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Traumatic Anal Intercourse With a Pig

“It’s always interesting when individuals of two different species strike up a relationship. This might be a hunting partnership (raptor species have been reported co-operating to flush prey, as have coyotes and American badgers), an alliance where species warn each other of approaching predators (as in the case of co-operating monkeys and duikers)… or a sexual relationship where individuals engage in bizarre cases of interspecies intercourse. I’m not about to start documenting medical anomalies at Tet Zoo, but I will admit a certain visceral fondness of Kirov et al. (2002), a paper that reports a most remarkable and eye-watering case of zoophilia…”

(via Tetrapod Zoology)

King Of The Inventors

February 22, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Please be upstanding for one of the most insane, yet lovable characters to cross the Null’s path, Yoshiro Nakamatsu, better known as Dr NakaMats. The good doctor is the brains behind such innovations as the floppy disc, the CD, the digital watch and the fax machine, but he’s also so much moreDubbed the ?Edison of Japan’, Dr NakaMats is possibly the most prolific inventor in history. Whilst Thomas Edison – commonly regarded as the king tinkerer – invented some 1,093 gizmos and gadgets, Yoshiro Nakamatsu has well over 3,000 innovations to his name.

He even received the IgNobel Prize for Nutrition in 2005. This was after he took photos of everything he ate for 34 years to analyse what made a healthy meal. Dr. NakaMats has also invented his own range of ?Nutri-Brain’ health foods which, despite tasting like seaweed, he claims contain up to 55 essential ingredients that prolong life.This strange Japanese fellow is currently at the ripe old age of 79, but that’s not slowing him down. He plans to live until he’s 144, and who’s to say he won’t?”

(via Null Hypothesis)

(See also: Interview With Dr. Nakamatsu via What a Great Idea)

Oxford to Study Faith in God

February 21, 2008 / Klint Finley

University of Oxford researchers will spend nearly $4 million to study why mankind embraces God. The grant to the Ian Ramsey Center for Science and Religion will bring anthropologists, theologians, philosophers and other academics together for three years to study whether belief in a divine being is a basic part of mankind’s makeup.

“There are a lot of issues. What is it that is innate in human nature to believe in God, whether it is gods or something superhuman or supernatural?” said Roger Trigg, acting director of the center.

He said anthropological and philosophical research suggests that faith in God is a universal human impulse found in most cultures around the world, even though it has been waning in Britain and western Europe.

Full Story: AP on Wired.

Desert Rock: Tribal Members Push Alternatives, Navajo Nation Wants EPA Action

February 12, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Navajo tribal members who believe their voices are needed in the fight against the proposed Desert Rock Power Plant their government supports claim a host of alternatives to burning coal exist on the Navajo Nation. The group, called Din? CARE, holds a viewpoint that is squarely opposite of Desert Rock supporters, such as project spokesman Frank Maisano, of the Washington, D.C., law firm Bracewell & Giuliani LLC.

“It’s a Navajo project and the Navajo are choosing to take part of their vast resources, which include coal, and advance the cause of their people,” Maisano said. “The plant will generate $50 million in revenue per year, bring thousands of construction jobs, 400 permanent jobs and a wealth of indirect benefits.” The massive project, however, is held up in the federal permitting process. Project developers hope to begin construction sometime this year near Burnham in San Juan County.

Din? CARE’s recent release of a report stating its views about the Desert Rock Power Plant project preceded by less than two weeks letters from Navajo President Joe Shirley, Jr. and the Bracewell & Giuliani firm notifying the Environmental Protection Agency of the tribe’s intent to sue to force EPA’s release of its Prevention of Significant Deterioration (air) permit. Desert Rock organizers submitted its air permit application to the EPA in May 2004. A draft permit was issued in August 2006, followed by a series of public meetings and hearings. EPA officials are still evaluating and responding to concerns from comments received at those meetings.”

(via The Farmington Daily Times)

The End to a Mystery?

February 1, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Dr HongSheng Zhao, of the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, has shown that the puzzling dark matter and its counterpart dark energy may be more closely linked than was previously thought. Only 4% of the universe is made of known material – the other 96% is traditionally labelled into two sectors, dark matter and dark energy. A British astrophysicist and Advanced Fellow of the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council, Dr Zhao points out, ‘Both dark matter and dark energy could be two faces of the same coin.

‘As astronomers gain understanding of the subtle effects of dark energy in galaxies in the future, we will solve the mystery of astronomical dark matter at the same time. Astronomers believe that both the universe and galaxies are held together by the gravitational attraction of a huge amount of unseen material, first noted by the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky in 1933, and now commonly referred to as dark matter. Dr Zhao reports that, “Dark energy has already revealed its presence by masking as dark matter 60 years ago if we accept that dark matter and dark energy are linked phenomena that share a common origin.’

(via PhysOrg)

(Related: virtual tour of the Large Hadron Collider via Popular Science Blog)

Albert Hofmann ponders his problem child, LSD

January 28, 2008 / Fell

http://www.mindfully.org/Health/2006/LSD-Albert-Hofmann7jan06.htm

Happy Belated Birthday! Ol’ Dr Hofman turned 102 a couple weeks ago!

Smoke Weed In Moderation

January 19, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“That, at least, is the consensus of a new paper in Neuropharmacology:

There is a general consensus that the effects of cannabinoid agonists on anxiety seem to be biphasic, with low doses being anxiolytic and high doses ineffective or possibly anxiogenic. Besides the behavioural effects of cannabinoids on anxiety, very few papers have dealt with the neuroanatomical sites of these effects. We investigated the effect on rat anxiety behavior of local administration of THC in the prefrontal cortex, basolateral amygdala and ventral hippocampus, brain regions belonging to the emotional circuit and containing high levels of CB1 receptors. THC microinjected at low doses in the prefrontal cortex (10 ?g) and ventral hippocampus (5 ?g) induced in rats an anxiolytic-like response tested in the elevated plus-maze, whilst higher doses lost the anxiolytic effect and even seemed to switch into an anxiogenic profile. Low THC doses (1 ?g) in the basolateral amygdala produced an anxiogenic-like response whereas higher doses were ineffective.

In other words, a good high works in the prefrontal cortex and ventral hippocampus while a bad high turns on the amygdala. As most pot smokers eventually discover, there is a fine pharmacological line between comic relaxation and vague paranoia.”

(via The Frontal Cortex)

(see also “Is Weed The New Prozac?”)

Ancient Egyptian Medicine

January 17, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Ancient Kemetic (Egyptian) medicine was incredibly advanced. The Ancient Kemetic People were probably the first people in the world to have based their knowledge off of careful and astute observations, as well as trial and error. By careful observation, early doctors or physician priests of ancient Kemet began healing practices that were world renowned. Theirs was a medical system that was developed over three thousand years and gave much toward the advancement of medical science worldwide, and any monarch or noble to have an Egyptian physician in their employ was a mark of high status. There was not the exact separation of Physician, Priest and Magician in Ancient Kemet that we think of today. Many times there was crossover from one “specialty” into that of another. An example of this would be that i would not be considerd at all unusual in antiquity for a patient to receive treatment for a dog bite, for example, whereby this would be bandaged up with a paste of berries and honey and an incantation would be given to the patient to be said over the wound. He or she might recieve it written on a piece of papyrus as well and choose to wear it as a type of magical amulet. Magic however was not always a part of the healing arts. Many scholars think that the Ancient Kemetic People were overly superstitious and thought that all injury and illness was caused by “demons” or curses. This definitely was not the case.”

(Ancient Egyptian Medicine via The Ancient Egyptian Virtual Temple)

The Pleiades Carved by Prehistoric People in the Alps

January 17, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Two groups of man-made cup markings carved on a pair of boulders found in the Italian Alps may represent the Pleiades star cluster, according to the archaeo-astronomer Guido Cossard. The carvings have been found near the Plan des Sorci?res – literally ‘The witches’ plateau’ – at Lillianes, in Val d’Aosta (Italy). According to Mr Cossard, who made the discovery, the series of cup markings have the same shape as the famous star cluster, and it may represent ‘the most ancient star map ever found’. “Even the archaeo-astronomical orientation of the site is a confirmation, because it’s clearly aligned to the rising point of the Pleiades,” added Cossard.”

(via Archaeo News)

The Future Of Science Is…Art?

January 16, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“In the early 1920s, Niels Bohr was struggling to reimagine the structure of matter. Previous generations of physicists had thought the inner space of an atom looked like a miniature solar system with the atomic nucleus as the sun and the whirring electrons as planets in orbit. This was the classical model. But Bohr had spent time analyzing the radiation emitted by electrons, and he realized that science needed a new metaphor. The behavior of electrons seemed to defy every conventional explanation. As Bohr said, “When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.” Ordinary words couldn’t capture the data.

Bohr had long been fascinated by cubist paintings. As the intellectual historian Arthur Miller notes, he later filled his study with abstract still lifes and enjoyed explaining his interpretation of the art to visitors. For Bohr, the allure of cubism was that it shattered the certainty of the object. The art revealed the fissures in everything, turning the solidity of matter into a surreal blur.

Bohr’s discerning conviction was that the invisible world of the electron was essentially a cubist world. By 1923, de Broglie had already determined that electrons could exist as either particles or waves. What Bohr maintained was that the form they took depended on how you looked at them. Their very nature was a consequence of our observation. This meant that electrons weren’t like little planets at all. Instead, they were like one of Picasso’s deconstructed guitars, a blur of brushstrokes that only made sense once you stared at it. The art that looked so strange was actually telling the truth.”

(via Seed)

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