Caruso, Melba to release new recordings, overcoming obstacle of being dead. Time capsules buried in the basement of the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris, and containing recordings of the two giants, are about to be opened up and made available to the public.

New species of Hideously Ugly Giant Rat found in 'lost world' jungle. "The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat," said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. "With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip." Also they found some other less awesome animals, too.

Who Speaks For Earth? The Active v Passive debate in the SETI community. And do we really want to attract the attention of advanced alien civilizations? more inside

The California Golden Overtones. UC-Berkeley all-female a capella group. (YouTube links, or pages with embedded YouTube vids, follow.) Take It to the Limit. In the Still of the Night. Big Yellow Taxi. I Can See Clearly Now.

Irishman hits on 'cure' for psoriasis - the cure consists of ten pints of Guinness and a dunk in the Liffey.

Gamer Jargon Becomes Word Of The Year A word widely used among online gamers has topped an online poll for Word of the Year run by US publishing group Merriam Webster.

The Whale Hunt - more than three thousand photos taken at five minute intervals over a period of nine days, documenting a northern Alaskan community's annual Bowhead harvest. Interesting interface. Via DIMMN, by way of Haddock.

learning to love you more is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. more inside

John Zorn's Masada. John Zorn is a musician and "genius" who's long been part of New York's "downtown music" scene, which is associated with venues like the Knitting Factory. Among his focuses in recent years is Masada, a jazz project whose CDs are released by Zorn's label Tzadik as part of its Radical Jewish Culture series. YouTube links: Gevurah. Karaim. Paran.

A slice of something from 1998. It first showed up here, but it didn't get truly considered. Here is the new fUSION Anomaly. It's all about code and butterflies, Tech Nique, Synaptic Ether, and Entities, and shit. Here's where the web is 1975.

Curious George: Washington, DC Meetup on Tuesday the 18th of December? more inside

Gordo the Barosaurus, standing tall once more. A little photo essay about how a giant Barosaurus was prepared for exhibition in the new digs of the ROM, after being rediscovered in the basement. Only the second one to go on display.

move over dogs in shawls, here's bears in hats

Por for girls, by girls. SO degrading for men. (SFW)

Woman catches fire during hemorrhoid operation

The prehistoric version of middleclasstool's workshop has been found.

Before the end of the last ice age, a hunter-gatherer left a bag of tools near the wall of a roundhouse residence, where archaeologists have now found the collection 14,000 years later.

(Note: ancient overalls were not found.)

Hitler's English Love Child He knocked up Nazi nob Unity Mitford, who then spawned. Maybe

The Lives They Left Behind - a haunting examination of suitcases and trunks found in the attic of an abandoned psychiatric center. more inside

Kucinich booted from Iowa debate. The Des Moines Register informed the campaign that Kucinich is not invited because the newspaper determined “that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa.” Once again, credit to the H Dogg.

Videogaiden The BBC's computer games show, now on the internet. From the people who brought us Consolevania, which is probably the best video games show ever made more inside