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Absinthe Uncorked: The 'Green Fairy' Was Boozy -- But Not Psychedelic ScienceDaily (May 1, 2008) — A new study may end the century-old controversy over what ingredient in absinthe caused the exotic green aperitif's supposed mind-altering effects and toxic side-effects when consumed to excess. In the most comprehensive analysis of old bottles of original absinthe -- once quaffed by the likes of van Gogh, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso to enhance their creativity -- a team of scientists from Europe and the United States have concluded the culprit was plain and simple: A high alcohol content, rather than thujone, the compound...

The former Pink Floyd star died from cancer in July at the age of 60.Late Pink Floyd star Syd Barrett left his brother and two sisters a $2.25 million estate in his will. The former singer/songwriter died from cancer in July at the age of 60. His family was forced to write Barrett's will for him, because he was considered incapable himself under the Mental Health Act. Barrett left the legendary band in 1968 after suffering an LSD-induced breakdown.

The former home of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, who died in July, has attracted huge interest from potential buyers undeterred by the reclusive singer's patchy home improvement efforts. Dozens of people have viewed the 1930s house in Cambridge, England, which in the delicate words of the estate agent "provides an excellent opportunity for sympathetic improvement and updating." The walls are painted a patchwork of pink, orange, brown, blue, turquoise and lavender, while cheap wooden shelves cling precariously to the walls of every room. Barrett's decorating has done little to deter people from taking a look, with 40 viewings last...

BERKELEY — Wavy Gravy, the activist clown, former Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor, hippie icon and self-proclaimed psychedelic relic, is turning 70, and he wants a birthday gift from you. Gravy wants you to buy a ticket to a big-name concert May 20 that will benefit the Seva Foundation, a nonprofit organization that runs public health programs in India, Nepal, Tibet, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Tanzania to eliminate curable blindness. "Please," he begged recently in a telephone interview from his Berkeley home, where he said he has been on a strict diet to get healthy for his golden years. "Seventy...

No longer the wood of the Cross but the crossed bricks. Strange monsters were once only to be found in drug induced hazes and outer space. But now at a Catholic Mass.

Ok, it has been a real pleasure chatting with everyone here on FR (well, just about everyone anyways) but it's time for me to move on. I've got some work to do that is going to require 110% effort from me for extended period of time and I can't have any distractions whatsoever. I'll stop by from time to time but am afraid if I still have my account I will be tempted to post and then - as is my wont - get into silly, useless debates about things I a) don't really care about, or b) don't know...

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - The scientist who introduced Ecstasy to the world in the 1970s fears the drug's notoriety and popularity at nightclubs is destroying any chance that it might be used to treat the mentally ill. "It's very excellent potential for being used as medicine has been badly jeopardized," Alexander Shulgin, told Reuters after defending the merits of mind-altering drugs at a symposium on the human brain at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this week."It's gone out of control," lamented Shulgin, a tall Californian with a mane of white hair and a Santa Claus-like beard, who is widely known...

The first live show for 36 years by Eric Clapton's blues/rock "power trio" may have attracted the attentions of the media, but it has had difficulty snaring anyone under 40; young people are conspicuous by their absence from the bars and foyers of the Royal Albert Hall. The atmosphere is less like a rock concert than a corporate hospitality tent at Wimbledon. Paunchy men in sports jackets clink ice in gin and tonics, and mumsy ladies fan themselves with pricey souvenir programmes. Presumably some of them were here the last time Cream played the Royal Albert Hall, squinting at the...

(02-09) 14:58 PST Amarillo, Texas (AP) -- Authorities doubt Cupid had any part in the 9 pounds of heart-shaped candies discovered during a traffic stop. The candies, found Monday by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, tested positive for psilocybin, a psychedelic drug extracted from a mushroom of the same name. The estimated value of the faux Valentine's Day chocolate was more than $408,000, DPS officials said in a news release. The troopers found the candy in a plastic bag after stopping a San Francisco man's 2005 Toyota Corolla on Interstate 40 about three miles west of Amarillo. Craig Allen...

PETALUMA, Calif. - Spencer Dryden, the drummer for legendary rock band the Jefferson Airplane, has died of cancer. He was 66. Dryden, who died at his home Tuesday, retired from performing 10 years ago, although he hadn't been working much before that. "I'm gone," he told the San Francisco Chronicle last May. "I'm out of it. I've left the building." A benefit concert last year featuring Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and Warren Haynes of Gov't Mule and raised $36,000 for Dryden, who was in the middle of two hip replacement surgeries and was facing heart surgery at the...

Las Vegas - Though it's drenched in decades-old feedback, the garage music that helped electrify the 1960s is still alive and brighter than the neon in this town that hosts an annual festival of all things '60s rock. The Las Vegas Rockaround, which took over the Gold Coast Casino here last weekend, is a celebration of growling guitars, vicious vocals and songs that rarely top 3 minutes. The music is where punk meets R&B, where soul meets frat-rock, where garage meets surf meets the blues meets rockabilly meets psychedelic. More simply put, it's the reason we have the Hives, the...

Roky Erickson sat at a corner table at Curra's Grill, eating carne guisada and watching a lightning storm flash above the Austin skies. He scooped up the last of his black beans and rice, sipped his saccharin-sweetened iced tea through a clear plastic straw, then nodded at a nearby waiter. "That was real good," he said. For most people, this is mundane stuff, the routine rituals of daily life. But for Roky, an Austin rock legend who has struggled for decades with paranoid schizophrenia, these small public moments are big private victories. A little more than a year ago, Roky...