2.26.2009

“Jurassic Park” Doc To Hatch T-Rex From Chickens; McNugget Fans Wait In Anticipation

Legendary fossil-hunter and autodidact Dinosaur expert Jack Horner - who served as the inspiration for Dr. Alan Grant, the lead character in “Jurassic Park” - has cooked up a finger-lickin’-good idea for bringing back the late, great Tyrannosaurus Rex.
In an interview he’s given with the chaps over at Wired Magazine, Horner suggests the seemingly-inconceivable can be accomplished by “flipping the right genetic switches in a chicken embryo...”
In Horner‘s just published provocative new book entitled: “How To Build A Dinosaur - Extinction Doesn’t Have To Be Forever,” the good-honorary doctor details his what-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-T-Rex theory; apparently - as he sees it - since birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, if one can tap into the developing embryos at the just right time, and tweak just the right genes, the result would be a sort of “dinochicken”.
His quotes, not ours.
Interestingly enough, when pressed by Wired as to whether or not there could be any sort of don’t-try-this-at-home caveats to this scheme, Horner optimistically wagered against the chances of our civilization being overrun by the aforementioned dreaded dinochickens.
On the contrary, in citing some of the benefits that might arise from his genetic tinkering, the ever-positive paleontologist posited that at the least, we were almost guaranteed “plumper chickens” - not to split hairs, but that scientific milestone has already been conquered by the late Frank Perdue.
Sidebar: not only was Perdue world-renowned for his advances in chicken eugenics, it was rumored that he himself may have been some sort of bizarre half-man, half-chicken hybrid.
Far-fetched, you say?
No lesser authority than the New York Times itself once suggested that the self-styled Picasso of Poultry did in deed, look uncannily like the very fowl he benefitted so financially, from.
In any event, Horner - always the maverick - comes across as quite undeterred by any criticism that his plans might be a bit half-shake-and-baked, arguing that “Scientists who play by someone else’s rules don’t stand much chance of making discoveries...”
Well put, old friend, well put.
After all, it was just that sort of iconoclastic thinking that allowed McDonald’s to perfect the then unimaginable McDLT-technology*; the unprecedented breakthrough in polystyrene-engineering that allowed the fast-food innovator to “keep the hot-side hot, and the cool-side, cool...” an achievement that, up until that point in time, was considered a theoretical impossibility on the scale of perpetual motion and absolute zero.
Who says there are no heroes left?
To read more, click HERE>

*Yes... as a matter of fact, that IS Jason Alexander; apparently fulfilling his end of the Faustian-bargain which will later land him his role on Seinfeld.

2.24.2009

Do SuperHeroes Walk Amongst Us? If “Glow-In-The-Dark Eyes” Count As A SuperPower They Do


Previously here at the Museum, we’ve explored the theories that Homo Sapiens are continuing to evolve at a surprisingly rapid rate, and that human beings may actually - as the result of rapid advances in technology and medicine - metamorphosize in the very near future into a half-man, half-machine species called: Homo Evolutis.
But while a wholesale paradigm shift hasn’t occurred just yet, we have been monitoring the appearance of extraordinary traits, or perhaps more accurately - SuperHuman powers - being exhibited by various individuals around the world.
For instance, in China, a young man named Nong Youhui has stunned medical professionals with his ability to see in pitch blackness with eyes that glow in the dark. Unquestionably qualifying in our estimation as a SuperPower, the only apparent downside of Youhui’s amazing ocular ability is that it’s earned him the tragic nickname of “Cat-Boy.”
We’re not sure how to say “that sucks” in Chinese, but we’re almost positive that’s what Youhui must have been thinking when he was dubbed Cat-Boy.
And then there’s Lewis Gordon Pugh, an Englishman who has made a habit of swimming in the 0 degree celsius waters off the coast of Antarctica. Known as the Ice Man, Pugh has the ability to swim for substantial amounts of time in water so cold, it would assuredly kill a normal man in minutes, if not on contact.
Granted, being able to swim in really cold water and seeing in the dark may not be the most formidable weapons in the fight for Truth, Justice, and The American Way... but even Green Arrow got to be in The Justice League of America, and, well, no offense, but basically he was just a pretty good shot with a bow-and-arrow.
In any event, we’ve assembled a fairly impressive, rag-tag team of misfit Super-Powered beings for your review.
Evil-doers, beware.
To read more, click HERE>

Scientists Warn: Social Networks “Messing With Kids’ Minds;” Prom-Goers: Watch Your Backs


With prom-season just around the corner, we felt compelled to rush this breaking story into circulation.
According to Oxford neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield (seriously - that is her handle), social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centered.
(Finally a plausible explanation for the ratings-behemoth that is “American Idol,” and the mind-boggling success and ubiquity of Ryan Seacrest.)
The Baroness fears that “...these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.”
The ultimate fallout of all this is a generation of anti-social, miscreants running amok - as if the current level of paperboy dedication and the dispassionate level of Starbuck’s Baristas weren’t dodgy enough.
And while this may be ill-timed, we can’t help but point out that The Museum of SuperNatural History now has a members group on the aforementioned mind-numbing Facebook.com.
To read more, click HERE>

2.23.2009

Fossilized Mammoth Captivates Hollywood; Coincidentally, Jerry Lewis Wins Academy Award


A nearly intact Wooly Mammoth skeleton has been unearthed at a construction site near the famed La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, California.
Historically, the tar pits have yielded between 3 and 4 million fossilized remains over the years, but the discovery of the Mammoth remains is being described as one of the most significant finds in more than a century.
Especially exciting, is the fact that both of the Mammoth’s tusks are so astonishingly well-preserved.
Speaking of well-preserved: as mentioned in the headline, legendary funny-man Jerry Lewis was honored at the 2009 Academy Awards Ceremony. Here at the Museum, we’ve always been fascinated by the octogenarian comic-genius’ jet-black hair, and the adulation heaped on him by the French.
To read more, click HERE>

2.22.2009

Popular Mechanics Releases Map of UFO Hot-Spots, Lets Its Geek Flag Fly


The folks over at Popular Mechanics have outdone themselves with a fascinating map that pinpoints the top 6 “hot spots” for UFO activity in the United States of America.
We were especially impressed with their video archives featuring a variety of eye-witness sightings ranging from the easily-explained to the Close-Encounters-of-the-bust-out-the-Reese’s-Pieces-kind.
They’ve even provided a guide to the top-6, top-secret aircraft most likely to be mistaken for UFOs (although we have our own theory on why that could be happening), and a check-list of what to do before you report a sighting to MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network.
In related news, Jay Melosh, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, Temp, recently went on record with a pretty far out theory; basically he says: “The Martians are already here, and we are them...”
Melosh is most famous for having helped forge the giant impact theory behind the moon’s formation (which happens to terrifyingly look like this), and advancing the theory that a cataclysmic impact with a comet or meteorite (ditto) led to the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
To read more, click HERE>

2.21.2009

Experts Warn: Military Robot Rebellion Inevitable - By “Experts” We Assume They Are Referring To Will Smith And McG


The long-standing sci-fi conceit that continues to inform the plot lines of films like I, Robot and the Terminator franchise - androids and robots wont to turning against their human creators and running amok - continues to become less the stuff of pop-corn movies, and more the fodder for documentaries, and full-blown government warnings.
To wit: a report commissioned by the Office of Naval Research and compiled by the Ethics and Emerging Technology department of the California State Polytechnic University (CalPoly) warning of the possibility that autonomous Military Robots created to fight future wars could turn on their human masters has begun circulating around the internet.
And by “circulating around the internet” we mean: please help yourself to a copy.
The report, prepared by Patrick Lin, Ph.D., is about as long as a Melville novel, except in this case, the cautionary tale has swapped man’s preoccupation with hunting down a giant, malevolent white-whale, with man’s preoccupation with building a giant, malevolent, army of killer-robots.
Lin’s concerns are precipitated by the complex reality that the millions of lines of code that will have to be written to run the robots software could potentially get “jumbled up,” and then, well... you know.
In his report, the good doctor emphasizes that the bellicose-’bots need to be programmed to adhere to the Laws of War.
One might argue that some big-brained, geek-outfit like Google could probably come in and grock this cybernetic-conundrum, but we have our reservations regarding that approach.
In any event, we’re “old school” and we can only hope that whoever has to crack this algorithmic-egg will prescribe to Isaac Asimov’s three rules of robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
To read more, click HERE>

2.20.2009

Lost Continent of Atlantis Miraculously Found, Disappointingly Re-Lost By Google Nerds


The British Museum has its mummies, the Louvre’s got the Mona Lisa, and here at the Museum of SuperNatural History we’ve been dying to get our hands on the Lost Continent of Atlantis.
So imagine the euphoria here at the MuSuNaHi when the alarm bells went off and word came over the squawk box that Atlantis had been discovered by an aeronautical engineer named Bernie Bamford using the latest version of Google Ocean.
But before we even got the chance to video conference those squares over at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and holler “Told you so!” into the com-sat link, the news wires were already reporting that some PR stooge over at Google was claiming the whole thing was a mix-up.
Apparently the image that had gotten everyone so excited - the appearance of some sort of vast network of city streets more than 3 miles below the surface of the ocean - is merely a left over “artifact of the data collection process...”
So just to be clear: the alternative explanation for this wanna-be Atlantis anomaly is that giant research ships sailing on the open, undulating ocean, dragging miles-long data-collecting cables behind them left a series of perfectly rectilinear marks on the ocean floor covering an area that is approximately the size of Wales?
Sure they did.
By the way, we’re going on record and predicting that “Artifact Of The Data Collection Process” will invariably become “The Man’s” dubious, “It Was Just A Weather Balloon” cover-up excuse of the 21st century.
For an alternative theory on where Atlantis might be, see our post regarding what’s going on down in Antarctica.
To read more, click HERE>

Geronimo’s Heirs Sue Yale’s Skull & Bones, Demand Return Of Ancestors Skull... And Bones


As if not being able to defeat Harvard in a football game were not socially awkward enough, now comes this bad news:
Tuesday, February 17th not only marked the 100th anniversary of the great Apache warrior Geronimo’s death, it also served as the perfect backdrop for the first act of this drama: the descendants of Geronimo have filed a claim in federal court demanding the return of their ancestor’s remains from Skull and Bones - the posh, private, privileged fraternity that is arguably the world’s most secret of secret societies; one whose membership ranks are a veritable roll-call of some of the most powerful families in America, including the Bush Family.
Yes, that The Bush Family.
In fact, it was none other than former President George W. Bush’s own grandfather, Prescott S. Bush, who is alleged to have personally stolen Geronimo’s skull and bones and returned them to the super-secret society’s super-secret aptly-named-clubhouse known as The Tombs, located on the Ivy League school’s New Haven campus.
Of course, Prescott Bush’s actions have always been excused away as a private-school boy prank; and from the rarified point-of-view of old money, it’s easy to see how the mere desecration of a legendary Native-American’s grave would seem like small potatoes compared with, say... running afoul of the Trading with The Enemy Act, during World War II.
Now those were some real world-class hi-jinx.
Back in 1942, The Union Banking Corporation and three shipping companies run by Prescott Bush, Averell Harriman and two other former fellow-Bonesmen, were all seized by the United States Government for doing exactly what one might suspect something called the Trading with The Enemy Act would frown upon most: trading with the enemy.
Fortunately for Bush and Harriman, the seizures were given “Classified Status” up until 2002, which conveniently afforded the two trading-with-the-enemy-pals with the opportunity to run for election, receive appointments to some of the highest government offices in the land, make a ton of bread, and squash anyone who might have gotten in their way.
Boola-Boola!
To read more, click HERE>

2.19.2009

Stonehenge Donated To England; “You’re very welcome, your Majesty...”


The grateful and deserving citizens of Britain offered up a hearty “Thanks blokes...” after MuSuNaHi proudly and permanently donated Stonehenge to the United Kingdom.
Back in 1986, Stonehenge and its surroundings were deservedly placed on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites, and the beloved and beguiling mythic structure - long the focus of academic and pop-cultural fascination - has always silently begged the question: who, how, and why was it built?
(We of course have always held fast to the theory that Stonhenge is a solar declinometer, or more specifically, a Uriel Machine.)
While a BBC report from the fall of 2008 claims that radio carbon dating definitively pegs the cyclopean sun temple’s completion to approximately 2,300BC, additional evidence attests to the possibility that the site was used for sacred rituals as far back as 8,000BC.
Most impressive of course, are the theories set forth by this dude in Michigan who not only arrived at a rather ingenious solution to the riddle of how Stonehenge was constructed, but then took it upon himself to build a scale replica in his backyard.
To read more, click HERE>

2.17.2009

Heads: We End Up In A Sleek, Futuristic Utopia... Tails: We’re Vaporized In An Apocalyptic Abyss...


Assuming the galactic alignment destined to take place on December 21st, 2012 - the ever-more ominous end date of the 5,125 year Mayan long-count calendar - does not unleash any number of unpalatable, cataclysmic doomsday scenarios capable of destroying the planet Earth, there appears to be an outside shot that some of us could very well wind up “rolling” like The Jetsons.
According to 192020.org, by the year 2050 more than two-thirds of the world’s population will be living in “Super Cities” such as Tokyo - currently the globe’s largest city, with well-over 35,000,000 inhabitants. Fortunately, this alarming trend of skyrocketing urban populations appears to be pushing the development of “Skycraper Farms;” vertical farmlands that could be the solution to bringing sustainability to the modern metropolises of tomorrow.
Plus, they look wicked.
To read more, click HERE>

With Stones Weighing In At Over 200 Tons, Think Of It As “The Lego Set Of The Gods”


That adorable little tyke is standing adjacent to an inexplicably ginormous wall that is part of an ancient and anomalous Incan site located near the city of Cusco, known as Sacsayhuaman.
The scholars over at World Mysteries have posted a bloody-fine essay on this cyclopean architectonic wonder, and we encourage you to delve into it.
We were especially riveted by the author’s following paranormal proclamations:
“There are no other walls like these. They are different from Stonehenge, different from the Pyramids of the Egyptians and the Mayans, different from any of the other ancient monolithic stone works.”
“The stones fit so perfectly that no blade of grass or steel can slide between them. There is no mortar. They often join in complex irregular surfaces that would appear to be a nightmare for the stonemason.”
And for the bewildered layman who admiringly lets out a whistle and wonders aloud: “I wonder how they were able to build it back then...” it is not insignificant to point out that it isn’t all that clear how anyone would go about building Sacsayhuaman right now.
Some of the boulders that constitute this mysterious monolithic masterpiece tip the scales at over 200,000 pounds.
Simply put, there isn’t a crane, a contraption, or a piece of technology on the planet that could budge chunks of granite this size more than an inch; let alone deftly manipulate them into their perplexing, jig-saw puzzle-like arrangement.
To read more, click HERE>

2.16.2009

There May Not Be A Face On Mars, But It Turns Out Smiley Over There Is On A Can Of Pepsi


On July 25th, 1976, NASA’s Viking I Mars Orbiter beamed an image back to Earth that had the distinct and startling appearance of a humanoid Face On Mars.”
Though immediately dismissed by Viking chief scientist Gerry Soffen as a trick of light and shadow, two computer engineers working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Vincent DiPietro and Gregory Molenaar, discovered additional suspiciously misfiled images that some say provide definitive evidence that there is in fact a monolithic face carved on the surface of Mars.
Should the presence of such an artifact exist, it can only mean that an ancient lost civilization once flourished on the red planet; a civilization which may have not only contacted, but very much influenced our own. Variations of this theory fall under a body of conjecture commonly referred to as the “Mars-Earth Connection.”
Suffice it to say, the implications are staggering.
Of course, if that logic train sounds completely implausible, then you’d best buckle yourself in and get ready for this weird, wild ride...
Recently, a document that appeared on the internet - labeled audaciously: “Breathtaking Design Strategy”- attempted to stake the claim that the current Pepsi-Cola corporate identity can trace its upbeat-iconography back well over 5,000 years to the Vastu Shastra - the Hindu tradition of numeric harmony and spatial order.
This New Age Powerpoint Presentation further goes on to detail - in a grand Da Vinci Code-meets-the UPC code prose - how every bottle, can and logo ever churned out by the soft-drink manufacturer is both the embodiment and culmination of every form of Sacred Geometry, from the Golden Ratio to the algebraic-influenced figure drawings of Le Corbusier.
To borrow from the vernacular of an infomercial, allow us to add: “But wait, there’s more...”
The presentation culminates with the final revelation that not unlike the planet Earth itself - whose iron-nickel alloy core creates a “naturally occurring electric generator” that sustains a magnetic field which exerts gravitational forces on the planet’s inner and outer surfaces - the new Pepsi Logo...
...wait for it, wait for it...
...generates its own “symmetrical energy field” that not only creates emotive forces capable of shaping “the gestalt of the brand identity,” but theoretically - and in stark opposition to all the laws of Newtonian Physics, which effectively govern the known universe, mind you - establishes a gravitational pull that causes the consumer experience to shift from a transactional experience to an invitational expression.
They wrote that.
And drew a bunch of diagrams.
To attempt to read more, click HERE>

Scientists Crack Neanderthal Man’s DNA Code; Open Up A Page Right Out Of History


A newly unveiled gene sequence confirmed that modern humans and Neanderthals share 99.5 of the same genomes.
From the information garnered as a result of this scientific breakthrough, it appears that this now extinct human species was lactose intolerant and may have shared some basic language capabilities with modern humans.
It is still unclear however, as to whether or not they were - as theorized - able to start their primitive, caveman cars with their large, oversized feet, or what may have caused their kind to vanish some 30,000 years ago.
Seriously though, the sequencing is a staggering achievement.
According to project collaborator Jean-Jacques Hublin, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany “Studying the Neanderthal genome will tell us what makes modern humans really modern and really human.”
To read more, click HERE>

A Brief History Of “Life Imitating Art;” “Androids Imitating Humans;” And “Homosexual Robot Scientists Imitating Heterosexual Robot Scientists”


Granted the field of Artificial Intelligence was only formally established in the 1950’s, but it is certainly obvious that man’s fascination with robots and the concept of synthetic life forms certainly predates the Halcyon era of the Eisenhower age.
For example: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly had already written Frankenstein way back in 1831 (at the impressive age of 19), and Leonardo DaVinci had completed his ingenious plans for a working robot as early as 1495.
And at some point over the roughly 550 years between DaVinci’s automatonic-tinkerings, and the first utterance of the phrase “AI,” it wouldn’t be hard to assume that someone, somewhere might have asked: “What if we ever make a robot so real, we couldn’t distinguish it from one of us?”
Now with all the advancements in robotics we’ve been tracking here at the MuSuNaHi over the last few weeks, that query seems more prescient than ever.
Which brings us to the ominous sounding “Turing Test.”
Devised by British researcher and Ratio Club member Alan Turing, the test was specifically conceived to determine a machine’s ability to approximate human intelligence and behavior.
Turing based his eponymous test on a cocktail party game popular at the time called (appropriately enough, as we shall see for a variety of reasons) “The Imitation Game.”
The gist of this diversion was to see whether the participants - one male and one female sent off into different rooms - could fool the other guests into not being able to determine their respective sexual identities. This was achieved by having the two answer a series of identical questions using a typewriter. Their answers were pounded out onto paper and then passed under a door separating them from the rest of the revelers.
In formulating his test, it could be imagined that Turing was thinking ahead (as visionaries such as himself are wont to do) to a time when a parlor trick that could easily determine whether your dinner companion was mass-produced or not, might come in handy... as opposed to say, something as complicated and cumbersome as the Voight-Kampf Machine; a fictitious device fabricated for the sole purpose of outing errant “Replicants” in Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi classic “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep” (which would later famously be adapted into the film “Blade Runner”).
Of course, here’s where things get exponentially interesting:
The inclination on Turing’s part to devise such a test is even more fascinating when one factors in that the esteemed robotics expert happened to be a homosexual - at a time when homosexuality was narrow-mindedly deemed illegal, and nit-wittingly considered to be a mental illness.
Vis-a-vis the Ike’s Halcyon days.
In retrospect, we can’t help but wonder if Turing - who clearly had to approximate heterosexual behavior - would have felt a conscious and/or subconscious sympathy for the archetypal androids of later-day science-fiction, who almost always find themselves forced to have to “pass for normal,” or be prepared to face the often dreaded consequences as a result of being outed...
To read more, click HERE>

NB: Right on cue, our chums over at Wired Magazine have just published an interesting article that poses the inevitable question: “Do Humanlike Machines Deserve Human Rights?

2.15.2009

Could These Possibly Be The Mountain Peaks Of The Lost Continent Of Atlantis?


Unlike the North Pole - which is made up entirely of ice - the South Pole is actually a physical mass of land that is covered with ice.
And that physical mass of land is not merely any old land, it is one of the 7 continents.
And it was the brilliant author Graham Hancock who - in his masterpiece Fingerprints Of The Gods - so provocatively pointed out that an ice-covered continent would be the ideal place to ferret-away something as vast and mythic as the Lost Continent of Atlantis.
After all, Hancock writes (and we’re paraphrasing here), while Plato describes Atlantis as an island, he specifies that it is a continent. And you can’t just go an misplace an entire continent.
So after scouring the ocean depths, and turning over every toppled column on every island from Cuba to Sardinia, why couldn’t Atlantis be buried under the frozen ice of Antarctica?
Now currently, amazingly, swiftly - and tragically - that ice is melting.
And what the modern residents of planet Earth are now seeing, for the first time in thousands of years, are what could very likely be the mountain tops of the Lost Continent of Atlantis.
Sound crazy?
Well 600 years ago claiming a “round” Earth could be circumnavigated sounded a little out there, too... after all, everyone KNEW the world was flat. And the legendary city of Troy was considered to be nothing more than a Homeric plot device, until amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann confounded the experts by stubbornly going to the trouble of digging it up.
Our point being: if you’re up to it, Flem-Ath sets forth a compelling argument for how and why Antarctica could possibly be the Lost Continent of You-Know-Where.
To read more, click HERE>

Meet (Bionic) Man’s Best Friend


It shouldn’t surprise anyone that with all the feverish activity being channeled into creating super-smart robots and cyborgs, someone wouldn’t have taken the initiative and whipped up a robotic dog.
Dubbed BigDog and billed as “The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot On Earth,” Boston Dynamics synthetic K-9 can run at speeds of up to 4mph, climb 35 degree slopes, and hump a 340lb load.
We should add that “hump” is USMC jargon for “carry” - we wouldn’t want anyone to suspect that we were implying that this formidable piece of ordinance was prone to getting ornery and taking liberty with some form of non-commissioned beast of burden.
To watch the video, click HERE>

2.14.2009

Let’s Hope The First Robots Are More C-3PO And Less Terminator T-1000


It seems like just yesterday (technically, it was) that we reported on a scientific discovery that arguably validates the seemingly preposterous bio-chemical theory that if you were bitten by a radioactive spider, your genetic code could be altered, and you would begin manifesting arachnid-like qualities, thus becoming a sort-of hybrid Man-Spider.
Likewise, we’ve been (nervously) following Google + NASA’s work on their self-described Super-Smart Robots, as well as reports from the 2009 TED conference that mankind is on the verge of taking a technologically-enhanced evolutionary leap and morphing into a new species dubbed Homo Evolutis; not to mention the Eliza Doolittle-meets-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly abomination that is: the Living-Doll Made Out Of Cancer Cells.
So with the inconceivable-ramblings-of-mad scientists rapidly becoming the patentable-billion dollar techno-industries of the near future, we at the MuSuNaHi graciously tip our pith helmets to our colleagues over at io9 who have ambitiously and expertly archived a comprehensive Field Guide To Robots.
We especially liked the four genres of automatons they settled on: Experimental Prototypes, Bizarre One-Offs, The Creations of Mad Inventors, and Robots Built By Other Robots From Scrap.
Mind you, while all of these Robots are the products of science-fiction, at one point in our civilization’s history, so were organ transplants, jet-propulsion, and television.
And since the Truth seems to be both stranger than fiction and science-fiction, we’re quite certain that the first androids who walk amongst us (and can we be certain that they don’t already) will most assuredly take the shape and form of something we once saw on the late-late show.
To read more, click HERE>

2.12.2009

“Space Invader” Reptile DNA Infiltrates Mammal Genome, Or: The Science Of Spider-Man


Researchers at the University of Texas, Arlington recently made a startling discovery: proof that the genetic material of lizards has successfully infiltrated mammal DNA.
Now normally in higher-forms of life, genes are literally “passed down” vertically from parent to offspring - as in: “I’ve got my mother’s eyes...”
But in this case, the genetic material was “passed along” horizontally from parasite to host - as in: “I’ve got my pet iguana’s eyes...”
And thus the term “Space Invader DNA,”since the genetic material is making an unwelcome, active incursion.
What excited us here at the Museum was how suddenly, the oft-derided, comic book-bio chemistry that post-rationalized the existence of Spider-Man - the assertion that an individual bitten by a radioactive spider could absorb that irradiated insect’s genetic material, that it would alter the host’s DNA, and then the host would begin exhibiting some of the spider’s traits - turns out to be less like science fiction, and more like science fact.
(All this had one of our interns wondering why he wasn’t highly adept at wielding pom-poms, having once received a hickey from an exceedingly amorous Jr. varsity cheerleader in undergraduate school.)
Some of the mammals the study sites as having had reptile genes integrated permanently into their species’ DNA include the opossum, the little brown bat, and the bushbaby.
To read, click HERE.

The Theory Of Evolution Keeps Evolving

With Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday creeping up on us, we find ourselves pre-occupied with evolution - specifically human evolution.
We recently reported that word from the 2009 TED conference was that with the help of a “confluence of technology,” we humans were about to evolve into a new species called Homo Evolutis; a combination of man-and-machine.
Cool.
And now comes the icing on this cybernetic-cake: there is another new theory - set forth in the fascinating book “The 10,000 Year Explosion” - that as opposed to the standard-issue physical anthropological doctrine that human evolution ceased approximately 50,000 years ago... the human species has continued to evolve, and that rate of evolution is actually accelerating.
The authors of the book - Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending - peg the catalyst for this phenomenon on the following Rube Goldberg-like chain of events: the rise of agriculture, mankind’s subsequent abandonment of its hunter-gather ways, the establishment of more permanent population centers, and the resulting here-to-fore unseen population densities ripe for infectious diseases.
After all, once everyone started living together - and sneezing on one another - an outbreak of smallpox or the measles would “thin the herd” and - as Darwin himself would point out - only the strong would survive.
To paraphrase Woody Allen, we’d like to interject at this juncture: it’s interesting to point out that Cochran and Harpending’s catalyst for human evolution is the advent of Civilization.
Now, assuming that their theory is correct - and we sure think it is - the question still persists: where did that Civilization come from?
Why - or perhaps more appropriately - how, after hundreds of thousands of years of leading a relatively unsophisticated nomadic existence, did our ancestors suddenly acquire the skills and inclination to cultivate wheat, and then almost immediately thereafter, start building Pyramids?
It has long been argued that a previously existing (and perhaps extra-terrestrial) “Higher Culture” gifted mankind with the skills and technology to create the foundations for modern civilization.
More on that after the Darwin bash.
To read more, click HERE>

2.11.2009

5,000 Year Old Temple Proves “New World” Not Nearly As New As We Thought


What is a 5,000 year old vast, open-air sun temple doing in the middle of Canada’s stark plains?
Driving mainstream archeologists crazy, for one thing.
Retired University of Alberta professor Gordon Freeman says that this rock-encircled cairn is in actuality the center of a 26-square-kilometer geodetic “lattice work” designed to mark the changing seasons and the phases of the moon - with an accuracy far greater than our current calendar.
If Freeman is right, this astrophysical act of landscape architecture predates England’s Stonehenge and Egypt’s pyramids.
To read more, click HERE>

Hit The Afterburners And Crank Up "Dark Side Of The Moon”


A must-read at the MuSuNaHi book club is “Who Built The Moon,” a heartbreaking work of staggering astrophysical genius - if ever there was one.
The book pokes holes - or at least digs some craters - into many of the accepted theories about what the moon is, where it came from, what it’s made of, and its importance to life on Earth.
So we’re excited to hear that NASA is going to follow suit, and ram a Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) into one of the permanently shadowed crater of the moon’s North Pole.
The hope is to detect the presence of ice; water on the moon would potentially support the infrastructure necessary for creating a launching site on the lunar surface for manned exploration of Mars.
To read more, click HERE>

Good News: That Busted Doomsday Machine That Can Destroy The World Is Finally Working Again


The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva is set to go back online.
The LHC of course gained infamy in September of 2008 when critics of the $6 billion particle accelerator theorized that the device could quite possibly create a mini-black hole that could expand into Earth-eating proportions.
Naturally, the level-headed scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) -which operates the LCH - published a safety report ruling out the possibility of such a cataclysmic event ever occurring.
Of course, the doomsday device then proceeded to overheat and break down just a few days later.
This time, however, the experts have re-reassured the planet’s population that everything will be A-OK.
Which would make us feel better if The Titanic were not deemed “unsinkable” by its designers, only to plunge to the bottom of the ocean floor on her maiden voyage.
To read more, click HERE>

Roswell UFO Confirmed; “Smoking Gun” Turns Out To Be Model Kit Vs. Model Glue


It’s always been suspected that Area 51 - a top-secret Air Force base in the Nevada dessert - has bee tasked with churning out futuristic aircraft reverse-engineered from the UFO that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
For years, we’ve been scouring the globe in search of proof that the government has had their hands on a UFO, but we never thought the smoking gun would be a 1/48th scale model sold by Testors.
The evidence trail goes like this: Legendary Lockheed engineer John Andrews eventually became the chief model kit designer for the Testor Corporation. Andrews personally confirmed that there was indeed a design connection between the spacecraft that crashed at Roswell and the Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) spy planes designed by Lockheed.
Ben Rich, the head of Lockheed’s “Skunk Works” division, confirmed that his friend and colleague John Andrew’s Testors models, were indeed influenced by the Roswell UFO.
Rich went on to elaborate that there are, in fact, two types of UFOs: “the ones we build, and the ones they build.” The implication being that from the original SR-71 Blackbird right up to today’s unmanned drones flying combat missions in the Middle East, all of these aircraft are predicated on alien technology.
To read more, click HERE>

2.09.2009

Anti-Aircraft Laser Goes Operational; Alien Invaders: Consider Yourself Warned


Well... it’s... about... time...
More than 60 years after the Roswell Alien Coverup, the US Military has successfully shot down a series of unmanned aerial vehicles with laser cannon.
The weapon was invented by Boing and mounted on a Humvee off-road vehicle. The staff here at the museum was impressed, but we would have been more excited if the laser had been retrofitted to an F-14 Tomcat.
To read more, click HERE>

Mad Scientists Push The Mad Scientist-Envelope With “Living Doll Made Out Of Cancer Cells”


Hmmm...
Recently we reported on NASA and Google collaborating on super-smart robots, as well as some ground-breaking (and disquieting) advances in human cloning.
But clearly, in an attempt to avoid being outdone by their colleagues already pre-occupied by playing God, Japanese scientists have announced the creation of what could easily be the most terrifying example of cognitive dissonance ever: “a living doll made out of cancer cells...”
Granted, their insidious creation is only 5mm high, and resembles a cross between a Gumby Bear and a gingerbread man, but allow us to reiterate: “a living doll made out of Cancer Cells.”
To read more, click HERE>

2.08.2009

Charles Darwin - Naturalist, Cryptozoologist, Birthday Boy


February 12th, 2009 marks the 200th birthday of Charles Robert Darwin, whose publication of The Origin of the Species first posited that all life evolved over time from one common ancestor.
But rather than dwell on the now centuries old debate between creationism and evolution, our friends over at Cryptomundo have chosen to commemorate the late, great naturalist’s life by illuminating Darwin’s own cryptozoological connection - specifically the Mylodon darwinii - an obscure, but nonetheless intriguing cryptid named in honor of Darwin.
It’s a truly compelling tale, and we couldn’t imagine a better way to celebrate the good Captain of The HMS Beagle’s birthday.
To read more, click HERE>

2.07.2009

It Won't Help You Plan Your Next Trip, But It Might Help You Plan Your Last One


Think of “The Pocket Guide To The Afterlife” as a sort of Travel + Leisure Magazine meets Death Takes A Holiday.
The book, appropriately subtitled “91 Places Death Might Takes You” provides a simple overview of what one might expect to encounter in the afterlife in pretty much every spiritual scenario from Atheism to Zoroastroism.
Here at the MuSuNaHi, we were especially impressed with the authors’ colorful description of what might expect upon arriving in each individual iteration of the hereafter (eg: on reaching Krishna consciousness, the authors describe Krishna as “your new BFF.”).
To read more, click HERE>

2.06.2009

Breaking News From TED Conference: Apparently We DO Have The Technology...


At the TED conference, Juan Enriquez suggested that the human race is evolving before our very eyes.
Factoring in an array of technological advances and scientific breakthroughs, the CEO of Biotechonomy predicts “the ultimate reboot” for the human species as a result of the coming confluence of genetic engineering, tissue generation, and robotics.
Enriquez has dubbed this new high-tech offshoot of the evolutionary chain “Homo Evolutis” - in essence, the cybernetic organisms (or cyborgs) first posited by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in 1960.
In other words: it’s one small step for man; one giant bionic leap for mankind.
To read more, click HERE>

Could The Earth Be One Big Giant Alien Hard Drive?


Our colleagues over at BLDG BLOG made an interesting implication when they contemplated the geological nature and functioning of a traditional hard drive, which stores information as “memory” by effectively magnetizing ferromagnetic material.
Magnetizing ferromagnetic material?
Uncanny - after all, the Earth is ensconced in a powerful electromagnetic field and is constituted to some degree by ferromagnetic material (in fact, the Earth’s core is made of iron).
And as the Earth spins, it’s powerful electromagnetic field leaves its mark on the planet’s ferromagnetic material. One of the results of all of this is the formation of crystals.
But what if the magnetic field could be manipulated to inscribe and encrypt the crystals thus mimicking the functioning of a traditional hard drive?
Stranger still: what if this process is already ongoing - and etched into the granite and bedrock of the Earth are the secrets of the universe?
Could someone please get Steve Wozniak on line 1?
To read more, click HERE>

2.04.2009

To Paraphrase Dr. Seuss: "One Fish, Two Fish, Killer Carnivorous Squirt Fish..."


More news from off-the coast of Australia - scientists exploring the 5,900-foot deep Tasman Fracture using a remotely operated submersible dubbed “Jason”discovered what they described as a “Seuss-like ” Sea Creature that devours its prey in a manner akin to the Venus flytrap.
To read more, click HERE>

Is This Ancient Symbol Mankind’s Genetic Code?


Earlier we reported on a potential breakthrough in the field of human cloning.
While reviewing the sequential embryonic cell division that takes place during the development of life, we were struck by a stunning similarity to a 6,000 year old image depicting “Sacred Geometry.”
Strewn across the ancient world - from the Temple of Osiris in Egypt, The Forbidden City in China, The Golden Temple of India, Masada in Israel, Roman Temples in Turkey, Peru and Mexico in South America, Islamic mosques throughout the Middle East, and the pages of Leonardo DaVinci’s notebook - is a mysterious symbol known as “The Flower Of Life.”
Is it theorized that woven into this complex graphic pattern are many of the sacred symbols of all of the world’s religions, as well as the sub-atomic schematics of life itself: Octahedrons, Borromean Rings, Platonic Solids, Metatron’s Cube, The Vetruvian Man,
To read more, click HERE>

Maybe These Human Clones Can Defeat Google-NASA’s Army Of Super Smart Robots?


Previously we reported on Google and NASA’s plan to collaborate in order to create machines smarter than humans. This naturally had us contemplating a future filled with malevolent androids at war with the human race.
Now the good news: it appears that another long-anticipated - the ability to clone humans. Which of course ushers in the prospect of an army of clones genetically engineered to fight the aforementioned killer robots.
Of course, the bad news is: this could also pave the way for a Logan’s Run, The Island, Star Wars’ Clone War scenario that we’d rather not contemplate.
To read more, click HERE>

2.03.2009

Google And NASA Promise: “Machines Smarter Than Man...” Uhm, Anyone Else See Where This Is Headed?


It seems that Google has taken time off from “organizing the world’s information by inserting microchips into your brains...” and NASA has put off faking further Moon landings to team up and create machines that are smarter than mankind.
Obviously I, Robot, The Matrix Trilogy and the Terminator franchise have taught the geekiest geeks in the world nothing.
To read more, click HERE>

Could Sasquatch Be The Last Cave Man?


Over the last decade or so, speculation began to arise that Neanderthal Man and Cro Magnon Man were two separate branches of the evolutionary tree, rather than sequential links in the evolutionary chain.
It is now generally accepted that this is the case, which subsequently begged the question: “Then what happened to Neanderthal Man?”
Interestingly enough, an article in the Lincoln Star, published in July 29, 1934, posed this very same question 85 years ago. Their theory? That the Sasquatch is the “Last Cave Man.”
To read more, click HERE>

Is The Pantheon A Colossal Sun Dial


The Roman Pantheon has always been an architectural marvel.
From the time it was completed in 128AD, until the architect Fillipo Brunelleschi completed the dome on the cathedral of Florence in 1436, the Pantheon was the largest vaulted space on the planet.
But now, there is reason to believe the Pantheon was more than just a temple.
To read more, click HERE>

2.02.2009

No Need To Update Your Facebook Status Bar After December 12th, 2012


The folks at the Disinformation Society are promoting the upcoming release of their documentary “2012 Science or Superstition” on Facebook.
The documentary sounds great - the group of experts and scientists weighing in is A-List and we’re looking forward to getting our hands on a copy.
To see the trailer, click HERE.

The Top 10 Weirdest Things In The Universe


Here at the MuSuNaHi, we’ve always embraced JBS Haldane’s eponymous Law which states: “The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, the universe is stranger THAN we can imagine.
If you doubt the veracity of Haldane’s assertion, you may want to take a moment and examine the list compiled by Discovery that counts down the weirdest things in the universe from 10 to 1.
To read more, click HERE>

2.01.2009

Step 1: Ibex. Step 2: T-Rex. Let The Cloning Begin


The Pyrenean Ibex became extinct in 2000. At the time, scientists preserved a tissue sample of the creature and stored it in hopes that science would eventually precipitate the technology necessary to clone the animal.
Now, 9 years later, the theory has been put to the test, and for the first time ever, an officially extinct animal has been successfully cloned.
To read more, click HERE>