>Israeli health and beauty spa offers a snake massage for £40

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The treatment consists of six non-venomous snakes massaging the client’s aching muscles and joints.

Ada Barak’s snake spa, in Talmei Elazar, northern Israel, uses California and Florida king snakes, corn snakes and milk snakes for the massages, which cost £40 ($70).

Miss Barak believes that physical contact with the reptiles can be a relaxing experience. She says that she was inspired by her belief that once people get over any initial misgivings, they find physical contact with the snakes to be stress relieving.

“Some people said that holding the snakes made them feel better, relaxed,” she said “One old lady said it was soothing, like a cold compress.”

The size of the snakes depends on the type of massage – the larger ones are said to alleviate deeper muscle tensions and the smaller ones create a ‘fluttering’ effect. All are the snakes used are non-venemous.

Miss Barak began offering the service at the Talmey El’Azar tourist attraction in 2006 and now most of her income comes from exhibiting plants at her carnivorous plant farm, which eat everything from insects to small mammals.

She appeared on Tyra Banks Show, an American chat show, in April for an episode entitled “Beauty Tips Around the World”. – telegraph

This is almost as creepy as the Palin doll.

>The Inflateable Sarah Palin On Sale

>Susannah Breslin has a write up on the latest in Palin paraphernalia. Too freaky.

Considering how obsessed the nation is with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, it was only a matter of time before someone created a love doll in her likeness. After the jump, all the details on what may be America’s first political sex doll.

Created by adult product purveyors Topco, the Sarah Palin blowup doll is known as the “This is NOT Sarah Palin Inflatable Love Doll.” Featuring a busty, conservatively dressed Palin lookalike, the box cover promises: “Cross party lines with your own inflatable running mate!” The political love doll’s suggested uses include: “Blow her up and show her how you’re going to vote,” “Let her pound your gavel over and over,” and “It’s time some male interns caused a scandal in the Capitol.” In addition, the company suggests, the Palin doll could stand in for the candidate at her next debate with Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden. “This blow-up sex doll could really satisfy the swing voters.” Who knew the coming presidential election could be decided by a sex doll? – thefrisk

>Gigantic River Cave Revealed in Laos

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A cave explorer stands before an imposing stalagmite–made of mineral deposits–near an entrance to the Xe Bang Fai River cave in central Laos.

An expedition in February 2008, co-led by veteran caver John Pollack, comprehensively mapped and photographed the 5.9-mile (9.5-kilometer) length of the little-known cavern for the first time.

The spelunking team encountered some of the largest rooms and most impressive structures of any river cave on Earth, Pollack said.

A river cave is any cave with an active water source flowing through it. – natgeo

>And now the Manchurian microchip

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The geniuses at Homeland Security who brought you hare-brained procedures at airports (which inconvenience travelers without snagging terrorists) have decreed that October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. This means The Investigator — at the risk of compromising national insecurities — would be remiss not to make you aware of the hottest topic in U.S. counterintelligence circles: rogue microchips. This threat emanates from China (PRC) — and it is hugely significant.

The myth: Chinese intelligence services have concealed a microchip in every computer everywhere, programmed to “call home” if and when activated.

The reality: It may actually be true.

All computers on the market today — be they Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Apple or especially IBM — are assembled with components manufactured inside the PRC. Each component produced by the Chinese, according to a reliable source within the intelligence community, is secretly equipped with a hidden microchip that can be activated any time by China’s military intelligence services, the PLA.

“It is there, deep inside your computer, if they decide to call it up,” the security chief of a multinational corporation told The Investigator. “It is capable of providing Chinese intelligence with everything stored on your system — on everyone’s system — from e-mail to documents. I call it Call Home Technology. It doesn’t mean to say they’re sucking data from everyone’s computer today, it means the Chinese think ahead — and they now have the potential to do it when it suits their purposes.”

Discussed theoretically in high-tech security circles as “Trojan Horse on a Chip” or “The Manchurian Chip,” Call Home Technology came to light after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched a security program in December 2007 called Trust in Integrated Circuits. DARPA awarded almost $25 million in contracts to six companies and university research labs to test foreign-made microchips for hardware Trojans, back doors and kill switches — techie-speak for bugs and gremlins — with a view toward microchip verification.

Raytheon, a defense contractor, was granted almost half of these funds for hardware and software testing.

Its findings, which are classified, have apparently sent shockwaves through the counterintelligence community.

“It is the hottest topic concerning the FBI and the Pentagon,” a retired intelligence official told The Investigator. “They don’t know quite what to do about it. The Chinese have even been able to hack into the computer system that handles our Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system.”

Another senior intelligence source told The Investigator, “Our military is aware of this and has had to take some protective measures. The problem includes defective chips that don’t reach military specs — as well as probable Trojans.”

A little context: In 2005 the Lenovo Group in China paid $1.75 billion for IBM’s PC unit, even though that unit had lost $965 million the previous four years. Three congressmen, including the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, tried to block this sale because of national security concerns, to no avail. (The PRC embassy in Washington, D.C., maintains a large lobbying presence to influence congressmen and their staffs through direct contact.)

In June 2007, a Pentagon computer network utilized by the U.S. defense secretary’s office was hacked into — and traced directly back to the Chinese PLA.

A report presented to Congress late last year characterized PRC espionage as “the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies.” Almost simultaneously, Jonathan Evans, director-general of MI5, Britain’s domestic security and counterintelligence service, sent a confidential letter to CEOs and security chiefs at 300 UK companies to warn that they were under attack by “Chinese state organizations” whose purpose, said Mr. Evans, was to defeat their computer security systems and steal confidential commercial information. … –cryptome

>Archaeologists find unique, early US relic of African bomb

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University of Maryland archaeologists have dug up what they believe to be one of the earliest U.S. examples of African spirit practices. The researchers say it’s the only object of its kind ever found by archaeologists in North America – a clay “bundle” filled with small pieces of common metal, placed in what had been an Annapolis street gutter three centuries ago. The bundle appears to be a direct transplant of African religion, distinct from hoodoo and other later practices blending African and European traditions. … About the size of a football, the compacted clay and sand bundle originally sat in clear public view stationed in front of a house. X-rays show the object served as a container holding hundreds of pieces of lead shot, pins and nails intended to ward off or redirect spirits. A prehistoric stone axe extends upward from the top of the bundle. … The Maryland team discovered the bundle four feet below Fleet Street in the Annapolis historic district – about 1,000 feet from the Maryland statehouse. It sat in the gutter of a much earlier unpaved street on a hill overlooking an inlet. Water would have run down the gutter, making it a vital conduit for spirits and a strategic spot to place a powerful charm, Leone says.

The bundle measures about 10 inches high, six inches wide and four inches thick. It remains intact, held together by the sand and clay. X-rays taken at the state of Maryland’s conservation facility reveal the bundle’s contents – about 300 pieces of lead shot, 25 common pins and a dozen nails. The blade of the stone axe points upward.

Originally, some kind of cloth or animal hide probably wound around the bundle forming a pouch that held the metal objects. But it has long since decomposed….

“The use of compacted clay and iron materials points to the African origin of this bundle,” Lamp says. “Combining these materials was believed to increase the spiritual power of the objects.” – physorg

The object was from the year 1700 in what is now Annapolis, Maryland, USA. Here is some history of the area:

Maryland was inhabited by Indians as early as circa 10,000 B.C. Permanent Indian villages were established by circa A.D. 1000.The Paleo-Indians who came more than 10,000 years ago from other parts of North America to hunt mammoth, great bison and caribou. By 1,000 B.C., Maryland had more than 8,000 Native Americans in about 40 different tribes. Most of them spoke Algonquian languages. … 1572 AD – Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Spanish governor of Florida, explored Chesapeake Bay.- eref

In 1637 [A.D.] St. Mary’s was created as Maryland’s first county – encompassing all of then-Maryland Colony.

Why assume people were stupid? Why is anything anachronistic interpreted as a nonsensical religious spiritual charm to ward off demons?  What if prehistoric people were practical? This magical “bundle” is obviously a bomb which failed to detonate. Africa had gun powder since at least the 1400’s and the stuff inside the bundle is obviously shrapnel. No, they didn’t find any traces of gun powder, but I doubt they looked, … because they are busy making up new names for evil spirits this powerful bundle was made to thwart.

Gunpowder reached North Africa about the same time as it reached Europe, but across the Sahara Desert in West Africa and East Africa people did not know much about it until about 200 years later, when Portuguese explorers used cannon to attack them in the late 1400’s AD.- historyforkids

>Video: India Launches 1st Moon Mission

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>Portal to Maya Underworld Found in Mexico?

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A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves—some underwater—have been uncovered on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, archaeologists announced last week. The discovery has experts wondering whether Maya legend inspired the construction of the underground complex—or vice versa.

According to Maya myth, the souls of the dead had to follow a dog with night vision on a horrific and watery path and endure myriad challenges before they could rest in the afterlife.

In one of the recently found caves, researchers discovered a nearly 300-foot (90-meter) concrete road that ends at a column standing in front of a body of water. “We have this pattern now of finding temples close to the water—or under the water, in this most recent case,” said Guillermo de Anda, lead investigator at the research sites.

“These were probably made as part of a very elaborate ritual,” de Anda said. “Everything is related to death, life, and human sacrifice.” Stretching south from southern Mexico, through Guatemala, and into northern Belize, the Maya culture had its heyday from about A.D. 250 to 900, when the civilization mysteriously collapsed.

Archaeologists excavating the temples and pyramids in the village of Tahtzibichen, in Mérida, the capital of Yucatán state, said the oldest item they found was a 1,900-year-old vessel. Other uncovered earthenware and sculptures dated to A.D. 750 to 850. “There are stones, huge columns, and sculptures of priests in the caves,” said de Anda, whose team has been working on the Yucatán Peninsula for six months.

“There are also human remains and ceramics,” he said.

Researchers said the ancient legend—described in part in the sacred book Popul Vuh—tells of a tortuous journey through oozing blood, bats, and spiders, that souls had to make in order to reach Xibalba, the underworld. “Caves are natural portals to other realms, which could have inspired the Mayan myth. They are related to darkness, to fright, and to monsters,” de Anda said, adding that this does not contradict the theory that the myth inspired the temples….

Saturno said the discovery of the temples underwater indicates the significant effort the Maya put into creating these portals. In addition to plunging deep into the forest to reach the cave openings, Maya builders would have had to hold their breath and dive underwater to build some of the shrines and pyramids.

Other Maya underworld entrances have been discovered in jungles and aboveground caves in northern Guatemala Belize. “They believed in a reality with many layers,” Saturno said of the Maya. “The portal between life and where the dead go was important to them. – natgeo

>Free Music: 2 New Xenophilia Songs + Top 10 Strange Topics

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Check out the Box.net widget on the left side of this web page. I’ve added two new Xenophilia originals “What Have I Done” and “Holy Toledo” from Albert Studios in Sacramento about a year ago.  There are things about the vocals I don’t like and need to fix, but …eh.. not super bad, so I’m making them pubic. Enjoy.

Other news:

Upcoming Gig: UC Davis Coffee House (CoHo) Tuesday, December 2 at 6:20-6:50pm

“Xenophilia means love of the strange. The band’s award winning science fiction folk rock covers the cure for cavities, crop circles, the Mothman, moon landings, and other topics fed by true strange news from  Xeno’s blog: http://xenophilius.wordpress.com“

This next show will focus more on oddities.  If you were going to give a lecture at a university, what would you say? My lecture would be: “Weird Stuff 101”

Class Outline

– Tinfoil Hats  (bio effects of EM radiation, industry corrupts science, be a free thinker)
– Apollo Moon Landings (curious but skeptical, best of the hoax evidence)
– Cryptids: The Moth Man, Chupacabras, Sky Fish, (uncertainty is a power source, men in black, psyops)
– Crop Circles (Occam’s razor cutting crops)
– The Hollow Earth (odd ideas from the past)
– Biologically Interesting People: Hensel Twins, Jill Price, Angelo Faticoni, Wim Hof (e pluribus unum)
– Nitenol (UFOs, aliens, Roswell, and reality)
– Zero Point Energy (Pandora’s box)
– Lucid Dreams (my true weirdest experiences on earth, psychic phenomena, interpretation after the fact.)
– Rife’s 1930’s “cancer cure” & Aubrey De Grey’s SENS (Modern medicine = complete failure. The death rate is 100%. Not one person has ever been saved. Then again, there are too many of us anyway.)
– Cavity Cure (Hope attracts. How I got a dental rejection letter then healed 5 cavities. )