9 November: Day of the Skulls

In La Paz, Bolivia, they celebrate Dia de los ñatitas (Day of the Skulls) today. Here are 10 things you might not know about the human skull.

1. A human skull has 22 bones in it. Eight of them form the cranium and fourteen make up the face.
2. The teeth, nose and ear cartilege aren't counted as bones.
3. Only one of those bones moves - your jaw bone.
4. The joints between the cranial bones are called sutures. They are complex joints which are actually fractals.
5. An expert can tell, just by looking at a skull, whether it belonged to a man or a woman, and what race they were.
6. There are in the world a number of crystal skulls which have been claimed to be ancient artefacts with mystical powers. How could ancient peoples have made such things? Numerous books have been written about them, claiming they have the power to forsee the future, cure cancer or even kill people, and that there are thirteen of them, made in the lost city of Atlantis. Deliciously spooky as these claims are, it's now thought the crystal skulls were made in Germany in the 19th century and that the claims they are ancient were fraudulent.
7. Skulls are pretty tough - they have to be, since their function is to protect the brain. It would take about 785lbs of pressure to crush a human skull.
8. There are holes in the skull, aside from the obvious ones, the eye sockets and nose cavity, there are a number of openings called foramina which are there for Blood vessels and nerves. The largest of these is the foramen magnum, which is the one at the base where the spinal chord passes through.
9. Trepanation is a crude surgical procedure in which a hole is drilled in the skull. Archaeologists around the world have unearthed many human skulls with trepanation holes, showing it was a common procedure in ancient times, although nobody knows why. Some of the skulls also show signs of head injury or disease, so it may have been, in some cases, a means to try and relieve pain or treat a condition. Others show no signs of any disease. Perhaps those people suffered from painful conditions whch didn't leave any evidence in their bones. There is, however, a theory that trepanning was done to people as a ritual, perhaps to let spirits in or out of their bodies.
10. In 2013, a woman suffering from a condition in which her skull bones thickened so much they were compressing her brain, had her entire cranium replaced by a 3D printed polymer implant.

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Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

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