Direções! - Dia de São João!

Tribulando: Lúcio Bastos

Estréia desta nova seção periódica mais frequente.

Foram os lugares que eu visitei por aí, procurando pistas. Quem sabe meu olhar foi superficial e alguém enxerga melhor?

Foi superficial, sim, mas, eventualmente, ainda escrevo sobre algo, menos frequentemente.

Começo:

- Hoje, falou-se novamente sobre realidades (verdades?) contidas nas obras de Homero, se é que algo daquilo aconteceu mesmo. Fico pensando o que diriam os típicos céticos alemães, como Heinrich Schliemann.

Houve, ainda, Monsieur Butterfly, animais traumatizados, e a comprovação científica do contrário. Até os anestésicos causam dor. Que mé todo é esse, Cacildis? - diria o sábio Mussum, dos trapalhões.


Homer's Odyssey Said to Document 3,200-Year-Old Eclipse
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The Odyssey astronomically accurate?
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Sworn to virginity and living as men in Albania
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More woes in Myanmar: Oxen won't plow

The few animals that survived the storm were traumatized and reluctant to work, delta farmers say, and those brought in as replacements are taking a long time to settle in to their new surroundings.
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Early decreases in alpha and gamma band power distinguish linguistic from visual information during spoken sentence comprehension
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No electricity, no marriage for men in UP village

"An exercise to electrify the village was initiated in 1973 and electric poles were erected with power lines. But power supply was snapped after some years due to reasons unknown to us. There are only seven poles left now in the village," says Awasthi.
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Eclipse do Sol pode revelar data da 'Odisséia' de Homero, dizem astrônomos

Os cálculos dos pesquisadores parecem bater perfeitamente, mas é claro que uma série de problemas ainda têm de ser resolvidos para provar a hipótese. O mais sério de todos é saber como o dado preciso da data chegou a Homero. Afinal, acredita-se que o poeta tenha vivido uns 400 anos depois dos eventos narrados na Odisséia - se é que esses eventos aconteceram mesmo.
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Denied birthday party, 20-yr-old girl hangs self
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Eclipse descrito na Odisséia é confirmado por cientistas
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One big drug test for L.A.: sewage analysis

The scientists were even able to use sewage to estimate individual use and weekly trends. For instance, they estimated that people in Milan used twice as much cocaine, about 35 grams per person per year, than Italy's government surveys had suggested. Cocaine use peaked on Saturdays, while heroin and marijuana use remained steady weeklong.
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Researchers hit a homer with 'The Odyssey'

Whether the events of "The Odyssey" occurred or not, the authors are interested, at least, in reopening the debate.

"If we can get a few people to read 'The Odyssey' differently, to look at it and ponder whether there was an actual date inscribed in it, we are happy," Magnasco said.
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Sean Connery to unveil memoir at Edinburgh Book Festival
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Publicist: Amy Winehouse doesn't have emphysema yet

...yet
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Will this man make you happy?

The government's 'happiness tsar', Richard Layard, thinks he knows why we're all so miserable - we're overpaid, over-materialistic and lonely.
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When do income rises stop making us happier? Around $20,000, according to Layard. Or, in sterling, £10,128.89. After that there is an inverse relationship between more money and happiness. Quite a lot of you might be thinking you should apply for massive salary cuts, but that's to misunderstand Layard: he's talking about average national incomes rather than individual pay rises.
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We are consumed with status, with envy...It's a world in which one's accumulated possessions depreciate in value. Like Jacob Marley's chains, they drag us down rather than make us happy.
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"Bhutan seems much happier than countries that have a materialist rather than moral ethos. Relationships are rather equal, there's very little status anxiety."
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"What really struck me is that as a matter of policy, there is very little extreme poverty. Bhutan realises that a redistribution of wealth that favours the poor most is better for producing happiness."
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Muslim Voters Detect a Snub From Obama
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What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer

Judges and jurors who must decide whether sexually explicit material is obscene are asked to use a local yardstick: does the material violate community standards?
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In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon.” The publicly accessible data is vague in that it does not specify how many people are searching for the terms, just their relative popularity over time. But the defense lawyer, Lawrence Walters, is arguing that the evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that interest in the sexual subjects exceeds that of more mainstream topics — and that by extension, the sexual material distributed by his client is not outside the norm.
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Christian Novel Is Surprise Best Seller

Mr. Nowak, a maintenance worker near Yakima, Wash., first bought a copy of “The Shack,” a slim paperback novel by an unknown author about a grieving father who meets God in the form of a jolly African-American woman, at a Borders bookstore in March. He was so taken by the story of redemption and God’s love that he promptly bought 10 more copies to give to family and friends.
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Iranian website promotes Holocaust denial

The massacre of Jewish people during the Holocaust was "scientifically impossible," according to an article published by an Iranian satellite channel on its Web site.
The article was written by Nicholas Kollerstrom, an academic specializing in astrology and crop circles, who had his fellowship terminated by University College London last month after he said there were never any gas chambers at Auschwitz.
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Sun-loving frogs aid fungus fight

The OCT revealed that the frogs had an unusual pigment in their skin, called pterorhodin, that was allowing the creatures to reflect light in the infrared spectrum rather than absorb it. Melanin, the pigment typically found in skin, absorbs light.
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Anaesthetics 'could worsen pain'

Anaesthetists have known for some time that certain drugs, such as the gas isoflurane, while very effective at rendering and keeping patients unconscious, are actually irritant chemicals.
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The latest finding, by research staff at Georgetown University Medical Center however, suggests that effects of the irritant is not just short-lived, but lingers on long after both the painkiller and the anaesthetic have worn off.
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"The choice of anaesthetic appears to be an important determinant of post-operative pain."
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"There are a myriad of different factors that combine to produce the experience of pain, including the degree and size of the surgery, and the mood or level of anxiety in the patient."
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Incensole acetate: a novel neuroprotective agent isolated from Boswellia carterii
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Naturologia, teoria quântica e o efeito placebo