Star-shaped towers mystery

Martine "Frederique" Darragon is trying to find the solution to the mystery of towers in plain sight along the Himalayas. Apparently, none of the natives have any history for the star-shaped objects.

The mice of "Jugs"

Mad scientists grow human breasts on mice. They're doing this for cancer research, but I just can't get the thought of big-hootered mice out of my head now.
Unlike human breasts, however, the mice's growths sit flush to the chest. Humans are unusual in this respect, says Daniel Medina who studies breast cancer at Baylor College of Medicine at Houston, Texas: "In few other species are breasts pendulous."

Affordable funeral arrangements

A German artist wants his body fed to piranhas.
Karl Friedrich Lentze, 56, said he came up with the idea after reading about a Dutch man who wanted to be fed to snails.
Lentze, from Berlin, said he liked the idea but wanted something that would gobble him up a lot quicker.
Unfortunately for Karl, scientists say piranhas like living meat, they're not so big on cadavers.
The artist is however still hoping to hear from other zoos that may be more open to his proposal.
He said: "They could always poke my body with sticks to get me moving and get the fish interested."

Cronenberg's new movie

David Cronenberg will be making a movie of Martin Amis' "London Fields."
Script by Roberta Hanley ("Woundings") and Amis follows a promiscuous psychic troubled by disturbing premonitions that are all the more unnerving for never being wrong. Tale is set in and around a seedy London pub, where the psychic has come to meet the end her dreams have foretold: to be murdered by one of two men she meets there -- but which one?
(Link found at Cup of Chicha.)

Grad student or cult leader?

Former students make claim that Wheaton College did not protect them for a grad student who is also a cult leader. Apparently, he believes in corporal punishment:
Andreson, who tried four times to flee before finally breaking free in 2002, says she was forced to stay awake for days, had to stand in frigid weather in just a T-shirt for hours and was made to flog other members. Golwalla also made her abuse herself, once forcing her to screw a jagged coat hanger into her face.
She described the Maryland basement as a ``torture chamber,'' and said the hot-tempered cultist once kicked her to the ground and threw a book at her head. He wouldn't let her call her family, monitored her phone calls and e-mails and forced her to slap herself in the face, pull out tufts of her own hair and bang her head on the floor until it bled. Her punishment for questioning Golwalla on one occasion: She had to lick a filthy bathroom floor.
"It was definitely evil,'' she recalled. ``It was so isolated. That basement was my whole life and Feroze was my God.''

Vampire sex rituals of deep sea fish

The murky depths off New Zealand reveal some really weird fish. For instance, the sex life of the deep sea angler fish:
'The female is the size of a tennis ball. It has big savage teeth, little nasty pin eyes ... and a rod lure off the top of its head with a glowing tip to coax in stupid prey.'
The male 'looks like a black jellybean with fins'.
When a male finds a female, he bites into her side, never letting go.
'He drinks her blood, in return for giving her sperm,' Dr Norman said.

Squid attacking Chile

Scientists use satellites to explain Chilean giant squid invasion. Includes a couple of nice pictures, one of a squid in the water.

Godzilla review

Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla gets a good review. Here's the summation:
This was a fun movie, reminding me of the classic Godzilla movies in a lot of ways. While I did have some minor complaints about the way Godzilla was portrayed, the fights and design for Kiryu made up for them. This movie contains a better plot than most Japanese monster movies. While I didn’t like the English audio track, the Japanese soundtrack was very good. Overall, this was a great entry to the Godzilla mythos. Highly Recommended.
I think the movie is coming out this week. I'll be hunting the video stores for this one.

Weird movie

Here's a really fun, dark fantasy short film called The Cat with Hands. I saw it on about a million blogs before I downloaded it. Trust me, it's worth watching. The latest blog I saw it at was s1ngularity::criticism.

Looking at Lansdale

James Sallis offers an overview of Joe R. Lansdale's career and then goes on to review his new book, "Sunset and Sawdust."

Mystery of the lost English explorer

The Guardian has the low down on an explorer who disappeared mysteriously after searching for the lost city of Z in the Brazilian struggle. The story is equal parts "Heart of Darkness" and "The Lost World" with bits of "She" thrown in.

'This is one of the great adventure stories of the past century,' said Williams, 'and at last we are finding out what really happened. Fawcett was a kind of Indiana Jones figure and his children have fought hard to keep his good name, in spite of interest from Hollywood and countless books.
'His secret plans for a new and unconventional way of life have only just emerged from the letters he wrote to friends.'

Studying near death experiences

Scientists plan study of near death experiences. The article doesn't explain how they control the conditions of this study. How do you get people who are about to die, temporarily? The article goes over interesting ideas on near death experiences:

But Blackmore has examined all the arguments and believes she knows what causes these NDE visions. Firstly, the light at the end of the tunnel is simply "noise" in the visual cortex. It is often experienced by epileptics, migraine sufferers and those who meditate. It is not unique to NDE.
The out-of-body experience? Well, if you think about the last time you walked along a beach, for example, where do you see yourself? Probably not through your eyes, but from a vantage point above or to the side of you. Most people have a bird's-eye view of themselves when remembering past events. What Blackmore found in her own studies is that people who dream from a bird's-eye perspective are more likely to have out-of-body experiences.

King of the Jews vs King of the Monsters

Hurry, before it's gone, get you Godzilla vs Jesus t-shirt on ebay now!

Three-headed frog=Three frogs getting it on

Remember the three-headed frog story from a while ago? Well, according to this site, it's not a three headed frog, it's a frog menage a trois! It's common for frogs and toads to form "mating balls" apparently, and the three-headed frog was one of these. Apparently frog mating habits are very kinky.

UFO on Mars

Mars rover sees a UFO in the Martian sky. NASA officials say it could be a shooting star or an old orbiting spacecraft falling into the atmosphere. No word on rover abductions yet.

Citizen Kane vs. Maltese Falcon

There's an interesting discussion going on between certain bloggers about which is the better movie: "Citizen Kane" or "The Maltese Falcon." Among the participants are The Forager, David Fiore, and Sean Collins. Each one of those links goes to one part of the conversation, but it goes on in other blog entries, comments and elsewhere.
Personally, I just enjoy reading it and, as I haven't seen The Maltese Falcon in years, I don't have much to add. I've often thought Citizen Kane is the best movie of all time. Lately though, I've been rethinking it. It certainly created many new ideas in cinema, but being groundbreaking doesn't make a great film. I do love the story and I think Joseph Cotten is tremendous in it. I also think Orson Welles is perfect as Kane. Both of them are bigger than life.
At the moment, if I had to say what the greatest film of all time was right now, I might say "Seven Samurai." Tomorrow I'd probably say different. Maybe "Night of the Hunter."
Anyway, it's an interesting conversation, check it out.

Burroughs interviewed

Thanks to BoingBoing I found this interview with William S. Burroughs from Creem Magazine. The interview is funny because he doesn't seem to enjoy the rock 'n' rollers he's talking about all that much. For instance, here he talks about Bowie:
MORGAN: What did you think of him when you met him? Did he seem to be the kind of guy who was bullshitting his way through life or did he seem to be walking the straight and narrow?
BURROUGHS: (laughs) Well, neither one. He’s not bullshitting, he’s very, very clever and I think very calculating. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing and where he’s going and how to get there.
And here is Burroughs' advice to young writers:
MORGAN: Is there any advice you’d like to give to young writers?
BURROUGHS: I have an exercise I learned from a Mafia Don in Ohio: see everybody on the street before they see you. It’s quite interesting actually because, if you see everyone before they see you, they won’t see you.
And then you’ll find that somebody beat you.

Lawrence Block blog

Crime writer Lawrence Block has started a blog for his book tour.
(Found via Sarah Weinman.)

Killer cow

In Idaho Falls, a cow escaped a farm and had to be chased down by police. The cow cut the tendon of an animal control officer and it made its displeasure with police known:
Police Sgt. David Frei tried to herd the cow by driving beside it. The cow rammed into his Ford Explorer, denting a front panel, and then disappeared somewhere south, witnesses said.

But Mikey did wake up in a bathtub full of ice after his organs were removed!

Under the headline Pop rocks did not kill 'Mikey,' the Marshfield Mail corrects a story about stolen UPS uniforms thought to have been bought by terrorists. Apparently, the story was an urban rumor that the sherriff's department picked up and passed along to the local news media. So Mikey is OK and don't be too frightened of your UPS drives. Got that?