Category Nature/Biology

Mar 19 2013

The A-Bombed Trees that Survived Hiroshima

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After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945, with landscapes demolished, soils charred and radiation rampant, Dr. Harold Jacobsen, a scientist from the Manhattan Project, told the Washington Post that Hiroshima will be barren of life and nothing will grow for 75 years. But nature had other plans. The following spring, to everyone’s surprise and delight, new shoots were seen springing up amongst the debris of the city. Those new saplings provided a powerful message to the survivors of the atomic bomb and gave them hope that they could rebuild their city.

Mar 4 2013

New Book Suggests Return from the Dead

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Dr. Sam Parnia, a critical care doctor and the director of resuscitation research at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, has written a new book discussing ways in which people can be resuscitated after they previously would have been considered clinically dead.

Parnia’s book, “Erasing Death: The Science That is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death,” was recently featured on the Today show.

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Mar 4 2013

Read Timothy Leary’s Brain Melting Comics

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In his 1977 book Exo-Psychology, psychologist and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary revealed his eight-circuit model of consciousness, his theory about the workings of the human mind and the future neurological “circuits” that humanity might someday access and utilize in our travels beyond Earth. In 1979, the theory was adapted into Neurocomics, a trippy comic book exploration of the mind, human evolution, and how we might journey to the stars. Rene Walter has posted the entire (NSFW) Neurocomics online, and it provides a fascinating look into Leary’s peculiar transhumanist ideas. -VIA:- io9–

Feb 24 2013

Creepy Indonesian Snake Slaughter Houses

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The snakes are caught in the wild at 3-4 years, often by villagers, who are paid per snake they capture. Sometimes organized armies of catchers work in groups in the jungles and grassland, settings nets, traps and baited hooks for the blood pythons, larger reticulated pythons and other smaller snakes. Captured snakes are stored in canvas bags and sold to primitive skinning plants.