"The Jews have the greatest powers of sorcery, and they make use of this tool," top Iranian official Mehdi Taeb said last week.

He's right, we do.

"Iranian official: Jews used sorcery against Iran" (Jerusalem Post)

photo by Ransom & Mitchell

"Every Noise At Once" is a fun, clickable map of musical genres where you can hear samples of the bands.

This tiny skeleton, just 6 inches long, was found a decade ago in Chile's Atacama Desert. Scientists now report that DNA and other test results prove that it is human. Fox Mulder believes otherwise. "Alien-Looking Skeleton Poses Medical Mystery" (Discovery, thanks Syd Garon!)

And here is more about this specimen's provenance and its unwitting participation in a new documentary about ETs visiting Earth, titled Sirius.

Eleven years ago, Brenda Heist of central Pennsylvania vanished. She had dropped off her kids, then 8 and 12, at school. Dinner was defrosting. Laundry was half-done. And then she was gone without a trace. There was a long investigation. Her husband was considered a suspect at one point. Eventually, she was declared dead. Then last week, Heist walked up to police in South Florida and told them who she was. Not surprisingly, her children aren't ready to forgive her. From CBS News:

It began when three strangers reached out to comfort (Heist) as she cried in despair in a park in 2002, then offered to let her accompany them. She took them up on it…

Heist decided to join the three strangers as they hitchhiked for a month along Interstate 95 on their way to South Florida. She told (Lititz Borough Police Detective John Schofield) she slept in tents and under bridges, survived by scavenging restaurant trash and panhandling, and kept her previous life a secret, contacting no one and using a pseudonym.

Now 54, Heist told police she spent seven years living with a man in a camper and working odd jobs, but more recently she was homeless again, living in a tent facility run by a social service agency.

"She said she was at the end of her rope, she was tired of running," Schofield said.

"Mom Brenda Heist resurfaces 11 years after abandoning kids"

Excellent collection of DIY geeky and arty mailboxes. "22 unusual and creative mailboxes you don’t see everyday" (via MAKE)

IBM nanoscientists used a scanning tunneling microscope to push around carbon monoxide atoms to create this stop motion animation. The image has been magnified 100 million times. See below for a video about how the movie was made. "A Boy and His Atom"

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Chris "Mac Daddy" Kelly of Kris Kross has died. He was 34. Kris Kross's big hit, of course, was "Jump" from their 1992 album "All Krossed Out." And yes, they were the kids who wore their pants backwards. (Billboard)

A funny Tumblr: "White Men Wearing Google Glass" (Bonus points for including Bruce Sterling.) (via Jason Tester)

Our friends at the Webby Awards announced this year's winners and as usual, it's a fantastic mix of familiar sites and also sites I'd never heard of but will now kill my productivity for the week. Here's a taste: Mental Floss won for best cultural blog, NFB took the Net Art prize for "Bear 71," Rainn Wilson's Soulpancake picked up two People's Voice Awards for video, VICE News also landed film and video awards, and One Tiny Hand won in the Weird category. The Special Achievement honorees are a great lot too: Steve Wilhite (inventor of the GIF), Frank Ocean, Jerry Seinfeld, Grimes, and others. Cheers to the winners! The Webby Awards 2013

"Screengrab" by Willie Witte. "None of the visuals are computer generated. All the trickery took place literally in front of the camera."

French artist and fashion designer Maripol directed a new Web documentary about her friend Keith Haring. There are currently three Haring exhibitions in Paris right now, taking place at the Museé D'Art Moderne, 104, and Colette.

Here's Alex Cox, director of Repo Man (1984), interviewed recently by psychotronic film buff and master poster artist Jay Shaw. Criterion just re-released Repo Man on DVD and Blu-ray, featuring original package art by Shaw and Tyler Stout of Austin's Mondo Gallery scene. Repo Man: Criterion Collection edition (via Mondo)

Unicron9 created a custom Star Trek/Transformers crossover toy in which the Enterprise transformed into Autobot E. "The head had to be long because the deflector dish is on the top of it for alt mode," Unicron9 says, "so I went for a majestic alien look with a mix of Geordi's visor, Vulcan ears, and Andorian antennas." "Star Trek/Transformers Crossovers: Autobot E" (deviantART)

Did you lose your head? The crew team of Poughkeepsie, New York's Marist College spotted this seven foot sculpture floating in the Hudson River last week. The men's crew head coach described the scene as "something out of a post-apocalyptic movie.” They dragged it to shore but nobody has called to claim it. (Poughkeepsie Journal)

The voice you can hear above is Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. Bell's voice, not likely heard anywhere since he died in 1922, was retrieved from a wax-and-cardboard disc recorded on April 15, 1885 and recently "played" for the first time in more than a century. That's the disc above, looking strangely similar to a CD. The recording was identified and digitized by a team including researchers from the National Museum of American History, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Library of Congress. In the clip above, Bell says "Hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell." You can listen to nearly five minutes more of the recording session below. (via Smithosnian and The Atlantic)

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