Short Musical Quiz: Chimp Vs. Sumerian Zither
A Midi recording of the oldest known musical composition (from 1400 BC), which originally would have been played on some kind of dorky harp instrument:The first known drum solo by…
Vaguely Sciency Stuff
Gotta Get Me One Of Them Aztec Death Whistles
…’cuz it really does sound like the ‘scream of a thousand corpses’. I can see these things being a great Halloween novelty, or maybe a stocking stuffer around Xmas.
Serious Question: What’s Crapping On My Balcony?
I’m nine floors up in outer Scarborough (or, as we call it down here, The Bro), facing West, and every once in awhile I find animal poop on the balcony…
Searching The Internet For Time Travellers
From the abstract: Abstract. Time travel has captured the public imagination for much of the past century, but little has been done to actually search for time travelers. Here, three…
History Of Paranormal Research In Russia And The Soviet Union: 1917 To Present
Unconventional research in USSR and Russia: short overview is a fascinating document. I’ve just excerpted bits below and added a few comments. Of course the Americans did this kind “research”,…
Giant Sloth: Its What’s For Dinner
From The Archaeology News: Most scientists agree that humans began arriving in the Americas between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago, and the Clovis people of North and Central America are…
More On The Piraha (My Favorite Folk)
The Piraha are a small tribe living along the Amazon with an extremely peculiar…simple, primitive…language: Among Pirahã’s many peculiarities is an almost complete lack of numeracy, an extremely rare linguistic…
Science Proves This Blog As Addictive As Cocaine!
Oreos, however, are not:. The study ref-ed is entirely without scientific value. It’s what you get when you allow college students access to cookies and drugs.
Fighting Dragons
Not exactly, but… Click on pic for full effect. I used to own a couple of Greens, which are not quite as spectacular. They would fight, but a bit less…
Canadians Abroad
Apr. 25, 2013 — The rediscovery of a mystery animal in a museum’s underground storeroom proves that a non-native ‘big cat’ prowled the British countryside at the turn of the…
On Hair, Ancient And More Ancient
Janet Stephens, the “hair dressing archaeologist”, has been much in the news of late for having successfully recreated the hair-style worn by ancient Rome’s Vestal Virgin priestesses. Here’s how she…
The Final Frontier
The bottom of Lake Whillans, a two meter deep body of water underneath Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf, sandwiched between ice and rock. And, yes, it harbors life.
Carry On Roma
With all the to-do about these folks lately, I thought the following might be apropos: Dec. 6, 2012 — Despite their modern-day diversity of language, lifestyle, and religion, Europe’s widespread…
Mathys Get Punked
A quick update to this post from April 2012, which is about a paper withdrawn from the journal Applied Mathematics Letters because it had “no mathematical content”. Now we have…
Life On Mars?
Last week Curiosity was able to use its SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) device to confirm the discovery. A robotic arm with a complex system of Spectral Analysis devices was…
Bloop No More
This is terribly disappointing:The broad spectrum sounds recorded in the summer of 1997 are consistent with icequakes generated by large icebergs as they crack and fracture. NOAA hydrophones deployed in…
From The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
* The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically important…
Elsevier Pranked
Elsevier is a very large publisher of scientific and medical journals. It has been boycotted recently number of high-profile scientists due to its high subscription prices for individual journals, bundling…
