A list of 50 English-language films which deserve to be seen, but for one reason or another have been neglected so far.

Google now has Patent Search, a simple front-end for searching among 7 million U.S. patents.

A diet with radical calorie restriction is known to prolong life in many organisms. This reporter has been investigating the story, talks to people who follow it and has been doing it himself for 9 weeks now.

An article on status anxiety, stress and chronic fatigue.

Michel Houellebecq writing about H. P. Lovecraft, a writer he greatly admires.

A profile of Edward O. Wilson, remarkable entomologist and writer. His mission now is to convince the religious in the U.S. to support science in preserving biodiversity in the planet.

An article on the controversial potential link between diet defficiency and criminal behaviour.

A list compiled by The Observer of the best English (and Commonwealth) novels in the last 25 years. I've enjoyed reading about 10 of them.

An essay about the economy in Second Life.

Polyphasic sleep: 2-3 h of short naps a day, instead 8 ininterrupted hours. Seems like a hard schedule to adapt to.

On the accidental discovery of a "miracle drug" that's been effective in bringing back to life some patients in deep coma.

Biomimicry: using ideas from nature in engineering. See the velcro here? An article about biomimicry in energy production.

More about the controversy surrounding the Hobbits from Flores Island.

This guard dog was fed up with all the attention paid to these teddy bears - what did they have that he didn't? So when his handler was a bit distracted he destroyed all of the teddy bears, worth tens of thousands of dollars.

The dog seems very pleased in the picture.

Here's an evaluation of the current situation in Afghanistan, by the most senior British military commander in the country. It's disheartening - the poppy production is at an all-time high, the country situation is "close to anarchy" and the violence has killed 700 people over the last few weeks.

Lots of films of American nuclear tests were recently declassified, and are available on-line.

An interview with Ann Coulter, high-profile right-wing American polemicist. Extract:

"Some of Coulter's more charming opinions are that the country would be better off if women couldn't vote, that in December 2001 America should have attacked France, and that the death penalty should be brought back everywhere."

A few random results from leisurely web-browsing:

A Lego difference engine.

The strange but compelling site of visual artist Esao.

GNU radio is a multipurpose software controlled radio that can record digital TV, all FM radios simultaneously, GPS signals, etc, all under an open-source license.

A delightful site I found: the Museum of Unworkable Devices. It's pretty thorough!

The story of forced migration out of the island of Diego Garcia, so that it could be sold to the U.S., who built a military base there.

A witty article in The Guardian, from the reviewer who demolished The da Vinci Code (the book), writing about the film. Quote:
"Has our culture now created a sort of genetically modified turkey - the critic-proof product?"

A conference of synthetic biologists is discussing guidelines for the creation of new life forms. Some disturbing advances happened in 2002 when the polio virus was reconstructed from scratch, and last year when the 1918 flu virus was reconstructed from frozen body remains.

The annual Webby awards indicate a list of web sites worth visiting.

Archaeoacoustics: the study of how one might recover sounds inadvertently recorded while a brush painted a canvas, or a stylus was working on clay. This may seem far-fetched, but some serious (or less serious) proposals have been floating around for a while. Check this site for a review of the hoaxes and real possibilities.

Other structures may be designed to create auditory effects, now or in the past. Check this article about it. Some examples are the steps in ancient American pyramids and some modern sculptures. Hear the chirped echo from an ancient temple in Teotihuacan, Mexico:

This is an ambigram: try looking at it upside down. I had never heard of those, but there are many homepages dedicated to ambigrams...

This guy wants to do a series of trades, starting with a paper clip and ending up with a house to live in. Now he's already got a house to live in for one year in Arizona.

Laboratory-engineered bladders have been successfully transplanted back into patients.

Gary Younge in The Guardian on whether there's a "new McCarthyism" going on in U.S. academic institutions.

An essay by Ian McEwan on the tradition of literary science writing.

This is a cool video - a live Bunraku matrix-style ping-pong game.[via monochrom]

A strange gallery of pictures using some old techniques, to spooky effect. [via boingboing]

An cool article by a Norwegian professor giving reasons why a high school student should choose to take Maths.

A review of a book called "The evolutionary origins of belief", by Lewis Wolpert.

On how to use genetic algorithms and user feedback to create or choose objects with elusive qualities, such as beatiful pictures.

This is a picture of the Z-Pinch device at Sandia National Labs. It's basically a huge capacitor, used for researching problems such as this.

Amnesty International points out in a report that 14000 people are detained without trial (à la Guantánamo) in Iraq.

A physicist improved an algorithm used for biological imaging - and it now also solves sudoku puzzles easily.

On the huge construction works going on in Dubai.

Justin Williams is opening up an exhibition in London of what he calls "mathematical photography"".

Have a look at birth rates in Europe, where 2.1 per woman is considered to be population replacement level:

Ireland 1.99
France 1.90
Norway 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK 1.74
Netherlands 1.73
Germany 1.37
Italy 1.33
Spain 1.32
Greece 1.29

An article in the Guardian discusses the problem in Germany.

An article on what would happen should China reach current U.S. levels of resource consumption. China has recently surpassed the U.S. in absolute resource consumption.

An article analyzing the second big wave of immigration into the U.K.

On a controversial proposal to reclassifly chimps under the genus Homo, based on DNA studies. Curiously enough, that was the accepted classification between 1775 and 1816.

An article about podcasts, from the point of view of an outsider who's just joined in.

Let me explain one strange way of phrasing a theorem known as the Banach-Tarski paradox. It is possible to take a solid ball, cut it into five (infinitely convoluted) pieces, and reassemble the pieces into two balls, each with the same volume as the original.

A mystery: why we (and so many other animals) yawn.

Thirty years ago, the first life-swap by a conceptual artist. As a bonus, I've just learned an interesting word: discombobulate.

An article discussing e-books, electronic ink and the imminent revolution in the book business.

The first Brazilian astronaut is getting ready to visit the international space station.

I've always known that my brain doesn't work well in the morning. Now there's scientific evidence about this.

Just back from a 20-day trip away from the internet.
Check out this picture, it's troubling for the eyes, or rather, for the brain. I suppose a large part of our visual cortex is specialized in deciphering human faces, so it's not so surprising that this one is confusing... (via BoingBoing)