Yes, children, this is what it was like growing up in the 90s

"‘epic’ new Burgess Shale site in Canada's Kootenay National Park"

"A new phyllopod bed-like assemblage from the Burgess Shale of the Canadian Rockies"

edited to add: "Mighty Burgess Shale fossil site discovered in Kootenay National Park" (pictures)

So, there are visual afterimages, right? But apparently the equivalent auditory afterimages also exist: if you listen to white noise with a notch cut out of its spectrum, and the noise suddenly stops, you will sometimes briefly hear a tone that would have filled the notch. Web page with spectrograms and a .wav file.

for those of you who liked the last one, James Mickens has written another

ancient blood rituals that Bjarne Stroustrup performed at Stonehenge

Notice of Pretend Site Development

( see also previously)

In which Zombie Stanisław Lem writes a brief history of processor architecture (pdf)

Luca Parmitano- the astronaut whose suit malfunctioned and started filling with water on an EVA a few weeks ago- posted a blog entry recounting the experience. Scary just to read about. (Via MeFi.)

(I mentioned to jinian that The Europa Report, a movie with a good premise but kind of lacking in the details, could maybe have used events like this.)

Contact lenses with a zoom mode. Sorta. (I can't read the paper but it sounds like they haven't worked out such minor details as aligning the annular shutter pattern to the wearer's gaze, being able to blink over a 1mm-thick angular object, etc.)

Not as cyberpunk as this but still.

Wow, maybe instead of going to Machu Picchu, my idle-fantasy vacation is going to Nan Madol.

Elevated bikeways are an oddly persistent idea. Sofia. Toronto. Eindhoven. Los Angeles in 1897.