Noumenal News

DALLAS (Reuters Life!) - More Americans believe in a literal hell and the devil than Darwin’s theory of evolution, according to a new Harris poll released on Thursday.
It is the latest survey to highlight America’s deep level of religiosity, a cultural trait that sets it apart from much of the developed world.
It also helps explain […]

Halton’s Catholic board has pulled The Golden Compass fantasy book – soon to be a Hollywood blockbuster starring Nicole Kidman – off school library shelves because of a complaint.
Two other books in the trilogy by British author Philip Pullman have also been removed as a precaution, and principals have been ordered not to distribute December […]

PARIS, Nov 21 AFP - Astronomers may have unwittingly hastened the end of the Universe by simply looking at it, according to a theory reported in next Saturday’s New Scientist.
The novel idea is being aired by two US physicists, who attack the notion that the Universe, believed to have been created in the “Big Bang” […]

The immense fossilised claw of a 2.5m-long (8ft) sea scorpion has been described by European researchers.
The 390-million-year-old specimen was found in a German quarry, the journal Biology Letters reports.
The creature, which has been named Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, would have paddled in a river or swamp.
The size of the beast suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar […]

n a school of thought that teaches the existence of extra dimensions, Juan Maldacena may at first sound a little out of place. String theory is physicists’ still-tentative strategy for reconciling Einstein’s theory of gravitation with quantum physics. Its premise is that the subatomic particles that roam our three-dimensional world are really infinitesimally thin strings […]

A comet that has delighted backyard astronomers in recent weeks after an unexpected eruption has now grown larger than the sun.
The sun remains by far the most massive object in the solar system, with an extended influence of particles that reaches all the planets. But the comparatively tiny Comet Holmes has released so much gas […]

HARRY Potter author JK Rowling was “stunned” when a religious fanatic accosted her in front of her children in the US.
The mum of three has long been a target for American right-wingers, who claim her novels glorify witchcraft and paganism.
Extremist Christian groups called for a boycott after she revealed Dumbledore was gay.
Rowling, 42, has now […]

We witches were everywhere in October. I’m mostly pretty good at dealing with the omnipresence of graphic depictions of old women in pointy hats this time of year and have been known to joke that, during leaf season in WNC, witches are so popular and beloved — we’re even the decorations!
When I got gas for […]

A woman who claimed that a local nursing home fired her because of her Wiccan beliefs has lost her discrimination lawsuit against the facility.
Janet Brown-Schreiner alleged that Life Care Center of Grandview, a 170-bed adult-care home, terminated her as assistant director of nursing for subacute care after learning of her religion.
In her lawsuit, Brown-Schreiner contended […]

Chemical and archaeological evidence has pushed back the earliest known use of cacao, the key ingredient of chocolate, by 500 years.
The chemical compound, theobromine, which only occurs in the cacao plant, has been found on pottery vessels dating back to as early as 1000 BC.
Experts say the vessels were used to serve a fermented cacao […]