November 28, 2014
Rice suspension overturned
Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice's suspension has been overturned, effective immediately, by arbitrator and former federal District Court Judge Barbara Jones. [more inside]
hyperconnected: your brain on shrooms
How Tripping On Mushrooms Changes The Brain - "New research [pdf] suggests that psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, sprouts new links across previously disconnected brain regions, temporarily altering the brain's entire organizational framework." [more inside]
His lawn: off it
Catarina's most elaborate visions took the form of demonic fiestas
There is little trace of the presence of the South Asians who lived and worked in Mexico during the colonial period except for one woman whose legend lives on even today. She was purportedly born Mira in the kingdom of the Gran Mogol, or the Great Mughals, where she was captured by the Portuguese who eventually sold her to the Spanish at the port of Manila.The 'Mughal Princess' of Mexico: At the South Asian American Digital Archive, Meha Priyadarshini briefly explores the myths and realities of Catarina de San Juan (1606-1688), a religious mystic/visionary who sailed on the Manila galleon to Mexico nearly four hundred years ago and over time became associated in popular legend with a well-known style of dress. The etymological complexity of one keyword involved should not be underestimated and itself tells another story about the history of colonialism.
VCR Games: you just became the Luke Skywalker of the new Star Wars.
"With Christmas not far away, you may start seeing ads for video games that try to marry the VCR with traditional board games. Unhappily, that marriage more often resembles the bickering Lockhorns than the mild-mannered Nelsons. Here's a look at three of the games now out in 1986." But that's only a snapshot of the dynamic world of VCR board games, which peaked in the early 1990s with the Atmosfear series, known as Nightmare in Australia, where the game series was a huge cross-media empire, bigger than "Crocodile" Dundee. Another significant game was Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game, if for no other reason that it is canon and expands the story of the second Death Star. There are less than 100 VCR board games, and the videos for many of them are currently online, with more game documents and details on Board Game Geeks. By the end of the 1990s, the VCR was on the way out, replaced by DVD board games. Let's browse the isles of toy stores past, thanks to the crowd-sourced nostalgia that is the internet. [more inside]
"Telomeres: keeping your cells alive since forever."
"Thanks to enzymes, humans are solar-powered."
24th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony & Lectures. [more inside]
Digesting polyethylene
Some waxworms (abstract) are the first animal discovered to eat polyethylene, the world's most common plastic. The waxworms - larvae of the Indian meal moth - have not one, but two different gut bacteria capable of digesting the persistent plastic.
?decneirepxe uoy era
Hendrix's Are You Experienced? Backwards. That's all. But it works. tsuj netsiL.
Look, It's Only One More Season...
"Without books the world would be empty, like a bucket without water."
In this interview the splendid eight-year-old Madison makes it clear that she really loves books and the new Little Free Libraries that are in her Cleveland neighborhood of Fairfax. A Little Free Library [previous and ly] is a small, sturdy box full of books that local communities take are of all over the world. The non-profit organization behind it received the 2014 Innovation in Reading Award from the National Book Foundation.
I was a Greek neo-fascist
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