STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[MIKA27]

Bike sex man placed on probation

A man caught trying to have sex with his bicycle has been sentenced to three years on probation.

Robert Stewart, 51, admitted a sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex.

Sheriff Colin Miller also placed Stewart on the Sex Offenders Register for three years.

Mr Stewart was caught in the act with his bicycle by cleaners in his bedroom at the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr.

Gail Davidson, prosecuting, told Ayr Sheriff Court: "They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply.

"They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white t-shirt, naked from the waist down.

"The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex."

Both cleaners, who were "extremely shocked", told the hostel manager who called police.

Sheriff Colin Miller told Stewart: "In almost four decades in the law I thought I had come across every perversion known to mankind, but this is a new one on me. I have never heard of a 'cycle-sexualist'."

Stewart had denied the offence, claiming it was caused by a misunderstanding after he had too much to drink.

The bachelor had been living in the hostel since October 2006 after moving from his council house in Girvan.

He now lives in Ayr.

[MIKA27]

HAT TRICK BBQ TOOLS

If you’ve wondered what happens to the hockey stick that each team’s hired goon breaks over the mascot’s head during his weekly locker room tirade, we may have found the answer: it gets converted into Hat Trick BBQ tools.

Made from genuine repurposed sticks that come from more than 60 NHL, AHL, and NCAA teams, these grill accessories come in 3- and 5-piece sets, with each device bringing absolutely no penalty box time with it whatsoever. The 3-piece set comes with tongs, a spatula, and your choice of a brush or fork, while the 5-piece option adds a bottle opener and replacement brush piece to the mix. All of the sticks have seen action on the ice previously, so u can expect a couple of minor imperfections. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

BOEING 727 HOTEL SUITE IN COSTA RICA

Had Oceanic Flight 815 not wound up on the beach, perhaps the cast of Lost would’ve just been chillin in the trees like this Boeing 727 Hotel Suite in Costa Rica.

The Phoenix suite at the Costa Verde Hotel is open for anyone who’s looking for a break from the Holiday Inn with a weekend in an actual refurbished airliner. Once a proud 1965 Boeing 727 that carried passengers out of South Africa, this plane is now sitting atop a 50-foot pedestal, serving as a swanky retreat, complete with air conditioned bedrooms, a kitchenette, dining area, and spectacular views of the ocean. With hand-carved, teak furniture from Java, Indonesia, and an interior built from Costa Rican teak paneling, this is the kind of place you wouldn’t enjoying a small bag of peanuts in.

[MIKA27]

ORPHAN BARREL RHETORIC BOURBON

Even with bourbon in high demand across the US, it's not typical outside of Pappy Van Winkle releases to see the kind of frenzy that Orphan Barrel have stirred up in their short time on the market. After two successful releases earlier this year,Rhetoric Bourbon is the third Orphan Barrel bottle to hit shelves, and it's sure to cause a stir as well. Rhetoric is a 20 year old bourbon that was distilled in both the new and old Bernheim distilleries in Kentucky. It's 90 proof with lots of character and flavor — with oak being the dominant taste. So if rare, old, and oaky are up your alley, Rhetoric certainly fits the bill.

[MIKA27]

THE HISTORY OF THE SMOKING JACKET

Nowadays, chances are the only time you’ll see someone wearing a smoking jacket is on Halloween when guys dress up in cheap Hugh Hefner knockoffs. Other than that, the once popular garment has seemingly met its fate. There was a time, however, when gentlemen donned one for good reason. Here is a look back at the iconic smoking jacket.

1600s - EARLIEST INSPIRATION

The earliest inspiration for the classic smoking jacket popped up at this time. As fine silks began coming into Europe from India, China, and the Americas, it became increasingly popular for the wealthy to want to be depicted in paintings wearing a silk robe de chambre or banyan. These fine and leisurely garments would be the inspiration for the smoking jacket a few centuries later.

1850- DEFINING THE SMOKING JACKET

Gentleman’s Magazine of London put out the earliest description of what a classic smoking jacket would look like, saying it was “a kind of short robe de chambre, of velvet, cashmere, plush, merino or printed flannel, lined with bright colours, ornamented with brandenbourgs, olives or large buttons.”

1853 - THE SPREAD OF TURKISH TOBACCO

The Crimean War popularised Turkish tobacco in England during the 1850s. Men began to retreat after a meal to enjoy a pipe or cigar with some brandy. The smoking jacket had evolved from the longer robes of the 1600s into a mid-thigh length jacket that served two purposes: to keep ash off the clothes, and so the man wearing one wouldn’t smell like smoke when returning to the women. Men would remove their formal tailcoat before going into the smoking room, put on their smoking jacket, and change once more before heading back to the table.

1860 - THE SMOKING CAP

It was common for men at this time to not only wear a smoking jacket, but also a smoking cap. The cap protected the man from even more of the odor. An embroidered smoking cap was a common gift from a fiance.

1865 - NO LONGER JUST FOR SMOKING

The man who really made the smoking jacket popular for more than just an after dinner cigarette was Edward VII (Prince of Wales at the time). He commissioned Henry Poole & Co. (Savile Row) to craft him a blue silk one that he would often wear to meals. This ushered in a new wave of acceptance for the piece of loungewear as a sort of comfortable yet formal article of clothing.

THE KING OF THE SMOKING JACKET: SHERLOCK HOLMES

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first began the Sherlock Holmes series back in the 1880s, he paid particular attention to the clothing the brainy detective wore. Besides the tweed coats and iconic hats, one of the signature pieces Holmes wore was a smoking jacket while he enjoyed his pipe and worked on cases. He’s been depicted wearing one in many films, books, and theatrical performances.

Late 1800s - THE DINING JACKET

While the ornate design and luxurious velvet would remain in the construction of some smoking jackets, others started to become something much plainer. This plain version would slowly morph into a simple, loose-fitting dining jacket.

1926 - THE DEREK ROSE SMOKING JACKET

The Derek Rose smoking jacket (no relation to the NBA star) combined the classic design with an even more relaxed feel. Their version did away with the frogging and the flair. The tartan pieces resemble a modern pajama top for guys.

1940s - THE RAT PACK

The smoking jacket received another bump in popularity thanks to the likes of Cary Grant, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra. The Rat Pack and others ushered in a new wave of popularity that would last for a couple of decades.

1960s - HUGH HEFNER

While the smoking jacket was no longer a staple of the average man’s wardrobe, there was still one bastion of hope: Hugh Hefner. After starting Playboy Magazine in the 1950s, Hefner adopted his trademark silk smoking jacket look. He owns over 200 different smoking jackets/pajama tops that are custom-made for him.

1987 - FRED ASTAIRE

Fred Astaire is buried in his favorite smoking jacket.

1999 - THE RETURN OF THE SMOKING JACKET

Cigar Aficionado published a piece on the return of the smoking jacket. While it never returned in full force, designers like Tom Ford and brands like Louis Vuitton would reintroduce it as a piece of high fashion.

[Habana Mike]

THE HISTORY OF THE SMOKING JACKET

Wish the smoking jacket wasn't history....seems a cool idea.

I think I'll get one and see if I can start a revival.

[MIKA27]

Nike 3D Prints Three Unique Football Bags For The World Cup

When you’re one of the world’s top footballers, there are a lot of perks. One of these perks is some extremely cool bespoke kit from the world’s top sporting goods manufacturers. Made exclusively for Ronaldo, Rooney and Neymar Jr., Nike’s new Rebento sports bag has a supple leather upper, but a plastic base entirely 3D printed and integrated into the black and fluoro green nylon mesh.

The bags, unveiled by Nike a few days ago as “a bold expression of technology and style”, have been made for the game’s three most prominent footballers — Brazilian Neymar, Portugese Cristiano Ronaldo, and England’s Wayne Rooney. Each bag is customised for the player it’s made for, with gold accents and hardware featuring that player’s name.

The bag’s Rebento name means “explode” in Portugese, while the design takes cues from the Magista and Mercurial boots’ Flyknit fabric. 3D printing means no glue is needed to hold the bag together; the plastic composite used has been shaped in a way that holds both leather and fabric securely, but it also flexes when needed.

There’s not a huge amount of 3D printing going on with these bags, but they do look extremely cool. If Nike put them into mass production, I’d put one on the shopping list. [Nike]

[MIKA27]

The 4,000-year-old whopper: Russian fisherman accidentally catches a rare Bronze Age figurine of a pagan god

A Russian fisherman who expected nothing more than a haul of tench and carp ended up catching a 4,000-year-old pagan god statue from the bottom of a riverbed.

Local archaeologists have hailed Siberian Nikolay Tarasov's finding as 'unique and amazing' as well as 'probably worth its weight in gold'.

Mr Tarasov was fishing on a day off from his driving job in the village of Tisul in southern Russia.

He said: 'I used a net, rather than a line, and was hauling it in when I felt the net go heavy and thought it had snagged on a rock.

'I pulled it in by getting my pal to help and was going to chuck it away. But then I stopped when I saw it was a stone with a face.

'I washed the thing in the river - and realised it was a statuette.'

The figurine has almond-shaped eyes, a large mouth with full lips, and a ferocious facial expression.

'I took it to a local museum. I needed to sit down when the experts told me that this object was carved at the very beginning of the Bronze Age.

'On the reverse side on the head the carver etched plaited hair. Below the plait there are lines looking like fish scales. The people I showed it to quite literally jumped for joy.

'I suspected it might be a couple of hundred years old, but had not considered it might by older,' he told The Siberian Times.

The curators of the museum passed on the find to experts in the city of Kemerovo, where they dated it at more than 4,000-years-old, and explained it had been carved in horn which later fossilised. The statuette is 12in (30cm) long and 2in (5cm) wide.

Marina Banschikova, director of Tisul History Museum: 'Quite likely, it shows a pagan god.

'Items from this period are very rare, the only things we have dated approximately to the same age are a stone necklace and two charms in the shapes of a bear and a bird.

'Nikolay has given us this treasure free of charge. He didn’t ask for any kind of compensation - though it is probably worth more than if it was a gold statue.

'Now we have to devote more time studying his find which is both unique and amazing.'

The area around Tisul is known to have been inhabited in ancient times.

Currently the theories are that the statuette belonged to the Okunev or Samus cultures.

Okunev culture was a Bronze Age society dated to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC in Minusinsk Hollow of southern Siberia.

To sell it and make profit however was never on the mind of Mr Tarasov, who said: 'People should see it, and learn the history of their region. It is quite clearly precious for the museums of any country.'

WHAT AND WHEN WAS THE BRONZE AGE?

The Bronze Age was a period characterised by the use of bronze, early forms of writing, and other early developments of urban civilization.

It is the second period of the three-age 'Stone-Bronze-Iron' system for classifying and studying ancient societies.

The Bronze Age was a time of intensive metal use and of developing trade networks and began around 4,000 years ago.

In order to make bronze, tin is mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make a bronze alloy.

The overall period is characterised by the adoption of bronze in many regions, though the place and time of the introduction and development of such technology was not simultaneous.

Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, but in some parts of the world, the Copper Age is sandwiched between the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

The Altai Mountains, in what is now southern Russia and central Mongolia, have been identified as the point of origin of a cultural moment called the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon.

It's believed that climate change in the region around 2000BC and the following ecological, economic and political changes triggered a rapid and mass migration westward into northeast Europe, eastward into China and southward into Vietnam and Thailand across a frontier of some 4,000 miles.

This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to people from Finland in the west to Thailand in the east employing the same bronze making technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding.

[MIKA27]

Bee Venom Destroys Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

Nanoparticles carrying a toxin found in bee venom can destroy human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while leaving the surrounding cells unharmed. The research was conducted by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The Nanoparticles carry melittin, which is the principal active component of bee venom. Melittin fuses with the HIV virus and destroys it’s protective envelope while molecular bumpers prevent the nanoparticles from harming the body’s normal cells. Bee venom is known to disrupt cellular walls and destroy tumour cells as well.

Bee venom contains a potent toxin called melittin that can poke holes in the protective envelope that surrounds HIV, and other viruses. Large amounts of free melittin can cause a lot of damage. Indeed, in addition to anti-viral therapy, the paper’s senior author, Samuel A. Wickline, MD, the J. Russell Hornsby Professor of Biomedical Sciences, has shown melittin-loaded nanoparticles to be effective in killing tumor cells.

The new study shows that melittin loaded onto these nanoparticles does not harm normal cells. That’s because Hood added protective bumpers to the nanoparticle surface. When the nanoparticles come into contact with normal cells, which are much larger in size, the particles simply bounce off. HIV, on the other hand, is even smaller than the nanoparticle, so HIV fits between the bumpers and makes contact with the surface of the nanoparticle, where the bee toxin awaits. (1)

Most anti-HIV drugs inhibit the virus’s ability to replicate. This is an anti-replication strategy that does nothing to stop the infection, and many strains of the virus have found ways around these drugs and continue reproducing. Given this discovery, a new vaginal gel could possibly be used in places where HIV is prominent. It can be used as a preventative measure to stop the initial infection and prevent the spread of HIV. The bee venom HIV study was published a several days ago in the journal Antiviral Therapy.

More than 34 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, and over 3 million of them are under the age of 15. Everyday, thousands of people contract HIV around the world.

It is also important to note the debate surrounding HIV and AIDS. Findings suggest there is not solid scientific evidence that exists today to prove the existence of HIV. AIDS is also under great debate as in some countries it is considered to be one thing while in another, it is something totally different. One can literally be diagnosed with AIDS in one country but not in another. AIDS is often is simply a term for a HUGE umbrella of potential diseases. The only common factor found amongst definitions is if the body’s T-cell count reduces below a specific level. Why is there such a lack of distinction about what AIDS truly is? Why so many different definitions?

“Because it has been surrounded with so much emotion, very few people are capable of looking at AIDS logically.”

- Mark Gabrish Conlan, AIDS researcher

“If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document.”

- Dr. Kary Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

“Up to today there is actually no single scientifically convincing evidence for the existence of HIV. Not even once such a retrovirus has been isolated and purified by the methods of classical virology.”

- Dr. Heinz Ludwig Sanger, Emeritus Professor of Molecular Biology and Virology, Max-Planck-Institutes for Biochemistry, Munchen.

“…instead of trying to prove his insane theories about AIDS to his peers…he went public. Then, with the help of Margaret Heckler, former head of Health and Human Services, who was under great political pressure to come up with an answer to AIDS, the infamous world press announcement of the discovery of the so-called AIDS virus came about. This great fraud is now responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands… It was no accident that Gallo just happened to patent the test for HIV the day after the announcement…Gallo is now a multi-millionaire because of AIDS and his fraudulent AIDS test.”

It is important to note that a complete understanding of HIV and its isolated existence has not yet been attained by the medical field. Among the scientific community this has been a debate for many years and it is critical for us to keep an open mind about the subject as much research has been put into it. More can be discovered here.

[MIKA27]

Inside 'The Murder Hotel' Home Of America's First Serial Killer

This chilling story of murder, death & intrigue puts all Hollywood's horror movie scripts to shame.

Herman Webster Mudgett (also known as H.H. Holmes / Dr. Henry Howard Holmes) is one of the first documented American serial killers.

But in a world where popular culture is obsessed with killers such as John Wayne Gacy, Ottis Toole or Ted Bundy few are familiar with H.H. Holmes and his truly terrifying deeds.

In 1893 (and to cash in on the visiting World's Fair) he opened a 3 story hotel in the windy city of Chicago. But far from being a place for rest and relaxation, he designed it specifically with one aim in mind.... to murder his guests in the most gruesome and horrific ways imaginable.

The ground floor was innocent enough, a simple drugstore where Holmes would dispense medications to the general public. The floors above however, were used for far more sinister purposes.

I was born with the Evil One standing as my sponsor beside the bed where i was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.

One level was a custom labyrinth complete with 100 windowless rooms, staircases they lead to dead ends, doors that opened to nothing more than a brick wall, soundproof vaults and even an asphyxiation chamber.

Holmes routinely changed builders during the construction of the infamous 'Murder Castle' so that he was the only individual who truly knew its layout and deadly secrets.

Whether he stabbed, suffocated, starved, poisoned or skinned his victims, they all ended up travelling down a secret chute which lead down to the basement.

Here he would then strip them of their remaining skin, meticulously clean their skeletons and then sell the cadavers or skeletal models to medical schools. Due to his occupation as a Doctor, he had a wealth of connections in the medical world and little difficulty in selling off his posthumous 'products'.

Deep within the bowel of the hotel were two large furnaces, designed to burning any incriminating evidence. There was also a pit of corrosive acid used for dissolving bones and stretching rack to inflict a few final minutes of pain to his semi-conscious victims.

http://youtu.be/CWTLpUAy8xM

As is so often the case, he was initially arrested for a much smaller crime, petty theft, which ultimately lead to the police unearthing his horrific pastime.

His harrowing death mirror those he inflicted on his victims. After being sentenced to death by hanging in 1896, his neck failed to break during the fall leaving him swinging and twitching on his noose for around 10-15 minutes - a slow and painful death. He was officially pronounced dead a full 20 minutes from when the trap was initially sprung.

Before his death, Holmes confessed to slaughtering 27 innocent victims (men, women and children) although in truth the body count could be as high as 200. To this day, nobody is entirely sure of the extent of his numerous evil deeds.

The 'murder hotel' burned down a year before Holmes finally met his maker, it's since been replaced with a post office. The last caretaker of the murder hotel was a man named Pat Quinlan. He committed suicide by taking a lethal dose of the drug strychnine. Many claimed Quinlan had been haunted by ghostly visions for months before he ultimately took his own life.

There are few tales as abhorrent or ghastly as that of H.H. Holmes - one of America's most inventive, malevolent and vicious serial killers.

[MIKA27]

Mac OS X Yosemite: Everything You Need To Know

Apple’s follow-up to OS X 10.9 Mavericks will be OS X Yosemite. Last year’s WWDC was all about giving iOS an overhaul. This year’s star will be Apple’s desktop operating system. Here’s what you need to know.

As we suspected, the new OS borrows much from iOS 7′s flat design in its iconography. Additionally, Apple’s designers have borrowed from the translucent designs, which Apple is cleverly calling “materials”.

Notification Center

Apple’s Notification Center is getting a nice tweak, incorporating much of what you used to see in widgets before, including your calendar at a glance and useful information like the weather. This is nice streamlining of information and tools you used to have to go to different parts of the OS X UI for.

Spotlight

Now firing up spotlight opens a search window smack in the middle of your screen rather than on the right, and it’s a much more fully featured search than before. Besides searching your files and calendar as before, Spotlight will now display results from the App Store, Wikipedia, Maps, Bing, iTunes and iBooks.

iCloud Drive

iCloud is now getting much easier integration into the desktop UI with what Apple is calling iCloud Drive. Now you can view the files in your iCloud directly in a Finder. It basically looks like Dropbox except for your iCloud. Finally.

Mail

Apple Mail has long lagged behind the competition. For the new version, Apple has streamlined the UI and created Mail Drop, a new feature for sending attachments that are too big for ordinary email. Rather than bouncing the file and message back, Apple creates a secure link so that your recipient can download it.

Safari

Safari, like a few other core OS X applications, has been crazy out of date for years. It’s getting a much more stripped down design. In its most basic view there’s almost nothing beside the webpage you’re looking at.

Apple also claims it’s made huge improvements to Safari’s speed. Apple claims it loads JavasScript more than 6x faster than Firefox and Chrome. It also claims that that Safari’s multi-tab support runs much more efficiently than the competition.

Markup

Mail is getting Skitch-like image editing called, appropriately enough, “Markup”. It allows you to draw, write, add text bubbles, etc. Bye Skitch!

Handoff

Now, one of the key questions about the melding between iOS and OS has been how are they going to work together. We know that the designs are going to be the same, but how will working on your iPhone or iPad transition seamlessly to working on your iMac. That’s what Handoff is all about.

Handoff could be the linchpin for the whole iOS-OS X merger because it seems so darn slick. In short, it allows you to start an activity on one device and then pick it up on another. In the perfect example, you might start banging out an email on your phone and realise you need to type to get your thoughts across properly. Your Mac will be aware that you’ve been using your phone and you can pick up the message there. The transitions work in the other direction as well.

Your Mac will also be able to use your phone as a hotspot much easier than before, making it as easy as connecting to a MiFi, according to Apple.

Bottom line

As we suspected, OS X Yosemite brings some of the biggest design and functionality changes we’ve seen in a long time. Though it’s not quite a full integration of the mobile and desktop platforms, it’s certainly a big step in that direction. Apple’s also taking a shot at a lot of competitor services, including Skitch, Evernote, and large file transfer services such as Hightail. We’ll have to wait until the OS drops to see if the UI is as big a change as we think we’re getting now.

Apple’s new desktop operating system OS X 10.10 Yosemite will be available as a public beta this Australian winter. Just like Mavericks before it, it will be free.

[MIKA27]

World's First Fully Organic Flexible OLED Will Wrap Around Your Wrist

The idea of truly flexible displays never gets boring, and now Plastic Logic is taking us one step closer. Its latest flexible OLED is the world’s first to be made using fully organic transistors — and it’s surprisingly pleasing display could wrap around your entire wrist.

The bendable screen, which features 256 grey levels and full 30fps image rendering, perhaps suggests that organic transistor technology might be the best shot that manufacturers have at making the mythical roll-up tablet that we all long to shove in our back pocket. Rather than, y’know, a phone with a slightly curved face.

In fact, Plastic Logic reckons that this screen is destined for wearables in the near future. It hopes that the displays will be used to conform to the curved and irregular shapes of the human body, like screens that wrap around your entire wrist. On show at this week’s SID Display Week show, it’s calling out for OEMs to use them as soon as possible. I hope they do.

[MIKA27]

Leaked Secret Star Wars Episode 7 Photos Bring Great News For Fans

TMZ just posted a huge set of 45 leaked images taken at one of the film setlocs of the forthcoming Star Wars Episode 7 directed by J.J. Abrams. The images were taken in Abu Dhabi and they are great news for the fans of the series who complained about Lucas’ overuse of green screen: They are physically building everything.

According to TMZ’s report, the Abu Dhabi set corresponds to Tatooine, which is a change from the old location for the planet: Tunisia. According to previous reports, the new flick would use less computer graphics than the sequels. J.J. Abrams likes to build stuff, physical places and creatures. These images confirm it.

Make sure to take a look at all the images.

[MIKA27]

Game of Thrones Crushes Our Heart Like a Bug

As Tyrion observes this episode, the idea of trial by combat reveals a great deal about the gods who supposedly demand bloodsport in exchange for justice. Game of Thrones is a sort of bloodsport too, but one with a diametrically opposed purpose: not to offer us justice, but to show us how foolish it is to expect it from a world ruled by senseless violence. The finale of the episode offers the sort of shock that is starting to become familiar, the kind that still leaves us feeling just a little bit betrayed: Why didn’t the story end the way it was supposed to? Why do these horrible things keep happening? It’s the same question Tyrion asked about his beetle-killing cousin, the one he never figured out how to answer. Why?

In Game of Thrones, at least, the lack of answer is the answer: There is no reason. There is no “supposed to.” There is no justice. The gods, if they exist, aren’t noble protectors or moral judges, but something far more terrifying: little boys who simply like to smash things into a pulp. If we hold the world to our ear like a seashell and listen closely, the sound we hear isn’t a ballad about honor or a dirge about loss; it’s the steady, indifferent drumbeat of a rock against the ground. Thunk thunk thunk.

The Night’s Watch

Back in Mole’s Town, an unpleasant woman with a gift for musical burping has decided to give Gilly a hard time about her baby, which the Wildling girl tolerates until she hears strange bird calls outside the tavern and quickly realizes that the owls are not what they seem. Rather, they’re signals of the Wildling army, which finally descends on Mole’s Town to slaughter everyone they can find. Well, maybe not everyone; after Ygritte finds Gilly and her baby hiding behind a curtain, she puts a finger to her lips and slips away, sparing them. You’ve got a heart of gold, Ygritte! You know, except for the countless other innocent people you murdered. When news of the slaughter reaches Castle Black, Sam is convinced that Gilly has died, though the other men encourage him to stay optimistic. Since Mole’s Town is only a few miles away from Castle Black, the men realize that it’s only a matter of time now before they must fight–100 against 100,000–and that they are probably going to die. Valar morghulis!

In the books: Sam never sent Gilly away to Mole’s Town, so she wasn’t there when the town was sacked by the Wildlings. Though, neither was the rest of the town; they were the first people Jon warned when he returned from the Wildlings, and they’d evacuated by the time Ygritte and company arrived to burn it.

Daenerys

It’s summer fun time for the servants of Daenerys, as everyone heads to the river for washing, bathing, and cannonballs, wooo! But as his Unsullied brothers splash about, something catches Grey Worm’s eye: a very naked Missandei bathing down the river.

Perhaps because he has watched Wild Things way too many times, Grey Worm decides that the best move here is to slink down into the water like some sort of sexy alligator and stare at her with unblinking eyes. Missandei notices and doesn’t know to react. During girl talk later, Daenerys is also puzzled by his behavior, assuming that his castration ended his interest in women. But Missandei knows differently: “He was interested.” She admits that she’s curious about him–and whatever remains of his male anatomy–as well. When he approaches her later to apologize for his peeping, she rejects the apology. “I’m glad you saw me,” she says. He agrees, but still walks away with the tortured look of a man gazing at something he can’t have.

Meanwhile, Ser Barristan receives a very interesting message from Tywin Lannister: the official pardon given to Jorah by King Robert. Ser Barristan takes it straight to Jorah, who admits the truth: He was a spy for Varys all along, hoping to earn his way back to Westeros. He tries to tell Daenerys that he still loves her and has protected her as well, but Dany is in no mood for forgiveness, particularly when she learns that he sold them the secret of her unborn son. Jorah says sending him away will just give Tywin what he wants, but Daenerys–as usual–is more concerned with justice than strategy. “You betrayed me from the first,” she says, exiling him from Meereen on pain of death.

In the books: There is no hint of romance between Grey Worm and Missandei–she’s around ten years old in the novels–although we hear that another member of the Unsullied goes to brothels simply to be held. As Grey Worm says, “Even those who lack a man’s parts may still have a man’s heart.” The revelation about Jorah’s betrayal comes not from Tywin but from Ser Barristan, who initially served Daenerys secretly under the name “Arstan Whitebeard.” After stopping a would-be assassin, he revealed his true identity and the truth about Jorah, which he’d learned as a member of the Small Council under Robert. Jorah also stopped being a spy after Daenerys won his heart and became genuinely loyal to her, though this didn’t absolve him of his initial dishonesty. Daenerys initially wanted to banish them both for their deceptions, but instead decided to send them on a dangerous mission through the sewers to capture Meereen. When they were successful, Barristan asked for forgiveness and got it, but Jorah couldn’t stop copping an attitude and got banished anyway.

Sansa

The nobles of the Vale have arrived in the aftermath of Lysa’s “suicide,” as Littlefinger is now calling it, and they are suspicious as hell of both her new husband and her sudden death. Unconvinced that she took her own life, they call Sansa, aka Alayne to give her testimony. “I’m sorry, Lord Baelish,” she whispers. “I have to tell the truth.” But the girl who steps up to testify is not the same one who witlessly confessed her father’s plans to Cersei. She reveals that she is in fact Sansa Stark, and tells the sad, sad story of her life at King’s Landing and how Littlefinger rescued her from torment. It’s not a childish confession, however, but a tactic; she quickly uses a half-truth to seal up the suicide claim, saying that Lysa killed herself out of jealousy when he saw Littlefinger give her a fatherly kiss on the cheek. As Sansa breaks down in tears, a noblewoman embraces her, but Sansa’s eyes look rather different as they stare at Littlefinger: cold and calculated. Arya has learned a great deal about how to negotiate the worlds of life and death from people like Syrio, Jaqen, and the Hound, and now it seems like Sansa finally has a tutor of her own.

After it’s all over, Littlefinger asks Sansa the same question she asked him so many times after her own rescue: “Why did you help me?” Her answer is fittingly just as oblique as Littlefinger’s always was, and probably for the same reason: because she has an agenda all her own. “You’re not a child anymore,” he growls, because for some reason the creepier he gets, the more he sounds like Batman. By the time she walks down the stairs of the Eyrie in her killer Maleficent dress, she looks less like Sansa the child or Sansa the victim and more like someone I like far better: Sansa the schemer.

In the books: Lots of changes here. First, Littlefinger never claimed that Lysa killed herself. Instead, he successfully blamed her murder on a bard named Marillion who was in the room when she died. (Marillion tried to rape Sansa, so don’t feel too bad for him.) Sansa doesn’t reveal her true identity to the lords, but simply blames Marillion for Lysa’s death as Alayne. More generally, it is Littlefinger’s delicate political manipulations that convince the reluctant lords to accept him as Lord Protector of the Vale, not anything Sansa does.

Theon

Ramsay has Theon all dressed up as a lord again, the same way some people dress their dogs up in little tiny sweaters and booties. And much like people teach their dogs to do little tricks, Ramsay wants him to go to Moat Cailin and convince the Ironborn currently holding the castle to surrender. The man who shows up to greet his supposed countrymen looks a lot like the old Theon, and even sounds a bit like him. But what Ramsay really sends to Moat Cailin is a Trojan Theon, just as hollow on the inside and just as ready to unleash death on the men foolish enough to take him at face value. After Theon swears to one of the Ironborn that Ramsay “will be just and fair with you as he has been with me,” the men agree to yield, unaware of exactly how true and terrifying that promise really is. Cut immediately to the flayed body of that same soldier, a promise fulfilled. Now, when Ramsay meets his father to give him Moat Cailin, he gets the one thing he’s wanted most in return: legitimacy as a Bolton and the true heir to the Dreadfort.

In the books: Ramsay is legitimized by Tommen after the boy becomes king, not after Moat Cailin, which happens much later, in Dance of Dragons. Ramsay’s meeting with his father afterwards is far less positive; Lord Bolton is primarily displeased by Ramsay’s violent excesses, which have become so infamous that they could harm their interests in the North.

Arya

News of Joffrey’s death has finally reached Arya, but she’s still not entirely pleased since she didn’t get to watch it herself. “Nothing makes you happy,” grumps the Hound, sounding ever so much like half of an old married couple. Although Joffrey deserved to die, the Hound scoffs at the use of poison, calling it “a woman’s weapon.” Arya scoffs right back at how dumb it is to take any weapon off the table because of pride or gender stereotypes. “I’d kill Joffrey with a chicken bone if I had to.” The Hound’s shoulder wound is still bothering him, and Arya says it’s starting to slow him down. But who cares, because there they are, finally at the Eyrie! After their long and seemingly interminable travels, the Stark girls are now the closest they’ve been since Ned’s execution. When the Hound announces to the guards that he’s bringing Arya Stark to see her aunt, they shift uncomfortably. “Lady Arryn died. Three days ago.” The Hound gets the most amazing FML look on his face, and Arya just laughs and laughs and laughs.

In the books: Arya and the Hound never actually make it to the Eyrie–largely because he decides it would be too dangerous to face the mountain clans en route–but this non-canonical change is a hundred percent worth it for Arya’s laugh alone.

Tyrion

As he and Jaime wait for the trial by combat to begin, Tyrion reminds Jaime of one of their cousins, Orson Lannister, who was dropped on his head as a child and spent his days in the garden smashing beetles with a rock. Tyrion developed an odd fascination with the young man, certain that there was some reason behind it, and began to study him in hopes of understanding why. “I had to know, because it was horrible that all these beetles should be dying for no reason…in my dreams I found myself standing on a beach made of beetle husks stretching as far as the eye could see.” Jaime points out that real people die every day just as pointlessly and often, which is kind of the point: this isn’t a conversation about beetles so much as it’s a conversation about violence.

Like many young people–and Game of Thrones fans, for that matter–Tyrion wanted the answer to that most basic existential question: why do terrible things happen for no reason? It’s not just the story of the beetles, it’s the story of Tyrion’s life, the story of being hated and abused and killed for no reason at all, and desperately wanting to understand why. Even now he’s still looking for the answer, but the only one he gets is the toll of the bells, reminding him that it is time, again, for more smashing. The Red Viper wears only light leather armor and sips wine before the wedding, and waves off Tyrion’s concerns: “Today is not the day I die,” he promises. It’s the sort of comment that usually confers immunity in fiction, something we tend to treat as prophecy or at least prescience. In a George R. R. Martin story, it’s the sort of hubris that should make us more than a little nervous.

The battle goes very well for Oberyn at first, as he leaps and whirls around his bigger, slower opponent, landing blow after blow until the Mountain is lying motionless on the ground. Tyrion looks ecstatic, almost like he believes that the gods are finally offering him justice. But defeat and death isn’t enough for Oberyn; he wants a confession straight from the Mountain’s lips so he continues to poke at his seemingly defeated opponent. But hubris kills as surely as swords, and one moment of glib inattention is all it takes for the Mountain to grab Oberyn, gouge out his eyes and crush his skull to a disgusting pulp. Thunk thunk thunk.

Tywin’s on his feet almost immediately, relieved at the reversal of fortune and sickeningly eager to pass the sentence: Tyrion is condemned to death.

In the books: The scene between Tyrion and Jaime–and the story about the beetles–don’t happen, though they are a fantastic addition. The battle and Oberyn’s death are generally the same, though Oberyn doesn’t specifically try to convince the Mountain to admit to Tywin’s role in the killings.

[MIKA27]

Native American Life, 90 Years After ‘Official Citizenship’

Monday marked the 90th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act, or the Snyder Act, which granted U.S. citizenship to Native Americans born in the United States. The bill was enacted partially in light of the thousands of Native Americans who had served in the U.S. Army in WWI, but also because of a growing awareness by the federal government in 1924 of the tens of thousands living in abject poverty. However, nine decades on, life has yet to improve for many Native Americans, with high rates of unemployment and suicide among the nation's 566 tribes

Tourists in specially designed vehicles enjoy the view on a tour of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park in southeastern Utah, May 16, 2014

The ruins of a once-popular stop on historic Route 66, the Santo Domingo Indian Trading Post, awaits restoration, Santo Domino Pueblo

A painting of a Native-American chief wearing a Plains Indian headdress adorns the abandoned Big Chief gas station on the Zia Pueblo in northern New Mexico,

Sharon Brokeshoulder and her daughter Audrey Brokeshoulder, contestants in the Native American Clothing Contest at Santa Fe Indian Market, pose for photos in Santa Fe, N.M.

Kaylon Wood, 15, waits for a tribal ceremony to begin as he was taking part in a Pow Wow at the Sac and Fox Nation annual event in Stroud, Okla

The Rosebud Reservation has casinos as a source of income for the tribe, it does not benefit from the Keystone Pipeline because the pipeline company found it too difficult to reach an agreement with the tribe, Rosebud, S.D.

Tribal police officer Jacob Gadowaltz leads a drug search of a vehicle on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in New Town, N.D.

Officer Jesse Hernandez talks to a prisoner in the Pascua Yaqui tribal jail in the Pascua Yaqui Indian Reservation, Ariz.

This eagle had been euthanized and the body will not be sent out with an order. All useable parts of the eagle bodies from wherever they fall are kept so Native American religious practitioners have the requisite eagle feathers, talons, etc. for their ceremonies in Colo.

The grounds of the Casino Del Sol Hotel, hinting of an oasis, overlooks the poverty stricken residential part of the tribal land on the Pascua Yaqui Indian Reservation, Ariz.

Overview of the Pascua Yaqui Indian Reservation, Ariz.

Kevin True Blood, 35, of Porcupine, S.D., shoots off his pistol in celebration of the Wounded Knee Liberation Anniversary on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

Residents from Pine Ridge Reservation, S.D., in various states of inebriation outside a store located immediately across the border in Whiteclay, Neb

John Parsons holds a traditional lacrosse stick at the Onondaga Nation. Living uneasily among Americans, many Iroquois still believe they're fighting for their own identity, Onondaga Nation, N.Y.

A Lakota Honoring Ceremony is held for Johnson Holy Rock, foreground, at an annual treaty council meeting held on the Pine Ridge reservation in Pine Ridge, S.D.,

Autumn Two Bulls, who has taken her children to Whiteclay to witness the scene of intoxicated people loitering along the street, and explained to the children that those on the streets were teachers of what not to do, with one of her three children on the Pine Ridge reservation in S.D.

A young boy plays on a swing set in a park on the Hualapai Indian Reservation in Peach Springs, Ariz.

Children play in the yard of a home on the Hualapai Indian Reservation in Peach Springs, Ariz

Students eat breakfast at Mahnomen Elementary School in Mahnomen, Minn

A member of the Hualapai Tribe listens during a gathering at the Hualapai Tribal Forestry Department on the Hualapai Indian Reservation in Peach Springs, Ariz.

A U.S. flag with an image of an American Indian horse rider flies next to a roadside jewellery stand on the Navajo Reservation, by a remote section of the Grand Canyon near Little Colorado River, Ariz

[MIKA27]

The Indian miracle-buster stuck in Finland

An Indian man who made his name exposing the "miraculous" feats of holy men as tricks has fled the country after being accused of blasphemy. Now in self-imposed exile in Finland, he fears jail - or even assassination - if he returns.

When a Hindu fakir declared on live television that he could kill anybody with tantric chanting, Sanal Edamaruku simply had to take him up on the challenge.

As both were guests in the studio, the fakir was put to the test immediately.

The channel cancelled all subsequent programming and he began chanting on the spot. But as the hours passed a note of desperation crept into his raspy mantras. For his part, Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, showed no sign of discomfort, let alone death. He merely chortled his way through this unconventional (and unsuccessful) attempt on his life.

He has spent his life as a prominent member of India's small band of miracle-busters, men who dedicate their life to traversing the country demystifying certain beliefs.

It's a nation often associated with profound spirituality, but rationalists see their country as a breeding ground for superstition.

In the 1990s Edamaruku visited hundreds of villages replicating the apparently fabulous feats some self-proclaimed holy men became renowned for - the materialisations of watches or "holy" ash - exposing them as mere sleight of hand.

As a campaigner determined to drill home his point, sometimes with an air of goading bemusement, he has attracted critics.

He readily admits he took advantage of the explosion in Indian television channels which discovered an audience fascinated with tales of the extraordinary.

"I was campaigning in villages for so long before the television came," he says. "But some people do not like me to be going on television and reaching out to millions of people."

But in 2012, four years after his televised encounter with the fakir, a steady drip of water from the toe of a statue of Christ genuinely did, he believes, put his life in danger.

Immediately hailed as a miracle, hundreds of Catholic devotees and other curious residents flocked to the shrine in a nondescript Mumbai suburb to watch the hypnotic drip. Some even drank the droplets.

Edamaruku was challenged to investigate and so he went to the site with an engineer friend and traced the source of the drip backwards. Moisture on the wall the statue was mounted on seemed to come from an overflowing drain, which was in turn fed by a pipe that issued from a nearby toilet.

The "miracle" was simply bad plumbing, he said.

It was then that the situation turned ugly.

He presented his case in a febrile live television debate with representatives of Catholic lobby groups, while outside the studio a threatening crowd bearing sticks had gathered. He claims they were hired thugs.

For some Catholics the veracity of the miracle is no longer the point. Edamaruku, they say, insulted the Catholic church, by alleging the church manufactured the miracle to make money, by claiming the church was anti-science and even casting doubt over the miracle that ensured Mother Theresa's sainthood.

In the following weeks, three police stations in Mumbai took up blasphemy cases filed against him by Catholic groups under the notorious Section 295a of India's colonial-era penal code.

Section 295a was enacted in 1927 to curb hate speech in a restless colony bristling with religious and communal tensions. It makes "deliberate and malicious" speech insulting to religion punishable with up to three years in prison and a fine. However, some say it is frequently abused to suppress free speech.

"Under this law a policeman can simply arrest me even though there has been no investigation... they can just arrest me without a warrant and keep me in prison for a long time… That risk I do not want to take," says Edamaruku.

He applied for anticipatory bail, which would prevent police taking him into custody before any investigation - but this was rejected. At the same time, he says, he was getting threatening phone calls from policemen proclaiming their intention to arrest him and telling him that unless he apologised the complaint would never be withdrawn.

Threatening comments were posted on an online forum, he says, and contacts in Mumbai told him they had heard talk somebody being hired to beat him in jail. Catholic groups say they aren't behind any threats Mr Edamaruku may have received.

He decided to leave early for a European lecture tour. Finland was the first country to give him a visa and he had friends on the Finnish humanist scene willing to help.

He arrived in Helsinki on a summer afternoon two years ago, the endless hours of sunlight saturating both day and night. He thought he would only stay for a couple of weeks until the furore he left behind in India had died down.

But the furore has not died down - the Catholic Secular Form (CSF), one of the groups that made the initial complaint, still insists it will press for prosecution should he ever return.

Two years on, he is angry, bitter and defiant. Living in a small flat on the eastern edge of Helsinki, he has forced himself to adjust to an alien landscape. After the crowded hustle of Delhi, more than 3,000 miles away, he can now walk mile upon lonely mile without seeing a single person.

His closest friend here - the founder of the Finnish humanist society Pekka Elo - died late last year.

"I miss a lot of people… That I cannot meet them is something that saddens me," he says.

Since he left India, his daughter has had a child, and his mother has died.

He conducts board meetings of the Indian Rationalist Association by Skype and every morning colleagues update him on the latest tales of the supernatural and fraudulent holy men. He plots their downfall. This routine is crucial to him.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai tried to broker a solution by calling upon Edamaruku to apologise and on Catholic groups to drop their case in return.

But Edamaruku staunchly refuses to compromise on what he sees as his freedom of expression.

"I don't regret anything I said," he says. "I feel that I have full right to express my views... I am open for discussion and correction but I am not willing to accept anybody's bullying, change my views or submit to their pressure to apologise."

Some legal analysts think he could risk returning. The courts recognise that Section 295a is regularly misused, they point out. Writers, activists and others have been arrested and imprisoned even before charge - but most were released on bail.

But Edamaruku fears for his safety, pointing to the fate of his friend, anti-black-magic campaigner Narendra Dabholkar.

"Narendra Dabholkar… suggested that if I come to Mumbai he and his friends would be able to protect me. I was considering his proposal," Edamaruku recalls, referring to a conversation last summer.

But four days later he was murdered, a crime which many believe was linked to his campaign against magic.

So Edamaruku spends his time trudging the arresting, bleak forests of Helsinki, sometimes remembering his unconventional childhood in Kerala.

His father, born a Christian, grew up to become a rebel who was excommunicated. His mother gave birth to him in the pouring rain having fled her in-laws' Christian home because they pressured her to convert. But the family always managed to reconcile its differences. The bishops and Hindu priests among his relatives could be found sitting around one dinner table laughing at their own beliefs.

Sanal Edamaruku (back row, second from left) with his family

He insists he has no regrets.

"I would do it again. Because any miracle which has enormous clout at one moment, is simply gone once explained. It's like a bubble. You prick it and it is finished."

The statue still stands in that sleepy suburb of Mumbai, but it no longer drips.

[MIKA27]

Miao Deshun: China's last Tiananmen prisoner?

When the streets were still and the shooting had stopped following the violent showdown between protesters and soldiers in June, 1989, the Chinese government began rounding up people it deemed to be criminals. Many were detained and released, but 1,600 people received formal prison sentences.

Now, it's believed that only one person convicted during that era remains behind bars.

We don't have his photo, but we know his name: Miao Deshun. A factory worker from Beijing, he was convicted of arson for throwing a basket at a burning tank. For this seemingly minor offence, he received a suspended death sentence, which was commuted to life in prison a few years later. Miao is not scheduled for release until 15 September 2018.

"He was a quiet person. He was often very depressed," remembers Dong Shengkun, a fellow Tiananmen convict who once shared a prison cell with Miao Deshun.

Everyone interviewed by the BBC who knew Miao describes him as being painfully thin, almost emaciated.

"We had both been given suspended death sentences and we were supposed to have our feet in shackles," Mr Dong says. "I was chained but he wasn't. He said the guards probably thought he was too thin to be able to wear foot chains. He wouldn't be able to walk under the weight of the chains."

Dead or alive?

Beijing's Bureau of Prisons refused to answer inquiries about Miao Deshun, noting they never answer questions from foreign journalists. However, Dui Hua, a US-based organisation advocating the legal rights of Chinese prisoners, says it is highly likely that Miao is the last prisoner with offences dating back to the Tiananmen uprising in 1989.

Of course, it's possible that Miao Deshun died in prison years ago, and the news of his passing has yet to surface. The Bureau of Prisons will only confirm prisoners' status to direct relatives.

But assuming that Miao Deshun is still alive, why did he stay in prison long after most others were released?

Most former prisoners agree, that, unlike most others, Miao refused to sign letters admitting regret for his participation in the Tiananmen protests. He also refused to participate in prison labour, choosing instead to spend his days reading the newspaper in his cell.

Tiananmen protests

• 15 May: Reformist leader Hu Yaobang dies, sparking sympathy rallies and eventually protests
• 19 May: Party chief Zhao Ziyang pleads with protesters to disperse; he was later ousted and martial law declared
• 2 June: Leadership orders "counter-revolutionary riot" to be crushed
• 3-4 June: Thousands of soldiers break up protest, killing many; exact death toll remains unknown

"He is the last prisoner because he never admitted he was wrong, he refused to obey regulations and refused to participate in labour through re-education," a former prisoner, Sun Liyong remembers.

Mr Sun now lives in Sydney, Australia. During the day, he works as a labourer on construction sites. In his spare time, he runs a fund devoted to helping victims and former prison inmates with connections to the Tiananmen protests. He says he isn't even sure if Miao is alive.

"I keep in touch with former inmates and every time I ask them if they have heard from Miao. The last time anyone saw him was about a decade ago."

But other former prisoners also blame Miao's long sentence on his lowly status as a worker who became involved in the protests.

"When the jail terms were handed out, ordinary citizens were given harsher sentences," explains another former prisoner, Zhang Baoqun. "The guys with good connections, or those who were protected by certain associations, received lesser sentences."

"No-one spoke up for people like us," Mr Zhang says. "Wang Dan, one of the protest organisers, was only given four years in prison."

"In the early 1990s when [Miao's] families went to visit him, he refused family visits. He doesn't want his old parents to travel so far to see him. Since then, no-one has seen him. Sometimes Miao and I were locked in single rooms at the same time, my cell just opposite his."

"The authorities treated him as if he was insane. I heard they moved him to Yanqing," Mr Dong says quietly. He doesn't know much about the prison, he explains, except that it's very far away.

Miao Deshun is apparently being held at Yanqing prison

'Clear conscience'

The BBC drove for hours through the mountains to reach the gates of Yanqing prison, an institution for elderly and mentally ill prisoners. The prison's remote location makes it seem like Miao Deshun has been banished from modern society, far away from the politics of Tiananmen Square.

Former inmates have had varying degrees of success reclaiming their daily lives.

After leaving prison in 2003, Zhang Baoqun has tried a variety of different jobs in an attempt to support his wife and young son, who was born after his release.

Denouncing his time in prison as a "dirty spot" on his record, Mr Zhang questions his actions during 1989.

"I wouldn't participate in something like that again. It was meaningless. You cannot change your country no matter how hard you try," he explains.

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 exposed deep divisions within China's leadership

Since leaving prison eight years ago, Dong Shengkun has never been able to find a full-time job. Estranged from his wife and child, he lives with his 76-year-old mother, but he has no regrets about his past choices.

"I have a clear conscience," he explains, adding: "So many people sacrificed so much. They didn't sacrifice their lives for today's materialistic society. Chinese people have become richer now but we shouldn't care less simply because we have better lives now."

Mr Dong is stoic when asked about the last prisoner, Miao Deshun's, long incarceration.

"I am not surprised he is still inside," he sighs. "It has been 25 years but the authorities can do anything they like."

[MIKA27]

Garage owner fakes Google 'murder' in Edinburgh street

Dan Thompson, left, and Gary Kerr, staged a murder scene in Giles Street in Edinburgh

A garage owner has apologised for staging a scene that looked like a murder in an Edinburgh street, which was caught on Google Street View.

Dan Thompson, 56, who owns Tomson Motor in Giles Street, had to say sorry after receiving a visit from the police.

The mechanic had lain on the road while his colleague stood over him with a pick axe handle after spotting the Google camera car from a distance.

However, a web user saw the image and made a complaint.

The incident happened in August 2012 but it was not until a year later, once the pictures had been uploaded onto the Google site, that police were alerted.

Set the scene

Mr Thompson told the BBC Scotland news website: "By complete fluke I saw the Google car coming along the road but it had to loop the block so I had one minute to rush back inside the garage and set up the murder scene.

"There are pictures of men on Google flashing their bums but we thought we would be more classy.

"We had forgotten about it when the police arrived a year later and we apologised for wasting police time. They found it funny."

A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: "Anyone with any concerns, or who would like to report a crime, should contact police on 101."

[MIKA27]

East Lothian skeleton may be 10th Century Irish Viking king

Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop with part of the East Lothian skeleton which historians believe could be an Irish Viking king

A skeleton discovered on an archaeological dig in East Lothian may be a 10th Century Irish Viking who was king of Dublin and Northumbria.

King Olaf Guthfrithsson led raids on Auldhame and nearby Tyninghame shortly before his death in 941.

The remains excavated from Auldhame in 2005 are those of a young adult male who was buried with a number of items indicating his high rank.

They include a belt similar to others from Viking Age Ireland.

The find has led archaeologists and historians to speculate that the skeleton could be that of King Olaf or one of his entourage.

A jaw bone was part of the remains found at Auldhame which may belong to King Olaf

Olaf was a member of the Uí Ímar dynasty who, in 937, defeated his Norse rivals in Limerick and pursued his family claim to the throne of York.

He married the daughter of King Constantine II of Scotland and allied himself with Owen I of Strathclyde.

The theory that he could have been buried close to the Auldhame battle site was revealed as Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop visited a Neolithic monument in County Meath, Ireland.

The tour of Newgrange is being used to highlight archaeological links between Scotland and Ireland.

Ms Hyslop said: "This is a fascinating discovery and it's tantalising that there has been the suggestion that this might be the body of a 10th Century Irish Viking king."

Dr Alex Woolf, a senior lecturer in the School of History at the University of St Andrews and a consultant on the project, admits the evidence is circumstantial.

But he said: "Whilst there is no way to prove the identity of the young man buried at Auldhame, the date of the burial and the equipment make it very likely that this death was connected with Olaf's attack."

[MIKA27]

'Godzilla of Earths' identified

There is a new class of planet out there that astronomers are calling the "mega-Earth".

It is an object with a hard surface like our own world but much, much bigger.

The necessity for the new designation follows the discovery of a planet which has a mass some 17 times that of Earth.

Known as Kepler-10c, it orbits a star about 560 light-years away. Scientists described its properties at an American Astronomical Society meeting in Boston.

They confess it is something of a head-scratcher.

Theorists had always thought that any planet that large would pull so much hydrogen on to itself that it would look more like a Neptune or a Jupiter.

"The proper way to call it is something bigger than a 'super-Earth, so how about 'mega-Earth," Prof Dimitar Sasselov, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), told reporters. He also used the phrase, "the Godzilla of Earths!".

Kepler-10c, as the name suggests, was detected by the US space agency's Kepler telescope.

This finds new worlds by looking for the tiny dip in light as they pass in front of their parent stars.

The technique gives a diameter - in this case, 29,000km, or just over two times the width of Earth - but not a mass.

For that, astronomers looked at 10c with the Harps-North instrument on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands.

It extracts a mass measurement by examining the gravitational interaction between the planet and its host star.

Combined with the diameter, the mass number showed that Kepler-10c cannot be a gaseous world but must comprise very dense material.

"It's 17 - in fact, it's more than 17 - Earth masses, and that brings the density to 7.5 grams per cubic centimetre, which is a lot more than what we know of rock here on Earth (5.5g/cm3)," said Prof Sasselov.

"But remember, this is a very massive planet, which means those same minerals are highly compressed.

"So, what you see in the density is mostly due to compression rather than different composition. The composition comes out as being a combination of rocks and some volatiles, probably 5-15% at most of water."

Interestingly, the age of the host star is about 11 billion years old, which is early in the evolution of the Universe when generations of exploding stars have not had long to make the heavy elements needed to construct rocky planets.

"Finding Kepler-10c tells us that rocky planets could form much earlier than we thought. And if you can make rocks, you can make life," says Prof Sasselov.

[MIKA27]

The Screaming Mummy: The Lost Secret of DB320′s Mystery Man

Some time during the 15th century BC, an elaborate complex of tombs and mortuary temples were built along the Nile’s west bank near modern day Luxor, Egypt. Known as “The Northern Monastery” or Dayr el-Bahri, the eerie site and its structures rest in the great Theban Necropolis, dating back as early as the Eleventh dynasty.

One of the area’s earliest afterlife occupants had been none other than Mentuhotep II, famous first Pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom.

But arguably, the most captivating of the features hidden away within this striking complex is Hatshepsut’s temple, the famous “Holy of Holies”, which now stands as an irregular (and heavily looted) monument emerging forth from a sharp cliff face. Here, he sloping inclines and platforms had once been lined with sphinxes and giant likenesses of the great Osiris. But despite the overpowering splendor offered by Hatshepsut’s temple, there are lesser mysteries offered here, and some which boast their own brand of odd peculiarities.

Nearby, a burial site designated Tomb DB320 exists, which upon excavation had been revealed to house the remains of some 50 members of ancient Egyptian dynastic royalty. The tomb was first uncovered by a local family, presumably some time in the late 1870s, who used the secret of its existence as a protection whilst removing various treasures and selling them for profit. In 1881, an official investigation by Émile Brugsch occurred, in response to curiosity regarding where the objects sold by the locals might have come from. With two days of arrival, what became Tomb DB320 was emptied, to prevent further theft or sale of the antiquities it contained. Subsequent probes of the emptied tomb would occur again in 1938, after which the place stood empty again until the late 1990s, when Egyptologist Erhart Graefe and his team began what would remain an ongoing project aimed at preserving the tomb.

The fineries of the ancient world were hardly the tomb’s only occupants, of course. Among dozens of mummies retrieved from the tomb, at least ten are classified as unidentified remains. One of the mystery mummies, identified as “Unknown Man C,” has been proposed as the lost remains of Senenmut of the 18th Dynasty.

However, there is another “mystery mummy” that was retrieved from the tomb that has perhaps aroused equal, if not greater interest. “Unkown Man E,” informally known as “the screaming man,” is a mummy bearing a particularly frightening appearance, with his face distorted and lurching backwards as though crying out in pain during his final moments. One of the great mysteries of this peculiar looking mummy, apart from the riddle of his identity, is what led to his ghastly appearance, and eventual demise.

According to American Egyptologist Dr. Robert Brier (also known as “Mr. Mummy), his studies of the paleopathology of mummies, with particular interest in the Unknown Man E specimen, has led him to a possible theory for the identity of “The Screaming Man.”

Brier believes the mummy may be the body of Egyptian prince Pentawer of the 20th dynasty, one of Ramesses III’s sons, who according to Judicial Papyrus on record, was forced into suicide by ingestion of poisons due to his involvement with a conspiracy plot his mother, Tiye, may have initiated. During the 20th Dynasty, a member of royalty might have been given an option of suicide in this manner, following a conviction of this sort, which may normally entail being burned alive as punishment.

Could it indeed be that the willful ingestion of poison by “The Screaming Man” is truly what led to his ghastly appearance in the afterlife? In the video segment below, the strange story of Unkown Man E is recounted, along with the sordid century-old quest to determine his identity and cause of death:

[MIKA27]

The Real Medieval History Behind Game of Thrones' Trial by Combat

“Trial by combat: Deciding a man’s guilt or innocence in the eyes of the gods by having two other men hack each other to pieces. It tells you something about the gods.”

That’s Tyrion Lannister on Sunday night’s Game of Thrones, in a bit of dialogue that felt like a flash of self-awareness for the show. As scintillating and horrifying as the fight between Prince Oberyn and Gregor Clegane was, you might argue the entire verdict-by-duel plotline has seemed a little far-fetched. The Lannisters seem anything but devout. Why would they stake the future of their family on observance of a showy, unpredictable, religious ritual?

But it’s worth noting that the HBO show and the George R.R. Martin novels from which they’re adapted, if anything, downplay just how savage and illogical real-life medieval judicial proceedings could be. In societies around the world throughout history, guilt and innocence has more-than-occasionally been ascertained in “trial by ordeal.” Reading the Wikipedia page on the phenomenon is as harrowing as watching any given Roose Bolton scene. In some cases, the accused were made to pluck a stone from a cauldron of boiling water, oil, or lead; if their skin didn’t burn off, they were judged innocent. In other cases, the guilty were believed to be those who suffered grave injuries from walking across hot iron, or ingesting poison.

Trials by combat happened less frequently than trial by ordeal, but persisted in history for longer, according to Steven Isaac, a professor of medieval history at Longwood University. At Longwood’s website, Isaac writes of a Flemish murder inquiry in the 12th century that was resolved in a duel distinctly recalling the one we just saw on Thrones:

Eventually, Iron Herman was on the ground prostrate and seemingly finished. As Guy prepared to deliver the coup de grâce, Herman saw and took a brutal path to victory. From his place on the ground, he reached up and grabbed Guy’s testicles, held on to them tight, and then shoved Guy aside without loosening his grip. With all his "lower parts broken apart," Guy admitted defeat, an admission that saw him hanged a few hours later for his (now proven) treachery.

But unlike the Martell/Clegane showdown, real trials by combat were often governed by rules to ensure they weren’t David/Goliath affairs—competitors were to use similar weapons, be of similar skill levels, etc. “The difference in armor—the Mountain encased in plate mail, the Red Viper in a light byrnie and boiled leathers—would not have been allowed,” Isaac writes. “The offensive weapons would likewise have been kept within similar bounds.”

Of course, strict historical accuracy isn’t at all the point of Thrones. But Martin has repeatedly said that he does want to ground Westeros in the real world. The Purple Wedding and Red Wedding, for example, recall events that actually did happen. So the show's latest bloody, skull-busting, twist-laden scene wasn’t just good TV. Seen in the context of the sick ways that humans have dealt with each other for millennia, Thrones is less of a fantasy than we might hope.

[MIKA27]

The Almost-Forgotten Jewish Artist Who Propagandized Against Hitler

Arthur Szyk's meticulously detailed, fiercely moral, Word War II-era political art is returning to the public consciousness due to 21st-century revival efforts.

A 1942 Szyk work depicting Hitler as the Anti-Christ. (courtesy Irvin Ungar)

Forty years ago, the young rabbi Irvin Ungar found himself enamored with the work of a Polish émigré illustrator, Arthur Szyk. The artist’s last name (pronounced Shik) had been known to readers of Colliers, Esquire, and Time magazines before, during, and shortly after World War II for his intricate anti-Nazi caricatures and his minutely detailed medieval-style illuminations created for biblical stories, Jewish texts, and secular literature. After his death in 1951, however, Szyk was virtually forgotten.

But Ungar, who obsessively collected the artist’s work, set about reviving his artistic legacy: founding the Arthur Szyk Society; publishing several monographs, catalogs and newsletters; and curating and contributing to exhibitions here and abroad. A new documentary created in part by Ungar, Soldier in Art: Arthur Szyk, has screened in six film festivals and is scheduled to show at the Laemmle Theatres in West Los Angeles and Encino, May 30 through June 5.

For the now-former rabbi Ungar, his devotion to Szyk “is not a personal religious mission,” he said in an email. “But in a sense, his art does reflect my own value system as a Jew. I have always been taught that one should care about one’s religious tradition and determine how the best of that tradition can advocate for humanity at large.”

During World War II, Szyk engaged in a “one-man war” against Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, and also served as a “one-man army” against the Axis. He raised money for the Chinese and the Czechs, for the displaced Poles and the tattered Brits, and the soldiers of the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand. During the war and afterwards, his art drew attention to the Native American struggle and to the racism directed toward African Americans, and defended the Muslims in Indonesia against the Dutch in 1948.

Soldier in Art: Arthur Szyk is the third short documentary Ungar has co-produced on the artist. Filmmaker Jim Ruxin set 70 images of Szyk and his artwork into a wordless narrative form featuring an original score by composer Richard Friedman, whose parents were Holocaust survivors.

The film shows Szyk’s visual commentary on American democracy, the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust, and the rebirth of the Jewish people in Israel. It’s not a biography, but it intimately shares with the audience Szyk’s personal beliefs in freedom. “Szyk was a genius,” Ungar says regarding his mission, “and he should be reclaimed by the art world as well as by the peoples he loved—the Jews, Poles, Americans—and anyone interested in social justice combined with great art.”

Ungar curated his first exhibition, “Justice Illuminated: The Art of Arthur Szyk,” at the Spertus Museum in Chicago. Then followed numerous one-man exhibitions, each with different themes and works of art. Presently there is an showing of his original Haggadah paintings at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. “There is still more to do,” Ungar says. “Much more.”

The not-for-profit Szyk Society has helped generate the renewed interest in Szyk’s work. As its curator since the late 1990s, Ungar has used his pulpit skills to fire interest among scholars, promote art history papers, and develop a vital exhibition program that tours college campuses. He is also developing an image database of several thousand Szyk pictures and texts.

Szyk once said, “Art is not my aim, it is my means.” And although several of Szyk’s illustrated books—his pre-war fantasy of The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1926), his post-War The Canterbury Tales (1947)—carried no message of social justice, most of his illustrated books attempted to convey a political message. For example, his Revolution in Germany (1919) was a satire against Germany and its negative influences on Poland. The Book of Esther (1925) was his first religious tract to show Jews standing up to threatened annihilation, and The Haggadah (1940), wherein he portrayed the Nazis as the ancient Egyptians of the Exodus narrative, warned a new generation of centuries-old hatred.

Psalm 35 in Syzk's Haggadah.

Szyk's inside cover illustration for Andersen's fairy tales, 1944.

Almost without exception, Szyk’s art was never ambiguous or abstract. “It almost always had a common theme,” Ungar says. “Freedom, not tyranny; justice, not oppression—which, when combined with the uniqueness of his style, is why Szyk became one of the leading political artists of the first half of the 20th century.”

[MIKA27]

Dead or Meditating?

One of the wealthiest spiritual leaders in India has either been dead or in a transcendental meditative state since January. The Telegraph's Dean Nelson reports from New Delhi that a court has now been asked to settle the matter.

Ashutosh Maharaj is presently in a commercial freezer in his ashram, guarded by elders within the multinational sect that he created. His followers insist that Maharaj is in a state of transcendent bliss called samadhi, a central tenet of traditional yoga in which a yogi becomes one with the universe. Upon moving all of your prana (currents of energy) up your spine and into your head, according to the seminal yoga manual Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a yogi can become "as if dead."

This would seem to be at odds with the assessment of a team of local physicians who examined Maharaj in February. After performing an ECG that showed no heartbeats, noting that he had no respiratory movements, and seeing that his pupils were fixed and dilated, the physicians declared him "clinically dead."

The sect's website states, "His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj Ji has been in a deep meditative state (samadhi) since January 29, 2014." Though, a representative from the sect did say on February 3, "About 4:00 PM yesterday, some changes were noticed in his skin (it became greenish). The body was then shifted to a freezer," which may or may not be part of the traditional protocol for transcendent bliss.

The guru's son and wife corroborate that he died of a heart attack in January, and that his followers are keeping his body in order to retain control of his financial empire, including the ten billion rupee ($170 million) estate where the corpse resides.

Because Maharaj had (has) not (yet) named a successor, his wealth is to be deposited in a charitable trust (at the time of his death). Some say this is not in the interest of the elders, who "turned greedy," with an eye to usurping his property.

Maharaj's family has filed a court application for further investigation and release of the body for last rites and cremation. Police initially agreed with the physicians that Maharaj was dead, and the Punjab High Court corroborated in April that Maharaj died a natural death, but Nelson reports that local government officials say as a spiritual matter, the guru's followers cannot be forced to believe that he is dead.

Before yoga's modern incarnations predicated themselves on Lululemon and deep breathing before brunch, yoga was rife with claims that it could confer immortality. In his book The Science of Yoga, William Broad has a thorough history of miraculous practitioners. For centuries, Indian literature portrayed yogis as able to walk through walls, become invisible, survive live burials, and make their hearts stop. Claude Wade, a British eyewitness to one yogi's exhumation, wrote that it would be "presumptuous to deny to the Hindus the possible discovery or attainment of art which has hitherto escaped the researches of European science."

Yogis who made these claims did so, according to historian William Pinch at Wesleyan University, to enhance their reputations on the battlefield. "There was a clear tactical advantage," Pinch says in the book, "to having your enemy believe you were immortal."

In 1935, French cardiologist Therese Brosse studied one legendary yogi, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who claimed he could stop his heart. Brosse hooked up a single ECG lead and radial artery pulse monitor, and observed decreases in magnitude to what he reported to be "approximately zero" for several seconds before returning to normal.

Skeptical of the finding, American electrophysiologists traveled to India in 1961 with support from the Rockefeller Foundation to study yogis who claimed to be able to stop their hearts. They found four, including Krishnamacharya. After initially deferring, saying he was too old, Krishnamacharya eventually agreed to participate. The results of the study, published in the medical journal Circulation, say that while listening with a stethoscope, the sounds of his heartbeat "either disappeared briefly or were obscured by sounds from muscle action," and his pulse "weakened or disappeared briefly." But the electrocardiogram showed that his heart was still beating.

Krishnamacharya's cardiac and respiratory activity at rest (a) and during the attempted heart-stopping (b

As Broad tells it, between that study and another where an eminent yogi agreed to be sealed in an air-tight box in a laboratory only to come out gasping for air after a few hours, the era of miraculous, mystical yogic ambitions quickly morphed into one of health and fitness. "Yoga had gone from an ancient obsession with transcendence of the body," Broad writes, "to a modern crusade for a new kind of physicality."

Since then, credible studies from major medical schools have found that yoga can mitigate the physical effects of stress. (Unless you're like me, and you find yoga deeply stressful.) One recent study by Dr. Debbie Cohen at the University of Pennsylvania found that people who practiced yoga for six months successfully reduced their blood pressures. Since almost a third of Americans have high blood pressure, a major contributor to heart disease and strokes, yoga could at times lengthen lives. Some legitimacy has come of the miraculous, even if Maharaj doesn't pull through.

[MIKA27]

VIVELTRE HANDCRAFTED MARSHMALLOWS

Perhaps the only reason most of us think marshmallows are meant to get stuck on a stick and burned over a campfire is the fact that most of us haven’t tasted a marshmallow done right. Viveltre Marshmallows is looking to change that.

This new Miami-based confectioner is offering a decadent array of entirely handcrafted treats, using only 100% all-natural and organic ingredients, like real juice and zest from Florida oranges in the Whiskey Orange (with Jack Daniel’s). There’s no corn syrup, artificial flavors or colors, or chemical preservatives; just pure cane sugar, Fiji water, top-shelf liquors, and other high-quality ingredients. With options like Irish Cream Delight (made with Bailey’s), Guinness Goddess (with Guinness beer), and French Riviera (with Domaine Chandon Étoile champagne), if you even think about using these for smores, we’ll hunt you down. [Purchase]