Send info, music tracks, events listings etc., to [GOTT.PRODUCTIONS@) Gmail.com]
Stranger News
* "Flowering Splendor: The World’s Driest Desert Turns Into Blooming Carpet; The driest desert of the world, the Atacama, located on the Pacific coast and covering 1,000 kilometers of Chilean land, has suddenly turned into a gorgeous carpet of wildflowers, after El Nino, a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the Equatorial Pacific, brought the heaviest rainfall in two decades earlier this year" (2015-11-01, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/PyFCI]
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* "UIC researchers study gut feelings of identical twin astronauts" (2015-10-13, news.uic.edu) [http://is.gd/ePE7O7]
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* "Mathematicians find 'magic key' to drive Ramanujan's taxi-cab number" (2015-10-22, news.emory.edu) [archive.is/6CBVz]
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* "May the 5th force be with you; Ephraim Fischbach revisits the wealth of research emerging from the quest for the fifth force, which he hypothesised in the 1980s as being a new fundamental force in nature" (2015-10-27, springer.com) [archive.is/xqbSM]
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* "World’s First Sonic Tractor Beam Manipulates Objects With Sound; Just in time for the latest Star Wars saga, a team of physicists have created a working tractor beam. Composed of "acoustic holograms," their device creates a force field out of sounds, one capable of manipulating and moving small objects" (2015-10-29, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/Q2PzB], attached video [https://youtu.be/s5r2nmvxA4s]
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* "Physicists learn how to control the movement of electrons in a molecule; Practicing researchers from ETH Zurich and an international group of theoretical physicists have just proved to be able to track and control the movement of electrons in molecules" (2015-10-22, MOSCOW INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY) [archive.is/fkJ95]
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* "Quantum Coherent-like State Observed in a Biological Protein for the First Time; So-called Fröhlich condensation, a state in which protein molecules' vibrational modes coalesce at the lowest frequency, was first predicted almost five decades ago, but never experimentally demonstrated until now" (Structural Dynamics journal) [archive.is/UiGw4]
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* "Carnegie Mellon researchers hack off-the-shelf 3-D printer toward rebuilding the heart" (2015-10-23, engineering.cmu.edu) [archive.is/dJ6te]
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* "Microbiomes could hold keys to improving life as we know it; A Unified Microbiome Initiative to accelerate microbiome research would unlock new insights and speed translation of discoveries into numerous potential technologies for health, industry, and the environment" (2015-10-28, wyss.harvard.edu) [archive.is/4XBvH]
* "Researchers Call for Ambitious Research to Unlock the Power of Earth’s Smallest Ecosystems" (2015-10-28, kavlifoundation.org) [archive.is/Fkg6l]
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* "Robot's influent speaking just to get attention from you; Dynamically adapting robot's utterance and body language based on subtle human cues" (2015-10-22, Toyohashi University of Technology) [archive.is/rLFXk]
Space News
* "NASA reveals images of ‘Spooky’ asteroid that zipped past Earth on Halloween" (2015-11-04, rt.com) [archive.is/Iebbj]
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* "WTF to Careen Into Earth on Friday the 13th; A mysterious object from space will enter Earth's atmosphere in November -- on Friday the 13th, no less. Researchers are saying there’s no need to panic, but who really knows what might happen…" (2015-10-30, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/CQ0OM]
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* "Signs of acid fog found on Mars" (2015-11-02, The Geological Society of America) [archive.is/Vztix]
Ancient News
* "Hueyatlaco: 250,000 Year Old Settlement In Mexico Found Under Volcanic Ash" (2012-10-05, beforeitsnews.com) [archive.is/QRl0Y]. Not so much evidence for an ancient city, but insight into the deficiencies of "scientific dating" methods... or, perhaps, this really is a 250,000 year-old city.
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* Possible ancient drill hole in andesite stone [archive.is/zMhIw]
* Brien Foerster writes [archive.is/vBDFK]: One of my favourite stones at Puma Punku in Bolivia yesterday. The groove clearly seems machined, and the drill holes are evenly spaced and could only have been achieved with a POWER DRILL
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* Cave di Cusa "Quarry of Accusation" [archive.is/saVzj]. The question is, "How did the 'Ancient Greeks' cut out these massive stone columns straight out of the rock?"
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* "Metal From City Of Atlantis Found Off Sicilian Coast" (2015-01-07, inquisitr.com) [archive.is/OGIOz]: The metal was recovered from a ship that sunk more than 2,600 years ago. The metal, orichalucum, was believed by the Ancient Greeks to have been found in only one place: the lost city of Atlantis.
Experts believe that the ingots from Atlantis were arriving to Gela in southern Sicily – possibly being delivered from Greece or Asia Minor. The ship carrying the metal was most likely caught in a storm and sunk just as it was about to enter a Sicilian port.
Sicily’s superintendent of the Sea Office, Sebastiano Tusa, spoke about the shipwreck and the discovery.
“The wreck dates to the first half of the sixth century.It was found about 1,000 feet from Gela’s coast at a depth of 10 feet. Nothing similar has ever been found. We knew orichalcum from ancient texts and a few ornamental objects.”
Orichalcum, the metal of Atlantis, has an ancient and mysterious history. For centuries, experts have hotly debated the metal’s composition and origin. According to the ancien Greeks, orichalcum was invented by Cadmus, a Greek-Phoenician mythological character. The Greek philosopher Plato mentioned orichalcum as a legendary metal when he mentioned it in the Critias dialogue. Plato described the city of Atlantis as flashing “with the red light of orichalcum.” Plato said that the metal, second only in value to gold, was mined on Atlantis used to cover all the surfaces in Poseidon’s temple.
Most experts agree today that orichalcum is a brass-like allow which was actually made by cementation. This is a process whereby zinc ore, charcoal and copper metal are combined in a crucible. When analyzed with X-ray fluorescence, the 39 ingots of Atlantis metal turned out to be an allow made with 75-80 percent copper, 14-20 percent zinc and smaller percentages of nickel, lead and iron.
Tusa commented on the importance of the discovery.
“The finding confirms that about a century after its foundation in 689 B.C., Gela grew to become a wealthy city with artisan workshops specialized in the production of prized artifacts.”
Mentioned briefly in only two of Plato’s works, Critias and Timaeus, readers have latched onto the legend of the island of Atlantis with unending fascination. Reportedly consisting of an advanced society – a utopia of sorts – that ultimately displeased the Greek gods and was sunk to the bottom of the ocean as a result. Since Atlantis was first mentioned in ancient Greece, man has attempted to determine its location, searching everywhere from the Mediterranean Sea to the polar ice caps to the South Pacific.
As of yet, however, Atlantis has remained hidden, if it ever existed at all. Is the orichalcum discovered near Sicily evidence of Atlantis? And if not, why was the metal so rarely used in the ancient world if it was so beautiful? Perhaps one day we’ll know the answers.
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* "Does New Theory Pinpoint Lost City of Atlantis? An author’s obsessive quest leads to a site off the coast of Morocco" (2015-03-18, news.nationalgeographic.com) [archive.is/8Mxgx]
* "Ruins of Atlantis located on land in Morocco, experts claims" (2015-03-16, inquisitr.com) [archive.is/LewSz]
* "Did Atlantis really exist on the Moroccan coast?" (2015-03-15, nypost.com) [archive.is/oqgJJ]
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* "A submerged monolith in the Sicilian Channel (central Mediterranean Sea): Evidence for Mesolithic human activity" (2015-09, Journal of Archaeological Science) [archive.is/A6qsN]
* "Underwater 'Stonehenge' Monolith Found Off Coast of Sicily" (2015-08-06, news.discovery.com) [http://is.gd/TKvgGO]
* "New evidence of Atlantis? 'Underwater Stonehenge' found from 10,000-year-old society, scientists say" (2015-08-07, inquisitr.com) [archive.is/bUwiC]
* "Mysterious 10,000-Year-Old ‘Atlantis’ Monolith Is Found In Sea Off Sicily; The 10-foot monolith was definitely man-made" (2015-08-07) [archive.is/jvSrP]: A mysterious Stonehenge-style monolith has been discovered in deep sea off the coast of Sicily - offering an insight into ancient civilisations lost beneath the waves.
The monolith, found by researchers from Tel Aviv University, has three holes of similar diameter along its length.
The researchers believe it was man-made around 10,000 years ago.
‘There are no reasonable known natural processes that may produce these elements,’ wrote Zvi Ben-Avraham of Tel Aviv University.
The monolith was found in 131 feet of water at Pantelleria Vecchia Bank - an area believed to have been colonised by an ancient civilisation which was submerged 9,500 years ago.
Some interpretations of Plato’s stories of ‘Atlantis’ identify the legendary ‘lost’ island with Sicily.
The researchers write, ‘The Sicilian Channel is one of the shallow shelves of the central Mediterranean region where the consequences of changing sea-level were most dramatic and intense.
‘This discovery reveals the technological innovation and development achieved by the Mesolithic inhabitants in the Sicilian Channel region.
‘Such an effort undoubtedly reveals important technical skills and great engineering. It could have been some sort of a lighthouse or an anchoring system, for example.’
Photo from University of Tel Aviv:
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* "Secrets of Britain's lost Atlantis hidden under North Sea for 7,500 years to be uncovered; The secrets of Britain's own vast Atlantis lost to the North Sea thousands of years ago could soon be uncovered" (2015-09-12, express.co.uk) [archive.is/3gu8I]
* "British Atlantis: archaeologists begin exploring lost world of Doggerland; Archaeologists at the University of Bradford will be taking deep sea core samples to find the DNA of Doggerland to reconstruct the environment" (2015-09-01, telegraph.co.uk) [archive.is/j9GjG]
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* "NASA releases images of enormous 8,000-year-old patterns" (2015-10-30, rt.com) [archive.is/N2jrp]
* "Mysterious Geoglyphs in Northern Kazakhstan Get a Boost from NASA; NASA has uploaded satellite images of ancient earthworks that were discovered by a Kazakh archaeologist" (2015-10-31, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/CHv7p]
* "Turgay Trough Geoglyphs" lecture slides (2015-09-09, by Dmitriy Dey, pitt.edu) [is.gd/DaGycG], some interesting slides [is.gd/kR2cez], [is.gd/XcdNVL]
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* "New Research Led by Florida Tech Finds Amazonian Natives Had Little Impact on Land" (2015-10-28, newsroom.fit.edu) [archive.is/O0XgW]
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* "Ancient babies boost bering land bridge layover; DNA links many Native Americans to infants in Alaskan grave" (2015-10-26, unews.utah.edu) [archive.is/x97O7]
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* "Research backs human role in extinction of mammoths, other mammals" (2015-10-26, popular-archaeology.com) [archive.is/kiNBK]
* "Lost Giant Poop Disrupts Whole Planet; Study shows declines in whales, fish, seabirds and large animals damage Earth’s nutrient cycle" (2015-10-26, uvm.edu) [archive.is/otrEw]
* "Massive Herbivores Fell to 'Hypercarnivores'; How big does a mammoth's predator have to be? Pretty big" (2015-10-26, research.duke.edu) [archive.is/HQNZI]. Image caption: Juveniles of even the largest herbivores could have been felled by the Pleistocene's massive predators, especially if the carnivores worked together. (Painting courtesy of Mauricio Anton)
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* "Preshistoric plumage patterns Ornithomimus dinosaur with preserved tail feathers and skin tightens linkages between dinosaurs and birds" (2015-10-28, University of Alberta) [archive.is/Cch4g] [begin excerpt]: An undergraduate University of Alberta paleontology student has discovered an Ornithomimus dinosaur with preserved tail feathers and soft tissue. The discovery is shedding light on the convergent evolution of these dinosaurs with ostriches and emus relating to thermoregulation and is also tightening the linkages between dinosaurs and modern birds.
"We now know what the plumage looked like on the tail, and that from the mid-femur down, it had bare skin," says Aaron van der Reest. This is the first report of such preserved skin forming a web from the femoral shaft to the abdomen, never before seen in non-avian dinosaurs. [end excerpt]
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