moonbuggy

‘The legend was almost too good to be true.

For decades, a mysterious figure dressed in black, his features cloaked by a wide-brimmed hat and scarf, crept into a churchyard to lay three roses and a bottle of cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.

Now, a 92-year-old man who led the fight to preserve the historic site says the visitor was his creation.

“We did it, myself and my tour guides,” said Sam Porpora. “It was a promotional idea. We made it up, never dreaming it would go worldwide.”‘

‘A diplomatic incident of some kind is perhaps foreseeable when four young Liverpudlians arrive in a land they’ve never seen before to meet legions of screaming, weeping young women. That might be what Harold Wilson had in the back of his mind when, as Prime Minister, he ensured that a visit to the British embassy in Washington was on the Beatles’ itinerary when they travelled to the US in February 1964.

If that was the case, then Wilson had evidently not anticipated quite how enthusiastically the Fab Four would actually be received by the likes of Lord Harlech, British ambassador of the day, and his wife Lady Sylvia Ormsby-Gore. [..]

John Lennon was pushed and pulled by a “rugby scrum of young Foreign Office officials” while George Harrison was grappled into a corner by dozens of autograph hunters in formal dress. But Ringo had the worst of it. “Someone just cut off a piece of my hair. I’m ruddy mad. This lot here are terrifying,” he said. “Much worse than the kids.”‘

It seems in 1994 Dick Cheney actually talked sense.

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‘The 66-year search for the wreck of HMAS Sydney, on which 645 Australians lost their lives, is almost certainly over.

A group of West Australians using just a grappling hook and an underwater camera last weekend found what they are sure is the Sydney, which sank after a battle with the German raider Kormoran on November 19, 1941.

Video film of the discovery shows scenes of tangled wreckage over a vast expanse of deck, much longer than any other vessel known to have sunk in the area.

The search team believe a series of details clearly visible on their video — decking bolts, extensive radio aerials, steam tubes and signs of massive damage — all point to the Sydney.’

‘You’ve reached the Badass of the Week, your one-stop shop for all things badassery-related. Scroll down for this week’s badass, or just go ahead and search through the complete list of all badasses that have been featured on the site. I update the page every Friday, so if you give a crap feel free to check back in next week to satisfy your insatiable desire to read about grown people punching each other in the mouth or beating each other about the head and neck in a most furious manner.’

‘Adolf Hitler kept a vast record collection of ‘forbidden’ music by Jewish composers, it was revealed yesterday.

Recordings by Mendelssohn and Offenbach were hidden in sealed boxes – but scratchmarks suggest they were among his favourites.

Russian composers were also banned under the Third Reich. But in private Hitler repeatedly played Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky and hundreds more works he publiclly labelled “sub-human music”.’

‘In the early 1990s, a Russian drilling rig encountered something peculiar two miles beneath the coldest and most desolate place on Earth. For decades, the workers at Vostok Research Station in Antarctica had been extracting core samples from deep scientific boreholes, and analyzing the lasagna-like layers of ice to study Earth’s bygone climate. But after tunneling through 414,000 layers or so– about two miles into the icecap– the layers abruptly ended. The ice below that depth was relatively clear and featureless, a deviation the scientists were at a loss to explain. In search of answers, the men drilled on.

Unbeknownst to the Russians, their drill had mingled with the uppermost reaches of one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world; a pristine pocket of liquid whose ecosystem was separated from the rest of the Earth millions of years ago. As for what sort of organisms might lurk in that exotic environment today, no one can really be certain.’

‘At the time of the Crusades, Europe was divided into states whose rulers were involved in petty territorial disputes. In Jerusalem (the most popular site for pilgrimages in Medieval Europe) at the time, the Seljukian Turks were gaining power and Europe saw it as a threat to the safety of the Pilgrims and to Christendom. In 1070 Jerusalem was taken, and in 1071 Diogenes, the Greek emperor, was defeated and made captive at Mantzikert. Asia Minor and all of Syria became the prey of the Turks. Antioch succumbed in 1084, and by 1092 not one of the great metropolitan sees of Asia remained in the possession of the Christians.’

‘The Army Corps of Engineers, which accidentally dumped sand filled with old military ordnance on Surf City’s beach, now wants the town to help pay to remove it.

Local officials are angered by the suggestion that they should help foot the bill for a federal goof that already has cost the town an unknown amount of tourism business.

“If they’re talking about getting any money out of Surf City to pay for their mistakes, they can forget about it,” Mayor Leonard T. Connors told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Army Corps spokesman Khaalid Walls said local governments are routinely asked to help pay for projects.

“That’s protocol. All our projects are cost-shared,” Walls said.

The town had to close its beach in March after World War I-era ordnance, including fuses and other military hardware, started surfacing in sand pumped ashore during a $71 million beach replenishment project.’

‘An extremely rare “living fossil” caught by a fisherman in Indonesia is being examined by scientists.

The 1.3m-long (4.3ft), 50kg (110lb) coelacanth is only the second ever to have been captured in Asia and has been described as a “significant find”.

An autopsy and genetic tests are now being carried out to determine more about the specimen. [..]

Scientists previously thought the fish group had died out about 70 million years ago, but were shocked when in 1938 they discovered that a specimen had been caught in a fishing net off the east coast of South Africa.’

‘Following textbook instructions in performing chemical experiments at home may be conducive to safety, but the real thrills of research come from those experiments which you work out for yourself.

Certain chemicals just do not get along well together, and can misbehave in a manner which may cause acute embarrassment—and pain. To avoid accidents, keep the following list of chemical tricksters in mind whenever you venture into free-lance experimenting. [..]’

‘Chimpanzees scampering on a treadmill have provided support for the notion that ancient human ancestors began walking on two legs because it used less energy than quadrupedal knuckle-walking, scientists said.

Writing on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said people walking on a treadmill used just a quarter of the energy relative to their size compared to chimpanzees knuckle-walking on four legs.

The scientists equipped five chimpanzees and four people with face masks to track oxygen usage and looked at other measures to assess energy expenditure and biomechanics on a treadmill.’

‘Pagans have pledged to perform “rain magic” to wash away a cartoon character painted next to their famous fertility symbol – the Cerne Abbas giant.

A doughnut-brandishing Homer Simpson was painted next to the giant on the hill above Cerne Abbas, Dorset, to promote the new Simpsons film.

Many believe the ancient chalk outline of the naked, sexually aroused giant to be a symbol of ancient spirituality.

Many couples also believe the 180ft carving aids fertility.’

‘America’s first Muslim congressman has provoked outrage by apparently comparing President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler and hinting that he might have been responsible for the September 11 attacks.

Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler’s later seizure of emergency powers.

“It’s almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that,” Mr Ellison said. “After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted.”‘

Sounds like a lucky fellow.

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‘Jim Morrison lived life in the fast lane, blowing fans’ minds with his trippy lyrics and magnetic stage presence. So it has always seemed strange that according to official records he died in benign circumstances: from heart failure in a Paris bathtub. Now, a new book suggests the singer may have met his maker with a psychedelic bang after all.

Sam Bernett, a former Paris nightclub manager, has claimed that the Doors frontman died on 3 July 1971 in a lavatory cubicle at his club. The suspected cause of death: heroin overdose.

Although rumours of this have circulated since Morrison’s death 36 years ago, no witnesses have come forward, until now.

The author, who managed the venue in question, believes two drug dealers carried Morrison out of the club and took him to his apartment. After arriving there, Bernett claims, Morrison was thrown into a bath in an attempt to revive him.’

This is a video made in 1994 by Digital talking about the wonders of the internet.

I remember those days. All I needed was a bash shell and telnet. 🙂

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‘A baby mammoth unearthed in the permafrost of north-west Siberia could be the best preserved specimen of its type, scientists have said.

The frozen carcass is to be sent to Japan for detailed study.

The six-month-old female calf was discovered on the Yamal peninsula of Russia and is thought to have died 10,000 years ago.

The animal’s trunk and eyes are still intact and some of its fur remains on the body.’

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‘Voronoff’s hypothesis was this: hormones, like testosterone produced by the testes, would reverse aging by a process he called “rejuvenation.” One of his first experiments used himself as a test subject. He injected ground up dog and guinea pig testicles under his own skin, but was disappointed when this did not result in any verifiable effect. He reasoned that living grafts of testicular tissue, rather than injections, would have a more dramatic and lasting rejuvenation effect.

This lead to cross-species glandular transplantation surgeries. His early experiments involved transplanting thyroid tissue into humans with a thyroid deficiency. He also began transplanting the testicles of executed criminals into rich old guys (as a treatment for senility and schizophrenia), but had to stop when the demand for the procedure far exceeding the supply of criminal testicles. At this point, Voronoff began using monkey testicles instead, and his first “monkey gland” to human transplant took place in June of 1920.’

‘Pink Floyd fans who may have thought that they had bought their last copy of The Dark Side of the Moon are helping to make the landmark album a best seller again–this time at Apple’s iTunes.

The reason appears to be its availability in a new audio format–yes, again.

Thanks to generations of music fans wearing out copies of the album on LPs, 8-track tapes and cassette tapes, Dark Side has sold more 35 million copies worldwide since it was released in 1973 and has spent more than 1,550 weeks as one of Billboard’s Top 200 best-selling albums–that’s about 30 years. [..]

Now the album is climbing the charts again, thanks to the unprotected 256kbps AAC version available through Apple’s iTunes Plus. Since Apple’s DRM-free music experiment with EMI was launched in May, sales of Dark Side have gone up more than 270 percent.’

‘Spanish researchers on Friday said they had unearthed a human tooth more than one million years old, which they estimated to be the oldest human fossil remain ever discovered in western Europe.

Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, co-director of research at the Atapuerca site said the molar, discovered on Wednesday in the Atapuerca Sierra in the northern province of Burgos, could be as much as 1.2 million years old.

“The tooth represents the oldest human fossil remain of western Europe. Now we finally have the anatomical evidence of the hominids that fabricated tools more than one million years ago,” the Atapuerca Foundation said in a statement.

“Since it is an isolated fossil remain, it is not possible at this point to confirm which Homo species this tooth belongs to,” the foundation added, but said first analyses “allow us to suppose it is an ancestor of Homo antecessor (pioneer).”‘

‘So truely devote Buddhist priests are not afraid of death; but they don’t normally seek it either, as this too would be an abnormal obsession with the physical world. The priests that chose to practice self-mummification were usually all older men, who knew they had limited time left to their lives anyway… and since the practice takes years to lead to a sucessful death and mummification, it cannot be characterized as an attempt to reach enlightenment quickly as a normal suicide might be. Rather, the intended purpose of this practice for these priests is to both push their ability to disregard their physical selves to the limit of their ability, and to try and leave an artifact of this struggle that will stand as a symbol of their beliefs to those that are priests after them.’

‘What are the last true outposts on our planet? In an era when humanity seems to have subjugated the whole world, are there any places left untouched by human influence?

To find out, New Scientist set out to discover the Last Places on Earth. Pleasingly, there were plenty to choose from: unclimbed mountains, unexplored caves, unmapped deserts, tribes untouched by the outside world and islands where alien species have yet to invade. We also discovered the last place dinosaurs roamed, the last place to make radio contact with the rest of the world, the very last place that will survive when our sun expands – and many more. So join us on our grand tour of the planet’s most unknown, pristine or downright extraordinary locations…’

Hooray for 40 year old ads. 🙂

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‘A 45-tonne bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt – more than a century ago.

Embedded deep under its blubber was a 13-centimetre arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale’s age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old.

“No other finding has been this precise,” said John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts.

Calculating a whale’s age can be difficult, and is usually gauged by amino acids in the eye lenses. It is rare to find one that has lived more than a century, but experts say the oldest were close to 200 years old.’

Careful preparation has served me well. I’ve overcome many obstacles to get where I am. A new relationship is just around the corner.

‘Two Alabama men are in the jail following a brawl straight out of the Middle Ages.

A third man involved in the fight, Pat Tordt, got out of the hospital Saturday night.

The fight was so intense weapons used were scattered some 30 yards down the street where the fight occurred.

The weapons were also something of a curiosity: a battle-axe, sword, and crossbow were among those recovered. [..]

Sgt. DeWayne McCarver of the Huntsville police said the injuries were serious, and the weapons of choice aren’t something police run across everyday.’

‘The phrase “Verschärfte Vernehmung” is German for “enhanced interrogation”. Other translations include “intensified interrogation” or “sharpened interrogation”. It’s a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their “enhanced interrogation techniques” would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan. [..]

In Norway, we actually have a 1948 court case that weighs whether “enhanced interrogation” using the methods approved by president Bush amounted to torture. The proceedings are fascinating, with specific reference to the hypothermia used in Gitmo, and throughout interrogation centers across the field of conflict. The Nazi defense of the techniques is almost verbatim that of the Bush administration…’