I mean — it’s not the most absurd assumption to make, I mean, look at it!
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
One big myth about the sun that is completely wrong
I mean — it’s not the most absurd assumption to make, I mean, look at it!
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
The Daily Drift
Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.
Got Turtle ... !
You want the unvarnished truth?
Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told
It is also National Taffy Day!
Today in History
| 1430 | Burgundians capture Joan of Arc and sell her to the English. | |
| 1533 | Henry VIII‘s marriage to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void. | |
| 1618 | The Thirty Years War begins. | |
| 1701 | Captain William Kidd, the Scottish pirate, is hanged on the banks of the Thames. | |
| 1785 | Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals. | |
| 1788 | South Carolina becomes the eighth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. | |
| 1861 | Pro-Union and pro-Confederate forces clash in western Virginia. | |
| 1862 | Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson takes Front Royal, Virginia. | |
| 1864 | Union General Ulysses Grant attempts to outflank Confederate Robert E. Lee in the Battle of North Anna, Virginia. | |
| 1900 | Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, thirty-seven years after the Battle of Fort Wagner. | |
| 1915 | Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary. | |
| 1934 | Gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are killed by Texas Rangers. | |
| 1945 | Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, commits suicide after being captured by Allied forces. | |
| 1949 | The Federal Republic of West Germany is proclaimed. | |
| 1960 | Israel announces the capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. |
The Lady of the Lines
If you've ever heard of the Nazca lines, you have this woman to
thank for preserving them for posterity. And if you've ever doubted that
one person can make a difference, think again…
HELP WANTEDIn 1932, a 20-year-old German woman named Maria Reiche answered a newspaper ad and landed a job in Peru, tutoring the sons of the German consul. After that, she bounced from job to job and eventually found work translating documents for an archaeologist named Julio Tello.
One day she happened to overhear a conversation between Tello and another archaeologist, Toribio Mejia. Mejia described some mysterious lines he'd seen in a patch of desert about 250 miles south of the capital of Lima, near the small town of Nazca. He tried to interest Tello in the lines, but Tello dismissed them as unimportant. Reiche wasn't so sure. She decided to go to Nazca and have a look for herself.
MYSTERIOUS LINES
The lines were made by the early Nazca people, etched into the desert floor between 200 BC and 700 AD. They had created the lines by removing the darkened surface fragments (known as "desert varnish') to reveal the much lighter stone underneath.
But why?
WAITING FOR SUNDOWN
An American archaeologist and historian named Paul Kosok had a theory. At first he thought the lines might be irrigation ditches, but they weren't large enough or deep enough to transport water. Then he started to wonder if they might have some astronomical significance. So, on June 21, 1941, the southern hemisphere's winter solstice, he went out to the desert and waited for the sun to set.
Sure enough, when the sun set, it did so at a point on the horizon that was intersected by one of the Nazca lines. The line seemed to serve as an astronomical marker, telling the Nazca people that the first day of winter had arrived.
BIG BIRD
Kosok
had also observed that while most of the Nazca lines were straight,
some were curvy. But it wasn't until he plotted one on a piece of paper,
then looked down to see that he had drawn the outline of a giant bird,
that he realized some of the lines were drawings. The drawings were so large that they could not be made out by anyone looking at them from the ground.With the discovery of the solstice line and the giant bird, Kosok became convinced that the Nazca lines were an enormous astronomical calendar, or, as he put it, "the world's largest astronomy book," with each lines carefully laid out to correspond to something in the heavens above. Maybe, he speculated, the giant bird represented a constellation in the night sky. He offered Reiche a job helping him survey the lines so he could prove his theory.
LIFELONG PASSION
She
took the job, and after a few months of tramping across the desert each
day with little more than a canteen of water and a pencil and paper to
record her observations, she found what she was looking for: a line that
intersected with the sun on the southern hemisphere's summer solstice,
December 21. That was all it took- Reiche was convinced that Kosok's
theory was correct. And she would spend the rest of her life trying to
prove it.
At
first Reiche could only afford to visit the Nazca lines only
occasionally, and because she was German she was not allowed to work at
the site at all during World War II. By 1946, however, she was living in
Peru year-round and spending nearly all her waking hours in the desert
trying to unlock the secret of the lines. When Kosok left Peru in 1948,
she continued without him.
Studying the lines wasn't as simple as it sounds. In those days, many of them were obscured by dirt, sand, and centuries of new desert varnish that it was barely possible to find them. That they were distinguishable at all was thanks only to the fact that they were etched a few inches into the desert floor.
CLEAN SWEEP
Studying the lines wasn't as simple as it sounds. In those days, many of them were obscured by dirt, sand, and centuries of new desert varnish that it was barely possible to find them. That they were distinguishable at all was thanks only to the fact that they were etched a few inches into the desert floor.
CLEAN SWEEP
In the process Reiche discovered -and uncovered- as many as 30 drawings similar to the giant bird that Kosok had found, including numerous birds, two lizards, four fish, a monkey, a whale, a pair of human hands, and a man with an owl-like head. The scope of her work is astonishing: When you look at an aerial photograph of the Nazca lines -any photograph of any of the lines or ground drawings- there's a good chance that Reiche swept those lines herself. Mile after mile after mile of them, using only one tool- an ordinary household broom.
LOST IN SPACE
Just as Reiche was almost single-handedly responsible for restoring the Nazca lines, she was also the first to bring them to public attention. Her 1949 book Mystery on the Desert helped to generate worldwide interest in the lines.
But what really put them on the map was a 1968 book written by a Swiss hotelier named Erich Von Daniken. His book Chariots of the Gods proposed that some of the lines were landing strips for alien spacecraft. According to Von Daniken's theory, aliens created the human race by breeding with primates, then returned to outer space. The early humans then etched the drawings into the desert floor, hoping to attract the aliens back to earth.
JOIN THE CROW
Chariots of the Gods
was an international bestseller, and its success prompted other people
to write books of their own with more theories about the origin of the
lines. One speculated the lines were ancient jogging tracks; another
claimed they were launch sites for Nazcan hot-air balloonists. These
books turned the Nazca lines into a New Age pop culture phenomenon,
helping to attract tens of thousands of tourists to the site each year.As a result, the Nazca lines began to suffer from overexposure- more and more tourists went into the desert on foot, on dirt bikes, and in dune biggies, doing untold damage to the lines in the process.
Reiche did what she could to protect them. For years she lived in a small house out in the desert so that she could watch over the lines herself, and she used the profits from her writing and lecturing to pay security guards to patrol the desert. By the end of her life she was crippled by Parkinson's disease, but she continued to study the lines and was known to chase intruders away in her wheelchair. By the time of her death in 1998 at the age of 95, she was nearly deaf and almost completely blind. Not that it really mattered to her- "I can see every line," she said, "every drawing, in my mind."
FINAL IRONY
Though Reiche devoted most of her life to proving the Nazca lines are a giant astronomical calendar, that theory has been largely discarded. Researchers now believe that while a few of the lines may indeed point to astronomical phenomena such as the summer and winter solstices (with more than 1,000 lines running across the desert floor in all directions, even that may be a coincidence), most of the lines are processional footpaths linking various sacred sites in the desert. The ground drawings, they believe, are artwork the Nazcans made for their gods.
Facts About The Liver
The liver works hard for the human body- it
regulates plasma glucose and ammonia levels, produces proteins vital for
body function and serves as both an organ and a gland, since it filters
toxins and pushes them out of the body.
And
if that isn't enough to make you think of the liver as the mightiest of
all organs consider this- the liver is the only organ that can
completely regenerate, needing only 25 percent of the original tissue to
do so:
“When a person donates more than half of their liver to someone who needs a transplant, the liver returns to its original size in nearly two weeks,” Reau tells Mental Floss. According to a 2009 study in the Journal of Cell Physiology, evolutionary safeguards are responsible for this regenerative effect due to the numerous functions performed by the liver. “This process allows liver to recover lost mass without jeopardizing viability of the entire organism,” the authors write.
Antibody for fighting cancer emerges
While
studying the underpinnings of multiple sclerosis, investigators at
Brigham and Women’s Hospital came across important clues for how to
treat a very different disease: cancer. In a paper published in Science
Immunology, a group … Read more
What’s Kept the Society Against Quackery Going for 137 Years
The VtdK formed around the same time that modern medicine began to be professionalized in the late 1800s. According to a history on the Society’s website, the Dutch Society for the Advancement of Medicine, which was founded in 1849, was having trouble policing the unlicensed and unqualified medical practitioners of the day. In an effort to raise awareness of the growing number of quacks operating in the Netherlands, they published a pamphlet in 1878 detailing how to identify a quack, and what to do about them. From this initial bit of literature, the Society Against Quackery was born.But the more things change, the more they stay the same. The society its still in business, still fighting bad medicine! Read about their history, their work, and what they are doing today, at Atlas Obscura.
Wirst slap for hotel maid raper
On the weekend of Dumbass Trump’s
inauguration, a millionaire businessman who traveled to D.C. to
celebrate the new president’s swearing-in was arrested and charged with
sexual battery of two hotel maids. He was convicted and sentenced to ten
days in jail -- suspended -- and six months' probation.
NAZI Richard Spencer gets gym membership yanked
An Alexandria, VA gym revoked “alt-right”
leader Richard Spencer’s membership after Spencer was confronted by a
Georgetown University professor “who recognized him and lambasted him”
over his far-right, racist beliefs.
Black ROTC cadet stabbed to death by NAZI
Monday, May 22, 2017
The Daily Drift
Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.
Goth Girl ... !
You want the unvarnished truth?
Don't forget to visit: The Truth Be Told
How right you are!
Today in History
| 1246 | Henry Raspe is elected anti-king by the Rhenish prelates in France. | |
| 1455 | King Henry VI is taken prisoner by the Yorkists at the Battle of St. Albans, during the War of the Roses. | |
| 1804 | The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri. | |
| 1856 | U.S. Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane for Sumner’s earlier condemnation of slavery, which included an insult to Brooks’ cousin, Senator Andrew Butler. | |
| 1863 | Union General Ulysses S. Grant‘s second attack on Vicksburg fails and a siege begins. | |
| 1868 | The “Great Train Robbery” takes place as seven members of the Reno Gang make off with $98,000 in cash from a train’s safe in Indiana. | |
| 1872 | The Amnesty Act restores civil rights to Southerners. | |
| 1882 | The United States formally recognizes Korea. | |
| 1908 | The Wright brothers register their flying machine for a U.S. patent. | |
| 1939 | Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign a “Pact of Steel” forming the Axis powers. | |
| 1947 | The Truman Doctrine brings aid to Turkey and Greece. | |
| 1967 | The children’s program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood premiers. | |
| 1972 | Ceylon becomes the Republic of Sri Lanka as its constitution is ratified. | |
| 1985 | Baseball player Pete Rose passes Hank Aaron as National League run scoring leader with 2,108. | |
| 1990 | In the Middle East, North and South Yemen merge to become a single state. | |
| 1992 | Johnny Carson’s final appearance on The Tonight Show on NBC, after 30 years as the program’s host. | |
| 2004 | An EF4 tornado with a record-setting width of 2.5 miles wipes out Hallam, Nebraska, killing 1 person. | |
| 2004 | Fahrenheit 9-11, directed by Michael Moore, becomes the first documentary ever to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. | |
| 2010 | Following a 200-year search for the tomb of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus his remains are reburied in Frombork Cathedral | |
| 2011 | An EF5 tornado kills at least 158 people in Joplin, Missouri, the largest death toll from a tornado since record-keeping began in 1950. | |
| 2015 | The Republic of Ireland, long known as a conservative, predominantly Catholic country, becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum. |
We may have accidentally formed a protective bubble around Earth
The world's unsolved airplane mysteries
From Amelia Earhart's ill-fated flight to the unsolved mystery
behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airline Flight MH370,
aviation authorities have faced several challenges over the years
despite an improvement in flight tracking systems and specialized
technologies to track pings from black boxes.
Two guys applied for one job…
Murphy applied for a fork lift operator post at a famous Irish firm based in Dublin.A Norwegian applied for the same job and since both applicants had similar qualifications, they were asked to take a test and led to a quiet room with no interruptions by the Manager.
When the results were in, both men had scored 19 out of 20.
The manager went to Murphy and said, “Thank you for coming to the interview, but we’ve decided to give the Norwegian the job.”
Murphy,… “And why would you be doing that? We both got 19 questions correct. This being Ireland and me being Irish surely I should get the job.”
Manager, “We have made our decision not on the correct answers, but on the question you got wrong.”
Murphy, “And just how would one incorrect answer be better than another?”
Manager “That’s Simple; on question number 7 the Norwegian wrote down, ‘I don’t know.’
You put down, ‘Neither do I.’ “
Svalbard Arctic seed vault awash in water from melting permafrost
A failure at a fail-safe vault.
The irony is delicious, but that’s not the whole story.
On its website, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is described by
Crop Trust—the nonprofit that runs it—as “a fail-safe seed storage
facility, built to stand the test of time—and the challenge of natural
or man-made disasters.”It holds backups of seeds from seed banks around the world, with the goal of preserving a legacy of crop diversity in the face of changing climate, natural disasters, and human conflicts.
It’s operated for a little over nine years.
Then, on Friday, news spread that water from melting permafrost had gushed into the tunnel and frozen, making the floor slick with ice but not impacting the seeds.
It would seem the fail-safe had failed.
Or had it?
Playboy Model’s Body-Shaming Incident Is Going To Trial
Dani Mathers could face serious repercussions for her Snapchat that went viral
Rachel Maddow Is The Most Watched Show On Cable News
On Wednesday night, MSNBC's
The Rachel Maddow Show drew more viewers than every other prime-time
program to become the most watched broadcast on cable news.…
'Christian sex advice' websites offer more than just tips
Dumbass Trump signed an executive
order that allows cults and religious bigots to explicitly endorse
or oppose a political candidate without penalty to their nonprofit,
tax-exempt status.
The UN, sexual exploitation and Joseph Kony's secret hideout
‘Hell is coming with me’
During a eulogy for his father, the
teen-aged son of ex-Fox 'News' head Ailes issued a threat to the
women he feels caused his father to get booted from the wingnut propaganda network
Scientists are bringing back extinct species
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