It's not elegant and it's not sexy – it looks like a large photocopier – but the Espresso Book Machine is being billed as the biggest change for the literary world since Gutenberg invented the printing press more than 500 years ago and made the mass production of books possible. Launching today at Blackwell's Charing Cross Road branch in London, the machine prints and binds books on demand in five minutes, while customers wait.

Signaling the end, says Blackwell, to the frustration of being told by a bookseller that a title is out of print, or not in stock, the Espresso offers access to almost half a million books, from a facsimile of Lewis Carroll's original manuscript for Alice in Wonderland to Mrs Beeton's Book of Needlework. Blackwell hopes to increase this to over a million titles by the end of the summer – the equivalent of 23.6 miles of shelf space, or over 50 bookshops rolled into one. The majority of these books are currently out-of-copyright works, but Blackwell is working with publishers throughout the UK to increase access to in-copyright writings, and says the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

A teacher at Wiley Elementary School, in Richland, Washington, asked students to put together their autobiographies. One 8-year-old boy included a photograph of his father, David Henes. The photo showed Henes, who is a member of the Army National Guard, in uniform and holding his rifle. School officials told the boy to remove that photo, saying it wasn't appropriate for the classroom.

Every year, on the appropriate date of April 1, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) gives out the Pigasus Awards, a dubious honor to people or organizations that have done their best in the past year to snuff out science and promote irrationality. The award is named after the beloved mascot of the JREF because, after all, when paranormal powers are proven, pigs will fly.

The five categories of the Pigasus Award are:
1. To the Scientist who said or did the silliest thing relating to parapsychology in the preceding twelve months.
2. To the Funding Organization that supports the most useless parapsychological study during the year.
3. To the Media outlet that reported as fact the most outrageous paranormal claim.
4. To the "Psychic" performer who fools the greatest number of people with the least effort in that twelve-month period.
5. For the most persistent refusal to face reality.

This year's (dis)honorees are:
1) Dr. Colin Ross, who can shoot electromagnetic radiation from his eyes;
2) The Producers of the movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed";
3) Late night cable TV stations;
4) Jenny McCarthy; who has written books and appeared on countless TV shows promoting measles; and
5) Kevin Trudeau; who sold quack books even after the government fined him for it.

Details of these prestigious prestidigitators are below. They receive no actual trophy, no prize money, no plaque; just the publicity they generally seek, though perhaps not in the way they want it.

What makes the history of Rome great is not that it was made by men different from us, but that it was made by men like ourselves. There was nothing supernatural about them. If there had been, there would be less reason for us to admire them. Cicero and Carnelutti, the famous jurist, have a lot in common. Caesar as a young man was an utter blackguard, and all his life remained the woman-chaser who used to comb his hair over the top from the back and sides because he was ashamed of being bald. Augustus did not spend all his time like an automaton organizing the empire, but also having trouble with his colitis and rheumatism, and he very nearly lost his first battle against Brutus and Cassius owing to an attack of diarrhea.

Exquisite frescoes in the house of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, will go on show after a 40-year restoration project. The modest villa, which stands on Palatine Hill overlooking the Forum was discovered in the early 1960s after a dig uncovered a small fragment of painted plaster.