Anheuser-Busch's announced sale to Belgian brewing giant InBev has been cause for considerable consternation among many members of the media, who seem to think that selling a company so firmly grounded in the American way of life is downright unpatriotic. To hear many people tell it, selling the makers of Budweiser to a foreign conglomerate is tantamount to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, burning a flag, or saying, "No thanks, I don't like apple pie that much." Some digging,... READ ON

We've covered pica here on the blog before -- any one of a number of conditions in which people are compelled to eat things that aren't food -- but compulsively eating urinal cakes or snacking on match heads seems a world away from today's topic, geophagy -- eating dirt. The reason is that, despite a fair amount of disagreement among experts, there are a lot of people who believe eating dirt can have some health benefits. An ingredient found in clay from the Southern US is also one of the main active... READ ON

Conceptually speaking, air conditioning has been around since the first primitive humans ducked into cool, damp caves to take refuge from summer heat. But aside from fans of various shapes and sizes, the technology of temperature control didn't progress beyond the stone age until the 1830s. That's when John Gorrie, a doctor from Florida, decided to do something about the stifling heat in his hospital, which he reasoned wasn't doing his malaria and yellow fever infected patients much... READ ON

"¢ Let's kick things off with 10 Historic Monuments Dedicated to Great Geeks. "¢ From Denise, a cool video about the significance of images seen by the Hubble telescope. Perhaps it will transport you back to those planetarium field trips of old, first agog at the sheer vastness of space. It may make you feel insignificant, that we're all just grains of sand in the universe, but don't worry—some grains of sand can be pretty darn interesting. "¢ I'll let Eric explain this game... READ ON