlightenment the monks are looking for ways to persuade the ants to go. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">An attempt to remove them using a vacuum cleaner failed, so the Buddhist community is appealing for help.   </font>\n\nFull story at the <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6441631.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>\n\nVia <a href=\"http://2ubh.com\" target=\"_blank\">Tim Chapman</a>','Monks vs Ants','','publish','open','open','','monks-vs-ants','','','2007-03-13 09:47:49','2007-03-13 09:47:49','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=500',0,'post','',0),(501,2,'2007-03-14 10:41:47','2007-03-14 10:41:47','A nice roundup of Peruvian mythical jungle entities.\n\n\"<strong> El Chullanchaqui</strong>\nThis little creature known as Chullanchaqui is also there to protect the rainforest. He is a farmer, and if you come across a clearing in the forest, you might be standing on one of Chullanchaqui’s farms known as “chacras”. If you return to the same place months later, you will find that it is still a clear area, as if someone had been weeding it and took care of it. Chullanchaqui is said to have a very unique appearance: a tiny midget-like man that leaves a peculiar trace. Those who have seen his tracks say he has a tiny left foot and his right side leaves a round hole behind, apparently the mark of a wooden leg. When he appears out of nowhere, it is often to confuse you, he could be calling you, you will barely get a glimpse of him every now and then, so you keep following him. And when you realize that you’ve lost his trail, you are utterly and completely lost in the dense forest.\"\n\nFull article at <a href=\"http://journalperu.com/?p=536\" target=\"_blank\">Journal Peru</a>\n\nVia the <a href=\"http://www.anomalist.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Anomalist </a>','Peruvian rainforest denizens','','publish','open','open','','peruvian-rainforest-denizens','','','2007-03-14 10:41:47','2007-03-14 10:41:47','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=501',0,'post','',0),(502,2,'2007-03-14 10:47:33','2007-03-14 10:47:33','Scientists prepare to send a signal to the past...\n\n<span id=\"bodytext\" class=\"georgia md\"></span>\"... <span id=\"bodytext\" class=\"georgia md\">the presence of conscious  observers later in history could exert an influence on those first moments [after the Big Bang],  shaping the laws of physics to be favorable for life. This may seem circular:  Life exists to make the universe suitable for life. If causality works both  forward and backward, however, consistency between the past and the future is  all that matters. \"It offends our common-sense view of the world, but there\'s  nothing to prevent causal influences from going both ways in time,\" [Paul] Davies  says. \"If the conditions necessary for life are somehow written into the  universe at the Big Bang, there must be some sort of two-way link.\"</span>\n\nMore mind-bending speculation over at <a href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/21/ING5LNJSBF1.DTL\" target=\"_blank\">SFGate</a>','Retrocausality in the news','','publish','open','open','','retrocausality-in-the-news','','','2007-03-14 10:47:33','2007-03-14 10:47:33','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=502',0,'post','',0),(503,2,'2007-03-16 09:36:43','2007-03-16 09:36:43','<p class=\"inlinedate\"><em><strong>Interspecies Sex: Evolution\'s Hidden Secret?</strong></em>\nJames Owen, <a href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070314-hybrids.html\" target=\"_blank\">National Geographic News</a> 14 March, 2007\n<p class=\"inlinedate\">The act of mating with a species other than your own may not be as ill advised or peculiar as it seems.</p>\nRecent research indicates that hybridization is not only widespread in nature but it might also spawn many more new species than previously thought. A growing number of studies has been presented as evidence that two animal species can combine to produce a third, sexually viable species in a process known as hybrid speciation. Newly identified examples include both insects and fish.\n\nThis evolutionary process, while known to be common in plants, has long been considered extremely rare among animals....\n\nBut some scientists now believe that the behavior that has been called animals\' sexual blunders could be an important force in their evolution.\n\nContinues at <a href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070314-hybrids.html\" target=\"_blank\">National Geographic News</a>','Interspecies lurve as evolutionary strategy','','publish','open','open','','interspecies-sex-as-evolutionary-strategy','','','2007-03-16 09:36:43','2007-03-16 09:36:43','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=503',0,'post','',0),(504,2,'2007-03-17 00:37:06','2007-03-17 00:37:06','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/circuitblastingcdart.jpg\" title=\"circuitblastingcdart.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/circuitblastingcdart.jpg\" title=\"circuitblastingcdart.jpg\" alt=\"circuitblastingcdart.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"250\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"250\" /></a>\n\nFrom <a href=\"http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=28330\" target=\"_blank\">Bookmat</a>\n\nA bit of a departure for the ADAADAT label, this collaborative project between sound art project Disinformation and the editor of the Strange Attractor journal, Mark Pilkington sounds akin to the kind of uncompromising experimental laptop noise you might find on a Mego release.  The aesthetics of this music particularly bring to mind the likes of General Magic or Farmers Manual, being characterised by a granular distortion and severely destabilised use of stereo channels (the third, untitled track is pretty much all about the left speaker, for example).  The music on this release doesn’t stem from any sophisticated homemade algorithms however, but rather the practice of setting up a strong electromagnetic field in close proximity to a toy electronic keyboard.  This rather destructive practice yields fascinating results, with some beautifully mangled, involuntary circuit spasms. At times the results are outbreaks of unleashed digital noise, but more often than not there’s a surprisingly sophisticated and intriguing outcome that preserves evidence of the toy keyboard’s recognisable sonic characteristics.  Excellent.\n\nAvailable from <a href=\"http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=28330\" target=\"_blank\">Bookmat</a> and <a href=\"http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=28330\" target=\"_blank\"></a><a href=\"warpmart! http://www.warprecords.com/?mart=ADA0019\" target=\"_blank\">Warpmart</a>','Circuit Blasting CD review','','publish','open','open','','circuit-blasting-cd-review','','','2007-03-17 00:37:06','2007-03-17 00:37:06','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=504',0,'post','',0),(506,2,'2007-03-22 09:12:33','2007-03-22 09:12:33','<a href=\"http://forteantimes.com/articles/217_tesla_1.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"tesla2.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/tesla2.jpg\" title=\"tesla2.jpg\" alt=\"tesla2.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nThe good folks at <a href=\"http://forteantimes.com/articles/217_tesla_1.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Fortean Times</a> have put my biographical article about Nikola Tesla online in its entirety. You have to go through an irritating registration process to get beyond the first page, but it\'s free!\n\nRead it <a href=\"http://forteantimes.com/articles/217_tesla_1.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">here.</a>\n\nVia <a href=\"http://boingboing.net\" target=\"_blank\">Boing Boing </a> (yes I found out about it there first!!!)','Fortean Times Tesla piece online','','publish','open','open','','fortean-times-tesla-piece-online','','','2007-03-22 09:12:33','2007-03-22 09:12:33','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=506',0,'post','',0),(507,2,'2007-03-24 11:22:10','2007-03-24 11:22:10','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/raagnach2.jpg\" title=\"raagnach2.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/raagnach2.jpg\" title=\"raagnach2.jpg\" alt=\"raagnach2.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"307\" vspace=\"0\" width=\"461\" /></a>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre></pre>\n<pre>(Photo Alyssa Joye)</pre>\nSolomon Kirchner and Otto Amon, aka synth and sitar duo <strong><a href=\"http://www.iotacism.com/rgk/\" target=\"_blank\">Raagnagrok</a></strong>, play their first gig of 2007 next Wednesday 28 March at:<em>The Gluerooms, The Amersham Arms, 388 New Cross Road, London</em>\ntube/train: New Cross/New Cross Gate\ndoors 8pm, acts start 9pm prompt, bar til 12, £3 Entry\n\n<a href=\"http://www.devotchkasconundrum.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Devotchka.s Conundrum</a>\na duo of masked St Trinian\'s girls who set about masticating elasticised chunks of noise with the aid of toys.Their playfulness has a bit of a primitive Pierre Henry thing going on about it! (Richie Ruchpaul - Terrorizer)\n\nFlange Magnus\ninept grapplings with failing circuitry and sniveling\n\n<a href=\"http://www.iotacism.com/rgk/\" target=\"_blank\">Raagnagrok</a>\nWhen Ninja Rabbi Solomon Kirchner starts to recieve MIDI data from a distant star, the security machinery at Earth Central moves into Condition Red and alarms go off globalwide: BRING KIRCHNER IN!\n\nPlus residents:\nDJ Tendraw &amp; The Gypsies Dog\nDJ Body Damage &amp; Possibly Sick\n\nRaanagrok will also be supporting <strong><a href=\"http://www.headlesshorses.co.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">Miasma</a></strong> on 13 April at The Windmill in Brixton, Sarf London and, in August, at the Green Man festival - more on which later.','Raagnagrok return','','publish','open','open','','raagnagrok-return','','','2007-03-24 11:22:10','2007-03-24 11:22:10','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=507',0,'post','',0),(511,2,'2007-03-26 09:37:04','2007-03-26 09:37:04','<strong>Have You Hugged Your Robot Today? </strong>\n\n<a href=\"http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/robot_rights.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Science Agogo</a>  27 March 2007.\n\n<font face=\"Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">\"Earlier this month, Korea\'s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy announced that it was drafting a set of ethical guidelines, called the \"Robot Ethics Charter\" for robot producers, users and the robots themselves. \"How quaint,\" I thought, until further research revealed that not only were they serious about the charter, but that other futurists and AI experts are at this very moment diligently working toward establishing equal rights for robots. Have these guys got too much time on their hands? Are they getting a little too, ahem, close to their robotic creations? Or could their ethical deliberations really be warranted?...</font>  <a href=\"http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/robot_rights.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Continues... </a>\n\nVia <a href=\"http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/robot_rights.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">The Anomalist</a>\n\nSee also Ken Hollings\' piece, <em>Robot Power, Robot Pride</em> in <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/SAJ2_sell.html\">SAJ2</a> for a unique approach to the issue of robot ethics.','Robot Power, Robot Pride','','publish','open','open','','robot-power-robot-pride','','','2007-03-26 09:37:04','2007-03-26 09:37:04','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=511',0,'post','',0),(512,2,'2007-03-28 09:49:00','2007-03-28 09:49:00','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/uc-red.jpg\" title=\"uc-red.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/uc-red.jpg\" title=\"uc-red.jpg\" alt=\"uc-red.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nSAJ2 contributor Jason Louv is preparing the first physickal edition of a new journal - <em>Ultraculture</em>.\n\n<em>Ultraculture Journal One collects under one cover the most volatile and direct magickal writing currently available in the English language.It will change you at the cellular level. You have been forewarned.</em>\n\n<span class=\"tac-box-body\">Yikes. </span>\n\n<span class=\"tac-box-body\">Contributors include </span><span class=\"tac-box-body\">Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Brion Gysin, Lalitanath, Shivanath, Peter-R. Koenig, Ira Cohen, Dave Lowe, Hans Plomp, Ganesh Baba, Johnny Templar, Mordant Carnival, Elijah, Joel Biroco, Prince Charming, Jhonn Balance.</span>\n\nThose who can\'t wait for a hard copy can get a shareware PDF preview <a href=\"http://www.archive.org/details/Ultraculture_Journal_One\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>. Donations gladly accepted.\n\nVia <a href=\"http://dreamflesh.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Dreamflesh</a>','Ultraculture Journal One','','publish','open','open','','ultraculture-journal-one','','','2007-03-28 09:49:00','2007-03-28 09:49:00','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=512',0,'post','',0),(514,2,'2007-03-29 09:24:40','2007-03-29 09:24:40','<a href=\"http://www.directions.jp/airartlog/flv/AAL005/005-02.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"roachbot.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/roachbot.jpg\" title=\"roachbot.jpg\" alt=\"roachbot.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nAmazing <a href=\"http://www.directions.jp/airartlog/flv/AAL005/005-02.html\">video</a> of a cockroach-operated robotic platform - let\'s hope he\'s squishing those roaches before they <em>learn</em>...\n\nThanks <a href=\"http://badscience.net\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Goldacre </a>','Cockroach-controlled robot!','','publish','open','open','','cockroach-controlled-robot','','','2007-03-29 09:24:40','2007-03-29 09:24:40','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=514',0,'post','',0),(517,2,'2007-03-30 08:57:50','2007-03-30 08:57:50','<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPaUK9Ftbi8\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"igau.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/igau.jpg\" title=\"igau.jpg\" alt=\"igau.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" /></a>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic\"> Viral transmission recieved by Erik Davis:</p>\n\"The Intergalactic Underground is launching the Intergalactic Masters course: a series of video-theological clips with popular culture references and blatant messianic goals. The course will be broadcast in different internet channels through the next months with the aim of helping every person achieve intergalactic consciousness. For us prophecy in the 21st century consists of viral prophecy which makes use of the net and Web 2.0 tools to spread salvation technologically.\n\nYou can watch the clip <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPaUK9Ftbi8\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>. Our Communicat is attached. Please feel free to contact us with any inquiries. Please do enter the course. It is for the best of us all.\n\n*The Intergalactic Underground calls for a reality consumer revolution against the Zombie Empire*\"\n\nViral marketing for a new instant noodle product or something less sinister? Find out more at the <a href=\"http://www.intergalacticunderground.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Intergalactic Underground</a> mother site.\n\nWe call for immediate Geula for the universe\nStop Zombie Empire!\nSave the world!\nBecome an Intergalactic master!\nWake up! Wake up! Wake up!','Intergalactic Underground Communicat','','publish','open','open','','intergalactic-underground-communicat','','','2007-03-30 08:57:50','2007-03-30 08:57:50','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=517',0,'post','',0),(519,2,'2007-03-31 09:28:21','2007-03-31 09:28:21','<strong>Some fantastic multi-dimensional wyrd science brought into play to explain the disappearance of honey bees across the USA.</strong>\n\n<em>\"The <a href=\"http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/ap_070211_bee_disease.html\">first reports began</a> in November of bees mysteriously disappearing. Not just one or two, but entire colonies of tens of thousands of bees at a time. As temperatures have warmed and it has become safe to open hives, the extent of losses is grave...</em>\n\n<em>Sunspots follow an approximate 11-year cycle, corresponding to increases in solar activity. This solar activity causes geomagnetic effects during the peaks, but effects on earth’s magnetic field also occur during the minimums. Using these observations, scientists have predicted that the next solar maximum, expected to peak in 2010, could be the <a href=\"http://www.physorg.com/news86010302.html\">most intense ever</a>...</em>\n\n<em>There is some research to support the view that bees are sensitive to effects that occur only on a quantum-mechanical scale. One study exposed bees to short bursts of a high-intensity magnetic field and concluded that the bees’ response could be better explained as a sensitivity to an effect known as nuclear magnetic resonance...</em>\n\n<em>If this were not enough, the results imply that bees can perceive quarks, thereby interacting with the quantum world without disturbing it in the ways both observed and predicted by quantum theory. And this perception would have to extend to the perception of quarks not as coherent structures, but as fields. In other words, bees may be able to perceive the unobserved quantum fields of zero-point energy, the much-debated property from which all of the phenomenal world may emerge in the eternal quantum moment. </em>\n\nThe theory in full over at <a href=\"http://www.synchronizm.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/29/the-bees-who-flew-too-high/\" target=\"_blank\">Synchronizm.</a>','Dance of the quantum bees','','publish','open','open','','dance-of-the-quantum-bees','','','2007-03-31 09:28:21','2007-03-31 09:28:21','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=519',0,'post','',0),(520,2,'2007-03-31 09:33:10','2007-03-31 09:33:10','Not...\n\n<strong>Hitler\'s Antarctic base: the myth and the reality\n</strong>by Colin Summerhayes Peter Beeching in <a href=\"http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=POL&amp;volumeId=43&amp;issueId=01\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Polar Record Journal</em></a>\n\n<em>In January-February 1939, a secret German expedition visited Dronning (or Queen) Maud Land, Antarctica, apparently with the intention </em><em>inter alia of establishing a base there. Between 1943 and 1945 the British launched a secret wartime Antarctic operation, code-named Tabarin. Men from the Special Air Services Regiment (SAS), Britain\'s covert forces for operating behind the lines, appeared to be involved. In July and August 1945, after the German surrender, two U-boats arrived in Argentina. Had they been to Antarctica to land Nazi treasure or officials? In the southern summer of 1946–1947, the US Navy appeared to ‘invade’ Antarctica using a large force. The operation, code-named Highjump, was classified confidential. In 1958, three nuclear weapons were exploded in the region, as part of another classified US operation, code-named Argus. Given the initial lack of information about these various activities, it is not, perhaps, surprising that some people would connect them to produce a pattern in which governments would be accused of suppressing information about ‘what really happened’, and would use these pieces of information to construct a myth of a large German base existing in Antarctica and of allied efforts to destroy it. Using background knowledge of Antarctica and information concerning these activities that has been published since the early 1940s, it is demonstrated: that the two U-Boats could not have reached Antarctica; that there was no secret wartime German base in Dronning Maud Land; that SAS troops did not attack the alleged German base; that the SAS men in the region at the time had civilian jobs; that Operation Highjump was designed to train the US Navy for a possible war with the Soviet Union in the Arctic, and not to attack an alleged German base in Antarctica; and that Operation Argus took place over the ocean more than 2000 km north of Dronning Maud Land. Activities that were classified have subsequently been declassified and it is no longer difficult to separate fact from fancy, despite the fact that many find it attractive not to do so.</em>\n\n<span>Grab a full <a href=\"http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&amp;fid=648116&amp;jid=POL&amp;volumeId=43&amp;issueId=01&amp;aid=648112\" target=\"_blank\">PDF</a> of the paper. </span>','Nazis in Antarctica!','','publish','open','open','','nazis-in-antarctica','','','2007-03-31 09:33:10','2007-03-31 09:33:10','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=520',0,'post','',0),(522,2,'2007-04-02 09:14:07','2007-04-02 09:14:07','<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDqGl9joIbY\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"ashtar.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/ashtar.jpg\" title=\"ashtar.jpg\" alt=\"ashtar.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"250\" hspace=\"8\" width=\"340\" /></a>\n\nOn Saturday 26 November 1977, at 5.10pm, TV news in the Southern UK was interrupted by a strange transmission. <a href=\"http://labyrinth13.com/OtherWorks_Vrillon.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Here,</a> for the first time, is an audio recording of that signal.\n\nListen and watch at <a href=\"http://labyrinth13.com/OtherWorks_Vrillon.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Labyrinth 13</a>. (updated following loss of Youtube transmission).\n\n<strong><em>A few comments:</em></strong>\n\n*Nobody has owned up to the broadcast as yet.\n\n* Ashtar Command are a genuine and very popular UFO contact cult, based around channelled messages from Ashtar. The alien\'s name, Vrillon, sounds like a twist on Vorilhon – Claude Vorilhon, aka Rael is the founder of the peculiar French free love and UFOs group, the Raelians. His own contact experience took place in France in 1973. <em>But does it say Ashtar or Asteron? (see </em>Fotean Times<em> item below)</em>\n\n* If you\'re out there Vrillon, we\'d love to hear from you – how about an interview here?\n\n<strong>Update! I\'ve copied <em>Fortean Times</em>\' original discussion of the incident...</strong>\n(click <em>continue reading</em>)\n\n<!--more-->\n\nAnd this from <em>Fortean Times  #24, Winter 1977\n</em>\n\n\"Mention must be made here of an event that startled several thousands of TV watchers in Southern England. At 5.06pm, just as the news was being read on Saturday evening, 26 November 1977, a deep voice, accomapnied by an eerie booming sound likened to a \"hollow drumming\", drowned out the newscaster\'s voice and delivered a short message...\n\n<em>This is the voice of Asteron. I am an authorised representative of the Intergalactic Mission, and I have a message for planet Earth. We are beginning to enter the period of Aquarius and there are many corrections which have to be made by Earth People. All your weapons of evil must be destroyed. You have only a short time to live to learn to live together in peace. You must live in peace... or leave the galaxy. </em>\n\nSomehow the originators of the message had jammed the sound signals frmo Southern TV\'s transmitter at Hannington, Wiltshire, so viewers from Newbury and Reading to Winchester and Andover heard the weird voice superimposed over the ITN news bulletin. It caused sufficent panic for SOuthern TV to put half-hourly announcements insisting that  it had been a hoax  and that the planet was not being invaded. Predictably the IBA and Post Office took a rigid humourless stand, vowing prosecution of the culprits... and if the planet <em>had</em> been invaded we\'d like to have seen them try!\n\nWhoever did the deed knew their stuff, for the android (as one Post Office representative persisted in calling the mystery voice) needed sophisticated equipment or techniques to break into and dominate a TV transmission. One perceptive letter in the <em>Times </em>pointed out that if this was the first time this had ever happened in Britain, as the IBA claimed, then how could they be sure it was a hoax? Inexplicably the <em>News of the World </em>and <em>Daily Mail </em>call the owner of the voice \'Gillon of the Ashdown Galactic Command\' and that he said \"Unless the weapons of Earth are laid dow, destruction from  outer space invasion will quickly follow\".  We hope their regular news reportage is more accurate than that, for the indication is that they\'ve simply invented a more shocking message. The <em>Sunday Times </em>claimed to have tracked down a student group who invented a new type of transmistter (for £80) which can \'hich a ride\' on conventional transmissions. But again, how can they be sure that this isn\'t a bandwagon hoax?\n\nIncidentally, we\'re sure you noticed that the \'entity\' and message closely conform to the messages given to UFO prophets, psychic sitting groups and contactees (see <em>UFOs:John Keel\'s Operation Trojan Horse </em>and Clark &amp; Coleman\'s <em>The Unidentified </em>for discussions of names and messages from UFOs). Whoever perpetrated the hoax had done his homework; especially if he was a terrestrial. Of course the massive TV publicity of the imminent<em> Star Wars</em> must have reinforced its effect for those ripe for the salvation-from-the-stars belief. One professor (quoted in the Carlisle, Penn <em>Evening Standard </em>3 Dec 1977) said that the reference to Aquarius proved the message was a hoax... he reasoned that as the most intelligent body on Earth, the scientists, do not believe in astrology, then ipso facto intelligent life elsewhere would not believe in it either.\"','1977 UK Ashtar Command broadcast','','publish','open','open','','1977-uk-ashtar-command-broadcast-online','','','2007-04-02 09:14:07','2007-04-02 09:14:07','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=522',0,'post','',0),(524,2,'2007-04-03 15:43:14','2007-04-03 15:43:14',' <a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/rcsaucer2.jpg\" title=\"rcsaucer2.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/rcsaucer2.jpg\" title=\"rcsaucer2.jpg\" alt=\"rcsaucer2.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n<strong>From the <a href=\"http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2007/04/us-military-funds-flying-saucers.html\" target=\"_blank\">New Scientist</a> blog </strong>\n\n\"Is the Pentagon obsessed with flying saucers? It keeps pouring money into efforts to build them. The latest example is a contract to GFS Projects in Peterborough, UK. The initials stand for Geoff\'s Flying Saucer, which can get off the ground and hover, as you can see ...\n\nThe saucer is about the size of a classic garbage-can lid that might have portrayed a flying saucer in a very low-budget science-fiction movie. But it really flies, thanks to a trick called the Coanda effect.\n\nAn internal fan blows air upwards, directing it through nozzles that point out from the top of the saucer; the air then flows down along the curved surface, propelling the craft upwards. Vanes along the sides keep it from spinning around, but it can move and hover, properties that make it attractive for military use as an unmanned surveillance aircraft. The aerodynamic effect is used in some aircraft and has been studied for inverse hovercraft, which blow air up instead of down...\"\n\nMore over at <strong> </strong><a href=\"http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2007/04/us-military-funds-flying-saucers.html\" target=\"_blank\">New Scientist</a>, meanwhile check out this <a href=\"http://www.nosc.mil/robots/movies/moutx2.mpg\" target=\"_blank\">video</a> of the US <em>Multipurpose Security and Surveillance Mission Platform.</em>\n\nThanks again <a href=\"http://www.2ubh.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Tim Chapman</a> !','Pocket flying saucer gets Pentagon funding','','publish','open','open','','pocket-flying-saucer-gets-pentagon-funding','','','2007-04-03 15:43:14','2007-04-03 15:43:14','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=524',0,'post','',0),(526,2,'2007-04-04 10:46:05','2007-04-04 10:46:05','<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEH4N2XfGf0\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"vera.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/vera.jpg\" title=\"vera.jpg\" alt=\"vera.jpg\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nChristopher Mayhew on mescaline, Joe Meek, Delia Derbyshire &amp; BBC Radiophonics...\n\nMysterious <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEH4N2XfGf0\" target=\"_blank\">transmissions</a> from The Secret Channel.\n\nThanks Drew Mulholland!\n\n<em>And as a bonus, here\'s the <a href=\"http://web.ukonline.co.uk/sotcaa/sotcaa.html?/sotcaa/hidden/mayhew04.html\" target=\"_blank\">transcript</a> of the banned Mayhew broadcast.</em>','V.E.R.A.','','publish','open','open','','vera','','','2007-04-04 10:46:05','2007-04-04 10:46:05','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=526',0,'post','',0),(528,2,'2007-04-07 10:47:05','2007-04-07 10:47:05','<strong>Belief in Reincarnation Tied to Memory Errors</strong>\n<em>By Melinda Wenner, <a href=\"http://www.livescience.com/othernews/070406_past_lives.html\" target=\"_blank\">Livescience.com</a></em>\n<p class=\"style1\">People who believe they have lived past lives as, say, Indian princesses or battlefield commanders are more likely to make certain types of memory errors, according to a new study. The propensity to make these mistakes could, in part, explain why people cling to  implausible reincarnation claims in the first place.</p>\n<p class=\"style1\">Researchers recruited people who, after undergoing hypnotic therapy, had come to believe that they had past lives.</p>\n<p class=\"style1\">Subjects were asked to read aloud a list of 40 non-famous names, and then, after a two-hour wait, told that they were going to see a list consisting of three types of names: non-famous names they had already seen (from the earlier list), famous names, and names of non-famous people that they had not previously seen. Their task was to identify which names were famous.</p>\n<p class=\"style1\">The researchers found that, compared to control subjects who dismissed the idea of reincarnation, past-life believers were almost twice as likely to misidentify names...</p>\n<p class=\"style1\">People who are likely to make these kinds of errors might end up convincing themselves of things that aren’t true, said lead researcher Maarten Peters of Maastricht University in The Netherlands...</p>\n<p class=\"style1\">This is because they can’t distinguish between things that have really happened and things that have been suggested to them, Peters told <em>LiveScience</em>.</p>\n<p class=\"style1\">Past life memories are not the only type of implausible memories that have been studied in this manner. Richard McNally, a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, has found that self-proclaimed alien abductees are also twice as likely to commit source monitoring errors.</p>\n<p class=\"style1\">Full story at <em><a href=\"http://www.livescience.com/othernews/070406_past_lives.html\" target=\"_blank\">Livescience.com</a></em></p>','Reincarnation and memory','','publish','open','open','','528','','','2007-04-07 10:47:05','2007-04-07 10:47:05','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=528',0,'post','',0),(529,2,'2007-04-10 09:28:58','2007-04-10 09:28:58','<p style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic\">Brain damage turns man into human chameleon</p>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic\"><a href=\"http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2007/03/brain-damage-turns-man-into-human.html\" target=\"_blank\">British Psychological Society</a> 20 March 07</p>\nIn his 1983 fake documentary \'Zelig\', Woody Allen plays a character, Leonard Zelig, a kind of human chameleon who takes on the appearance and behaviour of whoever he is with. Now psychologists in Italy have reported the real-life case of AD, a 65-year-old whose identity appears dependent on the environment he is in. He started behaving this way after cardiac arrest caused damage to the fronto-temporal region of his brain.\n\nWhen with doctors, AD assumes the role of a doctor; when with psychologists he says he is a psychologist; at the solicitors he claims to be a solicitor. AD doesn\'t just make these claims, he actually plays the roles and provides plausible stories for how he came to be in these roles.\n\nTo investigate further, Giovannina Conchiglia and colleagues used actors to contrive different scenarios. At a bar, an actor asked AD for a cocktail, prompting him to immediately fulfil the role of bar-tender, claiming that he was on a two-week trial hoping to gain a permanent position. Taken to the hospital kitchen for 40 minutes, AD quickly assumed the role of head chef, and claimed responsibility for preparing special menus for diabetic patients. He maintains these roles until the situation changes. However, he didn\'t adopt the role of laundry worker at the hospital laundry, perhaps because it was too far out of keeping with his real-life career as a politician...\n\nFull story over at <a href=\"http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2007/03/brain-damage-turns-man-into-human.html\" target=\"_blank\">British Psychological Society</a>\n\nThanks Mike Jay!','Politician turns chameleon','','publish','open','open','','politician-turns-chamelon','','','2007-04-10 09:28:58','2007-04-10 09:28:58','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=529',0,'post','',0),(530,2,'2007-04-10 11:18:55','2007-04-10 11:18:55','<address><a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/circuitblastingalys.jpg\" title=\"circuitblastingalys.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/circuitblastingalys.jpg\" title=\"circuitblastingalys.jpg\" alt=\"circuitblastingalys.jpg\" border=\"0\" height=\"307\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"351\" /></a>photo: <a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/circuitblastingalys.jpg\" title=\"circuitblastingalys.jpg\"></a><a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssum/page2/\" target=\"_blank\">Alyssa Joye</a>\n</address><em><strong>Strange Attractor vs Disinformation</strong></em> perform a rousing round of Circuit Blasting here:\n\n<em><strong>Friday, April 13th,  8:30 pm.</strong></em>\nAn evening of Live Electronics and Improvisation at the <a href=\"http://www.thefleapit.com\" target=\"_blank\">Flea Pit</a>, 49 Columbia Rd, London E2. Donations accepted at the door.\n\nFeaturing: \"Circuit Blasting\" by <a href=\"http://www.posteverything.com/artists/release.php?id=18150\" target=\"_blank\">Strange Attractor vs Disinformation</a>\n\nand in duet: <a href=\"http://billthompson.org/%20and\" target=\"_blank\">Prof_lofi</a> and <a href=\"http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mwastell.html\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Wastell</a> with live video improvisation by Jack Keenan\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<strong><em>\"Circuit Blasting\" Strange Attractor vs Disinformation</em></strong>\n\nAs a primitive form of generative composition, “Circuit Blasting” involves setting up an electromagnetic field in close proximity to the keyboard, to sufficient voltage to induce currents in the circuits that trigger notes, percussion and musical patterns. Electrical overdosing produces startling, unrestrained sonic outbursts – “epileptronica”. Like a round of electroshock therapy, or seizures in the brain, surges of high voltage electricity free the components within the instruments from the restraints of function. No longer a \"keyboard\" or \"drum machine\", these are the joyous sounds of pure circuitry unbound.\n\n<em><strong><a href=\"http://www.billthompson.org\" target=\"_blank\">prof_lofi</a> (live electronics, circuit bent toys, misc):</strong></em>\n\nBill Thompson (aka prof_lofi) has been setting fire (literally) to the boundaries between music and sound art for several years in the US, UK, and abroad.  Whether burning a harpsichord, hacking electronics, beating his guitar, or recording buildings in the howling wind, he is constantly exploring the edges of sonic experience.  Called one of the best new talents of 2006, his latest release on State Sanctioned Records has received numerous positive reviews, including one critic who said “it probably shouldn\'t be played in public. Ever.” Thompson was awarded a PRS Atom Award to support his 2007 tour of the UK.\n\n<em><strong>Mark Wastell (tam tam, electronics)\n</strong></em>\nMuch of Mark Wastell\'s relationship with his chosen instrument is concentrated on the tactile, textural and sonic possibilities of both violoncello and bow. He is increasingly interested in working with extreme elements drawn from frequency, timbre and pitch. His early activity was consciously and subconsciously influenced by a variety of improvising musicians. Subsequent exposure to contemporary composers lead to a greater understanding and appreciation of the works written for strings by Feldman, Cage, Nono, Lachenmann and Sciarrino. The use of live electronics and music concrete by Tudor, Parmegiani, Xenakis and others was another important early influence. In more recent times, Mark has also begun to explore sound material outside of the cello, working with contact mics, amplified textures and electronics.    Mark\'s current instrumental material primarily focuses on using abstract principles of space, time and texture - encompassing elements of new London silence, pro-acoustic minimalism, new complexity and pan-global reductionism. Because of the very nature of his chosen instrument, he tends to favour chamber\nstyle ensembles and has worked with a number of regular groups.\n\n<em><strong>\nJack Keenan (live video improvisation)</strong></em>\n\nJack has been involved in a wide range of new media art projects over the past 3 years working\ncollaboratively with a broad range of artists and organizations including the National Theatre Scotland, Threshold and many more. His most recent work with Bill Thompson involves live video and hacked electronics exploring the relationship and feedback between technology and society.','SAVD in the Flea Pit','','publish','open','open','','savd-in-the-flea-pit','','','2007-04-10 11:18:55','2007-04-10 11:18:55','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=530',0,'post','',0),(532,2,'2007-04-10 11:27:47','2007-04-10 11:27:47','<strong><em>Two great talks happening this weekend in Northampton, one by SAJ3 contributor and parapsychologist David Luke and the other by writer and local legend Alan Moore.</em></strong>\n\nAs part of Northampton Museum and Art Gallery’s new exhibition on superstition, “Unlucky for some”, there will be a weekend of talks on Friday 13th and Saturday 14th April. Native psycho-geographer, occultist and legendary graphic novel writer Alan Moore will discuss “Magical Northampton” on Saturday 14th from 2:00-4:00pm. University of Northampton parapsychologist David Luke will discuss “The psychology of superstition” on Friday 13th evening 7:00-8:30pm, and again on Saturday 14th from 1:00-200pm.\n\n<em>Charge: Friday - £3 (inc. refreshments), Saturday - £2. Booking essential please contact Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, Guildhall Road, on 01604 838110, or at museums@northampton.ac.uk. The exhibition runs from 7th April - 20th May.</em>\n\n<!--more--> <em><strong>“Magical Northampton” – Alan Moore (Saturday 14th April, 2-4pm)</strong></em>\n\nNative psychogeographer, occultist and legendary graphic novel writer Alan Moore was “born in Northampton in 1953 and never left”.  Alan will discuss local superstitions, myths and fables recreating the magical landscape of the town and its shire.\n\n<em><strong>“You Never Know Your Luck: The psychology of superstition” – David Luke</strong></em>\n\n(Friday 13th April, 7-8:30pm, and Saturday 14th April, 2-4pm, )\n\nSuperstitions are common everywhere yet little understood. David will investigate some of the intellectual cul-de-sacs that have been made to explain this universal cultural phenomenon and examine some recent findings from research in parapsychology. David is a postgraduate researcher in parapsychology at the University of Northampton, which currently houses one of the largest groups of academic parapsychologists anywhere in the world.','Luck and Magic in Northampton','','publish','open','open','','luck-and-magic-in-northampton','','','2007-04-10 11:27:47','2007-04-10 11:27:47','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=532',0,'post','',0),(533,2,'2007-04-10 13:59:04','2007-04-10 13:59:04','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/anomaly-at-367m.jpg\" title=\"anomaly-at-367m.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/anomaly-at-367m.jpg\" title=\"anomaly-at-367m.jpg\" alt=\"anomaly-at-367m.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"278\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"349\" /></a>\n\nIs it a structure, discoloured earth, \'land art\' or one of the legendary <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_triangles\" target=\"_blank\">flying triangles</a> seen around the world for the past two decades or so?\n\nFrom <a href=\"http://www.thewhyfiles.net/triangle7.html#google\" target=\"_blank\">The Why Files:</a>\n\n<em>\"<span style=\"font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt\">There             has been some talk of the construction of a U.S. base in Western             Australia near the town of Geraldton. Take a look at Coordinates             30°30′38.44″S 115°22′56.03″E on Google             Earth and you will discover a triangular-shaped image. It doesn’t             appear to be a craft or even a building and it could, of course,             just be a filling image in a situation where the original Google             image was not useable.\"</span></em>\n\nOne poster estimates the object, if it is an object, to be 360ft across, which would  tally with guesstimates made by flying triangle witnesses on the ground, who habitually refer to them as being \"football pitch sized.\"\n\nON a sobering note, the Wikipedia entry for <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_triangles\" target=\"_blank\">flying triangles</a> notes: \" The director of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUFORC\" title=\"NUFORC\">NUFORC</a>, Peter B. Davenport, claimed that the object was a radio tower: <em>It is a radio tower. You can see the shadow of the tower at the \"8:30\" position\"</em>\n\n<!--more-->Over at the <a href=\"http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2007/apr/m06-006.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">UFO Updates</a> mailing list, one Martin Shough had this to say:\n\n<em>\"I don\'t see it as a \"triangular craft sitting on the ground\", I see it as a cleared patch of the desert about 110 m on a side, associated with some structure, possibly a tall mast with a tripod of cable stays.</em>\n\n<em>There\'s a dark line running away from the centre.</em>\n\n<em>If you go a mile or so north (staying inside the same image tile) there are some low buildings which show the shadow direction - this looks to me to be consistent with the dark line being a shadow of a tall mast.</em>\n\n<em>I think perhaps the bright spots that look like \"lights\" but are actually about 20 ft across or more are disturbed areas where the light subsoil has been exposed in excavation to anchor the mast and the stays.</em>\n\n<em>There are other patches around the area that look like quarries etc., that have the same bright colouring. That probably suggests a new installation, which would fit if it were connected to that new \"super secret spy base\" mentioned as being constructed nearby.\"</em>\n\n<em> </em>','Google Earth flying triangle?','','publish','open','open','','google-earth-flying-triangle','','','2007-04-10 13:59:04','2007-04-10 13:59:04','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=533',0,'post','',0),(536,2,'2007-04-11 08:47:01','2007-04-11 08:47:01','<a href=\"http://www.pibburns.com/cryptost.htm\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"moastamp.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/moastamp.jpg\" title=\"moastamp.jpg\" alt=\"moastamp.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"323\" vspace=\"0\" width=\"368\" /></a>\n\nThe wonderful home page of Mr Philip Burns: \"I am always happy to be able to combine two of my          hobbies – in this case,          <a href=\"http://www.pibburns.com/cryptost.htm\" target=\"_blank\">cryptozoology and stamp collecting</a>.\" Mr Burns also collects coins, meteorites, sea shells and origami.\n\nThanks Mr Gnat Ward!','Cryptophilately!','','publish','open','open','','cryptophilately','','','2007-04-11 08:47:01','2007-04-11 08:47:01','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=536',0,'post','',0),(538,2,'2007-04-12 12:48:05','2007-04-12 12:48:05','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/070409-crystal-cave.jpg\" title=\"070409-crystal-cave.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/070409-crystal-cave.jpg\" title=\"070409-crystal-cave.jpg\" alt=\"070409-crystal-cave.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nThese mind-boggling crystals, the largest 36 feet long, were found in 2000 near the town of Delicias, Chihuaha state, Mexico. The caverns are threatened with excavation by miners, but geologists are hoping to preserve them.\n\nFrom <a href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070409-crystal-cave.html\" target=\"_blank\">National Geographic</a>','Crystal colossi!','','publish','open','open','','crystal-colossi','','','2007-04-12 12:48:05','2007-04-12 12:48:05','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=538',0,'post','',0),(539,2,'2007-04-16 14:20:39','2007-04-16 14:20:39','<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/strangeattractor/461519757/\" title=\"photo sharing\"><img src=\"http://farm1.static.flickr.com/248/461519757_ceabfe3ee0_m.jpg\" style=\"border: 2px solid #000000\" height=\"257\" width=\"345\" /></a>\n\n<span style=\"font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px\"></span>Look for an interview coming soon in Fortean Times.','Jodorowsky digs SAJ3','','publish','open','open','','jodorowsky-digs-saj3','','','2007-04-16 14:20:39','2007-04-16 14:20:39','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=539',0,'post','',0),(541,2,'2007-04-17 10:50:55','2007-04-17 10:50:55','<a href=\"http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&amp;friendID=48282746\" target=\"_blank\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/aprilflyer.jpg\" title=\"aprilflyer.jpg\" alt=\"aprilflyer.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n8pm till late, 21 April. £4 entry.\n\nAt the <a href=\"http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&amp;friendid=28361052\" target=\"_blank\">Windmill</a>, 22 Blenheim Gardens, Brixton, London SW2.\n\nAlso on the bill - Comfy Moss, <a href=\"http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&amp;friendid=56951877\" target=\"_blank\">Einstellung</a>.\n\nThis should be a fantastic night - Amon (with hot new phaser) &amp; Kirchner and <a href=\"http://www.headlesshorses.co.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">Miasma</a> in one place and two more bands as a bonus. Plus, the Windmill is a great venue and the organisers are superpsychfreaks of the highest order (even if they can\'t spell our name right...).','Raagnagrok &amp; Miasma this Saturday','','publish','open','open','','raagnagrok-miasma-this-saturday','','','2007-04-17 10:50:55','2007-04-17 10:50:55','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=541',0,'post','',0),(543,2,'2007-04-19 08:54:19','2007-04-19 08:54:19','<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/3e/sets/72157600089509882/?page=2\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"voynich.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/voynich.jpg\" title=\"voynich.jpg\" alt=\"voynich.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nGrimoire, herbal, cryptographic enigma or elegant artwork – whatever the Voynich Manuscript may be, it\'s once again making small, cryptic waves. Most exciting is this fantastic Flickr set of <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/3e/sets/72157600089509882/?page=2\" target=\"_blank\">hi-res scans</a> of the 16h century tome.\n\nMeanwhile furthe evidence is emerging that it is <a href=\"http://www.cs.keele.ac.uk/km/blog/?p=18\" target=\"_blank\">probably a hoax</a>. I would ask, a hoax what? It  certainly is the <em>real</em> Voynich manuscript!\n\n<em>\"A breakthrough comes with the publication in Cryptologia this April of an article by Austrian researcher Dr Andreas Schinner, a theoretical physicist and software engineer at the Johannes Kepler University. Schinner analysed the text of the manuscript using specialist statistics capable of handling quasi-stochastic distributions, and found that the manuscript’s statistical properties were consistent with a hoax consisting of meaningless gibberish produced using Rugg’s method or a similar quasi-random method.\" </em><a href=\"http://www.cs.keele.ac.uk/km/blog/?p=18\" target=\"_blank\">more</a>','Voynich Manuscript in the news','','publish','open','open','','voynich-manuscript-in-the-news','','','2007-04-19 08:54:19','2007-04-19 08:54:19','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=543',0,'post','',0),(509,2,'2007-04-19 08:55:42','2007-04-19 08:55:42','<strong>A Discussion with a Panel of International Experts</strong>\n\n<em>Tuesday 24 April 2007 at 7.30 pm\nCity of Westminster Archives Centre,\n10 St Ann\'s Street, London SW1P 2DE </em>\n\nIn a joint meeting with the Swedenborg Society, a panel consisting of Gary Lachman talking on the hypnagogic states of Swedenborg and Blake; Richard Lines speaking on Blake, Flaxman and Tulk; and Keith Schuchard exploring the cross-over between the Moravians and the Swedenborgians.\n\nGary Lachman\'s latest book is <em>Into the Interior: Discovering Swedenborg</em> (Swedenborg Society £9.95). He was a founding member of Blondie and a recent inductee into the Rock\'n’Roll Hall of Fame.\n\nRichard Lines is Secretary of the Swedenborg Society and a frequent contributor to Swedenborgian journals.\n\nMarsha Keith Schuchard is the author of Why Mrs Blake Cried (Century £18.99).','New Perspectives on Blake and Swedenborg','','publish','open','open','','new-perspectives-on-blake-and-swedenborg','','','2007-04-19 08:55:42','2007-04-19 08:55:42','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=509',0,'post','',0),(544,2,'2007-04-24 08:12:42','2007-04-24 08:12:42','<strong>Forget robot rights, experts say, use them for public safety</strong>\n\n<em><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">James Randerson, </font><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\"><a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2064120,00.html\">The Guardian,</a></font><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\"> Tuesday   April     24, 2007</font></em>\n\nScientists have criticised a government report which advocated a debate on granting rights to super-intelligent robots in the future as \"a distraction\". They say the public should instead be consulted over the use of robots by the military and police, as carers for the elderly and as sex toys.\n<p id=\"GuardianArticleBody\">The robotics experts were commenting on a report published by the Office of Science and Innovation\'s Horizon Scanning Centre in December. The authors of Robo-rights: Utopian dream or rise of the machines? wrote: \"If artificial intelligence is achieved and widely deployed (or if they can reproduce and improve themselves) calls may be made for human rights to be extended to robots.\"</p>\n\n<script type=\"text/javascript\" language=\"javascript\">  			<!--  				/* set the domain in anticipation of the ad*/ 				if(setDomainForAds) { 					setDomainForAds(); 				};  			//--> 			</script>\n<p id=\"spacedesc_mpu_div\" class=\"MPU_display_class\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p id=\"spacedesc_mpu_iframe\"> 			 						<iframe src=\"http://ads.guardian.co.uk/html.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&amp;spacedesc=mpu&amp;site=Guardian&amp;navsection=1698&amp;section=117700&amp;country=gbr&amp;rand=4258114\" style=\"display: none\" title=\"Advertisement\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"250\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\"> &amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=\"http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;spacedesc=mpu&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;site=Guardian&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;navsection=1698&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;section=117700&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;country=gbr&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;rand=4258114\"&amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;lt;img src=\"http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;spacedesc=mpu&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;site=Guardian&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;navsection=1698&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;section=117700&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;country=gbr&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;rand=4258114\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Advertisement\"&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;gt; </iframe></p>\n<!--more-->The idea of robots becoming so smart that they acquire a conscious sense of self has fascinated science fiction writers for generations. The recent films I, Robot and Bicentennial Man, both based on books by Isaac Asimov, dealt with the question of whether intelligent robots should enjoy human rights. In the first a policeman played by Will Smith tracks a robot called Sonny that has apparently gone against its programming to commit murder. In the second Andrew the robot embarks on the quest for equal rights.But the scientists said true robot intelligence is so far in the future that it should not be treated as anything more than science fiction. \"It\'s really premature I think to discuss robot rights,\" said Owen Holland, a computer scientist and expert on machine consciousness at Essex University. \"[This report] is certainly not based on science and it is not realistic.\"\n\nNoel Sharkey, a roboticist at the University of Sheffield who is a regular contributor to the BBC\'s Robot Wars, agreed, but he said there were more immediate concerns. \"The idea of machine consciousness and rights is ... a bit of a fairy tale as far as I\'m concerned,\" he said. \"My concern is about public safety. I think we need proper, informed, public debate about where we are going with robotics at the moment. We need to tell the public about what\'s going on in robotics and ask them what they want.\"\n\nLast year the South Korean military unveiled a robot border guard built by Samsung that can shoot targets up to 500 metres away. He said these could be programmed with a shoot-to-kill policy. The US, meanwhile, is on the way to achieving its goal of replacing one third of its ground vehicles with autonomous robots.\n\n\"It would be great if all the military were robots and they could fight each other, but that\'s not going to be the case,\" he said. \"My biggest concern there is that it goes against the body bag politics. If you don\'t have body bags coming home, you can start a war much more easily.\"\n\nOnce robots become more common in warfare, he predicted they would be used more widely in policing and surveillance; so far there has been very little serious and informed public debate on these issues.\n\nOffenders could, he suggested, be monitored at home by a guard robot and the streets could be patrolled by mobile robot CCTV. They could also be used to deal with riots and other civil disturbances, he predicted. \"Imagine the miners\' strike with robots armed with water cannon.\"\n\nBy providing companionship and basic care and health monitoring for older people, robo-carers could look after the increasing numbers of elderly people. And he predicted that vibrating sex-robots would be available soon for those bored with blow-up dolls.\n\n<!--Article is not commented: 0 -->','Robot rights? Forget it!','','publish','open','open','','robot-rights-forget-it','','','2007-04-24 08:12:42','2007-04-24 08:12:42','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=544',0,'post','',0),(545,2,'2007-04-24 08:35:21','2007-04-24 08:35:21','<em>(<strong>Editor\'s note:</strong> Is it just me or is the idea of wiccans serving in the US military a little contra-intuitive? Quoth the article: \"</em>Wicca is a nature-based religion (which) encourages adherents to live in harmony with other humans and the greater Circle of Life.\" <em>Hmmm</em>.)\n\n<a href=\"http://www.techgnosis.com\"><em>Via Erik Davis</em></a>\n\n<strong>Bush Administration Agrees To Approve Wiccan Pentacle For Veteran Memorials</strong>\n\nSettlement In Americans United Lawsuit Comes After Discovery Of Pattern Of Bias Against Minority Faith The Bush administration has conceded that Wiccans are entitled to have the pentacle, the symbol of their faith, inscribed on government-issued memorial markers for deceased veterans, Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced today.\n\nThe settlement agreement, filed today with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, brings to a successful conclusion a lawsuit Americans United brought against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in November.\n\nThe litigation charged that denying a pentacle to deceased Wiccan service personnel, while granting religious symbols to those of other traditions, violated the U.S. Constitution.\n\n\"This settlement has forced the Bush Administration into acknowledging that there are no second class religions in America, including among our nation\'s veterans,\" said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. \"It is a proud day for religious freedom in the United States.\"\n\n<!--more--> Continued Lynn, \"Sadly, the refusal of the federal government to recognize the Wiccan pentacle seems to have been built on inexcusable bias, a foundation that has crumbled under the press of this litigation.\"\n\nIn the lawsuit, Americans United represented Roberta Stewart, whose husband, Sgt. Patrick Stewart, was killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2005; Karen DePolito, whose husband, Jerome Birnbaum, is a veteran of the Korean War who died last year; Circle Sanctuary,  a prominent Wiccan congregation; Jill Medicine Heart Combs, whose husband is severely ill; and the Isis Invicta Military Mission, a Wiccan and Pagan congregation serving military personnel.\n\nThe litigation was coordinated by Richard B. Katskee, AU assistant legal director with oversight by Ayesha N. Khan, AU legal director. They were assisted by other attorneys in the office, including Aram Schvey, AU litigation counsel.\n\nAmericans United\'s attorneys uncovered evidence that the VA\'s refusal to recognize the Pentacle was motivated by bias toward the Wiccan faith. President George W. Bush, when he was governor of Texas, had opposed the right of Wiccans to meet at a military base in that state. Bush\'s opinion of Wiccans was taken into consideration when making decisions on whether to approve the Pentacle.\n\n\"Many people have asked me why the federal government was so stubborn about recognizing the Wiccan symbol,\" said AU\'s Lynn. \"I did not want to believe that bias toward Wiccans was the reason, but that appears to have been the case. That\'s discouraging, but I\'m pleased we were able to put a stop to it.\"\n\nAU\'s Khan welcomed the settlement. \"It is rank hypocrisy for this administration to claim publicly that it cares about religious freedom and equality but then to quietly and deliberately discriminate against a minority faith like Wicca,\" she said. \"Until now, this administration\'s view has been that Wiccans are good enough to fight for their country, but not good enough to be acknowledged with a proper headstone.\"\n\nUnder the terms of the/ Circle Sanctuary v. Nicholson/ settlement, the federal government will recognize the right of Wiccans to have the pentacle made available as an emblem of belief for inscription on headstones, grave markers and memorial plaques. The VA will add the symbol to its list of available emblems of belief.\n\nIn addition, the VA will make markers bearing the pentacle - an encircled, intertwined five-pointed star - available to the families of Stewart, Birnbaum and others who request them.\n\nAU noted that the VA\'s list of 38 approved symbols for government gravestones, markers and plaques includes emblems for Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Hindus, Humanists and members of the Eckankar, Serbian Orthodox and United Moravian faiths.\n\nA Wiccan group first petitioned the VA for approval of the pentacle years ago. Officials at the agency dragged their feet on the request but in the interim approved the symbols of six other religions and belief systems. Among them was a Sikh emblem, which the VA approved in just a few weeks.\n\nWicca is a nature-based religion grounded in pre-Christian beliefs. Circle Sanctuary says the Wiccan religion honors the Divine as both Mother and Father, encompasses love and respect of Nature, celebrates the cycles of Sun and Moon, and encourages adherents to live in harmony with other humans and the greater Circle of Life.','US approves Wiccan war dead','','publish','open','open','','us-approves-wiccan-war-dead','','','2007-04-24 08:35:21','2007-04-24 08:35:21','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=545',0,'post','',0),(548,2,'2007-04-24 10:50:09','2007-04-24 10:50:09','<em><strong>The Polymath, or the Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman</strong></em>\n\nShot and produced by SAJ pal Anthony Matt\n\n\"Although this highly erudite fellowauthor of the sci-fi classic Dhalgren and the pornotopic Deuce memoir Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, among zillions of othersdescribes himself as the worlds most ordinary, boring, dull black faggot, Fred Barney Taylors doc will convince you otherwise in the first two minutes. Delany really does know and has done everything.\"<em> Time Out NY</em>\n\nUpcoming screenings in New York City\n\nApr 26 at 3:15, 10:0pm, AMC Loews Kips Bay\nApr 28 at 3pm, Tribeca Cinemas\nApr 29 at 10:30pm, AMC Loews Village VII\nMay 3 at 10:45pm, AMC Loews 34th St.','The Polymath: Samuel R. Delany doc','','publish','open','open','','the-polymath-samuel-r-delany-doc','','','2007-04-24 10:50:09','2007-04-24 10:50:09','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=548',0,'post','',0),(549,2,'2007-04-25 09:16:43','2007-04-25 09:16:43','<a href=\"http://www.snowbooks.com/memphisunderground/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"thumb9781905005420.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/thumb9781905005420.jpg\" title=\"thumb9781905005420.jpg\" alt=\"thumb9781905005420.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n<em>SA</em> pal and <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/SAJ3_sell.html\" target=\"_blank\">Journal Three</a> contributor Stewart Home has a <a href=\"http://www.snowbooks.com/memphisunderground/\" target=\"_blank\">new novel</a> out from the good people at Snow Books:<em><strong> </strong>Memphis Underground</em>.\n\n\"Sent to a remote Scottish community to pose as its artist-in-residence, the narrator of Stewart Home’s provocative new novel discovers an undercurrent of corruption, wife-swapping and military secrets.\n\nMeanwhile in London, a counter-narrative revolves around clubs, pubs, fights and feuds; making money, selling souls, trying to break on through.\n\nA satire on contemporary art; a hymn to classic soul music; a meditation on celebrity; a deconstruction and rewriting of modern literature; Memphis Underground is all this and more.\"\n\nYou can <a href=\"http://www.snowbooks.com/memphisunderground/memphis-underground-teaser.pdf\">download the first chapter here</a>.','Memphis Underground','','publish','open','open','','memphis-underground','','','2007-04-25 09:16:43','2007-04-25 09:16:43','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=549',0,'post','',0),(551,2,'2007-04-25 09:56:33','2007-04-25 09:56:33','<em>An extremely disturbing story about Canadian psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar, now banned forever from entering the USA after border guards googled an <a href=\"http://www.janushead.org/4-1/feldmar.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">online article</a> he\'d written about his therpeutic LSD use – 33 years ago!</em>\n\n\"When Feldmar looks back on what has happened, he concludes that he was operating out of a sense of safety that has become dated in the last six years, since 9-11. His real mistake was to write about his drug experiences and post this on the web, even in a respected journal like <a href=\"http://www.janushead.org/4-1/feldmar.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">Janus Head</a>. He acknowledges that he had not considered posting on the Internet the risk that it turned out to be. So many of his generation share his experience in experimenting with drugs, after all. He believed it was safe to communicate about the past from the depth of retrospection and that this would be a useful grain of personal wisdom to share with others. He now warns his friends to think twice before they post anything about their personal lives on the web.\n\n\"I didn\'t heed the ancient Alchemists\' dictum, \'Do, dare, and be silent,\'\" Feldmar says. \"And yet, the experience of being treated as undesirable was shocking. The helplessness, the utter uselessness of trying to be seen as I know myself and as I am known generally by those I care about and who care about me, the reduction of me to an undesirable offender, was truly frightening. I became aware of the fragility of my identity, the brittleness of a way of life.\n\n\"Memories of having been the object of the objectifying gaze crowd into my mind. I have been seen and labeled as a Jew, as a Communist, as a D. P. (Displaced Person), as a student, as a patient, a man, a Hungarian, a refugee, an émigré, an immigrant.... Now I am being seen as one of those drug users, perhaps an addict, perhaps a dealer, one can\'t be sure. In the matter of a second, I became powerless, whatever I said wasn\'t going to be taken seriously. I was labeled, sorted and disposed of. Dismissed.\"\n\nRead the full article <a href=\"http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/04/23/Feldmar/\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>\n\nThanks John Lundberg!','Do, dare, but remain silent','','publish','open','open','','do-dare-but-always-remain-silent','','','2007-04-25 09:56:33','2007-04-25 09:56:33','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=551',0,'post','',0),(546,2,'2007-04-26 09:33:30','2007-04-26 09:33:30','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/badtiming270407.jpg\" title=\"badtiming270407.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/badtiming270407.jpg\" title=\"badtiming270407.jpg\" alt=\"badtiming270407.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"300\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"400\" /></a>\n\n<strong>Disinformation vs Strange Attractor</strong>\n<em>perform National Grid &amp; Circuit Blasting </em>\n\n<span class=\"info\">Junction 4, Junction Shed Building\nClifton Road, Cambridge, CB1 7GX\nTimes: 9pm-12midnight (live sets approx 9-11)\nPrice: £5/£3 concs</span>\n\n<span class=\"info\">Advance tickets:\nJunction Box Office: 01223 511511</span>\n\n<span class=\"info\"><a href=\"http://www.junction.co.uk/\" class=\"event\">Junction website online ticketing</a></span>\n<a href=\"http://www.possible-area.org/badtiming270407.jpg\"></a>\n\n<a href=\"http://www.possible-area.org/badtiming270407.jpg\">Download flyer 					</a>\n\n<span class=\"info\"></span>\n<p class=\"event\"> The Cambridge premiere of the full \'National Grid\' show, featuring high voltage antique lab equipment making very low frequencies, as well as another chance to see Circuit Blasting, performed at Bad Timing last October in support of Pita vs Z\'EV.</p>\n<p class=\"event\"> 					<strong>Disinformation</strong> is a research, installation and sound art project, active since 1995, which pioneered the use of electromagnetic noise from live mains electricity, lightning, laboratory equipment, trains, industrial and information technology hardware, and from the sun as the raw material of LPs, CDs, DJ sets, live music performance and sound installations.</p>\n<p class=\"event\"> 					<strong>Strange Attractor</strong> is Mark Pilkington, writer, editor and publisher of Strange Attractor Journal. \'One of the most weirdly beautiful, beautifully weird magazines of the past hundred-odd years... a rare delight.\' The Independent on Sunday.Mark also DJs for Kosmische.</p>','DvSA in Cambridge this Friday','','publish','open','open','','dvsa-in-cambridge-this-friday','','','2007-04-26 09:33:30','2007-04-26 09:33:30','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=546',0,'post','',0),(552,2,'2007-04-27 08:00:21','2007-04-27 08:00:21','<em>A rare instance of a commercial pilot reporting a UFO - and over the UK to boot!</em>\n\n<em>From the <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/guernsey/6591365.stm\">BBC</a>:</em>\n\n<font size=\"2\"><strong>A commercial airline pilot has reported seeing two unidentified flying objects in the sky near Guernsey.</strong> </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">The bright yellow flat disc shapes, estimated to be twice the size of a Boeing 737, were spotted on Monday, 12 to 15 miles north east of the island. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">Captain Ray Bowyer was about to fly an Aurigny plane from Alderney to Southampton when he saw the objects through binoculars. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">Mr Bowyer said he was \"pretty shook-up\" by the sighting. <!-- E SF --> </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">\"This is not something you see every day of the week - it was pretty scary,\" he said. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">At first he thought it was the sun reflecting from greenhouses in Guernsey. He said the objects were bright like the sun, but did not hurt his eyes when he looked at them. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">The stationary objects were also observed by other aircraft and the passengers on the plane.</font>\n\n<a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/guernsey/6591365.stm\">Full story</a>','Giant UFOs over Guernsey','','publish','open','open','','giant-ufos-over-guernsey','','','2007-04-27 08:00:21','2007-04-27 08:00:21','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=552',0,'post','',0),(554,2,'2007-04-27 08:25:00','2007-04-27 08:25:00','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/116086266_26e006e179.jpg\" title=\"116086266_26e006e179.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/116086266_26e006e179.jpg\" title=\"116086266_26e006e179.jpg\" alt=\"116086266_26e006e179.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n<strong><em>Further</em></strong> updates are likely to be intermittent at best for the next three weeks, as I will be away from home. Please be advised that the <em>Strange Attractor Shoppe</em> will not be dealing with any orders during this time either.\nUntil then, MP.','Sporadic Furtherness until 21 May','','publish','open','open','','sporadic-furtherness-until-20-may','','','2007-04-27 08:25:00','2007-04-27 08:25:00','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=554',0,'post','',0),(555,2,'2007-05-02 12:06:20','2007-05-02 12:06:20','Greg Bishop on William Burroughs\' attempts to contact Whitley <em>Communion</em> Strieber\'s otherworld entities. Now there\'s a <em>Saturday Night Live</em> skit I\'d like to have seen...\n\n\"One night a couple of years ago, I was privileged to have dinner with Whitley Strieber, his wife Anne, and a few other UFO researchers. While there were hundreds of things I wanted to discuss with Strieber, one subject that really interested me was the rumor I’d heard that he had invited William S. Burroughs, one of my favorite authors, to his famous cabin in upstate New York.\n\nStrieber said that Burroughs had indeed visited his retreat in the woods, made famous in the Communion books, not once, but twice as I recall. Apparently, Burroughs wished to encounter the “visitors” firsthand. Unfortunately, nothing notable happened when he was there. Strieber told me that Burroughs was almost overly polite and very curious about the Strieber’s experiences with his “visitors.”\n\nFull post over at <a href=\"http://www.ufomystic.com/wake-up-down-there/william-burroughs-whitley-strieber-ufo\" target=\"_blank\">UFO Mystic</a>','Burroughs, Strieber and the Visitors','','publish','open','open','','burroughs-and-strieber','','','2007-05-02 12:06:20','2007-05-02 12:06:20','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=555',0,'post','',0),(556,2,'2007-05-10 05:11:40','2007-05-10 05:11:40','<em>A great piece detailing how troops in the Middle East are learning to love their robots. </em>\n\n\"Ted Bogosh recalls one day in Camp Victory, near Baghdad, when he was a Marine master sergeant running the robot repair shop.\n\nThat day, an explosive ordnance disposal technician walked through his door. The EODs, as they are known, are the people who -- with their robots -- are charged with disabling Iraq\'s most virulent scourge, the roadside improvised explosive device. In this fellow\'s hands was a small box. It contained the remains of his robot. He had named it Scooby-Doo.\n\n\"There wasn\'t a whole lot left of Scooby,\" Bogosh says. The biggest piece was its 3-by-3-by-4-inch head, containing its video camera. On the side had been painted \"its battle list, its track record. This had been a really great robot.\"\n\nThe veteran explosives technician looming over Bogosh was visibly upset. He insisted he did not want a new robot. He wanted Scooby-Doo back.\n\n\"Sometimes they get a little emotional over it,\" Bogosh says. \"Like having a pet dog. It attacks the IEDs, comes back, and attacks again. It becomes part of the team, gets a name. They get upset when anything happens to one of the team. They identify with the little robot quickly. They count on it a lot in a mission.\"\n\nThe bots even show elements of \"personality,\" Bogosh says. \"Every robot has its own little quirks. You sort of get used to them. Sometimes you get a robot that comes in and it does a little dance, or a karate chop, instead of doing what it\'s supposed to do.\" The operators \"talk about them a lot, about the robot doing its mission and getting everything accomplished.\" He remembers the time \"one of the robots happened to get its tracks destroyed while doing a mission.\" The operators \"duct-taped them back on, finished the mission and then brought the robot back\" to a hero\'s welcome.\"\n\nFull story at <a href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/05/AR2007050501009_pf.html\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post</a>','&#039;Bots kill, love &#039;bots','','publish','open','open','','bots-kill-love-bots','','','2007-05-10 05:11:40','2007-05-10 05:11:40','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=556',0,'post','',0),(557,2,'2007-05-10 13:39:18','2007-05-10 13:39:18','via Daniel Pinchbeck\n\n<a href=\"http://www.realitysandwich.com\">Reality Sandwich</a> covers topics from sustainability to shamanism, alternate\nrealities to alternative energy, remixing media to re-imagining community,\nholistic healing techniques to the promise and perils of new technologies.\nIt hopes to spark debate and engagement by offering a forum for voices\nranging from the ecologically pragmatic to the wildly visionary. Reality\nSandwich includes news, reflective essays, arts, interviews, podcasts, and\nforums. Counteracting the doom-and-gloom of the daily news, the site is a\nplatform for perspectives conveying a different vision of the\ntransformations we face.\n\nAmong the more than 40 current contributors are: Daniel Pinchbeck, Paul D.\nMiller aka DJ Spooky, Elizabeth Thompson (Director of the Buckminster Fuller\nInstitute), The Yes Men, David Rothenberg, Douglas Rushkoff, John Jay\nHarper, Kaliya Hamlin, Henri Poole, Andrew Boyd (Billionaires for Bush),\nAline Duriaud, Ken Jordan, Jonathan Phillips, Melinda Wenner, Andy Dale, and\nMichael Brownstein.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.realitysandwich.com\">Reality Sandwich\n</a>','Reality Sandwich','','publish','open','open','','reality-sandwich','','','2007-05-10 13:39:18','2007-05-10 13:39:18','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=557',0,'post','',0),(559,2,'2007-05-17 23:16:00','2007-05-17 23:16:00','<a href=\" http://theremin.org.uk/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"ho2simple.gif\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/ho2simple.gif\" title=\"ho2simple.gif\" alt=\"ho2simple.gif\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"237\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"286\" /></a><em></em>\n\n<em><strong>Hands Off 2007 - the UK Theremin Symposium</strong></em>\n\n<a href=\" http://theremin.org.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">Hands Off 2007</a> is a long weekend of talks, masterclasses, demonstrations, performances, workshops and socialisation at the end of July in the Purcell School of Music on the outskirts of London.\n\nHands Off 2007 will feature artists and speakers including Lydia Kavina, Wilco Botermans, Barbara Buchholz, Carolina Eyck, Charlie Draper, Jon Bernhardt of The Lothars, Bruce Woolley of the Radio Science Orchestra, The Beatrix Ward-Fernandez Trio, Spacedog, Chris Conway, Beat Frequency and UK Theremin manufacturers Jake Rothman (theremin.co.uk) and Tony Bassett (no1nderland.com.) The finale of the event will be debut performance of the UK League of Thereminists!\n\nLydia Kavina and Carolina Eyck will be offering private tuition to attendees.\n\nThere will also be some interesting instruments at the symposium, including Musaire\'s RCA Victor theremin (courtesy of Richard Cole of the Musical Museum,) Bruce Woolley\'s recently restored and fully functional RCA Victor theremin, Wilco Botermans and Jessica Hummel\'s Croix Sonore, and, accompanying Spacedog, Clara the Robot Thereminist, as well as musical saws and waterphones.\n\nThis is going to be one amazing weekend, Book before the end of May to enter a prize draw for a PreSonus Firepod. (With thanks to our mystery donor from the USA.)\n\n<a href=\" http://theremin.org.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">Hands Off 2007</a>','The UK Theremin Symposium','','publish','open','open','','the-uk-theremin-symposium','','','2007-05-17 23:16:00','2007-05-17 23:16:00','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=559',0,'post','',0),(560,2,'2007-05-21 19:56:45','2007-05-21 19:56:45','21st century renaissance man Doug Skinner – a regular contributor to Strange Attractor Journal &amp; Fortean Times, historian, ventriloquist, ukelele maestro, translator of alchemical manuscripts and much more besides – recently lost much of his archive of books, artworks, musical instruments and fascinating junk to a flooded New York basement. As if this wasn\'t bad enough he also lost his piano, which makes life in that city as a professional musician particularly difficult.\n\nA group of Doug\'s friends have put together a night of cabaret, performance, 3D images and home-made electronic instruments to raise money for a new piano. It promises to be a night to remember...\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic\">Carousel benefit for Doug Skinner curated by R. Sikoryak</span>\nWed, may 23 - 8 pm\ntickets: $12 - $20\nFeaturing a 3-D presentation by Gerald Marks, M. Sweeney Lawless, Sam Henderson, Todd Alcott, Brian Dewan and much more!\nBenefit tickets $12-$15, $20 for show and post performance party.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.dixonplace.org/html/directions.php\" target=\"_blank\">Directions</a>','NYC benefit for Doug Skinner','','publish','open','open','','nyc-benefit-for-doug-skinner','','','2007-05-21 19:56:45','2007-05-21 19:56:45','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=560',0,'post','',0),(561,2,'2007-05-22 09:40:33','2007-05-22 09:40:33','<em><strong>Redonda: The Island with Too Many Kings</strong></em>\n\n<em>BBC Radio 4, 22 May 2007, 11:30am - 12:00.</em>\n\nWritten by Roger Dobson and Angus Deayton\n\nAngus Deayton presents the remarkable tale of Redonda, an uninhabited rock in the Caribbean annexed by the British in the 1870s and now laid claim to by as many as nine competing Kings from the eccentric circles of Bohemian England.\n\n1947 saw the coronation of poet John Gawsworth as King Juan I, who created his own Redondan peerage including Dylan Thomas, Vincent Price, Lawrence and Gerald Durrell, Joan Greenwood, J. B. Priestley, Dirk Bogarde and countless others whose titles were often exchanged for credit at the local pub.\n\nThe programme evokes the strange history of an imaginary kingdom set on a real island, and includes contributions from A.S. Byatt, Fay Weldon, Arthur Freeman, Oliver Cox and Brian Stableford. There will also be interviews with kings past and present, including Jon Wynne-Tyson and King Robert the Bald.','Radio Redonda','','publish','open','open','','radio-redonda','','','2007-05-22 09:40:33','2007-05-22 09:40:33','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=561',0,'post','',0),(562,2,'2007-05-23 10:44:34','2007-05-23 10:44:34','A fine tale about youthful exploration and the joys of forbidden knowledge, by the artist and occult scholar Joel Biroco:\n\n<em>When I was at university there was a vibrant underground interest in locks        and keys. In my first year I caught a whiff of it hanging around the student        newspaper office, which published my cartoons. I longed to find someone        who could teach me this knowledge. One day I was approached by someone who        worked on the newspaper, who I knew vaguely, a boring man who had failed        his final year exams and was just killing time before getting a job. He        held in front of my eyes a needle file he took from his inside jacket pocket.</em>\n\n<em>\'Do you know what this is?\' he said.</em>\n\n<em>\'A file.\'</em>\n\n<em>\'A needle file. Get yourself a set and I\'ll come round and show you a few        things.\'</em>\n\nRead it <a href=\"http://www.biroco.com/arthur.htm\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.\n\nThanks Gavin Semple!','Arthur &amp; Wally','','publish','open','open','','arthur-wally','','','2007-05-23 10:44:34','2007-05-23 10:44:34','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=562',0,'post','',0),(563,2,'2007-05-24 09:03:34','2007-05-24 09:03:34','<a href=\"http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page2022.html?theme=light\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"tahoe_ufo.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/tahoe_ufo.jpg\" title=\"tahoe_ufo.jpg\" alt=\"tahoe_ufo.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" /></a><a href=\"http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page2022.html?theme=light\" target=\"_blank\">Set one</a><a href=\"http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1252&amp;category=Environment\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"capitola_ufo.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/capitola_ufo.jpg\" title=\"capitola_ufo.jpg\" alt=\"capitola_ufo.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" /></a><a href=\"http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1252&amp;category=Environment\" target=\"_blank\">Set two</a>\n\nFor the past couple of weeks, these images of what purports to be some kind of aircraft have been generating a lot of interest in the online UFO community. And judging from a number of personal emails I\'ve received, are now spreading out into the wider world.\n\nI\'m 90% sure that these don\'t even constitute photographs of a physical object and are a CGI creation, perhaps well-placed viral marketing for an upcoming video game or film (<em>Transformers</em> has been suggested). I suppose by even running them here I\'m contributing to the virus\' spread. Ah well.\n\nWhile I\'m no photographic expert, something about the images just doesn\'t \'feel\' right – partly it\'s a simple matter of \'too good to be true\', partly the light reflecting off the craft\'s surface is too cold for the surrounding background.\n\nAnyway, I\'ll cease my speculation and defer to someone who seems to know what they\'re talking about - this statement from Mark McCandlish came to me via the physicist and raconteur Jack Sarfatti:\n\n<!--more--> <em>From Mark McCandlish:  </em>\n\n\"On the \"alien probe\" photos, I agree;  this looks like some very imaginative model and photoshop work.  While I was working for General Dynamics and the special effects company Introvision back in the early 1980\'s, I had occasion to work in photo retouching, matte painting, as well as create scale models that were photographed with the intention of making them look like actual, full-sized weapons systems.  (Among other things).  Christopher Ross, the brother of my college room mate, worked as a model builder for Industrial Light &amp; Magic. I saw the original models for the Enterprise starship for the second Star Trek feature film as it neared completion along with its scaled \"space dock\".  I have seen the best people in the motion picture industry at work, have visited their studios on multiple occasions, and closely examined their model work.  This is amateurish by comparison.  Heck, it even uses the exact same tone of flat, gray gelcoat that model builders use in their fiberglass mockups!  The uniformity of the exterior color is one clue to the fact that this is a model.  There are no seams, slight variations in surface color or texture as one would expect from a thirty to sixty foot craft constructed of multiple panels to develop the surface.  I believe that it is probably no larger than six to seven feet in its longest dimension.  Size would have to be limited to be able to string it up with 90 pound fishing line! LOL\n\nAnother give-away is the brightly illuminated underside, while retaining a nice, perfectly exposed sky.\n\nI have spent twenty seven years photographing military aircraft, (both from the back seat of F-15\'s, F-4\'s, F-16\'s, and the A-7K and on the ramp) as well as painting illustrations of them, and I can tell you that a large vehicle, (as this \"craft\" alleges to be) would have had its ventral surface (belly) completely blacked out in shadow in order to have such a perfectly exposed sky while hovering above treetop level.  Conversely, had the underside been so beautifully exposed, the much brighter level of light from the sky should have been washed out and almost white.  But in order to satisfy the light exposure as shown, one COULD accomplish that by having a six foot model photographed from about six feet off the ground in broad daylight.  With the secondary lightsource of the ground in such proximity, one might actually be able to balance the two lightsources:  the sky and the ventral surface illuminated by reflected light from the ground.\n\nThis all says \"MODEL\" loud and clear to me.  In support of this theory, note that there is a slight warmth to the ventral lighting suggesting a nearby reflected lightsource, such as the tan-colored, dried grass seen elsewhere in the photos.   That sort of reflected light could never balance with nor overpower the lightsource of the sky from thirty to seventy feet off the ground passing over the trees.\n\nAnd to have another guy jump in with an additional set of shots of a remarkably similar craft only says \"conspiracy\" in my book.  Note the vegetation.  It\'s the same in both sets even though the photos are supposed to have been taken miles apart on different days.  Bottom line: I SAY THEY\'RE FAKE!\"\n\nSo there you go!','&#039;UFO&#039; images getting webtime','','publish','open','open','','dubious-ufo-images-getting-webtime','','','2007-05-24 09:03:34','2007-05-24 09:03:34','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=563',0,'post','',0),(567,2,'2007-05-26 09:06:32','2007-05-26 09:06:32','<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWkGTJEK0Mc\" title=\"lunarcity.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/lunarcity.jpg\" title=\"lunarcity.jpg\" alt=\"lunarcity.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nThis one\'s been around for a month or so, but it certainly warrants mention here. It\'s supposed to show the remains of ancient alien structures on our Moon, filmed by Neil Armstrong on mankind\'s first visit there in 1969. Perhaps this is why <a href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013002065.html\" target=\"_blank\">NASA \'lost\' the original footage</a> from this trip.\n\nWhatever  it actually shows, the film is quite beautiful, like a German expressionist  cross between HP Lovecraft\'s <em>At the Mountains of Madness</em> and HG Wells\' <em>First Men in the Moon</em>. In the above shot, the overwhelmed astronaut just hangs there aghast at the wonders that surround him.\n\nTo my mind the final shots are a little disappointing – they look a little too much like a front room window in an adobe-style New Mexico home! – but this is great stuff. Allegedly there are ten more minutes of it out there... let\'s see the rest.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWkGTJEK0Mc\" target=\"_blank\">Full film over at Youtube </a>','Beautiful &#039;lunar city&#039; film','','publish','open','open','','beautiful-lunar-city-film','','','2007-05-26 09:06:32','2007-05-26 09:06:32','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=567',0,'post','',0),(569,2,'2007-05-29 10:36:53','2007-05-29 10:36:53','<a href=\"http://www.newyorkskywatch.com/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"climate.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/climate.jpg\" title=\"climate.jpg\" alt=\"climate.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nNew York radio journalist Geoff Brady has  put together a half-hour <a href=\"http://www.newyorkskywatch.com/\" target=\"_blank\">audio documentary</a> exploring the history and practice of weather modification...\n\n<em>Superpower militaries including the US have quietly made advances with the technology to control weather, perfecting ways to exploit the powerful energies of weather for tactical advantages in war...</em>\n\nPhysicist Ken Caldeira, senior scientist with the <a href=\"http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/CIWDGE/CIWDGE.HTML\">Department of Global Ecology Carnegie Institution of Washington at Stanford University</a>: \"I used to work at Lawrence Livermore Lab where we all participated in a meeting. Where we sat around the room thinking of ways to manipulate geophysical systems to use it as a weapon. That means could you somehow interfere with the earth’s functioning in a way that you could use it as a military weapon. Could you change climate, what could you do to manipulate the earth’s physical system.\"\n\nMore info and downloadable podast <a href=\"http://www.newyorkskywatch.com/\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.','The Climate Engineers','','publish','open','open','','the-climate-engineers','','','2007-05-29 10:36:53','2007-05-29 10:36:53','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=569',0,'post','',0),(570,2,'2007-05-31 07:59:09','2007-05-31 07:59:09','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/18791.jpg\" title=\"18791.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/18791.jpg\" title=\"18791.jpg\" alt=\"18791.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>It\'s been around a few months now, but this Google Earth <a href=\"http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/googleEarth/\" target=\"_blank\">plugin</a> from Julian Cope and Holy McGrail\'s <a href=\"http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Modern Antiquarian</a> web site really is the ur-tool for the European megalith head. Load it up and you\'ll see a continent literally swarming with standing stones, circles, rock art and other curiosities.\n\nJust click on an item on the map and you\'re taken straight through to its page on the TMA site. A favourite discovery for me was this, the \"<a href=\"http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/4611/devils_hoofprint.html\" target=\"_blank\">Devil\'s Hoofprint</a>\" from Bishop\'s Stortford: \"The Devil\'s Hoofprint is carved in clunch (a soft chalky rock) and located in the south porch of St Michael\'s, Bishops Stortford... Like other churches dedicated to the warrior saint, St Michael\'s is a hilltop church built on a pagan site. The church guide is coy about the carving and describes it as \"possibly pagan\". Other views maintain that it is the result of someone sharpening their arrows in the porch!\"\n\nHats off then to the MA crew, and thanks to Mr Leee Nite for the tip off!\n\n<a href=\"http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/\" target=\"_blank\">The Modern Antiquarian</a> / <a href=\"http://earth.google.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Google Earth </a>','Google Antiquarian','','publish','open','open','','google-antiquarian','','','2007-05-31 07:59:09','2007-05-31 07:59:09','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=570',0,'post','',0),(572,2,'2007-06-04 09:04:00','2007-06-04 09:04:00','<a href=\"http://www.rationalrec.org.uk\" target=\"_blank\">Rational Rec</a> presents THE OULIPO NIGHT\nTuesday 5 June 2007\nOrganised by Andrew Infanti and Matthew Shlomowitz\n\nBethnal Green Working Men\'s Club\n44 Pollard Row, London E2, £5 on the door\nDoors open at 8pm, first performance 8.30pm\n\nThe OuLiPo - an acronym that translates as \"workshop of potential literature\" - was a post-war French literary movement that included Georges Perec, Italo Calvino and Raymond Queneau. The tenet of the OuLiPo is to create literature via constraints such as palindromes and lipograms.\n\nThe event Features:\n\n-- An OuTraPo performance (Workshop for Potential Tragi-comedy)\n\n-- Interview with Stanley Chapman, the first exponent of OuLiPo in the UK in the 1960\'s\n\n-- OuLiPo like music pieces by Tom Johnson and Damien Ricketson\n\n-- Oulipean activities and games for the audience\n\n-- \"Documentary Saga of the OuLiPo\" - a new multimedia work by Rees Archibald, Andrew Infanti and Matthew Shlomwowitz that promises to explain everything you need to know about OuLiPo.\n\n-- Book stalls by Bookworks, Artwords Bookshop, Strange Attractor and Dalkey Archive\n\n<a href=\"http://www.rationalrec.org.uk\" target=\"_blank\"><!--more-->Rational Rec</a> is a monthly inter-art social occasion based at Bethnal Green Working Men\'s Club, incorporating sound, music, text, performance, film and dessert into a damn good night out.  Come along and be artistically, intellectually and alcoholically stimulated.\n\nStanley Chapman (b. 1925) was a British architect, designer, translator and writer. He became a member of Oulipo in 1960, founded the Outrapo, and is also a member of the French Collège de \'Pataphysique, and the London Institute of \'Pataphysics and the Lewis Carroll Society. His English translation of Hundred Thousand Billion Poems was received with \"admiring stupefaction\" by Raymond Queneau.','Strange Attractor at Rational Rec','','publish','open','open','','strange-attractor-at-rational-rec','','','2007-06-04 09:04:00','2007-06-04 09:04:00','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=572',0,'post','',0),(573,2,'2007-06-04 10:22:42','2007-06-04 10:22:42','<a href=\"http://www.ghostbox.co.uk/boxes.htm\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"cd-seancefront180.gif\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/cd-seancefront180.gif\" title=\"cd-seancefront180.gif\" alt=\"cd-seancefront180.gif\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nSA friend and collaborator Drew Mulholland, aka Mount Vernon Arts Lab, has just had his classic album Seance at Hobs Lane reissued on the <a href=\"http://www.ghostbox.co.uk/seance.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Ghost Box</a> label - there could be no more perfect home for it.  With collaborations from members of Add N to X,  Belle &amp; Sebastian, Coil and others, Seance exists in world whose national anthem was written by Tristram Cary and Prof Bernard Quatermass set the schools curriculum.\n\nFrom their web site: \"Mount Vernon Arts Lab join Ghost Box, after years of  						experimentation in geomancy, psychogeography and ancient  						British Electronics. Visceral sounds that immerse the  						listener in a world of deserted tube stations, 18th  						century secret societies, time haunted  						vaults beneath Neolithic barrows, and haunted Scottish  						pub cellars.\"\n\nYou can see buy the album online direct from <a href=\"http://www.ghostbox.co.uk/seance.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Ghost Box</a>, and we also intend to stock it in the Shoppe soon. Meanwhile Drew\'s <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/shop_mvat.html\" target=\"_blank\">Musick that Destroys Itself</a> is still available. His \'Bent Sinister by Sound\' album was released in an ultra limited edition on our own Futher Sounds label last year and is now out of print.\n\nLook out for a new Further Sounds release from another special guest later this year.','Seance at Hobs Lane reissued','','publish','open','open','','seance-at-hobs-lane-reissued','','','2007-06-04 10:22:42','2007-06-04 10:22:42','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=573',0,'post','',0),(575,2,'2007-06-05 09:15:13','2007-06-05 09:15:13','<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/al_robertson/sets/72157600107150337/\" title=\"rgkwindill.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/rgkwindill.jpg\" title=\"rgkwindill.jpg\" alt=\"rgkwindill.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"339\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"451\" /></a>\n<sub>[photo by Al Robertson, from our last WIndmill appearance. Click for more.]</sub>\n\nFollowing a well-deserved self-imposed exile, Solomon Kirchener and Otto Amon, aka sitar and synth duo <a href=\"http://www.raagnagrok.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">Raagnagrok</a>, return for two gigs in deepest South London this week.\n\n<strong>Thursday 7 June at Klinker South</strong>: The Ivy House, 40 Stuart Road, London SE15 3BA. Action from 8pm, entry £5/£3. Also on the bill are Sheffield\'s finest astralistas, <a href=\"http://www.thetajallivortex.com/\" target=\"_blank\">The Tajalli Vortex</a>.\n\n<strong>Friday 8 June at The Windmill</strong>, 22 Blenheim Gardens,          Brixton, London SW2 5BZ. A <a href=\"http://www.resonancefm.com\" target=\"_blank\">Resonance FM</a> benefit gig with, amongst others, the amazing <a href=\"http://www.manfromuranus.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Man From Uranus</a>! Action from 7.30pm. Entry about £5.\n\nSee you down where you belong.','Raagnagrok- &#039;Hit the South&#039;','','publish','open','open','','raagnagrok-hit-the-south','','','2007-06-05 09:15:13','2007-06-05 09:15:13','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=575',0,'post','',0),(577,2,'2007-06-05 10:52:17','2007-06-05 10:52:17','Greg Taylor of the excellent Daily Grail has <a href=\"http://dailygrail.com/node/4765\" target=\"_blank\">interviewed</a> SA pal Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern of the <a href=\"http://www.ufomystic.com/\" target=\"_blank\">UFO Mystic</a> blogzine. It\'s a great piece, full of fresh insights into all manner of anomalous phenomena and well worth a read whether or not UFOs are of interest to you.\n\n<em><strong>GB: </strong>The single greatest influence on my thinking was <a href=\"http://www.deanradin.com/\">Dr. Dean Radin</a>, the parapsychologist who I was privileged to meet and interview in 1996. After a five hour interview in which he carefully explained his view of reality, causality, and the illusion of time until he was sure I \"got it,\" I felt that his view at least partially explained some aspects of the UFO enigma. Although we didn’t talk about UFOs as such, he explained that his research seemed to show that time is only a construct invented by humans to make sense of events that were of concern to our physical bodies in a four dimensional reality. Since words are also an artificial construct, it is difficult to use them to describe something that we cannot perceive with our senses and enculturated reality. I took this advice a step further to start to understand UFO events as something that seems to \"pop in\" to our perception occasionally from this non-time/non-space area, where everything and every-time exists, has always existed, and will always exist.</em>\n\nRead it here <a href=\"http://dailygrail.com/node/4765\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>','UFO Mystics interviewed','','publish','open','open','','ufo-mystics-interviewed','','','2007-06-05 10:52:17','2007-06-05 10:52:17','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=577',0,'post','',0),(578,2,'2007-06-06 08:21:53','2007-06-06 08:21:53','<font size=\"2\">Well, it\'s a convenient way to ditch one of the uglier aspects of an already ugly campaign, promoting an ugly event... 		 			</font>\n\nFrom the<a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6724245.stm\" target=\"_blank\"> BBC</a> site:\n\n<em><font size=\"2\"><strong>A segment of animated footage promoting the 2012 Olympics has been removed from the organisers\' website after fears it could trigger epileptic seizures.</strong> </font></em>\n\n<em><font size=\"2\">Prof Graham Harding, who developed the test used to measure photo-sensitivity levels in TV material, said it should not be broadcast again. Charity Epilepsy Action said it had received calls from people who had suffered fits after seeing it. Organiser London 2012 said it will re-edit the film. <!-- E SF --> </font></em>\n\n<em><font size=\"2\">Emphasising that it was not the logo itself which was the focus of worries, [a spokeperson] said: \"This concerns a short piece of animation which we used as part of the logo launch event and not the actual logo.\" </font></em>\n\n<em><font size=\"2\">She said the section of footage concerned showed a \"diver diving into a pool which had a multi-colour ripple effect\". </font></em>\n\n<font size=\"2\"><em>The spokeswoman said: \"We are taking it very seriously and are looking into it as a matter of urgency.\"</em> </font>\n\nThis all brings back fond memories of the panic surrounding a segment of the <em>Pokemon</em>  cartoon series which, when shown in Japan, was said to have triggered seizures in thousands of children. From <em>Fortean Times</em>:\n\n\"Although widely regarded as a simple case of mass epileptic seizures, the 1997 Pokémon panic is clearly much more complex. With very few exceptions, much of the media overlooked the possibility of mass hysteria, even though so many possibly contributing factors were visible. Several researchers have noted that episodes of mass hysteria are probably far more common than we currently think. The Pokémon incident should remind us all that such episodes may occur right under our noses, and that many strange events that do not, on the face of it, appear to be mass hysteria may turn out to be exactly that.\"\n\nThe full story over at <a href=\"http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/266/pokemon_panic.html\" target=\"_blank\">Fortean Times</a> and here\'s the guilty<a href=\"http://www.dragonsplace.co.uk/images/pokeframesprove.swf\" target=\"_blank\"> segment</a> as a flash animation (a Youtube vidseo has apparently been pulled by concerned parties).\n\nThanks Mike Jay!','2012 Olympic logo in epilepsy panic','','publish','open','open','','2012-olympic-logo-in-epilepsy-panic','','','2007-06-06 08:21:53','2007-06-06 08:21:53','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=578',0,'post','',0),(579,2,'2007-06-06 08:32:21','2007-06-06 08:32:21','<em>       Police put more officers on beat to tackle \'full-moon violence\'</em><span class=\"starrating\"></span>\nBy Tom Pugh, <a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2617460.ece\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent</a>, 06 June 2007\n\n<p id=\"bodyCopyContent\">Extra police will be deployed on the streets of Brighton during full moons after officers linked levels of violent crime and the lunar cycle.</p>\nSussex Police said research by the force into factors which influenced people\'s behaviour found a correlation between violent and unruly incidents and full moons, with a rise in aggressive behaviour in pubs and nightclubs in the south coast resort. A Sussex Police spokeswoman said more officers would be assigned to street patrol duties during full moons over the summer months.\n\nInspector Andy Parr said: \"I compared a graph of full moons and a graph of last year\'s violent crimes and there is a trend. People tend to be more aggressive.\"\n\nThe link between full moons and extremes in human behaviour has been identified in past scientific studies. Professor Michal Zimecki, of the Polish Academy of Sciences, analysed dozens of studies that take lunar activity into account, and argued that a full moon could affect criminal activity and health. One such piece of research, a three-month psychological study of 1,200 inmates at Armley jail, Leeds, in 1998, found a marked increase in violent incidents during the first and last quarter of each lunar month.\n\nBut despite the wealth of evidence suggesting a link, no one has been able to explain it. Some believe that as humans are mostly made of water, the lunar gravity pulls us just as it does the sea.','Moon patrol!','','publish','open','open','','moon-patrol','','','2007-06-06 08:32:21','2007-06-06 08:32:21','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=579',0,'post','',0),(581,2,'2007-06-06 11:00:11','2007-06-06 11:00:11','It\'s a colossal earwig!\n\n<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/n060476a.jpg\" title=\"n060476a.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/n060476a.jpg\" title=\"n060476a.jpg\" alt=\"n060476a.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nFrom <a href=\"http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=f41cf10e-a9bc-497a-81c0-65860314cb2c&amp;k=78707\" target=\"_blank\">Canada.com</a>\n\nST. JOHN\'S, N.L. (CP) - Marine scientists in Canada and abroad are puzzled by bizarre photographs that appear to show the skeleton of a large mammal jutting out of an iceberg that recently drifted past Newfoundland\'s east coast.\n\nThe six pictures show what looks like a brown rib cage and spinal column, slightly bent, sticking out of a crust of ice.\n\nBut researchers throughout Canada, Greenland and Norway are unable to determine the origin of the skeleton, said Garry Stenson, a marine mammal scientist with the federal Fisheries Department.\n\n\"It\'s definitely unusual,\" Stenson said Monday. \"It\'s not something that I\'ve encountered before.\"\n\nFull <a href=\"http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=f41cf10e-a9bc-497a-81c0-65860314cb2c&amp;k=78707\" target=\"_blank\">story</a>','Mystery skeleton in Newfoundland iceberg','','publish','open','open','','mystery-skeleton-in-newfoundland-iceberg','','','2007-06-06 11:00:11','2007-06-06 11:00:11','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=581',0,'post','',0),(582,2,'2007-06-08 08:51:44','2007-06-08 08:51:44','<em>OK, it\'s hardly Wardenclyffe, but it\'s a start. The article does actualy mention <a href=\"http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/78/nikola_tesla.html\" target=\"_blank\">Nikola Tesla</a></em> towards the end.\n\nFrom the <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6725955.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>:  <font size=\"2\">\"A clean-cut vision of a future freed from the rat\'s nest of cables needed to power today\'s electronic gadgets has come one step closer to reality. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">US researchers have successfully tested an experimental system to deliver power to devices without the need for wires. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">The setup, reported in the journal Science, made a 60W light bulb glow from a distance of 2m (7ft). </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">WiTricity, as it is called, exploits simple physics and could be adapted to charge other devices such as laptops. <!-- E SF --> </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">\"There is nothing in this that would have prevented them inventing this 10 or even 20 years ago,\" commented Professor Sir John Pendry of Imperial College London who has seen the experiments. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">\"But I think there is an issue of time. In the last few years we have seen an exponential growth of mobile devices that need power. The power cable is the last wire to be cut in a wireless connection.\"</font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">\n<p class=\"mva\">\n<p class=\"bull\">How it works:</p>\n<p class=\"bull\"><strong>1)</strong> Power from mains to antenna, which is made of copper</p>\n<p class=\"bull\"><strong>2)</strong> Antenna resonates at a frequency of about 10MHz, producing electromagnetic waves</p>\n<p class=\"bull\"><strong>3)</strong> \'Tails\' of energy from antenna \'tunnel\' up to 2m (6.5ft)</p>\n<p class=\"bull\"><strong>4)</strong> Electricity picked up by laptop\'s antenna, which must also be resonating at 10MHz. Energy used to re-charge device</p>\n<p class=\"bull\"><strong>5) </strong>Energy not transferred to laptop re-absorbed by source antenna. People/other objects not affected as not resonating at 10MHz</p>\n\n\n</font>','Wireless Power - only 100 years late!','','publish','open','open','','wireless-power-only-100-years-late','','','2007-06-08 08:51:44','2007-06-08 08:51:44','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=582',0,'post','',0),(584,2,'2007-06-08 10:09:45','2007-06-08 10:09:45','<a href=\"http://www.wired.com/gaming/hardware/multimedia/2007/06/gallery_soviet_games?slide=21&amp;slideView=9\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"21.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/21.jpg\" title=\"21.jpg\" alt=\"21.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"305\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"406\" /></a>\n\nGreat <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/gaming/hardware/multimedia/2007/06/gallery_soviet_games\" target=\"_blank\">photo set,</a> and a brief <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/gaming/hardware/news/2007/06/soviet_games\" target=\"_blank\">article</a>, at <em>Wired</em>. Two Russian geeks are rescuing old arcade games from the scrap heap and putting them on display in a bomb shelter.\n\nI don\'t know how representative a sample this is, but it\'s striking how, compared to a Western European or US arcade, so few of the games involve killing and violence, especially as they were built by the military – for \"entertainment and active leisure, as well as the development of visual-estimation abilities.\"\n\nThey do have a Duck Hunt though...','Lost arcade games of the Soviet era','','publish','open','open','','lost-arcade-games-of-the-soviet-era','','','2007-06-08 10:09:45','2007-06-08 10:09:45','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=584',0,'post','',0),(586,2,'2007-06-11 10:08:44','2007-06-11 10:08:44','<h5> <a href=\"http://www.thehorsehospital.com/archives/000485.html#more\" title=\"david_j_smithsm-thumb.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/david_j_smithsm-thumb.jpg\" title=\"david_j_smithsm-thumb.jpg\" alt=\"david_j_smithsm-thumb.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"1\" /></a> <a href=\"http://www.thehorsehospital.com/archives/000485.html#more\" title=\"david_j_smithsm-thumb.jpg\">[click for more images]</a></h5>\n<strong>DAVID J SMITH : THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ISLAND</strong>\n\nExhibition runs June 18th - July 7th 2007 (Mon - Sat 12-6pm) at\n<a href=\"http://www.thehorsehospital.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Horse Hospital </a>\n\n<em>Private View: Saturday June 16th 7:30pm</em>\nwith Exclusive live soundtrack performed by <strong>The Stargazers Assistant</strong>\n\n<em>\"We find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end\"</em>\nJames Hutton, Theory of the Earth, 1795\n\nDeep underground, life moves slowly.\n\nOnce teeming with insect and amphibian life, the great swamps of the Carboniferous era were buried under the weight of 300 million years, eventually returning to the surface as coal. In this new form they would be consumed in fires and furnaces for three thousand years before blackening the lungs of Empire and driving the Industrial Revolution. It was then that James Hutton, the first geologist, began to consider the depths beneath our feet and the unimaginable abyss of time that they represent.\n\nThis is the world that David Smith\'s imposing, unsettling, yet somehow sympathetic sculptures inhabit. Entering their domain, we are submerged in a fully-formed environment that is very much alive - not life frozen in time, but life moving so slowly, so imperceptibly, that, were we to watch and wait for years, even centuries, we might never see it in motion. This is the forge of the Earth. This is deep time.\n\n<!--more--><a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/djs4.jpg\" title=\"djs4.jpg\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/djs4.jpg\" title=\"djs4.jpg\" alt=\"djs4.jpg\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></p>\n\n</a>\n\nWhether we read his creations as extrusions from the id, some entirely alien life form, Northern European kobolds or perhaps, given Smith\'s native lands, Welsh coblynau, these beings embody lives devoted to and consumed by eternal, elemental labour. Such notions reflect the two years of work sunk into bringing his visions to life; life that emerged slowly, painstakingly, out of wax, coal, copper and lead.\n\nOn considering Smith\'s visual style, as well as his own stated influences - Edward Kienholz, Malcolm Poynter, Jan Svankmajer - we might also pick up echoes of HR Giger, Rene Laloux\'s La Planete Sauvage, Jean Giroud (aka Moebius), Philippe Druillet and other contributors to the pages of Metal Hurlant magazine; fitting enough given Smith\'s parallel existence as a rock musician.\n\nThe current work is Smith\'s first to combine both visual and musical disciplines: for the piece he has composed an original soundtrack in collaboration with longstanding musical cohort Daniel O\'Sullivan and audio engineer Antti Uusumaki.\n\nWelcome, then to The Other Side of The Island. It may feel like an alien land, but really, it\'s not so very far from home.\n\n<a title=\"more\" name=\"more\"></a><strong> About the artist </strong>\nBorn in Stourbridge, 27th August 1970, David J Smith studied fine art between 1986 and 1988 before gaining his BA at Cardiff in 1991. He moved to London in 1994 and concentrated on musical projects, including the avant rock group Guapo, which he co-founded.\n\nAlthough he has had no formal musical training, Smith has been playing drums since 1986 and is regarded as one of the UK\'s most spectacular and imaginative percussionists. As well as Guapo, he is a member of Miasma and the Carousel of Headless Horses and the Amal Gamal Ensemble.','The Other Side of the Island','','publish','open','open','','the-other-side-of-the-island-launch','','','2007-06-11 10:08:44','2007-06-11 10:08:44','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=586',0,'post','',0),(588,2,'2007-06-13 08:10:09','2007-06-13 08:10:09','<strong>Air force looked at spray to turn enemy gay</strong>\n\nDan Glaister, 13 June, 2007 <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/\">The Guardian</a>\n\n<font face=\"Geneva,Arial,sans-serif\" size=\"2\">           </font>Make love not war may be the enduring slogan of anti-war campaigners but in 1994 the US air force produced its own variation on the philosophy.\n<p id=\"GuardianArticleBody\">What if it could release a chemical that would make an opposing army\'s soldiers think more about the physical attributes of their comrades in arms than the threat posed by the enemy? And thus the \"gay bomb\" was born. Far from being the product of conspiracy theorists, documents released to a biological weapons watchdog in Austin, Texas confirm that the US military did investigate the idea. It was included in a CD-Rom produced by the US military in 2000 and submitted to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002. The documents show that $7.5m was requested to develop the weapon.\n\n<!--more--> The documents released to the Sunshine Project under a freedom of information request titled \"Harassing, Annoying and Bad Guy Identifying Chemicals\" includes several proposals for the military use of chemicals that could be sprayed on to enemy positions. \"One distasteful but non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behaviour,\" says the proposal from the Air Force\'s Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.\n\nThe Pentagon did not deny that the proposal had been made: \"The department of defence is committed to identifying, researching and developing non-lethal weapons that will support our men and women in uniform.\"\n\nAaron Belkin, director of the University of California\'s Michael Palm Centre, which studies the issue of gays in the military, said: \"The idea that you could submit someone to some aerosol spray and change their sexual behaviour is ludicrous.\"','USAF considered gayspray','','publish','open','open','','usaf-considered-gayspray','','','2007-06-13 08:10:09','2007-06-13 08:10:09','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=588',0,'post','',0),(589,2,'2007-06-14 08:34:49','2007-06-14 08:34:49','<strong>       The wet planet: There <u>was</u> life on Mars (probably)</strong>                       <span class=\"starrating\">       </span>\n\n<em> Scientists now say that an ocean several miles deep once covered a third of the surface of the planet, enough water to support the origin and evolution of life. The red planet, they said, had once been a deep blue, just like Earth.</em>\nBy Steve Connor; <a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2656032.ece\" target=\"_blank\">Independent</a>: 14 June 2007\n\nFor generations, people have been fascinated by the idea of life on Mars. It began in earnest in the late 19th century when an Italian astronomer called Giovanni Schiaparelli peered through his telescope and saw long, straight lines etched on to the surface of the red planet. He called them \"canali\" and others quickly became convinced that an alien civilisation had built a sophisticated network of canals, perhaps to move water from one region of Mars to another...\n\nYesterday, American and Canadian scientists reignited the debate over whether there was ever a giant ocean of liquid water on Mars. According to a study published in the journal Nature, an ocean several miles deep once covered a third of the surface of Mars - easily enough water to support the origin and evolution of life. The red planet, they said, had once been a deep blue, just like Earth.\n\n<!--more-->In 1897, H G Wells published The War of the Worlds, which describes an invasion of Martians covetous of Earth\'s rich natural resources. When Orson Welles broadcast his famous radio adaptation of the book in 1938, mass panic ensued when thousands of Americans truly believed that the Earth was under attack by Martians.\n\nThe true nature of Mars, however, emerged in the late 1960s when the Mariner space missions paid the first visits to Earth\'s smaller neighbour. Mars turned out to be heavily cratered, dotted with extinct volcanoes, colder than Antarctica and, crucially, drier than the Atacama desert - the driest place on Earth.\n\nMars was a dead place, a desiccated wasteland sterilised by harsh solar radiation. Anything approximating to a biological molecule on the Martian surface would be instantly irradiated. There were certainly no canals, no water and quite evidently no life - or, at least, not life as we know it...\n\nWhen the Viking spacecraft visited Mars in the 1970s they confirmed this view of a lifeless planet. Viking images depicted a bitterly cold, dry landscape of rock and dust, but they also showed another feature that began a fresh debate over whether Mars was always such a dead planet. They detected what seemed to be the shorelines of ancient oceans - and where there was liquid water, there was a strong possibility of life.\n\nYesterday, American and Canadian scientists reignited the debate over whether there was ever a giant ocean of liquid water on Mars. According to a study published in the journal Nature, an ocean several miles deep once covered a third of the surface of Mars - easily enough water to support the origin and evolution of life. The red planet, they said, had once been a deep blue, just like Earth.\n\nThe Viking probes of 25 years ago detected two possible ancient shorelines near the poles of the planet. The shorelines stretched for thousands of kilometres around what looked like dried-up ocean basins. Each shoreline had the distinctive \"edges\" separating the rugged, weathered landscape of dry land from the smoother, sediment-filled seabed.\n\nThe similarity to features seen on Earth were obvious for all to see. The Viking probes had mapped two Martian shorelines - one called Arabia and the other named Deuteronilus - and scientists dated them to be between two and four billion years old.\n\nHowever, a major problem soon emerged. In the 1990s, Nasa\'s Mars Global Surveyor mapped the topography of Mars to a resolution of 300 metres and it quickly became apparent that the two \"shorelines\" varied in elevation by almost two miles. Differences in height between shorelines on Earth were well known - caused by variations in global sea levels - but the dramatic difference on Mars made it highly unlikely that these \"shorelines\" were created by an ancient ocean.\n\nThe topographic reality revealed by the Mars Global Surveyor became the biggest stumbling block to the notion that Mars was once smothered in water. It was also a blow to the idea of Martian life, because without water in liquid form it was difficult to see how life could ever get going in the first place, never mind evolving into even the most simple of microbial lifeforms.\n\nThe latest study seems to have lifted this barrier to the idea of an ocean on Mars. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Toronto and the Carnegie Institution in Washington have offered a powerful explanation for why the two ancient shorelines of Mars are separated by such dramatically different elevations.\n\nThey have shown that the axis of spin of Mars, which determines the position of the true poles rather than the magnetic poles, has varied by as much as 50 degrees during the long geological history of the planet. In other words the shorelines have moved around because the planet itself has in the past shifted significantly on its axis - resulting in huge changes to the shape of the Martian landscape and its shorelines.\n\n\"When the spin axis moves relative to the surface, the surface deforms, and this is recorded in the shoreline,\" explained Professor Michael Manga, of the University of California, Berkeley.\n\nPlanets such as Earth and Mars have an outer shell, or lithosphere, and a change in the spin axis can cause the solid surface to deform differently than the liquid ocean and this explains the warped shorelines, according to Taylor Perron, the lead author of the study, who is now at Harvard University.\n\n\"On planets like Mars and Earth with an outer shell, or lithosphere, that behaves elastically, the solid surface will deform differently than the sea surface, creating a non-uniform change in the topography,\" Dr Perron said.\n\nJerry Mitrovica of Toronto University said that the evidence is now so overwhelming that this can explain why the shorelines of Mars formed at such dramatically different heights - more than a mile difference in elevation.\n\n\"At some point in the planet\'s history, a major shift of mass caused the pole to wander about 50 degrees towards its current location and the resulting change in orientation dramatically warped the topography and the ancient shorelines,\" Professor Mitrovica said.\n\nOne critical piece of evidence in support of this hypothesis is the position of the immense Tharsis volcano on Mars - the biggest in the Solar System and some 10,000 times bigger than Mauna Loa, the biggest volcano on Earth. Tharsis is so massive that it will always reorient itself to sit on the planet\'s equator - it will be spun out to the widest point on the axis of spin, just like a centrifuge. The scientists found that their assessment of how the position of the Martian poles has moved matches precisely the movements of Tharsis as it keeps shifting to maintain its place on the changing position of the equator.\n\n\"The chances of this happening randomly are less than 1 in 10,000,\" Professor Mitrovica said.\n\nAs yet the scientists do not understand why the spin axis of Mars moved so much. It may have resulted from a massive deluge of water on the Martian surface resulting in the first Arabia shoreline. The shift in weight caused the planet to tilt on its axis. Once the water disappeared, the pole could have shifted back, then shifted again as a second deluge created the Deuteronilus shoreline. \"What we don\'t know is what caused the poles to shift on Mars and what happened to the water. The ocean may have been gradually converted into water vapour, moved to higher elevations, and flowed beneath the surface. There could be a large mass of water deep within Mars,\" Dr Perron said.\n\nBut what happened to the water on Mars is critical in the assessment of whether there is still life on the planet. Many scientists believe there is a strong chance that if liquid water exists deep under the surface of Mars, there is a good chance that simple lifeforms may still be living underground.\n\nAt the end of last year, Nasa scientists analysed successive satellite images of craters on Mars that appeared to show erosion marks caused by streams of liquid water bubbling up from under the surface of Mars and flowing down the sides of the crater. The scientists were convinced that these marks were not simply created by the movement of dry dust.\n\nThis finding came on top of a succession of studies pointing to the possibility that water must have flowed on the surface of Mars. And now the major obstacle to the idea of a massive ocean on Mars has been removed. It really does seem that the red planet was once a water-rich world, and that some of this water may still be present in underground deposits.\n\nBut what does this mean for life? The point is that without water in its liquid form it is difficult to imagine that life could exist. Water does not make life obligatory, but it does make it far more likely. As yet the only direct evidence for life on Mars has been highly controversial. Ten years ago, Nasa scientists announced that they had found possible signs of life on a Martian meteorite called ALH84001. The potato-sized lump of rock fell to Earth 13,000 years ago and a detailed analysis threw up chemical signatures of life, as well as rod-shaped structures that looked like terrestrial bacteria, but smaller.\n\nOther scientists have been bitterly critical of this analysis, which has gone through a series of claims and counterclaims concerning its authenticity. The only way of truly solving this problem is to look for a similar piece of rock on Mars and bring it back to Earth for analysis. And the best place to find Martian fossils is in sedimentary rock formed by an ocean. At least scientists looking for life on Mars now have a better idea where to find it.','Mars: The Blue Planet','','publish','open','open','','mars-the-blue-planet','','','2007-06-14 08:34:49','2007-06-14 08:34:49','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=589',0,'post','',0),(590,2,'2007-06-15 09:20:49','2007-06-15 09:20:49','<strong>Details of a fine new Yes Men stunt:</strong>\n\n\'Imposters posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC) representatives delivered an outrageous keynote speech to 300 oilmen at GO-EXPO, Canada\'s largest oil conference, held at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta, today...\n\nIn the actual speech, the \"NPC rep\" announced that current U.S. and Canadian energy policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive exploitation of Alberta\'s oil sands, and the development of liquid coal) are increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he reassured the audience that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could \"keep fuel flowing\" by transforming the billions of people who die into oil.\n\n\"We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant,\" said \"NPC rep\" \"Shepard Wolff\" (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men), before describing the technology used to render human flesh into a new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum. 3-D animations of the process brought it to life.\'\n\nSee <a href=\"http://www.vivoleum.com/event/\" target=\"_blank\">the speech</a> / GO-EXPO <a href=\"http://newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/June2007/14/c5086.html\" target=\"_blank\">statement</a> / <a href=\"http://arusha.org/event/7214\" target=\"_blank\">press conference</a> before the event','Yes Men: Burn the people','','publish','open','open','','yes-men-burn-the-people','','','2007-06-15 09:20:49','2007-06-15 09:20:49','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=590',0,'post','',0),(591,2,'2007-06-18 09:17:37','2007-06-18 09:17:37','<a href=\"http://forteantimes.com/features/interviews/483/mount_vernon_arts_lab.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"fortean_times_1102_7.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/fortean_times_1102_7.jpg\" title=\"fortean_times_1102_7.jpg\" alt=\"fortean_times_1102_7.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n<em>To celebrate  the re-issue of Mount Vernon Arts Lab\'s <a href=\"http://www.ghostbox.co.uk/seance.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Seance at Hobs Lane</a>, <a href=\"http://forteantimes.com/features/interviews/483/mount_vernon_arts_lab.html\" target=\"_blank\">Fortean Times</a> have dug out this interview with him, conducted by fax,  from 2001.</em>\n\n<strong>What are the roots of your interest in the ‘power of place’? Do you think this can</strong><strong> be a literal power, like a form of energy, or is it a psychological – or psychogeographical – effect... or both?</strong>\n\nIt’s something that I’ve only rediscovered recently. As a much younger gentleman I sued to explore our local area, which was quite strange at that time. World War II air raid shelters, bomb craters, abandoned railway tunnels, anything off the beaten track. I think this is the sort of thing most boys do. But after playing at the nuclear command bunker a few years ago I started to be fascinated by not only derelict military structures but also obscure urban stuff and then discovering that there was a kind of network of urban trespass fanzines and web sites, and a subject called psychogeography. For me this took in everything from visiting the location of The Wicker Man’s climax to the scene of the ambush of Percy Toplis, the Monocled Mutineer, to the bombing range used by 633 Squadron. It was the alternative away day aspect that appealed to me. What would you rather do? Have a drink in the Green Man or watch Eastenders?\n\n<strong>How do you attach a title to a piece of music? Does the concept come first, or afterwards? Can you give an example or two off your new album.</strong>\n\nIt’s probably a bit of both. There are definitely some places that are charged. We went to Kenmore on Loch Tay recently and the village and surrounding area have a very interesting vibe. There’s a ghost village, monuments in the middle of nowhere, strange statues in the pub, (half Pan, half maiden) and some Neolithic carvings near the churchyard. At the moment we’re recording a double CD based on all this stuff. It’ll be called The Kenmore Working.\n\nThe two really go hand in hand. A lot of the material on this album came directly from the research I was doing. Finding out more about such diverse subjects as Victor Grayson’s disappearance in the ‘20s, or the fact that Thomas DeQuincy lived in Glasgow for a short while, or abandoned underground stations. There was a real current of what some might call occult energy with this record. Two examples from Séance…would be The Vauxhall Labyrinth, which reminded me of Sherlock Holmes and Fu Manchu, and While London Sleeps, which was an article about the postal railway that runs between Paddington and Whitechapel. This subterranean railway carries no passengers and is for the transportation of passengers and mail only. To me something like that is so romantic and evocative. Services began on 5 December 1927 fact fans.\n\nFull interview, <a href=\"http://forteantimes.com/features/interviews/483/mount_vernon_arts_lab.html\" target=\"_blank\">this way...</a>\n\nCD available via <a href=\"http://www.ghostbox.co.uk/seance.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Ghost Box</a>','Drew Mulholland interview','','publish','open','open','','drew-mulholland-interview','','','2007-06-18 09:17:37','2007-06-18 09:17:37','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=591',0,'post','',0),(593,2,'2007-06-20 08:13:14','2007-06-20 08:13:14','<strong>A world without us... </strong>\n\n\"It’s a common fantasy to imagine that you’re the last person left alive on earth. But what if all human beings were suddenly whisked off the planet? That premise is the starting point for The World without Us, a new book by science writer Alan Weisman, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Arizona. In this extended thought experiment, Weisman does not specify exactly what finishes off Homo sapiens; instead he simply assumes the abrupt disappearance of our species and projects the sequence of events that would most likely occur in the years, decades and centuries afterward.\n\nAccording to Weisman, large parts of our physical infrastructure would begin to crumble almost immediately. Without street cleaners and road crews, our grand boulevards and superhighways would start to crack and buckle in a matter of months. Over the following decades many houses and office buildings would collapse, but some ordinary items would resist decay for an extraordinarily long time. Stainless-steel pots, for example, could last for millennia, especially if they were buried in the weed-covered mounds that used to be our kitchens. And certain common plastics might remain intact for hundreds of thousands of years; they would not break down until microbes evolved the ability to consume them.\"\n\nFull interview at <a href=\"http://scientificamerican.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=2691D716-E7F2-99DF-38F54EF6075AAB4D\" target=\"_blank\">Scientific American</a>','After you','','publish','open','open','','after-you','','','2007-06-20 08:13:14','2007-06-20 08:13:14','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=593',0,'post','',0),(594,2,'2007-06-25 08:55:52','2007-06-25 08:55:52','<em>Should we ever hear the space-phone ringing, for    God\'s sake let us not answer...</em>\n\n<strong>Meet the neighbours: Is the search for aliens such a good idea?</strong>                       <span class=\"starrating\">       </span>\n\n<em> We\'ve been trying to make contact with aliens for years. Now the day is fast approaching when we might finally succeed. But will our extraterrestrial friends come in peace? Or will they want to eat us? Astronomer David Whitehouse explores the perils of a close encounter</em>\n\n<a href=\"http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2702529.ece\" target=\"_blank\">Independent</a> 25 June 2007\n\nWe are making dangerous discoveries in space. In April, astronomers found, on our cosmic doorstep, a planet dubbed Gliese 581c. Nestling close to a dim red star, it\'s a rocky world only a little larger than Earth. Like Earth, it could support liquid water. And to scientists, liquid water means the possibility of life.\n\nGliese 581c must be an ancient world, for it circles a star that is far    older than our Sun. The question is, has any advanced life evolved on that    planet, or on the many other places that must be suitable sites, not so very    far away?\n\nRecently, British astronomers told the government that we might find life in    space. It is only a matter of time, this year perhaps, before astronomers    detect a planet even more similar in size and mass to our Earth, circling    another star. And when we find that planet, we may discover a lot more than    new oceans and land masses.\n\nAstronomers have been actively looking for intelligent life in space since    1960, when Frank Drake started Project Ozma, using a radio telescope to    listen for signals from two nearby sun-like stars - Drake knew that radio    waves travel more easily through the cosmos than light waves. He didn\'t hear    anything back. Since then, our searches have become more thorough thanks to    larger radio telescopes and more sophisticated computers that look for    fainter signals. But we still have no signal from ET. Should we want to?\n\n<!--more-->This is not just a matter for astronomical research involving distant worlds    and academic questions. Could it be that, from across the gulf of space, as    HG Wells put it, there may emerge an alien threat? That only happens in    lurid science fiction films, doesn\'t it? Well, the threat is real enough to    worry many scientists, who make a simple but increasingly urgent point: if    we don\'t know what\'s out there, why on Earth are we deliberately beaming    messages into space, to try and contact these civilisations about whom we    know precisely nothing?\n\nThe searchers are undeterred. They argue that because of the vastness of    space - even if there are 10,000 transmitting societies nestled in the    stellar arms of the Milky Way - we might have to search millions of star    systems to find just one.\n\nBut rather than just listening, some want to announce our presence to the    cosmos. In 1974, the then newly resurfaced Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto    Rico (made famous in the James Bond film Goldeneye) reversed its usual role    of just listening, and transmitted a series of radio pulses towards the M13    star cluster. It sent 1679 pulses in all, which, when arranged in binary    form into 23 columns and 73 rows, would form a message from humanity. It was    seen as a symbolic gesture, showing those on Earth that we had the    technology to send a signal across our galaxy and - if we were on the other    side of the relationship - to receive a signal as well. But some scientists    objected. Sir Martin Ryle, the Astronomer Royal at the time, warned that \" any creatures out there [might be] malevolent or hungry\".\n\nNow, after a long period when there were no deliberate transmissions into    space, a new round is about to take place and more are planned. A team led    by the astronomer Alexander Zaitsev has already beamed forth a series of    interstellar messages, including pictorial and musical transmissions, from    the Evpatoria radio telescope in the Ukraine. Another group in Brazil, the    Grupo Independente de Radio Astronomos in Rio de Janeiro, claims to have    transmitted as well. Half a dozen commercial companies have also sprung up,    among them Cosmic Connexion, a firm based near Cape Canaveral in Florida.    The Cosmic Connexion website invites you to e-mail your messages to them and    they will then beam them, free, into space and \"introduce you to    extraterrestrials\". At the moment, though, this is a low-power    initiative whose signals won\'t get far. Other companies offering the same    service for a fee are soon to come online.\n\nMany scientists, frightened by the danger that might lurk out there, have    argued against our actively seeking contact with extraterrestrials. Jared    Diamond, professor of evolutionary biology and Pulitzer Prize winner, says: \" Those astronomers now preparing again to beam radio signals out to hoped-for    extraterrestrials are naive, even dangerous.\"\n\nThe fact is, and this should have been obvious to all, that we do not know    what any extraterrestrials might be like - and hoping that they might be    friendly, evolved enough to be wise and beyond violence, is an assumption    upon which we could be betting our entire existence. When I was a young    scientist 20 years ago at Jodrell Bank, the observatory in Cheshire, I asked    Sir Bernard Lovell, founder of Jodrell Bank and pioneering radio astronomer,    about it. He had thought about it often, he said, and replied: \"It\'s an    assumption that they will be friendly - a dangerous assumption.\"\n\nAnd Lovell\'s opinion is still echoed today by the leading scientists in the    field. Physicist Freeman Dyson, of the Institute for Advanced Study in    Princeton, has been for decades one of the deepest thinkers on such issues.    He insists that we should not assume anything about aliens. \"It is    unscientific to impute to remote intelligences wisdom and serenity, just as    it is to impute to them irrational and murderous impulses,\" he says. \" We must be prepared for either possibility.\"\n\nThe Nobel Prize-winning American biologist George Wald takes the same view:    he could think of no nightmare so terrifying as establishing communication    with a superior technology in outer space. The late Carl Sagan, the American    astronomer who died a decade ago, also worried about so-called \"First    Contact\". He recommended that we, the newest children in a strange and    uncertain cosmos, should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning    about the universe and comparing notes. He said there is no chance that two    galactic civilisations will interact at the same level. In any    confrontation, one will always dominate the other.\n\nThe Australian astronomer Ronald Bracewell, now of Stanford University,    warns that other species would place an emphasis on cunning and weaponry, as    we do, and that an alien ship dispatched our way is likely to be armed.    Indeed, evolution on earth is, as they say, red in tooth and claw. And it\'s    likely that any creature we contact will also have had to claw its way up    its own evolutionary ladder and may possibly be every bit as nasty as we are    - or worse. Imagine an extremely adaptable, extremely aggressive    super-predator with superior technology.\n\nSo should we stay quiet and ban these transmissions into space? When, as a    newly minted young scientist, I was discussing this issue with the (late)    influential astronomer Zdenek Kopal, he grabbed me by the arm and said in a    tone of seriousness: \"Should we ever hear the space-phone ringing, for    God\'s sake let us not answer. We must avoid attracting attention to    ourselves.\" Others have put it more graphically, saying that the    civilisation that blurts out its existence might be like some early hominid    descending from the trees and calling \"here kitty\" to a    sabre-toothed tiger.\n\nBut not all scientists are worried. Frank Drake, who devised Project Ozma    and who was also behind the Arecibo transmission says, \"As I thought in    1974, the objections to sending interstellar messages were naive and carried    no weight. The argument then, as now, is that humanity has been, and is    making, its presence known through our TV and radio and military radars    which, in many cases, release most of their radiated power into interstellar    space.\"\n\nRadio waves from Earth, from TV and radio broadcasts and from powerful    intercontinental military radars are leaking out into space. Some believe    they could be detected, but should we go beyond this and actively announce    our presence to the cosmos? Drake points out that our present terrestrial    radio telescopes, if placed on nearby worlds, would be unable to detect    these transmissions at distances beyond a few light years. However, aliens    would be more advanced, he says, and it is quite within the abilities of    current terrestrial technology to build telescopes, using the array    approach, which could detect these transmissions from great distances in the    galaxy.\n\n\"The point here is that Earth has made its presence known by sending a    multitude of signals. It is too late - we have made ourselves visible,\"    he adds.\n\nBut scientist and science-fiction author David Brin thinks those in charge    of drafting policy about transmissions from Earth - ostensibly a body called    the International Astronomical Union, which would make recommendations to    the United Nations - are being complacent, if not irresponsible. Whatever    has happened in the past, he doesn\'t want any new deliberate transmissions    adding to the risk. \"In a fait accompli of staggering potential    consequence,\" he says, \"we will soon see a dramatic change of    state. One in which Earth civilisation may suddenly become many orders of    magnitude brighter across the Milky Way - without any of our vaunted    deliberative processes having ever been called into play.\"\n\nMichael Michaud, a former US diplomat and chairman of the Transmissions from    Earth Working Group - a subdivision of the International Astronomical    Union\'s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Study Group established in    2001 - is on the verge of resigning in frustration at the lack of discussion    about the problem. He believes it is being confined to a narrow group of    scientists who share the same limited astronomical viewpoints and he wants    the study group widened beyond its current remit to include planetary    scientists, philosophers, historians and so on. He sees it as a problem that    affects all of humanity - and one that should be debated as such.\n\nBut despite these concerns, for the moment, the plans for deliberate    transmissions from Earth go ahead and there is nothing anyone can do to stop    them - or even demand a discussion beforehand.\n\nOne thing is clear from our searches for ET - there is nobody transmitting    strong interstellar beacons in our local vicinity. If \"they\" are    out there, they are keeping quiet, prompting the question that they might    know something we don\'t.\n\nPerhaps the aliens already know about us and are on their way. Or perhaps    not. Intelligences - possibly vast, cool and unsympathetic - could be    sweeping their skies looking for us. At the moment when they point their    instruments in the direction of our sun - a commonplace yellow-dwarf star -    they may well find nothing unusual, if no one\'s sending messages in the    other direction. Should we keep it that way?\n\n<strong>Searching for ET: the truth is out there</strong>\n\nThe Seti (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California    is the only such group that searches the cosmos for signs of intelligent    alien life. It does so by listening out for radio signals.\n\nSeti, which was founded in 1984, has 100 scientists, educators and support    staff. Its funding from the American government was cut off in 1992 and it    now relies on private donations.\n\nThe institute\'s Project Phoenix was the most ambitious search for    extraterrestrial intelligence ever undertaken. From February 1995 to March    2004, Phoenix conducted three observing campaigns on some of the world\'s    largest radio telescopes, targeting stars within 240 light years of Earth.\n\nIn more than 11,000 hours of observing, using telescopes in Australia, West    Virginia and Puerto Rico, Project Phoenix \"tuned in\" to more than    800 stars. No ET signals were detected.\n\nThe next stage in the search is the Allen Telescope Array, currently under    construction in California. Partly funded by the Microsoft billionaire Paul    Allen, it will eventually consist of 350 20ft dishes making synchronised    sweeps of the sky looking for alien signals (see www.seti.org).\n\n<strong>Postcards to the edge</strong>\n\nARECIBO (1974)\n\nThis message was sent from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico to the    M13 star cluster, 25,000 light years away (150,000 million million miles).    Consisting of 1,679 binary digits, the bits can be arranged into a rectangle    of 73 rows and 23 columns (two prime numbers) to reveal a message.\n\nEncoded are: the numbers one through to 10; atomic numbers of key elements    such as hydrogen, carbon and oxygen; a graphic of DNA, along with an    estimate of its complexity; a graphic figure of a man and the human    population of Earth; a graphic of our solar system; and a graphic of the    Arecibo radio telescope.\n\nThe signal took 169 seconds to send and was not repeated.\n\nCOSMIC CALL (1999, 2003)\n\nThe first public interstellar messages were sent from the Evpatoria Deep    Space Center in Ukraine. Signals were sent twice in 1999 and once in 2003    towards five nearby Sun-like stars about 50 light years away. The 1999    message consisted of 23 black and white stylised images starting with the    basics of mathematics and ending with humans. The 2003 message consisted of    12 images.\n\nTEEN-AGE MESSAGE (2001)\n\nComposed by Russian teenagers, this was transmitted from Evpatoria to the    Sun-like star HD 197976 in the constellation of Delphinus. The two-hour    transmission, in three parts, included 15 minutes of music played on a    theremin.','&#039;We must avoid attracting attention to ourselves&#039;','','publish','open','open','','et-we-must-avoid-attracting-attention-to-ourselves','','','2007-06-25 08:55:52','2007-06-25 08:55:52','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=594',0,'post','',0),(595,2,'2007-06-26 09:19:15','2007-06-26 09:19:15','<span class=\"smallCaps\">From Bryony McIntyre:</span>\n\n<strong>SHADOWED SPACES </strong>\n<em>Sean Meehan, Tamio Shiraishi, Ikuro Takahashi, Denis Wood\n6th-15th July, FREE</em>\n\n<span class=\"left_column_text_subheader\">ABERDEEN, DUNDEE, EASTERHOUSE, NEWCASTLE, CUMBERNAULD, EDINBURGH</span><em>\n</em>\nThere are places in the towns and cities where you live that exist not by planned design, but by circumstance. Their elusive ambience attracts those with nowhere else to go, and those who wish to go elsewhere... overlooked  bypassed  unwatched  detached  unconsidered  shadowed.\n\nIn the mid \'70s... <strong>Denis Wood</strong> (at the time a recently graduated geographer, or more particularly psychogeographer) wrote an impassioned essay, titled ‘<em>Shadowed Spaces’</em>. It was an ardent and poetic defense of our need to feel a sense of privacy in public, and the subsequent need for places where one might take refuge, or engage in transgressions which we may be unwilling to share with a wider public, but which are important to our lives and development, to our needs and desires.\n\nThe essay <em>Shadowed Spaces</em> has never been published, but exists in a sort of parallel way to the kinds of spaces it discusses, handed around and sought out by people who maybe need to find it. And it’s served as a loose inspiration to a clutch of artists and musicians who are also drawn to these kinds of spaces, and to a desire to perform there, in a kind of artistic parallel to that need for privacy in public: ‘cause isn’t a musical performance just that, a private thing done publicly?\n\nOur tour brings together 3 incredible experimental musicians from the USA and Japan, as well as Denis Wood, and takes them to some of our favourite, secret spaces, where collectively perhaps we can share in something hidden from the eyes of those keepers of the norm.\n<em>More info about the artists and what to expect at <a href=\"http://www.arika.org.uk/shadowedspaces/2007/home/\" target=\"_blank\">www.arika.org.uk</a></em>','Shadowed Spaces tour, Scotland','','publish','open','open','','shadowed-spaces-tour-scotland','','','2007-06-26 09:19:15','2007-06-26 09:19:15','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=595',0,'post','',0),(596,2,'2007-06-26 09:34:03','2007-06-26 09:34:03','<strong>How a dead frog could help you woo a lover</strong>\n\n<em><span class=\"artByline\">By LIZ HULL <a href=\"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=464335&amp;in_page_id=1770\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Mail</a>,</span><span class=\"artDate\"> 26th June 2007</span></em>\n\nAs a way of getting yourself a date, it would raise more than a few eyebrows nowadays.\n\nBut for those desperate to win a lover in Elizabethan Britain, burying a dead frog in an anthill at a cross roads and putting it\'s bones in a river was apparently a sure fire way to secure a woman\'s heart.\n\nThe bizarre spell has been unearthed in a unique handwritten book of 400-year-old magic due to be auctioned next month.\n\nFound among the effects of controversial artist Robert Lenkiewicz, who died five years ago aged 60, the \"manuscript grimoire\" provides an extraordinary number of conjurations, incantations, signs, portents, spells and folk remedies from the late 16th century.\n\n<!--more-->The anonymous author describes how to use magic not only to find a lover, but also to help find treasure or even prevent theft and punish robbers.\n\nAccording to the book, the best way to win a woman is for a man to \"take a frog and put him in a pot and stop it fast,\" before advising him to bury the pot in an ant hill at a crossroads.\n\nAfter nine days, two of the frog\'s bones should then be removed and placed in a stream or river of running water.\n\nThe extraordinary spell continues: \"One of them will float against the stream.\n\n\"Make thee a ring, and take the part that swum against the stream and set it in the ring, and when you will have any woman put it on her right hand...she shall never rest till she hath been with thee.\"\n\nWritten between 1590 and 1620, the 30-page volume also includes illustrations of the planets with angelic seals, coded messages, invocations in Latin and crudely-drawn Christian symbols. It also makes reference to witchcraft, blood rituals and contains a sketch of a reversed pentacle - a symbol of Satanism.\n\nThe manuscript, which is expected to fetch up to £12,000 when it goes under the hammer at London-based auctioneers Sotheby\'s on July 13, tells readers how to summon a spirit to one\'s bed chamber or summon a spirit into a crystal, as well as providing folk remedies for the relief of toothache and labour pains.\n\nIt also contains instructions on how to draw a \"magical eye\" to identify and punish thieves and claims robbers could be warned off by a spell in which the reader is required to chant a long list of the names of angels.\n\nThe book says: \"Whoever be afraid of thieves, to be robbed by night or by day in his house, or else that he hath a pond of fish or garden of fruit of a field of sheep or a horse...that he would have kept from all thieves and saved.\n\n\"Let him say this charm next following like as it standeth written hereafter. They shall have no power to bear away his goods nor rob him but they shall stand as still as amazed men, till they have leave to go.\n\n\"...And when thou hast said what thou list, then bid him go hence in God\'s name, and come no more here. And if he will not go, bid him go hence in the devil\'s name.\"\n\nDr Gabriel Heaton, manuscripts specialist at Sotheby\'s, said the spell book offered an interesting insight into early European magic.\n\n\"This is a richly illustrated Elizabethan anthology and an important and unique source of occult material covering a wide range of spells and conjurations - a sourcebook of practical magic as practised in early modern Europe,\" he said.\n\n\"But I wouldn\'t recommend trying these at home.\n\n\"Much of the text is set within a Christian framework - but there are also signs of an older and darker tradition in the use of blood rituals and, on one occasion, a reversed pentacle.\"','Elizabethan grimoire under the hammer','','publish','open','open','','elizabethan-grimoire-under-the-hammer','','','2007-06-26 09:34:03','2007-06-26 09:34:03','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=596',0,'post','',0),(597,2,'2007-06-28 08:50:48','2007-06-28 08:50:48','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/fortingall_yew.jpg\" title=\"fortingall_yew.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/fortingall_yew.jpg\" title=\"fortingall_yew.jpg\" alt=\"fortingall_yew.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n<font size=\"2\"><em>What is conceivably Europe\'s oldest living thing is looking a bit green around the edges.</em> </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">But that is a good thing, and much to the relief of those charged with its care. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">Because when the Fortingall Yew in Scotland produces young, fresh leaves, it means it\'s adding another year to the thousands it has already been on this earth. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">About 5,000, to be precise. A sapling when Stonehenge was created, 3,000 years old when the Romans came to Britain, a survivor from Pyramids to iPod. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">The public is being asked to help the Woodland Trust charity create a map of the UK\'s ancient woodlands. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">\"We are aware that it\'s a great responsibility\" says Dr Gordon Stark, the session clerk at Fortingall Kirk. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">\"There\'s a very large bit of the circumference missing. It once stood 56ft in diameter, but souvenir hunters and young men who used to hold bonfires inside the hollow tree have all taken their toll. </font>\n\n<font size=\"2\">\"It\'s now got only a few bits left, but they are still alive and sprouting\"</font>\n\n<em>From the <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6247774.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>. More on <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortingall_Yew\" target=\"_blank\">the yew.</a></em>\n\n<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/url.jpg\" title=\"url.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/url.jpg\" title=\"url.jpg\" alt=\"url.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n<em><strong>NB:</strong> But not the world\'s biggest, that\'s probably<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81rbol_del_Tule\" target=\"_blank\"> El Arbol of El Tule</a>, Oaxaca, Mexico.</em>','5,000 years young','','publish','open','open','','5000-years-young','','','2007-06-28 08:50:48','2007-06-28 08:50:48','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=597',0,'post','',0),(600,2,'2007-06-29 08:41:36','2007-06-29 08:41:36','Resonance 104.4fm extend radio broadcasting to live programmes from the stage at <a href=\"http://www.corsicastudios.com/\" target=\"_blank\">The Corsica Arts Studios</a> every Sunday in July.\n\nHighlights include The Guillemots, Leafcutter John, Sculpture, David Toop, Jonny Trunk, Pharoah Overlord, The Stargazer\'s Assistant, Poo Lord, Alex Tucker, Simon Munnery and on 29th July, a Strange Attractor special.  Full details can be found on the <a href=\"http://www.resonancefm.com/mos.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Resonance FM site</a>.\n\nThe Strange Attractor event is still being worked out, but currently consists of readings by <a href=\"http://www.mjohnharrison.com/\" target=\"_blank\">M John Harrison</a>, author of <em>Light</em>, <em>The Course of the Heart</em> and <em>Nova Swing</em> with appropriate musical backing from synth duo Grök. There\'s a distinct possibility that <a href=\"http://www.techgnosis.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Erik Davis</a> will be with us that night too, though in what capacity we haven\'t yet worked out.','Resonance FM live: A month of Sundays','','publish','open','open','','resonance-fm-live-a-month-of-sundays','','','2007-06-29 08:41:36','2007-06-29 08:41:36','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=600',0,'post','',0),(601,2,'2007-07-02 13:07:13','2007-07-02 13:07:13','<em>A fine article by Tim Adams in <a href=\"http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2115519,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Observer</a>  asks why it is that science is simultaneously perceived as boring  and childish by so many people; he speaks to <a href=\"http://www.natalieangier.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Natalie Angier</a> and <a href=\"http://www.edge.org./archive.html\" target=\"_blank\">John Brockman</a>, two of the people who are attempting to do something to rectify the situation.</em>\n\n<em> </em>\"Science is rather a state of mind,\' Angier argues and, as such, it should inform everything. \'It is a way of viewing the world, of facing reality square on but taking nothing for granted.\' It would be hard to argue that this state of mind was advancing across the globe. We no longer make and mend, so we no longer know how anything works.\n\nOne of Angier\'s interviewees, Andrew Knoll, a professor of natural history at Harvard\'s earth and planetary sciences department, suggests that \'the average American adult today knows less about biology than the average 10-year-old living in the Amazon, or the average American of 200 years ago\'. I spoke to Angier to find out why she thought that this might be the case.\n\nTo some extent, she suggested, that was a political question. \'Here in the US we have had the last seven years of this administration which has made everything about the two-cultures divide seem worse.\' But it is not just that. \'Newspapers are getting rid of all their science pages; they are jettisoning all their science staff. The feeling is people don\'t want to read it.\'\"\n\nFull article at <a href=\"http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2115519,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Observer</a>','The New Age of Ignorance','','publish','open','open','','the-new-age-of-ignorance','','','2007-07-02 13:07:13','2007-07-02 13:07:13','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=601',0,'post','',0),(602,2,'2007-07-02 14:48:04','2007-07-02 14:48:04','<a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/\" title=\"seance.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/seance.jpg\" title=\"seance.jpg\" alt=\"seance.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"278\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"279\" /></a>\n\nTwo new CDs are now available via <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/\" target=\"_blank\">Strange Attractor Shoppe:</a>\n\nThe new Ghost Box edition of Mount Vernon Arts Lab\'s <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/shop_mvat.html\" target=\"_blank\">Seance at Hobs Lane</a> and the Adaadat release of Strange Attractor vs Disinformation\'s<a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/shop_disinformation.html\" target=\"_blank\"> Circuit Blasting</a> EP. You\'ve seen plenty written about both albums on here, but can find more on their respective pages in the Shoppe.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/\" target=\"_blank\"> </a><a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/\" target=\"_blank\"></a><a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/\" target=\"_blank\">Grab \'em</a> while you can!','New sounds at the Shoppe!','','publish','open','open','','new-sounds-at-the-shoppe','','','2007-07-02 14:48:04','2007-07-02 14:48:04','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=602',0,'post','',0),(604,2,'2007-07-03 09:06:45','2007-07-03 09:06:45','<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic\">       Despair for Hindu pilgrims as ice stalagmite melts early</span><span class=\"starrating\"></span>\nBy Andrew Buncombe, <a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2730419.ece\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-style: italic\">The Independent</span></a> 03 July 2007\n\n<p class=\"bodyCopy\">\n<p class=\"articleButton\">\n<p style=\"position: absolute; top: 289px; visibility: visible\" id=\"articlebutton\" class=\"ad\">&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n<p id=\"bodyCopyContent\"> Up to 400,000 Hindu pilgrims in northern India are facing disappointment after it was revealed that a naturally formed ice stalagmite - worshipped as an incarnation of Lord Shiva - has melted. Those making the 10-mile trek will at best be confronted by a puddle.\n\n\"Yes, there will be some disappointment for the pilgrims as the main [stalagmite] has completely melted,\" said Arun Kumar, a senior official with the organisation that oversees the annual pilgrimage.\n\nThe phallus-shaped icy stalagmite, or lingam, forms annually in a cave in Indian Kashmir and over a two-month period it attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who come to pray in front of the incarnation of the Hindu god of destruction and regrowth.\n\n<!--more--> The so-called Amarnath shrine is located at an altitude of around 13,500ft and most years the stalagmite lasts the duration of the pilgrimage. However, this year - as with last - that has not been the case. Experts say that one of the reasons for the melting of the ice is the heat created in the cave by countless numbers of pilgrims, many of whom are carrying candles. Some of the pilgrims fly in by helicopter and there are lights specially set up for people.\n\nThis year\'s pilgrimage was due to begin on Saturday but was delayed because of bad weather. The first group of around 12,000 devotees set off on Sunday, heavily guarded by thousands of troops against Muslim militants who in previous years have targeted the pilgrims. On Saturday, officials said they had found and defused a roadside bomb along the pilgrims\' route, 30 miles south of the city of Srinagar.\n\nFor Hindus, the pilgrimage to Amarnath and the attendant festival of Shravani Mela is one of the holiest events of their calendar. According to Hindu tradition, the cave is where Lord Shiva revealed to his wife Parvarti the secrets of life and eternity.','Shiva melt','','publish','open','open','','shiva-melt','','','2007-07-03 09:06:45','2007-07-03 09:06:45','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=604',0,'post','',0),(605,2,'2007-07-04 09:32:06','2007-07-04 09:32:06','A wonderful TV news report from Monterrey, Mexico, where sightings of a flying <em>something </em>back in March<em> </em>have led to a series of bizarre attacks on the local police. Numerous commentators have pointed out that the whole thing was a hoax set up by the TV station, but the video is a fun watch anyway, especially the crazed astronomer at the end!\n\n<a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/wp-admin/\" style=\"left: 0px ! important; top: 0px ! important\" title=\"Block this object with Adblock Plus\" class=\"abp-objtab visible ontop\"></a><a href=\"http://www.liveleak.com/player.swf\" style=\"left: 0px ! important; top: 0px ! important\" title=\"Block this object with Adblock Plus\" class=\"abp-objtab visible ontop\"></a>\n\n<a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/wp-admin/\" style=\"left: 0px ! important; top: 16px ! important\" title=\"Block this object with Adblock Plus\" class=\"abp-objtab visible ontop\"></a><a href=\"http://www.liveleak.com/player.swf\" style=\"left: 0px ! important; top: 16px ! important\" title=\"Block this object with Adblock Plus\" class=\"abp-objtab visible ontop\"></a><embed src=\"http://www.liveleak.com/player.swf\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" pluginspage=\"http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer\" flashvars=\"autostart=false&amp;token=e27_1173581537\" scale=\"showall\" name=\"index\" height=\"370\" width=\"450\"></embed>Thanks Anthony Matt and <a href=\"http://souljerky.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Spiros Antonopoulos</a>!','Mexican witch panic video','','publish','open','open','','mexcian-witch-panic-video','','','2007-07-04 09:32:06','2007-07-04 09:32:06','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=605',0,'post','',0),(606,2,'2007-07-04 09:50:15','2007-07-04 09:50:15','<strong>       \'Living goddess\' has deity status stripped after US trip</strong>\n<em>         By Michael Savage, <a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2733252.ece\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent</a>, 04 July 2007</em>\n<p id=\"bodyCopyContent\"> A 10-year-old Nepalese girl who is one of the country\'s most important living goddesses is to have her deity status removed after she defied tradition and left her homeland to promote a documentary.</p>\nSajani Shakya angered local religious leaders when she travelled to the United States last month to publicise a British-made film about Nepal\'s living goddesses. Sajani, who was based at the city of Bhaktapur\'s Taleju Temple in the Kathmandu valley, was worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists. As one of the kingdom\'s three highest Kumaris, or living goddesses, she was forbidden from leaving Nepal.\n\nJai Prasad Regmi, the head of a trust that manages the affairs of the Kumari tradition in Bhaktapur, said that the girl\'s deity status would be revoked on her return from the US this week. \"It is wrong and against the tradition for her to go on a foreign tour without any permission,\" he said. \"This is impure in our tradition. We will search for a new Kumari and install her as the living goddess.\"\n\n<!--more-->Temple elders have also threatened to deprive Ms Sajani of the modest state pension that all former living goddesses receive when they lose their title on reaching puberty. Her replacement will be chosen from girls aged between two and four from the Buddhist Shakya family.\n\nThe girls undergo a rigorous selection procedure. The successful candidate must have the 32 attributes of perfection, which include the shape of her teeth and the pitch of her voice. She must not have any scars or wounds and must have perfect skin, hair and eyes.\n\nIt is also a requirement that she not be afraid of the dark. One of the last tests sees the small group of would-be goddesses placed in a dark room where they are surrounded by dancers wearing demonic masks and subjected to eerie noises.\n\nIt is believed that as the goddess would not be afraid of such things, the girl who is not scared by the experience should be the one chosen as the new Kumari.\n\nAs a final task, she selects her clothing from those worn by the previous living goddess. Living goddesses appear in public only very rarely for religious festivals, spending most of their time blessing devotees who visit their temple.\n\nOnce selected, living goddesses always wear red, pin up their hair in topknots and have a \"third eye\" painted on their forehead. Worshippers visiting them touch the goddess\'s feet with their foreheads - a symbol of the highest form of respect. But the living goddess tradition has its critics. They say that the practice breaks international and Nepalese laws regarding the rights of children.\n\nThe main Kumari, who lives in a palatial temple in Katmandu\'s Durbar Square, is only allowed outside for a small number of festivals, and she can only mix with playmates selected for her by temple officials.\n\nMany former Kumaris remain unmarried and impoverished after losing their title, as Nepalese folklore holds that men who marry a former Kumari will die young.\n\nThe Nepalese government has recently shown a willingness to address the difficult conditions under which the tradition places young girls. Serving and retired Kumaris now receive a monthly pension of $40. Before the changes last year, former Kumaris had to survive on the offerings made to them by their devotees.','Goddess downgraded','','publish','open','open','','goddess-downgraded','','','2007-07-04 09:50:15','2007-07-04 09:50:15','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=606',0,'post','',0),(607,2,'2007-07-04 11:15:54','2007-07-04 11:15:54','“The post-2012 world will be a world of universal telepathy,” José Arguelles wrote recently from New Zealand, where he has gone to prepare for the transition. Since 1993, when he claims to have received a new prophecy in Hawaii, he has been calling himself Valum Votan, Closer of the Cycle. “We’ll be literally living in a new time,” Arguelles said, “by a 13-month, 28-day synchronometer that will facilitate our telepathy by keeping us in harmony with everything all the time. There will be a lot fewer of us, with simple lifestyles, solar technology, garden culture and lots of telepathic communication.” As for the many who “have not evolved spiritually enough to know that there are other dimensions of reality,” Arguelles predicts they will be taken away in “silver ships”...\n\n\"Far from its origins, divorced from its context and enlisted in a prophetic project that it may never have been designed to fulfill, the Mayan calendar is at the center of an escalating cultural phenomenon — with New Age roots — that unites numinous dreams of societal transformation with the darker tropes of biblical cataclysm. To some, 2012 will bring the end of time; to others, it carries the promise of a new beginning; to still others, 2012 provides an explanation for troubling new realities — environmental change, for example — that seem beyond the control of our technology and impervious to reason. Just in time for the final five-year countdown, the Mayan apocalypse has come of age.\"\n\nFull article at the <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/magazine/01world-t.html?ei=5070&amp;en=8ca521c6f6716ba0&amp;ex=1183953600&amp;emc=eta1&amp;pagewanted=all\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times </a>\n\n<!--more-->\n<p class=\"timestamp\">July 1, 2007</p>\n<nyt_byline version=\"1.0\" type=\" \"> </nyt_byline>\n<p class=\"byline\"><strong><nyt_headline version=\"1.0\" type=\" \"> The Final Days</nyt_headline> </strong>By BENJAMIN ANASTAS</p>\n<nyt_text> </nyt_text>Steven from Arizona — a caller on “Coast to Coast AM” late one night in February — had slipped into a future reality and caught a glimpse of the devastation that was coming when the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupted. James in Omaha, on the other hand, was worried about the likelihood of a magnetic pole shift, while Rod from Edmonton had recently spoken to a member of the Canadian Parliament about the global-warming crisis and couldn’t believe what he had heard.\n\n“We’re coming to an end time beyond anything that anybody has ever imagined,” Rod said with a trembling urgency. “The scientists right now, they’re not even studying the real causes. The Kyoto treaty and CO2 have nothing to do with anything.”\n\n“Coast to Coast AM” is an overnight radio show devoted to what its weekday host, George Noory, calls “the unusual mysteries of the world and the universe.” Broadcast out of Sherman Oaks, Calif., and carried nationwide on more than 500 stations as well as the XM Radio satellite network, “Coast to Coast AM” is by far the highest-rated radio program in the country once the lights go out. The guest in the wee hours that February morning was Lawrence E. Joseph, the author of “Apocalypse 2012” — billed as “a scientific investigation into civilization’s end” — and he came on the air to tell the story of how the ancient Maya looked into the stars and predicted catastrophic changes to the earth, all pegged to the end date of an historical cycle on one of their calendars, Dec. 21, 2012.\n\n“My motto tonight,” Noory intoned at the beginning of the program, “is be prepared, not scared.” What followed was a graphic recitation of disaster scenarios for 2012, including <a href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier\" title=\"More articles about hurricanes.\">hurricanes</a>, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions caused by solar storms, cracks forming in the earth’s magnetic field and mass extinctions brought on by nuclear winter. The only hopeful note of the night was struck when an unnamed caller asked Joseph what he thought about recent Virgin Mary apparitions in Bosnia.\n\n“I love it,” the author answered. “That’s positive. You don’t need to be a devout Christian to admire the Virgin Mary. She’s a blessing to us all.”\n\nWhen I reached Noory by phone at his program’s studio in California, he told me, “I’m a staunch believer that we are in an earth cycle.” As 2012 approaches, “Coast to Coast” has been devoting more and more programming to prophecies of doom and the signs and wonders that are thought to be harbingers of the coming end time: U.F.O. sightings, crop-circle formations, disappearing honeybees and flocks of migratory birds that fall from the sky. “There’s no question the planet is changing,” Noory said. “And the fact that the Mayans had an end date and their history talks of change, I find that fascinating.”\n\nBut it isn’t just on the lower frequencies, late at night, where people are waiting on the Mayan apocalypse. Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the alternative-culture best seller “2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl” — and a guest on “Coast to Coast AM” — has introduced a young and savvy audience to the school of millenarian thinking that has gathered around Mayan calendrics. To do so, he has employed viral marketing and a tireless schedule of public appearances at bookstores, art spaces, yoga studios and electronic-music festivals. When Pinchbeck appeared on “The Colbert Report” last December to promote his book, the host confronted him in front of a life-size manger scene: “You have been called a new Timothy Leary. Why do we need another one of those?”\n\nOver breakfast at Cafe Gitane in Manhattan, Pinchbeck told me recently that “there’s a growing realization that materialism and the rational, empirical worldview that comes with it has reached its expiration date.” A youthful 41, with long, drooping hair and heavy-framed designer eyewear, Pinchbeck exudes a languid fervency that is equal parts Jesuit and Jim Morrison. His BlackBerry sat face up on the table, the screen dark, beside his bowl of organic fruit, yogurt and granola. “Apocalypse literally means uncovering or revealing,” Pinchbeck went on, “and I think the process is already under way. We’re on the verge of transitioning to a dispensation of consciousness that’s more intuitive, mystical and shamanic.”\n\nFar from its origins, divorced from its context and enlisted in a prophetic project that it may never have been designed to fulfill, the Mayan calendar is at the center of an escalating cultural phenomenon — with New Age roots — that unites numinous dreams of societal transformation with the darker tropes of biblical cataclysm. To some, 2012 will bring the end of time; to others, it carries the promise of a new beginning; to still others, 2012 provides an explanation for troubling new realities — environmental change, for example — that seem beyond the control of our technology and impervious to reason. Just in time for the final five-year countdown, the Mayan apocalypse has come of age.\n\n<span class=\"bold\">Light and darkness</span> — heavenly forces and a corrupted earth — are the twin engines of apocalyptic movements. For Christians awaiting rapture or Shiites counting the days until the Twelfth Imam appears, the trials and injustices of the known world are a prelude for the paradise that we can imagine but can’t yet achieve. Judging by the sheer number of predicted end dates that have come and gone without the trumpets blowing and angels rushing in, we are a people impatient to see our world redeemed through catastrophe — and we are always wrong. Gnostics predicted the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom as early as the first century; Christians in Europe attacked pagan territories in the north to prepare for the end of the world at the first millennium; the Shakers believed the world would end in 1792; there was a “Great Disappointment” among followers of the Baptist preacher William Miller when Jesus did not return to upstate New York on Oct. 22, 1844. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been especially prodigious with prophetic end dates: 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994. Any religious movement with an end-time prophecy is certain to attract followers, no matter how maniacal or fringy (witness the <a href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/branch_davidians/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about Branch Davidians\">Branch Davidians</a>). For those who want to go online and get the latest tally of bad news, there is a nuclear Doomsday Clock and the Rapture Index. If you remember living through Y2K, that was another millenarian moment — except our computer systems were redeemed by the same code writers who corrupted them in the first place.\n\nWho dreams of the apocalypse? Why do they dream of it? Polls indicate that up to 50 percent of Americans believe that the Book of Revelation is a true, prophetic document, meaning they fully expect the predictions of “Rapture,” “Tribulation” and “Armageddon” to be fulfilled. There is a paradox built into end-time theologies in that imminent catastrophe often brings comfort; according to Paul S. Boyer, an authority on prophecy belief in American culture and an emeritus professor of history at the <a href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_wisconsin/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about University of Wisconsin\">University of Wisconsin</a> at Madison, the apocalypse is an appealing idea because it promises salvation to a select group — all of whom share secret knowledge — and a world redeemed and delivered from evil. “The Utopian dream is a big part of the Western tradition,” Boyer told me, “both the religious and secular forms. But the wicked have to be destroyed and evil has to be overcome for the era of righteousness to dawn.” This is as true in the New Age as much as in any other one. Rumors of global crisis, the distrust of institutional authority, the ready availability of esoteric lore, the existence of individuals drawn to abstruse numerical schemes, the urge to assuage anxieties with dreams of social transformation — wherever these elements exist, apocalyptic thinking is likely to flourish.\n\nThe year 2012 first entered the public consciousness two decades ago this August with the Harmonic Convergence organized by José Arguelles, the author of a number of esoteric books about the Mayan cosmos and his experiences with telepathically received prophecies. With a penchant for promotion going back to the first Whole Earth Festival in 1970, which he organized, Arguelles promoted the convergence as an earth-changing event requiring 144,000 participants — the number echoed Mayan mathematics and the Book of Revelation — to free the planet from the dissonant influence of Western science and synchronize with the “wave harmonic of history” set to culminate in 2012. Mayan civilization, to Arguelles, was not entirely Mayan: It was originally a “terrestrial project” managed by a race of “galactic masters” from “star bases.” He saw the convergence as a stage, ordained by prophecy, in a march to the end foreseen by the ancient calendar makers: “Somewhere in that far and distant time, when armies clashed with metal and chemicals released the fire of the Sun, the wonder of Maya would burst again, releasing the mystery and showing the way that marks return among the patterns of the stars.”\n\nLarge crowds, some perhaps oblivious to the apocalyptic undertones of the event, did end up gathering at “focus locations” around the world — Stonehenge, Mount Shasta and Bolinas in California, even Central Park — and extensive media coverage of the meditating and dancing masses lent Arguelles and his project an eccentric authority. The New Age had discovered its own eschatology — with a mysterious, mythical people the controlling intelligence — and 2012 joined the lexicon of “energies,” transcendental meditation and crystals. By 1991 Arguelles was popularizing his own calendric system, which he branded Dreamspell, as a corrective to our mechanized time (dismissed, in mathematical shorthand, as “12:60,” the ratio of solar months to minutes in an hour). Inspired by the tzolk’in, the 260-day prophetic calendar utilized by the ancient Maya and common throughout Mesoamerica, Dreamspell functions as a daily oracle, replacing linear time with a “loom of resonances” that users navigate with a “galactic signature” based on the day of their birth. More than just an astrological sign, this signature is a tool for meditation and, as the latest edition of Arguelles’s calendar promises, “your password in fourth-dimensional time.”\n\nArguelles, under the aegis of his fief, the Foundation for the Law of Time, has lobbied tirelessly for the universal adoption of his calendar — now called the 13-Moon 28-day Calendar — by posting communiqués on the Web and arranging audiences with Mayan elders and members of the <a href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/roman_catholic_church/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about the Roman Catholic Church.\">Vatican</a>. Lately he has been designing large-scale telepathic experiments in conjunction with a Russian laboratory in Novosibirsk and other groups affiliated with his Planet Art Network.\n\n“The post-2012 world will be a world of universal telepathy,” Arguelles wrote me recently from New Zealand, where he has gone to prepare for the transition. Since 1993, when he claims to have received a new prophecy in Hawaii, he has been calling himself Valum Votan, Closer of the Cycle. “We’ll be literally living in a new time,” Arguelles said, “by a 13-month, 28-day synchronometer that will facilitate our telepathy by keeping us in harmony with everything all the time. There will be a lot fewer of us, with simple lifestyles, solar technology, garden culture and lots of telepathic communication.” As for the many who “have not evolved spiritually enough to know that there are other dimensions of reality,” Arguelles predicts they will be taken away in “silver ships.”\n\nWith Arguelles drifting into even more occult realms — his last book, “Time and the Technosphere,” spun elaborate new theories around 9/11 — he has been supplanted in the New Age conversation by the next generation of Mayan-calendar mystics with their own theories about the coming transition. This new generation does not typically think that space aliens guided the Maya and prides itself on its reverence for Mayan culture and tradition. Carl Johan Calleman, author of “The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness,” is a former cancer researcher from Sweden whose calculations have led him to a controversial end date of his own devising: Oct. 28, 2011. As Arguelles’s closest spiritual heir in the Mayan-calendar movement, Calleman has been active in promoting a regular mass-meditation event called the Breakthrough Celebration and other more focused projects including the Jerusalem Hug, which gathered 5,000 people around the walls of the Old City on May 21 to harness constructive energies and create a “cascade of peace.”\n\nWhile his interest in 2012 is not exclusively focused on the Mayan calendar, Chet Snow — a past-lives regression therapist and author from Sedona, Ariz. — tracks the impending consciousness shift on his Mass Dreams Newsletter, organizes annual crop-circle and sacred-site tours and gathers the disparate camps of the 2012 movement together for conferences devoted to ancient mysteries and the paranormal.\n\nWhen I asked Snow why he thought people were turning to alternative ideas and explanations like the ones espoused at his conferences, he told me the answer was a simple one. “The pillars of our expectations about the future in the West have started to crumble,” he said. “Religion, politics and economics — none of it is working any more. So when you hear about the ancient Maya and this changeover in 2012 involving solar cycles and astronomical events, you say, ‘Huh, maybe I need to connect with that.’ ”\n\n<span class=\"bold\">If the Mayan calendar</span> seems like an unlikely timing device for our salvation — whether it arrives through global catastrophe or telepathic rainbow around the earth — its animating role in the 2012 phenomenon is entirely consistent with popular notions of the “mysterious” Maya that have persisted for over a century. The Maya were just one of the peoples to thrive in Mesoamerica before the Spanish conquest of the 16th century, but the civilization’s florescence — spanning the period called the Maya Classic, between 300 and 900 A.D. — was especially bright and spectacular. After growing into a loose confederation of rival city-states that spread across the Yucatan peninsula and extended as far as Chiapas in the west and Honduras in the east, the Mayan civilization fell into a rolling decline that ended with the almost complete abandonment of their cities. The so-called Mayan collapse is a continued source of speculation and a major reason why the Maya have captured the imagination of 19th-century travelers, 20th-century archaeologists and generations of popular fantasists who have connected the Maya to everything from intergalactic colonies to the lost island of Atlantis to Teutonic gods from fire-breathing spaceships. The Mayan sites attract small armies of New Age pilgrims every year, hoping to plug into a stone socket of timeless indigenous wisdom; tens of thousands gather for the spring equinox at Chichén Itzá alone to watch the shadow of a snake slither down the steps of the Temple of Kukulcin.\n\nIn the introduction to his book “Maya Cosmogenesis 2012: The True Meaning of the Maya Calendar End Date,” John Major Jenkins describes his first visit to Tikal, the vast ruin in the Guatemalan rain forest that thrived as an urban center at the pinnacle of Mayan civilization. Jenkins, perhaps the most lucid figure in the subculture of 2012 prophets, writes of the “bone-jarring 16-hour bus ride on muddy and dangerous roads” that carried him to a “sprawling former metropolis” of pyramids, palaces, residences, ball-courts and scores of engraved monumental stones, or stelae, decorated with intricate, otherworldly images and hieroglyphs.\n\n“Sitting on the stone steps of the Central Acropolis,” Jenkins recalls, “I looked around me at the towering sentinels of stone, their upper platforms stretching above the jungle canopy like altars to the stars, and I listened carefully to the wind whisper messages of a far-off time, and of another world.”\n\nJenkins wasn’t the first 22-year-old traveler with spiritual yearnings to encounter the sublime at a Mayan archaeological site, but he is one of the few who has found a life’s vocation in the process. As harmonically as Jenkins was struck in Guatemala by the larger mysteries of the Maya, however, it was the calendar that really seized him — specifically the fact that there were Maya living in the highlands who still followed the same day count as their distant ancestors. (A common misconception is that the Maya “disappeared” when their cities emptied; there are six million Maya currently living in the states of Central America, a number far larger than population estimates of Mayan civilization during the Classic period.)\n\n“Here was an unbroken tradition,” Jenkins told me when I went to visit him at his home in Windsor, Colo., one afternoon in late March. We sat in a pair of lawn chairs in the backyard while a neighbor passed back and forth on a noisy tractor. “It’s a lineage going back 2,000 years,” he said, oblivious to the racket. Jenkins, now 43, is difficult to distract when talking about the Mayan calendar and 2012. After years of working as a software engineer to support his research and writing books and papers in his spare time, 2012 is now Jenkins’ full-time job. Influenced by the work of the pioneering psychedelic writer Terence McKenna — whose Timewave Zero system, based on computer analysis of the I Ching, also shows history to be culminating on Dec. 21, 2012 — Jenkins argues that ancient Maya “calendar priests” were able to chart a 26,000-year astronomical cycle called “the precession of the equinoxes” with the naked eye. He fixed the 2012 end date to coincide with a “galactic alignment” of the winter-solstice sun and the axis that modern astonomers draw to bisect the Milky Way, called the galactic equator.\n\nIn the alchemical tradition, Jenkins notes, eclipses signify the “transcending of the opposites.” During the period around 2012, Jenkins says, the galaxy will provide the opportunity for the rebirth of creation and a reconciliation of “infinity and finitude, time and eternity.” The Maya knew it, and just like an alarm clock, they set their calendar to coincide with the occasion.\n\nJenkins and his fellow travelers in the 2012 movement have chosen a particularly arcane source of secret knowledge in Mayan calendrics. The Maya calendar keepers are known to have charted the cycles of the moon, the sun, Mars and Venus with an accuracy that wouldn’t be duplicated until the modern era. Like most premodern societies, the Maya conceived of history not as the linear passage of time but as a series of cycles — they called them “world age cycles” — that would repeat over and over. To capture these cycles, the Maya employed what scholars call the long-count calendar, a five-unit computational system extending forward and backward from their mythical creation day, which is calculated to have fallen on either Aug. 11, 3114 B.C. or Aug. 13, 3114 B.C. All the current hoopla is due to the mathematical fact that the current world-age cycle on the long count, which began in Aug. 3114 B.C., is about to reach its end, 5,126 years later, on a date given in scholarly notation as 13.0.0.0.0 — which falls, not quite exactly, on Dec. 21, 2012. Enter the apocalypse.\n\nI asked Jenkins how he viewed the passing of one world-age cycle into another in December 2012, and he paused. It was a little bit like asking a seismologist what he thinks about earthquakes. As much as Jenkins has made a place for himself in the 2012 discussion through his independent research on the Maya and precession, he has made an even greater impact by applying academic rigor to the theories of his contemporaries and exposing, in his books and on an extensive Web site, their inconsistencies with established Mayanist scholarship. Jenkins was the first to reveal a major flaw in the synchronization between Arguelles’s Dreamspell and the Mayan day count, and he has been involved in an extensive, long-distance feud with Calleman since 2001 over their differing approaches to interpreting the Maya and over Calleman’s belief that the end time will be in 2011, not 2012. When I first spoke to Jenkins on the phone, he told me, “I think of myself as leading the charge for clarity and discernment.”\n\n“2012 is such a profound archetype,” Jenkins went on. “Here we are five and a half years before the date, and already there’s so much interest. Personally, I think it’s about transformation and renewal. It’s certainly nothing as simplistic as the end of the world.”\n\nBut what about the connection many people see between the approach of 2012 and environmental crisis? I asked. What about the popular link between the Maya and end-time prophecy?\n\n“A lot of people are talking about apocalypse right now,” he said, “but there’s a deeper meditation that can and should happen around the end date.” Jenkins — bearded, in a T-shirt and jeans — is originally from Chicago, and traces of a flat Midwestern accent remain in his voice. He looked and sounded beleaguered by the mention of apocalypse. “At any end-beginning nexus — at the dawn of a new religion or a spiritual tradition — you have this amazing opening,” he said. “Revelations come down. There’s a fresh awareness of what it means to be alive in the full light of history.”\n\n<span class=\"bold\">To scholars monitoring</span> the 2012 movement from their posts in academia — and some do — this latter-day apotheosis of the Mayan calendar is a source of frustration and an opportunity for deeper reflection. Or sometimes, just an opportunity. Anthony Aveni, an archeoastronomer and professor at Colgate, has a history with 2012 going back to the Harmonic Convergence, when he was interviewed on CNN to provide some perspective. “I got an offer from a literary agent to represent me the same day,” he told me. “So I’m grateful to José Arguelles for that.”\n\nAveni is critical of Jenkins’s approach and his galactic-alignment theory. “I defy anyone to look up into the sky and see the galactic equator,” he said. “You need a radio telescope for that, and they were not known anywhere in the world that I’ve heard of until the 1930s.” The real question, to him, is how an obscure, culturally circumscribed issue like the end date of one Mayan long-count cycle could manage to gain such traction in the wider world.\n\n“Jenkins and Calleman and Arguelles are the Gnostics of our time,” Aveni said. “They’re seeking higher knowledge. They look for knowledge framed in mystery. And there aren’t many mysteries left, because science has decoded most of them.”\n\nJohn Hoopes, an archaeologist at the <a href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_kansas/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about University of Kansas\">University of Kansas</a>, is more complimentary of Jenkins’s research, even if he doubts the validity of his major conclusions, including the galactic-alignment theory. “John Jenkins has done his homework on the ancient Maya,” he told me, “and he’s thought about their culture a great deal. Arguelles and Calleman largely disregard what we know the Maya believed.” Still, like most Mayan experts, Hoopes is not convinced that the Maya would have considered the end of a world cycle to be an apocalyptic event; one cycle could be subsumed into the next without a hiccup in the system, let alone a rupture in the count of days.\n\nIn the wider discussion around 2012, Hoopes sees a parallel to the debate going on in Kansas about teaching evolution and intelligent design in the public schools. It is an issue he takes so seriously that he has included the 2012 phenomenon in a course he developed called “Archaeological Myths and Realities,” which explores how science and history are manipulated to serve a religious or political agenda. Other examples include Nazi archaeology and the recently heralded ancient “pyramids” in Bosnia. Referrring to occult interpretations of the Maya, he says: “What’s interesting is how this fosters community in the New Age movement, and elsewhere, the same way that the anti-evolutionists have coalesced around intelligent design. I’ve started using the terms ‘religious right’ and ‘spiritual left.’ ”\n\nToward the end of my visit with Jenkins in Colorado, we drove from his home in Windsor to Denver — about 50 miles south — to meet his wife, Ellen, for dinner and a screening of “2012: The Odyssey,” a documentary that Jenkins appears in along with José Arguelles and other authorities on 2012. Jenkins had written me a long, discouraged e-mail message that morning about an item he found on an academic message board, linking to an article about 2012 from USA Today. The article included a description of Jenkins’s galactic-alignment theory without citing him as the source, and to make matters worse, the scholar who posted the link quoted a description of the galactic alignment and asked, “Anyone want to speculate about what this means?”\n\nTo Jenkins, it was further confirmation that his work is generally ignored inside a scholarly community that he has looked to for guidance and cited tirelessly in defense of the “authentic” Mayan tradition. He told me, as we drove past new housing developments going up where pastures had once been, that he had gone to conferences to meet the most important Mayanists and had been sending out papers and links to his Web site to selected scholars for years, but his attempts at making contact were usually ignored.\n\n“When you fund your own trip to do fieldwork by putting it on MasterCard,” he said, “and then they really don’t want to engage in a discussion with you, it’s kind of like ... wrong universe, I guess.”\n\nI asked him if he thought this might have something to do with some of his more speculative theories, like his assertion that the Maya had practiced pranayama — yogic deep breathing — based on the posture of Maya kings in certain paintings and carvings, which appears similar to full lotus.\n\n“It’s the assemblage of evidence that leads to my reading,” he insisted. “It’s not magically projecting something onto the images. But ultimately there is some guesswork involved. How often can you be 100 percent sure of anything?”\n\nBy the time we drove up to the Oriental Theater in the Berkeley Highlands section of Denver, his spirits had lifted again. The Oriental is a handsome, Persian-themed theater from the 1920s that has recently been refurbished after a long decline; it retains elements of both the glamour of its distant past and the seediness left over from its middle age as an adult theater. Now the Oriental is an arts center with a regular schedule of film screenings and live entertainment.\n\n“Look at that,” Jenkins said with a gesture at the marquee, making sure that I saw the big “2012” in black numerals.\n\nWhile Jenkins mingled with the early arrivals inside the lobby, I sat at a cafe table with his wife, a social worker at a hospital in Boulder, and Gina Kissell, director of the Metaphysical Research Society, a local group that offers workshops and programs in comparative religion and spirituality. The society was a sponsor of the screening that night, and Kissell, an ebullient woman in a sequined top, was thrilled about the turnout. I asked her about 2012 and what it meant to her, and she started in without hesitating:\n\n“To me it’s all about a movement toward enlightenment. We say compassion over competition. This whole shift in consciousness is going to wipe away everything negative. Armageddon isn’t what it used to be, you know?” Kissell told me that she had recently tried spending 21 days without having a negative thought: “It’s really hard! I tried, but I didn’t make it through the second week.”\n\nInside the theater, it was a festive scene. The seating sections were all full except for the balcony; a pair of waitresses roamed the aisles taking drink and sandwich orders (the Oriental has a full bar and panini menu); and the crowd presented a mix of the buttoned-down and the Bohemian, trending toward the tattooed and pierced. Ellen flashed me a proud look when Jenkins climbed onstage to give an introduction, and he was met with a lively burst of applause. Dressed in a well-worn jacket over a faded T-shirt, he could have been a professor who never quite recovered from his graduate-school years. Jenkins started by giving a primer of his theory about the galactic alignment and how the ancient Maya had calibrated their long-count calendar to coincide with this rare and transformative astronomical event. He shared his belief, reflected in the mantra “As above, so below,” that our lives are influenced by larger forces in the universe and that the Mayan sky watchers had used their sacred science to read the stars and divine creation’s deepest secrets. These same secrets can be ours, according to Jenkins’s theory, if we cup a hand to one ear, raise it to the sky and listen.\n\n“A lot of people ask me if the world is going to end in 2012,” he said, “and I’ve come up with the best way to address that. The short answer is yes. The long answer is no.”\n\nWriting in the forward to Jenkins’s “Maya Cosmogenesis 2012,” Terrence McKenna proffers that “we, by choice or design, actually live in the end time anticipated by the ancient Maya shaman-prophets. Their bones and their civilization have long since gone into the Gaian womb that claims all the children of time. Indeed, their cities were ghostly necropoleis by the time the Spanish conquerors first gazed upon them, 500 years ago. Yet it was our time that fascinated the Maya, and it was toward our time that they cast their ecstatic gaze, though it lay more than two millennia in the future at the time the first long-count dates were recorded.”\n\nIt is a splendid, human-size dream, that an ancient people revered for unearthly wisdom could climb aboard a calendar ship and redeem us from our troubled world and the confines of our vexing natures. Dec. 21, 2012, is already here — long before the date arrives — and perhaps it has always been. End dates are not the stuff of fantasy, after all; each and every one of us has a terminal appointment inscribed in our calendars. And the end might just arrive sooner. Perhaps that is why we need to imagine a supernatural force with one eye on a ticking clock, waiting to make everything new again.\n\nIt is the Maya who bring us apocalypse this time, and when the next one comes — well, we’ll just have to wait and see if the world is still here.\n\n<nyt_author_id></nyt_author_id>\n<p id=\"authorId\">Benjamin Anastas, a novelist, previously wrote for the magazine about Pentecostals.</p>','New York Times on 2012','','publish','open','open','','2012-in-the-new-york-times','','','2007-07-04 11:15:54','2007-07-04 11:15:54','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=607',0,'post','',0),(608,2,'2007-07-04 23:43:36','2007-07-04 23:43:36','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/10b-01.jpg\" title=\"10b-01.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/10b-01.jpg\" title=\"10b-01.jpg\" alt=\"10b-01.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"219\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"240\" /></a>\n\n<strong>SPECIAL SCREENING AND PERFORMANCE</strong>\n\nLAST CHANCE TO SEE THIS WONDERFUL EXHIBITION,\nCLOSES SATURDAY 7th!\n\n<em>Friday 6th July - 7:30pm, <a href=\"www.thehorsehospital.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Horse Hospital</a>, 1 Colonnade, Russell Square.\n£7/£5 members &amp; concessions</em>\n\nOne-off performance from The Stargazer\'s Assistant, featuring:\n\n* David J Smith (Guapo, Miasma, Amal Gamal Ensemble) on drums &amp; percussion;\n* Stefano Tedesco (Strings of Consciousness) on vibraphone;\n* Mark Pilkington (Raagnagrok, Disinformation vs Strange Attractor) on synthesisers &amp; electronics.\n\n+PLUS+\n\n<em>Fantastic Planet</em>\nRene Laloux (1973), 72min\n\nA French/Czech co-production, the dream-like La Planete Sauvage concerns the degradation of the Oms, human-like creatures on the futuristic planet Yagam. The Oms are kept as pets and beasts of burden by the Draggs, 39-foot beings who comprise Yagam\'s ruling class. The status quo is upset when Terr, one of the Oms, accidentally receives an education, whereupon he organizes the other Oms to demand equality with the Draggs. Based on Stefen Wul\'s novel Ems En Serie, Fantastic Planet was the winner of a 1973 Cannes Film Festival grand prize.','La Planete Sauvage vs Stargazer&#039;s Assistant','','publish','open','open','','la-planete-sauvage-vs-stargazers-assistant','','','2007-07-04 23:43:36','2007-07-04 23:43:36','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=608',0,'post','',0),(610,2,'2007-07-06 09:53:50','2007-07-06 09:53:50','Strange Attractor will be curating a night of talks, live music and film at the <strong><a href=\"http://www.thegreenmanfestival.co.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">Green Man Festival</a></strong>, which runs from 17th-19th August at <span class=\"textSmall\">Glanusk Park in the Brecon Beacons</span>.\nWe\'ll be taking over the Cinema tent from 9pm on the Saturday night.\n\nThe line up is as follows:\n\n* <strong>Dr Andy Letcher</strong>, author of <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=288\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Shroom</em></a>, on magic mushrooms in myth and popular culture.\n\n* <strong>Dr Robert Wallis</strong>, author of <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/shop_galdrbok.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Galdrbok</em></a>, <em>Shamans/Neo Shamans</em> et al,  on mugwort, England\'s sacred weed.\n\n* <strong>Stephen Grasso</strong>, contributor to <a href=\"http://www.generation-hex.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Generation Hex</a> and others, on psychedelics and magic.\n\n* The talks will be followed by an open Q&amp;A session chaired by <strong>Mark Pilkington</strong>.\n\nThe evening will conclude with a live performance from the <a href=\"http://raagnagrok.co.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">Raagnagrok</a> Allstars, featuring all of the above, plus Solomon Kirchner on electric sitar, and Otto Amon on synthesisers. We hope to have some other special guests too.\n\nThe Green Man is roundly praised as being the most enjoyable and convivial of the Summer festivals, which must be true if they\'ve solicited our involvement. Also on the bill are Robert Plant, Joanna Newsom, Bill Callahan, Gruff Rhys, Six Organs of Admittance,  Vashti Bunyan and tonnes more.\n\nFull details of the festival at the <a href=\"http://www.thegreenmanfestival.co.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">Green Man</a> site.\n\nSee you there!','Strange Attractor Salon at The Green Man','','publish','open','open','','strange-attractor-salon-at-the-green-man','','','2007-07-06 09:53:50','2007-07-06 09:53:50','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=610',0,'post','',0),(612,2,'2007-07-09 11:21:34','2007-07-09 11:21:34','<p class=\"timestamp\"><strong> Scientists Urge a Search for Life Not as We Know It</strong></p>\n<p class=\"timestamp\">July 7, 2007, By CARL ZIMMER <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/07/science/space/07alien.html?_r=1&amp;oref=slogin&amp;ref=us&amp;pagewanted=print\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times</a></p>\n<nyt_byline version=\"1.0\" type=\" \"> </nyt_byline>\n<p class=\"byline\"><nyt_headline version=\"1.0\" type=\" \"></nyt_headline>A panel of scientists convened by the country’s leading scientific advisory group says the hunt for extraterrestrial life should be greatly expanded to include what they call “weird life”: organisms that lack DNA or other molecules found in life as we know it.</p>\n<nyt_text> </nyt_text>\n\n“The committee’s investigation makes clear that life is possible in forms different from those on Earth,” the scientists conclude in their report, “The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems,” published yesterday by the National Research Council.\n\nOther experts hailed the report as an important rethinking of the search for life.\n\n“It’s going to help us a lot to make sure we go exploring with our eyes wide open,” said Michael A. Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars exploration program.\n\nStarfish, sequoias, salamanders and the rest of Earth’s residents may seem very diverse, but they are surprisingly similar on the molecular scale. All species that scientists have studied need liquid water to survive, for example. Further, they all rely on DNA to carry genetic information, and they all use that information to build proteins from the same set of building blocks, known as amino acids.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nNASA has long looked to life on Earth to guide its search for life in other worlds. Planets and moons that have hints of liquid water have been ranked high on the list of potential sites for life-detection missions.\n\nBut there is good reason to suspect that other kinds of chemistry could support life as well, the authors of the new report argue. Weird life could differ from life as we know it in small or big ways.\n\nFor example, while DNA uses phosphorus in its backbone, it might be possible to build a backbone out of arsenic instead. And life might exist in liquids other than water, perhaps ammonia or methane.\n\nThe report, which is posted on the Web site of the National Academies, <a href=\"http://www.nationalacademies.org/\" title=\"National Academy of Sciences\">www.nationalacademies.org,</a> even explores the possibility of life based on silicon, not carbon, though Dr. Meyer, who had no role in the work, thinks that astrobiologists should limit their search to carbon-based life forms.\n\n“When we look in the universe,” he said, “the only compounds we see with more than six atoms are all carbon chemistry. So there’s a hint that looking for carbon chemistry may be a better bet. There we have some idea of what to look for.”\n\nThe report calls for NASA and the <a href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_science_foundation/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about National Science Foundation, U.S.\">National Science Foundation</a> both to support research into weird life. Chemists need to investigate “the chemical possibilities for what forms life might take,” said one member of the committee, Steven A. Benner, a distinguished fellow at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, in Gainesville, Fla.\n\nScientists should also search Earth for weird life, the authors maintain. “There’s much about Earth life we don’t understand,” said the panel’s chairman, John A. Baross of the <a href=\"http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_washington/index.html?inline=nyt-org\" title=\"More articles about University of Washington\">University of Washington</a>.\n\nDr. Benner said there was “good evidence that the life we know on Earth was preceded by a weird form of life.” Early Earth life may have been based on RNA, a single-stranded form of DNA. Though DNA-based life may have outcompeted earlier forms on the surface of the planet, RNA life may still exist in refuges. One potential hiding place is deep below the ocean floor.\n\n“It’s an incredibly primordial world down there,” Dr. Baross said. “If you’re going to look for remnants of an RNA world, those are the environments you want to go to.”\n\nTo find weird life, however, scientists will have to build new kinds of detectors. “There’s no question that the surveys of life on the planet we’ve done so far would have missed it,” Dr. Benner said.\n\nThe scientists also said the possibility of weird life should prompt NASA to reorder its future missions. They singled out Saturn’s moon Titan as particularly promising. The Huygens probe that visited Titan in 2005 found evidence of liquid methane raining down on its surface, as well as a mix of water and ammonia seeping up from its interior. Both could conceivably support life, although not necessarily life as we know it.\n\n“Nothing,” the report concluded, “would be more tragic in the American exploration of space than to encounter alien life and fail to recognize it.”','Weird Life','','publish','open','open','','weird-life','','','2007-07-09 11:21:34','2007-07-09 11:21:34','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=612',0,'post','',0),(613,2,'2007-07-10 08:46:00','2007-07-10 08:46:00','<p class=\"byline\"><strong>In the Blink of a Byte, Future Becomes Past</strong></p>\n<nyt_headline version=\"1.0\" type=\" \"></nyt_headline> <nyt_byline version=\"1.0\" type=\" \"> </nyt_byline>July 9, 2007, <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/business/media/09link.html?_r=3&amp;th=&amp;oref=slogin&amp;emc=th&amp;pagewanted=print\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times</a>. By NOAM COHEN\n\n<nyt_text> </nyt_text>The Internet can seem an all-knowing, mysterious oracle. Type in a question, hit a button and an answer magically appears.\n\nYet oracles earn their robes not for providing trivia (“Caesar, did you know that “ides” is a Latin term denoting half a month?”), but for predicting the future, however Delphically. And for a brief period recently, the Internet seemed to have crossed that threshold.\n\nThe backdrop was the bizarre tale of the professional wrestler Christopher Benoit who during one weekend last month killed his wife, Nancy, and later his son and himself. The police didn’t find the bodies until Monday afternoon, June 25, but a Wikipedia entry on Mr. Benoit had reported his wife’s death matter-of-factly 13 hours earlier.\n\n<!--more--> Was there some error with the time stamped on the article? Was a witness choosing to speak under cover of anonymity? Or was the killer posting a final warning? Intriguingly, the IP address used to write the prophetic posting was traced to Stamford, Conn., which happens to be the home of World Wrestling Entertainment, the employer of Mr. Benoit.\n\nAs a furor grew, the anonymous user of Wikipedia who posted the Nancy Benoit information (known by the IP address 69.120.111.23) came forward to say, “I did the wrong thing by posting it on Wikipedia,” adding, “I was just as shocked as everyone when I heard that this actually would happen in real life.”\n\nThe police nonetheless questioned that person. Investigators “checked it out very thoroughly” and concluded “it was pure coincidence,” said Lt. Belinda McCastle of the Sheriff’s Department of Fayetteville, Ga., where the killings occurred. She declined to release the name of the owner of the IP address 69.120.111.23.\n\nThe Benoit case, minus that part about predicting the future, isn’t unique. There was the case of the film director and actress Adrienne Shelley, who was murdered in Greenwich Village last year. Editors at The New York Times were given a tip, and in the course of reading about her on Wikipedia (yes, newspaper editors read Wikipedia), saw that her death had already been listed. In fact, it was a full day later before the news became public knowledge, as we usually think of it.\n\nThe British newspaper The Guardian reported a similar experience in 2005, when editors there found the only confirmation of the death of the feminist writer Andrea Dworkin on Wikipedia.\n\nRobin Hanson of George Mason University, an expert on using future markets to track public sentiment, said an e-mail exchange that these examples are hardly evidence of predicting the future. Rather, he suggested, it was “a bit newspaper-centric to say that news has not broke ‘publicly’ if it is being discussed online in rumors but has not appeared in a newspaper.” He added that “with more and more kinds of media, there are more and more intermediate levels of info availability.”\n\nThis is the crucial dividing line: between reporting on events in as close to real time as possible — which can prove jarring to society, and journalists in particular, but hardly supernatural — and predicting things around the bend.\n\nAs the Benoit case and others show, it may be human nature to confuse the two. The classic grifter swindle portrayed in the 1973 movie “The Sting” fools its target by holding out the possibility of using the telegraph to “predict” horse-race results.\n\nBut there are businesses that see the odds in getting information as close to real time as possible using Internet searches. At the core of this research is the hope of tapping into something intuitive about people — the way some people believe animals sense an earthquake coming and scatter.\n\nBill Tancer, the general manager of Hitwise, a company that analyzes search results, calls the field “searchonomics.” Thus far, he has tested his theories in a manner that resembles so-called future markets — which trade bets on future events like elections and sporting events — by treating search requests as the equivalent of votes, or “buys,” and then adjusting for other factors. (The reality TV show “Dancing With the Stars” has been his unwitting laboratory — to mixed results, he concedes.)\n\nBut these tools can be used for weightier matters. Tracking searches of the word “unemployment” can provide clues to trends in the nation’s unemployment rate, Mr. Tancer said. Likewise, Altos Research, a Silicon Valley start-up, collects and tracks millions of real estate listings to assess the housing market before the government releases its figures.\n\nThis information serves a Wall Street function as “closer to real time” data for investors, said Michael Simonsen, Altos’s president and chief executive.\n\n“We are really early in the predictive power of the Internet; financial markets are getting a hang of it,” he says. “We have miles to go in all the nuances in capturing information.”\n\nA more nuanced analysis was made by Mr. Tancer, who tracked searches in 2005 concerning avian flu. By comparing different terms, from the technical name “H5N1” to “avian flu” to the more basic “bird flu” he tried to show how a spike in interest first appeared among what he presumes was the scientific community (H5N1 searchers) and then quickly spread to the general public.\n\nArmed with this insight, it may be easier to see when concern over a potential epidemic is going to “go big.” But these insights will be culled from millions of data points, not from single Wikipedia entries like the one for Mr. Benoit.\n\nIt is eerie to note, however, that the anonymous poster about Ms. Shelley’s death had earlier in the year edited the Wikipedia entry about the so-called Butterfly Effect, the notion that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can influence the weather in Florida. It’s as if that user — 216.165.95.5 — knew that someone typing something into a computer can influence an editor in a newsroom far away.\n\nOr it may have been a coincidence.','Net Futures?','','publish','open','open','','613','','','2007-07-10 08:46:00','2007-07-10 08:46:00','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=613',0,'post','',0),(614,2,'2007-07-10 09:17:55','2007-07-10 09:17:55','<em>South East London Folklore Society presents:</em>\n\n<strong>12th July: Catherine Rider - Magic and Medicine in the Middle Ages</strong>\n\n\"It happened once in Paris that a certain sorceress impeded a man who\nhad left her so that he could not have intercourse with another woman\nwhom he had married.\"\n\nCatherine discusses her research for her Katherine Briggs award\nwinning book \"Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages.\"\n\nSELFS meet every second Thursday of the month at:\n\nThe Old King\'s Head,\nKings Head Yard, 45-49, Borough High St, London, SE1 1NA.\nNearest stations are London Bridge and Borough. It is just off\nBorough High Street.\n\nTalk start at 8.00pm\n\n£2.50 / £1.50 concessions.\n\nContact scott@selfs.org.uk\n<a href=\"http://www.selfs.org.uk\" target=\"_blank\">SELFS site</a>','Magic and Medicine in the Middle Ages','','publish','open','open','','magic-and-medicine-in-the-middle-ages','','','2007-07-10 09:17:55','2007-07-10 09:17:55','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=614',0,'post','',0),(615,2,'2007-07-12 09:18:10','2007-07-12 09:18:10','<strong>Astronomers detect water in distant planet\'s atmosphere</strong>\n\n<em>Ian Sample, Thursday  July      12, 2007 <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2124179,00.html\">The Guardian</a></em>\n\nUK astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of an enormous, fiery planet that circles a distant star far beyond our own solar system. The discovery raises hopes that the substance considered most vital for life may be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy and wider universe.\n\nThe finding, described in Nature today, proves scientists can overcome what has long been thought one of the greatest hurdles in the search for extraterrestrial life - the ability to analyse atmospheres of distant worlds for signs of living organisms.\n\n<!-- This site/section combo is not set up to show MPU\'s -->The planet, a Jupiter-like gas giant, circles a star identified by astronomers as HD189733, some 64 light years from our sun in the constellation of Vulpecula, or \"little fox\". It is slightly larger than Jupiter - itself more than 11 times wider than Earth - and passes so close to its parent star that surface temperatures soar from 700C to 1,000C when night turns to day.\n\n<!--more-->Astronomers led by Giovanna Tinetti, at University College London, used Nasa\'s Earth-orbiting Spitzer telescope to watch the planet as it passed directly in front of its star during its 2.2 day orbit. Cameras on the telescope picked up faint changes in starlight passing through the planet\'s atmosphere. The atmosphere absorbed infrared light at wavelengths that could only be explained by large quantities of water vapour.\n\n\"This planet cannot be considered habitable, it\'s extremely hostile, but the fact that we can see water on an extra-solar planet makes us think we might be able to use the same technique to spot water on other habitable planets that are more life-friendly and more similar to Earth,\" said Dr Tinetti.\n\nScientists believe the most likely place to find a \"second Earth\" - a rocky planet capable of harbouring life as we know it - is in the \"Goldilocks zone\" of a distant solar system, where planets are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to form.\n\nKeith Horne, a planet hunter at St Andrews University, said: \"The fact that this gas giant has been found to have water in the atmosphere is exciting. We\'re very interested in finding where water exists - is it so abundant that it will be present virtually everywhere a planet forms or not?\"\n\nHe added: \"This planet is too hot to have our kind of life on it, but we don\'t know for sure that very bizarre kinds of life don\'t exist. Ultimately, we want to know if there\'s life out there or not. We want to know whether Earth is essentially unique in the galaxy, or whether there are planets close by that may harbour life. It gives us a perspective on how special we are and how special our home is.\"','Water, water, everywhere','','publish','open','open','','water-water-everywhere','','','2007-07-12 09:18:10','2007-07-12 09:18:10','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=615',0,'post','',0),(617,2,'2007-07-17 14:18:40','2007-07-17 14:18:40','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/handsoffconcert.gif\" title=\"handsoffconcert.gif\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/handsoffconcert.gif\" title=\"handsoffconcert.gif\" alt=\"handsoffconcert.gif\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"544\" width=\"385\" /></a>','Hands Off 2007!','','publish','open','open','','hands-off-2007','','','2007-07-17 14:18:40','2007-07-17 14:18:40','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=617',0,'post','',0),(618,2,'2007-07-17 14:34:20','2007-07-17 14:34:20','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/rgkwindill.jpg\" title=\"rgkwindill.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/rgkwindill.jpg\" title=\"rgkwindill.jpg\" alt=\"rgkwindill.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"282\" width=\"376\" /></a>\n\n<address> [Raagnagrok photo: <a href=\"http://allumination.wordpress.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Al Robertson]</a></address>Two special events coming up featuring Strange Attractor favourites <a href=\"http://www.techgnosis.com\" target=\"_blank\">Erik Davis</a>, author of Techgnosis and The Visionary State, and <a href=\"http://www.mjohnharrison.com/\">M John Harrison</a>, author of The Course of the Heart, Light, Nova Swing and more.\n\nOn <strong>Saturday 28 July</strong>,  Erik brings guitar and voice to synth and electric sitar astralnauts <a href=\"http://www.raagnagrok.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">Raagnagrok</a> (above) for a gig at Stage B, 98 Stoke Newington Church St, London N16. This is organised by our good pals <a href=\"http://www.freq.org.uk/events.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Drones Club</a>, and also features Djinn playing Arabic beats and live reeds and pipes. Doors at 8pm, £4 tax.\n\n<strong>Sunday 29 July</strong> sees the team mutate into straight edge synth duo Grok, fronted by live readings from both M John Harrison and Erik Davis. This is part of Resonance FM\'s \'<a href=\"http://www.resonancefm.com/mos.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Month of Sundays</a>\' series  and also features comedy from Simon Munnery, science chat from Little Atoms, Dexter Bentley, Marvin Suicide and more.\n\n8pm until 12 Mindnight (Doors 7.30) £5\n<strong> Corsica Arts Studios, Unit 5, Farrell            Court Elephant Road London SE17 1LB</strong>\nJoin us!','Erik Davis &amp; M John Harrison vs Grok &amp; Raagnagrok','','publish','open','open','','erik-davis-m-john-harrison-vs-grok-raagnagrok','','','2007-07-17 14:34:20','2007-07-17 14:34:20','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=618',0,'post','',0),(622,2,'2007-07-19 17:59:03','2007-07-19 17:59:03','<strong>   Vanuatu defends its famous drink</strong>\n<em> By Andrew Harding, <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6295546.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC News</a>, Vanuatu</em>\n\nThe tiny Pacific nation of Vanuatu is battling to defend the reputation of its national drink, a bitter peppery concoction called kava, which is famous for its medicinal, stress-relieving properties.  Since 2000, kava has been banned by many European countries, following claims that the herbal remedy can cause severe liver damage.\n\nNow Australia has imposed tight new import restrictions because of concerns that it is being abused in some Aboriginal communities.\n\nBut in Vanuatu, kava drinking remains an essential evening ritual, as the roots of the Piper methysticum plant are washed, chopped, mashed (ideally with a stick of dry coral) and strained into coconut cups.\n\n<!--more-->\"Everyone knows here that kava is not dangerous,\" said Dr Vincent Lebot, a kava expert and enthusiast, based in Vanuatu.\n<p class=\"bo\">\"It is not like alcohol or nicotine. It is not addictive.\"     	     	             Many people on these remote islands believe that kava has been unjustly demonised.</p>\nThey claim that the herb - once widely available globally in pill form as a natural treatment for stress and anxiety, and known as \"kava kava\" - was encroaching on the turf of international pharmaceutical companies.\n\nNow Vanuatu\'s case has been strengthened by a new report from the World Health Organisation which appears to rule out a link between kava and liver damage.\n\n\"Kava cleared!\" a recent headline in the local newspaper in Port Vila proclaimed.\n<p class=\"bo\">	      	             Instead, local people point to Kava\'s stress-relieving properties.     	     	             \"It relaxes you,\" explained Chief Selwyn Garu, enjoying his second cup at dusk. \"In fact, I\'m struggling to talk right now!\"</p>\n\"Beer makes you excited. It sets people at each others\' throats. But kava makes you want to sit still.\"\n\n<strong>     	     	            Damage done?     	     	            </strong>\n\nDespite the new restrictions imposed by Australia, kava traders in the Pacific are now hoping to revive their export industry, which has been badly damaged by the bans in Europe and elsewhere.\n\nChief Selwyn - one of Vanuatu\'s most senior tribal chiefs - is optimistic.\n\n\"If you think about big markets, if they open up to kava, then it\'s going to be [as popular as] the Cuban cigar.\"\n\nBut Vincent Lebot is more wary.\n\n\"I\'m not sure. In Europe, consumers are already scared. The damage is already done.\"','Kava kava on trial','','publish','open','open','','kava-kava-on-trial','','','2007-07-19 17:59:03','2007-07-19 17:59:03','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=622',0,'post','',0),(623,2,'2007-07-25 08:50:04','2007-07-25 08:50:04','<strong>Scans reveal a fluid-filled cavity in the brain of a normal man. </strong>\n\n<em><a href=\"http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070716/pf/070716-15_pf.html\" target=\"_blank\">Nature</a> 20 July 2007, by </em>Louis Buckley\n\nThree years ago, a 44-year-old man was admitted to hospital in Marseille, France, complaining of weakness in his left leg. He had no idea what doctors would find to be the source of the problem: a huge pocket of fluid where most of his brain ought to be.\n\n<span class=\"articletext\">Normally, fluid continuously circulates throughout the brain and is drained away into the circulatory system. But in this case, the man\'s drainage tubes had narrowed, resulting in an accumulation of fluid in the ventricles and an enlargement of the skull due to the great volume of fluid pressing against it. This had squeezed his brain into a narrow layer around the outside of the fluid, doctors report in the <em>Lancet.</em></span>\n\nFull story at <em><a href=\"http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070716/pf/070716-15_pf.html\" target=\"_blank\">Nature</a></em>\n\n<!--more-->\"We were very surprised when we looked for the first time the CT scan,\" says Lionel Feuillet, a neurologist at the Mediterranean University, Marseille. \"The brain was very, very much smaller than normal.\" Nevertheless, subsequent tests showed the man to have an IQ of 75 — at the lower end of the \'normal range\'.\n\n<span class=\"articletext\">The patient was a married father with two children and a job as a civil servant. His problems with his left leg were a neurological symptom of the condition, says Feuillet.</span>\n\n<strong>Water on the brain</strong>\n\nThe general condition caused by a build-up of fluid in the brain\'s ventricles — called hydrocephalus or \'water on the brain\' — is relatively common, affecting about one in 1,000 people. It is most common in children but can affect adults too.\n\n<span class=\"articletext\">To release the trapped fluid doctors insert a tube called a \'shunt\', allowing it to drain into the bloodstream and central nervous system. With this treatment most patients lead a fairly normal life. But neurological problems and other complications, such as brain infection and problems related to the shunt, are not uncommon. Left untreated, the condition is often fatal.</span>\n\n<span class=\"articletext\">It\'s likely that the man in this case had hydrocephalus from birth, says Feuillet. His medical records show that he was treated with a shunt at the age of 6 months, and again at 14 years old. But without further neurological problems the extent of his condition went un-noticed for decades.</span>\n\n<span class=\"articletext\">The fact that his medical record shows normal neurological development is remarkable, says Feuillet. \"This case is unique to our knowledge. We have never encountered such severe hydrocephalus before.\" </span>\n\n<span class=\"articletext\">Many other medical conditions lead to brain shrinkage, including brain atrophy from Alzheimer\'s disease, explains Feuillet. \"But in these cases, mental abilities are usually affected.\" For example, people with microcephaly — a condition in which the size of the head and brain is reduced (but the structure of the brain is normal) — can suffer from cerebral palsy, epilepsy, impaired vision and hearing, and autism. </span>\n\n<span class=\"articletext\">Happily, this patient has made a complete recovery following his treatment, reports Feuillet, although a subsequent scan showed no change in his brain size. So the man with the tiny brain lives on.</span>','No brainer','','publish','open','open','','no-brainer','','','2007-07-25 08:50:04','2007-07-25 08:50:04','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=623',0,'post','',0),(624,2,'2007-07-25 12:24:23','2007-07-25 12:24:23','From the <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6914492.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>\n<strong>Mobile phone masts are not responsible for the symptoms of ill health some blame them for, a major UK study says.     	     	            </strong>\n\nDozens of people who believed the masts trigger symptoms such as anxiety, nausea and tiredness could not detect if signals were on or off in trials.\n\nBut when they thought the signal was on they reported more distress, suggesting the problem has a psychological basis.\n\nHowever, the Environmental Health Perspectives study stressed people were nonetheless suffering \"real symptoms\".\n\n\"Belief is a very powerful thing,\" said Professor Elaine Fox, of the University of Essex, who led the three year study.\n\n<!--more-->\n\"If you really believe something is going to do you some harm, it will.\"\n\nThe study was funded by the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research programme, a body which is itself funded by industry and government.\n\n<strong>     	     	            Modern appliances     	     	            </strong>\n\nIt is unclear how many people in the UK suffer from \"electro-sensitivity\", an allergy they believe can be triggered by a range of modern day appliances from hair driers to mobile phone masts.\n\n<p class=\"ibox\">\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"5\"></td>\n<td class=\"fact\"><!--Emva--></td>\n</tr>\n</table>\nIn 2005 the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said there was no scientific evidence to link their ill health with electrical equipment, while acknowledging sufferers could have real and unpleasant symptoms.\n\nBut the HPA research did not consider the effects of waves from phone masts, as most of the studies looking at electrical sensitivity were carried out before they were widely introduced.\n\nA number of studies subsequently have looked at the mobile effect, but the Essex experiments are some of the largest and most detailed to date.\n\nAfter 12 of the sufferers dropped out of the trial researchers tested a total of 44 people with a history of symptoms against a control group of 114 people who had never reported ill effects from masts.\n\nWhen the signal was being emitted, and they were told of this, sensitive individuals reported lower levels of well-being.\n\nThis was true for exposure to both forms of mobile systems - GSM and UMTS (3G).\n\nHowever, when tests were carried out in which neither the experimenter or participant knew if the mast was on or off the number of symptoms reported was not related to whether a signal was being emitted or not.\n\n<strong>     	     	            Chance finding     	     	            </strong>\n\nTwo of the 44 sensitive individuals correctly judged if it was on or off in all six tests, as did five out of 114 control participants.\n\n\"This proportion is what is expected by chance,\" the researchers said.\n\nThe symptoms were real. As well as reporting feeling unwell, sensitive individuals had sweatier skin and higher blood pressure - both measures of a physiological response.\n\nBut this was regardless of whether the signal was on or off.\n\n\"Hence the range of symptoms and physiological response does not appear to be related to the presence of either GSM or 3G signals,\" the study concluded.\n\nOther experts endorsed the study\'s findings.\n\nDr James Rubin, of the Mobile Phone Research Unit, King\'s College London, said the findings were in line with those from most other previous experiments.\n\n\"This should be reassuring news for anyone who is concerned about the possible short-term health effects of masts,\" he said.\n\nBut Mast Sanity, a lobby group which believes masts are responsible for ill health said the results of the survey were skewed by the fact that 12 of the potentially most sensitive people had dropped out.\n\n\"History has shown that many now commonly accepted physical conditions were initially dismissed as psychological,\" said spokeswoman Yasmin Skelt.\n\n\"Isn\'t it time that the government woke up to the reality of electrosensitivity instead of attempting to persuade sufferers that it is all in their minds?\"\n\nBut another campaign group, Powerwatch, commended the research as one of \"one of the best designed and executed studies to date\" while stressing that the number of dropouts was unfortunate.\n\n\"So whilst it cannot be entirely ruled out that a small minority are truly sensitive, the proportions of any truly sensitive people are likely to be far lower than the 3% - 35% that has been quoted.\"','Phone mast allergy &#039;in the mind&#039;','','publish','open','open','','phone-mast-allergy-in-the-mind','','','2007-07-25 12:24:23','2007-07-25 12:24:23','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=624',0,'post','',0),(625,2,'2007-07-26 10:30:51','2007-07-26 10:30:51','<strong>Oscar the Cat Predicts Patients\' Deaths, Jul 26 AP</strong>\n\nPROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.\n\n\"He doesn\'t make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die,\" said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday\'s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine...\n\nDosa said Oscar seems to take his work seriously and is generally aloof. \"This is not a cat that\'s friendly to people,\" he said.\n\nDoctors say most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably don\'t know he\'s there, so patients aren\'t aware he\'s a harbinger of death. Most families are grateful for the advanced warning, although one wanted Oscar out of the room while a family member died. When Oscar is put outside, he paces and meows his displeasure...\n\nNicholas Dodman, who directs an animal behavioral clinic at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and has read Dosa\'s article, said the only way to know is to carefully document how Oscar divides his time between the living and dying.\n\nIf Oscar really is a furry grim reaper, it\'s also possible his behavior could be driven by self-centered pleasures like a heated blanket placed on a dying person, Dodman said...\n\nOscar recently received a wall plaque publicly commending his \"compassionate hospice care.\"\n\nFull story <a href=\"http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DEATH_CAT?\">here</a>','Oscar the death cat','','publish','open','open','','oscar-the-death-cat','','','2007-07-26 10:30:51','2007-07-26 10:30:51','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=625',0,'post','',0),(627,2,'2007-07-26 13:48:38','2007-07-26 13:48:38','<a href=\"http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/424\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"oriaxsigil.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/oriaxsigil.jpg\" title=\"oriaxsigil.jpg\" alt=\"oriaxsigil.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"205\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"205\" /></a>\n\n<em>Many great claims are made for magick, almost exclusively by magicians and those who fear them. Andy says, “After you’ve done it long enough, and you start to manipulate things, you get the feeling you are part of a bigger game.” But doubters ask: “How can you be sure that it might not have happened anyway?” So we devised a public demonstration. Live, on the usually sober <em>Channel 4 News</em>, on August 21, 2001, presenter Jon Snow would be magickally coerced into momentarily losing his composure, he would corpse, that is, laugh out loud – live on air.<span class=\"readmore\"></span></em>\n\nAn olde article of mine has been repurposed for use on the <a href=\"http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/424\" target=\"_blank\">Reality Sandwich</a> web site - it\'s bad, old-fashioned (16th century no-less!) fun...\n\nAny Londoners wishing to get involved in the <a href=\"http://realitysandwich.com\" target=\"_blank\">Reality Sandwich</a> project, or to learn more about it, should congregate at the <a href=\"http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/91/916/Yorkshire_Grey/Fitzrovia\" target=\"_blank\">Yorkshire Grey</a> pub, 46 Langham St W1W, from 6pm on Monday 6 August. It\'s an open moot, and RS honchos Ken Jordan and Daniel Pinchbeck, as well as myself and others, will be there to discuss the project.','Reality Hacking at Reality Sandwich','','publish','open','open','','reality-hacking-at-reality-sandwich','','','2007-07-26 13:48:38','2007-07-26 13:48:38','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=627',0,'post','',0),(631,2,'2007-07-30 10:42:33','2007-07-30 10:42:33','<a href=\"http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/009579.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"kenning.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/kenning.jpg\" title=\"kenning.jpg\" alt=\"kenning.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"325\" width=\"221\" /></a>\n\n<em>I don\'t know what\'s more horrifying, Great Cthulhu him/herself or the appropriation of the Mythos by the contemporary art scene...</em>\n\n\"The outside walls of rented accommodation constitute a vast advertising billboard for Estate Agents. They appear without warning. TO LET, LET BY - they never seem to come down. If you live in rented accommodation, your home has been branded: you are a temporary occupant subject to the authority of the property owner and his agent.\n\nFor The Dulwich Horror TO LET signs across London will form the canvas onto which Dean Kenning will paint images representing the supernatural and monstrous entities from H.P.Lovecraft\'s Cthulhu Mythos. Horrible alien beings such as Yog Sothoth, The Outer Ones, and Great Cthulhu himself are famously beyond description (the sight of such creatures would drive any human over the edge of insanity). Nevertheless, Kenning will have a go.\"\n\nThe Dulwich Horror - H.P. Lovecraft and the Crisis in British Housing\n\nAn exhibition by Dean Kenning\n\nLaunch  evening: Friday 27th July 6.30-8.30 2007 All welcome\nExhibition runs: 20th July to Sept 2nd 2007\nwindow exhibition, viewed from the street 24hrs\nClosing event:  Sept 2nd 4-7pm, performances. All welcome\n\nThanks <a href=\"http://2ubh.com\" target=\"_blank\">Tim Chapman</a>!','The Dulwich Horror','','publish','open','open','','the-dulwich-horror','','','2007-07-30 10:42:33','2007-07-30 10:42:33','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=631',0,'post','',0),(632,2,'2007-08-02 09:04:34','2007-08-02 09:04:34','<strong>Pioneer brain implants allow minimally conscious patient to eat, drink and talk</strong>\n\n<em>Ian Sample, <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/02/3\" target=\"_blank\">Guardian</a>,  Thursday August 2 2007</em>\n\nA man who spent more than six years in a near-vegetative state after a horrific assault has made a dramatic recovery following a pioneering treatment to stimulate his brain with electrical pulses.\n\nThe man, who was confined to a bed in a specialised nursing home, very rarely opened his eyes, occasionally tried to mouth words and move his head, but was otherwise unable to communicate and had to be fed through a tube. Following the new treatment the patient, who cannot be named, is able to recognise and talk to his doctors and family, eat and drink normally and perform basic movements, such as brushing his hair.\n\nIt is the first time the technique, called deep brain stimulation, has been used to treat a patient in what neuroscientists refer to as a minimally conscious state...\n\nIn August 2005, a team of doctors from three hospitals in the US asked the family if they wished their son to join an experimental study to test the new technique, which involves implanting 1mm-wide electrodes into the two regions of the brain closely linked to consciousness. The technique is already used to stimulate other areas of the brain to control tremors in people with Parkinson\'s disease. Several trials are under way to test its effectiveness at treating severe depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and epilepsy.','Deep brain stimulation','','publish','open','open','','deep-brain-stimulation','','','2007-08-02 09:04:34','2007-08-02 09:04:34','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=632',0,'post','',0),(633,2,'2007-08-02 09:55:00','2007-08-02 09:55:00','<strong>From the </strong><a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6926703.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>:\n\n<em>Orangutan communication resembles a game of charades, a study suggests.</em>\n\nResearchers from St Andrews University have shown that the animals intentionally modify or repeat their signals to get their messages across... researchers set up a situation where six captive orangutans were presented with a keeper who had treats, such as bananas, and blander food, such as leeks or celery.\n\nThe animals gestured to attract the keeper\'s attention so the tasty treat would be passed to them.\n\nHowever, once the orangutans had done this, the keepers did one of three things: they either handed them the treat, handed them the bland food or handed them half the treat. The scientists then recorded their reactions.\n\n\"When the keeper gave the orangutan the really nice food, understandably, that was the end of it,\" explained Professor Byrne.\n\n\"But when the keeper pretended to fail to understand the original gesture and gave the wrong food, the orangutans stopped using the gestures they had used before and started using some different gestures,\" he explained.\n\n\"And when the keeper half understood and gave the orangutan part of the treat, the orangutans started to repeat the same gestures that they had used, but they would repeat them even more enthusiastically.\"\n\nFull story at the <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6926703.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>','Natural emphasis','','publish','open','open','','natural-emphasis','','','2007-08-02 09:55:00','2007-08-02 09:55:00','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=633',0,'post','',0),(634,2,'2007-08-06 09:08:57','2007-08-06 09:08:57','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/hazlewood-guitar.jpg\" title=\"hazlewood-guitar.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/hazlewood-guitar.jpg\" title=\"hazlewood-guitar.jpg\" alt=\"hazlewood-guitar.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n<strong>Lee Hazlewood, Songwriter, singer and producer</strong>\n\n<em><a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2838621.ece\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent</a> 06 August 2007 </em>\n<p id=\"bodyCopyContent\"><em>Barton Lee Hazlewood, singer, songwriter and record producer: born Mannford, Oklahoma 9 July 1929; married 1953 Naomi Shackleford (one son, one daughter; marriage dissolved 1961), 1983 Tracy Stewart (one stepdaughter; marriage dissolved), 2006 Jeane Kelley; died Las Vegas 4 August 2007.</em></p>\nLee Hazlewood was a maverick in the best sense of the word. He was fortunate to come into money early by writing and producing Duane Eddy\'s hit records; after that, he wrote, produced and performed on a variety of projects, most stubbornly uncommercial. His best-known song is his transatlantic No 1 for Nancy Sinatra, \"These Boots are Made for Walkin\'\" (1966), but there are scores of intriguing compositions which merit attention.\n\nHazlewood lived by his own rules and his career mirrors that of France\'s musical auteur Serge Gainsbourg, who also wrote at length about sexual liaisons. \"I write songs with double and triple meanings,\" Hazlewood told me in 2004.\n\nI could play certain of my songs to six- or eight-year-old children and they would just like them as songs. I could play the same songs to teenagers and they would know the reasoning behind them. Older people would say, \"I think that\'s dirty, Lee\", but they are not dirty songs: they\'re just suggestive. I know that my songs are a little different and I would say that I am the best writer of Lee Hazlewood songs.\n\n<!--more--> Barton Lee Hazlewood, born in Mannford, Oklahoma in 1929, was the son of an oilfield worker and the family moved to Arkansas and Texas. He met his future wife,Naomi Shackleford, at high school in Huntsville, Texas. Whilst in the services, he worked on military radio stations in Japan and Korea. As a result, he dropped his plans to study medicine and worked as a DJ in Arizona.\n\nBy 1955, he was starting a record label, Viv, to discover and produce local talent. The guitarist Al Casey led his studio band and, in 1956, they recorded \"The Fool\" with Sanford Clark. Hazlewood credited the song to his wife, under the name of Naomi Ford, in case the radio station noticed that he was playing his own records. \"The Fool\", with its echo-drenched vocal and insidious guitar riff, is typical of Hazlewood\'s work. It became a US Top Ten hit, and it has been recorded by many acts including Elvis Presley, Johnny Burnette and P.J. Proby.\n\nIn 1958, Hazlewood created a new sound for the Phoenix guitarist Duane Eddy. He encouraged him to use the bottom strings of his instrument and created a primitive but very effective echo using an empty grain tank outside the studio with a microphone and a speaker inside. \"When I was in high school, there was a piano player I admired with slicked-back oily hair from New York called Eddy Duchin,\" Hazlewood recalled,\n\nand he played the melody way down there. I always thought that it would be nice if a guitarist did the same thing. When I first met Duane, I told him that I wanted to make a record with those low notes and he said, \"I can do that.\" I said, \"I know you can: you\'ll find it easy.\" We sold 25 million records over four years, which wasn\'t bad.\n\nDuane Eddy and his group, the Rebels, had a hit single with \"Rebel Rouser\" (Hazlewood\'s take on the word rabble-rouser) and followed it with several more including \"Ramrod\", \"Cannonball\", \"40 Miles of Bad Road\", \"Some Kinda Earthquake\", \"Shazam!\" and a radical reworking of Henry Mancini\'s television theme \"Peter Gunn\". In 1960, Hazlewood added strings for Eddy\'s theme for the film Because They\'re Young and in 1962 a vocal group for the insidious \"(Dance with the) Guitar Man\".\n\nHazlewood\'s deep-voiced gravitas was ideal for western themes and he released a half-spoken, half-sung concept album, Trouble is a Lonesome Town, in 1963. It was the first of many idiosyncratic projects, but he was also capable of writing conventional pop hits. Dean Martin scored with \"Houston\" (1964) and Martin\'s son, Dino, as part of Dino, Desi and Billy, had US hits with Hazlewood\'s songs, \"I\'m a Fool\" and \"Not the Lovin\' Kind\", both in 1966.\n\nFrank Sinatra was keen for his daughter, Nancy, to have some pop success; indeed, her series of failures for his Reprise label was embarrassing. Hazlewood suggested she should sing in a lower register and asked Billy Strange to arrange a song for her he had written in 1963, \"These Boots are Made for Walkin\'\". With her go-go girl image, Sinatra had a transatlantic No 1 and she and her father had similar success with \"Somethin\' Stupid\" (1967), which Hazlewood co-produced with Jimmy Bowen.\n\nAnother of Nancy Sinatra\'s big songs was \"Sugar Town\". \"I spent a lot of time writing that song,\" Hazlewood revealed.\n\n\"I had written a pretty fair song but I thought it wouldn\'t happen: the lyrics were too clever and so I rewrote and rewrote it and made it so dumb - you know, \"I never had a dog that liked me some.\" That\'s a dumb lyric!\n\nAlthough Reprise expressed their doubts, Hazlewood was confident that the song would be a success.\n\nI said, \"You stay on it for three or four weeks and you\'ll know about it.\" Nobody believed me. At the time Nancy had been selling 200,000 copies in the first week, but this one didn\'t happen. It didn\'t make 20,000. Next week: same again. The label manager, Mo Austin said, \"This is your first bomb\" but I said, \"I think we\'ve still got a hit.\" About 10 days later, he called me and said, \"My god, Lee, we\'ve done 60,000 this week\" and it went on to sell two million.\n\nEven more remarkably, \"Sugar Town\" was about drugs: \"I was in a folk club in LA which had two levels,\" Hazlewood explained.\n\nI could see these kids lining up sugar cubes and they had an eye-dropper and were putting something on them. I wasn\'t a doper so I didn\'t know what it was but I asked them. It was LSD and one of the kids said, \"You know, it\'s kinda Sugar Town.\" Nancy knew what the song was about because I told her, but luckily Reprise didn\'t.\n\nHazlewood had continued his own recording career with The Very Special World of Lee Hazlewood and Lee Hazlewoodism, Its Cause and Cure, both 1966. After falling out with MGM over Something Special (1968), he made a stunning solo album for Reprise, Love and Other Crimes, and teamed up with Nancy Sinatra for the album Nancy and Lee, which included their country hit, \"Jackson\", as well as \"Sand\", \"Lady Bird\" and the mesmeric \"Some Velvet Morning\".\n\nIn 1967, Hazlewood started the LHI label and released Safe at Home by the International Submarine Band, produced by his sometime singing partner, Suzi Jane Hokom. The album is often cited as the start of country-rock, but the band could not promote it as they had by then broken up and their lead singer, Gram Parsons, had joined the Byrds. In a fit of mean-spiritedness, Hazlewood objected when Parsons violated their contract by singing lead on the Byrds\' album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, so that Roger McGuinn had to replace Parsons\' vocals. Other releases on LHI included The Cowboy and The Lady (1969), an acclaimed album of duets by Hazlewood and Ann-Margret.\n\nIn 1970, Hazlewood moved to Stockholm and released an album and a television special, both called Cowboy in Sweden. The following year, he reunited with Nancy Sinatra for the hit duet \"Did You Ever\" as well as making a highly personal album, Requiem for an Almost Lady (1971). His 1973 album Poet, Fool or Bum, was reviewed by Charles Shaar Murray in the New Musical Express with just one word: \"Bum\". Hazlewood\'s 1977 album, Back on the Street Again, included his witty favourite, \"Dolly Parton\'s Guitar\".\n\nFollowing a comeback tour with Nancy Sinatra in 1995, Hazlewood saw a growing demand for his work. Steve Shelley, the drummer with Sonic Youth, reissued many of Hazlewood\'s albums on CD on his own label, Smells Like. A new album of standards with the Al Casey Combo followed, Farmisht, Flatulence, Origami, ARF!! and Me . . . (1999), which Hazlewood promoted at the Royal Festival Hall.\n\nAnother admirer, Wyndham Wallace, issued a new album, For Every Solution There\'s a Problem (2002) on his City Slang label as well as a tribute CD, Total Lee! featuring alt country and new-wave performers including Lambchop, St Etienne, Tindersticks and Jarvis Cocker.\n\nIn 2004, Hazlewood appeared at the Royal Festival Hall for what was a farewell appearance. This was followed by Nancy and Lee 3 (2004) for which Duane Eddy helped create the cavernous sound on \"She Won\'t\". His final album, Cake or Death (2006), was as oddball as ever. He commented on the Iraq war in \"Baghdad Knights\" and discussed his demise in \"T.O.M. (This Old Man)\".\n\n\"I\'ve been around long enough now,\" he concluded. \"I\'ve lived a pretty interesting life - not too much sadness, a lot of happiness, lots of fun. And I didn\'t do much of anything I didn\'t want to do.\"\n\n<em>Spencer Leigh</em>','RIP Lee Hazlewood','','publish','open','open','','rip-lee-hazlewood','','','2007-08-06 09:08:57','2007-08-06 09:08:57','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=634',0,'post','',0),(636,2,'2007-08-07 08:13:17','2007-08-07 08:13:17','<strong>Physicists have \'solved\' mystery of levitation</strong>\n<em> By Roger Highfield, Science Editor, <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/06/nlevitate106.xml\" target=\"_blank\">The Daily Telegraph</a>\n</em>\n<p class=\"story2\">In earlier work the same team of theoretical physicists showed that invisibility cloaks are feasible.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">Now, in another report that sounds like it comes out of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an \'incredible levitation effects’ by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing this pheneomenon, known as the Casimir force, so that it repels instead of attracts.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\"><!--more--> The Casimir force is a consequence of quantum mechanics, the theory that describes the world of atoms and subatomic particles that is not only the most successful theory of physics but also the most baffling.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\"> The force is due to neither electrical charge or gravity, for example, but the fluctuations in all-pervasive energy fields in the intervening empty space between the objects and is one reason atoms stick together, also explaining a “dry glue” effect that enables a gecko to walk across a ceiling.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">Now, using a special lens of a kind that has already been built, Prof Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin report in the New Journal of Physics they can engineer the Casimir force to repel, rather than attact.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">Because the Casimir force causes problems for nanotechnologists, who are trying to build electrical circuits and tiny mechanical devices on silicon chips, among other things, the team believes the feat could initially be used to stop tiny objects from sticking to each other.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">Prof Leonhardt explained, “The Casimir force is the ultimate cause of friction in the nano-world, in particular in some microelectromechanical systems.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">Such systems already play an important role - for example tiny mechanical devices which triggers a car airbag to inflate or those which power tiny \'lab on chip’ devices used for drugs testing or chemical analysis.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">Micro or nano machines could run smoother and with less or no friction at all if one can manipulate the force.” Though it is possible to levitate objects as big as humans, scientists are a long way off developing the technology for such feats, said Dr Philbin.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">The practicalities of designing the lens to do this are daunting but not impossible and levitation “could happen over quite a distance”.</p>\n<p class=\"story2\">Prof Leonhardt leads one of four teams - three of them in Britain - to have put forward a theory in a peer-reviewed journal to achieve invisibility by making light waves flow around an object - just as a river flows undisturbed around a smooth rock.</p>','Levitation news','','publish','open','open','','levitation-news','','','2007-08-07 08:13:17','2007-08-07 08:13:17','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=636',0,'post','',0),(637,2,'2007-08-07 08:17:38','2007-08-07 08:17:38','<em>Today, man is successfully probing deep into the mysteries of the universe. Can he penetrate the greatest mystery of all - time itself?</em>\n\nOne young boy, growing up in the 1950s in the Bronx in New York, was especially interested in these tales. Ronald Mallett was just 10 when his father died of a sudden heart attack. And it was in science fiction that he found solace.\n\n\"Just about a year after he died, I came across HG Wells\' book The Time Machine. And that is what saved me from going into a total depression - because I had this inspiration,\" says Mr Mallett.\n\n\"I thought: if I could build a time machine, the way HG Wells had suggested, then I should be able to go back into the past; and if I could go back into the past, I could see my father again and warn him about what was going to happen to him, and maybe save his life. So that became an obsession for me.\"\n\nMore than 50 years later Ronald Mallett has learned a lot more about science. He\'s now a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut. But time hasn\'t changed him. He still wants to build a time machine, and is seeking funding for his so-called Space-Time Twisting by Light project.\n\nOf course, building such a machine was never going to be simple.  And it isn\'t.\n\nBuild yourself an extremely powerful ring laser, and pop some material - maybe even one day a human - in the centre of this vortex of light, and you might just be able to drag what\'s inside the machine back or forward through time...\n\nBuild yourself an extremely powerful ring laser, and pop some material - maybe even one day a human - in the centre of this vortex of light, and you might just be able to drag what\'s inside the machine back or forward through time.\n\n\"What you would see would be a cylinder in which you would have laser beams that would be intersecting in such a way that they would create this huge light tunnel. So if you imagine a tunnel, with this vortex of light circulating around in it.\"\n\nFull story at <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6933059.stm\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a>.','Time Travellin&#039; Man','','publish','open','open','','time-travellin-man','','','2007-08-07 08:17:38','2007-08-07 08:17:38','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=637',0,'post','',0),(638,2,'2007-08-07 08:30:14','2007-08-07 08:30:14','<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/wurzeltod/1280351/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"1280351_c00e4a12d4.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/1280351_c00e4a12d4.jpg\" title=\"1280351_c00e4a12d4.jpg\" alt=\"1280351_c00e4a12d4.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\n<a href=\"http://www.wurzeltod.ch\" target=\"_blank\">Mme Wurzeltod</a> has compiled this rather well-stuffed <a href=\"http://www.wurzeltod.ch/?cat=20\" target=\"_blank\">directory</a> of taxidermical artworks, old and new. And here it is as a <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/wurzelforum/sets/72157601240728660/show/\" target=\"_blank\">Flickr slideshow</a>.','Taxidermia','','publish','open','open','','taxidermia','','','2007-08-07 08:30:14','2007-08-07 08:30:14','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=638',0,'post','',0),(640,2,'2007-08-10 10:11:05','2007-08-10 10:11:05','<p width=\"425\" height=\"350\"> What happens when you shut the Stella Maris Drone Orchestra, USURP, Raagnagrok and a handful of passers-by into a pitch-black bank vault containing a Disinformation sound installation? This...</p>\n\n<object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"width\" value=\"425\" /><param name=\"height\" value=\"350\" /><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" /><param name=\"src\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/26gw8Z1rD_I\" /><embed type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" wmode=\"transparent\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/26gw8Z1rD_I\"></embed></object>\n\nRecorded in October 2005 at the Foundry, London.','Music to play in the dark, vol 23','','publish','open','open','','music-to-play-in-the-dark-vol-23','','','2007-08-10 10:11:05','2007-08-10 10:11:05','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=640',0,'post','',0),(641,2,'2007-08-13 11:16:08','2007-08-13 11:16:08','<p align=\"left\">Not content with making a chump of himself promoting 911 conspiracy theories, ex-MI5 whistleblower <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shayler\" target=\"_blank\">David Shayler</a> is now proclaiming himself to be the Messiah, as well as numerous other mystical figureheads in human history. He\'s even dragged crop circles into the equation...</p>\n<p align=\"left\">The voices in my head have always wondered whether Shayler\'s adoption of the 911 \"Truth\" campaign was somehow encouraged, or engineered, as a punishment for embarassing his former employer. Given the way things are going now,  however, perhaps a \'nudge\' of that sort wasn\'t even necessary. Well I wish him luck and look forward to seeing where he\'ll be going with this one.</p>\n<p align=\"left\">As an aside, I\'ve long imagined a reality TV show called <em>Jesus Island</em>, or perhaps more democratically, <em>Deity Island</em> (<em>I\'m an Avatar of the Godhead, Get Me Out of Here!</em>) where people who proclaim themselves to be Jesus, Odin, Quetzocoatl, King Arthur, Ashtar or whoever, are dumped on a  desert island and forced to compete in a series of miracle-orientated challenges before being returned to society. Well, I\'d watch it, anyway.</p>\n<p align=\"left\"><strong>Here\'s Shayler on <a href=\"http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8413146821944842079\" target=\"_blank\">More4 news</a> last Friday.</strong></p>\n<p align=\"left\">Thanks to <a href=\"http://allumination.wordpress.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Al Robertson</a> for the heads up!</p>\n<p align=\"left\"><em><strong>And from AFP: </strong></em></p>\n<p align=\"left\"><em>Former spy claims he has powers</em></p>\nA RENEGADE former British spy who was jailed after blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing in the intelligence services, has claimed to have new-found powers as a mystic.\n\nDavid Shayler told British cable channel More4 News that he had visited a psychic who he believes channelled the spirit of Mary Magdalene and anointed him as the Messiah.\n\n“Suddenly my whole life made sense,” the 41-year-old former officer with Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5 said in an interview broadcast on Thursday evening. “I felt a sense of peace, I suddenly realised why it had been how it had, why I seem to get such a strange deal from the universe, when I seem to be trying to tell the truth about everything.”\n\nShayler told the programme his new powers included the ability to change the weather and that he had helped prevent the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow in June through meditation.\n\n<!--more-->\nHe also claimed that his favourite football team, English Premiership side Middlesbrough, won a place in the 2006 Uefa cup final against Spanish side Seville because he had “channelled the light”. His team lost the final.\nShayler was released from prison in   2002 after serving seven weeks for breaching Britain’s Official Secrets Act.\n\nHe left MI5 in 1996 and subsequently made a number of allegations. He has since tried his hand as a novelist and a conspiracy theorist about the September 11, and planned to run against then prime minister Tony Blair in the 2005.\"','God is... David Shayler!','','publish','open','open','','god-is-david-shayler','','','2007-08-13 11:16:08','2007-08-13 11:16:08','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=641',0,'post','',0),(642,2,'2007-08-15 09:26:29','2007-08-15 09:26:29','The Strange Attractor Salon takes place from 9pm on Saturday in the Cinema Tent at the Green Man festival this weekend.\n\nThe line up of talks is as follows:\n\n<a href=\"http://www.myspace.com/gypsylantern\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Grasso</a> : \'Feeding the Bone Orchard\' - a presentation on ancestor worship.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.grahamharvey.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Dr Graham Harvey</a> : \'Animism in the 21st century\'\n\n<a href=\"http://andyletcher.co.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">Dr Andy Letcher</a> : \'Magic Mushrooms: Fact or fiction?\'\n\nWe\'re also hoping to have time for a wider discussion on ideas raised by these presentations.\n\nThe evening will end with a performance by the <a href=\"http://www.raagnagrok.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">Raagnagrok</a> allstars, featuring surprise guests. (That\'s as in surprising to us as well as the audience).\n\nHere\'s a downloadable <a href=\"http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/mop/sagreenman07.pdf\">PDF of the programme</a>, with more information about the talks.  If anyone reading this is going to be there, come and say hi!','Strange Attractor at The Green Man festival','','publish','open','open','','strange-attractor-at-the-green-man-festival','','','2007-08-15 09:26:29','2007-08-15 09:26:29','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=642',0,'post','',0),(646,2,'2007-08-21 19:28:11','2007-08-21 19:28:11','<a title=\"sagm3.jpg\" href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/sagm3.jpg\"><img title=\"sagm3.jpg\" src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/sagm3.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"sagm3.jpg\" /></a>\n<em> Raagnagrok Allstars in action.</em>\n\nTeam Strange Attractor - Graham Harvey, Andy Letcher, Stephen Grasso and the Raagnagrok Allstars - had a great time at the Green Man, commandeering the cinema tent for a night of magic, mushrooms and music. We faced stiff competition from Battles, Vashti Bunyan and Robert Plant, but still managed to pack a decent crowd, including the inevitable befuddled hecklers and even one gent who had carried a negative review of Andy Letcher\'s book all the way from Amazon.com to our tent in order to confront him with it. Bravo!\n\nStephen Grasso\'s talk seguewayed into an epic, hour long set of gently swelling drones from the Raagnagrok Allstars, who were: <em>Allison Bryce</em>: dulcimer; <em>Ben Goldacre</em>: tweaked Speak and Spell; <em>Howard Jacques</em>: melodica &amp; voice; <em>Alyssa Joye</em>: melodica; <em>Zali Krishna</em>: electric sitar; <em>Andy Letcher</em>: bagpipes &amp; voice; <em>Frances Morgan</em>: voice &amp; fx; <em>Mark Pilkington</em>: synths.\n\n<a title=\"sagm1.jpg\" href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/sagm1.jpg\"><img title=\"sagm1.jpg\" src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/sagm1.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"sagm1.jpg\" />\n</a><em>Andy Letcher (l) and Graham Harvey (r) consider the relative merits of mushrooms and hedgehogs.</em>\n\nAlthough very wet, the Green Man was a joy to behold, the crisp mountain air filled with sounds, smells, glistening bubbles and glowing chinese lanterns. We\'re already looking forward to next year!\n\n[All pics by <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/al_robertson/sets/72157601579202960/detail/\" target=\"_blank\">Al Robertson</a>]','Green Man redux','','publish','open','open','','green-man-redux','','','2007-08-21 19:28:11','2007-08-21 19:28:11','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=646',0,'post','',0),(647,2,'2007-08-23 11:52:30','2007-08-23 11:52:30','<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up5jmbSjWkw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"ufohaiti1.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/ufohaiti1.jpg\" title=\"ufohaiti1.jpg\" alt=\"ufohaiti1.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" /></a>\n\nWe\'ve seen quite a run of attention-sapping UFO videos this year. Now, finally, someone has done what nobody else could be bothered to do, and identified the creator of the last batch, which showed impressively realistic saucers flying over <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up5jmbSjWkw\">Haiti and the Dominican Republic</a>.\n\nAn <a href=\"http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/topofthetimes/entertainment/la-et-ufo22aug22,1,3316188.story?ctrack=1&amp;cset=true\" target=\"_blank\">LA Times article</a> reveals that the films are the work of video artist \'Barzolff814\', who created the UFOs to demonstrate his CGI skills as part of a pitch for an upcoming French SF film. To further show off his abilities Barzolff has concocted a nice short set in a Paris street, which can be found on the <a href=\"http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/topofthetimes/entertainment/la-et-ufo22aug22,1,3316188.story?ctrack=1&amp;cset=true\" target=\"_blank\">LA Times</a> site.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/drone1.jpg\" title=\"drone1.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/drone1.jpg\" title=\"drone1.jpg\" alt=\"drone1.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nSo, case closed, it would seem, but we\'re still waiting to find out who or what is behind the \'Isaac/CARET\' drone videos (above) that have had the <a href=\"http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1292&amp;category=Environment\" target=\"_blank\">UFO community abuzz</a> since they first appeared in May.\n\nUFO commentators have <a href=\"http://realityuncovered.com/memewars.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">frothed apoplectic</a> (actually a very interesting, if extremely paranoid piece by Colin Bennett) over the videos and <a href=\"http://isaaccaret.fortunecity.com/\" target=\"_blank\">accompanying documents</a>, but a number of observers think that all will be revealed on 25 September with the much hyped release of alien-themed video game <em>Halo 3</em>.\n\nCertainly CARET\'s elaborate, slowly unravelling narrative points towards a well-funded advertising campaign, and the <a href=\"http://isaaccaret.fortunecity.com/pacl-lang-analysis-p119-halfsize.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">document design</a> is firmly of this Earth. As one designer friend commented, \"it looks like an early 1990s techno album sleeve\".\n\nUltimately, does it matter? There\'s little difference between such a well-targetted viral advertising campaign and \'genuine\' government disinformation, and I suspect that these days the intel agencies would outsource any such work to an ad company anyway rather than do it in-house. I\'ve often wondered how many Hollywood CGI and special effects wizards have been hired to do government work...\n\nHmm, wasn\'t there <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089118/\" target=\"_blank\">a film about that</a>?','UFO video creator unearthed','','publish','open','open','','ufo-video-creator-unearthed','','','2007-08-23 11:52:30','2007-08-23 11:52:30','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=647',0,'post','',0),(651,2,'2007-08-23 14:35:16','2007-08-23 14:35:16','<a href=\"http://www.lifesciencecentre.org.uk/monsters/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"13_monsterbanner.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/13_monsterbanner.jpg\" title=\"13_monsterbanner.jpg\" alt=\"13_monsterbanner.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" /></a>\n\nThe first <a href=\"http://www.lifesciencecentre.org.uk/monsters/\" target=\"_blank\">Monster Weekend</a> is to be held on 1-2 September at the Life Science Centre in Newcastle.\n\nMark Pilkington &amp; John Lundberg will be talking about <em>Mirage Men</em>, the film and book documenting their experiences with UFOs and disinformation in the American intelligence underworld.\n\nAlso on the bill are cryptozoologists Loren Coleman and Richard Freeman, historians Jan Bondeson and Gail-Nina Anderson and fortean Gordon Rutter.\n\nThe convention is free to attend and runs from 10am Saturday to 5pm on Sunday. There\'s a host of monstrous activities planned throughout the weekend and it promises to be a fine alternative to <em>Fortean Times</em>\' Unconventions, which are on hold for the time being.','Newcastle Monster Weekend','','publish','open','open','','newcastle-monster-weekend','','','2007-08-23 14:35:16','2007-08-23 14:35:16','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=651',0,'post','',0),(653,2,'2007-08-28 08:37:04','2007-08-28 08:37:04','<em>Greg Taylor over at the excellent </em>Daily Grail<em>, has posted an <a href=\"http://www.dailygrail.com/node/5186\" target=\"_blank\">interview with Deborah Blum</a>, author of </em>Ghost Hunters<em>, a history of the early days of the Society for Psychical Research, and the scientists, like William James, who were attracted to Spiritualism.</em>\n\n\"Do we need another book debunking dead mediums? The whole point of my book - the one I knew would get me in trouble with the Randis of the world - was that possibility exists, that some things remain genuinely fascinatingly explicable, and that there are still questions that deserve to be answered in the realms of the supernatural. Even if we only learn that \'supernatural\' is the wrong word, that the real answer is that we simply haven\'t found the limits of the natural world yet.\"<em><a href=\"http://www.dailygrail.com/node/5186\" target=\"_blank\">Full interview here.</a></em>','Deborah Blum Interview','','publish','open','open','','deborah-blum-interview','','','2007-08-28 08:37:04','2007-08-28 08:37:04','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=653',0,'post','',0),(655,2,'2007-08-28 15:06:57','2007-08-28 15:06:57',' <a href=\"http://www.forteantimes.com/features/interviews/532/alejandro_jodorowsky.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"fortean_times_1209_7.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/fortean_times_1209_7.jpg\" title=\"fortean_times_1209_7.jpg\" alt=\"fortean_times_1209_7.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nAn extended version of Mark Pilkington\'s interview with celluloid sorcerer <a href=\"http://www.forteantimes.com/features/interviews/532/alejandro_jodorowsky.html\" target=\"_blank\">Alejandro Jodorowsky</a> is now online at the <a href=\"http://www.forteantimes.com/features/interviews/532/alejandro_jodorowsky.html\" target=\"_blank\">Fortean Times</a> site:\n\n<em>A legless gunslinger crosses the desert atop an armless man’s shoulders; a thirsty hippo quenches itself at the fountain of youth; the invisible man wrestles an enormous anaconda in a mobile pharmacy: every great Jodorowsky film confronts the viewer with a riotous cavalcade of symbols drawn from the collective unconscious. Or at least the collective unconscious as imagined by Jodorowsky…</em>\n\n<em>These days, aged 77, he’s busy writing and directing plays, writing comic books, performing his Psychomagikal healings, reading tarot cards in a Paris café and, when I caught up with him, promoting the new, extremely welcome, box set of his first three films: <em>Fando y Lis </em>(1967), <em>El Topo</em> (1970) and <em>The Holy Mountain</em> (1973).</em>\n\n<em>Given the brief window of time available, and the fact that there’s plenty of information about his career available elsewhere, I tried to steer conversation – as much as it is possible to steer a conversation with Jodorowsky – in other directions…</em>\n\nRead  it at <a href=\"http://www.forteantimes.com/features/interviews/532/alejandro_jodorowsky.html\" target=\"_blank\">Fortean Times.com</a>','Jodorowsky interview online','','publish','open','open','','jodorowsky-interview-online','','','2007-08-28 15:06:57','2007-08-28 15:06:57','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=655',0,'post','',0),(656,2,'2007-09-06 08:45:32','2007-09-06 08:45:32','An impassioned <a href=\"http://www.parapsychologyandtheskeptics.com/foreword.htm\" target=\"_blank\">foreward</a> by Rupert Sheldrake to a new book called <em>Parapsychology and The Skeptics</em> by Chris Carter:\n\n\"From my own experience of talking to scientists and giving seminars in scientific institutions, dogmatic skeptics are a minority within the scientific community. Many scientists are curious and open-minded, if only because they themselves or people they know well have had experiences that suggest the reality of psi phenomena. Nevertheless, almost all scientists are aware of the taboo, and the open-minded tend to keep their interests private, fearing scorn or ridicule if they discuss them openly with their colleagues.\n\nI believe that for the majority of the scientific community, in spite of the appearances created by vociferous skeptics, what counts more than polemic is evidence. In the end, the question of whether or not psi phenomena occur, and how they might be explained, depends on evidence and on research.\n\nNo one knows how this debate will end or how long it will take for parapsychological investigations to become more widely known and accepted. No one knows how big a change they will make to science itself, or how far they will expand its framework. But the conditions are good, and an intensifying debate about the nature of consciousness makes the evidence from parapsychology more relevant than ever before.\"\n\nRead the full <a href=\"http://www.parapsychologyandtheskeptics.com/foreword.htm\" target=\"_blank\">foreward</a>.','Sheldrake vs the skeptics','','publish','open','open','','sheldrake-vs-the-skeptics','','','2007-09-06 08:45:32','2007-09-06 08:45:32','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=656',0,'post','',0),(657,2,'2007-09-06 11:28:31','2007-09-06 11:28:31','\"To clarify the position: I am the last incarnation of the Holy Ghost (aka the Holy Spirit) or the Yeshua or Jesus Spirit (aka the Christ consciousness).  As the Holy Spirit is God incarnate as essence, I am God incarnated as spirit and man.  Many cultures have accepted that the gods incarnate as humans, including the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans.  In the West, this knowledge has been preserved as the unwritten Qabalah, the real secret guarded over the centuries by groups like the Templars and the Rosicrucians.\n\nOther incarnations have included Tutenkhamen, King Arthur, Mark Anthony, Leonardo da Vinci, Lawrence of Arabia and Astronges, a Hebrew shepherd and revolutionary leader crucified in Palestine in 1 BC.  I am both a re-incarnation of King David and of his bloodline.\n\nIt is absolutely clear to me that the world is going to hell in a handcart.  Few would dispute that humanity needs a Messiah to get it through these difficult times.  Those who follow the real teachings of Jesus – unconditional love and absolute faith  -- have nothing to fear from the New Universe.\"\n\nDavid Michael Shayler: Hebrew for Beloved King (who) shuffles through the Other  World\"\n\n<strong>From Shayler\'s <a href=\"http://daveshayler.com/\" target=\"_blank\">web site</a> via <a href=\"http://allumination.wordpress.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Al Robertson</a></strong>\n\nAnd if this wasn\'t sign enough of some spectacular rewiring of his neurocircuitry, Shayler has asked journalists to arrive at a press conference  with \"an open mind as this is a truth which they are in no position to determine\".\n\nUh oh...','More from Shayler','','publish','open','open','','more-from-shayler','','','2007-09-06 11:28:31','2007-09-06 11:28:31','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=657',0,'post','',0),(658,2,'2007-09-08 11:11:11','2007-09-08 11:11:11','<strong>  Strange island: Pacific tribesmen come to study Britain</strong>\n\nGuy Adams, <a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2932252.ece\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent</a>  8 September 07\n\n<em>For centuries, anthropologists have travelled overseas to live among ‘strange’ tribes and observe their ‘colourful’ ways. But rarely has it been tried the other way round. So what happened when a group of South Pacific islanders spent a month in Britain to study our own odd little lives?</em>\n\nOne bright morning in St James\'s Park and a stream of tourists approaches Buckingham Palace, where trumpets will shortly herald the Changing of the Guard. In the middle of the crowd walk five very short, very odd-looking men. They carry camcorders, gesticulate wildly, and talk in a language no one can understand. In the heart of picture-postcard London, this bizarre group stands out like a sore thumb.\n\nFurther investigation reveals that a film crew is tracking the party, at a    discreet distance. Something is going on. In fact, the cameras are bearing    witness to a historic event: the odd-looking group, whose skin is dark and    whose smiles are wide, and who all measure around five feet tall, are on the    verge of completing an extraordinary social experiment.\n\nIn March this year, a British TV company invited a small tribe called the    Kastam, from the tiny South Pacific island of Tanna, to send a delegation to    England, a country none of its people had ever visited before. They spent a    month living here, learning our customs, and making a film about the way the    strange and alien inhabitants of a modern western democracy live. The five    men walking up the Mall are this delegation. We are witnessing the final    chapter of their incredible journey.\n\n<!--more--> The film, in the form of a three-part documentary called Meet the Natives,    appears on Channel 4 later this month. It will mark a scientific first: for    generations, western anthropologists have travelled to faraway lands to live    among native tribes and document their way of life. But, until now,    anthropology has always been a one-way street; alien cultures have never \" gone native\" over here. The project was an experiment in what one might    call reverse anthropology.\n\nA very strange experiment it was too. The five men, whose names are Yapa,    Joel, JJ, Posen and Albi, come from a small hillside village on Tanna, which    is the southern tip of the archipelago that makes up the island nation of    Vanuatu. At home, they live in mud huts, wear nothing but penis sheaths made    from grass, and while away days conforming to a sort of tropical cliché:    tending crops, looking after pigs and sitting contentedly in the shade of    the banyan tree.\n\nThe hurly-burly of central London, where I was invited to follow the group    for a day, couldn\'t be more different. For men who had grown up in a place    where the only form of currency is pigs, and innovations such as    electricity, television and the internal combustion engine never caught on,    the land of skyscrapers and unbridled capitalism isn\'t just another country.    It might as well be another planet.\n\nIn a strange way, however, Yapa, Joel, JJ, Posen and Albi were ideally    equipped to study our frenetic society: as the ultimate outsiders, their    take on everything from household\n\ngadgets to domestic relations and workplace convention promised to be as    quaintly amusing as it was unique. Only very few peoples on the face of our    globalised planet could pull off an anthropological study of the UK, and the    Kastam were one of them.\n\nThere was, however, to be a twist; a faintly extraordinary one, too. Kastam    religion has it that England and Tanna were once the same nation. They    believe that our islands emerged, like twins, from a volcano at the time of    creation. Some time afterwards, England drifted away to the far side of the    globe. But today, the tribe reckon, the Brits remain their lost brothers.    When the delegation arrived in the UK, and met its people, they were    treating them as long-lost brothers.\n\nStranger still, for viewers of the documentary, is the fact that (for    reasons that will be fully explained later) the Kastam worship a very famous    inhabitant of England, who once visited their island on board a very smart    yacht. That man is Prince Philip. Incredibly, the Kastam believe that the    husband of our Queen is the Son of God.\n\nAll of which explains why Yappa, Joel, JJ, Posen and Albi are jabbering so    wildly, and walking so excitedly up the Mall towards Buckingham Palace on a    sun-dappled morning. They are experiencing a moment of religious revelation.    The building before them, which they call \"the big house\", is home    to a man who they have spent their entire lives worshipping. Prince Philip,    they reckon, is God made flesh.\n\nThe five reverse anthropologists are engaged in nothing less splendid than    fulfilling a religious prophecy: that the Son of God will one day meet with    them and agree to return to live with his brothers in the South Pacific. The    men believe, to adapt a song from the football terraces they have visited    (to study sporting culture) only days earlier, that the Duke of Edinburgh is    finally about to be coming home. Watching a group of Kastam come to terms    with our customs is both instructive and very, very funny. Many of the    things you\'d expect to leave them flummoxed duly do: at meal-times, for    example, the group struggle to cope with sitting at table, and using plates,    knives and forks (they are used to dining with their hands, cross-leggeed on    the floor). In one early scene, when they attend a dinner party, Yapa tucks    into the contents of the butter dish, with some gusto. He is either too    polite, or too confused, to stop until the entire slab is finished.\n\nIn another, the group attends a rural pub on a Friday evening, which they    describe as the white man\'s version of the \"nakamal\", or village    meeting place. They are perturbed by how noisy it is. JJ remarks that the    white man\'s fire-water (Adnams bitter) makes everyone behave in a strangely    boisterous manner. Yet although the Kastam are uncomfortable with    drunkenness, they turn out to be extremely handy at another English pub    tradition: darts.\n\nOver its three episodes, Meet the Natives billets the group with the three    great English tribes: the middle-class, upper-class and working-class. They    spend a week on a Norfolk pig farm, a week on a Manchester housing estate    (where they sample the twin delights of bingo and KFC), and a week at    Chillingham Castle in Northumberland, seat of Sir Humphry Wakefield, Bt.\n\n\"I didn\'t want to stereotype the UK,\" says Will Anderson, the    series producer, \"but at the same time we had four weeks to give them a    sense of the enormous diversity of England, and decided this was the best    way to show them a snapshot of what was here.\n\n\"Before the group visited, we spent a lot of time talking to them.    They had a lot of questions about food and farming and pigs, so we obviously    wanted to show that. They also wanted to see a city, which was something    they\'d never experienced before, so we went for Manchester. Obviously,    trying to meet Prince Philip was another priority, so we decided to give    them experience of people who lived in some way like him.\"\n\nMost surprising is what Yapa, Joel, JJ, Posen and Albi find either    enjoyable, or shocking. In the Norfolk countryside, they were deeply upset    by the practice of artificially inseminating pigs (\"a crazy thing ...    undignified ... goes against nature\"), but delighted by ferreting for    rabbits, which they considered a sort of land-based fishing.\n\nIn Manchester they were staggered by the phenomenon of homelessness (in    Tanna, your family provides a home, come what may), but felt relatively at    home in a nightclub, since ritual dancing is an important part of their    culture. In London, where they spent a week in a penthouse flat in    Docklands, they learnt to love Marlboro Lights and fish and chips, but were    left cold by the hustle and bustle of city living.\n\nThe Kastam are also strangers to the sexual revolution, finding it hard to    comprehend how a man and a woman can be equal partners in a f marriage. They    are staggered at the amount of time Britons spend cleaning and washing up,    which is regarded as a waste of time and effort.\n\nThe most extraordinary aspect of their visit, though, revolved around Prince    Philip. On the day I met the group outside Buckingham Palace, we set off on    a whistle-stop tour of London\'s tourist attractions, including Madame    Tussauds. Here, statues of Tom Cruise and other Hollywood stars provoked not    a flicker of recognition. Graham Norton\'s waxwork left them cold. The world    of modern celebrity was clearly alien.\n\nUntil, that is, we entered a room housing life-size replicas of our current    Royal Family. Yapa, Joel, JJ, Posen and Albi became animated to the point of    frenzy. They rushed up to the waxwork Prince Philip, and hugged it. They    held his hand, and looked deep into his marble eyes. It was an extraordinary    moment. During the hour that the group spent admiring this one model, I    learnt a little about the events that led to our Duke of Edinburgh becoming    a God in the South Pacific.\n\nThe story runs something like this: at the start of the last century,    English missionaries visited Tanna in an effort to convert them to    Christianity. This angered the Kastam God, who sent his eldest son over to    the UK to try to stop them. On Tanna, this son was a spirit, but in England    they believe that this spirit has taken on the form of a man. When the Royal    yacht Britannia visited their island in the 1970s, they decided that this    man was Prince Philip. Shortly afterwards, the tribe sent the Duke of    Edinburgh a club, by way of a gift. Several months later, Buckingham Palace    returned the favour, posting them a framed picture of a smiling Prince    Philip holding the club. In such gestures are legends born. Today, that    photograph is a religious icon, their equivalent of an altar at a church.\n\nAs a result, Meet the Natives boasts an intriguing sub-plot: the group is    anxious to meet with the man they believe to be the Son of God, and ask him    to return home. Much of the series revolves around the question of whether    they will be granted an audience with Prince Philip. Without revealing what    does happen, it all reaches a show-stopping denouement at Windsor Castle.    Fascinating and hilarious as this exercise turned out to be, it will not be    without its detractors. Within the anthropological community, there are many    who now believe that the exercise threatened to corrupt a unique tribal    culture. Still more believed that attempting to introduce the visitors to    Prince Philip was fraught with danger: in one slip of his tongue, he would    after all be capable of shaking their entire religion to its foundations –    and the Duke is not, let\'s face it, a man renowned for tact.\n\nThe creators of Meet the Natives are evangelical about the project, though. \" There is indeed a view that they are human beings who shouldn\'t be corrupted    by outside influences,\" says Anderson. \"That was one of the things    I was most worried about when we started making the programme. But having    watched them settle back into their community, I would say that it\'s    definitely not altered anything. They were delighted to have visited    England, and said that it was a fascinating place, but it wasn\'t somewhere    for them. They prefer life under the banyan tree. So if anything, Kastam    culture is stronger than ever.\"\n\nBritish culture, meanwhile, can also learn a thing or two from watching Meet    the Natives. The visitors from a village in the hills of Tanna are also able    to educate us in some of the things we may have got wrong. They are, for    example, amazed at the fact we spend most of our lives working; they are    also staggered by a current political hot potato – the apparent breakdown of    family life in sections of our society.\n\nIn one of the most instructive episodes of the show, they spent half an hour    on London Bridge during rush hour, attempting to film pedestrians and engage    commuters in a conversation, with predictably unsuccessful results. This    they thought was \"crazy\". A rejection of the most important things    in life, which they believe to be: \"love, happiness, peace and respect\" .\n\n\"One of the problems of our modern world is that for too long we\'ve    regarded these cultures as a sort of exotic creature, thinking how primitive    they are,\" says the Sydney-based anthropologist Kirk Huffman, who acted    as a consultant to the project. \"But I\'ve spent 18 years living with    them, and there\'s a lot we can learn. They are much more open-minded, and    interested in the big questions. In the West, we are obsessed by little    things. Our culture is all about how: to travel faster, to live longer, and    make more money. Smart cultures are more about why. They are more    reflective. That\'s what they can teach us.\"\n\nAnd that, really, is what science should be all about. It should inform us    about ourselves, for we have much to learn from so-called primitive    societies. In their strange journey towards Buckingham Palace, and the    adulation with which they revere Prince Philip in all his forms, Yapa, Joel,    JJ, Posen and Albi have actually given us a glimpse of what we lost.\n\n<strong>Everything you want to know about Vanuatu (but were too afraid to ask)</strong>\n\nPopulation: 209,000\nCapital: Port Vila\nGDP per capita: $3,346\nTimezone: GMT +11\nMotto: \"Long God yumi stanap\" (In God We    Stand)\n\n*The first island in the Vanuatu group discovered by Europeans was Espiritu    Santo in 1606 by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandez De Quiros\n\n*Vanuatu means \"land eternal\". It became independent from France    and the UK on 30 July 1980\n\n*It is an archipelago of more than 80 islands, 65 of which are populated.    Most are mountainous, of volcanic origin and have a tropical or sub-tropical    climate. The economy is based on subsistence agriculture, which provides a    living for two-thirds of the population\n\n*There is no income tax, no capital-gains tax and no inheritance tax\n\n*In 2006, the New Economics Foundation and Friends of the Earth rated    Vanuatu as the happiest place to live of all the world\'s 178 nations using    the Happy Planet Index, which reflects the average years of happy life    produced by a given society, nation or group of nations, per unit of    planetary resources consumed\n\n*Last week, Vanuatu cruised to a 15-0 victory over American Samoa at the    13th South Pacific Football games\n\n*The arrival of US forces during the Second World War saw the emergence of a    belief in a mythical messianic figure named John Frum. It was the basis for    another indigenous cult to rival the one surrounding Prince Philip. Today,    John Frum is both a religion and a political party with a member in    Parliament\n\n<em>\'Meet the Natives\' begins on Channel 4, at 9pm on 27 September</em>','Anthropology in reverse','','publish','open','open','','anthropology-in-reverse','','','2007-09-08 11:11:11','2007-09-08 11:11:11','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=658',0,'post','',0),(659,2,'2007-09-13 09:16:48','2007-09-13 09:16:48','<em>A great report of high strangeness in Argentina, emerging from  <a href=\"http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2007/08/argentina-strange-creatures-in-san-luis.html\" target=\"_blank\">Scott Corrales</a> via <a href=\"http://www.ufomystic.com/wake-up-down-there/aliens-fairies/\" target=\"_blank\">Greg Bishop</a>. This one is positively humming with resonance, featuring  tropes from faery lore that would appear to stretch all the way from Iceland  to South America.</em>\n\n<strong>Strange Creatures Seen in San Luis, Argentina</strong>\n\nDays ago, the Municipality of Merlo, at the request of local residents, trimmed a hundred-year old eucalyptus that is next to the Leopoldo Lugones Library in Piedra Blanca, on a tight curve by Avenida de los Incas. The large branches obscured visibility for motorists and jeopardized light and telephone wires on windy days.\n\nWhile the trimming operations took place on the avenue, adjacent to a stream, traffic was interrupted and once restored, locals driving through the area, lighting it with their car headlights, claimed to have seen the strange figures. They reportedly saw “some little men coming out of the amputated tree and walking single file toward the library. Most witnesses did not offer details, but one woman described their clothing as having a brownish hue,” said Cecillia de Gabrele, an employee at the library who fielded several phone calls at her workplace from locals who sought confirmation for what they had seen nearby. However, neither the employee nor her coworkers noticed anything unusual.\n\nCecilia added that for many years there have been stories of “imp” sightings for many years in that district. “Thats where Aguaribay Street begins, which has abundant native flora, and many claim having seen tiny beings between the branches and shadows.”\n\nOnce the trimming operation was over in what some believe may have been the dwelling of these little people, the landscape “was devastating”, according to De Gabriele. The eucalyptus has a reddish wood and after  being trimmed, this shade became visible. Faced with the bizarre scene, some have gone as far as to suggest that “the strong coloring gave the impression that the tree was bleeding.”\n\n<em>Here\'s the original story in <a href=\"http://www.grupopayne.com.ar/archivo/06/0611/061122/1-interior.php\" target=\"_blank\">Spanish</a> </em>','Argentinian tree-folk','','publish','open','open','','argentinian-tree-folk','','','2007-09-13 09:16:48','2007-09-13 09:16:48','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=659',0,'post','',0),(660,2,'2007-09-14 08:10:55','2007-09-14 08:10:55','<strong>Kilogram prototype mysteriously loses weight</strong>\n<p class=\"abstract\"><em>Official reference shed 50 micrograms compared to its copies</em></p>\n<p id=\"udtD\">By Jamey Keaten, <a href=\"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20744160/\" target=\"_blank\">The Associated Press</a>, Sept. 12, 2007</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">PARIS - A kilogram just isn’t what it used to be.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight — if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">“The mystery is that they were all made of the same material, and many were made at the same time and kept under the same conditions, and yet the masses among them are slowly drifting apart,” he said. “We don’t really have a good hypothesis for it.”</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">Via <a href=\"http://www.anomalist.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Anomalist</a></p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\"><!--more--> The kilogram’s uncertainty could affect even countries that don’t use the metric system — it is the ultimate weight standard for the U.S. customary system, where it equals 2.2 pounds. For scientists, the inconstant metric constant is a nuisance, threatening calculation of things like electricity generation.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">“They depend on a mass measurement and it’s inconvenient for them to have a definition of the kilogram which is based on some artifact,” said Davis, who is American.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">But don’t expect the slimmed-down kilo to have any effect, other than possibly envy, on wary waistline-watchers: 50 micrograms is roughly equivalent to the weight of a fingerprint.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">“For the lay person, it won’t mean anything,” said Davis. “The kilogram will stay the kilogram, and the weights you have in a weight set will all still be correct.”</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">Of all the world’s kilograms, only the one in Sevres really counts. It is kept in a triple-locked safe at a chateau and rarely sees the light of day — mostly for comparison with other cylinders shipped in periodically from around the world.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">“It’s not clear whether the original has become lighter, or the national prototypes have become heavier,” said Michael Borys, a senior researcher with Germany’s national measures institute in Braunschweig. “But by definition, only the original represents exactly a kilogram.”</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">The kilogram’s fluctuation shows how technological progress is leaving science’s most basic measurements in its dust. The cylinder was high-tech for its day in 1889 when cast from a platinum and iridium alloy, measuring 1.54 inches in diameter and height.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">At a November meeting of scientists in Paris, an advisory panel on measurements will present possible steps toward basing the kilogram and other measures — like Kelvin for temperature, and the mole for amount — on more precise calculations. Ultimately, policy makers from around the world would have to agree to any change.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">Many measurements have undergone makeovers over the years. The meter was once defined as roughly the distance between scratches on a bar, a far cry from today’s high-tech standard involving the distance that light travels in a vacuum.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">One of the leading alternatives for a 21st-century kilogram is a sphere made out of a Silicon-28 isotope crystal, which would involve a single type of atom and have a fixed mass.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">“We could obviously use a better definition,” Davis said.</p>\n<p class=\"textBodyBlack\">&nbsp;</p>','A kilogram&#039;s not what it used to be','','publish','open','open','','a-kilograms-not-what-it-used-to-be','','','2007-09-14 08:10:55','2007-09-14 08:10:55','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=660',0,'post','',0),(661,2,'2007-09-18 22:58:23','2007-09-18 22:58:23','<p class=\"storyhdr\"> <em class=\"timedate\">Monday 17 September (AFP)</em></p>\nVillagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.\n\nAround midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.\n\nResidents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a \"strange odor,\" local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.\n\nSeven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.\n\nRescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.\n\n\"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned,\" he said.\n\n<em>UPDATE:</em> Here\'s video of the impact site via the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7000000/newsid_7002300?redirect=7002376.stm&amp;news=1&amp;nbram=1&amp;nbwm=1&amp;bbwm=1&amp;bbram=1&amp;asb=1\" target=\"_blank\">BBC</a> and a lengthier <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7001897.stm\" target=\"_blank\">news report</a> that includes  mention of bones being found in the crater. Perhaps we are witnessing panspermia in action... and we may not like it!\n\n<em>UPDATE II</em>: So, it <em>was</em> a meteor and the sickness was most likely caused by arsenic fumes released after the impact. <a href=\"http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/perus-meteor-illness-explained-invitation-extended/?hp\" target=\"_blank\">Here</a>','The pong from outer space','','publish','open','open','','the-pong-from-outer-space','','','2007-09-18 22:58:23','2007-09-18 22:58:23','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=661',0,'post','',0),(662,2,'2007-09-24 09:18:18','2007-09-24 09:18:18','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/wconjunctioetc.jpg\" title=\"wconjunctioetc.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/wconjunctioetc.jpg\" title=\"wconjunctioetc.jpg\" alt=\"wconjunctioetc.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"436\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"288\" /></a>\n\nErstwhile synth \'n\' electric sitar duo <a href=\"http://www.raagnagrok.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">Raagnagrok</a> perform with an extended line up on Friday 28 September, as part of a night of artwork, theatre and music orchestrated by <a href=\"http://www.crossroads.wild.net.au/bio.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Orryelle Defenestrate Bascule</a> at <a href=\"http://www.thehorsehospital.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Horse Hospital.</a>\n\nThe night serves as advance warning of a new book of drawings, <em>Conjunctio</em>,  to be published by SA friends <a href=\"http://www.fulgur.co.uk/\" target=\"_blank\">Fulgur</a>.\n\n<!--more-->\nImages will be on display on the night, as well new sculptural work from  Orryelle.\n\nPerformances include a round of \"metamorphic ritual theatre\' plus electronic music from ´This Too Shall Pass´, joined by Orryelle on violin, and Raagnagrok, joined by Frances May Morgen on voice and FX and Howard Jacqueson melodica and voice.\n\nThe Exhibition runs from 5-7pm and is free.\n\nPerformances - 10 pounds from 7.30pm until late.\n\nat <a href=\"http://www.thehorsehospital.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Horse Hospital</a>, 1 Colonnade Bloomsbury, London WCN1N 1HX','Raagnagrok sip from the chalice of ecstasy','','publish','open','open','','raagnagrok-sip-from-the-chalice-of-ecstasy','','','2007-09-24 09:18:18','2007-09-24 09:18:18','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=662',0,'post','',0),(664,2,'2007-09-25 07:20:06','2007-09-25 07:20:06','<em>An interesting follow up to last week\'s sickness-inducing meteorite. </em>\n\n<strong>Salmonella more virulent in space, study suggests</strong>\n<em> Food poisoning bacteria become super-virulent in space, according to a study of salmonella that spent 12 days orbiting the Earth on the space shuttle Atlantis. <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/sep/25/spaceexploration.infectiousdiseases\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian</a>, 25 Sept 07<a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/sep/25/spaceexploration.infectiousdiseases\" target=\"_blank\">\n</a></em>\n\nThe research raises fears that diseases boosted by low gravity could pose unexpected medical problems on future long-haul space journeys or for astronauts on a proposed future moon base.\n\nIt is the first study to examine the effect of space flight on the virulence of a pathogen. \"Given the proposed increase in both duration and distance from Earth for future manned space flight missions - including lunar colonisation and a mission to Mars - the risk for in-flight infectious diseases will be increased,\" said Cheryl Nickerson at Arizona State University.\n\nHer team sent vials of salmonella bacteria into orbit on Atlantis\'s 12-day mission in September last year. They kept bacteria from the same strain in conditions as close to the space shuttle as possible on Earth. When they fed the samples to different groups of mice they found that the bacteria that had been in space were nearly three times as likely to kill the animals.<!--more-->\"Since spaceflight involves a number of environmental changes we do not know the exact part of spaceflight that caused the change in virulence or other phenotypes we observed in our experiment,\" said Professor Nickerson, \"However, our collective data strongly suggests it is the low fluid shear growth environment, where turbulence and fluid action is minimal, that plays a major role in the response of salmonella to spaceflight.\"\n\nThe team also compared the pattern of gene expression in the space bacteria and those that had stayed on the ground. They found that the expression level in 167 different genes had been altered, they report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.\n\n\"This experiment is a \'first of its kind\' in spaceflight biological study. It is the first study to examine the effect of spaceflight on the virulence of a pathogen, and the first to obtain the entire gene expression response of a bacterium to spaceflight,\" said Prof Nickerson.\n\nAlthough the team cannot be sure that the same increase in virulence occurs in other pathogens, the results will concern those planning future missions in which astronauts spend extended periods in space.\n\nPresident Bush has committed the US to returning astronauts to the moon by 2020 and setting up a permanent moon base. This would require much more time in zero gravity and low gravity conditions which would mean more opportunities for astronauts to fall ill.\n\nTwo weeks ago a government advisory committee said the UK should reconsider its ban on human space flight and begin a crewed space programme. The committee, convened by the British National Space Centre, said there would be huge scientific, cultural and economic benefits to sending humans into space. Building up an astronaut corps from scratch would cost £50m to £75m over five years.','Germs in spaaacccce','','publish','open','open','','germs-in-spaaacccce','','','2007-09-25 07:20:06','2007-09-25 07:20:06','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=664',0,'post','',0),(665,2,'2007-09-26 09:03:41','2007-09-26 09:03:41',' <a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/cms04_017938.jpg\" title=\"cms04_017938.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/cms04_017938.jpg\" title=\"cms04_017938.jpg\" alt=\"cms04_017938.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nI\'m loathe to drive traffic through to the <em>Daily Mail, </em>but this is a <a href=\"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=482560\" target=\"_blank\">good article</a> about <a href=\"http://www.raytheon.com/products/silent_guardian/\" target=\"_blank\">Silent Guardian</a>, the public face of microwave beam weapons, and surely just the tip of the iceberg of what\'s going on at the Directed Energy Directorate in the USA.\n\n<em>\"It is a bit like touching a red-hot wire, but there is no heat, only the sensation of heat. There is no burn mark or blister.</em>\n\n<em>A square transmitter as big as a plasma TV screen is mounted on the back of a Jeep.  </em>\n\n<em>When turned on, it emits an invisible, focused beam of radiation - similar to the microwaves in a domestic cooker - that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings. </em>\n\n<em>It can throw a wave of agony nearly half a mile.</em>\n\n<em>Anyone in the beam\'s path will feel, over their entire body, the agonising sensation I\'ve just felt on my fingertip. The prospect doesn\'t bear thinking about...</em>\n\n<em> It is easy to see the raygun being used not as an alternative to lethal force (when I can see that it is quite justified), but as an extra weapon in the battle against dissent. </em>\n\n<em>Because it is, in essence, a simple machine, it is easy to see similar devices being pressed into service in places with extremely dubious reputations. </em>\n\n<em>There are more questions: in tests, volunteers have been asked to remove spectacles and contact lenses before being microwaved. Does this imply these rays are not as harmless as Raytheon insists? </em>\n\n<em>What happens when someone with a weak heart is zapped?  </em>\n\n<em>And, perhaps most worryingly, what if deployment of Silent Guardian causes mass panic, leaving some people unable to flee in the melee? Will they just be stuck there roasting?</em>\n\nFull story at the <a href=\"http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=482560\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Mail</a>','Silent Guardian &amp; mission creep','','publish','open','open','','silent-guardian-mission-creep','','','2007-09-26 09:03:41','2007-09-26 09:03:41','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=665',0,'post','',0),(668,2,'2007-10-01 08:08:10','2007-10-01 08:08:10','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/250px-sputnik_asm.jpg\" title=\"250px-sputnik_asm.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/250px-sputnik_asm.jpg\" title=\"250px-sputnik_asm.jpg\" alt=\"250px-sputnik_asm.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n\nThis week sees the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, and even if Telstar got the better theme <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eabt9qJjanE\" target=\"_blank\">tune</a>, we still believe it\'s worth commemorating.\n\nThat\'s why at 8pm this Thursday, 4 October, <a href=\"http://www.resonancefm.com\" target=\"_blank\">Resonance FM</a> will be broadcasting Born Under Sputnik, a live discussion about the silver sphere and it\'s impact on the 20th century featuring Sputnikheads Ken Hollings and Thomas Dolby, with appropriate background sounds selected by Mark Pilkington. The show was produced by Bruce and Kitt Woolley at Unit X and will be aired at<strong> 8pm UT on 104.4fm in London</strong>, or via the <a href=\"http://www.resonancefm.com\" target=\"_blank\">Resonance FM</a> web site.\n\nKen, Thomas and Bruce\'s Radio Science Orchestra will also be appearing at a special live event the previous day, Wednesday 3rd October, at the <a href=\"http://www.ica.org.uk/Thomas%20Dolby%3A%20Sputnik%20%26%20Beyond+14800.twl\" target=\"_blank\">ICA</a> in London. The event seems to be sold out.','Born Under Sputnik, Thursday 4 October','','publish','open','open','','born-under-sputnik-thursday-4-october','','','2007-10-01 08:08:10','2007-10-01 08:08:10','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=668',0,'post','',0),(670,2,'2007-10-05 09:20:58','2007-10-05 09:20:58','An interesting <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/02conv.html?_r=3&amp;pagewanted=1&amp;oref=slogin\" target=\"_blank\">interview</a> with Hany Farid of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire USA, a specialist in uncovering digital forgeries.\n\n\"Not long ago, researchers from South Korea had to retract papers published in <em>Science</em> because the photographs used to prove that human stem cells had been cloned were effectively Photoshop-cloned, and not laboratory-cloned... The Federal Office of Research Integrity has said that in 1990, less than 3 percent of allegations of fraud they investigated involved contested images. By 2001, that number was 26 percent. And last year, it was 44.1 percent.\n\n...when looking at composites of two people, we’ve discovered that one of the hardest things for a forger to match is the lighting. So we’ve developed a way of measuring whether the lighting is consistent within various parts of the image. Lately, I’ve become obsessed with eyes. In a person’s eyes, one sees a slight reflection of the light in the room. So I’ve developed a technique that can take that little image of the reflection of light and tell us where the light was while you were being photographed. Does that match what we see in the image?\"\n\nFrom the  <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/02conv.html?_r=3&amp;pagewanted=1&amp;oref=slogin\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times</a> via <a href=\"http://www.anomalist.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Anomalist\n</a>','Digital forensics','','publish','open','open','','digital-forensics','','','2007-10-05 09:20:58','2007-10-05 09:20:58','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=670',0,'post','',0),(672,2,'2007-10-08 08:25:13','2007-10-08 08:25:13','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/tessa1.jpg\" title=\"tessa1.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/tessa1.jpg\" title=\"tessa1.jpg\" alt=\"tessa1.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" /></a>\n\nTessa Farmer and her army of malevolent faeries have taken over a corner of London\'s <a href=\"http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/events/detail.jsp?key=13086\" target=\"_blank\">Natural History Museum</a> until 28 January 2008.\n\nPart of the installation is a naturalistic, taxidermical reconstruction of faery behaviour in the wild - in this case tormenting an unlucky fox who has strayed into their territory. \"They have their roots in Victorian fairies, who were quite mischievous and lived in natural habitats, often torturing animals,\" Farmer told the Guardian recently. \"My fairies are more gory. Their ultimate ambition is to attack humans - they are just practising on the fox.\"\n\n<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/savage-still-2.jpg\" title=\"savage-still-2.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/savage-still-2.jpg\" title=\"savage-still-2.jpg\" alt=\"savage-still-2.jpg\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"6\" /></a>\n\nThe second part is a dramatic, stop-motion portrayal of day-to-day life in the faeries\' domain. Painstakingly animated by Tessa Farmer and Sean Daniels, with actual field recordings by Mark Pilkington, the film is based on a posthumous account by the only naturalist known to have witnessed the faeries\'  behaviour in the wild and survived.\n\nAt London\'s <a href=\"http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/events/detail.jsp?key=13086\" target=\"_blank\">Natural History Museum</a> until 28 January 2008.\n\n<em>NB: Machenophiles may be interested to know that Tessa Farmer is Arthur Machen\'s great granddaughter, something she only discovered some years after she had begun working with her faeries.</em>\n\n<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/tessa1.jpg\" title=\"tessa1.jpg\"></a>','Little Savages at the Natural History Museum','','publish','open','open','','little-savages-at-the-natural-history-museum','','','2007-10-08 08:25:13','2007-10-08 08:25:13','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=672',0,'post','',0),(675,2,'2007-10-10 09:00:46','2007-10-10 09:00:46','<a href=\"http://mikejay.net/articles/the-last-cargo-cult/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"soldier2.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/soldier2.jpg\" title=\"soldier2.jpg\" alt=\"soldier2.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" /></a>\n\nHistorian, adventurer and <em>SAJ</em> contributor Mike Jay has launched a web site featuring a number of his <a href=\"http://mikejay.net/articles/\" target=\"_blank\">articles</a> that should interest anybody visiting here. First up, now that <em>SAJ1 </em>is out of print (at least for the time being) those of you who missed it can read <a href=\"http://mikejay.net/articles/the-last-cargo-cult/\" target=\"_blank\">The Last Cargo Cult</a>, featuring our first cover star from the John Frum army. And you can even read it <a href=\"http://ceticismoaberto.cjb.net\" target=\"_blank\">in Portugese</a>!\n\nfrom <a href=\"http://mikejay.net\" target=\"_blank\">mikejay.net</a>','The Last Cargo Cult online','','publish','open','open','','the-last-cargo-cult-online','','','2007-10-10 09:00:46','2007-10-10 09:00:46','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=675',0,'post','',0),(677,2,'2007-10-10 12:53:26','2007-10-10 12:53:26','<strong>Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs.</strong>\n\n<em>By Rick Weiss Tuesday, October 9, 2007;<a href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post</a></em>\n\n<span style=\"font-size: x-small\"></span> Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.\n\n\"I heard someone say, \'Oh my god, look at those,\' \" the college senior from New York recalled. \"I look up and I\'m like, \'What the hell is that?\' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are <em>not</em> insects.\"\n\n\"I\'d never seen anything like it in my life,\" the Washington lawyer said. \"They were large for dragonflies. I thought, \'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?\' \"\n\n...\n\nSo what <em>was</em> seen by Crane, Alarcon and a handful of others at the D.C. march -- and as far back as 2004, during the Republican National Convention in New York, when one observant but perhaps paranoid peace-march participant described on the Web \"a jet-black dragonfly hovering about 10 feet off the ground, precisely in the middle of 7th avenue . . . watching us\"?\n\nThey probably saw dragonflies, said Jerry Louton, an entomologist at the National Museum of Natural History. Washington is home to some large, spectacularly adorned dragonflies that \"can knock your socks off,\" he said.\n\nAt the same time, he added, some details do not make sense. Three people at the D.C. event independently described a row of spheres, the size of small berries, attached along the tails of the big dragonflies -- an accoutrement that Louton could not explain. And all reported seeing at least three maneuvering in unison. \"Dragonflies never fly in a pack,\" he said...\n\nFull story at the <em><a href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post</a></em>','Insect surveillance?','','publish','open','open','','insect-surveillance','','','2007-10-10 12:53:26','2007-10-10 12:53:26','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=677',0,'post','',0),(678,2,'2007-10-12 08:36:06','2007-10-12 08:36:06','<p style=\"font-size: small\"><a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/rgk_hh.jpg\" title=\"rgk_hh.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/rgk_hh.jpg\" title=\"rgk_hh.jpg\" alt=\"rgk_hh.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"6\" /></a>\nPhoto from London\'s Horse Hospital by <a href=\"http://allumination.wordpress.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Al Robertson </a>\n\nThe synth and sitar conundrum revert to strictly Manichean form for a performance in Sheffield. Also on the bill is the amazing keyboardist Pat Thomas plus an ex member of Clock DVA and the Anti Group.\n\nShould be interesting...\n\n<strong>THURS 18th Oct</strong>\n<em> Bar Abbey, Abbeydale Rd,Sheffield S7 1FS\n8.00pm £5</em>\nPAT THOMAS QUARTET w/ Mick Beck, John Jasnoch and Rob Dainton. - Pianist since age 8rs, Thomas has played with Fred Frith, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Phil Minton and many more. His conspirators for this occasion are all renowned and accomplished musicians in their own right.\nRAAGNAGROK London electronic mystical raga rock team.\nGLYNN HEPPENSTALL (The Anti Group / ClockDVA / The Tajalli Vortex) solo debut for electronic experimental fantastique!\n+ DJ Kosmische!\n<a href=\"http://www.freenoise.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\"> http://www.freenoise.co.uk</a>\n<a href=\"http://www.wegottickets.com/location/1037\" target=\"_blank\"> http://www.wegottickets.com/location/1037</a>','Raagnagrok in Sheffield','','publish','open','open','','raagnagrok-in-sheffield','','','2007-10-12 08:36:06','2007-10-12 08:36:06','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=678',0,'post','',0),(680,2,'2007-10-17 09:38:15','2007-10-17 09:38:15','Strange Attractor pal and Journal contributor Doug Skinner\'s fantastic musical oddities show, \"The Musical Underbelly,\" is appearing at New York City\'s <a href=\"http://www.dixonplace.org\" target=\"_blank\">Dixon Place</a>, every Thursday in October.  Doug has just just added Athanasius Kircher\'s realization of the \"Harmony of the Spheres\" and a rollicking Masonic tune from 1898.  He\'s also written new arrangements for various combinations of voice, piano, Venezuelan cuatro (a guitarish instrument) and viola. It\'s a guided tour of music from cults, secret societies, visionaries, mediums and cranks: a concert of the damned and forgotten.\n\nSays Doug: \"It should be fun; any customers would be appreciated.\"  Doug and I are hoping to prepare a book version of his performance some time in the near future.\n\nPerformances on  18 &amp; 25 October at 8pm: Tickets: $12-$10','Doug Skinner&#039;s musical cabinet of curiosities','','publish','open','open','','doug-skinners-musical-cabinet-of-curiosities','','','2007-10-17 09:38:15','2007-10-17 09:38:15','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=680',0,'post','',0),(681,2,'2007-10-22 10:19:09','2007-10-22 10:19:09','<strong>Antiquaries &amp; Archaists: Explorations of Cultural Memory</strong>\n\n<em>Friday 26 October 2007, doors 10am.\nSociety of Antiquaries of London Burlington House, Piccadilly</em>\n\nTickets (available on the day, cash only) including refreshments:\n\n£10 / £5 concessions\n\nThe Society of Antiquaries of London celebrates its tercentenary in the globalised world of 2007. This conference considers the way in which the past is mediated across and between cultures, engaging with the role of cultural memory in constructing and negotiating multiple pasts, through antiquities, art, monuments and architecture. Interdisciplinary in scope, the papers consider a broad range of visual and material culture, from Southern African rock art, the Court art of Benin and Japanese antiquities to British prehistoric monuments, Gothic architecture and Chinese printmaking. The conference will be of particular interest to art historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, architectural historians and artists.\n\n<em>Speakers include: Thomas Dowson (Independent scholar), Anne Farrer (Sotheby’s Institute of Art), David Haycock (London School of Economics), Simon Kaner (Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures), Sarah Semple (University of Durham), Simon Watney (City &amp; Guilds of London School of Art)</em>\n\nDownload a <a href=\"http://www.sothebysinstitute.com/formsnpdf/antiquaries.doc\" target=\"_blank\">full programme</a>\n\nOrganisers: Dr Megan Aldrich, Sotheby’s Institute of Art &amp; Dr Robert J. Wallis, Richmond the American International University in London.','Antiquaries &amp; Archaists','','publish','open','open','','antiquaries-archaists','','','2007-10-22 10:19:09','2007-10-22 10:19:09','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=681',0,'post','',0),(682,2,'2007-10-23 09:13:43','2007-10-23 09:13:43','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/mountvernon.jpg\" title=\"mountvernon.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/mountvernon.jpg\" title=\"mountvernon.jpg\" alt=\"mountvernon.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"0\" /></a>\n\nIn a dramatic development, SA pal Drew Mulholland\'s Mount Vernon Arts Lab reform for their first live performance in five years, next Tuesday 30 October, at Glasgow\'s <a href=\"http://www.cca-glasgow.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Centre for Contemporary Arts</a>. MVAL will be a five piece for this event.\n\nSupport comes from everybody\'s favourite electric sitar and synth duo, <a href=\"http://www.raagnagrok.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">Raagnagrok</a>.','MVAL &amp; Raagnagrok in Glasgow!','','publish','open','open','','mval-raagnagrok-in-glasgow','','','2007-10-23 09:13:43','2007-10-23 09:13:43','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=682',0,'post','',0),(684,2,'2007-10-25 08:25:07','2007-10-25 08:25:07','<strong> Padre Pio \'faked his stigmata with acid\'</strong>\n<em> By Peter Popham in Rome, <a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article3093806.ece\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent</a>, 25 October 2007</em>\n\nPadre Pio, the friar with fingerless gloves whose image is found on a million Catholic key chains; who was canonised before 200,000 ecstatic pilgrims five years ago, was a charlatan who deliberately mutilated himself with acid to give the appearance of bearing the stigmata of Christ, according to evidence to be published next week.\n\n<!--proximic_content_off-->                                             <!--proximic_content_on-->The Italian historian Sergio Luzzatto will release Padre Pio, Miracles and politics in 20th century Italy – a book producing new evidence from Vatican archives, which he says proves that the charismatic friar secretly procured carbolic acid with which to burn his hands, feet and sides.\n\nThe allegations are not new: two successive popes regarded Padre Pio as a fraud. By 1920, when Pio was 33 and was already exhibiting his scars before masses of pilgrims, the church was worried that his cult was spinning out of control. Reports commissioned by the church claimed Pio regularly scourged himself with a metal-tipped whip, and had sex with women twice a week. For many years Pio was banned from celebrating mass in public.\n\n<!--more-->Of particular concern to the church were the ugly, weeping wounds which Pio concealed under those fingerless gloves. The friar claimed that he had received the stigmata of Christ – wounds to his hands, feet and side like those suffered by Christ during his crucifixion – at the culmination of a mystical seizure.\n\nA doctor sent by the Vatican to examine them concluded that the wounds were probably caused and maintained artificially. To test the hypothesis he bound the wounds and sealed the bandage to prevent it being tampered with. But on examination a month later the doctor was nonplussed to find that the wounds had failed to heal.\n\nYet now Mr Luzzatto claims to have unearthed documents that prove beyond reasonable doubt that the friar was a trickster.\n\nIn the summer of 1919, the 28-year-old cousin of a pharmacist in the southern city of Foggia, a deeply religious young woman called Maria de Vito, made the pilgrimage to Pio\'s church, San Giovanni. The pharmacist told his local bishop, Mgr Salvatore Bella, \"When she returned to Foggia she brought the greetings of Padre Pio and asked me in his name, and in strict secrecy, for carbolic acid, telling me that Padre Pio had need of it, and giving me the little bottle he had given her, capacity 100g, and with a skull and crossbones.\"\n\nThe pharmacist jumped to what Mr Luzzatto believes is the right conclusion. \"My thought was that the carbolic acid could be used by Padre Pio to procure or further irritate wounds on his hands.\"\n\nMr Luzzatto cites the note written by Pio to the young woman, Maria de Vito, \"though much more neatly than his normal hand\".\n\nInvoking the blessings of Jesus, Pio writes baldly: \"I am in need of 200g or 300g of carbolic acid for sterilising. I pray you to send it to me on Sunday.\" This, claims Mr Luzzatto, is the smoking gun. If he had really needed the acid for sterilising purposes, he demands, \"why did he proceed in such an oblique manner?\"\n\nMr Luzzatto\'s claims, splashed across a full page of Corriere della Sera, Italy\'s best-selling daily, were furiously denounced by Pietro Siffi, president of the Catholic Anti-defamation League. The \"presumed proofs are absolutely false,\" he said. \"According to Catholic doctrine, canonisation involves the infallibility of the pope.\"\n\n<em><a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article3093806.ece\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent</a></em>','Padre Pio: acid monk','','publish','open','open','','padre-pio-the-acid-monk','','','2007-10-25 08:25:07','2007-10-25 08:25:07','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=684',0,'post','',0),(685,2,'2007-10-25 08:44:47','2007-10-25 08:44:47','<strong> The souls of Silbury Hill are bared in burial mound dig</strong>\n<em> By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent\n<a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3093799.ece\" target=\"_blank\">The Indepnendent</a>,  25 October 2007</em>\n\nArchaeologists are unlocking the secrets of Silbury Hill, one of Britain\'s greatest historical mysteries.\n\nResearchers have long been mystified as to why the giant prehistoric mound in Wiltshire was built. But following one of the UK\'s most extensive and expensive digs, they appear to have found their answer: Silbury Hill may well have been a tomb, not for bodies, but for the souls of the dead.\n\nThe English Heritage dig, which cost £1m, tunnelled 85 metres into the 40-metre-high man-made hill, discovering that its Neolithic builders had incorporated hundreds of heavy sarsen stones into its matrix. Sarsen, the silicified sandstone still found in great quantities in Wiltshire, was also used to build Stonehenge and Avebury. Heavier than other types of stone, archaeologists have long suspected that the material was regarded as sacred by Neolithic man.\n\nStones have been seen by many cultures as spiritually and physically interchangeable with humans – with a belief that particular stones contained the souls, spirits or even the transformed mortal remains of the dead. The belief was widespread, occurring all over the world.\n\n<!--more--> Silbury Hill, researchers believe, could well have been built as a sort of spiritual tomb, filled with spirits rather than skeletons.\n\n\"The new information we are obtaining from inside Silbury Hill is transforming our understanding of the site,\" said the English Heritage archaeologist Jim Leary, who led the three- year investigation. \"The discovery of sarsen stones inside the final phase of the monument has also been a surprise. Given the almost certainly religious and ceremonial nature of Silbury, it is likely that these stones had some symbolic importance, potentially representing the spirits of dead ancestors.\" Radio-carbon tests on the mound have also revealed the age of Silbury Hill for the first time. Archaeologists now believe construction on the primary mound started about 2400BC, which would mean it was built at the same time as Avebury and the first phase of Stonehenge.\n\nAlso revealed for the first time is the probable original shape and size of the monument. Excavations at its summit suggest it had a rounded rather than flat top and was five to seven metres higher than today, having almost certainly been flattened in late Saxon or Norman times to accommodate a wooden fortress.\n\nResearchers also now believe Silbury was associated with a form of river-related religious cult. Until the 19th century, the linkage between the Kennet river and Silbury was reflected by an annual local ritual in which water was collected from the main source of the river – the Swallowhead Spring, 200 metres from the monument – before being taken to the top of Silbury where it was mixed with sugar and then drunk.\n\nBBC has a photo sequence <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7059882.stm\" target=\"_blank\">here </a>\n\n<!--proximic_content_off-->                               	  	<!-- Proximic Link -->','Inside Silbury Hill','','publish','open','open','','inside-silbury-hill','','','2007-10-25 08:44:47','2007-10-25 08:44:47','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=685',0,'post','',0),(687,2,'2007-10-29 09:58:27','2007-10-29 09:58:27','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/cult-of-one.jpg\" title=\"cult-of-one.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/cult-of-one.jpg\" title=\"cult-of-one.jpg\" alt=\"cult-of-one.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"8\" /></a>\n<strong> The Cult of One\nExploring the Art and Magick of Austin Osman Spare</strong>\n<em>An illustrated lecture by Robert Ansell</em>\n\n<strong>Saturday November 10th, 7.30pm</strong>\n\nThe Cult of One is an analytical exploration of the celebrated artist and psychic Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956). In a 90-minute in-depth slide lecture, Robert Ansell will offer a re-analysis of Spare’s metaphysical philosophy and creative magical practices, drawing upon evidence from both traditional esoteric sources and recent developments in cognitive science. It will examine Spare’s primary techniques, including the Death Posture, the Neither-Neither principle and his philosophy of Self-Love, considering them in the context of the artist’s key influences. The lecture will be illustrated throughout with large projections of Spare’s art, many from the Fulgur archives. The evening will appeal to long-established devotees and newcomers alike.\n\n<strong>Limited tickets are available, priced £10.00. </strong>\n\nReservations may be made by emailing the organiser: info@treadwells-london.com','Austin Spare: The Cult of One','','publish','open','open','','austin-spare-the-cult-of-one','','','2007-10-29 09:58:27','2007-10-29 09:58:27','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=687',0,'post','',0),(688,2,'2007-10-29 10:02:03','2007-10-29 10:02:03','<a href=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/mm.jpg\" title=\"mm.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/mm.jpg\" title=\"mm.jpg\" alt=\"mm.jpg\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" height=\"430\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"283\" /></a><em><strong> Mirage Men </strong></em>\n\n<strong>Wednesday November 7 2007 </strong>\n\n<em>7.30 for 8pm.  £2.</em>\n\n<em>Upsatirs at The Devereux pub in Devereux Court, London WC2R 3JJ. Opposite the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand (near Aldwych). </em>\n\nFollow Mark Pilkington into a labyrinth of lies as he explains the background to <a href=\"http://www.miragemen.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Mirage Men</a>, his forthcoming book and film collaboration with John Lundberg. American intelligence operatives are actively encouraging belief in UFO crashes, pacts with extraterrestrial civilizations, alien abductions, back-engineered flying saucers and secret alien bases on Earth. They have changed the face of popular culture (<em>The X Files, Taken</em> etc) and, whether by accident or design, moulded the consciousness of millions worldwide. So who are the Mirage Men? Just what is it that they are trying to do? Is this a psychological warfare operation that\'s got out of hand? Is Mark a government agent? Are you? Discover these and other secrets of the Universe in tonight\'s illustrated talk from the editor of Strange Attractor Journal.\n<em> *** Top Secret clearance required ***</em>','Mirage Men talk: London','','publish','open','open','','mirage-men-talk-london','','','2007-10-29 10:02:03','2007-10-29 10:02:03','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=688',0,'post','',0),(690,2,'2007-11-01 10:47:48','2007-11-01 10:47:48',' <a href=\"http://www.disinfo.com/catalog/itemdetail.php?id=271\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"farout.jpg\"><img src=\"http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/farout.jpg\" title=\"farout.jpg\" alt=\"farout.jpg\" align=\"top\" border=\"0\" height=\"367\" vspace=\"8\" width=\"367\" /></a>\n\nA nice piece in <a href=\"http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3113407.ece\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent</a> by comic Rob Newman about a variant of the singularity that he\'s termed Technology Collapse:\n\n\'500 years from now, Galileo and Kepler study antique technology – SatNav, electrocardiograms, hair tongs – trying to deduce what each was used for. They often have no clue, although Galileo is much praised for his paper On Suggested Applications of the Lean, Mean, Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine.\'\n\nMeanwhile, over at <a href=\"http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/01/research\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian,</a> Ian Sample reports on New Scientist\'s list of science\'s strangest experiments - including Tusko, the tripping elephant and Vladimir Demikhov: \"In 1954 he unveiled a two-headed dog, created in the lab by grafting the head, shoulders and front legs of a puppy on to the neck of a German shepherd dog.\"\n\nAnd this seems like a fine time to mention that <a href=\"http://www.disinfo.com/catalog/itemdetail.php?id=271\" target=\"_blank\"><strong><em>Far Out: 101 Strange Tales from Science\'s Outer Edge</em></strong></a>, a collection of my weird science columns from the <em>Guardian</em>, published by Disinformation press, has shown up and is looking mighty fine. It\'s in a handy, CD-sized format, and will look great next to the time machine or DNA accelerator – or by the toilet if you don\'t happen to have any mad scientist gear lying around.\n\nThe book is unleashed next week and we\'ll be previewing a few entries here soon. In the meantime you can make advance orders via <a href=\"http://www.amazon.co.uk/Far-Out-Weird-Facts-Science/dp/1932857877/ref=sr_1_1/202-8936751-5706231?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1193912155&amp;sr=8-1\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon</a>.\n\n<em>(If you\'d like a review copy, drop me a line and I\'ll try to sort one out...)\n</em>','Far Out &amp; the end of science (again)','','publish','open','open','','far-out-the-end-of-science-again','','','2007-11-01 10:47:48','2007-11-01 10:47:48','',0,'http://www.strangeattractor.co.uk/further/?p=690',0,'post','',0),