What's next for Willem Dafoe? After his role in Lars Von Trier's AntiChrist the edgy actor has again exerted his penchant for imponderables. The recent screening at Cannes evoked violent reactions from armchair aesthetes in response to disjunctions of sexuality. The weighing of losses? Could that be the message intended? I haven't seen this yet, but expect it will put me well outside my comfort zone. more inside

Curious George: Lyme disease advice? It's that time of year again! I've heard that if you can pull the deer tick bastards off within 24 hours, you're safe. But is that really true, or not? Same thing with the old folk tale about taking two hits of doxycyclene and forgetting about consequences, other than, what? Sunburn? Is that really much true for most people? more inside

It is what it is. A swiss lady suffered a stroke with an unusual effect. She can see a translucent third arm, control it and experience its efficacy. Brain scans back up her experience. So does the lady's arm exist, or doesn't it? more inside

It's Okay to Be Gay according to Horatio Lee Jenkins, the straight arrow. He may be right, and certainly I wouldn't go so far as to say that he's wrong, but still and all, no man should try to out drink Satan...

The seat of shame? The lateral sulcus or insula is whorled into the brain as an especially deep convolution. According to neural imaging, that is the seat of the self, or at least the area that becomes most active during self-reflection. more inside

In a post-natural world, can the machine elves recreate nature? Nature and unreality interpenetrate in the nano-macro-engineering projects depicted in Michael Shaw's art. Enjoy! more inside

The semantics of tribe. A founder of AIM (the American Indian Movement) believes that the divisions of tribe SHOULDN'T be dissolved. So when President Obama said the opposite, did he really place himself with the other presidents and the 'buffalo soldiers' who fought the tribes? Or was it just an unfortunate selection of words? more inside

Tolerance for all can be found in Islam. Let's hope that the seeds of peace grow, and that our other traditions can grow the same. more inside

Business as usual at General Motors? They are selling a 49% stake in YULON motors, a Taiwanese company that manufactures the top import into Japan, and winner of a long list of awards for manufacturing, pollution abating, goodness and graceness. All of this give away has been announced a day before the first $4 billion loan rolls into their vaults from Bush and Company (I mean the United States). more inside

Could it be that Microsoft has mole engineers who intentionally plant security holes? Or else, how could EVERY version of IE be so flawed? Every single version, every time?

2081 is now a soon to be released movie based on the short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut from the collection Welcome to the Monkey House. One reading is that it's not so much a satire against liberal egalitarianism as it is one against envy and guilt as they effect human potential... more inside

Evidence for the decay of dark matter? The Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, has produced particles that the team was unable to explain by the known laws of physics: far more muons were created than were predicted from the collision of protons and anti-protons. More crucially, some of these muons seem to have been created OUTSIDE of the horizon of the metal beam pipe: leaving no trace inside. As a possible explanation, Weiner and Nima Arkani-Hamed of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and colleagues have developed a theory of dark matter that posits dark matter particles that interact among themselves by exchanging "force-carrying" particles with a mass of about 1 gigaelectronvolts. Moreover, the new CDF muons appear to have come from the decay of a particle with a mass of about 1 GeV. So was this a particle of dark matter? more inside

Swedish bailout *revised* for America? How is it that Sweden could bail out its main banks, buying into their assets, while America can only give away tax money to foreign and domestic investors without getting any return in equity? At 16 % of its GDP the Swedish bailout was relatively bigger than the newest American one at 5% ($.7 trillion/$13.84 trillion in 2007 = .05 = 5%), but THEIR taxpayers got cut in on owning the junk they bought and actually ended up making their money back. We would rather bank on a wish and a hope? more inside

Interactive *Table of Elements* Clicking on an element uses QuickTime to show samples of mixed media animation produced by Curious Pictures, New York. It's an interesting demo, I think, from an animation house that uses everything from CGI to stop motion. more inside

Mild air pollution may be worse than smoking! New research presented today at the American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia, implicates free radicals that attach to particles from smokestacks, car exhaust pipes and household chimneys for the rise in lung cancer. Apologists rush to claim more proof is needed, but the new findings could open the door for massive litigation. more inside

New analysis of Mercury backs up Vonnegut. An awfully pretty image, from the MESSENGER spacecraft, shows the moon-like planet. Unlike the moon, however, new analysis suggests that the smooth plains were surfaced mainly by volcanic action, rather than by meteoric impacts and the dusting of detritus. Its magnetic field too seems to indicate immense internal activity. more inside

New drugs in the pipeline. Very soon now we'll see even more bio-mass thrusting us aside at the check-out queue. Or would giant muscles not be so desirable if everyone had them to the nth degree already? Looking at the two mice, there's something sad about the poor muscle-bound one, skinned and flayed as he is. more inside

Male fertility goes up with the consumption of alcohol. On the other hand, products I would have thought benign, like water-based paint might not be so great for the little homunculae... more inside

Cyberium is a truly amazing site that reveals layers and hierarchies of mind boggling, morphing imagery administered by, dare I say it? a genius! more inside

Hazel Court passes away , having previously shared her famous scream of stark terror many times without actually suffering heart failure... more inside