All the hype about the newly released Amir Bar-Lev documentary--"My Kid Could Paint That"--makes me think of when I was casting "Wiccan types" last year & more than a few mothers kept bragging to me about the past lives of their offspring. Of course, this isn't to cast any shade on Wiccans, or challenge the could-be-a-past-life-reference accounts of families--secular and otherwise--for whom I've babysat. I'm always interested in how families make sense of life & death vis-a-vis the idiosyncrasies of their... READ ON

Good day! Michael Stusser, here, with another This Day in Blogstery! All kinds of important events occurred on this date in history: In 1846, Neptune's moon Triton was discovered by William Lassell (though if we wait long enough, they may both be moons). In 1886, the first dinner jacket was worn to the autumn ball at Tuxedo Park, New York, and no one has ever looked at a penguin in the same way. In 1975, Liz Taylor wed for the 6th time (marrying Richard Burton for the 8th time"¦), In 2006,... READ ON

A new book called The Scent of Desire argues that smells are subjective; some people love the smell of roses, for instance, and some people -- like a woman interviewed in the book who first smelled roses at her mother's funeral -- hate them. But sometimes smelling something you hate isn't as bad as smelling nothing at all, which the author argues can drive you crazy. For example, the late singer from INXS, Michael Hutchence. He lost his sense of smell after a 1997 accident, and according to friends,... READ ON

King Tut's mummy is to be displayed for the first time next month in Luxor. The public can look at his bare face and finally see if he was buried in his jammies. The weird things amoebas do for the survival of the species. Cooperation, division of labor, altruism... we are talking about amoebas, aren't we? The most brilliant inventions of 2007. If you invent anything in the last three months of the year, you won't be on the list. Astronomers Find Dust in the Wind of Black Holes. This... READ ON