"Swiss researchers have succeeded in mummifying a body part using the salty recipe of the ancient Egyptians. The experiment, which has been running for more than four months, takes inspiration from a 1994 study by Ronald Wade, director of Maryland's State Anatomical Board, and Bob Brier, one of the leading experts on mummies and Egyptology. During that study, Brier and Wade replicated for the first time Egyptian mummification using the tools and procedures of the ancient embalmers.

"We are trying to improve on that important experiment using the most up-to-date methods, such as radiological technology, magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography. It's a unique project, the first of its kind," Swiss anatomist and paleopathologist Frank Ruhli told Discovery News.

While Brier and Wade used a complete male body, Ruhli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, used two legs which were severed from a female donor body. One leg was used in a control study and placed in an oven at 40 degrees Celsius (4.4. degrees Fahrenheit) with low humidity to reproduce natural mummification as it occurred in the Egyptian desert. The other leg was placed on an embalming pine board and covered with natron, a white, salt-like substance used by the Egyptians to dry out the corpse.

A blend of four sodium compounds, natron, was the key ingredient in the ancient Egyptian mummification process, which required the removal all internal organs except the heart through a four-inch incision on the body's left side.

After the brain was extracted through the nose, packets of natron were placed in the previously washed body cavity, and finally natron was heaped over the corpse. The salt-like substance was also applied to dry out the removed internal organs, which were then placed in jars. Protecting bodies from decay and preserving them in a recognizable form was extremely important for the ancient Egyptians, who believed that people needed their bodies in the afterlife ..."

Full story via discovery.com

I bet Anubis finds all this rather amusing.

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"Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again."
__L. Frank Baum

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"According to the advertising slogan, if you see Kellogg's on the box then you know it's Kellogg's in the box. But now the company has become so concerned about similarly packaged supermarket cereals, it has developed a laser to burn its logo on to individual Corn Flakes. The concentrated beam of light creates a toasted appearance without changing the taste.

Kellogg's will produce a number of trial batches before considering whether to put some branded flakes into each box to guarantee authenticity. If the system is successful it could be used on Kellogg's other best-loved brands including Frosties, Special K, Crunchy Nut and Bran Flakes. Kellogg's embarked on the project to reinforce that they don't make cereals for any other companies and to fire a shot across the bows of makers of 'fake flakes'.

Helen Lyons, lead food technologist at the company, said: "In recent years there has been an increase in the number of own brands trying to capitalise on the popularity of Kellogg's corn flakes. We want shoppers to be under absolutely no illusion that Kellogg's does not make cereal for anyone else. We're constantly looking at new ways to reaffirm this and giving our golden flakes of corn an official stamp of approval could be the answer. We've established that it is possible to apply a logo or image onto food, now we need to see if there is a way of repeating it on large quantities of our cereal. We're looking into it."

The company also released figures which show sales of Kellogg's Corn Flakes have risen in 2009 as shoppers with limited budgets opt for recognised brands. A staggering 128 billion bowls of Kellogg's Corn Flakes are eaten worldwide every year ..."

Full story via dailymail.co.uk

Suggestion for Kellogg's: instead of investing in technology to put logos on flakes, why devote those assets to better advertising? Remember back in the day when your ads actually had some character?

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Did all the good people who protested Rush Limbaugh's attempt to become part owner of an NFL franchise evince the same degree of outrage when the NFL allowed Michael Vick to return as a player? My memory is that many
did not. Those good people seem to believe that torturing and murdering innocent animals is less objectionable than making racist statements.
Much as I abhor racism, I vehemently disagree with their point of view.

Mr. Limbaugh is a person I'd cross the street to avoid.
Mr. Vick is a person I look forward to seeing in Hell -- which is where I'm pretty sure we'll both end up, along with quite a few of those ostensibly 'good' people who will shun somebody with a shitty mouth while embracing one with bloody hands.

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"Looking for an Internet search engine that delivers totally random results? Probably not. But if you are, there's one out there for you. It's called Mystery Google and is located at mysterygoogle.com.

No matter what you type into the query box at Mystery Google it serves up the results of someone else's search. A search for "Twitter," for example, delivered links to websites about "cabbage." The query "Joe Biden" resulted in pages about "jellyfish." "Michael Jackson" served up links about "coiffure." And so on. There is one consistent result. Type in the query "What is Mystery Google?" and the reply is "That is the site you are on."

The Mystery Google website has the spartan look of the traditional Google home page but the background is black as opposed to white and features a glowing moon at the top of the page. It also bears the notice "Google is a trademark of Google Inc."

There was no immediate reply from Google to a query from AFP about the site, which makes its appearance about two weeks ahead of Halloween, the holiday of goblins, ghosts and 'trick or treating'."

via AFP

Brilliant.  This is a search engine well suited for divination, IMO.
Frame your question carefully, focus on it intently, type it in, hit enter,
and then use your intuition to interpret the results.

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"A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way
of affirming the primacy of 'spirit' over matter."
__Susan Sontag

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circa 1950s:

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"Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships."
__C.S. Lewis

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