Swearing - it's old. more inside

Truths for mature humans The pants puzzled me at first, but of course it's trousers.

My parents were awesome. ...maybe.

Human Jumbotron ...wow.

Nanowrimo season is here again. You know the deal: a fifty thousand word novel written entirely during the month of November. We have some Mofite participation already. Winning's not really important (no prizes), quality's not really important (luckily): it just provides the chance and the motivation to get a lot of words down. Anyone else want to give it a go?

Voice synthesis using a piano; created by Austrian composer Peter Ablinger. via

Level 26: a revolution in publishing?

Don't judge my hair. Ah, go on then. Worth clicking back to some of the earlier pages.

A Venn diagram of mythical creatures. Pretty good - it works in three creatures I hadn't even heard of, and others I was a bit vague about. Why no chimera, though? (And why were there no winged centaurs?)

PingWire is an (almost) live feed of images being posted to twitter with Twitpic, yfrog, and Twitgoo. All the randomness of the Internet with the mindless passivity of TV...

Unesco recently added 13 new World Heritage sites to its list. At the same time, it took the almost unprecedented step of removing a site: the Elbe Valley at Dresden has been ruined by a massive new bridge plonked across it. more inside

Satellite pictures from Nasa display big changes over the last decade.

Notfertiti - a modern fake or an ancient portrayal of Queen Nefertiti?

Every one a classic.

Globe-trotting soft toys.

Become a work of Art. Applications are now open for a period standing on Trafalgar Square's Empty Plinth. Originally meant for an equestrian statue of George IV, the plinth has recently been used to exhibit a miscellaneous set of modern art works. Anthony Gormley wants the plinth to be occupied by a succession of people - put your application in now (I have).

Egyptian Mummies are not screaming compare the ones at the Guanajuato Museum - there’s a pictorial tour (first page requires Windows Media Player, but you can skip it) - or the Capuchin catacombs, in Palermo.

Cleopatra's mother was black? The article asks whether Cleopatra's mother was "African". Of course she was. What it means is, was she black? This is not a new claim in itself. The excellent Isidore of Seville has a gallery of ancient images of Cleopatra and a collection of articles. The orthodox view is that as a Ptolemaic queen she was probably blonde and definitely Macedonian. Looking at those sculptures and coins - does she look a bit, well, Jewish? Could there have been a charming Hebrew slave in her father's palace?

Lawn mowers.

Melted bricks (they would only be 'molten' if still liquid, right?) more inside