‘The early anatomists weren’t able to shed much light on the issue, as the soul wasn’t something you could see or set your scalpel to.  Lacking any scientific means of pinning down the soul, the fist anatomists settled on generative primacy: What shows up first in the embryo must be most important and therefore most […]

Taught Transgressions
 
 Presented at the Great Writing Conference, Bangor University, June 2009.
 
 
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1)      Introduction – Transgressions and Teaching
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This proposal exploring the merit of using transgressive literature and encouraging transgressive writing has the University writer in mind.  At BA level particularly, there is more scope for experimentation in form and content than in community workshops, where […]

A presentation about Tasteless created for the Creative Processes module of my Creative Writing Masters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMUQ93Q4vI8
and a second one about the representation of female characters in transgressive literature, for the Theory Studies module.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxR7PXttVLI
Here for easy linkage should the CD not work (like last time…)

 
Why bats - who echolocate moving objects - are killed by turbines has remained a mystery until now. The research council thought the high-frequency noise from the turbines’ gears and blades could be disrupting the bats’ echolocation systems.
In fact, a new study shows that the moving blades cause a drop in pressure that makes the […]

Scientists are receiving death threats over phone and email, as well as pleas for reassurance that their children will be safe when the 17 mile gizmo is turned on next Wednesday.
My very favourite quote comes from Prof Brian Cox of Manchester University, and should serve as reassurance to us all that a chunk of Europe […]

The elephant, captured in 2005 in southwest Chine by illegal traders, was fed heroin-laced bananas to control him for months.  After three days in rehab, he is now ‘clean’ and to be moved to a wildlife park in Kunming.
What a nice, strange story.
Original here.

An 85-year-old woman boldly went for her gun and busted a would-be burglar inside her home, then forced him to call police while she kept him in her sights, police said.
I like to think she looked a little something like this:

Original. 

Police arrested two men dressed like ninjas and armed with Asian martial arts weapons who said they were delivering warning letters to drug dealers and users.
Calling themselves “Shinobi warriors,” the men carried knives, throwing stars, swords, nunchucks and a bow and arrows.
Origins.

Dani spent the first seven years of her life living in a cupboard with heaps of soiled nappies, including the constantly full one she was wearing, and a cat.  Both were covered in fleas and cockroaches, as was the floor throughout the house.  When the police came to investigate reports of a girl seen once […]

My favorite customer, Marlene, first appeared at 10 a.m. on a Saturday. A youthful, 50-something firecracker in mom jeans, she marched in and scanned the shelves. “I have three sons and a husband. I need a vibrator that is completely silent. Do you hear me? Com-plete-ly si-lent.” She looked at me expectantly.
We buzzed around the […]