Anything About Mystery

GOOGLE EARTH Mystery Secret UFO and Hidden Places PART 2

2011-09-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

GOOGLE EARTH Mystery Secret UFO and Hidden Places PART 1

2011-09-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

Amazing places at Google Earth.

COORDINATES:
HERE

SHARK:
31 59'20.53"S 152 34'18.47"E

GEOGLYPH IN CHILE:
19 56'56.76"S 69 38'2.07"W

USA BUSH:
41 51'26.99"N 121 29'25.75"W

HORSE#1:
50 39'26.33"N 2 24'14.92"W

ARROW IN PERU:
14 32'45.28"S 75 9'35.85"W

"FACE":
33 55'37.16"N 117 34'8.58"W

LINES IN PERU (NAZCA):
14 33'9.40"S 75 10'36.74"W

"UFO"#1 IN SPITSBERGEN:
78 38'29.61"N 15 7'5.50"E

GEO-FORM:
19 37'40.75"S 69 58'46.35"W

HORSE#2
54 13'29.68"N 1 12'44.46"W

GEOGLIPHS IN HILE:
19 12'13.45"S 70 0'30.41"W

ELEPHANTS IN AFRICA;
10 54'12.65"N 19 55'56.05"E

BIG RABBIT:
44 14'39.77"N 7°46'10.71"E

SIGN:
37 37'38.69"N 116 50'48.38"W

HORSE#3
51 19'16.29"N 1 45'22.76"W

DINO:
42 4'34.14"N 2 21'21.93"W

"UFO"#2:
45 42'11.97"N 21 18'7.81"E

BIG INSCRIPTIONS IN CHILE:
17 58'20.55"S 70 14'12.89"W

SMILE:
43 25'44.84"N 80 19'51.12"W

The secret of the cat in ancient Egypt

2011-06-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

Source : http://useit.vn/content/view/847/44/lang,english

Unlike some other animals, the cat was not primarily associated with an important local deity at the beginning of Egyptian time. It never attained a truly elected 'official' status which would have enabled it to become a full member of the divine community encountered on the walls of Egyptian temples. But in spite of all this, the cat's popularity eventually surpassed that of any other animal and reached far beyond Egypt's boundaries.
The earliest feline cat goddess recorded was called Mafdet and is described in the Pyramid Texts as killing a serpent with her claws. But the most famous cat goddesses in the world, first revered by the ancient Egyptians were Bastet (also known as Bast, Pasch, Ubasti) and the lion-headed Sekhmet.

Bastet was often depicted as having the body of a woman and the head of a domestic cat. She was associated with the Eye of Ra, acting within the sun god's power. The Egyptians loved Bastet so much that she became a household goddess and protector of women, children and domestic cats. She was also the goddess of sunrise, music, dance, pleasure, as well as family, fertility and birth.

Her supposed evil counterpart was the goddess Sekhmet who represented the cat goddess' destructive force. She is known as the goddess of war and pestilence. But even she was tamed by Ra (who supposedly got her drunk) and she eventually became the powerful protector of humans. Together, Bastet and Sekhmet represented the balance of the forces of nature.

Cats began to appear on objects of everyday life. There were gold cats on intricate bracelets, small golden cat pendants, cats amulets made of soapstone for necklaces and rings. Women made up their faces holding mirrors with cats on the wooden handles and on their cosmetic pots. The best part was that ordinary people could enjoy the protection of the cat goddess through their amulets on their clothing or around their necks or in their earlobes. Cats even figured in dream interpretation. In one book of ancient dreams, it was said that if a man sees a cat in a dream, it means he will have a good harvest.

In the late periods of Egyptian history, the popularity of the cat increased and a great many bronze cat statuettes were made; most were intended for shrines or funerary purposes. Most had pierced ears and silver or gold earrings. Their eyes were made of inlaid rock crystal or a similar opaque material. The ancient Egyptians considered the female cat as a good mother, and there have been several statues of mother cats and kittens discovered.
Cats were held in such high esteem that at one point, the penalty for killing a cat-even accidentally-was death.

EARTH MYSTERY: Modern technology in ancient times???

2011-03-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Many archeological discoveries around the world, have details that suggests a baffling similarity with modern technologies and devices reported by ancient civilizations, MAINLY the ones used by some "gods" or "deities". Some details of sculptures are so scandalous that many non-orthodox researchers and scientists, seriously consider that indeed did exist one or more advanced civilizations in remote times. But we got three issues here: Why these possible technologies were related ONLY to gods and not common people?? Who were these "gods"?? What happened with them??

NASA UFO BANNED VIDEO!!! CRAZY!!!

2011-02-25T12:00:00.001-08:00

Lots, lots, lots of objects surroundin´ the Discovery Shuttle!!! Poppin´ in the screen from everywhere!!!

What is paranormal

2011-02-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

Everything unexplainable, of course! OK, maybe it's too much, but I think it is easier to say what can not be classified as paranormal. Everything explainable won't be paranormal. Personally, I can not classify mysterious places (Bermuda Triangle, Tunguska) and UFO phenomenon to paranormal, most of cryptozoological phenomena can't be classify as paranormal either (remember, "most"). Thank goodness there is a lot of space in our database so we will discuss these things on our website.

Most people when they hear "paranormal" they think of "ghosts" and "haunted homes". This is true of course, but is it everything? Nope, generally all types of ghost and spirit encounters can be classify as paranormal, yes - from home haunting (both intelligent haunts and residual haunting), ghostly apparitions and personal poltergeist activity (sometimes referred as "the noisy ghost" which isn't very true in most cases), to encounters with Banshee and The Grim Reaper, Doppelganger and Vardoger phenomena too. All kinds of psychic abilities like psychokinesis, telepathy, remote viewing, as well as telepathy with animals and telepathy between siblings can be thrown into paranormal category as well. Unexplainable events in specific locations might be classify as paranormal, but in most cases it depends on person investigating. Good news is that classification in this case is very elastic :).

It is important to know that paranormal does not means "unexplainable at all', but "unexplainable at this time". The world "paranormal" itself might sound a little negative among some people, which is wrong, at least for me, because I'm using this word to describe events that can not be explained right now, and definitely need to be studied closer, while some people, mostly scientists and close-minded pseudo-skeptics can't even accept the possibility that the phenomena in question might be explained one day.

Now, why can't I classify UFO and Bermuda Triangle as paranormal? Both phenomena are mysterious indeed, yet... exactly - they're mysterious, extraordinary, but exept this, I really can't find anything paranormal.
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A Medium's Methodology: Balancing Scientific and Spiritual Methods of Paranormal Research

2011-02-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

When I do a walkthrough, during a paranormal research, of a location, I give information as it's coming to me but also keep in mind the instruments my team members are using that may be able to capture and/or measure information validating the impressions I am getting. Remembering this during paranormal investigation is not only a good way to validate experiences from a medium stand point, but also helps the team in capturing possible evidence.

A big part of the mediums job during a paranormal investigation is knowing when to speak and when to remain silent, regardless of what may be coming through at the moment. If the team is in the process of an EVP (electronic voice phenomena) session for example or trying other forms of communication through scientific methods, it's important to learn to wait and take a mental note of what you are feeling at that moment. and share it with the team at an appropriate time. This is to not only ensure the balance of the paranormal investigation, but also that even in the role of a medium you are helping the technical side by not getting in the way so to speak.

It would be a disservice to everyone if a medium just walked through a location talking the entire paranormal investigation disregarding the roles of his/her teammates. Just as it would be if the scientific side was to disregard their spiritual tools which can provide insights and information as well. Some teams have trouble finding this steady balance or choose to not use mediums at all, while other just seem to "click" naturally using all methods. Finding the right team to work with is important, and it can take some time, practice, and learning from one another on how to be the most efficient. Most importantly, everyone should feel equally involved in a paranormal investigation regardless of role.

Another great asset in having a medium as part of a paranormal investigation team is having one experienced in helping spirits to cross over, or can perform a blessing/cleansing if needed or requested. Especially in handling residential cases when most often a family is frightened and not sure what to do, which is why the call upon an investigation group to help in the first place. Even if the team captures scientific evidence for the client to review, what is really being done to help other then validating the family's claims? This is where the spiritual side of a team comes into play as well, providing not only information, but also a solution to the haunting.

On the flip side, I feel it is extremely important for mediums involved in paranormal research to be well versed in the scientific methods and uses of different instruments. Cross training mediums not only makes them an asset in being able to pick up instruments and help in scientific investigating. But also gives them a better knowledge of what his or her teammates are doing and what indicators they are looking for. A deep understanding of everyone's role and method of research is the key to success. I personally, find the use of scientific tools to be fascinating and enjoy going over evidence with the eye of a sceptic. It helps keep our field honest, and mediums should take part and become experienced in all avenues of paranormal investigation.

This is a brief overview of what I feel are great mind sets and methods for mediums as well as others, to insure a paranormal investigation has a healthy balance of spiritual or scientific aspects of research. When individuals performing various duties work in unison as a cohesive team, the outcomes are most often a smooth and wonderful paranormal investigation with all goals being achieved.

-Medium Renso Ryokan

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How To Become A Paranormal Investigator And Start Your Own Club

2011-02-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

So many people have dreams of becoming a paranormal investigator but nobody ever follows them through. It's a fact that it would be very difficult to make a living out of paranormal investigation but it can be done. Starting your own paranormal investigation group could not only help you succeed with your dream but could be a very rewarding hobby. The top three things people need to think about when making a group are; where can I get business from? Where can I investigate? What will I need?

Where can I get people interested?

Finding like minded people can be a fairly difficult task, especially when you are dealing with hunting ghosts or searching for UFOs. That said, there are plenty of people in exactly the same situation as you. Try searching online for local paranormal groups, every town has one. Go along to a meeting and do some networking, tell the members that you are thinking about forming your own group. Advertise in your local newspaper or send flyers around your local area. You will be surprised at how many people would be interested.

Where can I investigate?

Ask around in your local area about hunted locations or areas where people have seen UFOs or anything of interest. I have no doubts whatsoever that somebody you know or a friend of a friend has had some kind of paranormal experience. Don't be afraid to ask people about their experiences, after ll, that's what being a paranormal investigator is all about. Once you have found a location then ask the owners if you can investigate with your team, if they say they want some money then offer them money and charge the members of your research group to come on the investigation.

What will I need?

Its nothing like ghost busters I can tell you that much! You don't need expensive equipment and fancy recording gear to conduct and investigation. Just a torch, camera, video recorder and some type of data recording software would suffice. The chances are people you know or even members of your paranormal investigation group will own something of use. Ask them to bring it along and let them have some money off for the night. People will be more than happy to help out if it means there will be more of a chance of seeing something.

Remember that a small local based paranormal investigation group is the first step to becoming a successful paranormal investigator. Once you have built up a reputation then more people will join and you will be able to expand. Remember to have fun, be patient and don't give up!

To download professional pranormal investigation software then visit: www.paranormal-investigation.info
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Paranormal Photography 101

2011-02-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

Easily one of the most misunderstood and often misinterpreted aspects of paranormal research is paranormal photography.

While it is important to utilize a still frame camera in a paranormal investigation, it is also easy to misuse it or misinterpret the images it captures. In spite of this, the camera is a valuable piece of equipment for the paranormal investigator for documenting the investigation or possibly capturing an excellent paranormal image.

Cameras come in different types with lots of different features. There is the conventional film camera which uses film requiring processing and the digital camera which places a digital image stored on a memory card for viewing on a computer or directly from the camera. The advantage of the film camera is that while the pictures are superior and it provides a negative which can be used to determine the authenticity of the image, the processing of film can be very expensive. Digital cameras have become more popular in the paranormal field but because of the availability of photo imaging software such as Photoshop and others, manipulating images is far too easy and it is because of that the investigator's pictures will always be brought into question using a digital camera. So as you can see, the paranormal investigator has to decide what is important in choosing a camera.

Shooting pictures during a paranormal investigation is important and should be common practice for any good paranormal team. Sadly though, a search on the internet for paranormal websites will reveal numerous websites filled with images of supposed paranormal activity. What many of these paranormal investigators fail to understand is that due to the complexities and inner workings of a camera it is easy to take a an image that is misinterpreted for paranormal activity. It may be something as simple as lighting, photographer error, shutter speed, or some natural occurrence like dust, moisture in the air, or something blocking the lens like a strap or the even photographer's finger that was captured. Too little light, too much light, a slow shutter speed, improper camera settings, bugs flying by the camera, a camera strap in the lens, cigarette smoke, or dust and rain drops can all produce what appears to be a paranormal anomaly. It happens all too frequently.

Taking good pictures is a skill that takes time to acquire. Some paranormal investigators have even taken photography classes at their local community college to improve their photography skills. This can be very helpful in becoming a better paranormal investigator and photographer.

In spite of the dilemmas of photography, it is still possible to capture a very good paranormal image, but the paranormal research team should be cautious in deciding which pictures actually show something paranormal and not be quick to present it to others as such unless absolutely sure it is worthy of being presented. Pictures of orbs should especially be scrutinized because of the numerous causes of orbs in pictures such as dust and moisture in the air.

It may a good idea to get several opinions or even seek the assistance of an experienced photographer or another paranormal investigator to get a second opinion. The other option is to present it and let the viewer decide for themselves if it is paranormal; as long as you tell the viewer that prior to showing it to them.

For more information on paranormal photography, the author recommends the book "Picture Yourself Capturing Ghosts on Film" by Christopher Balzano. This well-written book provides step-by-step instructions on documenting the paranormal with photography and video and is an excellent beginner's guide to securing photo evidence of the paranormal. It also includes interviews with experts in the field, a "how to" DVD, and provides information on choosing the right camera. This book is an excellent resource for any paranormal investigator and a great addition to their library.
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13 Unsolved Scientific Puzzles!

2011-01-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

1. MOST OF THE UNIVERSE IS MISSING

We can only account for 4 per cent of the cosmos

If you’re wondering what the LHC might do for you, how’s this: it might just find a whole quarter of the universe. The collider is hoping to create some particles of what physicists call "dark matter", an enigma that is thought to make up roughly 25 per cent of the universe. Then there is the "dark energy", a mysterious force that seems to be ripping space and time apart. In total, a whopping 96 per cent of the universe has gone AWOL. Unless, that is, we’ve got our maths all wrong. Watch this space.

Times Archive: Pioneer 11 arrival at Saturn, 1974

3. VARYING CONSTANTS

Destabilising our view of the universe

A decade ago, we discovered that the fundamental constants of physics might not be so constant after all. These are the numbers that describe just how strong the forces of nature are, and make the laws of physics work when we use them to describe the processes of nature. Light that has travelled across the universe from distant stars tells us those laws might have been different in the past. Though the physical laws and constants have helped us define and tame the natural world, they might be an illusion.

4. COLD FUSION

Nuclear energy without the drama

In 1989, the world was rocked by claims that you could release nuclear energy without a catastrophic explosion. Various failures to replicate or explain these results soon ended the careers of the scientists involved. But, despite what you might have heard, "cold fusion" never really went away. Over a 10-year period from 1989, US navy labs ran more than 200 experiments to investigate whether nuclear reactions generating more energy than they consume - supposedly only possible inside stars - can occur at room temperature. Numerous researchers have since pronounced themselves believers. With controllable cold fusion, many of the world’s energy problems would melt away: no wonder the US Department of Energy is interested again.

5. LIFE

Are you more than just a bag of chemicals?

Are you more than the sum of the inanimate chemicals that make up your body? What turns a living tree into a lifeless piece of wood? No one knows. Researchers have even given up trying to define what life is. But they are still trying to understand it - by making it from scratch. In labs across the world, people are taking the raw materials of living things and trying to put them together in a way that makes them come alive. In an effort to resolve the anomalous nature of life, the idea of scientists playing God has taken a whole new turn. Times Archive: Dr Edmund Leach on when scientists play God, 1968

6. METHANE FROM MARTIANS

NASA scientists found evidence for life on Mars. Then they changed their minds

On July 20, 1976, the Viking landers scooped up some Martian soil and mixed it with radioactive nutrients. The mission’s scientists all agreed that if radioactive methane was released from the soil, something must be eating the nutrients - and there must be life on Mars. The experiment gave a positive result, but NASA denied an official detection of Martian life. Today, there is even more evidence that something is creating methane on Mars. Is it life? The Viking experiment suggests it was. Martin Rees, England’s astronomer royal, calls the search for extraterrestrial life the most important scientific endeavour of our time. But have we already found it? Times Archive: Spacecraft evidence suggests life on Mars was possible, 1976

7. THE WOW! SIGNAL

Has ET already been in touch?

It was an electromagnetic pulse that came from the direction of the Sagittarius constellation. It lasted 37 seconds and had exactly the characteristics predicted for an alien signal. Maybe that’s why, on 15 August 1977 it caused astronomer Jerry Ehman to scrawl "Wow!" on the printout from Big Ear, Ohio State University’s radio telescope in Delaware. The nearest star in that direction is 220 light years away. If that really is where is came from, it would have had to be a pretty powerful astronomical event - or an advanced alien civilisation using an astonishingly large and powerful transmitter. More than 30 years later, its origin remains a mystery. Times Archive: ET, The Extra Terrestrial, The Times review 1982

8. A GIANT VIRUS

It’s a freak that could rewrite the story of life

Mimivirus is sitting in a freezer in Marseille. Around thirty times bigger than the rhinovirus that gives you a common cold, it is by far the biggest virus known to science. But this virus’s biggest impact won’t be on the healthcare systems of the globe. It will be, most likely, on the history of life on Earth. Mimivirus doesn’t fit with the established story of how life on Earth got going. Mimi has a genome that, in parts, looks like yours. Mimivirus seems to be part of the story of life on Earth. It may even make us rewrite it.

9. DEATH

Evolution’s problem with self-destruction

Why must we die? It is a question that splits biologists, and over the years, theories have been batted back and forth as new evidence comes to light. One answer is that death is simply necessary - to avoid overcrowding, for instance. But evolution doesn’t - can’t - select for a "death switch" because evolution is supposed to be all about the inpidual. And yet there does seem to be a death switch: researchers have managed to locate genetic switches that massively extend the lifespan of some nematode worms. Can we solve the riddle of death? Times Archive: Why die? Experiments in immortality, 1921

10. SEX

There are better ways to reproduce

Sex is everywhere, but no one knows why. It is a question that "better scientists than I have spent book after book failing to answer," says Richard Dawkins. To Charles Darwin, the reason for the prevalence of sexual reproduction was "hidden in darkness". All the arguments in favour of sexual reproduction are countered by stronger arguments in favour of self-cloning: asexual reproduction, where an organism produces a copy of itself, is a much more efficient way to pass your genes down to the next generation. There’s no proof that sex makes a species more resilient, or better placed to cope with change. Why is it still around? Times Archive: Darwin on the Descent of Man, 1871 Part 1 Part 2

11. FREE WILL

Your decisions are not your own

Our gut instinct, our experience, is that we make the decisions to move, to think, to eat, to steal, to lie, to punch and kick. We have constructed the entire edifice of our civilisation on this idea. But science says this free will is a delusion. According to the world’s best neuroscientists, we are brain-machines. Our brains create the sense that somewhere within them is the "you" that makes decisions. But it is an illusion; there is no ghost in the machine. What does this mean for our sense of self? And for our morality - can we prosecute people for acts over which they had no conscious control? Times Archive: Necessity and free will, 1877

12. THE PLACEBO EFFECT

Who’s being deceived?

The placebo effect used to be thought of as just a manipulation, a mind-trick. Doctors wore white coats, spoke in soothing tones, exuding confidence and medical know-how, and if they told you a pill would make you better, it would. By the time you found out it was just a sugar pill, you were feeling great, so who cares? Well, lots of people, actually, because our new understanding of placebo is messing up medicine. Some prescription drugs that were judged to perform "better than placebo" in clinical trials don’t work unless you know you’re taking them. All in all, the gold standard of medicine, the placebo-controlled clinical trial, is looking a little peaky. Times Archive: Science report: Endorphins and the placebo effect, 1978

13. HOMEOPATHY

It’s patently absurd, so why won’t it go away?

Homeopathy’s claim is that you can take a substance of dubious properties, dilute it to the point where there are no molecules of the original substance left in the sample you have, and still use it to heal sickness. Sir John Forbes, the physician to Queen Victoria’s household, called it "an outrage to human reason." There is no justification in all of science for this idea — and yet there remains some slim evidence that homeopathy works. How can this be? Times Archive: Advertisement: The New Homoeopathy, 1914
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The Roanoke Colony Mystery: Still Unsolved After Four Centuries

2011-01-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

The island of Roanoke in North Carolina holds the secret to the baffling disappearance of a band of English settlers in the late sixteenth century. The early colony simply vanished without trace, and their fate has intrigued and baffled historians ever since.

The story starts in 1587, with the second attempt to establish a British colony on Roanoke Island. Two years earlier, English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh made an unsuccessful bid to establish a settlement on the Island, sponsoring an all-male colony which initially integrated well with the Native Americans already living there. However, the harmony didn’t last as the brusque manner of colony commander Sir Ralph Lane soon angered the local tribe. To compound the colony’s problems, supply ships failed to show leaving them hungry and disillusioned, so when Raleigh dropped in on the colonists in 1586 after a trip to the West Indies, they elected to join him on the voyage home to Britain. But, because the New World offered such potential profits, the English tried again in August 1587, and it is the settlement that was established by 115 men, women and children that is the subject of the Roanoke colony mystery.

Very soon after setting up the colony its governor - artist John White - returned to England with the intention of immediately returning with much needed supplies. However, due to the war with Spain he was prevented from setting sail for three years. When he finally arrived back at Roanoke in August 1590 he came across a totally deserted colony, with only one clue as to where the inhabitants had gone; the word “Croatoan” - the name of the friendly tribe that lived on the south of the island - was carved in a tree. However, despite White spending the rest of his life searching, no trace of the colonists was ever found.

Theories by historians include that they may have been killed by the local Croatoan tribe, or that, tired of waiting for supplies and feeling abandoned, they moved inland and married into other Native American tribes. Another supposition is that they were murdered by Spanish troops on a northern sojourn from Florida. Their fate may never be known and any evidence that may have supplied clues is now long gone. The site of their inhabitation was soon overgrown by vegetation and has now been lost even to the point where historians still debate the original location.

Some argue that the doomed settlement is now under water some half a mile out to sea, as the coastline has shifted significantly since the sixteenth century. With the location of the settlement unknown, it is impossible to dig for clues. Many people have travelled to the region hoping to find some trace of the colony, and if you fancy joining their ranks, make sure that you locate a hotel in Roanoke near the north of the Island, where the settlement allegedly stood. Who knows? You might be the one who finally unlocks the secret to the ill-fated Roanoke colony.

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The Mystery of the Headless Emperor

2011-01-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

Anybody who has been to the Tower of London will know that King Henry 8th chopped off the head of his wife Anne Boleyn because she did not produce a son for him. It is said that the ghost of Anne Boleyn walks at midnight the building known as the Bloody Tower, "with her head tucked underneath her arm," as the song says. Some people believe that you might see the ghost of the Qing emperor, Yongzhen, walking around his mausoleum, Tailing, at the Western Tombs, near Beijing, with his head tucked under his arm. If you are ever lucky enough to see this awesome spectre grab it quickly, for the head that he carries is made of solid gold.

However, in this article I am talking about mysteries, and the first mystery about the Yongzhen emperor is why, against tradition, he ignored time-honoured protocol and chose a tomb site 100 kilometres away from that of his grandfather, Shunzhi (Fulin), and his father Kangxi. One theory that seems feasible is, having unscrupulously manoeuvred himself onto the throne and mercilessly persecuted his royal brothers and insiders, Yongzheng was loath to face his forefathers in the nether world. Does that seem reasonable?

Yongzheng was the most controversial of all the Qing emperors. The circumstances surrounding his enthronement and death are still a mystery and a matter for conjecture. His father, Emperor Kangxi (1654-1722), ruled for 61 years, and from more than 50 concubines had fathered 20 daughters and 35 sons, 24 of whom survived into adulthood. Kangxi's wealth of male issue made choosing a crown prince a difficult matter for not many of the 24 surviving sons seemed to be of the stuff that emperors are made of. Of these sons, only the second (the Crown Prince Yunreng), the fourth (Prince Yong) and the eighth (Prince Lian) and possibly the fourteenth were considered competent successors to the throne. Prince Yunren and Prince Lian actively formed their respective cliques, but Prince Yong maintained a modest stance and a low profile. He kept his distance from official circles, using spies to keep him up-to-date on his rivals' activities.

The first to fall in the struggle for the throne was the Crown Prince of the previous three decades. He had a strong clique to support him and was overly aggressive in his intent to succeed Kangxi, but he upset his father who eventually deposed him. It was then Prince Lian's turn to conspire, and he did so in a manner no less ruthless than his brother. Enraged, Kangxi put him under house arrest and executed his main conspirators. In an effort to contain the power struggle, he restored the Crown Prince, but was forced to depose him a second time. The old emperor then considered his fourth and 14th sons - both full-blood brothers - as imperial candidates.

Kangxi died in the Changchun Garden in western Beijing in December 1722. Seven days later, Longkedo, commander of the capital garrison, made an announcement claiming that Kangxi's last oral decree before expiring was that the competent character of the fourth prince, Prince Yong, made him suitable to be his successor and to rule the empire. Days later, he produced a written decree to the same effect, claiming that the deceased emperor had actually written the decree a few years previously. Hmm!

Beijing buzzed with rumours: some said that Longkedo had fabricated the imperial decree; others said that the fourteen son had been selected and that Yongzheng, or at least

Fig 26.2 The Yongzhen Emperor.
somebody, had altered the decree to read the "4th son," rather than "14th son." (Fourteen ?? shísì) to "to four" (?? yúsì).

This is doubtful especially considering that the character ? wasn't widely used on official documents during the Qing Dynasty. Instead the character ? was used more often. Secondly, Qing tradition insists that the will be executed in both Manchu and Chinese, and Manchu writing is much harder, and in this case impossible, to modify. Furthermore, princes in the Qing Dynasty are referred to as the Emperor's son in the order which they were born. For example, "The Emperor's Fourth Son" Therefore, there is much doubt to the theory that Yongzhen changed the decree stating that he was the one to ascend to the throne. Even so, precisely how Yongzhen succeeded to the throne is still a mystery.

Immediately after his ascension, Zhongzhen imposed martial law, which forbade anyone from entering the capital. The 14th prince was thus unable to attend his father's funeral, or contest the accession.

It is not appropriate to discuss Yongzhen's reign here, but it is more appropriate to jump to his death, which was sudden and unexpected and occurred under mysterious circumstances. The imperial court did not specify the cause of his sudden demise, and consequently rumours were rife. Many of these suggested that he had been murdered. However, the most popular of these rumours was that because Yongzheng had ordered a considerable number of executions during his rule, he had made many enemies, one of whom being an old foe named Lu Siniang. A story arose that Lu had assassinated and beheaded the emperor. The rumour was a juicy one. However, it went further. It asserted that when the emperor was buried at the Tailing Mausoleum an artificial head had been placed on the mutilated cadaver so that he could enter heaven with a whole body. Furthermore, it was alleged that this artificial head was made of solid gold! If you are going to spread a rumour you might just as well spread a good one.

A survey of the Western Qing Tombs made in 1980 indicated that Yongzhen's burial chamber, Tailing, had been plundered. Relevant departments reported this to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, requesting restorative excavation. When digging commenced, reporters from various agencies excitedly gathered on the site, expecting an answer to the mystery of the "gold head." However, upon reaching a two-meter depth of excavation it was quite apparent that the tomb mound had not been touched. The digging was immediately stopped in order to conserve the underground palace. Therefore, the mystery of the "gold head" remains unsolved.

But what do modern historians think about the mysterious death of Zhongzhen? Extant historical documents suggest that Yongzheng died from accidentally or inadvertently taking poisoned medicine, probably Daoist elixirs of Longevity, and was neither murdered nor beheaded. However, the popular story persists, and many people are still convinced there is a gold head attached to the body of the Zhongzhen Emperor in his Tailing Tomb. As I said, if you see his ghost walking with his head under his arm, grab it. It is probably valuable.

[1] In London, England

Roy Bates has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

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Know the Shocking Unexplained Mysteries as Well as Paranormal Incidences at Profiling the Unexplained

2011-01-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

Humans are no doubt the most important creation of God. They are known for their intelligence and are regarded as the one who are in a position to do anything they want. It is often considered that nothing is impossible for humans. Humans are no doubt the most powerful creations who are capable to even destroy the whole world. Thus it looks like they are in a position to control everything but is it true?

Generally it be termed as true, but there are several unexplained mysteries as well as the paranormal incidences that make this sentence false.

History is said to have covered several things in its heart. There are several unexplained mysteries that compel one to believe that there is something even more powerful than humans.

There are several paranormal incidences that are enough to make one think about the life that is not visible in the eyes of normal man. The site by name of Profiling the Unexplained is created with a purpose to throw light on the other world. The purpose of its creation is to make one familiar about the topics of the paranormal as well as the unexplained mysteries.

There are several pages included in the site from where you can have the interesting information on several aspects that are paranormal as well as you can also have information on UFO’s as well as on unexplained mysteries and worth to mention several cases.

There are several incidences mentioned that are enough to make you bite your nails. The best part is that there are not just stories rather they are the incidences that carry some sort of proof with them. If you are interested in knowing about the unsolved crime cases, then too it is the perfect site meant for you. In order to increase the interest of the user, the site is built so as to include the cases or things not just from one place or country rather from all over the world.

It is a fact that internet is an ocean so there are abundant of materials related to the matter available on it just like what is published in the site. Then what is so important in this site?

The answer to this question is that this site is itself an ocean for the information and incidences related to unexplained mysteries as well as the paranormal incidences. In addition it contains the incidences that have some evidences associated with them for example the Unexplained Mysteries of the Miracles of Lourdes is there on the site with full description as well as the story. In order to add importance of the incidence even the facts are included so as to make the incident as real as possible.

Unlike other sites, where the motive is just to put any content and attract visitors this site is produced in order to make people truly aware of the cases that happened in the past and that have some sort of importance associated with them. There are several posts, articles as well as forums so as to have enormous views on the topic.

With the help of forums it is easy to have thousands of views on the topic so as to judge the relevance of the post. In addition, there is also facility of live chat available with the site so as to make one know the query for every doubt.
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Mysteries That Exist Behind Unexplained Mysteries and Haunting Unsolved

2011-01-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

It is a fact that there are several changes that are taking place with time. With time many things have changed right from living and eating habits of the person to the living standard of the people. However one more thing is there that is changed with time, though not to the large extent. It is old beliefs and thoughts of people regarding the unexplained mysteries as well as the haunting unsolved mysteries or incidences.

In the past, it was common to find most of the people believe in ghosts and several other superstitious things but now-a-days if a person believes on such things than it is taken as something unusual. Even several members of the society laugh on that person. Thus at present time, there are quite less people who believe on unexplained mysteries as well as the haunting unsolved incidences.

There are several people who are having belief on this topic and several others who are against this topic so it is generally taken as a question of debate.

In order to answer several unsolved questions a site is there that can be termed as the best site to enable you know the other side of the life. It is clearly revealed in the site that there are several supernatural powers that are influencing several people all around.

The site profilingtheunexplained.com provides several stories based on facts that reveal that there are several forces in existence that are not known to everyone. Not only that they also have the power that is enough to make one think what is the force acting against the strength of such force.

It is created in order to throw light on the other world as well as to enable people to share their views and experiences. Now-a-days with modernization, if one talks about black magic and spiritual things, then it is more taken as a matter of joke. In order to help such people, the site is meant so that one can put his/her views easily on the site.

There are many posts on unexplained mysteries as well as the haunting unsolved, in order to make people know about the experiences as well as stories of others. In addition there is facility of live chat that helps in clearing doubts if any. Not only that, in order to enable people to put their views, there is facility of forums as well. Thus one can communicate his/her opinion by way of forums in order to have clear opinion without any influence.

Further the quality of content that is used in the site is so perfect that the user gets an impression of reading quality content. The stories that are displayed in the site are with facts so as to make the people know that it in not just an illusion. In addition several pictures are also there in the site that can work as the perfect evidence for the situation that has actually happened. Thus if you are interested in revealing the other world and want to know or express something that is hard to believe for a common man then this site is no doubt the best option for you.

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Do You Want to Know About the Unexplained Mysteries and Haunting Unsolved? Go for Profiling the Unexplained!

2011-01-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

With modern era, every thing is changing- the living standard of the people, their living style, their habits as well as their beliefs. It was earlier that people believe in superstitions, rituals and many other things that are considered hallucination in today’s language. But the question that emerges were they really illusions? Was there nothing like that in existence?

The answer to these and many other questions are difficult to find but still there are several facts available that are enough to make one know that there was something in the past and there is something present today as well.

There are several unexplained mysteries as well as haunting unsolved stories or incidences available that are enough to compel one think about their existence.

In order to decrease the gap between one’s imagination and real facts about these unexplained mysteries there are enough sites available on the net. However the one that is entirely different and extraordinary is profilingtheunexplained.com.

There are several points that make this site different from rest of the sites. They are as under:

1. Presentation: For any site or material to be influential, the most important thing is the presentation. This site is having the best presentation and there are enough facts supported in order to make the user compel to put stress on the thought of unexplained mysteries as well as the haunting unsolved.

2. Material or Content: Another most important feature that makes this site different from others is its magnificent content. The content here includes the matter that has actually happened. In addition in order to have variety of contents there are several users to put their posts as well.

3. Facts behind the unexplained mysteries or haunting unsolved: Several stories or incidences as depicted here carry facts behind them. It is quite unique feature that is not available with most of the sites. The facts associated inform the user about the truth behind them.

4. Feature of forums or chats available: The best part of this site is that there is feature of forums as well as online chat available. With the help of forums it is possible to form unbiased opinion on anything. Also with the help of chat it is possible to get away from any of the doubt that the user is having.

5. Good quantity as well as quality of content: There are several posts from several authors related to unexplained mysteries as well as the haunting unsolved. With such large variety and quality of content, the user generally finds him in the other world etc.

Thus there are several plus points associated with this site and for this reason only it is having such popularity that is dream from any other site.

The purpose of this site is to make people aware about the unexplained mysteries as well as paranormal facts. The site is also having a good collection of various haunting places that you can visit if you desire. There are several incidences that would let you know the opinion of other people about such different things.

There are stories related to black magic as well as other related things that are not considered true now-a-days. With the help of various stories as well as haunting unsolved mysteries, you can see other world in the eyes of those who have experienced them by own.

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Know the Shocking Unexplained Mysteries as Well as Paranormal Incidences at Profiling the Unexplained

2010-12-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

As we all know that human beings are the most vital creation of God. They have the best intelligence in all living things and are considered as the one who are capable of doing anything. They are the most powerful creations on earth and rule the earth in almost all aspects. Thus it can be said that they can control everything with their intelligence but is it really right?

One cannot say that they can control everything as there are several paranormal incidences and various hauntings unsolved mysteries which prove this sentence wrong.

Several stories are still hidden in the heart of history. There are many hauntings unsolved mysteries which prove that there is something around us which is even more powerful than human beings. Several paranormal incidences took place in front of many people which compel us to believe that something invisible is there which is dominant and prevailing.

This online site has been given a name of ‘profiling the unexplained’ with a purpose to uncover several hidden secrets of the unknown world. The main reason of creating this online site is to make people familiar to several paranormal incidences and many hauntings unsolved mysteries.

This site contains several pages from which you can gain several information and knowledge on various aspects like paranormal incidences, information regarding UFO’s, various hauntings unsolved mysteries and several other hidden secrets which are not known to the world.

The incidences mentioned in these sites are true and will compel you to believe in the invisible world. The incidences mentioned on various pages of this site are not just stories; rather they contain some proof with them. This site can also provide you true unsolved crime cases. This site is very beneficial for the internet users as it include the cases or mysteries from all over the world and is not restricted to any one state or country.

You may question that internet is just like an ocean in which one can find several cases hidden mysteries and paranormal incidences then why should we opt for this particular site?

Your question is absolutely right but the answer to this question is that, this site is an ocean in itself for gaining information and knowledge about several paranormal incidences and different hauntings unsolved mysteries. Some facts are also included with the incidences so as to make it more real. This site also contains some evidences which work as a proof that all the incidences are true and not a single sentence is imagined by any human being.

This site is very much different from other online sites which just put any content to attract the net users. The motive of this online site is to uncover many hauntings unsolved mysteries and several paranormal incidences and to help people in knowing the truth of the invisible world. This site also provides several articles, posts and forums so that people can write their views on any particular incidence or topic.

These forums help the net users in writing enormous views on any topic so that other can easily judge the significance and truth of that particular topic. This site also facilitates the people with live chat so as to clear any doubts regarding any incidence or topic.

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Wondering mysteriously about the paranormal aliens

2010-12-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

Wonders, unsolved mysteries, aliens, UFOs and anything superhuman have always occupied popular imagination since ages. With reports on area 51, Brazilian government's official documents on existence of aliens and even alien abductions this is only getting more interesting. Well, enough has been discussed, argued and analyzed on many websites. But one obvious question would have come in every one's mind: Why most of the reports and sightings are from USA or just a few other countries? Why aren't there reports from countries like India? Is it a coincidence that such incidents don't happen in countries like India? Or is it that incidents in India are simply not reported because people are not aware what exactly happened?

Bhangarh in the state of Rajasthan is one of the most haunted places in India. The story goes like this: the charm of Princess of Bhangarh Ratnawati was matchless in the entire state. In the same region there also lived a tantrik (a magician using black magic) named Singhia who was desperately in love with the princess. One day, he saw the princess' maid in the market buying scented oil for the princess. He used his black magic and put a spell on the oil which would hypnotize the princess by her mere touching the oil and she would immediately walk towards the tantrik. But when princess got the oil, she threw it on the block of a stone as she had seen the tantrik eying the oil. As soon as the oil touched the stone, the stone started rolling towards the tantrik Singhia and crushed him. While dying, Singhia cursed the palace that there will be such an incident that everybody in the palace would die and their souls will stay there for centuries without rebirth. The very next year there was a battle between Bhangarh-Ajabgarh and no one survived in the battle or in the palace, not even princess Ratnawati. The ghosts of royal family have been haunting the place since then. There is a board put up by Government of India which prohibits people from roaming in the fort premises after 06PM.

Taj Mahal in India is famous for being part of the Seven Wonders of the World and as a symbol of love. The Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan in the memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal is said to have built the Taj Mahal. It was built in 22 years (1631 to 1653) by 20,000 artisans brought to India from all over the world. Many people believe Ustad Isa of Iran designed it." This is what your guide probably told you if you ever visited the Taj Mahal. This is the same story I read in my history book as a student in India. But there is also another school of thought saying, Taj Mahal well existed even before Mumtaj was dead, and it was build by Hindu Rajput kings'. Many of the structures of Taj Mahal show Hindu architecture. No one has ever challenged it except Professor P.N. Oak, who believes the whole world has been duped. It is not Mumtaj's tomb but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya).

Then comes the mysterious stone at Shivapur. Shivapur, a small town 180 Km far from Mumbai is not known for its green pastures or Sugarcane fields but for this mysterious and intriguing stone which lies near a dargah. The stone hardly weighs 70 Kg but cannot be lifted normally. It can only be lifted by 11 people and that too with their index fingers. Intriguing right..?? But its true...and it has been lying there for decades..!! People who tried to lift it in other ways failed miserably. Recently, a Japanese team examined this stone for over a week but went back not being able to conclude anything. And the Japanese media published widely about this stone. So what exactly is going on? Who is behind this? Let's have a look at its past to understand things...A few years back, there was a boy named ‘Kumar Ali' born in a middle class Muslim family. By the time he was 6 years old, he stated learning from a religious teacher. Ali was always in deep meditation and fasting. People started believing that he was born with mystical powers and started worshipping him. Ali died at a very early age. But before he died, he wanted to convey to the humanity, the essence of impartial love to mankind irrespective of caste and creed. He wanted to show that materialism can't stand in front of spirituality.

He told his brother..." Place a cylindrical stone near my grave. Only 11 people chanting my name can lift this stone with their index fingers to a height of 6 feet. People trying in other ways cannot lift it more than 2 feet high." and left for the heavenly abode. Since then, the stone has been lying there puzzling people over decades. Many a scientist tried to interpret the physical and scientific basis of the happenings but in vain. Ali's grave became a dargah and attracts thousands of people every year. People visiting the dargah lift the stone in groups of 11 with their index fingers effortlessly thus getting the taste of heavenly power. And the bottom line is "The stone remains there with all its pride having recorded its name in the top 10 unsolved mysteries of India."

Then comes the mystery of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, one of the top leaders in the Indian freedom movement. Officially, Bose is said to have died in a plane crash on his way to Burma August 18th, 1945. But there are many reports of he being alive many years after the crash. One version says he spent the rest of his life as a monk in an ashram at Kolkata. One version says he was kidnapped by someone and eventually died in exile. One version says he lived in Varanasi. The bottom line is that two questions remain unanswered till date. 1) Was Bose alive after the crash? 2) If it all he was alive, how would a man with such following and probably the Prime ministerial candidate (post independence) escape public eye?

The incidents narrated above testify the fact that India or for that matter any other country is not alien to such happenings. Our group of UFO enthusiasts found enough sightings in India. The reason we feel that these incidents have been ignorant or dormant is that they are not publicized or to put it in other way, there is no proper platform for people to discuss about these. Here comes www.sector21.in to fill the gap. Sector21 is a place where UFO enthusiasts and intellectuals from various corners gather to discuss, argue and analyze topics from intriguing and unsolved mysteries to alien and UFO sightings.

--
-Kranthi

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Are Murder Victims Ghosts? By Cherokee Billie

2010-12-19T04:42:00.000-08:00

The answer is sometimes. Murders that go unsolved often leave the victim (ghost) with the desire for the truth to come out. They want closure for their family and friends. They want to move on into the spirit realm, but feel they cannot until their murderer has been identified and received Karmic or judicial punishment.

When a murderer has been caught immediately, it allows the spirit of the victim to be released and ascend into the spirit world. This is the big difference between solved and unsolved murders. As a psychic medium I have been communicating with the deceased for many years. Most of the people who contact me just want to know how their loved one is and if they have any messages for them. Over the years I have had several individuals' contact me who wanted to know how their loved one died and who did it. This is not always an easy task. Sometimes the murdered spirit comes quickly and communicates a great deal of information. Other times the spirit cannot tell what happened because it happened quickly or the memory of the event has left them. Many things get tangled for spirits because they are living between two different dimensions. A part of their spirit is still connected to our world and another part is connected to the spirit world.

Perhaps you have seen movies where the spirit cannot understand that they are dead or that they are waiting to identify the killer. So much of these movies are really based on spiritual truth. We do not get instant knowledge when we pass into the spirit world. There are also ghost hunter television programs where they offer information about victims in haunted houses and historical places. Many spirits remain on battlefields still fighting the other spirits.

One year ago I was contacted by a lady whose son was 31 years old and ruled a suicide by the police. She could not accept this because he was a happy content man and she had just seen him that day and he was fine. She asked me if I could channel his spirit, so she could ask questions about that day. After a few minutes I was able to connect with his spirit and he told her that he did not kill himself and gave identification about who had killed him. He was not able to answer every question that she asked, but apparently it was sufficient information for her. She took the information I got and contacted a private detective who started investigating all of the police findings. It turned out that many of the things that I had received in the trance medium state had been accurate. How I know is a year later she contacted me again and told me about the help the messages had been for her about his murder. She wanted me to ask her departed son more questions and I asked if she could send me any and all photographs of the crime scene. She did.

I told her that I wanted a few days to study these pictures and see what messages came through. As soon as I got the pictures I telephoned her and said," Isn't it interesting to see where the bullet hole went in." She said, "What are you talking about?" I told her that it was quite obvious that it was a bullet hole and gun powder around the hole in the photograph. Once I pointed it out to her she was shocked that all of these police and detective people never noticed this. She had not either. "I cannot enlarge this picture. Is it possible you could send it again or have somebody else send it to me." She had her grandson send the pictures to me again. One picture was particularly unusual because it was where her son was murdered and it was not a pleasant picture because it had blood and brain tissue all over the wheel of his truck. What confused me was of all the pictures there was one where a man was standing at the base of this wheel. It was impossible for anyone to stand in this position. I begin to dream about these pictures over the next week. At last we had our channeled session together. My first question to her was about the picture of the man at the wheelbase. She said, "There is no picture with a man in front of the tire wheel. What are you talking about?"

We were both on the internet together and I said, "Let me send this picture to you so you can see what I am talking about."

I sent the picture to her and she said, "I don't see anybody in this picture I only see the wheel."

Dumbfounded, because I could clearly see a man right next to this wheel, which I knew would be impossible for anyone to be standing by. I decided to try a different way to send the picture. Once again I sent the picture. "Cherokee Billie I don't see anything here other than the wheel," she stated.

"Let me describe this man to you." I told her. "He has on a black tee shirt and has short straight reddish brown hair and I can only see a quarter of his face and body."

"Oh my god that's exactly how my son looked." I could tell that she was crying at this point. "Why can't I see him and you can?"

"I believe he is indicating what I have always said that this is where the gunshot went into the wheel. He seems to be acknowledging that to me as I speak. There's no way someone could be in this physical position at the bottom of a tire wheel. Again he wants you to know he did not kill himself. I wish you could be here in front of my monitor and see what I am seeing."

"I wish I was there too." She said. She then went on about the rest of the photographs that were taken at the scene of the crime and asked about different people in the photograph. Her son communicated that the two killers were there in the photograph and which ones they were. I had received information in our last channeled session that he was killed because of a connection on the internet. He had videotaped his monitor of what he was seeing just before he was killed. I have requested that she send this videotape to me because it's possible that I will see or hear something that she cannot. I know that the answers I have given her have helped not only her have connection with her son, but it has helped the investigation.

This is one of the most fascinating changelings I have ever done. I have received information from murder victims before and it has helped their family, but this one keeps getting a wider scope and seems to be more complicated than the others which were usually murders over jealousy or random acts of violence.

So as you can see from these sessions murder victims can often communicate about what happened as best they can. They want to do this so that their spirit can transcend completely into the spirit world.

There are some exceptions where the spirits want to stay because they cannot accept their death. These are the ones that need to be helped pass into spirit and not stay trapped. There are ways to do this as I have learned over the years.

If you ever encounter a ghost realize they might have something to say and if you listen you may be able to help. Not all ghosts are violent and often they are just looking for someone to acknowledge them. Just because they have died does not mean that they have completed what they needed to do or say before going into the light. You may be the one that helps them transcend completely into the light.

~ Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Scary Creatures in Reality and Wild Imaginings

2010-05-22T23:50:00.000-07:00

In the realm of mortals, life may seem to be closing in on black and white. We lead our lives with the orientation that only the quantifiable, observable and overt are deemed to be true. However, in the realm of the endless, human beings are mere mortal creatures and truth is not a matter of great importance. It is a world where scary creatures lurk, ghosts and mummies cause mayhem, and humans are at the mercy of unfathomable paranormal events.

Many ghost stories and urban legends about scary creatures have been circulating throughout the years. Despite these, people are still skeptical as to the veracity of the ghostly figures in these stories. Stories can't seem to stand against the strong mantra "to see is to believe".

These scary creatures are described as undead entities that reanimate restless spirits wanting to take revenge for their untimely deaths. Ghosts are just some of these undead creatures lurking in the shadows of urban legends. Ghosts are restless spirits of dead people that usually haunt the place where they once lived. As depicted in films and books, these scary creatures haunt the living to search for justice and closure for their tragic deaths. However, not all ghosts are depicted as such. In some cases, ghosts just "hang around" us without any intention of causing some loud screams. They are stuck in between heaven and hell because their spirits can't rest in peace until they finish their purpose here in the realm of mortals.

Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky is said to be haunted by scary creatures we call ghosts. Once a two-story hospital accommodating tuberculosis patients, this place was allegedly the dying place of more than 8000 TB patients from 1911 to 1945. The worst cases of these deaths occurred during the outbreak of the disease in World War II. Documentaries and paranormal investigations said that there are small, child-like features caught on camera. Scary wails and screams are heard in empty rooftops and patios of the sanatorium. Moving shadows that have substance and are able to walk across doors are allegedly seen in places where dying patients are situated.

The current plan for the sanatorium is to transform it into a hotel to target the haunted hotel crowd and regular hotel patrons.

Villisca in Iowa, considered as one of the scariest places on earth, is also said to be haunted by the ghosts of the brutally murdered members of the Moore family. The murder itself was arguably one of the most infamous unsolved murder cases in American history. On June 10, 1912 was the last day when 6 members of the Moore family and their two young guests were ever seen alive. They were dismembered by an assailant who viciously killed them with an axe. The heinous crime is still a mystery to be solved by the authorities as the killer is still unknown to this day.

To this day, the Moore house is said to be haunted by the spirits of its former inhabitants. Curious visitors of the "Villisca House" claimed to have heard voices of children who didn't exist. Efforts have been done to renovate the house, but it seems that the scary creatures in the "Murder House" hinder the plan since the weather-beaten house is the only witness to the nightmare that took place in the Moore household.

Whether ghosts or other scary creatures are just figments of playful imaginations or a validation that the paranormal exists is still under scrutiny and discussion. As for now, all we know is that as long as there are unexplained phenomena occurring and haunting our dreams and wild imaginings, more stories about these forsaken and scary creatures will be told.

(ArticlesBase SC #595547)

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/literature--articles/scary-creatures-in-reality-and-wild-imaginings-595547.html#ixzz0oajiOTEO
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Top 10 unsolved mysteries

2010-05-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

The top ten coolest and unsolved mysteries.

The Roanoke Colony Mystery: Still Unsolved After Four Centuries

2010-05-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

The island of Roanoke in North Carolina holds the secret to the baffling disappearance of a band of English settlers in the late sixteenth century. The early colony simply vanished without trace, and their fate has intrigued and baffled historians ever since.

The story starts in 1587, with the second attempt to establish a British colony on Roanoke Island. Two years earlier, English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh made an unsuccessful bid to establish a settlement on the Island, sponsoring an all-male colony which initially integrated well with the Native Americans already living there. However, the harmony didn’t last as the brusque manner of colony commander Sir Ralph Lane soon angered the local tribe. To compound the colony’s problems, supply ships failed to show leaving them hungry and disillusioned, so when Raleigh dropped in on the colonists in 1586 after a trip to the West Indies, they elected to join him on the voyage home to Britain. But, because the New World offered such potential profits, the English tried again in August 1587, and it is the settlement that was established by 115 men, women and children that is the subject of the Roanoke colony mystery.

Very soon after setting up the colony its governor - artist John White - returned to England with the intention of immediately returning with much needed supplies. However, due to the war with Spain he was prevented from setting sail for three years. When he finally arrived back at Roanoke in August 1590 he came across a totally deserted colony, with only one clue as to where the inhabitants had gone; the word “Croatoan” - the name of the friendly tribe that lived on the south of the island - was carved in a tree. However, despite White spending the rest of his life searching, no trace of the colonists was ever found.

Theories by historians include that they may have been killed by the local Croatoan tribe, or that, tired of waiting for supplies and feeling abandoned, they moved inland and married into other Native American tribes. Another supposition is that they were murdered by Spanish troops on a northern sojourn from Florida. Their fate may never be known and any evidence that may have supplied clues is now long gone. The site of their inhabitation was soon overgrown by vegetation and has now been lost even to the point where historians still debate the original location.

Some argue that the doomed settlement is now under water some half a mile out to sea, as the coastline has shifted significantly since the sixteenth century. With the location of the settlement unknown, it is impossible to dig for clues. Many people have travelled to the region hoping to find some trace of the colony, and if you fancy joining their ranks, make sure that you locate a hotel in Roanoke near the north of the Island, where the settlement allegedly stood. Who knows? You might be the one who finally unlocks the secret to the ill-fated Roanoke colony.

(ArticlesBase SC #198340)

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/exotic-locations-articles/the-roanoke-colony-mystery-still-unsolved-after-four-centuries-198340.html#ixzz0oahmMKGH
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Real Ghost Story -- Ghost Fries Camera!

2009-05-26T23:31:00.000-07:00

Watch as a ghost fries ghost hunter Allan Pacheco's camera in Santa Fe, New Mexico's Lost Graveyard.

Black Aggie

2009-05-18T23:17:00.000-07:00

Retold by : S. E. Schlosser

When Felix Agnus put up the life-sized shrouded bronze statue of a grieving angel, seated on a pedestal, in the Agnus family plot in the Druid Ridge Cemetery, he had no idea what he had started. The statue was a rather eerie figure by day, frozen in a moment of grief and terrible pain. At night, the figure was almost unbelievably creepy; the shroud over its head obscuring the face until you were up close to it. There was a living air about the grieving angel, as if its arms could really reach out and grab you if you weren't careful.

It didn't take long for rumors to sweep through the town and surrounding countryside. They said that the statue - nicknamed Black Aggie - was haunted by the spirit of a mistreated wife who lay beneath her feet. The statue's eyes would glow red at the stroke of midnight, and any living person who returned the statues gaze would instantly be struck blind. Any pregnant woman who passed through her shadow would miscarry. If you sat on her lap at night, the statue would come to life and crush you to death in her dark embrace. If you spoke Black Aggie's name three times at midnight in front of a dark mirror, the evil angel would appear and pull you down to hell. They also said that spirits of the dead would rise from their graves on dark nights to gather around the statue at night.

People began visiting the cemetery just to see the statue, and it was then that the local fraternity decided to make the statue of Grief part of their initiation rites. "Black Aggie" sitting, where candidates for membership had to spend the night crouched beneath the statue with their backs to the grave of General Agnus, became popular.

One dark night, two fraternity members accompanied new hopeful to the cemetery and watched while he took his place underneath the creepy statue. The clouds had obscured the moon that night, and the whole area surrounding the dark statue was filled with a sense of anger and malice. It felt as if a storm were brewing in that part of the cemetery, and to their chagrin, the two fraternity members noticed that gray shadows seemed to be clustering around the body of the frightened fraternity candidate crouching in front of the statue.

What had been a funny initiation rite suddenly took on an air of danger. One of the fraternity brothers stepped forward in alarm to call out to the initiate. As he did, the statue above the boy stirred ominously. The two fraternity brothers froze in shock as the shrouded head turned toward the new candidate. They saw the gleam of glowing red eyes beneath the concealing hood as the statue's arms reached out toward the cowering boy.

With shouts of alarm, the fraternity brothers leapt forward to rescue the new initiate. But it was too late. The initiate gave one horrified yell, and then his body disappeared into the embrace of the dark angel. The fraternity brothers skidded to a halt as the statue thoughtfully rested its glowing eyes upon them. With gasps of terror, the boys fled from the cemetery before the statue could grab them too.

Hearing the screams, a night watchman hurried to the Agnus plot. To his chagrin, he discovered the body of a young man lying at the foot of the statue. The young man had apparently died of fright.

The disruption caused by the statue grew so acute that the Agnus family finally donated it to the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C.. The grieving angel sat for many years in storage there, never again to plague the citizens visiting the Druid Hill Park Cemetery.

From : http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/md4.html

27 Aquatic lifeforms you never caught while fishing

2009-05-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

Deep-sea glass squidA martian? No, it's the glass squid. This odd looking creature is located in the southern hemisphere and is the prey of many deep sea fish (ex: goblin sharks), whales and oceanic seabirds.

Robot Fish
This one is a robo-carp you can observe at the London Aquarium. It's a self-guided robot-fish who use artificial intelligence and sensors to avoid obstacles . It's a 50cm long common carp, swimming with thei living counterparts.

Snaggletooth

Science experiment gone wrong? Sadly this is not the case. The Snaggletooth or Astronesthes slightly resembles the South American Payara without the charcoal finish and lack of scales. The Snaggletooth is a powerful predatory fish who resides in the deep waters between Australia and New Zealand.

Axolotl

You can learn more on this amphibian called axolotl on http://www.axolotl.org/ . This one is in the same family than the tiger salamander. The only place on earth you can find those one are at Lake Xochimilco in Mexico.

Mudskipper

The mudskipper are special kind of fish that live most of their life on land beside than into the water. They are located in the Indo-Pacific as well than in the Atlantic coast of Africa. Mudskippers are quite active when out of water.

Slander Lanternfish

Deep-sea stargazer

Stargazers are a family of muscular bulldog-like fishes that typically bury in the seafloor and ambush passing prey. Stargazers are the ultimate ambush predator, with the eye sets on top of the head allowing it to be almost completely hidden. This is combined with an electrical capability which can be used to stun its prey.

Giant Hatchetfish

The giant hatchetfish is found in deep tropical and subtropical waters of all oceans, except the north Pacific. Its length is between 8 and 12 cm. The giant hatchetfish is a deep-bodied species with large eyes that are directed upwards, enabling prey to be silhouetted against the faint light coming from the surface, and a large mouth also directed upwards.

Dumbo Octopus

The deep-sea "Dumbo" octopus got its nickname from the ear-like fins protruding from the top of their "heads" (actually bodies), resembling the ears of Walt Disney 's flying elephant . They are benthic creatures, living at extreme depths, and are some of the rarest of the Octopoda species.

Eelpout

The eelpouts are a family of perciform ray-finned fish They are found in Arctic and Antarctic.

Black-lip Rattail

These sorts of rattails feed in the muddy seafloor by gliding along head down and tail up, powered by gentle undulations of a long fin under the tail. The triangular head has sensory cells underneath that help detect animals buried in the mud or sand. The common name comes from the black edges around the mouth.

Humpback Anglerfish

This black seadevil, of the size of a tennis ball, is one of the weirdest fish in the world. Female humpback anglers have an enormous head dominated by a cavernous mouth full of long slender teeth that can fold backwards when prey is being swallowed.

Coelacanth

They are the oldest kind of fish we know on earth. They were believed to be extinct before fisherman captured a couple of them in the 1930s.

Northern Seahorse

The seahorse is also one of the top weird sea creature. The male are carrying the egg in a special abdominal pouch, like you can see on the picture.

Longhorn Cowfish

The longhorn cowfish are found in the Indo-Pacific region. Their flesh is poisonous and would not make for a very good meal !

Leafy Sea Dragon

Sea Dragons are arguably the most spectacular and mysterious of all ocean fish. Leafy Sea Dragons are very interesting to watch- the leafy appendages are not used for movement. The body of a sea dragon scarcely appears to move at all.

Lumpfish

The longest lumpfish so far recorded from the American coast measured 23 inches, and weighed 13 1/4 pounds; the heaviest weighed 20 pounds but measured only 21 1/2 inches (both from Orient, N. Y.), and the proportion of weight to length varies similarly in smaller fish.

Atlantic Wolffish

The Atlantic Wolffish is a large bottom-dwelling predatory marine fish. The species is widely distributed across the North Atlantic.

Lionfish

A distinguishing feature of the Lionfish is its large fan-like pectoral fins. They are potentially dangerous, not only to the smaller fish the prey upon, but to humans, as well.. The spines on its dorsal fins contain a strong poison, which is perhaps one reason they are totally unafraid of divers.

Deep-Sea Lizardfish

The Deep-Sea Lizardfish, is a member of the Synodontidae family, it is found throughout the world in tropical and subtropical seas at depths of between 600 and 3,500 m. It is considered as an ambush predator hunting in the abyssal seafloor and devouring prey with its razor sharp barbed teeth.

Fangtooth Fish

The Fangtooth fish is found in midwater depths of about five kilometers (three miles). They are extremely muscular and their teeth are so long that when the jaw is shut, the lower pair must slide into special sheathes on either side of the fish's brain to avoid impaling it.

Check out this vicious fish devour it's prey.

Black Chimaera

Chimaeras are related to both sharks and rays. They are jawed fish with paired fins, paired nostrils, scales, two-chambered hearts, and skeletons made of cartilage rather than bone. Chimaeras grow up to two meters long, are found in the ocean floors and have a venomous spine which they use for defense purposes.

Clown Triggerfish

The Clown Triggerfish or Big-spotted Triggerfish is one of the most spectacular looking marine species. This species grows to 50 cm in length and is usually found in the warm parts of the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. Even though its appearance is quite innocent; this fish is an aggressive carnivore that primarily preys on shelled invertebrates.

Longlure Frogfish

The Longlure frogfish are found in tropical oceans and seas around the world. They are small fish with large odd looking heads. They are mostly bottom-dwelling fishes that are well camouflaged; they employ the first dorsal spine as a fishing lure to attract prey.

Prehistoric Frilled Shark

The Frill Shark can be recognised by its slender eel-like body, six pairs of gill slits, terminal mouth, three-pronged teeth, single dorsal fin, caudal fin without a lower lobe, and brown colour. This species grows to a maximum length of about 2 m.
Checkout the frilled shark that was caught off the coast of Japan!

Black Swallowe

The black swallower (Chiasmodon niger) is a deep sea fish that has the ability to extend its stomach 3 times its size so that it can swallow fish that are bigger than itself. It can be found in deep seas up to 1,500 meters or in hot tropical waters. It creates its own light because of the darkness found in some parts of the Pelagic zone. The black swallower can grow up to 25 centimeters.

Mantis Shrimp

This highly intelligent hunter with claws can lash out at prey with the force of a gunshot. Larger varieties have been known to shatter glass or sever human fingers. Most are either "spearers" (with sharp, mantidlike claws) or "smashers" (with blunt, clublike claws for cracking hard-shelled prey). Rare among invertebrates are the monogamous mating habits that several species demonstrate. Mated pairs share a burrow, and the male hunts for both his mate and young.

Black Hole Seen in Closest Look Ever

2008-09-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

A supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way has wound up in the crosshairs of a virtual telescope spanning 2,800 miles (4,506 kilometers).

Ground-based radio telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, and California aimed at Sagittarius A*—also called A-star—obtained the image (above, a previous picture of the black hole).

The star is believed to mark the position of a atramentous aperture four actor times the sun's mass.

Though unproven, there is strong evidence for the existence of black holes.

The black hole companion of Sagittarius A may be shunning the limelight now, but Shep Doeleman, an astronomer at MITs Haystack Observatory who led a recent study on the object, said it can't hide much longer.

Doeleman and his team say the source of the radiation is apparently a deejay of amount bouncing against the black hole, or a accelerated jet of amount actuality ejected from it.

"Now that we've shown it can be done, it's just a matter of time before we'll have very detailed information about what happens as matter is drawn near to the black hole and disappears forever," Doeleman said.

Face of death

2008-09-05T04:19:00.000-07:00

On this photo a 18-year old young man who died in one of hospitals of Oman. The corpse of the boy has been dug out from a tomb in 3 hours after his funeral under the insisting of his father. The boy died in hospital and has been buried under the Islamic law and on the same day after obligatory ablution of the body. However after funeral the father has doubted of the diagnosis of doctors and wanted to identify the true reason of his death.

Relatives and his friends shocked when they saw the corpse. He was completely different within 3 hours. He turned grey as the very old man, with traces of obvious tortures and the most severe beating, with the broken bones of hands and legs, with the edges broken and pressed into a body. All His body and face were full of bruise. The open eyes-showed hopeless fear and pain. The blood obviously attributes that the boy has been subjected to the most severe torture.

Close relatives of the dead man have addressed to Islamic scientists who have unequivocally declared that it is available results of tomb torture which the Allah (s.w.t) and in the Hadis of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) have warned. The shocked father of the boy has admitted that his son was spoilt, did not do Solat, and had a carefree way of life, having involved in different sins. Each died person comes across tests in the tomb for exception Shahids who died in Jihad on the way of Allah. This is first terrible test which the person comes across before the Doomsday.

In Hadis of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) :
- After the death the spirit of died person will return to a body then two Angels will come, Munkar and Nakir, and will ask: "Who is your Lord?" he will answer: "my Lord - Allah ". Then they will ask: "What is your religion?" he will answer: "My religion - Islam". Then they will ask him: "Who that person who has been sent to you?" he will answer: "He is the Prophet of Allah ". Then they will ask him: "How do you know?" He will answer: "I read the Book of Allah and trusted Him.
And then from heavens the voice will come: " My Slave has told the truth, lay it to bed from Paradise and open the Gate of Paradise " - then it will be full of pleasure and he begins to feel paradise pleasure, and his tomb becomes spacious, that eyes can reach.

The Prophet of Allah Muhammad (s.a.w) said about the sinners. After the death the spirit of died person will return to the body then two Angels will come and ask, "Who is your Lord?" he will answer: "I do not know". Then they will ask: " Who that person who has been sent to you?" he again will answer: I "do not know" - and then from the sky the voice will come: "he told a lie, Put him into a box from fire and open before it the Gate of a hell! "-then it will be captured with heat of the hell, and his tomb becomes narrow and the edges will be compressed.

In Hadis it is also said, that Angels will severely beat the sinners during interrogation in the tomb and this torture will be awful. It is informed also, that our Messenger (s.a.w) supplicated to Allah to protect Him from tortures of a tomb and asked other people to do so.

The history of 18-year old young men is a sign for believers and this is only next fairy tale for whom hearts are sealed by Allah. They look and do not see, listen and do not hear?

Lost world frozen 14m years ago found in Antarctica

2008-08-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

A lost world has been found in Antarctica, preserved just the way it was when it was frozen in time some 14 million years ago.

The fossils of plants and animals high in the mountains is an extremely rare find in the continent, one that also gives a glimpse of a what could be there in a century or two as the planet warms.

A team working in an ice-free region has discovered the trove of ancient life in what must have been the last traces of tundra on the interior of the southernmost continent before temperatures began to drop relentlessly.

An abrupt and dramatic climate cooling of 8°C in 200,000 years forced the extinction of tundra plants and insects and brought interior Antarctica into a perpetual deep-freeze from which it has never emerged, though may do again as a result of climate change.

An international team led by Prof David Marchant, at Boston University and Profs Allan Ashworth and Adam Lewis, at North Dakota State University, combined evidence from glaciers, from the preserved ecology, volcanic ashes and modelling to reveal the full extent of the big freeze in a part of Antarctica called the Dry Valleys.

The new insight in the understanding of Antarctica's climatic history, which saw it change from a climate like that of South Georgia to one similar to that seen today in Mars, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We've documented the timing and the magnitude of a tremendous change in Antarctic climate," said Prof Marchant.

"The fossil finds allow us to examine Antarctica as it existed just prior to climate cooling at 13.9 million years ago. It is a unique window into the past. To study these deposits is akin to strolling across the Dry Valleys 14.1 million years ago."

The discovery of the lake deposits with perfectly preserved fossils of mosses, diatoms and minute crustacea called ostracods is particularly exciting, noted Prof Lewis. "They are the first to be found even though scientific expeditions have been visiting the Dry Valleys since their discovery during the first Scott expedition in 1902-1903," he said.

"If we can understand how we got into this relatively cold climate phase, then that can help predict how global warming might push us back out of this phase. For the vast majority of the history of the Earth, there was no permanent ice is like today at the poles and even the tropics at high elevation. There's been a progressive cooling going on for 50 million years to get us into this permanent-ice mode; the formation of a permanent ice sheet on Antarctica plays a big role in that cooling.

"Studies like ours that establish when and how climate thresholds were crossed along the way can be used to predict climate thresholds going the opposite direction, from cool to warm.

"Although, to be fair, we're looking at one that is very far away; warming would have to be greater than what is predicted for the next one or two centuries to cause a melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The west Antarctic Ice Sheet is much more vulnerable.

Prof Ashworth is impressed by the way diatoms and mosses are indistinguishable from living organisms. Today, they are all over the world - with the exception of Antarctica.

"To be able to identify living species amongst the fossils is phenomenal. To think that modern counterparts have survived 14 million years on Earth without any significant changes in the details of their appearances is striking. It must mean that these organisms are so well-adapted to their habitats that in spite of repeated climate changes and isolation of populations for millions of years they have not become extinct but have survived."

What caused the big freeze is not known, although there are also theories and phenomena as varied as the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and tectonic shifts, the ocean circulation affected.

Diamonds show how Earth is recycled

2008-08-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

Tiny minerals found inside diamonds have provided us with a rare glimpse of the Earth’s deepest secrets. This exciting new research by a team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, is reported today (30 July) in Nature.

The Earth’s crust that underlies our oceans is constantly being made at mid-oceanic ridges which run down the centre of our oceans. There, magma derived from the mantle (the layer beneath the crust) is injected between diverging tectonic plates, pushing them apart. On the other side of each plate, old oceanic crust is finally recycled by returning to the mantle at subduction zones, huge ditches, diving deep beneath the continents.

Dr Michael Walter, from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, and lead author on the paper, said: “Exactly what happens to subducted oceanic crust is a long-standing question in Earth Sciences. Seismic imaging of subducted slabs has provided strong evidence that it can be taken to great depths, possibly even to the core-mantle boundary some 2,900 km below the Earth’s surface. There it can remain for billions of years in a kind of crustal graveyard. Its ultimate fate, however, remains uncertain.”

Dr Walter added: “There is also strong geochemical evidence that after stewing in the mantle for a very long time, say a billion years or so, oceanic crust acquires an isotopic ‘flavouring’ that is very different from the surrounding mantle. If this crust somehow makes its way into the regions of the mantle to a melting, the new magmas will betray the ‘scent’ of ancient oceanic crust.”

But many questions remain as to exactly how oceanic crust yields its unique signature to magmas. Does solid crust waft around in the mantle forming a sort of marble cake that can then be melted? Or does the crust melt at great depth within the mantle and react with mantle rocks to form some sort of hybrid source rock?

Given the depths these rocks are taken to, neither of these possibilities seemed likely, since the pressures would be too high for rocks to melt at those depths. But the team has found evidence of tiny Mineral inclusions in diamonds suggests that the oceanic crust may melt deep in the mantle and in this way of scents lend his coat in surrounding rocks.

The rock that is erupted on the ocean floor (basalt) spends most of its life (hundreds of millions of years) exposed to seawater. Consequently, some portion of it reacts with the seawater to form carbonate minerals. The team speculated that the presence of these minerals in oceanic crust has the effect of lowering its melting point to temperatures much lower than that of the surrounding mantle.

Although there is not much carbonate in oceanic crust so only a little melt can be formed, this small-degree melt will be loaded with elements that carry a chemical signature of the crust. Subsequent melting of mantle rocks that contain these small carbonate melts (carbonatites) would then yield magmas that also carry the crustal signature. But how to prove this?

Diamonds require high pressures to form. As such, they provide clues to the Earth’s deep interior, well beyond the depths that can be directly accessed by drilling. As the carbonate-rich liquids ascend through the mantle, diamonds crystallise en route, trapping other minerals (inclusions) as they form. The team therefore studied diamonds from the Juina area in Brazil, a location famous for yielding diamonds with inclusions derived from the deep mantle.

After performing a large number of experiments, measurements and calculations, the researchers were able to show that the diamonds and their inclusions had indeed crystallized from very small-degree, carbonatite melts in the mantle. Furthermore, they speculate, such melts may be pervasive throughout the mantle and may have been imparting a crustal ‘stain’ on mantle rocks for a very long time.

Citation: Primary carbonatite melt from deeply subducted oceanic crust by M. Walter, G. Bulanova, L. Armstrong, S. Keshav, J. Blundy, G. Gudfinnsson, O. Lord, A. Lennie, S.M. Clark, C. Smith, and L. Gobbo. Nature, 31 July 2008.

Provided by University of Bristol

8 Natural Wonders Added to UN Heritage List

2008-07-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

The island of Surtsey, found 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the southern coast of Iceland, was formed by volcanic eruptions during the 1960s.

Named this week as a new World Heritage site, the island provides scientists with a unique laboratory to study the process of colonization by plant and animal life. Borne by ocean currents, the first seeds arrived in 1964. Molds, bacteria, and fungi arrived the following year. Plants and invertebrates are now relatively abundant, as are bird species—89 and counting.

Chosen by a committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Heritage Sites describe natural and cultural areas recognized for their universal value to humanity.

This week officials added 27 new sites to the UNESCO list of 878 areas (679 cultural, 174 natural) worthy of preservation and protection.

Socotra Archipelago, Yemen

Dragon's blood trees grow in the archipelago, which consists of four islands and islets two rocky path for the 150 miles (250 km) from the Horn of Africa.

"The site is of universal importance because of its biodiversity with rich and distinct flora and fauna: 37 percent of Socotra's 825 plant species, 90 percent of its reptile species, and 95 percent of its land snail species do not occur anywhere else in the world," the UNESCO World Heritage Committee said in a press statement on July 8, 2008.

Joggins Fossil Cliffs, Canada

Full old fossils dating as far back as 354 million years ago, this 9 miles (14.7 km) tract of coastal states cliffs in Nova Scotia is to add eight new natural wonders in July 2008 at the United Nations list of World Heritage sites .

Once a rain forest teeming with life, the cliffs hold fossils from 148 ancient species and 20 groups of fossil footprints.

Lagoons of New Caledonia (France), Pacific Ocean

Part of a French-controlled island cluster located about 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) east of Australia, the lagoons of New Caledonia, including those around the small island in the picture above form the third largest coral reef structure in the world.

The healthy, intact marine ecosystems are home to threatened fish species, turtles, and the world's third largest population of dugongs, large vegetarian mammals related to manatees.

The lagoons were named a UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2008.

Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, Mexico

Every year, millions if not billions, of Monarch butterflies as the above-winter in densely forested mountains 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Mexico City.

"In the spring these butterflies begin an eight-month migration that takes them all the way to Eastern Canada and back, during which time four successive generations are born and die," the World Heritage Committee said in a written statement upon announcing new sites in July 2008.

Mount Sanqingshan National Park, China

Ribboned with forests, waterfalls, white rainbow and fantastically shaped rocks granite peaks and pillars resemble that animal and human silhouettes, this 56,710-hectare (22950 acres) National Park Huaiyu over the mountain chain in the Chinese province of Jiangxi.

The park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2008.

Saryarka Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan

Split between the Naurzum and Korgalzhyn State Nature Reserves, the wetlands that grace this 1.1 million acre (450,344 hectare) region provide a key stopover on the Central Asia flyway for migratory water birds from Africa, Europe, and South Asia.

The steppe and lakes in this region were mostly dry on the UN list of World Natural Heritage sites in July 2008.

Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona, Switzerland

A textbook example of mountain building through continental collision, this mountainous area in northeast Switzerland has been studied by geologists since the 1700s.

The area was a UNESCO World Heritage on 8 July 2008.

Astronomy/Current Unsolved Mysteries

2008-07-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

Dark Matter

Dark Matter is invisible, but has been postulated from its apparent influence on normal matter. It is one explanation for the lack of gravity needed to hold our universe together. (The current estimations of the total mass in the universe wouldn't support the observations and given the current numbers; our star systems would simply fall apart.) The dark matter theory states there is matter that doesn't radiate and therefore we cannot observe, as all of our methods rely on picking up electromagnetic waves of some sort.

This is the observation that has thrown everyone off guard. There is a certain type of supernova called type Ia. The nice thing about type Ia supernova is that they all seem to have the same brightness (no one knows why they all should have the same brightness, but that's a small detail (It is useful to point out that supernovae all have relatively the same brightness because it requires a certain amount of mass to make a star go supernova. It is the distance to them that changes the apparent brightness). Because they all have the same brightness, they are very good for measuring distances, and are called standard candles because of this and Doppler shift must be taken into account given the large distances. The thing that has everyone confused is that it seems that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing. This suggests that there is some sort of dark energy in space. As space expands, this energy comes out and makes space expand some more. Right now, one of the major research efforts is to get data on fainter supernova in order to have more points on the expansion curve line. The goal is to hopefully get a more exact idea of how the universe is expanding so that we have some idea of what is causing the acceleration.

This is still confusing people. One of the problems is that we have some pretty strong arguments as to what dark matter isn't. It's probably not regular matter made of protons and neutrons. The reason why, is that if it were ordinary matter, then when you calculate you get too little deuterium in the universe. Another problem is that the "clumpiness" of the galaxies and the cosmic background radiation just doesn't look right. If you go through the properties of dark matter, it turns out that it doesn't correspond to any known particle.

Some other theories explaining dark matter deal directly with our way of thinking about gravity. There is speculation that there is another large-scale force that is keeping our universe together. Another possible explanation is to think of space as a gas-and-space solid. If you place two objects apart from each other then pressurize the area the two objects will be forced towards each other. This is reversing our current ideas of gravity from an object having a pull on other object, to an object being pushed from all directions. (An object alone has no movement, but two objects create an uneven pressure pushing the objects together.)

An estimated 23% of the matter in the universe is dark matter. Ordinary matter only makes up 4% of the universe. The remaining 73% is an even more mysterious, repulsive "dark vacuum energy".

The most popular theory right now is that the repulsive force is actually a property of space itself: it is caused by waves of energy, created by particles and anti-particles popping into existence and then annihilating each other. Early in the universe's life, when there wasn't much space, the effect was small compared to gravity. But as the galaxies moved apart, the effect became greater.

Reionization

The cosmic background radiation was formed when protons and electrons combined to form atoms. The trouble is that we know that the matter between galaxies today is ionized (i.e. it's separate protons and electrons) with clumps of hydrogen atoms. We know this because when we look at all but the most distant galaxies, we don't see the spectra lines of hydrogen. So at some point the hydrogen in the universe reionized. The notion was that starlight caused the hydrogen in the universe to reionize, but the latest observations seem to indicate that this reionization occured before the first stars were there.

Galaxy Formation

The idea is that galaxies started from tiny fluctuations in density that formed after the big bang. By assuming that the universe consists mainly of cold dark matter, you can almost get the clumpliness that you see with the current galaxies. But there are still puzzles. There is an annoying lack of tiny galaxies, and the rotation curve that cold dark matter predicts, isn't quite the one that we see.

Before the Big Bang

Now to get really speculative, there have been some papers written recently that try to figure out what happened before the Big Bang. One of the strange ideas is that the universe is merely one plane in a multidimensional space, and that what happened was that two membranes in a multidimensional space collided causing a massive expansion in three of the dimensions. This is all really speculative, but the weird thing is that it isn't totally disconnected from observation. The idea is that you can use this model to predict the initial expansion of the universe, and this might have some effects on the ripples that you see in the cosmic microwave background.

With all of these puzzles, its not clear what is going to happen next. There is a lot of data coming in, and it may be that with new data, it will be possible to make our models of the universe work with minor tweaks here and there, and we can go on in the mode of what Kuhn calls "normal science." It's also possible that one day there will be some observation which is like Galileo seeing the phases of Venus. Some observation that makes absolutely no sense in the current paradigm of things, and this will force people to fundamentally change how we view the universe.

From : Wikipedia

Ghosts Paranormal Video

2008-06-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

NASA Scientists Identify Smallest Known Black Hole

2008-06-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

With a new technique, two NASA scientists have determined the lightest known black hole. With a mass only about 3.8 times larger than our sun and a diameter of only 15 miles, the black hole is very close to the minimum size predicted that black holes come from dying stars.

"This black hole is truly at the borders. For many years, the astronomers wanted to know the smallest possible size of a black hole, and this little guy is a big step toward answering this question," says Nikolai Shaposhnikov lead author of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Goddard Shaposhnikov and Lev Titarchuk his colleagues presented their results at the American Astronomical Society's High Energy Astrophysics Division meeting in Los Angeles, Calif. Titarchuk also works at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC .

The tiny black hole is in a binary system, Milky Way known as XTE J1650-500, named after its celestial coordinates in the southern constellation Ara. NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite detected the scheme in 2001. Astronomers realized J1650 soon after the discovery that it holds a normal star and a relatively small black hole. But the black hole of mass had never been measured at high precision.

The method used by Shaposhnikov and Titarchuk has been described in several papers in the Astrophysical Journal. It uses a relationship between black holes and the inner part of their surrounding disks, where gas spirals inward before making the fatal plunge. When the feeding frenzy reaches a moderate rate, hot gas piles up near the black hole and radiates a torrent of X-rays. The X-ray intensity varies in a pattern that repeats itself over a nearly regular interval. This signal is called a quasi-periodic oscillation, or QPO.

Astronomers have long suspected that a QPO's frequency depends on the black hole's mass. In 1998, Titarchuk realized that the congestion zone lies close in for small black holes, so the QPO clock ticks quickly. As black holes increase in mass, the congestion zone is pushed farther out, so the QPO clock ticks slower and slower. To measure the black hole masses, Shaposhnikov and Titarchuk use archival data from RXTE, which has made exquisitely precise measurements of QPO frequencies in at least 15 black holes.

Last year, Shaposhnikov and Titarchuk applied their QPO method to three black holes whose masses had been measured by other techniques. In their new paper, they extend their result to seven other black holes, three of which have well-determined masses. "In every case, our measurement agrees with the other methods," says Titarchuk. "We know our technique works because it has passed every test with flying colors."

If Shaposhnikov and Titarchuk application of their method on XTE J1650-500, they calculated a mass of 3.8 Suns, with a margin of uncertainty of only half a sun. This figure is well below the previous record holder black hole with a reliable mass measurement, Gro 1655-40, tips the scales at about 6.3 Suns.

Here are some unknown critical threshold, a dying star, a neutron star instead of a black hole. Astronomers think the boundary between black holes and neutron stars is somewhere from 1.7 to 2.7 solar masses. Knowledge of this dividing line is important for basic research in physics, because they say scientists about the behavior of matter if it is scrunched conditions for the extremely high density.

Despite the small size of the new record holder, future space transportation systems, travelers had better watch out. Smaller black holes as in J1650 exercise tidal forces stronger than the much larger black holes in the centers of galaxies, the young guys more dangerous to approach. "If you ventured too close to J1650-black hole, whose gravity would tidally stretch your body into a strand of spaghetti," says Shaposhnikov.

Shaposhnikov adds that RXTE is the only instrument that high-precision timing observations made for this line of research. "RXTE is absolutely crucial for this black hole mass measurements," he says.

The Earth's Magnetic Field

2008-06-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

Why did the earth a magnetic field? The electrical conductivity of molten plasma of the Earth's Core should be able to damp the current magnetic field only in thousands of years. But our five billion years old earth clearly causes magnets, to (defined) to the north. The secret is not known yet, but thought recently, in connection with earth movements in the liquid outer core. In particular, as parts of the outer core cool and fall inwards, oceans of liquid iron-rich magma to the outside world, forced to filter a helical motion by the spin of the earth. This movement, many geologists now believe that regenerates Earth's magnetism. In the picture above, a computer simulation shows the resulting magnetic field lines out to two Earth radii, with blue lines directed inwards and yellow lines directed to the outside world.

Leonids vs. The Moon

2008-06-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

Beautiful and bright, the 2002 Leonid meteors fought against blatant moonlight. This victory example from Tuesday morning skies above Laughlin, Nevada, USA, a fearless Leonid strokes between the familiar constellation of Orion (left) and a full moon overexposed. As expected, the Leonid shower packed a double punch on 19 November with the planet Earth fall by two thick clouds of meteroids, dusty debris left by the passage of the comet Tempel-Tuttle. Some European observers reported 10 or so meteors per minute in the first peak in the vicinity of 4:00 Universal Time, while North American skygazers witnessed slightly lower rates in the vicinity of the second peak at 10:30 UT. Overall, observed rates were much lower than last year Leonid meteor storm, but for many the sky was still filled with a rewarding spectacle of bright meteors. And this performance can be a fond farewell for the coming years. The annual Leonid meteor shower is not likely to approach these rates again until the end of this century.

The Sharpest View of the Sun

2008-06-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

This stunning picture shows remarkable and mysterious details in the vicinity of the central dark region of a planet-sized sunspot in one of the sharpest views ever from the surface of the sun. Just released, the picture was taken with the Swedish solar telescope now in its first year of operation on the Canary island of La Palma. In addition to the functions described as hair and dark channels are visible in the bright cores threads that are in the sunspot, which hitherto unknown and unexplored solar phenomena. The filaments "new, dark seeds are visible at that thousands of kilometres long, but only about 100 km wide. The solution offers 100 km wide or less is a milestone in astronomy and solar technology has been achieved here using sophisticated adaptive optics, digital image processing stacks, and processing techniques to combat the effects of atmospheric blurring. At optical wavelengths, these images are even sharper than current space-based observatories can produce solar. Incorporated on July 15, 2002, the sunspot shown, is the largest the group of sunspots cataloged as solar active region AR 10030

The Twilight Zone: The Lost Episode

2008-05-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

In the Twilight Zone Andrew is at least twenty years old, with the mind of a six year old child. He has lived within the same room his entire life never having the oppertunity to interact with the world outside. All he knows is what hes been taught by a mysterious voice from behind the door which has become his adoptive mother. When one day he becomes a bit over curious, and we
all know what happened to that cat..

Voynich manuscript

2008-05-08T23:50:00.000-07:00

The Voynich manuscript is a medieval document written in an unknown script and in an unknown language. For more than a hundred years repeatedly tried the code, not avail. The overall impression given by the surviving leaves of the manuscript suggests that it is meant to serve as Pharmacopoeia or to cover issues in the Middle Ages or the beginning of modern medicine. However, the puzzling details of illustrations have fueled many theories about the origin of the book, the contents of the text, and the purpose for which it was intended.

The document contains illustrations, indicating that the book is divided into six parts: herbs, astronomy, biological, cosmological, Pharmaceutical, and recipes.

Black Dahlia

2008-05-01T01:14:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – ca. January 15, 1947) was an American woman who was the victim of a gruesome and much-publicized murder. Nicknamed the Black Dahlia, Short was found severely mutilated, with her body severed, on January 15, 1947 in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. The murder, which remains unsolved, has been the source of widespread speculation as well as several books and film adaptations.

Biography

Elizabeth Short was born in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. She grew up in Medford, by her mother, Phoebe Mae, after her father, Cleo Short, leaving her and her four sisters in October 1930.

Troubled by asthma, Short spent the summer and winter in Medford in Florida. At the age of 19, she went to Vallejo, California to live with her father. The two moved to Los Angeles early 1943, but after an argument, they abflog to get a job at a post exchange at Camp Cooke (now Vandenberg Air Force Base), near Lompoc. Zog them to Santa Barbara, where she was arrested on 23 September 1943 to underage drinking and was returned to Medford juvenile delinquency authorities. In the few years after they lived in different cities in Florida, with occasional trips back to Massachusetts to earn money mostly as a waitress.

In Florida, Short met Major Matthew M. Gordon Jr., was part of the 2nd Air Commandos and training for use in China Burma India theater of operations. Short told friends that Gordon wrote a letter from India suggested that during the marriage, by a plane crash he suffered in the attempt to rescue a downed pilots. (He was, according to his obituary in Pueblo, Colorado newspaper, with a Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, Air Medal with 15 oak leaf clusters, and Purple Heart). It accepted his proposal, but he died in a crash on 10 August 1945, before he could return that the U.S. later embellished the story and said that they were married and had a child who died. Although Gordon's friends in the air commands confirm that Gordon and Short were committed, his family later denied any connection after a short's Murder.

Short returned to Southern California in July 1946 to see an old friend she met in Florida during the war, Lt. Gordon Fick Ling, who was stationed in Long Beach. For the six months before her death, she remained in Southern California, especially in Los Angeles. During this time she lived in several hotels, apartment houses, rooming houses and private homes, never stay anywhere for more than a few weeks.

Death

The body of Elizabeth Short was found on 15 January 1947 in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, severely mutilated, halved and drained of blood. Her face was slash the corners of her mouth to their ears.

Rumors and popular misconceptions

According to newspaper reports shortly after the murder, Short received the nickname "Black Dahlia" at a Long Beach drugstore in the summer of 1946, as a play on the then-current movie The Blue Dahlia. However, Los Angeles County district attorney investigators' reports state the nickname was invented by newspaper reporters covering the murder. In either case, Short was not generally known as the "Black Dahlia" during her lifetime.

A number of people, none of whom knew Short in life, contacted police and the newspapers, claiming to have seen her during her so-called "missing week" between the time of her disappearance January 9 and the time her body was found on January 15. Police and district attorney investigators ruled out each of these alleged sightings, sometimes identifying other women that witnesses had mistaken for Short.

Many "true crime" books claim that Short lived in or visited Los Angeles at various times in the mid-1940s; these claims have never been substantiated, and are refuted by the findings of law enforcement officers who investigated the case. A document in the Los Angeles County district attorney's files titled "Movements of Elizabeth Short Prior to June 1, 1946" states that Short was in Florida and Massachusetts from September 1943 through the early months of 1946, and gives a detailed account of her living and working arrangements during this period.

Although popular belief as well as many "true" crime books portrayed Short as a call girl, a report by the district attorney's grand jury states that she was not a prostitute.

Another widely circulated rumor holds that Short was unable to have sexual intercourse because of some genetic defect that left her with "infantile genitalia." Los Angeles County district attorney's files state the investigators had questioned three men with whom Short had sex, including a Chicago police officer who was a suspect in the case. The FBI files on the case also contain a statement from one of Short's lovers. According to the Los Angeles Police Department's summary of the case, in the district attorney's files, the autopsy describes Short's reproductive organs as anatomically normal. The autopsy also states that Short was not and had never been pregnant, contrary to what is sometimes claimed.

The D.A.'s files contain the following:—

Doctor Schwartz last stated that he studied surgery and that victim was on the make for him but that she was the patient of Doctor Arthur McGinnis Faught who was treating victim for trouble with her bartholin gland and that he wanted nothing to do with her. He stated that the bartholin gland was the lubricating gland in the vagina and that Doctor Faught had lanced it on several occasions and it could account for the fact that she had not been having intercourse with men.

Suspects

The Black Dahlia murder investigation by the LAPD is the largest since the murder of Marian Parker in 1927, and involved hundreds of officers borrowed from other agencies of law enforcement. Because of the complexity of the case, the original investigators treated every person who knew that short a suspect who had to be eliminated. Hundreds of people were considered suspects and thousands of people were questioned by police. Sensational and sometimes inaccurate press coverage, and the nature of the crime, brought public attention to this matter. About 60 people have confessed to the murder, mostly men, and a few women. As the case continues to public attention, many others have been proposed as the killer court.

No theory is universally accepted, and none has been proven.

Possible related murders

Some crime writers have speculated on a link between the Short murder and the Cleveland Torso killings, also known as the Kingsbury Run murders, which took place in Cleveland from 1934 to 1938. The original LAPD investigators examined this case in 1947 and discounted any link between the two, as they did with a large number of killings, before and after, until well into the 1950s.

Other crime writers have suggested a link between the murder and short the 1945 murder of six-year-old Suzanne Degnan in Chicago; Degnan was also fragmented (and Short's body was discovered in the vicinity of Degnan Boulevard in Los Angeles). However serial killer William Heirens Degnan confessed to the murder and was in jail when Short's body was discovered. Steve Hodel, the claims of his father, George Hodel committed The Black Dahlia Murder, claims his father may have murdered as well Degnan.

Pictures

Unsolved Mysteries~Mary Celeste

2008-04-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

The Mary Celeste (sometimes incorrectly spelt Marie Celeste) was a brigantine discovered in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and under full sail heading towards the Strait of Gibraltar in 1872. The fate of the crew is the subject of much speculation; theories range from alcoholic fumes to underwater earthquakes, along with a large number of fictional accounts. The Mary Celeste is often described as the archetypal ghost ship.

Mary Celeste was in Nova Scotia in 1860. Their original name was "Amazon". She was 103 m total of 280 tons and displacing half Brigg. Over the next 10 years she worked at several accidents on the lake and through a series of owners. Finally, she turned to an auction in New York salvage, where she was purchased for 3000 dollars. After extensive repairs, she was under American registry and renamed "Mary Celeste".

On November 5, 1872, under the command of Captain Benjamin Briggs, the ship picked up a cargo of industrial alcohol shipped by Meissner Ackermann & Co and set sail from Staten Island, New York to Genoa, Italy. In addition to the captain and a crew of seven, she carried two passengers, the captain's wife, Sarah E. Briggs (maiden name Cobb), and their two-year-old daughter, Sophia Matilda, making 10 people in total.

On December 4, 1872 (some reports give December 5, due to a lack of standard time zones in the 19th century), the Mary Celeste was sighted by the Dei Gratia, commanded by Captain David Reed Morehouse, who knew Captain Briggs. The Dei Gratia had left New York harbour only seven days after the Mary Celeste. Dei Gratia's crew observed her for two hours, under full sail and heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. They concluded that she was drifting, though she was flying no distress signals.

Oliver Deveau, the chief mate of the Dei Gratia, led a party in a small boat to board the Mary Celeste. He found the ship in generally good condition, though he reported that "the whole ship was a thoroughly wet mess". There was only one operational pump, with a lot of water between decks and three-and-a-half feet (1.1 m) of water in the hold. The forehatch and the lazarette were both open, the clock was not functioning and the compass was destroyed. The sextant and marine chronometer were missing, and the only lifeboat appeared to have been intentionally launched rather than torn away, suggesting the ship had been deliberately abandoned. Popular stories of untouched breakfasts with cups of tea on the cabin table, washing hung out to dry, a cat found asleep on top of the gallery locker and a bowl of a half-eaten apple pie are wholly without substance.

The cargo of 1701 barrels of alcohol was intact, even if it was finally discharged in Genoa, nine barrels were empty. A six-month supply of food and water on board. All papers of the vessel, with the exception of the master log, were missing. The last entry was on 24 November and put them 100 miles (160 km) west of the Portuguese islands of the Azores. The last entry in the ship's slate showed her how have reached the island of Santa Maria in the Azores on 25 November.

Crewmen from the Dei Gratia sailed the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar where, during a hearing, the judge praised them for their courage and skill. However, admiralty court officer Frederick Solly Flood turned the hearings from a simple salvage claim into a de facto trial of the men of the Dei Gratia, whom Flood suspected of foul play. In the end, the court did award prize money to the crew, but the sum was much less than it should have been, as "punishment" for suspected, but unproved, wrongdoing. Captain Morehouse was awarded one fifth of the ship and cargo.

None of the Mary Celeste's crew or passengers has been found. It is unlikely that the events leading to their disappearance will ever be known with certainty.

In the spring of 1873, two small wooden rafts made of wood lashed together offshore were sighted by fishermen from Spain. One contained a body wrapped in an American flag, and the other four bodies. It has been suggested that these are remains of the crew of the Mary Celeste. However, the corpses were buried in a grave without positively identified

The recovered ship was used for 12 years by a variety of owners.

During January 1885, she was loaded with an over-insured cargo of scrap, including boots and cat food, by her last captain who attempted to sink her to claim insurance money. The plan did not work as the ship refused to sink after having been run up on the Rochelois Reef in Haiti and an insurance investigation revealed the fraud.

On August 9, 2001, an expedition headed by author Clive Cussler (representing the National Underwater and Marine Agency) and Canadian film producer John Davis announced that they had found the remains of the brigantine off the Isle de Gonave in Haiti. Archaeologist James P. Delgado identified the wreck as Mary Celeste based on a survey of the large bay and by analyzing vessel fastenings, ballast, timber, and evidence of the fire that burned the stranded hulk. This evidence matched the wreck with historical accounts of Mary Celeste. Other researchers have, however, disputed this claim. Scott St George of the Geological Survey of Canada and the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona analyzed samples from wood fragments recovered from the site in an effort to reconstruct sufficient tree ring data for dating. Based on this, St. George felt that the wood was cut from trees still living at least a decade after the ship sank, as cited in The Independent of January 23, 2005

Dozens of theories have been proposed to explain the mystery, ranging from the mundane and plausible to the fantastic.

The most plausible theories are based on the barrels of alcohol. Briggs hauled had never such a dangerous cargo before and not trust. Nine leaking barrel would be an accumulation of steam in the handle. The historian Conrad Byers believed that Captain Briggs ordered keep that open, resulting in a heavy rush of smoke and steam. Faith, was the ship to explode, Briggs ordered everyone in the lifeboat, not in a hurry to properly secure the vessel with a strong towline. The wind picked up and blew the ship away from them. The inhabitants of the lifeboat either drowned or drifted on the sea to die of hunger, thirst and exposure.

First put forth by the ship's owner, James Winchester, this theory is perhaps the most widely accepted explanation for the disappearance. Even paranormally-inclined writers like Richard Winer and Colin Wilson consider this the most likely solution to the Celeste mystery.

A refinement of this theory was proposed in 2005 by German historian Eigel Wiese. At his suggestion, scientists at University College London created a crude reconstruction of the ship's hold to test the theory of the alcohol vapor's ignition. Using butane as the fuel and paper cubes as the barrels, the hold was sealed and the vapor ignited. The force of the explosion blew the hold doors open and shook the scale model, which was about the size of a coffin. Ethanol burns at a relatively low temperature with a flash point of 13°C or 55.4°F. A minimal spark is needed, for example from two metal objects rubbing together. None of the paper cubes was damaged, nor even left with scorch marks. This theory may explain the remaining cargo being found intact and the fracture on the ship's rail, possibly by one of the hold doors. This burning in the hold would have been violent and perhaps enough to scare the crew into lowering the boat, but the flames would not have been hot enough to have left burn marks. A frayed rope trailing in the water behind the ship is suggested to be evidence that the crew remained attached to the ship hoping that the emergency would pass. The ship was abandoned while under full sail and a storm was recorded shortly after. It is possible that the rope to the lifeboat parted because of the force from the ship under full sail. A small boat in a storm would not have fared as well as the Mary Celeste.

Some people theorize that the alcohol was to blame, but for a different reason. They believe that the crew tried to break into the hold to drink the alcohol, murdered Captain Briggs in the process, and later stole a lifeboat.

Another theory has proposed, there was a mutiny among the crew murdered, a tyrannical Briggs and his family, then fled into the rescue boat. However, Briggs had no history, he suggest the kind of captain to provoke his crew to mutiny. First Mate Albert Richardson and the rest of the crew also had an excellent reputation.

An alternate scenario has the ship encountering a waterspout, a tornado-like storm with a funnel cloud that occurs at sea. In such a case, it is suggested, the water surrounding the ship may, in being sucked upwards, have given the impression that the Mary Celeste was sinking. It would explain why the Mary Celeste was soaking wet when discovered by the crew of the Dei Gratia, and a mass panic among the crew during such an occasion would probably explain the scratched railing, and the broken compass, as well as the missing lifeboat. A further theory offered by Captain David Williams is that a seaquake erupted below the ship and jarred open nine barrels of alcohol (~450 gallons), which leaked into the bilge. The earthquake also dislodged the flue for the hot stove on deck and caused embers from the fire to drift into the rigging. Smelling the alcohol in full view of the burning embers caused the crew to panic and abandon the ship. The ship sailed on alone without the crew. The crew then decided to try to catch the ship and sail off after her in the small sailing dingy, but they never caught up with the Mary Celeste and died at sea.

Yet another theory posits a case of ergotism derived from bread aboard the ship which could have led all its occupants to throw themselves overboard. However, the sailors from the Dei Gratia were not affected.

Brian Hicks and Stanley Spicer in recent books revived the theory that Captain Briggs opened the hold to ventilate it while becalmed. The release of noxious alcoholic fumes from the hold might have panicked the captain and crew into abandoning ship for the yawl, tied to the halyard by an inadequate rope. If this broke with a weather change and consequent wind, then it could easily have explained the sudden and mysterious exit from the ship.

Hicks claims in the Real Life Media documentary that the cargo was the more toxic methanol, although there is no evidence to support this.

A recent investigation Smithsonian postulated that the captain thought close to the Azores in a bad storm, and with a pump inoperable, abandoned ship for the island. But he was 100 miles.

Youngest planet

2008-04-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

An embryonic planets outside our solar system discovered a system could be less than 2000 years old, say astronomers.

The ball of dust and gas that is in the process of transforming into a giant Jupiter, it was found around the star Tau HL, by a British team.

Research leader Dr. Jane Greaves, said the planet `s growth in May were kickstarted when another young stars to the system 1600 years.

Details were presented at the UK National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast.

The scientists studied a disk of gas and rocky particles to HL Tau, which is 520 light years away in the constellation Taurus and thought to less than 100000 years old.

The disc is unusually massive and bright, making it an excellent place to search for evidence of planets in the process of formation.

The researchers say their image belongs to a proto-planetary still embedded in his birth.

Dr. Greaves of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, said the discovery of a planet around the formation of such a young star was a big surprise.

"It was not really what we were looking for. And we were surprised when we found it," she said BBC News.

"The next planet confirmed youngest is 10 million years old."

When the proto-Earth is assumed that the same age as the star it orbits, which would be several hundred times less than the previous record holder.

`` Record holder The growth of the planet But it is an interesting suggestion that the gas giant, which is about 14 times as big as our Jupiter, could even younger.

With the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope in the USA, the researchers studied the system on emission wavelengths specially selected to the search for rocky particles approximately the size of pebbles. The presence of these pebbles is a clue that rocky material gradually clump together to form planets.

In the United Kingdom, researchers used the Merlin radio telescopes at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire study on the same system at longer wavelengths. This allowed them to confirm the emissions were from rocks, and not from other sources such as hot gas.

In addition to the detection of super-large dust in the disc to HL Tau, she was also an extra bright "clump" of the material.

This confirms a so-called "nebulosity" seen a few years earlier in the same position, by a team led by Dr. Jack Welch of the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Array, USA.

Formation Theories

Dr. Ken Rice, from the Institute for Astronomy in Edinburgh, said the discovery throw new light on theories of planet formation.

Following a model that planets form from the bottom up. Under this scenario, particles of rocky material collide and "stick" to one another, a larger object.

But he says that the proto-Earth and HL Tau formed relatively quickly, if a region of the disc collapsed into a self-contained. This can occur because of the gravitational instability in the disk.

Dr. Rice said his computer simulations were like a good fit for the observation that it seemed, could the mechanism really in the nature.

Surprisingly other young star in the same region XZ Tau May, a narrow pass of HL Tau about 1600 years ago.

Although not required for planetary formation, it is possible that this summary surprised the disc, making it unstable. This would be a very recent event in astronomical terms.

"It` s possible, it was a "yank" on one side of the disc to HL Tau, making it unstable, and this was a "trigger" for the planet, "said Dr. Greaves.

"If the planets formed in the last 1600 years, that would be incredibly young."

The Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting 2008 continues through Friday at Queen's University in Belfast.

Gamma-Ray Burst Visible to Naked Eye

2008-03-23T07:05:00.000-07:00

Scientists have found an interstellar explosion so bright that he briefly with the naked eye-from 7.5 billion light years away.

Viewers looking for the right patch of the night sky on Wednesday had seen several afterglows from the massive gamma-ray burst, somewhat brighter than the faintest stars visible.

NASA Swift satellite recorded the unprecedented spectacle with its X-Ray Telescope (left) and optical / UV telescope (right). The burst GRB 080319B was named because it was the second of four bursts detected that the first day for Swift.

GRB 080319B, is more than half in the entire visible universe, crushed the previous record holder for the most distant object visible without the help of three orders of magnitude. That would be the galaxy M33, only 2.9 million light years from Earth.

"That was a stunner burst," Swift Principal Investigator Neil Gehrels of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. "It blows away every gamma-ray burst so far we have seen."

Gamma-ray bursts occur when massive stars run out of fuel and collapse, casting, fast huge quantities of radiation and high energy particles. Acting as high-power cosmic blowtorches, particle jets can also heat interstellar clouds to create bright afterglows, according to scientists.

The bursts are the most brilliant occurrences in the universe after the Big Bang. GRB 080319B the afterglows, for example, seemed to 2.5 million times stronger than the brightest supernova on record.

Researchers are still unsure why GRB 080319B was so bright. Some theories originating a star with an unusual mass, spin, or magnetic field or a particularly concentrated energy jet.

Scientists "see" ghosts

2008-03-13T05:21:00.000-07:00

The reason that appearances, enemy images, and like phantoms lurking in the shadows May by scientists.

A team from University College London found that when we look around in a poorly lit context, it can fool our brains in things that are not really there.

Although no one has done a systematic study of the ghost, neuroscientists are convinced they are all in the mind ", and in the light of the new work, it seems not so surprising that they seem most likely to see in" spooky "scanty - Lit circumstances

The journal PLoS Computational Biology, Prof. Li Zhao Ping and her colleagues say that the surrounding context of what we see, everything is important - sometimes overwhelming evidence gathered by our eyes and we even imagine things.

They were surprised when they find that a vague background context has more influence on what we see, as someone who is bright and well defined, and speculate that this may explain the power of abstract art and the reason why we can see vivid details in the vague brush strokes from impressionist paintings.

"The paintings are vague in the details, but I speculate that perhaps because of this vagueness viewers are free to live their imagination to fill in the details," said Prof. Zhao Ping, takes her first name as her pen scientific name - Li Is such a common name, it can lead to an identity crisis for Chinese scientists.

"Everything we see is a hallucination caused by the virtual-reality machine in our head," commented Professor Mike Morgan from the City University in London.

"Normally, these hallucinations veto by the information coming through our senses, so we can call perception" controlled hallucination ".

"But if the input is not clear can be all sorts of things, like the faces de Quincy saw in the clouds and carpets. There are hundreds of faces hidden in the soil of structured platforms at subway station Euston, if you look for . "

To the power of the urgent context, 18 observers were from the UCL team to concentrate on the center of a black screen. Each time a buzzer sounded they pressed one of two buttons to record or not, whether they just saw a small, dark, grey 'target' rectangle in the middle of the screen. It seems not every time, but when it appears, for which only 80 milliseconds (80 one-thousandth of a second).

"People saw the target much more often if it appeared in the middle of a vertical line of similar-looking, grey rectangles, in comparison to when it appears in the middle of a pattern of bright, white rectangles. Yourself registered" see "the target If it is not really there, "says Prof. Zhao Ping.

"This is because the people psychologically better prepared to see a bit vague, when the surrounding context is also vague. It made sense for them to see - so that what happened. If the objective is not with the Expectations that the surrounding context, you saw it much less frequently.

"Illusionists were alive to this phenomenon for years," Prof. Zhao Ping "If you see, they throw a ball into the air, followed by a second ball, and then a third ball, the" magic "disappears, you ask, how they did it.

"In truth, there is often no third ball - it is not only our brain is fooled by the context, tell us that we really see three balls in the air launched one after the other."

"Contrary to what one might expect, it is a rather vague as a bright and clearly visible context strong that most of our convictions to allow the evidence and fill in the blanks."

This may also be why more monsters lurking in the shadows. "In the shadow of a lot of things are vague seen (and not as clear), that is more of the filling-in," says Prof. Zhao Ping.

Haunted Lighthouses - Seguin Island Light

2008-03-07T05:56:00.000-08:00

Way up in the northeastern corner of the U.S, perched high on its own little barren island made of rock, sits Sequin Island Lighthouse. This lighthouse, located at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Georgetown, Maine, is the second lighthouse that was ever built in Maine and is one of the oldest in the U.S. The little island of rock, located in an area that is frequently shrouded in fog -- an average of 2,734 hours of fog every year -- and hammered with cold, high winds, seemed almost designed by nature to harbor a lighthouse.

Merchants submitted the petition for the lighthouse in 1786, but the government didn't order the lighthouse built until 1795. Once President George Washington gave the order, the lighthouse construction began and the project was completed in 1797 at a cost of $6,300.

Sequins Lighthouse holds the title as the highest elevated lighthouse in Maine, standing just over 180 meters above the sea level. The fixed, non-flashing light is visible, as far as the ships 40 miles. Due to the high incidence of fog in this area, the light, the house is equipped with one of the most powerful fog horns that have ever been made. The original structure was replaced in 1820, then again in 1857, than in the current structure was built. The light has continued to be monitored manually until it was fully automated in 1985.

The history of Seguin Island Light Station is filled with strange and tragic stories.
One is that of the first lightkeeper who died penniless and boatless on the island. Some say his ghost has haunted the keepers who came after him. There have been sightings of a ghost who has been named the "Old Captain". He is usally seen climbing the staircase of the tower as if heading upstairs to tend to the light.

One night the old furnishings were being removed from the premesis. Apparently the man in charge of the crew moving the furniture was awakened in the middle of the night by the "Old Captain" who asked him not to take the furniture and to leave his home alone. The man didn't grant the request and the next day after the furniture had been loaded onto a boat and was being lowered into the water, the cable mysteriously snapped. The boat and everything in it fell onto the rocks below and were smashed into pieces. It appears the "Old Captain" got his way afterall.

Another frequent sighting is that of a young girl running up and down the stairs and waving to those who see her. She has also been heard laughing and bouncing a ball in a room upstairs. History shows that a young girl died on the island and was buried near the lighthouse.

Perhaps the most tragic incident that occured on the island is that of a former caretaker in the mid 1800's who was driven insane and murdered his wife, then took his own life. Legend states the caretaker brought his wife to live with him at the lighthouse shortly after they were married. As time went by, she became depressed and sullen and he bought her a piano to help cheer her up.

Unfortunately, she didn't memorize music and had to play from sheet music. Since she had only had one piece of sheet music on the island, she played the same song over and over until her husband finally took an axe to the piano and to her, and then killed himself.

Passing ships have reported that the sound of faint piano music coming from the island can be heard floating out over the waves on still, calm evenings.

Additional accounts of the paranormal include doors opening and closing by themselves, mysterous cold spots, coats being thrown onto the floor, tools disappearing and reappearing at random, and coughing from an unseen source.

The Sequin Island Lighthouse is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and is accessible by boat from Bath, Popham Beach, or Boothbay Harbor.

Curvature of Space

2008-02-28T21:35:00.000-08:00

A hallmark of gravity is that is causes the same acceleration no matter what the mass of the object. For example, a baseball and a cannon ball have very different masses, but if you drop them side-by-side, they accelerate downward at exactly the same rate. To explain this, Einstein envisioned gravity as being caused by a curvature of space. In fact, his general theory of relativity describes gravity entirely in terms of the geometry of both space and time. Far from a source of gravity, like a planet or a star, space is "flat" and clocks tick at their normal rate. Closer to a source of gravity, however, clocks slow down and space is curved. A useful analogy is to imagine that the space near a massive object such as the Sun becomes curved like a surface in figure.

Imagine a ball rolling along this surface. Far from the "well" that represents the Sun, the ball would move in straight line since the surface is fairly flat. If it passes the well, however, it would curve in toward the well. If it is moving at an appropriate speed with respect to the well, it might move in an orbit aroundthe sides of the well.In this analogy,it is the curvatureof the surface that makes the ball follow a curved path near the well. The curvature has the same effect on a ball of any size, which explains why gravity produces the same acceleration on objects of different mass.

Mysterious Pyramid Complex Discovered in Peru

2008-02-23T02:30:00.000-08:00

The remnants of at least ten pyramids have been discovered on the coast of Peru, marking what could be a vast ceremonial site of an ancient, little-known culture, archaeologists say.

In January construction crews working in the province of Piura discovered several truncated pyramids and a large adobe platform.

Officials from Peru's National Institute of Culture (INC) were inspected after the discovery.

Last week announced that the complex, 2 miles (3.2 km) long and 1 miles (1.6 km) wide, belonged to the old Vicús culture, and was likely to be either a religious center and a cemetery for nobility.

The Vicús was a pre-Hispanic culture flourished in Peru, the northern coastal desert from 200 BC to 300 AD, and is known for its ceramics decorated.

Experts say little is known about the culture, because their sites were heavily looted over the years.

"We have found several partially pyramids, at least ten," said César Sánchez Santos, chief archaeologist for the INC's Piura Division.

"We also have a large adobe platform, which we speculate, had for the burial rituals. But we can not know, without further examination."

Skull Fragments

The platform, measuring 82 feet (25 meters) by 98 feet (30 meters), was found alongside one of the larger pyramids in the complex.

Another of the larger pyramids contained some artifacts as well as bone fragments from a human skull.

The fact that the skull fragments were found several meters below the surface, indicating a deep grave that took much time to dig, prompted researchers to theorize that the individual buried there had high social status.

Santos added that the complex is surrounded by four large hills: Pilán, Vicús, Chanchape, and Tongo.

"We think that because of its geographic location the complex could have been a place of strategic value," Santos said.

The area containing the pyramids is surrounded by a cemetery that has been looted by grave robbers.

"But the complex itself is intact," Santos said...

Who Were the Vicús?

"The Vicús are very interesting, but so poorly understood, given the fact that most of what we know about them is through looted ceramic art," said Steve Bourget, an archaeologist at the University of Texas at Austin.

"This could be an important find because it is one of the few with monumental architecture. But it is still too early to say."

Experts say that the ceramic Vicús style resembles in some respects to those of the Moche, a fact that led the research on the relationship between the two cultures.

The Moche civilization flourished in the areas south of the Vicús from around 100 to 750 AD, the production elaborately painted pottery and gold ornaments, irrigation systems, and monuments.

The two cultures thrived within a relatively short distance of each other-less than the between Los Angeles and San Francisco experts point out.

"It is possible that the Vicús for a part of its history was closely associated with the Moche culture," said Joanne Pillsbury, an archaeologist at Washington, DC-based Dumbarton Oaks, a research institute associated with Harvard University.

The discovery of the pyramids Vicús comes as perceptions about the Moche have shifted, she added.

"It was once believed that it is a single monolithic Moche state, but the people do not believe that it is more true," said Pillsbury.

"It was probably a number of regional or multi-valley kingdoms divided that a wider culture. Vicús And was probably part of this sphere of interaction."

TWO GHOSTS CLOSE-UP!

2008-02-06T07:20:00.000-08:00

Ghostly These photos were in our files, and we have decided to share them here for Ghost Study spectators. They are especially unusual and convincing. Some have probably been floating around the Web and for the time in one form or another.

Decide for yourself their authenticity.

*The first photo is a haunted room with a solemn meditation spectre

*The second image is what appears to be a ghost peering up window. Not by us believe is authentic.

fROM : http://ghoststudy.com/galleria/jan08/ghost_box1002.htm

Surprise Egypt Tombs Yield Ornate Coffins, Dog Mummies

2008-01-31T20:51:00.000-08:00

Four ancient tombs containing well-preserved mummies, ornate painted coffins, and mummified dogs have been unearthed in El Faiyum, an oasis about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Cairo.

A female mummy was found wearing a gold mask, a rare treasure on the site known as the necropolis of Deir el-Banat. The funeral complex is a frequent target for the current grave robbers and had been thought plundered its riches.

"An important point is that these mummies are almost unaffected," said Galina A. Belova, a Russian Egyptologist, led the excavation.

"There are not so many [good condition] mummies in El Faiyum at this moment. They are very rare."

In a separate grave, discovered the first excavator completely intact mummy ever found in the necropolis.

The team of American and Russian archaeologists stumbled upon the burials as part of the routine work in a section of the cemetery, which was used from the early fourth century BC In the seventh century AD

Some 150 other tombs from different eras and dozens of poorly-preserved mummies have been excavated, although most of the tombs were plundered during a rash of robberies in the 20th Century.

Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, that some of the newly discovered ruins are still the best, from the Ptolemaic period, the range of Greek domination began shortly after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BC

"A mummy was beautiful gold, and another is in very good condition," said Hawass, which is also a National Geographic Explorer-in-residence. "They show some of the best examples of mummies from that time." (The National Geographic Society has National Geographic News.)

Archaeologists also found a strange funeral at the edge of the area with the nonmummified remains of a child and a group of mummified dogs, a grave unlike any other so far in Egypt.

The four best preserved and largest of the newfound tombs contained human-shaped coffins that were mostly intact.

Some showed slight damage near the feet, probably the result of ancient robbers rummaging for riches, experts said.

The coffins' exteriors were inscribed with verses and pictures from the old Egytpian Book of the Dead, the Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo (AUC), said that was standard decoration "to help you get out of this world in the next. "

Three of the coffins were made of wood and were parallel. A smaller fourth coffin probability of a child-was made of papyrus or a similar material, and was at a slightly different angle.

The joint funeral have belonged to a single family, experts said, adding that it is rare to find coffins at different orientations in the region.

Inside two of the coffins, mummies were in the head and legs with colorful papier-cardboard material as often plastered mummified body and decorated.

One of the mummies bore a painted cartonnage mask in gold, as a symbol of eternity.

"It was a very sweet little mask," said Ikram, the X-ray mummies after the discovery.

In a grave nearby, archaeologists found a completely intact mummified woman-the first ever major generations of treasure hunters here.

The archaeologists that they plan to do more research, including facial reconstructions of the mummies to determine their origin.

Robbers

Thievery has damaged almost all the tombs in Deir el-Banat, making it hard for experts to know what the graves looked like in antiquity.

"The robbers come in regularly, so it is quite unusual to get intact burials," said Ikram of AUC.

As a measure of how widespread the crime is, the excavations even turned up some contemporary digging tools, which were probably stashed away by frightened thieves who left hastily.

The shallowness of the tombs—some of which are no more than a meter below the surface—makes them particularly attractive for looters.

"Robbers have always investigated cemeteries since the ancient times," Belova, the Russian archaeologist, said. "We have a lot of robbers who want to have a lot of gold."

The newly unearthed tombs may have been spared because of their relatively simple exteriors. Belova said her team had to rapidly document and remove the items because of security concerns.

She also said she hoped the discovery would change Deir el-Banat's reputation as a site that has been looted clean.

"It looks like a robbed area, but robbers cannot do a systematic study of a cemetery," she said. "That's why we still have a lot of chances to find something new here."

Mummified Dogs

One of the strangest discoveries made at the site was the nonmummified body of a child buried with several mummified dogs.

The human remains, which were naturally mummified by the arid climate, were partially covered in a sack, its lower half surrounded by crudely mummified canines ranging from puppies to fully mature animals.

"They are put in any which way, with no real sense of orientation," said AUC's Ikram, an animal mummy expert.

Ancient Egyptians were known to keep domesticated pets and sometimes were buried with them.

Other animals were included in burials as part of a religious ritual, but this find is unlike any that has been documented, he said.

"The kind of deposit [of animals] you have here is neither like a sacred deposit [nor] like a pet deposit," Ikram said.

"It really is a very interesting new page in the archaeology of humans and animals in Egypt."

Spirit, Mind & Body : No Self

2008-01-26T06:11:00.000-08:00

A key component of the New Age which many people prescribe to is the belief that our planet and its population are literally moving into a New Age. This New Age is one of awakened consciousness where people give up their limited third-dimensional survival mode of existence and awaken to a higher, more enlightened world.
This coming New Age is an era of harmony, progress, knowing, and enlightenment.

Andrew Lutts

Introduction: basic concepts

* Spirit
Animation or a key principle kept to life physical organisms, or the intangible intelligent sentient part of a person

*Soul
The intangible nature, animating principle, or cause the exercise of an individual life, the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe

*Mind
The element or complex elements in the view that an individual perceives, thinks, wants, and above all, for reasons the conscious mental events and functions in the organism, which organized conscious and unconscious mental activity an adaptive organism

*Holistic
About or complexes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis, treatment, or cutting into parts (holistic medicine attempts to both the mind and the body)

The New Age Movement

The New Age movement means different things for different people.
But almost all the New Age topics have a basic underlying theme:
Personal spiritual development. Every day there are thousands and thousands of people around the world who are waking up to the knowledge, understanding and recognition of who they really are, where they came from and why they are here. This collective transformation of individuals can be described as the New Age movement. As a whole, the New Age movement is dynamic, fast growing and gaining momentum. The New Age movement is the framework and the tools to help people with their own personal growth and spiritual development.

The New Age movement itself is a little paradoxical, because the organization in a kind of "movement" could serve as contrary to the principles of individual spiritual development. Therefore, there is some confusion about the meaning of the New Age, because it may mean that different things to people. But that's okay. It is important that each individual starting gun for their own way of learning, adventure and discovery.

New Age and metaphysics

The New Age is closely linked with some of the concepts defined in the branch of philosophy commonly known as metaphysics. Although the academic branch of metaphysics is very concerned about the nature of ultimate reality, popular themes often metaphysical discussion and analysis of issues beyond the physical third dimension. Some examples of the metaphysical topics include: energy, the experience of the body, UFOs, psychic phenomenon, alternative healing, and other issues that our conventional science find difficult to explain.
New Age and religion

While it may be spiritual, the New Age is far from a formal religion. In fact, many New Agers rather shy away from the structure and traditional religious practices. But at the same time, the New Age and can be intensely spiritual. The New Age person often prefer a direct spiritual experience and not as an organized religion.

All religions are essentially cultural institutions, which the cultures, which are manifest. This growth in the number of people exploring New Age topics would suggest that as individuals and as a society, we are prepared to alternative explanations of who we are. The New Age is simply a way to choose the path of spiritual growth. It plays a role that small label, we are on the way, because at the end of all paths eventually converge at the same location. Everyone is in search of the eternal truths of life on some of the most difficult issues, it is simply the way that people will choose to have their own search, which is different. One reason the New Age Trail is popular is that there is more to the ultimate truth itself, rather than the process, as they come.

Common New Age beliefs

Here is an unofficial list of the conviction that some people in New Age May have in common:

1 Create your own reality and destiny. This is a planet of free choice, and you have your own free will.

2 They have some challenges to face in this life to be overcome. If you do not learn your lessons, this time, you'll get them again.

3 There is no such thing as coincidence.

4 There is more to life than meets the eye, much more.

5 Nothing really counts in this life, unless it is done for the benefit of others.

6 We are not alone.

7 We are multidimensional beings with a human experience.

8 We are all more help, as we know, angels, spirit guides, rose masters, and others.

9 We can heal ourselves, our society and our world.

10 The ultimate transformation for humanity is Ascension.

New Age Tools

A study of the instruments of the New Ager can help to the task in hand. A person may also crystals, candles, incense, tarot, runes, spherical, body work, meditation, muscle building and chants, drums and more. These tools can help a person on whom in various states of consciousness, and ultimately help a person in itself to watch for in the understanding and awareness. One reason that there are so many different tools to support the New Ager is that different people have different values in each instrument. For many, the tarot works well. Others, such as crystals. Others meditate or channel. It plays a role in how to achieve something greater understanding and wisdom. What is the most important thing is that an attempt is made to overcome our limitations and try to a higher good.

Free will versus Destiny

This philosophical question is one of the more curious contradictions in the study of metaphysics and free will:

Metaphysicians Some would argue that a rational universe is always based on cause and effect. This means that any effect is a cause, all the way back to the first cause, namely God or the Divine.

On the other hand, the act of pure, genuine and free will not cause is somehow to deny the divine rational order and make the universe appear irrational.

My interpretation: Although some things may occur in one's life that may destiny, we have free will. This is important. And as time goes by, our ability to things and situations manifest will be accelerated so fast that we see that we can create and manifest results quickly and easily. For me, if we can make such changes, which means that we have, in fact, the free will.

New Age and science

Many people feel that the new era is simply not thinking rationally. Traditional models often include scientific observation, analysis, test and measurement technology. Often, these things are not easy to metaphysical and paranormal phenomena. So how can anyone believe in something they can not even see, measure, quantify and analyze?

It is a question of faith, and often a deep inner knowledge. It is intuition and trust. They are listening. It is a whole series of things that are not currently within the scope of accepted scientific thought.

The important thing to remember is that the new era of faith not reject science. Modern science has tremendous good to our society in many ways. New age beliefs extend beyond simply accepted thinking in the exploration and search for life's eternal truths.

Source: Andrew Lutts

Evidence of Huge Planetary Collision Found

2008-01-10T18:49:00.000-08:00

Astronomers may have discovered the aftermath of a collision between a Saturn-size planet and a smaller world, perhaps the size of Uranus, some 170 light-years away.

Scientists made the find while studying the larger planet, which orbits a small, dim star in the constellation Centaurus.

The planets were puzzled experts because the brightness and temperature not match what is known as the objects to be developed.

"It is either too dark or it is too hot," said Eric Mamajek of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The planet-star system is only eight million years old, an age at which planets are still in the form, he said.

The world can with the remaining glowing heat of a mammoth collision with another protoplanet, Mamajek.

Such a collision would leave the planet unusually hot for many years, he said.

"We do not see the actual collision right now," said Mamajek.

"We see this long drawn-out period after the collision, about a hundred thousand years in which this thing would be very hot."

Mamajek discussed his findings yesterday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas.

The discovery is exciting, because when our own solar system was young, at least three planets Uranus, Venus, Earth and are believed to have been smacked by large protoplanets.

"This could be the first evidence that this happens to another object in another solar system," said Mamajek.

The theory can not be confirmed, but astronomers can detailed observations of the distant planet atmosphere.

"It's very weak," said Mamajek. "And even the largest telescopes we have now really struggle to collect enough light."

Large Ancient Settlement Unearthed in Puerto Rico

2008-01-03T05:03:00.000-08:00

Bodies, structures, and rock art thought to belong to an indigenous pre-Columbian culture have been unearthed at an ancient settlement in Puerto Rico, officials recently announced.

Archaeologists say the complex—which dates from A.D. 600 to 1500—could be the most significant of its kind in the Caribbean.

"This is a very well-preserved," said Aida Belén Ruiz-Rivera, director of Puerto Rico's State Office of Historic Preservation.

"The site appears to show two professions: a pre-Taino and a Taino settlement."

The Taino are intended as a subgroup of the Arawak Indians, emigrated to the Caribbean from Mexico or South America hundreds of years, say experts.

They were among the first tribes to meet Europeans.

Huge Plaza

The ancient settlement was discovered Taino Puerto Rico in the south (see map).
Archaeologists have known since 1985 that the area contained Indian artifacts.

But the extent of the site became clear only recently, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with the construction of a new dam, to protect the region from flooding.

Perhaps the most significant find is a large space with an area of approximately 130 by 160 feet (40 to 50 meters).

Rivera-Ruiz said the plaza appears to be a batey, a rectangular area around which the Taino built their settlements.

The plaza, which contains stones etched with ancient petroglyphs, might have been a court used for ceremonial rituals or ball games.

"If this information is confirmed, it would be the largest known local batey in the Caribbean," said Ruiz-Rivera.

Roberto Mucaro Borrero, a representative of the United Confederation of Taino People, agreed.

The site "could be the largest area of ancient Taino culture not only in Puerto Rico but throughout the Caribbean," said Borrero.

And petroglyphs male figure with a frog leg could prove particularly important for the understanding of cultural roots, he added.

"They were able to show evidence of a direct link between the Taino and the Mayan peoples," he said, although other experts strongly refute that the two cultures are related.

Storm of controversy

Confusion and criticism are already in the middle of swirling excitement over the results.

Initial reports on the number of bodies in graves at the site indicate that the people were buried in a unique position.

The corpses were "buried with the legs bent at the knees-a style never before in the region," the Associated Press reported.

But Miguel Rodriguez, a member of the Puerto Rican government archaeological council, said the burial position is not unknown in the region.

Kit Wesler, a Taino expert at Murray State University in Kentucky, also said that the "position is unusual, but probably not unprecedented."

Rivera-Ruiz of the state preservation office said that any claims about the uniqueness of the burial arrangements must await a full excavation and study of all objects funerary art.

Meanwhile, the US-New South Associates, a private archaeology firm commissioned by the Corps of Engineers to save, the site at the centre of controversy over their excavation methods.

According to AP, the company had originally with a bulldozer, which cause damage to centuries-old bones.

The members of the Taino, on Saturday visited the dig "Witness damage to the site, especially on some human remains and stones", was apparently by a backhoe, Taino representative said Borrero.

Rodriguez was convinced that the company should be drawn from the project.

"This is a perfect example of what they should not do," he said. "They are usually associated with graves and bulldozers, and they must stop."

Rodriguez also accused the company of Puerto Rican law by failing to register artefacts, which he proposed on the island.

"They have not said what about the materials, so that they do not follow the rules," he said.

An official from New South Associates, said the Corps does not allow the press to answer questions.

But Rivera-Ruiz, Puerto Rico's historic preservation office, defended the Corps and its contractors.

"The contractor was originally developed by the Corps of Engineers, a salvage data recovery on a site that primarily to fail," she said by e-mail.

"Once the conservation was an option, the amount and type of invasive project has been postponed in favour of the more low-key, less intrusive hand excavation already suspended functions."

About 80 percent of the site will remain intact, Rivera-Ruiz added, so that, for the long-term preservation of most of the site.

It added that Puerto Rico's State Historic Preservation Office, the company has overlooked the operation, and the parties are complying with the law.

And Corps spokesman said David McCullough National Geographic News by e-mail that his agency stands behind New South Associates and revising their plans based on the new findings.

"If the Corps recognized the extreme importance of this location," he said, "we redesigned the parts of the dam project, the largest negative impact on the site."

Asteroid May Hit Mars Next Month

2007-12-23T09:19:00.000-08:00

Mars could be in for an asteroid.

A newly discovered chunk of space rock 1 and has a chance of 75 slamming into the Red Planet at 30 January, scientists said Thursday.

"These rates are very unusual," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We often work with very long conflict, if we track ... threatening asteroids."

The Odds

The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered at the end of November and is similar in the size of an object, the remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wipe 60 million trees.

Scientists tracking the asteroid, which is currently half-way between Earth and Mars, the first impact at a rate of 1 in 350, but increases the chances this week.

The scientists expect the rates to reduce again early next month for ever new observations of the asteroid's orbit, Chesley said.

"We know that it is from Mars to fly and are most likely to miss, but there is a way to have an impact," he said.

Excited, no fear

If the asteroid is not to dismantle Mars, it will probably hit near the equator of the planet, close to where the rover Opportunity has exploration of Mars levels since 2004. The robot is not in danger, because they are outside the impact zone.

With the space rock moving at a speed of 8 miles (13 km) a second, a collision Mars would carve a hole in the size of the famous Meteor Crater (see photo) in Arizona.

In 1994, fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (see photo) smacked into Jupiter, creating a series of overlapping fire balls in space.

Astronomers have witnessed an asteroid with another planet.

"Unlike an effect of the earth, we are not afraid, but we are thrilled," said Chesley.

"Giant Human Skeleton" Photo Inspires Hoax

2007-12-17T11:14:00.000-08:00

From~National Geographic The National Geographic Society has not discovered ancient giant humans, despite rampant reports and pictures.

The hoax began with a doctored photo and later found a receptive online audience—thanks perhaps to the image's unintended religious connotations.

A digitally altered photograph created in 2002 shows a reclining giant surrounded by a wooden platform—with a shovel-wielding archaeologist thrown in for scale.

By 2004 the "discovery" was being blogged and emailed all over the world—"Giant Skeleton Unearthed!"—and it's been enjoying a revival in 2007.

The photo fakery might be obvious to most people. But the tall tale refuses to lie down even five years later, if a continuing flow of emails to National Geographic News are any indication. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

The messages come from around the globe—Portugal, India, El Salvador, Malaysia, Africa, the Dominican Republic, Greece, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya. But they all ask the same question: Is it true?

Perpetuating the Myth

Helping to fuel the story's recent resurgence are a smattering of media outlets that have reported the find as fact.

An often cited March 2007 article in India's Hindu Voice monthly, for example, claimed that a National Geographic Society team, in collaboration with the Indian Army, had dug up a giant human skeleton in India.

"Recent exploration activity in the northern region of India uncovered a skeletal remains of a human of phenomenal size," the report read.

The story went on to say the discovery was made by a "National Geographic Team (India Division) with support from the Indian Army since the area comes under jurisdiction of the Army." The account added that the team also found tablets with inscriptions that suggest the giant belonged to a race of superhumans that are mentioned in the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic poem from about 200 B.C.

The story went on to say that the discovery was made possible by a National Geographic team (India Division) with the support of the Indian army since the area falls under the jurisdiction of the army. "

The account added that the team also tablets with inscriptions indicate that the giant belonged to a race of superhumans that in the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic of around 200 BC

"They were very large, very large and powerful, so that they have their arms around a tree trunk and uproot", the report says, repeatedly claimed that first appeared in 2004.

Voice editor P. Deivamuthu admitted National Geographic News that his publication was of the fake reports.

The monthly, which is based in Mumbai (Bombay), published a withdrawal after Deivamuthu readers aware of the false report, he said.

"We are against the proliferation of lies and ducks," Deivamuthu added. "In addition, our readers a very intellectual class, and will not brook any nonsense."

Other blog entries such as a posting in May 2007 at a site called Srini's weblog allegedly quoting a report published in the Times of India on 22 April 2004. But a search of this newspaper archives revealed no such items.

Arabian Giant

Variations of the giant photo hoax also alleged discovery of a 60 - to 80-foot long (18 - to 24-meter) human skeleton in Saudi Arabia. In a popular, which also first appeared in 2004, an oil exploration team to have said.

Here is the skeleton has proved to be evidence of giants, which in Islamic, but as a Hindu, writings.

The Debunkers

Sites to debunking urban legends and "netlore" picked up on the various hoaxes giant soon after they first appeared.

California-based Snopes.com, for example, found that the skeleton image was lifted from Worth1000, the hosts photo-manipulation competitions.

Entitled "Giants", the skeleton and shoveler image had occupied the third place in a competition in 2002 as "archaeological 2 anomalies."

The picture is a creator-signatories from Canada, with the screen name IronKite told National Geographic News by e-mail that he had nothing to do with the subsequent hoax.

He added that he wants to remain anonymous because some forums debating whether the giant was real or not, their whole argument in a religious one. " It has been argued, for example, that the Saudi Arabian find was fully in line with the teachings of the Koran.

"That was about the same time that death threats and cash bonuses were against cartoonists and other professionals for the industry, things to do, such as the depiction of the Prophet Mohammed," Iron Kite wrote.

As the picture was made

Iron Kite began with an aerial photograph of a mastodon excavation in Hyde Park, New York, 2000. He then digitally superimposed on a human skeleton on the animal's remains.

The subsequent addition of a man digging, the biggest technical challenge.

"If you see, he is in possession of a yellow-handled shovel, but it is nothing to end," said IronKite.

"Originally it was the end of spades. But [it] looked like it was the exact same room as occupation of the skeleton of the temple, making the whole thing look fake.

"Now it looks like he is only with a stick, and that the people do not notice. It's funny."

IronKite also changed the color of the clothes of the man for the creation of a "single tie-in with the white-shirted peering observers from the wooden platform.

The two figures to exaggerate the extent of the skeleton, he added.

Iron Kite said he tickled that the image, lasted only about an hour and a half to create, has so much attention Internet.

"I laugh myself if some stupid guy claimed to know someone who was there, or even goes so far as to say that he or she was there when they found the skeleton was in the picture," said IronKite.

"Sometimes people seem so desperate to believe in something that they themselves lie or exaggerate their own arguments stronger."

Wanting to Believe

David Mikkelson of Snopes.com said such hoaxes succeed if they seem to confirm what people already inclined to believe, as a prejudice, political views or religious beliefs.

A Hoax must also be presented "in a framework that has the appearance of credibility," he said in an e-mail.

The "old giant" has the two elements, according to Mikkelson.

"He appeals to both a religious and secular vision of the world than others and more than mere fantasy science would lead us to believe," he said.

"Proof," Mikkelson added, "comes in the form of a fairly convincing pictures."

For those who may knowingly propagated the myth that Mikkelson added, the motivation was probably no different than the motivation for participation in a game of someone ringing doorbell and running away, it's an easy way to have a laugh at someone's cost. "

Alex Boese, "curator" of the virtual Museum of Hoaxes, said fake giants have a long history dating back to at least 1700.

The recent hoax reminiscent of the once famous Cardiff Giant myth, with a ten-foot-tall (three-meter) stone image dug in 1869 in Cardiff, New York, said Boese.

Many people believed that the number was a petrified man, claiming he was one of the giants in the Bible's Book of Genesis: "There were giants in the Earth in those days."

Similarly, Boese said, the last Giant Hoax "taps into the human desire for secrecy and their desire to see concrete confirmation of the religious legends."

Mysterious Clouds More Common Due to Climate Change?

2007-12-12T12:11:00.000-08:00

Night-shining clouds are seen over Finland in this undated photo. Scientists say such clouds are appearing brighter and more often and that human-caused climate change may be the cause.

Mysterious "night shining clouds," that in view of the polar sky, the bright and frequently in the last few years, and climate change, the offender, scientists announced on Monday.

So-called noctilucent clouds, the stripes across the sky in vivid colors in the polar summer, ten times brighter than previously thought, according to recent data from NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite.

The data collected during two polar cloud seasons, beat the formations appear daily, are widespread, and have begun, in the form of lower margins than before.

Canary climate change

Night illuminating clouds are mostly of ice particles in the water vapor condenses on atmospheric dust.

The AIM mission is the first detailed examination of the clouds that are about 50 miles (80 km) above Earth's surface - "literally at the edge of space", AIM Principal Investigator James Russell III said yesterday at a press conference at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco, California, USA.

The air there is more than one thousand times drier than the Sahara, and the temperature drops to minus 235 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 148 degrees Celsius) - ideal conditions for the creation of clouds.

A declaration is expected for the clouds' increase is that the temperatures in the upper atmosphere have become even colder by the construction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, says Russell.

Annual emissions of carbon dioxide levels have been about 20 percent since 1990. Most scientists agree, is the formation of the climate change and the heating surface.

In the upper atmosphere, carbon dioxide is not acting like a thick, heat-trapping blanket.

Instead, it forms a thin layer, to escape the heat, the temperatures drop and ice particles to form.

"[The] cloud is the mine's canary of global warming," said Russell National Geographic News.

No Other Plausible Reason

The evidence that carbon changes in the night sky illuminating is still hesitant, said Russell.

But, "quite frankly, we do not know of other plausible reasons why it is not global climate change," he said.

"If this is true, who says we are not only changing the atmosphere in which we live, we are changing a very remote, rarified part of our atmosphere."

Such profound change means that "we need to be," says Russell.

"If [the cloud changes] are, in fact, carbon dioxide to build, here is another reason that we confirm, it should strive to do something about this."

"Exquisite thermometer"

AIM also discovered "dramatic changes" in the cloud behavior, "says Scott Bailey, AIM Deputy Principal Investigator.

The data suggest that the clouds are very variable, rotating every five days after minute shifts in the temperature-even as little as 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.7 degrees Celsius).

"These clouds are noble thermometer," he said.

"Now we are in a position to the entire life cycle [a cloud] for the first time," Bailey said National Geographic News.

Nazca Lines

2007-12-07T04:13:00.000-08:00

Nazca lines are the outstanding group of geoglyphs in the World. Deep within the surface of the desert sand Pampa approximately 300 hundred pieces from straight lines, geometric forms and images of animals and birds, and their structures are clearly visible only from the air.

CLICK on the image to enlarge and view coordinates.

Image Placemark Location: longitude: -75.18786894045414, latitude: -14.72050199914096

CLICK on the image to enlarge and view coordinates.

There are three mysterious aspects to Nazca Plateau

Satellite image of the Nazca Plateau (CLICK on the image to enlarge)

First, the straight lines, many miles long, across sectors of the pampas in all directions (see photo above). Many of the headlines seem to be random and have no pattern to them.

Secondly, many of the lines forming geometrical figures: angles, triangles, grapes, spirals, rectangles, wavy lines, etc. Other lines are converging with concentric circles, or from a headland. Other sheets are "roads" as geometric surfaces and appear to have large groups of the population.

Third, many lines form animal patterns.

Could these geoglyphs are portraits of the ancient animal gods or patterns of constellations? Are they roads, Stern hands, perhaps even a giant card? If the people who lived here before 2000 years had only a simple technique, how did they manage, the more accurate figures? Have a plan? If this is the case, the ordained? It seems so otherworldly. To the Nasca lines created by the elimination of desert rocks, the sand under the pale pink visitors have proposed that all conceivable explanation of runway for spaceships on track for the athletes, op art, pop art, astronomical observations.

It is assumed that the geoglyphs were of a people, the Nasca - but why and how these wonders of the World defied explanation.

As much as the lines awe us, we are equally amazed at the imagination of people who have tried to explain it.

UFO witness appeal

2007-12-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

Do you have a triangular craft in the sky between Stourbridge, Halesowen on the evening of Wednesday, 28 November 2007?

Several people have contacted the largest UFO group in the Midlands-UFORM - are entitled to an unexplained aircraft in the sky.

The incident took place at about 7.00pm on Wednesday, 28 November 2007, when a man filmed more than 30 seconds recordings of the space ship in a westerly direction from Halesowen to Stourbridge.

The object, described as "like a huge" dorito, had distinctive red lights on the bottom, the position shifted while the craft was flying.

Another eyewitness reported after the incident to see the craft, while the Lickey Hills in the area of Sutton Birmingham.

The testimony of the alleged UFO observed through binoculars, as it is "very fast" in the skyline.

Two other independent employee came forward within a few hours after the sighting. UFORM operates a 24 hour hotline for the public to report UFO incidents.

Steve Poole, chairman of the UFORM, said:

"This could be a very significant sighting, especially given the fact that one of the witnesses has filmed the event.

"We would like to hear from anyone else who may have seen this object. You can remain anonymous if they wish. It was a clear night, and I am sure that many people were probably out doing Christmas shopping and have seen the craft . "

To contact UFORM:

* E-mail: contact@uform.org

About UFORM

UFORM or UFO Research Midlands - was founded in 1995 by Steve Poole coincide with the massive increase in UFO sightings in the West Midlands.

Now committee with dozens of members, the group holds monthly meetings in Stourbridge with internationally renowned guest speakers, hosts sky-watch and acts as the leading organization for research in the area for anyone interested in the UFO phenomenon.

To learn more about UFORM, click on the link below:

* Interview with Steve Poole on UFORM

Superfast laser kills Viruses

2007-11-29T01:00:00.000-08:00

A physicist, biologist and son destroyed a common virus with a vibrant super lasers, but not healthy cells. The discovery could lead to new therapies for the treatment of viruses such as HIV, which are not healing.

"We have a technique, using a laser to seduce the vibrations of the armature of a virus and damage, so it will not be the` more operational, "said Kong Tsen, professor of physics at Arizona State University. "We are testing again on HIV and hepatitis now."

Tsen Shaw and his son-Wei Tsen, pathology students at the Johns Hopkins University, came to the idea while strolling in the park, and the need for antiretroviral therapy, beyond vaccination . Tsen Senior experimented with ultra-long laser pulses (universal service), devices increasingly outside of physics.

Raydiance, a manufacturer of laser USP, has signed a contract with the FDA in July to explore laser therapies. How Wired News reported in the year, an official estimate from the FDA, it could be cent for medical applications USP Laser, Laser eye of the cell treatment by the removal of the tumor cells.

In the latest research, and his son Tsen showed that their techniques laser could destroy the protein shell or Kapside, mosaic virus tobacco, and leaves only harmless mucus hardening of molecules.

The laser is broken, Kapside low power consumption: 40 times lower, in fact, that energy, that the human T lymphocytes damage. Other types of radiation, such as ultraviolet rays, to kill microbes produce, but would harm human cells.

The virus can disable laser operates on the principle of resonance forced behalf. Scientists agree the laser on the same frequency, the virus vibrates. Then, until the crank to reduce the volume. Since much ohrenzerreißende his shaken the glass vibrates lasers, the virus until it breaks.

Lasers USP Releases energy Femtosekunden-Pulsen -- millionth of a nanosecond -- for a while.

"The extremely short pulses to the creation of a physical effect that the traditional lasers, and other types of approaches makes laser` t do, "said Scott Davison, president of the USP Venture Backed laser Raydiance. "What we are seeing is a new wave of exploration and discovery in implementing USP in a range of sectors and applications."

Unlike meat blow in laser surgery laser USP Don `Umsatzesaus much heat. Tsen said, the technique could be useful for the immediate removal of viruses in the blood in blood banks. Some viruses, such as HIV, have a window in which it is very difficult to detect.

"This technique is very useful to disinfect all viruses, known and unknown, Tsen said." That would be the very safe blood transfusion. "

The Tsens `success of the technology has been in test tubes. It must be examined in animals and then humans. Salaries are even further in the future. But with more walks in the park, everything seems possible.

From : http://www.wired.com

Mysterious object Belmez!

2007-11-25T04:48:00.000-08:00

In belmez de Los Angeles moraleda, Spain, sits in the Pereira family home, scene of the strange events that have lasted for more than 30 years. The events that began in 1971 when Maria Gomes Pereira seen strange to form burner of her kitchen. It looked like a human face, so that Maria's husband took Ax and destroyed burner, and it was planted with new cement. A week later appearing in the new floor. The family asked the city council to investigate and after weeks of digging a hole and found containing human bones under the direct burner. The pit was filled and developed new burner, but within weeks more faces began to emerge again. Whatever the Pereira family tried to destroy them, and the object returned. For thirty years the faces have visited by scientists, researchers and countless television crews. It is believed many of the faces were faked and that has been painted. But a thorough examination of the burner that showed the faces were painted cement instead of the highest. This seemed to prove that the phenomenon is real and one of scientists announced that it was "without doubt the most important Paranormal phenomenon of this century."

Tut Mummy on Public Display for First Time

2007-11-23T17:55:00.000-08:00

Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass (center) supervises the removal of the mummy of King Tutankhamun from his stone sarcophagus on November 4, 2007.

The mummy was moved to a high-tech glass display case in the tomb's antechamber, the first time the famed boy king has ever been on public display.

Photograph by AP Photo/Ben Curtis, Pool

The mummy of King Tutankhamun today went on public display for the first time—85 years to the day since his tomb was discovered in Egypt's famed Valley of the Kings.

Until now the boy pharaoh's remains had rested in his sarcophagus in the burial chamber of the tomb, which lies just north of the city of Luxor.

But on Sunday morning the remains—settled inside a wooden box—were carefully transferred to a high-tech glass display case about 30 feet (9 meters) away in the tomb's antechamber.

The valley was frenzied with TV camera crews, photographers, and journalists, who converged below the gravelly sun-drenched hills near the tomb.

The atmosphere seemed fit for a modern-day movie star, underscoring the enduring celebrity of a king who died more than 3,000 years ago.

The move will help preserve Tutankhamun's mummy, which experts say has been deteriorating rapidly because of exposure to heat and humidity.

The new display is also expected to increase visits to the tomb from about 350 to 900 tourists a day, generating funds for the protection of Egyptian antiquities.

"I can say for the first time that the mummy is safe, the mummy is well preserved, and also at the same time, all the tourists who will enter this tomb tomorrow morning will be able to see the face of Tutankhamun for the first time," said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities and a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence.

(National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

8-Foot Giant Catfish caught in Cambodia

2007-11-21T08:50:00.000-08:00

Captured just before midnight on November 13 by fishermen in Cambodia, the Mekong giant catfish was 8 feet long (2.4 meters long) ands weighs 450 pounds (204 kilograms).

"This is the only giant catfish that was so far this year, making it the worst year on record for catching fish species giants," said Zeb Hogan (right), a fisheries biologist at the University Reno in Nevada.

After collecting data on fish, Hogan released unharmed.

Siluro giant once were abundant throughout Southeast Asia, the Mekong River Basin, including the Tonle Sap River-home of the fish in these exclusive pictures taken near Phnom Penh.

But in the last century, the giant Mekong catfish population has declined by 95 to 99 percent, scientists say. Only a few hundred adult giant catfish can stay.

Since 2000 five to ten fish have been caught accidentally every year across the Mekong area.

Earlier this year, Hogan launched the three-year period Megafishes Draft paper by world giant freshwater fishes (See photos of other giant fish.)

Satellite captures Earth 'rising' and 'setting'

2007-11-16T19:43:00.000-08:00

Series of five images of the Earth 'setting' as seen from the Moon - taken by the Kaguya probe.

A Japanese satellite has captured the first high definition images of the Earth from the moon.

Footage taken from 62 miles above the lunar surface shows the most-detailed yet pictures of an "Earth-rise" and "Earth-set" above the moon's horizon.

Still photographs from the sequences show our planet in brilliant blue with Antarctica at the top, Australia in light brown on the left and the Middle East in the lower right section.

The images were taken last week using a high definition (HD) television camera, developed specially for use in space by the Japanese national broadcaster NHK.

This was mounted on Kaguya, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) probe which is carrying out the most extensive investigation of the moon since the Nasa Apollo missions.

Earth-rises and earth-sets can only be seen from satellites travelling in orbit around the moon as our planet is always seen in the same position from the lunar surface.

The Kaguya probe, named after a princess in a Japanese fairytale, was around 240,000 miles from Earth when it captured the footage.

The first ever image of the Earth was taken in 1959 by the US satellite Explorer VI while it was passing over the Pacific Ocean.

Kaguya, which launched in mid-September, will produce high resolution surface and gravity maps, observe lunar magnetic fields and search for water ice during its one-year mission.

Japan has been expanding its space operations, and has set a goal of sending an astronaut to the moon by 2020.

The onboard high definition camera of the moon explorer "KAGUYA," which is under initial functional verification, successfully acquired the world's first high definition images of an "Earth-rise" and "Earth-set." It was also the world's first HD images of the Earth from about 380,000 km away in space.

Indian man marries dog to beat 'curse'

2007-11-14T05:01:00.000-08:00

An Indian farmer has married his dog in a bid to overcome what he believes is a curse caused by him having stoned to death two mating dogs in his rice field, press reports said.

Doctors were clueless, but an astrologer finally told him he was cursed by the spirits of the dogs he had killed. He could undo the curse only if he married a dog and live with it, the soothsayer said.

After a long search for a 'suitable bride', Selvakumar managed to get a four-year-old mongrel bitch from a friend and had a fully-fledged Hindu wedding in front of villagers and elders on Sunday, eyewitnesses said.

The canine bride, named Selvi, was adorned in a sari and flowers and brought to the temple by village women. A Hindu priest conducted the ceremony.

The reports, however, said Selvi the dog attempted to make a run for it -- apparently due to the large crowds -- but was eventually tracked down and returned to her new 'husband'.

"The dog is only for lifting the curse and after that, he plans to get a real bride," a friend of the groom said.

Six-legged frog is star attraction

2007-11-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

A Chinese restaurant has found a six-legged frog - and is keeping it to attract diners.

The frog is on display in a glass tank at the restaurant in Quanzhou city, reports People's Daily.

"I bought more than 5 kilos of frogs from the market the other day, and upon coming back found that one of them has six legs," says chef Xiao Song.

The frog has two extra legs on the front left side which, according to waiters, means that it has a lopsided hop.

Experts at the local forestry department say the extra legs were most likely caused by genetic mutation.

Article~Time Dilation

2007-11-10T00:51:00.000-08:00

The special theory of relativity describes how motion affects measurements of time and distance. Einstein concluded that these measurements must depend on how the person making the measurements is moving. The basis of this theory is that all people, whether moving or stationary, must agree on certain basic physical phenomena, especially those involving the behavior of light.

Imagine that you are standing on the Earth while our friend is traveling across our solar system at a high speed, as shown in the accompanying sketch. You set off a flashbulb that emits sudden bright flash of light. The radiation moves away from you at the same speed at all directions, and thus you see an expanding spherical shell of light. What does your high-speed friend see?

Einstein argued that this person must also see light moving away from her at the same speed in all directions, and thus she also sees an expanding spherical shell of light.By requiring that both people observe a spherical shell, Einstein derived a series of equations to relate specific measurements of time and distance between two people. These equations are named the Lorentz transformations, after the famous Dutch physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (a contemporary of Einstein who developed these equations independently but did not grasp their true meaning.) These equations tell us exactly how a moving person's clock slow down and how rulers shrink.

To appreciate the Lorentz transformations, again imagine that you are on Earth while a friend is moving at a speed v with respect to you. Suppose that you both observe the same phenomenon on Earth - say, the beating of your heart or the ticking of your watch, which appears to occur over an interval of time. According to your clock (which is not moving relative to the phenomenon), the phenomenon lasts for T0 seconds. This is called the proper time of the phenomenon. But according to your friend's clock (which is moving relative to the phenomenon), the same phenomenon lasts for a different length of time, T seconds. The Lorentz transformation for time tells us that these two time intervals are related by:

Lorentz transformation for time

T = time interval measured by an observer moving relative to the phenomenon
T0 = time interval measured by an observer not moving relative to the phonomenon
v = speed of the moving observer
c = speed of light

EXAMPLE: Suppose that your friend is moving at 98% of the speed of light. Then, v/c = 0.98 so that

=> T = 5T0

The Lorentz transformation for time is plotted in the accompanying graph, which shows how 1 second measured on a stationary clock is stretched out when measured using a clock carried by a moving observer. Note that significant differencesEXAMPLE: Fast-moving protons from interstellar space frequently collide with atoms in the Earth's upper atmosphere. When they do, they can create unstable particles called muons (pronounced "mewons") that decay in an average time of 2.2 x 10 to power -6 seconds. Such muons typically move at 99.9% of the speed of light and are formed at an altitude of 10kn. As measured by an observer on the Earth, the time that a muon would take to reach the Earth's surface is

This is 15 times longer than the life expectancy of a muon, so it would seem that muon would never reach the Earth's surface before decaying. In fact, these muons are detected by experiments on the surface! The reason is that as seen by an Earth observer, the muon is a "moving clock", and hence its decay is slowed down by time dilation. To an Earth observer, the actual lifetime of a muon is

Thus, as measured by an Earth observer, muons live more than long enough for them to reach the surface. The detection at the Earth's surface of muons from the upper atmosphere is compelling evidence for the reality of the time dilation.

Article~Unknown object seen over south dakota skies

2007-10-30T00:16:00.000-07:00

An object was seen over the South Dakota skyline this morning, but what it was is still not known.

The first two minute clip of video was taken at 8:00 AM from our Empire Mall Skycam looking south-southeast. You can clearly see the object leaving a vapor trail behind in the sky as it drifts toward the southern horizon.

The second part of the clip was taken from our Rapid City Skycam. This view is looking east as the object moves from north to south parallel to the horizon. The second half of the video from Rapid City was captured at about 8:15 AM CDT.

We`re gathering information about it today and we`ll share what we find later today on KELOLAND.com and News.

Article~Malaysian Astronaut Won't Ignore Faith During Spaceflight

2007-10-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

STAR CITY, Russia (AP) -- Among the things Malaysia's first astronaut will be worrying about next month: How does an observant Muslim pray toward Mecca while soaring hundreds of miles above the Earth?

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor will blast off aboard a Russian-built Soyuz space craft en route to the International Space Station along with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson.

They blast off from the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 10.

Speaking at a news conference Thursday at Russia's cosmonaut training center in Star City, on Moscow's outskirts, Shukor said during his 10 days in space, he hoped to perform life science and other research, but said he would not ignore the responsibilities of his faith.

"I do agree that I am a Muslim, I am Islamic, but my main priority is more of conducting experiments,'' the 35-year-old astronaut said. "As a Muslim, I do hope to do my responsibilities, I do hope to fast in space.''

After months of discussion and two international conferences, the Islamic National Fatwa Council came up with guidelines as to how Muslim astronauts should observe daily rituals. The rules were published in 12-page booklet titled "Muslim Obligations in the International Space Station.''

Observant Muslims are required to turn toward Mecca -- located in Saudi Arabia -- and kneel and pray five times a day. However, with the space station circling the Earth 16 times a day, kneeling in zero gravity to pray -- or facing toward Mecca for that matter -- makes fulfilling those religious obligations difficult.

Malaysia's National Fatwa Council ruled that Muslim astronauts will not be required to kneel to pray if the absence of gravity makes it too hard. Facing Mecca while praying will be left to the "best abilities'' of the astronaut, the council said.

Adding to the difficulties is the fact that the launch coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan -- when Muslims are expected to fast from dawn until dusk. The fatwa decided the fasting may be postponed until returning to Earth.

Other exceptions include allowing simple silent prayer if performing physical rituals is impossible.

Shukor will return to Earth Oct. 20 along with two members of the station's current crew -- cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov.

www.space.com

Article~Mysterious peruvian meteor disease solved

2007-10-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

An object that struck the high plains of Peru on Saturday, causing a mysterious illness among local residents, was a rare kind of meteorite, scientists announced today.

A team of Peruvian researchers confirmed the origins of the object, which crashed near Lake Titicaca, after taking samples to a lab in the capital city of Lima.

Nearby residents who visited the impact crater complained of headaches and nausea, spurring speculation that the explosion was a subterranean geyser eruption or a release of noxious gas from decayed matter underground.

But the illness was the result of inhaling arsenic fumes, according to Luisa Macedo, a researcher for Peru`s Mining, Metallurgy, and Geology Institute (INGEMMET), who visited the crash site.

The meteorite created the gases when the object`s hot surface met an underground water supply tainted with arsenic, the scientists said.

Numerous arsenic deposits have been found in the subsoils of southern Peru, explained Modesto Montoya, a nuclear physicist who collaborated with the team. The naturally formed deposits contaminate local drinking water.

"If the meteorite arrives incandescent and at a high temperature because of friction in the atmosphere, hitting water can create a column of steam," added José Ishitsuka, an astronomer at the Peruvian Geophysics Institute, who analyzed the object.

By Wednesday, according to Macedo, all 30 residents who felt ill reported feeling better.

"People Were Extremely Scared"

Locals described the meteorite as a bright, fiery ball with a smoke trail. The sound and smell rattled residents to the point that they feared for their lives, Ishitsuka said.

The meteorite`s impact sent debris flying up to 820 feet (250 meters) away, with some material landing on the roof of the nearest home 390 feet (120 meters) from the crater, Ishitsuka reported.

"Imagine the magnitude of the impact," he said. "People were extremely scared. It was a psychological thing."

The meteorite`s crash also caused minor tremors, shaking locals physically and emotionally.

"They were in the epicenter of a small earthquake," Montoya, the nuclear physicist, said.

The resulting crater resembles a muddy pond measuring 42 feet (13 meters) wide and 10 feet (3 meters) deep.

Solving the Mystery

Even as meteorite samples arrived in Lima Thursday for testing, Peruvian scientists seemed to unanimously agree that it was a meteorite that had struck their territory.

"Based on the first-hand reports, the impact and the samples, this is a meteorite," Macedo, of INGEMMET, said.

Tests revealed no unusual radiation at the site, though its absence didn`t rule out a meteorite crash.

"Everything has radioactivity, even underground rocks," Montoya said. "But nothing out of the ordinary was found."

Preliminary analysis by Macedo`s institute revealed no metal fragments, indicating a rare rock meteorite. Metal stands up better to the heat created as objects enter Earth`s atmosphere, which is why most meteorites are metallic.

(See related news photo: "Mysterious Space Object Crashes Into House" [January 5, 2007].)

The samples she reviewed had smooth, eroded edges, Macedo added.

"As the rock enters the atmosphere, it gets smoothed out," she said.

The samples also had a significant amount of magnetic material "characteristic of meteorites," she said.

"The samples stick to the magnet," Ishitsuka, the astronomer, confirmed. "That shows that there is iron present."

Water samples at the crater proved normal, but the color and composition of soil were "unusual" for the area, Macedo noted.

José Machare, a geoscience adviser at INGEMMET, said x-ray tests conducted on the samples earlier today further confirmed the object`s celestial origins.

He said the group`s findings put to rest earlier theories that the object was a piece of space junk or that the crater had formed by an underground explosion.

"It`s a rocky fragment," Machare said, "and rocks that fall from the sky can only be meteorites."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070921-meteor-peru.html

Article~Speed of light

2007-09-30T05:58:00.000-07:00

The special theory of relativity begins with two principals. We have already stated the first of these, that the laws of physics are the same to all observers. The second principal follows from Einstein's work on electromagnetism:

The speed of light is the same to all observers.

From these principals, the basic equations of the special theory of relativity follow logically (refer to time dilation section). These equations relate measurements by observers moving at different speeds. They ensure, for example, that both you on the Earth and a friend in a spacecraft traveling near the speed of light agree on the same laws of physics, unaffected by any pitfalls or paradoxes caused by how you and your friend are moving relative to each other.

In developing the special theory of relativity, Einstein found that he had to abandon old-fashioned, rigid notions of space and time. For example, imagine a friend whizzing across or solar system in a spacecraft while you remain here on the Earth. Einstein proved that your friend's clock would seem to tick more slowly than your own. In addition, your friend's rulers when held parallel to the direction of motion will seem shorter than yours. In brief, moving clocks are slowed and moving rulers are shortened in the direction of the motion. These strange results are direct consequences of the speed of light being an absolute constant.

(a)As seen by the outfielder, ball is approaching her at (30 m/s) + (10 m/s) = 40 m/s

(b)Incorrect Newtonian description:
As seen by astronaut in spaceship, light is approaching her at (3x108 m/s) = 4x108 m/s

Correct Einsteinian description:
As seen by astronaut in spaceship, light is approaching her at 3x108 m/s

The Speed of Light is the Same to All Observers.

(a) in Newtonian physics, the speed of light of any object depends on how the observer is moving.

(b) Einstein showed that this commonsense principle does not apply to light. No matter how an observer is moving, he will always measure light to have the same speed. This remarkable fact about light, which goes completely against intuition, is at the heart of Einstein's special theory of relativity. This theory has other bizarre consequences. For example, the astronaut with the flashlight will see the flying astronaut's spaceship as being shortened along the direction of motion and will see the flying astronaut's clocks (including his wristwatch and his heartbeat) as ticking slowly. Furthermore, the special theory of relativity says that the laws of physics are the same no matter how fast you are moving, so both astronauts see the same effects of relativity. Here the flying astronaut will see the astronaut with the flashlight (who is moving relative to him) as shortened along the direction of motion and as having slowly ticking clocks.

Article~Big Bang Theory

2007-09-25T06:27:00.000-07:00

"We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world. We give little thought to the machinery that generates the sunlight that makes life possible, to the gravity that glues us to an Earth that would otherwise send us spinning off into space, or to the atoms of which we are made and on whose stability we fundamentally depend. Except for children (who don't know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spend much time wondering why nature is the way it is;

where the cosmos came from, or whether it was always here; if time will one day flow backward and effects precede causes; or whether there are ultimate limits to what humans can know."

Carl Sagan
From an introduction to "A Brief History of Time"
by Stephen Hawking

Big Bang Theory, currently accepted explanation of the beginning of the universe. The big bang theory proposes that the universe was once extremely compact, dense, and hot. Some original event, a cosmic explosion called the big bang, occurred about 10 billion to 20 billion years ago, and the universe has since been expanding and cooling.

The theory is based on the mathematical equations, known as the field equations, of the general theory of relativity set forth in 1915 by Albert Einstein.
In 1922 Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann provided a set of solutions to the field equations. These solutions have served as the framework for much of the current theoretical work on the big bang theory. American astronomer Edwin Hubble provided some of the greatest supporting evidence for the theory with his 1929 discovery that the light of distant galaxies was universally shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. This proved that the galaxies were moving away from each other. He found that galaxies farther away were moving away faster, showing that the universe is expanding uniformly. However, the universe's initial state was still unknown.

In the 1940s Russian American physicist George Gamow worked out a theory that fit with Friedmann's solutions in which the universe expanded from a hot, dense state. In 1950 British astronomer Fred Hoyle, in support of his own opposing steady-state theory, referred to Gamow's theory as a mere "big bang," but the name stuck. Indeed, a contest in the 1990s by Sky & Telescope magazine to find a better (perhaps more dignified) name did not produce one.

Click picture to enlarge

Approximately 13.7 billion years ago, the entirety of our universe was compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus. Known as a singularity, this is the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. According to the prevailing cosmological models that explain our universe, an ineffable explosion, trillions of degrees in temperature on any measurement scale, that was infinitely dense, created not only fundamental subatomic particles and thus matter and energy but space and time itself. Cosmology theorists combined with the observations of their astronomy colleagues have been able to reconstruct the primordial chronology of events known as the big bang.

Quantum theory suggests that moments after the explosion at 10 -43 second, the four forces of nature; strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravity were combined as a single "super force"(Wald). Elementary particles known as quarks begin to bond in trios, forming photons, positrons and netrinos and were created along with their antiparticles. There are minuscule amounts of protons and neutrons at this stage; approximately 1 for every one billion photons, neutrinos or electrons (Maffei). The density of the Universe in its first moment of life is thought to have been 1094g/cm3 with the majority of this being radiation. For each billion pairs of these heavy particles (hadrons) that were created, one was spared annihilation due to particle-antiparticle collisions. The remaining particles constitute the majority of our universe today (Novikov).

During this creation and annihilation of particles the universe was undergoing a rate of expansion many times the speed of light. Known as the inflationary epoch, the universe in less than one thousandth of a second doubled in size at least one hundred times, from an atomic nucleus to 1035 meters in width. An isotropic inflation of our Universe ends at 10-35 second that was almost perfectly smooth. If it were not for a slight fluctuation in the density distribution of matter, theorists contend, galaxies would have been unable to form (Parker).

The universe at this point was an ionized plasma where matter and radiation were inseparable. Additionally there were equal amounts of particles and antiparticles. The ratio of neutrons and protons albeit small is equal. When the universe aged to one hundredth of a second old neutrons begin to decay on a massive scale. This allows for free electrons and protons to combine with other particles. Eventually the remaining neutrons combine with protons to form heavy hydrogen (deuterium). These deuterium nuclei combine in pairs and form helium nuclei. The formation of matter from energy is made possible by photons materializing into baryons and antibaryons with their subsequent annihilations transforming them into pure energy (Maffei). Because of these collisions and annihilations matter was unable to remain viable for more than a few nanoseconds before a bombardment of electrons would scatter these photons. Like water trapped inside a sponge, radiation is so dense (1014g/cm3) that no light is visible. Known as the "Epoch of Last Scattering" the temperature has now dropped to a mere 1013K with the Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear and Electromagnetic interactions now able to exert their force. (Chown)

As the gas cloud expands one full second after the initial explosion and the temperature of our Universe has dropped to ten billion degrees, photons no longer have the energy to disrupt the creation of matter as well as transform energy into matter. After three minutes and a temperature of one billion degrees, protons and neutrons were slowing down enough in order to allow nucleosynthesis to take place. Atomic nuclei of helium was produced as two protons and neutrons each bonded. For every helium nuclei formed there were about ten protons left over allowing for twenty-five percent of the Universe to be comprised of helium. The next important phase of the expansion occurred around thirty minutes later when the creation of photons increased through the annihilation of electron-positron pairs. The fact that the universe began with slightly more electrons than positrons has insured that our Universe was able to form the way it has (Parker).

The universe for the next 300,000 years will then begin to expand and cool to a temperature of 10,000°K. These conditions allowed for helium nuclei to absorb free floating electrons and form helium atoms. Meanwhile hydrogen atoms were bonding together and forming lithium. It is here that the density of the universe has expanded to the point where light can be perceived. Until this point photons continued to be trapped within matter. Finally the expansion allowed for light and matter to go there separate ways as radiation becomes less and less dense. Matter and radiation therefore too, were bonded no longer and the oldest fossils in the Universe were born (Peebles).

In 1814 the science of spectroscopy was launched by William Wollaston, an English physicist who noticed that there were several dark lines that separated the continuous spectrum of the Sun. These lines came to the attention of Joseph von Fraunhofer, a German optician and physicist who carefully plotted the position of those lines. Then in 1850 German physicist's Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen refined the spectroscope. They then learned to heat different elements to incandescence and using the spectroscope identified an elements corresponding lines on the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum(Parker).

In 1863 Sir William Huggins, an amateur astronomer viewed a nearby star through his 8 inch refractor with a spectroscope attached. He found what he had originally hypothesized, the same spectrum lines that were observed in our own Sun. Meanwhile, Kirchhoff and Bunsen had successfully categorized the spectrum lines of many elements including those of hydrogen, sodium and magnesium. Huggins found these same spectrum lines in the distant stars he had observed and correctly predicted that some of the same elements that Kirchhoff and Bunsen were cataloging were emanating from these celestial bodies (Parker).

Christian Doppler of Austria discovered twenty years earlier that the frequency of a sound wave was dependent on the relative position of the source of the sound. As a sound moves away from an observer the pitch will lower. Likewise if the source is not moving but the observer is, there will be a corresponding change in the wave frequency of the sound. Doppler theorized on this same shift for light waves yet it was the French physicist Armand Fizeau who proved in 1848 that when a celestial object moves away from an observer, the lines in the visible spectrum would shift toward the red end. Conversely, when an object moves toward the observer, Fizeau found that the lines in the spectrum shifted toward the blue end. Huggins observed a shift in the hydrogen lines of Sirius toward the red end of the spectrum. This "redshift" indicated that Sirius was moving away from us. A few years later he was able to calculate the radial velocity of the star Sirius at between 26 to 36 miles per second (Parker).

During the 1890's the Lick Observatory in California began to track and chart the radial velocity (which is actually the velocity at which the line of sight that the star is observed) of many stars, as well as gaseous and planetary nebulae. Astronomers at Lick calculated the measurements of 400 stars including their radial speed and velocity. In 1910 Vesto Slipher measured the velocity of the Andromeda Nebula at 300 km per second, thirty times greater than previously observed. Four years later, Slipher had confirmed the radial velocities of 14 spiral nebula, with the overwhelming majority shifting to the red end of the spectrum. Slipper's observations showed that the majority of spirals he measured were moving away from us (Parker).

Around 1913 several astronomers, among them Edwin Hubble, used a variable star known as a Cepheid (a star that fluctuates in intensity) to measure their period-luminosity relationship. This would accurately determine the distance to any Cepheid in the observable vicinity. Hubble became the first astronomer to discover an independent galaxy outside the confines of the Milky Way. Hubble calculated the distance of the Andromeda Galaxy to be 900,000 light years away; larger than the predicted size of our own galaxy. Using the radial velocity measurements of Slipher along with Hubble's own calculations he began to notice a correlation between the distance of these galaxies and their radial velocities. The proof was conclusive: the further away a galaxy was relative to the Earth, the greater the velocity of that galaxy. Hubble had irrefutable proof that the Universe was expanding. By 1936 Hubble had received data from galaxies more than 100 million light years away. The redshifts at this distance were so large that the spectral lines had changed color (Weinberg).

As astronomers were collecting data on the Universe based on their observations, theorists were busy developing models that attempted to explain the cosmos. Recently equipped with Albert Einstien's Theory of Relativity, Einstein was one of the first to attempt an explanation of the physical Universe. Einstein believed the Universe to have a static, uniform, isotropic distribution of matter. Einstein's own calculations however proved to result in the exact opposite, an oscillating universe that had the potential for expansion or contraction. He was certain that the universe was stable. Einstein was compelled to amend his original equation. He used the term cosmological constant, which created a spherical, four-dimensional closed universe (Parker).

Around the same time the Dutch astronomer Willem deSitter used Einstein's general theory of relativity to develop his own model of the Universe. His model was unique in that it did not take into consideration the existence of matter in the Universe. However it did go beyond Einstein's model in that it predicted the redshift, even though de Sitter felt it was an illusion, and did not at the time link it to any recession of celestial objects. The academic community of 1930 did not fully embrace either model of the universe. Then the Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society in England was made aware that three years previous, one of his students had written a theory of the universe independent of the two major forces in cosmological theory. Georges Lemaître created a cosmology that predicted a universe that was forever in a state of expansion. When this theory was rejuvenated by its republication in the journal Monthly Notices, it brought to the table another similar theory that was devised ten years earlier. Aleksander Friedmann, a Russian mathematician, analyzed Einstein's cosmological constant that produced a static universe. Friedmann proved that there are three possibilities for the universe when the cosmological constant is zero. If the matter in the universe is greater than the critical density, the universe would ultimately collapse back onto itself. If the inverse is correct the universe would expand forever. If the universe were flat with a constant of zero at critical density, the universe would again expand infinitely. Both Lemaître and Friedmann's solutions were analyzed by Einstein and were summarily dismissed. It was not until Hubble had proved that galaxies were in fact receding in 1932 that Einstein was forced to drop his static universe model. The observational proof that the universe was expanding, combined with the models of Friedmann and Lemaître that predicted an expanding universe unified the cosmologist and the astronomer in agreement. The only question remained was if the universe is expanding, what was the origination of this expansion? Lemaître used the second law of thermodynamics as his starting point. Based on the assumption that the expansion of the universe was an increase in the disorder of a system, originating from a singularity of neutrons, this primordial nucleus would then explode where an increase in the entropy of the universe would be apparent. On May 9, 1931, Lemaître published his theory of the universe in the journal Nature and it was met with general skepticism (Parker).

George Gamow expounded on Lemaître's work, using recent discoveries in quantum theory. Lemaître formulated his model based on the theory that a giant nucleus began to entropy, breaking down into individual constituents. Gamow believed that a nucleus containing not only neutrons but protons and electrons as well was the starting point. Due to the very high amount of radiant energy in the early universe, temperature would be in excess of one billion degrees Kelvin. At five minutes old, Gamow speculated, this universe would have particles that could not combine. But as the expansion began the temperatures would decrease and nuclear fusion would occur. Atoms would form as protons and neutrons would attach themselves to one another. Gamow then Hypothesized that all the elements in the Universe were created at this time. One year later however, it was proven that Gamow's math didn't stand up to scrutiny as it was shown that atomic mass 5 could not have been created from this primordial nucleus, as well as mass 8 (Gribbin).

Although all of the elements in the universe were proven not to have originated from the Primordial Fireball, the theory gained momentum until it received a worthy adversarial cosmology known as the Steady State Theory. Fred Hoyle (who despairingly coined the term Big Bang) and his colleagues constructed a model of the universe that was widely accepted for religious reasons if not so much for its scientific hypothesis. Hoyle suggested that the universe is infinitely old and has remained in a steady state except that the universe was indeed expanding. However galaxies are not receding from one another but space is constantly being created between galaxies. In order for the average density to remain constant, Hoyle suggested that matter had to be created in these new areas where space was expanding. Only one hydrogen atom needed to be created every year in an area the size of a 100 meter cube to account for the expansion. This spontaneous generation of matter Hoyle argues would allow for the formation of new galaxies between ancient ones and the Universe would maintain its steady state. It would then follow that astronomers would be able to detect young galaxies in the midst's of very old ones. This was one of the many inconsistencies that were found with the Steady State Theory. In the 1950's Steady State Theorists took a heavy blow when radio galaxies were discovered showing that, consistent with big bang Cosmology, galaxies evolved and were very active billions of years ago (Parker).

Finally the empirical evidence big bangers had predicted was observed in 1965 by Bell Labs Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. Robert Dicke of Princeton University was the first to search for fossil remains of the big bang. Dicke suggested that the Big bang emanated from a previous universe and that a temperature in excess of one billion degrees was necessary to create our new universe. This energy would in turn produce an infinitesimal amount of radiation that should be measurable to this day. Based on Planck's law that all bodies emit energy that can be documented on an electromagnetic diagram. Depending on the length of the wave they can register anywhere from X rays to radio waves and everything in between. A bodies emission of energy is contingent upon the constituent elements of the body, the amount of surface area of the body and the surface temperature of the body. The body that emits the greatest amount of energy is a so called black body. Using Planck's Black Body Curve as a guide Dicke theorized that the Cosmic Background Radiation of the Big Bang should be about 3° above absolute zero. Dicke's colleague Jim Peebles also concluded that when the Fireball's remnants cooled to 3000° Kelvin nuclei would be able to form and helium was able to form from hydrogen. This left a universe with a mixture of approximately 75% hydrogen and 25% helium, resembling the same amount of helium found in the Sun. Peebles concluded that since the two most abundant elements in the universe were created when the Universe was at 3000° K and since then the universe has expanded by a factor of 1000 the radiation from the Big Bang should have a temperature of about 10° K. Later refinements to these equations revised the estimated temperature to 3° K. Dicke and Peebles were confident that there instruments would be the first to detect this Cosmic Background Radiation (Parker). At the same time Penzias and Wilson were busy attempting to measure radiation from the Milky Way Galaxy. They were narrowing in on their source when they were left with a noise that was interfering with their signal. This noise originated from cosmic radiation and had a temperature of 3°K. It seemed to be coming in from all directions and never fluctuated. With their original research corrupted due to the unexplained noise they resigned themselves to writing a paper on this unexplainable phenomenon. Months later Penzia's discovered that Peebles group was searching for this relic radiation without success. Upon further examination they realized that Penzia and Wilson had stumbled upon the single most important discovery that confirmed the Primordial big bang Explosion(Parker).

Big Bang theorists made several predictions that have eventually supported the theory. The first is Hubble's observation of the redshift-distance relationship. This relationship enables us to approximate the age of the universe with the help of three separate celestial bodies that all arrive at the same relative result. Hubble used what is known as "standard candles" to build a "cosmic distance ladder." By knowning the distance of certain celestial bodies he would be able to incrementally construct an age for the Universe. These standard candles were: cepheid variables in neighborhood galaxies; bright stars in more distant galaxies and in galaxies millions of parsecs away, the brightness of the galaxy itself was used as a standard candle (Maffei)

Central to the question of the age of the Universe are two important theoretical terms. The Hubble Constant refers to how fast the velocities of the galaxies increase with their distance from the Earth. There is quite a raging debate on the value of this constant ranging from 50 Km/sec per Mpc (Mpc is a Megaparsec, about 3 million light years) to 100 Km/sec per Mpc. This explains the disparity in the ± 5 billion year estimate for the age of the universe. The other constant of importance is known as q that defines the deceleration of the expansion of the universe. Depending on the critical density of the universe that this q constant is based, the universe will prove to be either infinitely expanding as in the flat and open models, or an oscillating closed universe; a big crunch/big bang universe that will ultimately condense back into a singularity and begin the process all over again(Weinberg). Hubble's succesor Allan Sandage predicted a closed universe when he plotted a number of radio galaxies many billions of light years away. The evidence for this closed universe was quickly challanged a few years later and eventually fell out of favor. To this day the Hubble Constant and the q constant remain the two most important unanswered problems in modern cosmology.

Observations have also supported the predictions of theorists that certain elements could only have been created moments after the big bang. Based on the relationship between the amount of helium in the universe and the number of different types of particle "families" researchers concluded that there is one neutrino per family of particles. Due to the current energy density of the universe there will be a corresponding amount of helium produced. This in turn will create different types of neutrinos. When the predicted amount of neutrinos corresponded to what was observed it was another victory for the big bang cosmology(Wald).

After the discovery of the cosmic background radiation in 1965 scientists were eager to extend their research into outerspace through the use of a man-made satellite orbiting the Earth. From this vantage point an unimpeaded opportunity to study this phenomenon would be made available and by late 1989 the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) was ready for action. COBE consisted of three seperate experiments. The first instrument was known as the FIRAS, an acronym for the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrometer. This instrument was created to confirm the research previously accumulated that the background radiation does indeed have a black body spectrum (Hoverstein).

The next question COBE attempted to answer was, is the background radiation the same temperature in all directions? Big bang theory states that in order to have mass condense and form galaxies, there must be inhomogeneties left over from the Big bang that will be able to be detectable. The differential microwave radiometer (DMR) was designed to detect anisotropy fluctuations on the scale of 30 millionths of a degree. Inflation theory predicted such fluctuations and that quantum processes at work during the primordial stages of the big bang (when the universe was the size of a proton) allowed for clouds of matter to condense into galaxies (Sawyer).

The final experiment was known as DIRBE. The Differential Infrared Background Experiment was designed to look into the farthest corners of the Universe; upwards of 15 billion light years away from the Earth, and accumulate data on the infrared light of these primordial galaxies. DIRBE data is continuing to be accumulated with no conclusions having been drawn to date (Gribbin). John Mather from the University of California at Berkeley was responsible for the FIRAS experiment. Not long after COBE was positioned into orbit came the exciting data that was eagerly awaited and much anticipated. The background radiation fit the blackbody curve to within 1%. Sixty-seven seperate points of frequency obtained by COBE fir the theoretical blackbody spectrum perfectly! Observation had accurately confirmed what Big bang cosmology had long ago predicted. This finding proved to be the easy part (Parker).

George Smoot and his colleagues also from Cal Berkeley took three arduous years to sort through the billions of bits of data that the DMR provided. His announcement on the 23rd of April, 1992 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Washington, D.C. said it best: "English dosen't have enough superlatives...to convey the story [of the results] , we have observed...15 billion year old fossils that we think were created at the birth of the universe."(Parker). Although the temperature fluctuations were less than thirty millionths of a degree in variation, these areas of temperature and density fluctuation were more than 500 million light years in width. These miniscule perbutations that were formed during the big bang were the very density that was needed in order to create galaxies and thus life itself (Noble).

The Big Bang model that attempts to explain the origin and structure of the universe incorporates the talents of many individuals through the course of more than 150 years of study. Many times facing opposition similar to that of Galileo and Copurnicus, these cosmologists used a deductive approach in solving the greatest question in the history of science. The findings and observations of these emminant scholars forced them to draw the conclusions they arrived at. Every prediction that quantum physics and the theories of relativity have made regarding the origin and the state of the universe have either been observed and confirmed and/or not proven to be false. That is in essence the reason we have arrived at this cosmology, fully confident that our science and technology can look back in time 15 billion years and see the birth of our universe.

Article~ Breakup event in the main asteroid belt likely caused dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago

2007-09-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

The impactor believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs and other life forms on Earth some 65 million years ago has been traced back to a breakup event in the main asteroid belt.

A joint U.S. -Czech team from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Charles University in Prague suggests that the parent object of asteroid (298) Baptistina disrupted when it was hit by another large asteroid, creating numerous large fragments that would later create the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan Peninsula as well as the prominent Tycho crater found on the Moon.

The team of researchers, including Dr. William Bottke (SwRI), Dr. David Vokrouhlicky (Charles University, Prague) and Dr. David Nesvorny (SwRI), combined observations with several different numerical simulations to investigate the Baptistina disruption event and its aftermath. A particular focus of their work was how Baptistina fragments affected the Earth and Moon.

At approximately 170 kilometers in diameter and having characteristics similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, the Baptistina parent body resided in the innermost region of the asteroid belt when it was hit by another asteroid estimated to be 60 kilometers in diameter. This catastrophic impact produced what is now known as the Baptistina asteroid family, a cluster of asteroid fragments with similar orbits. According to the team`s modeling work, this family originally included approximately 300 bodies larger than 10 kilometers and 140,000 bodies larger than 1 kilometer.

Once created, the newly formed fragments' orbits began to slowly evolve due to thermal forces produced when they absorbed sunlight and re-radiated the energy away as heat. According to Bottke, "By carefully modeling these effects and the distance traveled by different-sized fragments from the location of the original collision, we determined that the Baptistina breakup took place 160 million years ago, give or take 20 million years."

The gradual spreading of the family caused many fragments to drift into a nearby "dynamical superhighway" where they could escape the main asteroid belt and be delivered to orbits that cross Earth's path. The team`s computations suggest that about 20 percent of the surviving multi-kilometer-sized fragments in the Baptistina family were lost in this fashion, with about 2 percent of those objects going on to strike the Earth, a pronounced increase in the number of large asteroids striking Earth.

Support for these conclusions comes from the impact history of the Earth and Moon, both of which show evidence of a two-fold increase in the formation rate of large craters over the last 100 to 150 million years. As described by Nesvorny, "The Baptistina bombardment produced a prolonged surge in the impact flux that peaked roughly 100 million years ago. This matches up pretty well with what is known about the impact record."

Bottke adds, "We are in the tail end of this shower now. Our simulations suggest that about 20 percent of the present-day, near-Earth asteroid population can be traced back to the Baptistina family."

The team then investigated the origins of the 180 kilometer diameter Chicxulub crater, which has been strongly linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Studies of sediment samples and a meteorite from this time period indicate that the Chicxulub impactor had a carbonaceous chondrite composition much like the well-known primitive meteorite Murchison. This composition is enough to rule out many potential impactors but not those from the Baptistina family. Using this information in their simulations, the team found a 90 percent probability that the object that formed the Chicxulub crater was a refugee from the Baptistina family.

These simulations also showed there was a 70 percent probability that the lunar crater Tycho, an 85 kilometer crater that formed 108 million years ago, was also produced by a large Baptistina fragment. Tycho is notable for its large size, young age and its prominent rays that extend as far as 1,500 kilometers across the Moon. Vokrouhlicky says, "The probability is smaller than in the case of the Chicxulub crater because nothing is yet known about the nature of the Tycho impactor."

This study demonstrates that the collisional and dynamical evolution the main asteroid belt may have significant implications for understanding the geological and biological history of Earth.

As Bottke says, "It is likely that more breakup events in the asteroid belt are connected in some fashion to events on the Earth, Moon and other planets. The hunt is on!"

The article, "An asteroid breakup 160 Myr ago as the probable source of the K/T impactor," was published in the Sept. 6 issue of Nature.

Source: SwRI

http://www.physorg.com/news108218928.htm

Pic~New Mystery Fish Photos

2007-09-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

Here’s a new mystery fish photograph just received. Anyone have any ideas what it is?

Although it is not a cryptid, it certainly is an unknown until identified. These photos are making the Internet rounds as evidence of a new world record piranha, an extremely dubious identification.

Meanwhile, the Cryptomundo mystery fish photograph on an antique postcard (first noted at Cryptomundo on November 29, 2005, contributed by phyllis) has still not been solved.

Mystery Fish head.

Video~Weirdest Animals On The Planet

2007-09-12T00:21:00.000-07:00

Compilation of the most weirdest animals you probably have never seen before.

Source~MetaCafe.com

Definitions of MYSTERY on the Web

2007-09-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

Something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained; "how it got out is a mystery"; "it remains one of nature's secrets".

A story about a crime (usually murder) presented as a novel or play or movie

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Mystery! (also written MYSTERY!) is a long-running television series that premiered on PBS in 1979 and is produced by WGBH. The show has allowed a large number of detective series and television movies, most of them British productions from the BBC or various ITV companies, to air on American television. In 2002 they added an American produced series based on the novels of Tony Hillerman to their roster. The American flag was worked intro the opening title sequence.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery!

Mystery is a Canadian specialty channel which presents movies and television series of the mystery genre. Mystery is owned by CanWest Global Communications.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_(television)

The Orthodox term for "Sacrament", the means by which God's Grace is imparted to us by His Holy Orthodox Church. Only Orthodox Christians may receive the Holy Mysteries.

euphrosynoscafe.com/resources/glossary.html

A term derived from the Latin word mysterium. Mystery is also closely related to the Latin word mysterium tremendum, which is a term used to express the overwhelming awe and sense of unknowable mystery felt by those to whom some aspect of God or of divine being is revealed. Mystery is an event or situation that appears to overwhelm understanding. Its province is the unnatural, unmentioned, and unseen. ...

www.georgiasouthern.edu/~dougt/goth.html

A suspenseful story dealing with a puzzling crime. The crime is usually solved by one of the characters in the story, which sometimes is a detective. Mysteries are fiction.

www.tpl.toronto.on.ca/mul_esl_glossary.jsp

Any matter that is hidden, secret, unexplained or inexplicable, beyond human knowledge or comprehension, such as a religious truth known only from Divine Revelation.

miriams-well.org/Glossary/

a narrative in which the chief element is usually a crime around which the plot is built.

www.ed.psu.edu/americareads/Resources/glossary.htm

A reality which we cannot fully grasp intellectually, or for which we have no reasoned explanation. Before mystery one retains a certain awe along with the yearning to explore and comprehend. For Jung, life itself and each individual was such a mystery.

www.mindmendtherapy.com/page8_jung_key_concepts.htm

Genre of film involving mystery as the main element of the film.

centuryofslang.com/reviews/genres.php

2007-09-04T18:30:00.001-07:00

Rest at the moment.