
Was the poisoning of a French town in 1951 an LSD trial?

On August 16th 1951 a number of people in the quiet southern French town of Pont St.Esprit began to fall ill. Stomach pains were soon followed by violent and often terrifying hallucinations. Local hospitals were soon overwhelmed and more than thirty people were taken to asylums in nearby towns. It was...
August 25th, 2010 | Social Insight | Read More
‘Tame’ bears guard Canadian marijuana farm

Police raiding a marijuana farm in western Canada were astonished to find black bears apparently guarding it.
However initial alarm wore off when officers realised the 10 or so bears did not behave aggressively and were in fact docile and tame.
Police believe dog food was used to attract the animals...
August 25th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More
An answer to the ‘Nature vs Nurture’ Debate?

Savage-Rumbaugh’s work with bonobo apes, which can understand spoken language and learn tasks by watching, forces the audience to rethink how much of what a species can do is determined by biology — and how much by cultural exposure.
August 6th, 2010 | Evolution | Read More
Monkey Economicus?

Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. A clever series of experiments in “monkeynomics” shows that some of the silly choices we make, monkeys make too.
Laurie Santos studies primate psychology and monkeynomics —...
August 4th, 2010 | Social Insight | Read More
Drugs That Shape Men’s Minds

Aldous Huxley’s acclaimed essay about man’s inclination towards intoxication and the potential for good and evil that drugs represent
In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country. The craving for ethyl...
August 4th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More
Did the ingredients for Life come from Space?

Ice and organic chemicals found on an asteroid back the theory that asteroids provided the Earth with the bare necessities of life
Astronomers have detected a coating of ice and organic chemicals on one of the largest asteroids in the solar system.
From the Guardian
The space rock, called 24 Themis,...
July 28th, 2010 | Evolution | Read More
Jobs, Taxes and Crime: Keys to California’s Pot Vote

Getty Images
Inside City Hall in Oakland, Calif., Jim Wilcox explained his plan for a commercial marijuana farm. “My idea was a Silicon Valley of cannabis,” he told the city council recently. “An office park for pot.” The council has approved the creation, licensing...
July 28th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More
Cooking, Fire and Human Evolution

Did Learning to Cook Push Our Ancestors Toward Modernity?
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Intriguing evidence shows that cooking may have been the spark that set human evolution blazing toward higher intelligence and civilization.
It has long been a fascinating puzzle to scientists: Why did our apelike ancestors come...
July 26th, 2010 | Evolution | Read More
A Ladies’ Man and Shameless

Das ewig weibliche zieht uns hinan.
The eternally feminine leads us forward.
– Goethe
He who binds himself to a joy does the winged life destroy,
But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
– William Blake
Only connect.
– E. M. Forster
I‘m finally...
July 13th, 2010 | Social Insight | Read More
BIG BANG BIG BOOM

BLU’s new wall painted animation is an unscientific point of view on the beginning and evolution of life … and how it could probably end.
direction and animation by BLU
blublu.org
production and distribution by ARTSH.it
artsh.it
sountrack by ANDREA MARTIGNONI
BIG BAG BIG BOOM – the...
July 6th, 2010 | Evolution | Read More