"Anthropogenic global climate change is a lie! It's the asteroids that did it!" in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

The moons of Barsoom are named Thuria and Cluros; they correspond to Phobos and Deimos about as much as Barsoom corresponds to Mars, which is to say, not very much. If I remember correctly, they're supposed to be rather larger than the real Phobos and Deimos, and the real moons of Mars are irregularly-shaped (so they…

Personally, I suspect Doctor Whoa [amultiverse.com]

I believe you may have overlooked The Tick.

Many plant seeds do the same thing (and the plant benefits from starting life in a nice little pile of manure) but it's remarkable to see an animal make this strategy work.

I came across the ibn Fadlan quote in Martina Sprague's "Norse Warfare: The Unconventional Battle Strategies of the Ancient Vikings". She cites her source as "Ibn Fadlan's Account of the Rus" by H.M. Smyser, but I see that there's also a book called "Ibn Fadlan's Journey to Russia: A Tenth-Century Traveler from…

BBEdit (and Ant to put all the pieces together).

@annalee, The Celts allegedly washed their hair in urine, possibly in order to lighten it.

"Objectivity isn't exactly their historical strong suit"

ibn Fadlan didn't only have bad things to say about the Rus. He did record that they combed their hair and beards every day, and while he deplored their hygiene and their tendency to public copulation, he also said: "I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy."

"They have no modesty in defecation and urination, nor do they wash after pollution from orgasm, nor do they wash their hands after eating ... Every day they must wash their faces and heads and this they do in the dirtiest and filthiest fashion possible: to wit, every morning a girl servant brings a great basin of…

Something about the dinosaur's proportions look very familiar. Not seeing it? Picture it in purple.

"Live slow, die old, and make a hairless pink wrinkly-looking corpse."

Which is a pity, because if the universe really was a holograph, we could cut it in two and have two identical universes!

Better yet, instead of giving milk, they give milkshakes!

Trivia point: the spacecraft in "Alien" and "Aliens" - "Nostromo", "Sulaco", "Narcissus" - are all named for characters, ships or places in Conrad's writings (the first two from "Nostromo", the third from "The Nigger of the Narcissus").

I thought this was generally accepted behavior for a chaotic system such as the global climate. You move too far off the current stable attractor, and you can get a very abrupt transition to a new and different attractor. You can't know what the characteristics of the new attractor are likely to be, but it is unlikely…

If you look at the moving checkerboard, and then at something in the real world (you know, the real world, that stuff that isn't on the screen of your computer), you get a similar effect.

I'm looking forward to seeing what form the "Shakespeare curse" takes. Processions of ghostly kings, nocturnal handwashings, outbreaks of cross-dressing ... It might even come in three distinct varieties, namely comedic, tragic and historical. As Mr Thackeray is an archaeologist, I'm guessing he'll get the historical…

He's certainly tried _something_. Whatever it is, it seems to be making him both paranoid and hyper, which suggests that you might want to avoid it.