The Roman arena may have played host to appalling brutality in the name of entertainment, but those who fought maintained certain standards[New Scientist]
A controversial new analysis of the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum theory says parallel universes can in fact interact, with disastrous results[New Scientist]
Some nifty detective work on a little-known bust from London strongly suggests that a 17 death mask is really that of William Shakespeare[New Scientist]
A population milestone is about to be set on this jam-packed planet. On Saturday, Feb. 25, at 7:16 p.m. ET, the population here on this good Earth is projected to hit 6.5 billion people. [MSNBC]
Go back far enough in our history—maybe about 650 million years—and you come to a time when our ancestors were still invertebrates. That is, they had no skulls, teeth, or other bones. They didn’t even have a brain. How invertebrates…
[Loom]
February 16: Sun’s activity blamed for stopping natural repairs. [Guardian Unlimited Life]
Using the most sensitive X-ray map of the Galaxy, obtained combining 10 years of data of Rossi XTE orbital observatory, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics have discovered the origin of the galactic background emission. They show that it consists of emission from a million accreting white dwarf binaries and hundreds of millions of normal stars with active coronas. [EurekAlert]
Baboons mourn those they’ve lost and will turn to others for support, a study finds. [Discovery Channel News]
The first intact tomb discovered since Tut’s in 1922 probably holds court officials. [Discovery Channel News]
A look inside a T. rex head finds surprisingly well-developed senses of smell, hearing and balance for such a huge animal. [Discovery Channel News]
The finding bolsters suspicions that comets delivered key ingredients for the development of life on Earth. [Discovery Channel News]
A new theory argues that our ancestors huddled together defensively in groups to avoid becoming a predatory beast’s dinner. [Discovery Channel News]
Two research projects reinforce his theory on species evolution without geographic separation. [Christian Science Monitor]
The Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary proves why this 10th son of a candlemaker is still instantly recognizable 300 years after his birth. [Christian Science Monitor]
A new discovery by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers suggests that the brain may be able to work much like the ‘’instant replay” on sports shows. [Boston Globe]
Babies have a rudimentary grasp of maths long before they can walk or talk, say scientists. [BBC Science/Nature]
Why the “Clash of Civilizations” is the wrong way to approach the cartoon controversy.
War crime, payback or a legitimate attack aimed at shortening World War II? The destruction of Dresden on February 13, 1945 isÂ?one ofÂ?the most controversial bombing raids of the conflict.Â?It’s now the subject of a new German film that aims to tell the story from severalÂ?points of view. [Spiegel]
A former neoconservative theorist argues that with the Iraq conflict, the ideology that won the cold war has come to threaten peace. Can a movement turn away from militarism and toward a more durable use of power? [NYT Magazine]
Ford Motor charged as accomplice in Argentina’s “dirty war”
Ford Motor charged as accomplice in Argentina’s “dirty war”
Neanderthals in Europe killed off earlier – Boston.com
ScienceDaily: There’s Something Fishy About Human Brain Evolution
Portrait: ‘AJP Taylor’ by Geoffrey Wheatcroft | Prospect Magazine March 2006 issue 120
Portrait: ‘AJP Taylor’ by Geoffrey Wheatcroft | Prospect Magazine March 2006 issue 120
Essays: ‘Realism rules (still)’ by James Wood | Prospect Magazine March 2006 issue 120
Essays: ‘No more heroes’ by Edward Skidelsky | Prospect Magazine March 2006 issue 120
Essays: ‘No more heroes’ by Edward Skidelsky | Prospect Magazine March 2006 issue 120
Battle of the Bulge: Robert Walter’s Baptism of Fire
Battle of the Bulge: Robert Walter’s Baptism of Fire
The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
Damaged culture, damaged state – INQ7.net
Damaged culture, damaged state – INQ7.net
Discovery Institute – News – Over 500 Scientists Proclaim Their Doubts About Darwin’s Theory
The Irascible Professor-commentary of the day 02-22-06. The best high school education that $25,000 per year can buy.
Religion News Service: Products
Religion News Service: Products
Simulations provide more evidence that hominids may have adapted cooperative behaviours to avoid being eaten by other animals[New Scientist]
History Today: The educational archive of articles, news and study aids for teachers, students and enthusiasts – The Mamluks – The Mamluks
Thought for thinkers – The Boston Globe
The uses and abuses of multiculturalism
The Fate of the Ocean
The Fate of the Ocean
Virtual Reality Prepares Soldiers for Real War
The bases of the human language faculty are now being investigated by means of highly specialised measurement techniques and with increasing success. Why can we understand complex sentences, while our nearest cousins – apes – only understand individual words? Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig have discovered that two areas in the human brain are responsible for different types of language processing requirements. [Science Daily]
New Scientist Breaking News – ‘Sleeping on it’ best for complex decisions
KRT Wire | 02/17/2006 | Unlocking cell secrets bolsters evolutionists
The future of reading – Books – Entertainment – theage.com.au
The future of reading – Books – Entertainment – theage.com.au
EducationGuardian.co.uk | Students | Global spread of English ‘a threat to UK’
Arizona Senate panel—following complaint over “The Ice Storm”—votes to give students right to demand alternative books. [Inside Higher Ed]
The New Yorker: The Critics: A Critic At Large
The Chronicle: 2/17/2006: Call Me Digital
Guardian Unlimited | Arts features | Connoisseur of the ordinary
Why India fell for the code of Wodehouse – Books – Times Online
Australian Financial Review -
Australian Financial Review -
Australian Financial Review -
Australian Financial Review -
Global criminality Syriana, written and directed by Stephen Gaghan
It’s interesting to me that American readers are so tenacious in their reading of “On the Death of the Author” as an essay. It’s marvelous, really—this last week was the third time it has happened to me.
[Words Without Borders Blog]
It’s a story, pure, hard fiction. Recently, a professor from Austin got all sentimental on me after downing his third beer and told me he felt for me and the pain of my divorce. What divorce? I asked him. He had read the story in a magazine and assumed it was a testimonial/memoir.
Peak Oil – The Great Tsunami By Michael Payne
Bush Administration Seeks Funds For Regime Change In Iran By Peter Symonds
‘True generosity toward the future," Albert Camus wrote in The Rebel, "consists in giving everything to the present." Writer, philosopher, activist, filmmaker and intellectual extraordinaire Bernard-Henri Lévy, celebrated enough in France to be widely known as BHL, has been doing that all his life. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Graphic novels are among the few rapidly growing areas of the publishing business. [NYT Books]
By Daniel Mendelsohn[New York Review of Books]
In the beginning was not the word, or the deed, but the face. ‘Darkness was upon the face of the deep,’ runs the King James Version in the second verse of the opening of Genesis. ‘And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.’ Two uses of ‘face’ in one verse, and a third implied face, surely: God’s own, hovering over the face of his still uncreated world. The Almighty, looking into the face of his waters, might well be expected to see his face reflected: it is profoundly his world, still uncontaminated by rebellious man. [London Review of Books]
Christian Spurrier on the tragedy of Gramsci’s prison years as revealed in letters to his wife and sons. [Guardian Unlimited Books]
Comment and opinion from the Times and The Sunday Times – Times Online
Sea Levels Likely To Rise Much Faster Than Was Predicted By Steve connor
Nobody has made a movie out of ‘’Tristram Shandy” before because, really, why would anyone try? Written during the 1760s, when the formal conventions of the modern novel were still coming together, Laurence Sterne’s uncategorizable work is a prank and a sideshow—an endless comic digression in search of a story line, full of puns and odd fonts and … [Boston Globe]
Climate change: On The Edge By Jim Hansen
The bioterrorist cookbook | thebulletin.org
Darwin: An exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History
The New Atlantis – The Trouble with the Turing Test – Mark Halpern
The New Atlantis – The Rise of Guerrilla Media – Glenn Reynolds
The New Atlantis – Who Owns the Genome? – Misha Angrist and Robert M. Cook-Deegan
The New Atlantis – Are We Worthy of Our Kitchens? – Christine Rosen
The New Atlantis – Are We Worthy of Our Kitchens? – Christine Rosen
The New Atlantis – The Rhetoric of Extinction – Charles T. Rubin
The New Atlantis – The Age of Neuroelectronics – Adam Keiper
The New Atlantis – The Age of Neuroelectronics – Adam Keiper
Philippines: Fatal game-show stampede—an exploitation of social despair
Philippines: Fatal game-show stampede—an exploitation of social despair
Two Cheers for Lincoln – Books & Culture
Shooting for the Moon, Once Again – Los Angeles Times
T. rex ancestor found in China / Only 10 feet long, it had mysterious crest on its head
As The Arctic Ice Retreats, The Old Great Game Begins By Ben Macintyre
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel ‘may rue Saddam overthrow’
Just How Addicted to Oil Are We?
Science & Theology News – God before and after Darwin