What's With all the Skulls?

'Hallucinatory Head ' on sale at Tate Modern gift shop

(NEWSER) - We get it. You've always dreamed of owning Damien Hirst's diamond-encrusted human skull , or maybe his diamond-encrusted baby skull , but you just don't have the scratch. Well if you swing by Damien Hirst's new exhibit at the Tate Modern, you can now have the next best thing: a plastic skull doused in "household gloss" paint. Dubbed Hallucinatory Head, the skulls are supposed to reference both Hirst's famous skull and his spin paintings, and they're on sale in the gift shop for just $58,370, the Telegraph reports. More»

At least one parents' group is offended

(NEWSER) - Has bad-boy British artist Damien Hirst finally gone too far? The head of a parenting group says his latest work, a baby skull covered in platinum and bejeweled with 8,000 diamonds, will be “deeply disturbing” to bereaved parents. The skull used in For Heaven’s Sake is believed to be from a child who died before the age of two weeks during the Victorian era. Hirst, whose artwork has also included dissected sharks and pickled sheep, acquired the skull as part of a 19th century collection. More»

Once scary, now stylish, skulls are trendy—and not just at Halloween

(NEWSER) - Skulls, once seen as sinister symbols, are now used on everything from children's shirts to underwear. Sara Dickerman of Slate takes a look at how the trend developed:

• In the 16th century, artists like Albrecht Dürer were still using skulls to remind people of their mortality.
• French pirate Emanuel Wynn was the first to use the skull-and-crossbones logo on his ship's flag.
• As skulls came to symbolize bravado, fighters—from US special operations to the Nazi SS—used them on uniforms.

Candidates reveal pop-culture picks

(NEWSER) - Closet ABBA fan: Obama or McCain? The two presidential hopefuls recently bared all to Entertainment Weekly, revealing their pop-culture preferences:

• Favorite superhero: Obama: Spiderman, McCain: Batman
• iPod playlist: Obama: Frank Sinatra, Sheryl Crow, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan; McCain: Roy Orbison, Linda Rhonstadt, Usher, and yes, ABBA

Media machine distorts view, author finds

(NEWSER) - German college students aren't impressed with American culture—they're not even sure it exists, author Chuck Klosterman finds at the outset of a teaching stint in Leipzig. "The proliferation of media has made it virtually impossible to tell the difference between a) what information is unilaterally interesting," Klosterman writes in Esquire, "and b) what information is merely available." More»