Ancient Code (DVD)
30.6.09Ancient Code: Are you Ready?
Παραγωγή: Reality Films, 2009
Some say the end of mankind is near. Some say that financial turmoil is part of the process, along with global warming, warfare and the spread of mass psychosis. Children are fed drugs to keep them calm; nations are invaded by their neighbors; the climate is changing all around us; celebrities become our gods and materialism is the new mantra.
But what is the real truth? Is there an answer to all this? Does not the problem increase as the population of mankind multiplies beyond all reason? Are our material lives making us happier and if so, then why so many self-help books, films and philosophies? It can't be denied that the times are changing. Every day sees new challenges for our species, while we cause mayhem and madness on an unbelievable scale. But there is a ratio to it all, a rhyme and reason behind everything that we do and everything that affects us.
In Ancient Code - The Movie, a group of experts will harness a power so great that our ancestors were in awe of it. This power has been hidden and lost. Knowledge of it has been destroyed. Many have sought to rediscover it and wield it and many have fallen foul of their own selfishness. Like mad magicians seeking to rule the world, men of renown have fleetingly seen the incredible nature of this Ancient Code and all too often they have missed the point.
Today we too have missed the point. We spend our lives naming things and separating them, when they remain whole all the same. We vainly believe that we can disconnect ourselves. It needs no material gain. It needs no hatred and warfare. It needs no drugs.
You are the key to the code....
Starring Graham Jarvis and featuring Dr. Tim Wallace-Murphy, Prof. Hugh Montgomery, Brian Allan, Steve Mitchell, Nick Ashron, Nick Pope, Johnny Ball, Philip Gardiner and the voice of O. H. Krill. An Ancient Code Production in association with Reality Films. Written by Philip Gardiner, with excerpts by Steve Mitchell, Mike Stone & O. H. Krill. Directed by Philip Gardiner.
Reality Is What You Make It
Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες, επισκεφτείτε το επίσημο site. Read more on this article…
Χημική Χειραγώγηση του Michael Jackson με Σκοπό το Κέρδος;
29.6.09Μία πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα θεωρία (συνωμοσίας;) για τον Michael Jackson και το αδιαμφισβήτητο γεγονός πως κατά τη διάρκεια της ζωής του κατανάλωσε δεκάδες διαφορετικά ψυχοφάρμακα. Η θεωρία πρωτοπαρουσιάστηκε από τον Mike Adams, ανεξάρτητο δημοσιογράφο και συγγραφέα πλήθους βιβλίων για την υγεία και την ορθή διατροφή. Το παραπάνω σε συνδυασμό με την πηγή του παρόντος κειμένου (NaturalNews.com), αποτελεί μία πολύ καλή δικλίδα ασφαλείας για την αξιοπιστία και την επιστημονική ορθότητα της θεωρίας...
Michael Jackson's death gives us an opportunity to reflect on the way he was treated by the media (and the public) while he was alive. Through his work, Michael Jackson went to great lengths to send a message of love to the world -- to inspire others and add joy to our lives -- and yet he was derided as a monster by the tabloid media while being humiliated by the comedy routines of late-night talk show hosts.
Western culture is cruel to celebrities.
Anyone in a position of notoriety is automatically deemed a fair target for outrageous accusations and slander. As somewhat of a minor celebrity (in a narrow field) myself, I've seen some of this cruelty directed my way, and I can only imagine how much more devastating the cruelty would be at the scale and degree that was thrust upon Michael Jackson throughout his professional career.
Jackson was derided simply for being different. He had unconventional tastes and pursued uncommon lifestyle choices, and many of those choices made conservative people nervous. So they invented lies and played them up for their own personal profit. The whole accusation of Michael Jackson having sexual escapades with young boys was, by any honest accounting, a complete fabrication engineered for nothing more than personal profit.
In fact, Jackson was financially exploited by virtually everyone close to him. His "handlers" were highly-paid promoters who saw Jackson as their ticket to wealth. It might even be argued that they pushed him to the fringe of a pharmaceutical-induced death through their attempts to exploit his work for their own profits.
Again, I sometimes feel exploited in the same way, such as when companies pressure me to write articles about their products even though I'm on a hectic schedule of trying to cover other important topics. With Michael Jackson, though, the pressure must have been a thousand times worse. Hundreds of millions of dollars were on the line, and if Jackson could only be pumped up with enough drugs and makeup to bang out another fifty concerts, the people around him could walk home filthy rich.
Pharmaceuticals as tools of control
Although I have no specific proof of this, it is my belief that pharmaceuticals became the tools by which Michael Jackson's handlers were able to chemically abuse him in their quest for further profits. With the right drugs, even a frail man can be artificially pumped up with enough energy to make a stage appearance -- although at great cost to his vitality. And some of the drugs he was put on have the effect of turning you into a mind-numbed zombie, primed for mental manipulation.Jackson's handlers, of course, will insist they loved the man like a friend and money had nothing to do with it. Such a claim is easy to verify: Just check the payroll stubs. If the numbers aren't zero, money probably had everything to do with it. (It's easy to be somebody's "friend" when they're paying you a seven-figure income.)
In the end, there's no doubt that Jackson was pumped full of too many drugs for any man to bear. Pharmaceuticals don't cure anything, after all, and the more you take, the more toxic the combinations become. The Sun newspaper in the UK claims Jackson was taking Xanax, Prilosec, Vicodin, Paxil, Demerol, Soma, Dilaudid and Zoloft. That's an extremely toxic combination of drugs that no person should be taking long-term. And yet it seems (from press reports, if you can believe those) that Jackson was on some of these drugs for a very long period of time... decades, in some cases.
Certainly, Jackson himself is not free from responsibility in all this. His seemingly fanatical pursuit of cosmetic surgery might be called a form of self-inflicted medical abuse. Some of the drugs he was taking were no doubt pursued as a way to alleviate the possible pain and scarring resulting from so many surgical procedures. And yet for that, he can only blame himself, as those procedures were voluntary (and entirely unnecessary). Jackson was loved for his voice, his message and his wide-open heart. In no way did he actually need a new face to be a successful, inspiring artist (the face he was born with would have been just fine).
Being really famous leads to extreme isolation
The more he tried to alter his face, though, the more he became the subject of ridicule by the press and his fans. The cruelty of accusations and jokes drove Jackson into extreme isolation, where he could never interact with the real public. Unlike you and I, Michael Jackson couldn't stroll through a mall, or order a sandwich at a restaurant. He couldn't sit anonymously in an airport or meet new friends in a public park. As a result of his super-worldly celebrity status -- combined with outrageous public ridicule for his chosen way of life -- he was more alone in our world than almost anyone.And in that state of extreme loneliness and isolation, his doctors prescribed powerful, mind-altering psychiatric drugs along with a chemical cocktail of other pharmaceuticals that ultimately killed him. That is the saddest part of this story: That Big Pharma's chemicals have stolen from us yet another amazing individual whose life was cut short by chemical intervention.
While he may have made many poor decisions in his life (and with his health), in no way did Jackson deserve to be killed by Big Pharma. Nor does anyone else deserve such a devastating fate. Yet that same fate continues to hammer down upon a hundred thousand Americans each and every year. Their tombstones are not as elaborate as Michael Jackson's, nor are their funerals as extravagant, but their deaths are just as tragic and unnecessary as the death of the King of Pop.
May he rest in peace, and may the cruel defamation of his character finally be laid to rest at the same time.
Πηγή: NaturalNews.com Read more on this article…
Οι Παραφυσικές Εμπειρίες του Michael Jackson
27.6.09In the early 1980s, Jackson began to transform into something quite stranger than a werewolf, of course, as a result of multiple plastic surgeries. What he became makes the title here, "Michael Jackson and the Paranormal," sound like the premise of a joke or at least a redundancy, but that's not my intention. Despite his obvious talent, it's hard to imagine a person weirder than Jackson was at times, from his grotesque appearance to his quirky behavior – a bizarre image he seemed to have purposely cultivated. But we'll leave all that (and other matters) for others to judge.
Beyond the imaginary elements of "Thriller," Michael Jackson did have real-life connections to the world of the paranormal.
URI GELLER
Jackson was close friends with controversial psychic Uri Geller. In fact, in March, 2001 when Geller and his wife retook their wedding vows in a well-publicized ceremony, Jackson stood in as best man.
Apparently, Jackson first learned about Geller when he was a small boy through some books about the psychic, and was particularly fascinated by his spoon-bending and telepathic abilities. Many years later, they were formally introduced by Mohammed Al Fayed (the father of Dodi Fayed, who was killed in the car crash that also took the life of Princess Diana). Jackson urged Geller to come to New York to meet him, which he did. Jackson rented a movie theater for Geller, Jackson and Jackson's son Prince for a private screening of The Matrix, which features a scene of psychic spoon bending, probably inspired by Geller's trademark feat.
Geller was even invited to attend one of Jackson's recording sessions in 2000 or 2001. Reportedly, Geller meditated over the recording tapes to "energize" them.
Geller was also a staunch defender of Jackson regarding his legal troubles involving minors. According to Geller, back in 2001 he hypnotized Jackson to help cure an urge for peanut butter. While Jackson was under, Geller also asked him about his alleged sexual molestation of children. "He answered me under deep hypnosis that he had never touched a child in a sexual way," Geller told CBS News. "He said – and here I'm using his exact words – 'My relations with children are very beautiful.' I'm a good hypnotist, and I know who is trying to mislead me. I can see straight into the subject's eyes ... [Jackson] didn't fool me, I'm absolutely sure of it."
And there's another psychic in Jackson's corner. Jacqueline Stallone, mother of actor Sylvester Stallone, claims to be a clairvoyant and has been doing psychic readings and making predictions for years. In fact, she correctly predicted that Arnold Schwarzenegger would become Governor of California. In November, 2003, Stallone told the MSNBC source The Scoop that Jackson would be found innocent. "He is totally innocent. I got a flash. You're going to find out that this is the biggest frame up that ever happened. People say his career is over. They're wrong. He's going to come out of this stronger than ever. This all came to me like a lightning bolt."
Stallone was correct about Jackson being found innocent of all charges, but I don't think it can be said that he emerged stronger than ever.
PSYCHIC MICHAEL
On at least one occasion, Jackson indicated that he had psychic experiences. In an interview with Barbara Walters on September 12, 1997, she asked him how he heard of Princess Diana's death. "I woke up, and my doctor gave me the news," he said, "and I fell back down in grief, and started to cry.... I said there's another one real soon, I feel it coming, there's another one, and I pray it's not me. Please, don't let it be me. And Mother Teresa came."
Walters then asked if he was saying he was psychic. "I don't want to say that," he replied, "but I've done it before."
MICHAEL AND GHOSTS
Jackson wrote a song called "Ghosts," but it's not about the supernatural kind. It appears to be about the legal system that haunted him.
But he did have ghost connections. In October, 2004, Jackson was reported by BBC News to be bidding on a "genuine Irish ghost trapped in a bottle." A retired mill worker in Ireland was auctioning the item on eBay, saying that it was at least 100 years old and was bricked up in a window by a priest following a failed exorcism. A newspaper report said that an agent representing Jackson was involved in the bidding. It sold for $478.33, but it is not known if Jackson was the winner.
Jackson did claim, according to several sources, to communicate with the spirit of flamboyant pianist Liberace, who died in 1987. Jackson supposedly had a private mirror-filled room where he communed with Liberace. "That's where I talk to Lee," Jackson said. "His is the voice I hear in there. I feel his presence so very close to me. [He] is like my guardian angel. He's even given me permission to record his theme song 'I'll Be Seeing You'."
When he was alive, there was a Michael Jackson joke that poked fun at his gaunt, pale appearance:
Q: What's the difference between Michael Jackson and a ghost?
A: One is completely white and has a scary face. The other is a supernatural being.
Now the joke only has a morbid irony.
Πηγή: http://paranormal.about.com Read more on this article…
Πέθανε ο Μ. Τζάκσον ή Μήπως Είναι όλα μια Συνωμοσία;
26.6.09Η παγκόσμια μουσική σκηνή θρηνεί για το θάνατο του διάσημου Αμερικανού τραγουδιστή Μάικλ Τζάκσον, ο οποίος απεβίωσε την Πέμπτη 26 Ιουνίου σε ηλικία 51 ετών. Σύμφωνα με την επίσημη ιατρική ανακοίνωση, ο θάνατος του οφείλετε σε καρδιακό επεισόδιο… ή μήπως δεν είναι έτσι!
Όπως συνέβη παλαιότερα με τον τραγικό θάνατο του Έλβις, έτσι και σήμερα δεν είναι λίγοι αυτοί που αμφιβάλουν αναζητώντας εναλλακτικές απαντήσεις.
Για να ενημερωθείτε για τις πρώτες θεωρίες συνωμοσίας που διαμορφώθηκαν στο λαβύρινθο του διαδικτίου, επιστεφτείτε εδώ. Read more on this article…
Ο Γκέλερ Επιστρέφει στην Ελληνική TV
24.6.09Θυμάστε ασφαλώς τον ενθουσιασμό που προκάλεσε ο Γιούρι Γκέλερ όταν εμφανίστηκε στην εκπομπή του Κώστα Χαρδαβέλλα επιδεικνύοντας μια μίξη από τις παραφυσικές και ταχυδακτυλουργικές του ικανότητες. Τελικά, όπως όλα δείχνουν, ο αγαπητός «θαυματοποιός», μέντιουμ και ψυχαγωγός του παράδοξου αποκτά δική του τηλεοπτική εκπομπή και στην χώρα μας.
Συγκεκριμένα, ο τηλεοπτικός σταθμός του Αντ1 προτίθεται να προβάλει μια νέα σειρά ωριαίων εκπομπών όπου ο Γκέλερ θα επιδεικνύει στους Έλληνες μερικές από τις απίστευτες δυνάμεις του, ενώ ταυτόχρονα θα προσπαθεί να βρει ανθρώπους με ξεχωριστές ικανότητες όπως έχει και ο ίδιος.
Ας σημειωθεί, πως ανάλογες εκπομπές πραγματοποιεί σε διάφορες χώρες τις Ευρώπης με τίτλο The Next Uri Geller, βαδίζοντας στα πρότυπα του America's Next Top Model της Tyra Banks, αλλά σε διαφορετικό (παραψυχολογικό) πλαίσιο! Read more on this article…
UFO στην Κολομβία
20.6.09Το video μπορείτε να δείτε εδώ. Read more on this article…
Phoenix crop circle may predict end of the world
18.6.09Crop circle experts believe the latest pattern to be discovered, a phoenix rising from the flames in Wiltshire, may give a warning about the end of the world.
The 400-foot design was discovered in a barley field in Yatesbury near Devizes and depicts the mythical phoenix reborn as it rises from the ashes.
Investigators claim more formations are referencing the possibility of a cataclysmic event occurring on December 21, 2012, which coincides with the end of the ancient Mayan calendar.
The Mayans believed civilisation exists within a series of earth cycles of 144,000 days each with the 13th expiring in December 2012, resulting in Armageddon.
Crop circle enthusiast Karen Alexander, from Gosport, Hants, said: "The phoenix is a mythical creature which symbolises rebirth and a new era in many cultures across the world.
"Within the crop circle community many believe the designs are constantly referring to December 21 and its aftermath.
"This could be interpreted as the human race or earth rising again after a monumental event.
"The patterns are becoming more intricate with every find and it is exciting to think how they are going to evolve by the time we get to 2012."
Recent crop circles have included giant jelly-fish and one image discovered in Wiltshire in June which experts dubbed the most 'mind boggling' they had ever come across.
The formation, measuring 150ft in diameter, is apparently a coded image representing the first 10 digits, 3.141592654, of pi.
Πηγή: www.telegraph.co.uk Read more on this article…
LISBURN MEN FIND GIANT SNAKE IN THE AMAZON
16.6.09IT SOUNDS like an Indiana Jones adventure. After 23 years of research including the detailed study of ancient art, cultures spanning 3000 years and three continents to the latest in satellite imaging technology, a father and son make an extraordinary trip deep into the heart of the Peruvian Amazon to confirm their theories that this is where a giant anaconda with a difference lives.
But that's precisely what Lisburn man Mike Warner (73) and his son Greg (44) have done, seeking evidence that this was the home of the Yacumama and actually capturing a picture of the creature. A leviathan of the jungle, which reports say reaches 40 metres in length and two metres in diameter, it dwarfs any snake known to science.
This anaconda is not green but dark brown and is known by the locals as the 'black boa' or 'Yacumama'.
"Yacumama is translated as Mother of the Water and reports of this giant snake abound throughout the Amazon basin and history."
Mike, who is partially sighted, has spent 23 years researching the beast but it was only six months ago when his son discovered his research documents and they decided to take part in the incredble journey.
Cryptozooologist Mike of Hillhall spent his life savings setting up the expedition with Greg to find out more about the snake, which reports say can engorge water then shoot a monkey out of a tree like a water canon.
The team spent 12 days in March using the latest satellite equipment to take images of the huge reptile and were able to officially announce the discovery on May 2.
The explorers were dogged by hazardous weather conditions in the middle of the rainy season but eventually managed to take off by hydroplane from the Amazon River on day five of the expedition.
"Despite being buffeted by a freak storm we managed several flyovers at an average altitude of 400 feet recording video footage from two cameras at either side to the rear of the aircraft and Greg, located in the front with the pilot, taking around 300 still photographs" said Mike who had his 73rd birthday while in Peru.
After an exhausting 12 days in the jungle and a 30 hour trip back home the father and son team were finally able to examine their photo evidence in more detail, over 700 photos and five hours of video
"The data is immense and will take months to fully appreciate but already it supports our theories of 'channels' created by these giants as they make their way through the dense jungle knocking down trees 90 feet tall, but more importantly we managed to catch one of these reclusive giants on camera as it made its way through one of its watery channels."
It was Colonel Percy Fawcett, who was commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society of London in 1906 to map an area of the Peruvian Amazon in a dispute over rubber production who, after an encounter with a giant anaconda, first documented large 'trails 6 feet wide' or what are now called 'channels'.
And according to Greg it was the link made between his account and the evidence of large irregular 'channels' at the site they visited that led to the discovery.
They have now shared their findings with the Peruvian government, the National Geographic Society in Washington and Queens University in Belfast.
The team will now spend months analysing the footage and plan to return to same location in October to get thermal imagery which will help find the numbers of anacondas. This time they hope to bring with them a television crew.
Greg concluded: "The real hero is my father. It must be incredible to have spent 23 years researching this and then to succeed in an expedition where others had failed."
There was an amazing postscript to their trip when an anaconda, believed to be the one they located in March, is thought to have been responsbile for smashing the house of an elderly couple in a small village in Peru earlier this week.
Πηγή: www.lisburntoday.co.uk Read more on this article…
It's raining tadpoles in Japan town, residents say
13.6.09Meteorologists in Japan say the rainy season has just started in Tokyo, but residents in a small coastal town have reported a different phenomenon -- tadpoles dropping out of the sky.
An office clerk in Nanao said he first noticed the anomaly when he heard a dull thud in a parking lot last week, news reports said. Looking around, he saw about 100 dead amphibians splattered on car windshields and the ground.
More reports followed from bewildered residents in Nanao.
"People speculate that a waterspout picked them up and dropped them from the air," an official at a local weather observatory told AFP. "But from a meteorological point of view, I have to say it is most unlikely."
"We have checked the weather conditions of last week, thinking gusts of wind might have hit the area but confirmed no damage," he said. "To be honest, I don't think it was anything caused by a weather condition."
Similar events -- in what is sometimes called the "Fafrotskies" phenomenon, short for "fall from the sky" -- have been reported around the world, with whirlwinds passing over water bodies and picking up frogs, jellyfish or other unfortunate animals before dumping them back to earth.
Πηγή: http://uk.news.yahoo.com Read more on this article…Mysterious Inscribed Slate Discovered at Jamestown
12.6.09Archaeologists in Jamestown, Virginia, have discovered a rare inscribed slate tablet dating back some 400 years, to the early days of America's first permanent English settlement.
Both sides of the slate are covered with words, numbers, and etchings of people, plants, and birds that its owner likely encountered in the New World in the early 1600s.
The tablet was found a few feet down in what may be the first well at James Fort, dug in early 1609 by Capt. John Smith, Jamestown's best known leader, said Bill Kelso, director of archaeology at the site.
If the well is confirmed as Smith's, it could help offer important insights into Jamestown's difficult early years.
Records indicate that by 1611, the water in Smith's well had become foul and the well was then used as a trash pit. Archaeologists discovered the slate among other objects thrown into the well by the colonists.
Slate tablets were sometimes used in 17th-century England instead of paper, which was expensive and not reusable.
According to Bly Straube, Historic Jamestowne's curator, people drew games and wrote on broken roofing tiles, which could be washed off and used over and over again. "Inscribed slates from this time period are rarely found in England, so little is known about them," she said.
Archaeologists and other scientists are still trying to decipher the slate, the first with extensive inscriptions to be found at any 17th-century colonial American site.
The scratched and worn 5-by-8-inch (13-by-20-centimeter) tablet is inscribed with the words "A MINON OF THE FINEST SORTE." Above the words are the letters and numbers "EL NEV FSH HTLBMS 508," interspersed with symbols that have yet to be interpreted.
Πηγή: http://news.nationalgeographic.com Read more on this article…
the Pentagon intends to spend more then $50 billion on classified projects next year
9.6.09The Pentagon wants to spend just over $50 billion on classified programs next year, newly-released Defense Department budget documents reveal. “That’s the largest-ever sum,” according to Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman, a longtime black-budget seer — a three percent increase over last year’s total.
It makes the Pentagon’s secret operations, including the intelligence budgets nested inside, “roughly equal in magnitude to the entire defense budgets of the UK, France or Japan,” Sweetman adds. All in all, about seven and a half percent of the Defense Department’s total spending is now classified.
Black-world weapons-buying “remains dominated by the single line item,” according to Sweetman. (You can find it under the Air Force’s “other procurement” section, on page F-21 here.) “This year’s number stands just above $16 billion. In inflation-adjusted terms, that’s 240 per cent more than it was ten years ago.”
Many of the secret budgets still remain clandestine, however. In the research budget, the line item for a “Special Program”of the super-secret National Security Agency is a string of zeros. Same goes for an NSA “Cyber Security Initiative” kitty. And don’t even ask about NSA’s “Intelligence Support to Information Operations” account. That’s a blank slate, too.
Some other fun facts, buried in the Pentagon’s just-released budget docs:
- Money for “Directed Energy Technology” — real-life ray gun research — jumps from $62.7 million last year to $105.7 million in 2010.
- Cash for “Prompt Global Strike Capability Development” — weapons that can hit anywhere on the planet, in just a few hours — jumps from $74.1 million to $166.9 million.
- The high-flying Global Hawk drones get an an extra $486.8 million.
- The Office of the Secretary of Defense is pushing $75 million in new alt-fuel and alt-power projects — from “Landfill Gas Energy Capture” to a “Tactical, Deployable Micro-Grid.”
- The Maui Space Surveillance System gets a major downgrade, from $36.3 million to a mere $5.8 million. Aloha, space-watchers!
UPDATE:CQ’s Tim Starks reports that “the budget would also allocate an unspecified amount to the new ‘Imagery Satellite Way Ahead‘ program, a joint effort between the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Defense designed to revamp the nation’s constellation of spy satellites.”
Read more on this article…The mostly classified plan would include new, redesigned “electro-optical” satellites, which collect data from across the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as the expanded use of commercial satellite imagery. Although the cost is secret, most estimates place it in the multibillion-dollar range.
Πηγή: Wired.com
Black hole bigger than thought
Using a new computer model, astronomers have determined that the black hole in the center of the M87 galaxy is at least twice as big as previously thought. Weighing in at 6.4 billion times the Sun's mass, it is the most massive black hole yet measured, and this new model suggest that the accepted black hole masses in other large nearby galaxies may be off by similar amounts. This has consequences for theories of how galaxies form and grow, and might even solve a long-standing astronomical paradox.
Astronomers Karl Gebhardt from the University of Texas at Austin and Jens Thomas from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics detailed their findings Monday at the American Astronomical Society conference in Pasadena, California.
To try to understand how galaxies form and grow, astronomers start with basic information about the galaxies today, such as what they are made of, how big they are and how much they weigh. Astronomers measure this last category, galaxy mass, by clocking the speed of stars orbiting within the galaxy.
Studies of the total mass are important, Thomas said, but “the crucial point is to determine whether the mass is in the black hole, the stars, or the dark halo. You have to run a sophisticated model to be able to discover which is which. The more components you have, the more complicated the model is.”
To model M87, Gebhardt and Thomas used one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, the Lonestar system at The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center. Lonestar is a Dell Linux cluster with 5,840 processing cores and can perform 62 trillion floating-point operations per second. (Today’s top-of-the-line laptop computer has two cores and can perform up to 10 billion floating-point operations per second.)
Gebhardt and Jens’ model of M87 was more complicated than previous models of the galaxy, because in addition to modeling its stars and black hole, it takes into account the galaxy’s “dark halo,” a spherical region surrounding a galaxy that extends beyond its main visible structure, containing the galaxy’s mysterious “dark matter.”
“In the past, we have always considered the dark halo to be significant, but we did not have the computing resources to explore it as well,” Gebhardt said. “We were only able to use stars and black holes before. Toss in the dark halo, it becomes too computationally expensive, you have to go to supercomputers.”
The Lonestar result was a mass for M87’s black hole several times what previous models have found. “We did not expect it at all,” Gebhardt said. He and Jens simply wanted to test their model on “the most important galaxy out there,” he said.
Extremely massive and conveniently nearby (in astronomical terms), M87 was one of the first galaxies suggested to harbor a central black hole nearly three decades ago. It also has an active jet shooting light out the galaxy’s core as matter swirls closer to the black hole, allowing astronomers to study the process by which black holes attract matter. All of these factors make M87 the “the anchor for supermassive black hole studies,” Gebhardt said.
These new results for M87, together with hints from other recent studies and his own recent telescope observations (publications in preparation), lead him to suspect that all black hole masses for the most massive galaxies are underestimated.
That conclusion “is important for how black holes relate to galaxies,” Thomas said. “If you change the mass of the black hole, you change how the black hole relates to the galaxy.” There is a tight relation between the galaxy and its black hole which had allowed researchers to probe the physics of how galaxies grow over cosmic time. Increasing the black hole masses in the most massive galaxies will cause this relation to be re-evaluated.
Higher masses for black holes in nearby galaxies also could solve a paradox concerning the masses of quasars — active black holes at the centers of extremely distant galaxies, seen at a much earlier cosmic epoch. Quasars shine brightly as the material spiraling in, giving off copious radiation before crossing the event horizon (the region beyond which nothing — not even light — can escape).
“There is a long-standing problem in that quasar black hole masses were very large — 10 billion solar masses,” Gebhardt said. “But in local galaxies, we never saw black holes that massive, not nearly. The suspicion was before that the quasar masses were wrong,” he said. But “if we increase the mass of M87 two or three times, the problem almost goes away.”
Today’s conclusions are model-based, but Gebhardt also has made new telescope observations of M87 and other galaxies using new powerful instruments on the Gemini North Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. He said these data, which will be submitted for publication soon, support the current model-based conclusions about black hole mass.
For future telescope observations of galactic dark haloes, Gebhardt notes that a relatively new instrument at The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory is perfect. “If you need to study the halo to get the black hole mass, there’s no better instrument than VIRUS-P,” he said. The instrument is a spectrograph. It separates the light from astronomical objects into its component wavelengths, creating a signature that can be read to find out an object’s distance, speed, motion, temperature, and more.
VIRUS-P is good for halo studies because it can take spectra over a very large area of sky, allowing astronomers to reach the very low light levels at large distances from the galaxy center where the dark halo is dominant. It is a prototype, built to test technology going into the larger VIRUS spectrograph for the forthcoming Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX).
Πηγή: universetoday.com
Την πάτησε το τραίνο αλλά ... σώθηκε!
Αυτό είναι που λένε "ούτε να αυτοκτονήσει δεν μπορεί"...!
Η φράση αυτή κολλάει σίγουρα "γάντι" σε μία γυναίκα από το Ισραήλ η οποία προσπάθησε να βάλει τέλος στη ζωή της, όμως από ό,τι φαίνεται το τραίνο είχε άλλη άποψη!
Δείτε το απολαυστικό video που κατέγραψε κάμερα ασφαλείας, εδώ. Read more on this article…
The Sci Fi channel’s Roswell Dig findings finally come to light
7.6.09You may remember the Sci Fi channel’s documentary hosted by Bryant Gumble called The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence. A big part of the show is known as the Roswell Dig. Headed by University of New Mexico archeologist, Dr. Bill Doleman, Roswell researchers Don Schmidt, Tom Carey, Chuck Zukowski, and Debbie Ziegelmeier along with other volunteers went to the place they believed was the most likely site of the famous alleged UFO crash in 1947.
There are actually several possible sites, and most experts agree that the site people pay to tour is not the correct site. Sci Fi gathered some of the top Roswell experts, so there is a lot of evidence that lead them to the spot where they set up their dig, and it is still an undisclosed area that only a few insiders know about.
At the site, they put together a professional archeological dig aimed at finding debris left behind by the alleged military clean-up crews that whisked away any evidence of a crash. The show periodically caught up with the dig site workers, making you think that they would reveal a “startling” find. In the end they did find some small items that the show of course made a big deal about, but the show ended without any real analysis of the items, promising that it would be included in the next exciting episode.
Unfortunately, NBC soon bought the Sci Fi channel and canceled any further dig episodes. There was a follow up show as part of a Sci Fi series called Sci Fi investigates. Dr. Doleman and crew went back, but no analysis was presented.
So every once in awhile someone will ask me in an interview or just in passing if I know what happened to that debris and if it was ever analyzed. I have had the same question. Luckily, I work closely with Chuck Zukowski, who is a MUFON investigator in Colorado, and his sister Debbie Ziegelmeier who is a MUFON state director in Missouri. There was a book published by the Sci Fi channel called The Roswell Dig Diary and some of their notes can be found in it.
This team of sibling investigators has been keeping track of the items that were found. After the show, the items were put into storage at the University of New Mexico. The dig was actually in an area managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), so they are the official owners of them. However, there had been talk of possibly getting the materials analyzed to do another show. Just in case there was going to be another show, it was kept in storage at UNM. Finally, the idea of a show was dumped. Zukowski and Ziegelmeier then worked with Dr. Doleman to get the proper paperwork filled out to be able to get analysis done. Finally, after years in storage they were able to get the permission they had sought.
Last month Dr. Doleman, Zukowksi, and Ziegelmeier held a press conference in Roswell announcing that they were ready to pursue funding to get analysis done. Now they are working with interested parties to get the analysis completed, and I will share a sneak peek into the materials with you.
Controversy
One question did arise, and that was if what was found is worth analyzing. Some claimed that the materials were mundane and that the analysis already completed was sufficient and pointed to nothing special. In response to this Dr. Doleman wrote up a paper listing the items, what they might be, and the analysis that has been done thus far.
Among the items are: rubber from the sole of a shoe, shoe leather, unidentified fibers, clothing thread, burnt rock some with fibers on them, plastic tube, a piece of gray material that is possibly from tape or a trash bag, translucent white plastic, and some orange plastic like material. Perhaps this doesn’t sound too exciting. However, this was all in the middle of the desert where there is little to no human traffic.
Dr. Doleman wrote:
“In summary, artifacts from five different excavated study units on the Foster Ranch “debris site” warrant further study by the appropriate scientists using appropriate analytical techniques. Better identification—and dating where possible—is necessary to conclusively determine is any of the items could be of non-terrestrial origin. Alternatively, if the artifacts are of modern origin, knowledge of their age and origin might increase knowledge of the events of 1947 and offer invaluable insight into the site’s history.”
In his paper he argues that the site should be treated like a crime site. Further insight into what might have happened there, especially given the extraordinary claims, would be invaluable. What if the thread of the shoe rubber is military issue? What if what appears to be plastic is not?
From all of the questions I have received as to the status of this debris, there is certainly interest out there. Just for the sake of wrapping up this whole Roswell Dig saga, it would be great to hear the final word on this material, and glean whatever can be discovered. The implications of what might have happened out in the desert in 1947 truly are startling.
You can read Dr. Doleman’s full report here, along with pictures of the material.
Πηγή: www.examiner.com Read more on this article…
Loose Change - Ντοκυμαντέρ για την 11/9/2001
Ίσως το καλύτερο Ντοκυμαντέρ που έχει γυριστεί για την 11η Σεπτεμβρίου του 2001 και την συνομωσιο-παραφιλολογία γύρω από το τρομοκρατικό(;) χτύπημα στις Η.Π.Α.
Μέσα από καταπληκτικές σκηνές, αποδείξεις με ανάλογα zooms και συγκεκριμένα έγγραφα, θεωρίες (λογικές) που καταρίπτουν τις δημόσιες εξηγήσεις που δώθηκαν για τα συμβάντα της μέρας εκείνης, συνεντεύξεις, αποκλειστικά ηχητικά και οπτικοακουστικά ντοκουμέντα, και πολλά άλλα, το εν λόγω ντοκυμαντέρ είναι must seen για κάθε άνθρωπο!
Είμαι σίγουρος ότι αφού δείτε το Loose Change, θα αναθεωρήσετε πολλά για την 11η/9/01...
Απολαύστε το!
Υ.Γ: Κυκλοφορούν και ελληνικοί υπότιτλοι, καθώς επίσης μπορείτε να κατεβάσατε δωρέαν από την ιστοσελίδα http://loosechange911.com ολόκληρη την ταινία και να την έχετε έτσι στο αρχείο σας. Read more on this article…
UFO Blogger (http://www.ufoblogger.blogspot.com)
Τίτλος: UFO blogger
Link: http://www.ufoblogger.blogspot.com/
Ένα από τα καλύτερα blogs αφιερώμενο όπως φαίνεται με την πρώτη ματιά στα UFOs και τους Εξωγήινους.
Οτιδήποτε συμβαίνει στον κόσμο σχετικά με UFOS, θεάσεις, εξωγήινους, μαρτυρίες, αποκαλυπτικά videos, συνεντεύξεις, στοιχεία και ενδείξεις, θεωρίες εξωγήινης ζωής κ.τ.λ. στο blog αυτό!
Read more on this article…
Dragonfly crop circle appears in Wiltshire
A 150ft long crop circle depicting a dragonfly has appeared in a barley field in the village of Yatesbury, Wiltshire.
The intricate pattern comes after the discovery of a 600ft jellyfish crop circle in Oxfordshire.Crop circle enthusiasts claim the succession of animal designs have been created in an attempt make people more aware of the threat of climate change and predict they could continue throughout the summer.
Steve Alexander, a crop circle fanatic, from Gosport, Hampshire, said: "Some years you do get themes developing and often you are looking for why this happens.
"It could be to reflect the status of the world at the moment with its financial, political and more importantly, environmental problems.
"I imagine this will not be the last one we will see this summer and it has already been a busy summer for spotting them as they are well ahead of schedule."
In past years the crop circle season has typically run from July to August but already four have been found in barley fields stretching from Wiltshire to Oxfordshire this year.
They have been found across the ancient 'ley lines' - believed to have mystical qualities.
"There has certainly been a lot of activity and this is the busiest year since 1999 at the moment," said Mr Alexander.
"People believe they will increase in frequency up to 2012 where there will be some kind of cataclysmic world event.
Πηγή: telegraph.co.uk
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Παράξενος Ταξιδιώτης (www.strangler.gr)
6.6.09link: http://strangetravellergr.blogspot.com
Ο Παράξενος Ταξιδιώτης είναι αυτός που ταξιδεύει σε αλλόκοτα, παράξενα και ασυνήθιστα μέρη. Αυτός ο οποίος "παραξενεύεται" από κάτι, οπουδήποτε και αν πάει ή αν βρεθεί.
Μέσα από την σελίδα του Παράξενου Ταξιδιώτη παρουσιάζονται διάφορα μέρη από την Ελλάδα και ολόκληρο τον κόσμο που είναι ικανά να παραξενεύσουν τον Ταξιδιώτη. Από εστιατόρια μέχρι αρχαιολογικούς χώρους, από μουσεία μέχρι υπάθρια πάρκα, πολυκατοικίες, καταστήματα ή ναυάγια, κ.τ.λ.
Επισκεφτείτε την ιστοσελίδα του Παράξενου Ταξιδιώτη και ανακάλυψτε μοναδικά μέρη, με μία ιδιαίτερη παραξενιά, που θα σας παραξενεύσουν με την ιδιαιτερότητά τους.
Τι λέτε, είστε έτοιμο να γίνετε και εσείς ένα Παράξενος Ταξιδιώτης;
Είστ έτοιμοι να ταξιδέψετε με ... διαφορετική ματιά ;
Το Χαμένο Σύμβολο - Το νέο βιβλίο του Dan Brown (Κώδικας Da Vinci κ.α.)
Στις 15 Σεπτεμβρίου αναμένεται να βρεθεί στα ράφια των βιβλιοπωλείων σε ΗΠΑ και Καναδά το πολυαναμενόμενο νέο βιβλίο του Dan Brown. Το βιβλίο – συνέχεια του Κώδικα ντα Βίντσι, θα είναι ένα θρίλερ με πρωταγωνιστή τον γνωστό αμερικανό καθηγητή Ρόμπερτ Λάνγκτον. Το όνομα αυτού είναι : Το Χαμένο Σύμβολο (The lost symbol).
Αν και ο Μπράουν δεν έχει αποκαλύψει την πλοκή του νέου βιβλίου, υπάρχουν οι φήμες ότι θα έχει να κάνει με την Μασονία στην Ουώσινγκτον. Όπως μεταφέρει η Telegraph ο συγγραφέας έχει θεαθεί να κάνει έρευνα για μασονικούς ναούς.Σύμφωνα με τα δημοσιεύματα, το Χαμένο Σύμβολο είναι ένα θρίλερ – με όλα τα στοιχεία (μυστικισμός, επιστήμη, θεωρίες συνομωσίας και θρησκευτικές ανατροπές) στα οποία μας έχει συνηθίσει ο Νταν Μπράουν. Το βιβλίο «παρακολουθεί» 12 ώρες από τη ζωή του καθηγητή Λάνγκτον.
Θα τυπωθεί αρχικά σε 6,5 εκατομμύρια αντίτυπα. Πρόκειται για μια αρκετά «σεμνή» ποσότητα, αν υπολογίσουμε ότι ο Κώδικας ντα Βίντσι πούλησε 81 εκατομμύρια αντίτυπα, παγκοσμίως, ενώ στην Βρετανία είναι το μεγαλύτερο paperback bestseller όλων των εποχών. Ο Κώδικας έχει μεταφραστεί σε 51 γλώσσες και έχει μεταφερθεί στη μεγάλη οθόνη. Επίσης η ταινία Angels and Demons βασισμένη στο βιβλίο του Μπράουν Illuminati με τον Τομ Χανκς, έκανε πριν λίγο καιρό πρεμιέρα στις κινηματογραφικές αίθουσες.
Για το νέο βιβλίο ο Μπράουν έχει δηλώσει ότι «το να πλέκεις πέντε χρόνια έρευνας σε μία ιστορία που διαδραματίζεται σε 12 ώρες είναι μια συναρπαστική εμπειρία» για να προσθέσει: «Προφανώς η ζωή του Λάνγκτον κινείται πολύ πιο γρήγορα απ’ ό,τι η δική μου».
«Πρόκειται για ένα παράξενο και υπέροχο ταξίδι» δηλώνει από την πλευρά του ο εκδότης του Μπράουν, Τζέισον Κάουφμαν.
«Το Χαμένο Σύμβολο είναι ένα πανέξυπνο και πνευματώδες θρίλερ. Η εξαιρετική ικανότητα του Μπράουν στην λογοτεχνική αφήγηση, αλλά και η ιστορική αφήγηση και η ανατρεπτική πλοκή βρίσκονται σε πλήρη ανάπτυξη σε αυτό το βιβλίο. Πρόκειται για μία από τις πιο πολυαναμενόμενες εκδόσεις και θεωρώ ότι άξιζε την αναμονή», λέει ο ειδικός στο χώρο του βιβλίου Σόνι Μέχτα.
Πηγή: cosmo.gr
UFO πάνω από τη Βρετανία (UFO over Britain)
Darting silently in formation, the mysterious glowing orbs light up the night sky.
Some say these orange lights even weave in between each other with the precision of a synchronised flying team from some far corner of the universe.
Clusters of more than 100 have been spotted across Britain and even Holland, leaving onlookers with an eerie sense that, for all the mystifying beauty of the strange objects, they may have just witnessed an armada of invading UFOs.
Stunned: Families in Lincoln spotted glowing orange spheres grouped together in the sky on Sunday night
Eerie: Witnesses reported seeing the lights flying in an apparent formation, dodging and darting around each other before disappearing
The most recent sighting was on Sunday when they were seen in two locations, Merseyside and Lincoln. Days earlier a similar phenomenon was spotted over Cambridgeshire, where one witness claims each was as big as a house.
The sightings have prompted defence officials to check their logs and sent UFO fans into orbits of excitement. Engineer Paul Slight, 54, took photos on his mobile phone of the strange objects hovering over Lincoln at 10.30pm while he was cycling home after a day out with friends.
'There were 26 of them at first, dodging and darting in between each other like they were playing a game,' he said.
These four strange orange lights were captured in this photograph taken in Holland on May 11
'After that, seven more arrived and weaved through the crowd of lights like strange kinds of aircraft. After five minutes of moving around, they hung in the air for a second then shot off into the sky and disappeared.'
A spokesman for nearby RAF Cranwell said the base was closed at the weekend so the lights could not be attributed to its aircraft. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence is examining claims that the Merseyside lights were connected to an exercise involving HMS Daring, docked in Liverpool.
An ex-military source claimed the lights were dropped by jets to simulate the path of a missile in order to test the warship's radar systems.
Military exercise: Experts are investigating whether these orange lights above Merseyside were 'counter measures' to test the defences of a Royal Navy ship
HMS Daring, which is currently docked at Liverpool, uses radar-activated guns. It is believed the lights seen may have been 'counter-measures' to test its defences
In Cambridgeshire, banker Scott Boswell, 37, said he saw more than 100 lights flying less than two miles above his home in Hinchingbrooke. The former soldier and experienced pilot said: 'I know they weren't aircraft – they were silent.
'And I was a soldier for a decade so I could immediately rule out flares or weather balloons. I really have no idea what they were.'
On the same night, May 27, at around 11.30pm guesthouse owner Auberon Hedgecoe, 40, of nearby Huntingdon, also saw the lights. 'There was no sound,' he said.
Unexplained: An image manufactured by Auberon Hedgecoe of how the lights appeared over a half an hour period above Huntingdon
The Hedgecoe family, from left Suzi, Barney, friend Zac and Auberon, saw 50 of the orange lights above Huntingdon and described them as being 'as big as a house'
'They were travelling 15 at a time and every six minutes more seemed to be coming over the horizon. They were not planes. They were not balloons.
Each one was the size of a building.' Last night it emerged a woman has contacted her local newspaper to claim that the lights over Lincoln were Chinese lanterns – mini hot air balloons – set off at her wedding reception.
'They looked amazing, hope you all enjoyed the spectacle,' she said.
Nick Pope, the former head of the MoD's UFO Project, supported the Chinese lantern theory.
'I'm not disparaging the whole UFO phenomenon, but I'd say 99 per cent of UFO reports involving orange lights in the sky these days are attributable to these lanterns.'
Πηγή: dailymail.co.uk
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Does DNA Have Telepathic Properties?
DNA has been found to have a bizarre ability to put itself together, even at a distance, when according to known science it shouldn't be able to. Explanation: None, at least not yet.
Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA. The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.
Even so, the research published in ACS’ Journal of Physical Chemistry B, shows very clearly that homology recognition between sequences of several hundred nucleotides occurs without physical contact or presence of proteins. Double helixes of DNA can recognize matching molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules or chemical signals.
In the study, scientists observed the behavior of fluorescently tagged DNA strands placed in water that contained no proteins or other material that could interfere with the experiment. Strands with identical nucleotide sequences were about twice as likely to gather together as DNA strands with different sequences. No one knows how individual DNA strands could possibly be communicating in this way, yet somehow they do. The “telepathic” effect is a source of wonder and amazement for scientists.
“Amazingly, the forces responsible for the sequence recognition can reach across more than one nanometer of water separating the surfaces of the nearest neighbor DNA,” said the authors Geoff S. Baldwin, Sergey Leikin, John M. Seddon, and Alexei A. Kornyshev and colleagues.
This recognition effect may help increase the accuracy and efficiency of the homologous recombination of genes, which is a process responsible for DNA repair, evolution, and genetic diversity. The new findings may also shed light on ways to avoid recombination errors, which are factors in cancer, aging, and other health issues.
Πηγή: www.dailygalaxy.com Read more on this article…
Περιοδικό Fortean Times
Fortean Times is a monthly magazine of news, reviews and research on strange phenomena and experiences, curiosities, prodigies and portents. It was founded by Bob Rickard in 1973 to continue the work of Charles Fort (1874-1932).
Born of Dutch stock in Albany, New York, Fort spent many years researching scientific literature in the New York Public Library and the British Museum Library. He marshalled his evidence and set forth his philosophy in The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931), and Wild Talents (1932).
He was sceptical of scientific explanations, observing how scientists argued according to their own beliefs rather than the rules of evidence and that inconvenient data was ignored, suppressed, discredited or explained away. He criticised modern science for its reductionism, its attempts to define, divide and separate. Fort's dictum "One measures a circle beginning anywhere" expresses instead his philosophy of Continuity in which everything is in an intermediate and transient state between extremes.
He had ideas of the Universe-as-organism and the transient nature of all apparent phenomena, coined the term 'teleportation', and was perhaps the first to speculate that mysterious lights seen in the sky might be craft from outer space. However, he cut at the very roots of credulity: "I conceive of nothing, in religion, science or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while."
Fort was by no means the first person to collect anomalies and oddities - such collections have abounded from Greece to China since ancient times. Fortean Times keeps alive this ancient task of dispassionate weird-watching, exploring the wild frontiers between the known and the unknown.
From the viewpoint of mainstream science, its function is elegantly stated in a line from Enid Welsford's book on the mediaeval fool: "The Fool does not lead a revolt against the Law; he lures us into a region of the spirit where... the writ does not run."
Besides being a journal of record, FT is also a forum for the discussion of observations and ideas, however absurd or unpopular, and maintains a position of benevolent scepticism towards both the orthodox and unorthodox.
Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες επισκεφτείτε εδώ. Read more on this article…
Περιοδικό Mystery
Υπάρχει κάτι πέρα από την πραγματικότητα του καθημερινού, μια αίσθηση του διαφορετικού που παρασέρνει την ψυχή σε ταξίδια μαγικά ανάμεσα σε μύθους και παραδόσεις, σε μυστικά και σύμβολα, σε παράξενες ιστορίες και ανεξιχνίαστα φαινόμενα. Υπάρχει κάτι που ξυπνά τον άνθρωπο και τον οδηγεί πέρα από τις πύλες, σε μια ξεχωριστή πραγματικότητα που απαντά σε μία και μόνο λέξη...
Ανακαλύψτε Αυτό που Κατοικεί Ανάμεσά μας
Ταξιδέψτε στο Μυστήριο
Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες, επισκεφτείτε το επίσημο site του περιοδικού, το group των fans στο Facebook (mystery) και το προσωπικό blog του αρχισυντάκτη Γιώργου Ιωαννίδη.
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Mystery of Giant Ice Circles Resolved
4.6.09Strange circles have once again appeared in the frozen surface of Lake Baikal in Siberia, as spotted by astronauts aboard the International Space Station this April. News reports described the ice rings as a puzzling phenomenon.
But experts say they can explain the mystery, and it's not aliens — methane gas rising from the lake floor represents the likely culprit.
Methane emissions can create a rising mass of warm water that begins swirling in a circular pattern because of the Coriolis force, or the phenomenon caused by the Earth's rotation that also helps create cyclones.
"Once the water mass reaches the underside of the ice on the surface of the lake, the warm water melts the ice in a ring shape," said Marianne Moore, a marine ecologist at Wellesley College in Massachusetts who has spent much time studying Lake Baikal with Russian researchers. The lake is the largest (by volume) and deepest fresh water lake on Earth.
The latest ring patterns included a circle of thin ice with a diameter of 2.7 miles (4.4 km), although the circular patch was becoming a hole of open water. Astronauts spotted similar ice circles in both 1985 and 1994, and satellites have also made sightings over the past years.
This phenomenon is nothing new to the Russian government, which has documented circle sightings on an official Ministry of Natural Resources Web site.
"Interestingly, the government is also warning people that abnormally high emissions of methane may occur in these areas in the summer and fall, posing risks for ships," Moore told LiveScience.
The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources points out that random emissions of natural gas have probably always occurred in Lake Baikal. And such emissions would have created ice rings every few years.
"But, because of the huge size, it is practically impossible to see a ring standing on the ice or even from a mountain," the Ministry Web site notes. The Russian government has ordered daily space monitoring of the Lake Baikal area in recent years, which prompted many of the satellite sightings.
Tectonic activity deep in the Earth may be the trigger for such methane gas release, according to the Russian government.
That could have major consequences for Lake Baikal's rich array of plants and animals, Moore cautioned — especially in combination with a warming climate. Both could lead to spring ice disappearing more rapidly from Lake Baikal, which can typically hold onto an ice cover through June.
"Unlike other lakes in the world, spring ice is essential for the reproduction of the lake's top predator (the Baikal seal) and the dominant plants (under-ice phytoplankton) at the bottom of the food web," Moore said. "Without spring ice, the food web of this lake will be disrupted substantially."
πηγή: www.livescience.com Read more on this article…
Ο Κόμης Δράκουλας σας περιμένει ξανά…
3.6.09Το Κάστρο Μπραν στην κεντρική Ρουμανία, ευρύτερα γνωστό και ως Κάστρο του Κόμη Δράκουλα, που πρόσφατα επέστρεψε στα «χέρια» της οικογένειας του Ντομινίκ των Αψβούργων άνοιξε και πάλι την Τρίτη τις πύλες του στο κοινό.
Όσοι, ωστόσο, είχαν επισκεφθεί το Κάστρο στο παρελθόν, ίσως με έκπληξη διαπιστώσουν κάποιες αλλαγές στη διακόσμησή του, αφού οι συλλογές που φιλοξενούσε και οι οποίες ανήκαν στο Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού βρήκαν νέα «στέγη», στο νεοϊδρυθέν μουσείο, που φέρει την επωνυμία, «Το Σπίτι Μεσαιωνικών Εθίμων του Μπραν».
Στην επίσημη τελετή που έγινε στο Κάστρο, προκειμένου να σηματοδοτήσει την επαναλειτουργία του, η οικογένεια των Αψβούργων, με επικεφαλής τον ίδιο τον Ντομινίκ, τοπικοί και άλλοι «άρχοντες», εκπρόσωποι του υπουργείου Τουρισμού της Ρουμανίας, ευχαρίστησαν όλους όσοι συμμετείχαν στην προσπάθεια «φρεσκαρίσματος» του Κάστρου, που καθίσταται και πάλι επισκέψιμο.
Μάλιστα, οι ιδιοκτήτες του διαβεβαίωσαν τους αρμόδιους πως θα κινούνται πάντα με γνώμονα το σεβασμό στην τοπική παράδοση και κληρονομιά σε ό,τι αφορά το Κάστρο.
Μιλώντας για τη νέα επίπλωση, η Λία Τραντάφιρ, μία εκ των εκπροσώπων της Εταιρίας Διοίκησης του Κάστρου, ανέφερε- μεταξύ άλλων- πως έγινε προσπάθεια να προσεγγίζει το στυλ και την εποχή που αντιπροσωπεύει.
Σύμφωνα με την ίδια, το πολυτιμότερο «κομμάτι» όσων φιλοξενούνται πλέον στο Κάστρο είναι το βιβλίο επισκεπτών, που ανήκε στη βασίλισσα Μαρία και την πριγκίπισσα Ιλεάνα και στις σελίδες του μπορεί ο επισκέπτης να διαβάσει τα ονόματα μεγάλων προσωπικοτήτων του παρελθόντος.
Σε ό,τι αφορά τις μελλοντικές δράσεις, η κ. Τράνταφιρ ανέφερε πως θα κατασκευαστεί- μεταξύ άλλων- ένα δωμάτιο, που θα προορίζεται για τη φιλοξενία όσων θέλουν να περάσουν μια βραδιά παρέα με τον ... Κόμη Δράκουλα.
πηγή: www.e-tipos.com Read more on this article…
Twitter's psychic experiment
Thousands of people will test their psychic powers this week on Twitter.
In the first scientific experiment to be conducted via the social messaging service, experts will investigate "remote viewing" - the psychic ability to identify distant locations.
Members of the public will be asked to "tweet" their impressions of a randomly chosen spot in the UK visited by one of the researchers.
Then they will vote for which of five photographs on a website shows where the visitor was standing.
The trial will be repeated with visually different locations four times.
If at the end of the experiment the votes correctly identify at least three targets, it will support the existence of extra-sensory perception.
Study leader psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, who specialises in investigating psychic phenomena, said: "Personally, I'm sceptical, but three hits would be against odds of one in 125, which would be quite impressive."
He hopes as many as 10,000 people will take part in the research, being conducted in collaboration with New Scientist magazine.
Prof Wiseman will travel to each target location and send a message to thousands of participants to "tweet" their thoughts about his surroundings.
Twenty minutes after sending this message he will transmit another containing a website address on which participants can view photographs of the actual location and four decoys. They will then cast their votes.
"I have staged several mass participation studies over the years, but this is the first to use Twitter," said Prof Wiseman.
"The instant nature of tweets allows thousands of people to take part in real time, making it perfect for an extra-sensory perception experiment.
"If the effect does exist then having so many people participate will help detect it."
Prof Wiseman is not the first scientist to investigate remote viewing.
At the height of the Cold War in the 1970s, the CIA spent $20 million (£12.5 million) conducting remote viewing experiments in a real-life case of the "X-files".
The "Stargate Project" was aimed at conducting "psychic spying" missions against the Soviet Union.
"The Russians were doing the same thing, and there was evidence from laboratory studies that suggested there might be something going on," said Prof Wiseman. "The CIA just thought it was worth a try and ran the programme for about 10 years."
Remote viewing has been linked to astral projection and telepathy, but no-one knows how it might work.
Unlike the CIA, Prof Wiseman will be looking for a group effect rather than individual ability.
This is a phenomenon known as "the wisdom of the crowds".
"If you have a jar full of jellybeans and you want to know many are in it, you get the most accurate estimate by averaging a number of different people's estimates," said Prof Wiseman.
The results of the experiment should be known on Friday.
Sumit Paul-Choudhury, online editor at New Scientist, said: "There have been mass participation experiments since the start of mass communication and this is the next step.
"If we find some sort of effect then we can get into speculating about how it works."
Anyone can take part in the experiment by visiting the site.
Πηγή: www.telegraph.co.uk Read more on this article…
Μεσσίας πριν τον ... Ιησού;
1.6.09«Η περιγραφή ενισχύει τον προβληματισμό για την επανεξέταση της φύσης του Ιησού, από τη στιγμή που υποδεικνύεται ότι η ιστορία του θανάτου και της ανάστασής του δεν ήταν μοναδική στην εβραϊκή ιστορία», δηλώνει ο Ντάνιελ Μπόγιαριν, μελετητής του Ταλμούδ, που διδάσκει στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Μπέρκλεϊ στην Καλιφόρνια. Στον ίδιο άξονα, για «μοχλό που μπορεί να οδηγήσει σε επανεξέταση των θεμελίων της χριστιανικής θρησκείας», μιλούν ειδικοί, που μελετούν την «Αποκάλυψη του Γαβριήλ».
Αυτή την ονομασία έδωσαν στην περιγραφή η Αντα Γιαρντενί, ειδική στα εβραϊκά, και ο Βενιαμίν Ελιτζουρ, που ειδικεύεται στην περίοδο του Βασιλιά Ηρώδη, οι οποίοι πρώτοι μελέτησαν τις 87 γραμμές κειμένου της πέτρινης στήλης.
Η στήλη με ύψος περίπου ένα μέτρο βρέθηκε πριν από δέκα χρόνια στη Νεκρά Θάλασσα, στην Ιορδανία. Πριν από δύο χρόνια ο Ισραηλινο-ελβετός συλλέκτης που την είχε αγοράσει προσέγγισε τους δύο μελετητές, που μίλησαν για έναν «Πέτρινο Πάπυρο της Νεκράς Θάλασσας».
Υποστηρίζουν ότι γράφτηκε από τους οπαδούς ενός μεσσία, ο οποίος ίσως και να ονομάζεται Σίμωνας, που έζησε δεκαετίες προ Χριστού και σφαγιάστηκε από τους επικεφαλής του στρατού του Ηρώδη. Τονίζουν ότι στο κείμενο υπονοείται ότι ο θάνατος του Σίμωνα «ήταν απαραίτητος για τη σωτηρία του έθνους», ενώ αναφέρεται ότι «σε τρεις ημέρες από τον θάνατό του, το άδικο θα ηττηθεί από το δίκαιο».
«Σε τρεις ημέρες θα ζήσεις και πάλι, εγώ ο Γαβριήλ σε διατάζω», αναφέρεται σε άλλο σημείο. Ο αρχάγγελος φαίνεται ότι μιλά σε έναν «πρίγκιπα» (Sar hasarin είναι η εβραϊκή λέξη), γεγονός που κάνει τους μελετητές να πιστεύουν ότι περιγράφεται ο θάνατος ενός ηγέτη-σωτήρα των Εβραίων, ο οποίος αναστήθηκε σε τρεις ημέρες.
Με επιφύλαξη αντιμετωπίζει την ανακοίνωση μεγάλο τμήμα της διεθνούς επιστημονικής κοινότητας, που δεν έχει πρόσβαση στη στήλη, με ειδικούς να υποστηρίζουν ότι καθώς υπάρχουν ρωγμές και το μελάνι είναι ξεθωριασμένο σε σημεία, η απόδοση του κειμένου αμφισβητείται.
Πηγη: Ελευθεροτυπία Read more on this article…