Free Republic

The French psychiatrist Jacques-Joseph Moreau published a book called Hashish and Mental Illness in 1845, the same year that Scientific American brought out its first issue. In it, he explored his own experiences with the drug cannabis at the Paris-based Club des Hachichins—some of which took place alongside the likes of Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac and Charles Baudelaire. Two years earlier Moreau described the “undescribable delights” of a “marvelous substance.” But in his 1845 book, he noted in great clinical detail the similarities to psychosis when ingesting high doses. Nearly two centuries later the possible link between cannabis use...

A comet is currently brightening faster than expected, giving hope that it will become a prominent object visible with the unaided eye in May. An image of Comet C/2019 ATLAS taken from Walmer, Kent, UK, on March 12th, 2020. Image credit: Paul Sutherland The celestial visitor is labelled C/2019 Y4 ATLAS, indicating that it was discovered in 2019 by a sky survey called the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). This robotic survey, based in Hawaii, searches for small objects to help defend Earth against possible future impacts, and has found several comets as well as asteroids. Comet C/2019 Y4...

Canadian explorers have drawn a blank in the latest hunt for the remains of Captain Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, 160 years after he took his crew of 129 men deep into the Arctic.In 1845, Capt Franklin, an officer in the British Royal Navy, took two ships and 129 men towards the Northwest Territories in an attempt to map the Northwest Passage, a route that would allow sailors to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the icy Arctic circle. Stocked with provisions that could last for seven years, and outfitted with the latest technology and experienced men, the...