Cosmology

Humans have many different methods which attempt to answer fundamental questions about the nature of the universe and our place in it . Other methods include science, philosophy, metaphysics, esotericism, mysticism, and forms of shamanism, such as the sacred consumption of ayahuasca among Peruvian Amazonia's Urarina. The Urarina have an elaborate animistic cosmological system, which informs their mythology, religious orientation and daily existence.

Given the generalized discontents with modernity, consumerism, over-consumption, violence and anomie, many people in the so-called industrial or post-industrial West rely on a number of distinctive religious worldviews. This in turn has given rise to increased religious pluralism, as well as to what are commonly known in the academic literature as new religious movements, which are gaining ground across the globe.

Super volcano

A super volcano it refers to a volcano that produces the largest and most voluminous kinds of eruption on Earth. The actual explosivity of these eruptions varies, but the sheer volume of extruded magma is enough to radically alter the landscape and severely impact global climate for years, with a cataclysmic effect on life.

The term was originally coined by the producers of the BBC popular science program, Horizon, in 2000 to refer to these types of eruption. That investigation brought the subject more into the public eye, leading to further studies of the possible effects. At first, super volcano was not a technical term used in volcanology, but more recently, in 2003 and 2004, the term has been used in articles. Though there is no well-defined minimum size for a "super volcano", there are at least two types of volcanic eruption that have been identified as super volcanoes: massive eruptions and large igneous provinces.

Surreal humour

Surreal humour is a form of humour, stylistically linked to the artistic ambitions of the Surrealists, based on bizarre juxtapositions, absurd situations, and nonsense logic. A general element of surreal humour is the non-sequitur, in which one statement is followed by another with no logical progression.

Humour which we might now think surreal has been around at least since the nineteenth century. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass both use illogic and absurdity for humorous effect. Many of Edward Lear's nonsense stories and poems are also principally surreal in approach. Thus, Lear's "The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World," is filled with contradictory statements and odd images planned to provoke amusement.

"After a time they saw some land at a distance; and when they came to it, they found it was an island made of water quite bounded by earth. Besides that, it was bordered by evanescent isthmuses with a great Gulf-stream running about all over it, so that it was perfectly beautiful, and contained only a single tree, 503 feet high."