See, I take the morning off to get my hair done and all sorts of interesting stuff turns up. Here are some brief links.

– Neil has tweeted this, so you have probably all seen it, but some archaeologists working in Turkey have found a temple they believe to be 11,500 years old. That’s 6,000 years before Stonehenge was started. It is so old it predates the invention of pottery.

– Meanwhile archaeologists working on Crete have found a stone hand axe they believe to be 130,000 years old. That’s not so old for such an implement, except that Crete is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean, which leaves us wondering how the heck early humanoids got there.

– Jennifer Ouellette talks about the science of superheroes, and along the way has some interesting things to say about scientific accuracy in Hollywood.

– One of the things that always delights me is how simple mathematical rules can give rise to amazing complexity. Here’s a lovely story about the shapes of the beaks of finches studied by Darwin. (It also explains why we don’t see any “in between” beak shapes.)

– Jeff vanderMeer writes about Margaret Atwood and her interest in science fiction.

– Ekaterina Sedia explains why the outrageous style choices of Lady Gaga and Alexander McQueen are of interest to feminists.