IN the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, the archaeologists Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery have gained a remarkable insight into the origin of religion.
During 15 years of excavation they have uncovered not some monumental temple but evidence of a critical transition in religious behavior. The record begins with a simple dancing floor, the arena for the communal religious dances held by hunter-gatherers in about 7,000 B.C. It moves to the ancestor-cult shrines that appeared after the beginning of corn-based agriculture around 1,500 B.C., and ends in A.D. 30 with the sophisticated, astronomically oriented temples of an early archaic state.
This and other research is pointing to a new perspective on religion, one that seeks to explain why religious behavior has occurred in societies at every stage of development and in every region of the world. Religion has the hallmarks of an evolved behavior, meaning that it exists because it was favored by natural selection. It is universal because it was wired into our neural circuitry before the ancestral human population dispersed from its African homeland.
For atheists, it is not a particularly welcome thought that religion evolved because it conferred essential benefits on early human societies and their successors. If religion is a lifebelt, it is hard to portray it as useless.
For believers, it may seem threatening to think that the mind has been shaped to believe in gods, since the actual existence of the divine may then seem less likely.
READ MORE:
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Moon Landing Hoax or Not?
After 31 years after humans first landed on The Moon, there is still a large amount of people who believe the whole event was a conspiracy. They base their claims on a number of pictures, videos and stories brought up from individuals around the world.
Now you may ask your self the question, do these so called skeptics have any credibility in their beliefs? After a few hours of surfing the internet and watching various documentaries, i arrived at the conclusion that this is one of few conspiracy theory's that deliver clear and believable evidence.
"Did man really set foot on the moon?
Shocking : See what NASA has done (Long but worth reading)
Did man really walk on the Moon or was it the ultimate camera trick, asks David Milne?
In the early hours of May 16, 1990, after a week spent watching old video footage of man on the Moon, a thought was turning into an obsession in the mind of Ralph Rene.
"How can the flag be fluttering?" the 47 year old American kept asking himself when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon? That moment was to be the beginning of an incredible Space odyssey for the self- taught engineer from New Jersey.
He started investigating the Apollo Moon landings, scouring every NASA film, photo and report with a growing sense of wonder, until finally reaching an awesome conclusion: America had never put a man on the Moon. The giant leap for mankind was fake.
It is of course the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories. But Rene has now put all his findings into a startling book entitled NASA Mooned America. Published by himself, it's being sold by mail order - and is a compelling read.
The story lifts off in 1961 with Russia firing Yuri Gagarin into space, leaving a panicked America trailing in the space race. At an emergency meeting of Congress, President Kennedy proposed the ultimate face saver, put a man on the Moon. With an impassioned speech he secured the plan an unbelievable 40 billion dollars.
And so, says Rene (and a growing number of astro-physicists are beginning to agree with him), the great Moon hoax was born. Between 1969 and 1972, seven Apollo ships headed to the Moon. Six claim to have made it, with the ill fated Apollo 13 - whose oxygen tanks apparently exploded halfway being the only casualties. But with the exception of the known rocks, which could have been easily mocked up in a lab, the photographs and film footage are the only proof that the Eagle ever landed. And Rene believes they're fake.
For a start, he says, the TV footage was hopeless. The world tuned in to watch what looked like two blurred white ghosts throw rocks and dust. Part of the reason for the low quality was that, strangely, NASA provided no direct link up. So networks actually had to film man's greatest achievement from a TV screen in Houston - a deliberate ploy, says Rene, so that nobody could properly examine it.
By contrast, the still photos were stunning. Yet that's just the problem. The astronauts took thousands of pictures, each one perfectly exposed and sharply focused. Not one was badly composed or even blurred.
As Rene points out, that's not all: The cameras had no white meters or view ponders. So the astronauts achieved this feet without being able to see what they were doing. There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it useless. They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters in pressurized suits. It should have been almost impossible with the gloves on their fingers.
Award winning British photographer David Persey is convinced the pictures are fake. His astonishing findings are explained alongside the pictures on these pages, but the basic points are as follows: The shadows could only have been created with multiple light sources and,in particular, powerful spotlights. But the only light source on the Moon was the sun.
The American flag and the words "United States" are always Brightly lit, even when everything around is in shadow. Not one still picture matches the film footage, yet NASA claims both were shot at the same time.
The pictures are so perfect, each one would have taken a slick advertising agency hours to put them together. But the astronauts managed it repeatedly. David Persey believes the mistakes were deliberate, left there by "whistle blowers" who were keen for the truth to one day get out.
If Persey is right and the pictures are fake, then we've only NASA's word that man ever went to the Moon. And, asks Rene, "Why would anyone fake pictures of an event that actually happened?"
The questions don't stop there. Outer space is awash with deadly radiation that emanates from solar flares firing out from the sun. Standard astronauts orbiting earth in near space, like those who recently fixed the Hubble telescope, are protected by the earth's Van Allen belt. But the Moon is to 240,000 miles distant, way outside this safe band. And, during the Apollo flights, astronomical data shows there were no less than 1,485 such flares.
John Mauldin, a physicist who works for NASA, once said shielding at least two meters thick would be needed. Yet the walls of the Lunar Landers which took astronauts from the spaceship to the moons surface were, said NASA, about the thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil.
How could that stop this deadly radiation? And if the astronauts were protected by their space suits, why didn't rescue workers use such protective gear at the Chernobyl meltdown, which released only a fraction of the dose astronauts would encounter? Not one Apollo astronaut ever contracted cancer - not even the Apollo 16 crew who were on their way to the Moon when a big flare started. "They should have been fried", says Rene.
Furthermore, every Apollo mission before number 11 (the first to the Moon) was plagued with around 20,000 defects a-piece. Yet, with the exception of Apollo 13, NASA claims there wasn't one major technical problem on any of their Moon missions. Just one effect could have blown the whole thing. "The odds against these are so unlikely that God must have been the co-pilot," says Rene.
Several years after NASA claimed its first Moon landing, Buzz Aldrin "the second man on the Moon" was asked at a banquet what it felt like to step on to the lunar surface. Aldrin staggered to his feet and left the room crying uncontrollably. It would not be the last time he did this. "It strikes me he's suffering from trying to live out a very big lie," says Rene. Aldrin may also fear for his life.
Virgil Grissom, a NASA astronaut who baited the Apollo program, was due to pilot Apollo 1 as part of the landings build up. In January 1967, he hung a lemon on his Apollo capsule (in the US, unroadworthy cars are called lemons) and told his wife Betty: "If there is ever a serious accident in the space program, it's likely to be me."
Nobody knows what fuelled his fears, but by the end of the month he and his two co-pilots were dead, burnt to death during a test run when their capsule, pumped full of high pressure pure oxygen, exploded.
Scientists couldn't believe NASA's carelessness - even a chemistry students in high school know high pressure oxygen is extremely explosive. In fact, before the first manned Apollo fight even cleared the launch pad, a total of 11 would be astronauts were dead. Apart from the three who were incinerated, seven died in plane crashes and one in a car smash. Now this is
a spectacular accident rate.
"One wonders if these 'accidents' weren't NASA's way of correcting mistakes," says Rene. "Of saying that some of these men didn't have the sort of 'right stuff' they were looking."
NASA wont respond to any of these claims, their press office will only say that the Moon landings happened and the pictures are real. But a NASA public affairs officer called Julian Scheer once delighted 200 guests at a private party with footage of astronauts apparently on a landscape. It had been made on a mission film set and was identical to what NASA claimed was they real lunar landscape. "The purpose of this film," Scheer told the enthralled group, "is to indicate that you really can fake things on the ground, almost to the point of deception." He then invited his audience to "Come to your own decision about whether or not man actually did walk on the Moon."
A sudden attack of honesty? You bet, says Rene, who claims the only real thing about the Apollo missions were the lift offs. "The astronauts simply have to be on board," he says, "in case the rocket exploded. It was the easiest way to ensure NASA wasn't left with three astronauts who ought to be dead." he claims, adding that they came down a day or so later, out of the
public eye (global surveillance wasn't what it is now) and into the safe hands of NASA officials, who whisked them off to prepare for the big day a week later.
And now NASA is planning another giant step - Project Outreach, a 1 trillion dollar manned mission to Mars. "Think what they'll be able to mock up with today's computer graphics," says Rene Chillingly. "Special effects was in its infancy in the 60s. This time round will have no way of determining the truth."
9 SPACE ODDITIES:
1. Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air.
2. A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16's Lunar Landerlifting off the Moon. Who did the filming?
3. One NASA picture from Apollo 11 is looking up at Neil Armstrong about to take his giant step for mankind. The photographer must have been lying on the planet surface. If Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who took the shot?
4. The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.
5. The Moon landings took place during the Cold War. Why didn't America make a signal on the moon that could be seen from earth? The PR would have been phenomenal and it could have been easily done with magnesium flares.
6. Text from pictures in the article said that only two men walked on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. Yet the astronaut reflected in the visor has no camera. Who took the shot?
7. The flags shadow goes behind the rock so doesn't match the dark line in the foreground, which looks like a line cord. So the shadow to the lower right of the spaceman must be the flag. Where is his shadow? And why is the flag fluttering if there is no air or wind on the moon?
8. How can the flag be brightly lit when its side is to the light? And where, in all of these shots, are the stars?
9. The Lander weighed 17 tons yet the astronauts feet seem to have made a bigger dent in the dust. The powerful booster rocket at the base of the Lunar Lander was fired to slow descent to the moons service. Yet it has left no traces of blasting on the dust underneath. It should have created a small crater, yet the booster looks like it's never been fired."
This shot of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planting the US flag on the moon's surface was taken by a 16 mm camera mounted on the lunar module. Aldrin's shadow (A) is far longer than Armstrong's. Yet the only light on the moon - and the only light source used by NASA - comes from the sun, and should not create such unequal shadows.
These shots of John Young and James Irwin - like many Apollo photos - show a lunar sky without stars (J). Yet with no atmosphere on the moon, stars should be visible - a fact confirmed by Maria Blyzinsky, Curator of Astronomy at the Greenwich Observatory, London. If NASA could not hope to recreate the lunar sky, they may have opted for simple black backdrops. NASA claim that the sunlight was so strong it overpowered the light from the stars. On the shadow side of the landing modules, there are plaques (K) with the American flag and the words 'United States' quite bright and clearly visible, but the gold foil around the plaques is in near darkness. Studio spotlights highlighting these areas, or technicians retouching the prints, could have caused this effect.
As Alan Bean holds up a Special Environmental Sample Container, the top of his head is clearly in view. But the camera taking the shot was fixed on Charles Conrad's chest, and the ground here seems to be level, so the top of the helmet (L) should not be in the photo. Shadows visible in Al Bean's visor should not be in the photo. Shadows visible in Al Bean's visor (M) go off in various directions, not in straight parallel lines, as expected, suggesting that there is more than one light source. The container Bean is holding (N) is brightly lit at the bottom, yet it is facing away from the light. This may be due to the light reflected from Bean's suit on to the container, but the rest of the container is not so brightly lit.
On my watch this is some compelling evidence to suggest that the whole lunar landing was a hoax. However I was interested to see what the those on the other side of the fence had to say. Here is a debate between a skeptic and a believer on the whole issue...
Moon Hoax debate
While the believer addresses some of the inconsistencies, a large amount of doubts are left unexplained. Did America pull off one of the greatest's hoax's of all time or are we part of a society gone conspiracy mad? We may never know.
Now you may ask your self the question, do these so called skeptics have any credibility in their beliefs? After a few hours of surfing the internet and watching various documentaries, i arrived at the conclusion that this is one of few conspiracy theory's that deliver clear and believable evidence.
"Did man really set foot on the moon?
Shocking : See what NASA has done (Long but worth reading)
Did man really walk on the Moon or was it the ultimate camera trick, asks David Milne?
In the early hours of May 16, 1990, after a week spent watching old video footage of man on the Moon, a thought was turning into an obsession in the mind of Ralph Rene.
"How can the flag be fluttering?" the 47 year old American kept asking himself when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon? That moment was to be the beginning of an incredible Space odyssey for the self- taught engineer from New Jersey.
He started investigating the Apollo Moon landings, scouring every NASA film, photo and report with a growing sense of wonder, until finally reaching an awesome conclusion: America had never put a man on the Moon. The giant leap for mankind was fake.
It is of course the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories. But Rene has now put all his findings into a startling book entitled NASA Mooned America. Published by himself, it's being sold by mail order - and is a compelling read.
The story lifts off in 1961 with Russia firing Yuri Gagarin into space, leaving a panicked America trailing in the space race. At an emergency meeting of Congress, President Kennedy proposed the ultimate face saver, put a man on the Moon. With an impassioned speech he secured the plan an unbelievable 40 billion dollars.
And so, says Rene (and a growing number of astro-physicists are beginning to agree with him), the great Moon hoax was born. Between 1969 and 1972, seven Apollo ships headed to the Moon. Six claim to have made it, with the ill fated Apollo 13 - whose oxygen tanks apparently exploded halfway being the only casualties. But with the exception of the known rocks, which could have been easily mocked up in a lab, the photographs and film footage are the only proof that the Eagle ever landed. And Rene believes they're fake.
For a start, he says, the TV footage was hopeless. The world tuned in to watch what looked like two blurred white ghosts throw rocks and dust. Part of the reason for the low quality was that, strangely, NASA provided no direct link up. So networks actually had to film man's greatest achievement from a TV screen in Houston - a deliberate ploy, says Rene, so that nobody could properly examine it.
By contrast, the still photos were stunning. Yet that's just the problem. The astronauts took thousands of pictures, each one perfectly exposed and sharply focused. Not one was badly composed or even blurred.
As Rene points out, that's not all: The cameras had no white meters or view ponders. So the astronauts achieved this feet without being able to see what they were doing. There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it useless. They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters in pressurized suits. It should have been almost impossible with the gloves on their fingers.
Award winning British photographer David Persey is convinced the pictures are fake. His astonishing findings are explained alongside the pictures on these pages, but the basic points are as follows: The shadows could only have been created with multiple light sources and,in particular, powerful spotlights. But the only light source on the Moon was the sun.
The American flag and the words "United States" are always Brightly lit, even when everything around is in shadow. Not one still picture matches the film footage, yet NASA claims both were shot at the same time.
The pictures are so perfect, each one would have taken a slick advertising agency hours to put them together. But the astronauts managed it repeatedly. David Persey believes the mistakes were deliberate, left there by "whistle blowers" who were keen for the truth to one day get out.
If Persey is right and the pictures are fake, then we've only NASA's word that man ever went to the Moon. And, asks Rene, "Why would anyone fake pictures of an event that actually happened?"
The questions don't stop there. Outer space is awash with deadly radiation that emanates from solar flares firing out from the sun. Standard astronauts orbiting earth in near space, like those who recently fixed the Hubble telescope, are protected by the earth's Van Allen belt. But the Moon is to 240,000 miles distant, way outside this safe band. And, during the Apollo flights, astronomical data shows there were no less than 1,485 such flares.
John Mauldin, a physicist who works for NASA, once said shielding at least two meters thick would be needed. Yet the walls of the Lunar Landers which took astronauts from the spaceship to the moons surface were, said NASA, about the thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil.
How could that stop this deadly radiation? And if the astronauts were protected by their space suits, why didn't rescue workers use such protective gear at the Chernobyl meltdown, which released only a fraction of the dose astronauts would encounter? Not one Apollo astronaut ever contracted cancer - not even the Apollo 16 crew who were on their way to the Moon when a big flare started. "They should have been fried", says Rene.
Furthermore, every Apollo mission before number 11 (the first to the Moon) was plagued with around 20,000 defects a-piece. Yet, with the exception of Apollo 13, NASA claims there wasn't one major technical problem on any of their Moon missions. Just one effect could have blown the whole thing. "The odds against these are so unlikely that God must have been the co-pilot," says Rene.
Several years after NASA claimed its first Moon landing, Buzz Aldrin "the second man on the Moon" was asked at a banquet what it felt like to step on to the lunar surface. Aldrin staggered to his feet and left the room crying uncontrollably. It would not be the last time he did this. "It strikes me he's suffering from trying to live out a very big lie," says Rene. Aldrin may also fear for his life.
Virgil Grissom, a NASA astronaut who baited the Apollo program, was due to pilot Apollo 1 as part of the landings build up. In January 1967, he hung a lemon on his Apollo capsule (in the US, unroadworthy cars are called lemons) and told his wife Betty: "If there is ever a serious accident in the space program, it's likely to be me."
Nobody knows what fuelled his fears, but by the end of the month he and his two co-pilots were dead, burnt to death during a test run when their capsule, pumped full of high pressure pure oxygen, exploded.
Scientists couldn't believe NASA's carelessness - even a chemistry students in high school know high pressure oxygen is extremely explosive. In fact, before the first manned Apollo fight even cleared the launch pad, a total of 11 would be astronauts were dead. Apart from the three who were incinerated, seven died in plane crashes and one in a car smash. Now this is
a spectacular accident rate.
"One wonders if these 'accidents' weren't NASA's way of correcting mistakes," says Rene. "Of saying that some of these men didn't have the sort of 'right stuff' they were looking."
NASA wont respond to any of these claims, their press office will only say that the Moon landings happened and the pictures are real. But a NASA public affairs officer called Julian Scheer once delighted 200 guests at a private party with footage of astronauts apparently on a landscape. It had been made on a mission film set and was identical to what NASA claimed was they real lunar landscape. "The purpose of this film," Scheer told the enthralled group, "is to indicate that you really can fake things on the ground, almost to the point of deception." He then invited his audience to "Come to your own decision about whether or not man actually did walk on the Moon."
A sudden attack of honesty? You bet, says Rene, who claims the only real thing about the Apollo missions were the lift offs. "The astronauts simply have to be on board," he says, "in case the rocket exploded. It was the easiest way to ensure NASA wasn't left with three astronauts who ought to be dead." he claims, adding that they came down a day or so later, out of the
public eye (global surveillance wasn't what it is now) and into the safe hands of NASA officials, who whisked them off to prepare for the big day a week later.
And now NASA is planning another giant step - Project Outreach, a 1 trillion dollar manned mission to Mars. "Think what they'll be able to mock up with today's computer graphics," says Rene Chillingly. "Special effects was in its infancy in the 60s. This time round will have no way of determining the truth."
9 SPACE ODDITIES:
1. Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air.
2. A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16's Lunar Landerlifting off the Moon. Who did the filming?
3. One NASA picture from Apollo 11 is looking up at Neil Armstrong about to take his giant step for mankind. The photographer must have been lying on the planet surface. If Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who took the shot?
4. The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.
5. The Moon landings took place during the Cold War. Why didn't America make a signal on the moon that could be seen from earth? The PR would have been phenomenal and it could have been easily done with magnesium flares.
6. Text from pictures in the article said that only two men walked on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. Yet the astronaut reflected in the visor has no camera. Who took the shot?
7. The flags shadow goes behind the rock so doesn't match the dark line in the foreground, which looks like a line cord. So the shadow to the lower right of the spaceman must be the flag. Where is his shadow? And why is the flag fluttering if there is no air or wind on the moon?
8. How can the flag be brightly lit when its side is to the light? And where, in all of these shots, are the stars?
9. The Lander weighed 17 tons yet the astronauts feet seem to have made a bigger dent in the dust. The powerful booster rocket at the base of the Lunar Lander was fired to slow descent to the moons service. Yet it has left no traces of blasting on the dust underneath. It should have created a small crater, yet the booster looks like it's never been fired."
This shot of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planting the US flag on the moon's surface was taken by a 16 mm camera mounted on the lunar module. Aldrin's shadow (A) is far longer than Armstrong's. Yet the only light on the moon - and the only light source used by NASA - comes from the sun, and should not create such unequal shadows.
These shots of John Young and James Irwin - like many Apollo photos - show a lunar sky without stars (J). Yet with no atmosphere on the moon, stars should be visible - a fact confirmed by Maria Blyzinsky, Curator of Astronomy at the Greenwich Observatory, London. If NASA could not hope to recreate the lunar sky, they may have opted for simple black backdrops. NASA claim that the sunlight was so strong it overpowered the light from the stars. On the shadow side of the landing modules, there are plaques (K) with the American flag and the words 'United States' quite bright and clearly visible, but the gold foil around the plaques is in near darkness. Studio spotlights highlighting these areas, or technicians retouching the prints, could have caused this effect.
As Alan Bean holds up a Special Environmental Sample Container, the top of his head is clearly in view. But the camera taking the shot was fixed on Charles Conrad's chest, and the ground here seems to be level, so the top of the helmet (L) should not be in the photo. Shadows visible in Al Bean's visor should not be in the photo. Shadows visible in Al Bean's visor (M) go off in various directions, not in straight parallel lines, as expected, suggesting that there is more than one light source. The container Bean is holding (N) is brightly lit at the bottom, yet it is facing away from the light. This may be due to the light reflected from Bean's suit on to the container, but the rest of the container is not so brightly lit.
On my watch this is some compelling evidence to suggest that the whole lunar landing was a hoax. However I was interested to see what the those on the other side of the fence had to say. Here is a debate between a skeptic and a believer on the whole issue...
Moon Hoax debate
While the believer addresses some of the inconsistencies, a large amount of doubts are left unexplained. Did America pull off one of the greatest's hoax's of all time or are we part of a society gone conspiracy mad? We may never know.
Monday, May 24, 2010
6 bodily functions science cant explain?
Probably one of the most interesting articles I have read in a long time. Here are 6 functions of your body that are still baffling modern day scientist who claim to understand the origins of the universe when they cant explain whats happening in their own bodies. I wish them good looking proving string theory or relativity :)
http://www.cracked.com/article/161_6-things-your-body-does-every-day-that-science-cant-explain_p1
http://www.cracked.com/article/161_6-things-your-body-does-every-day-that-science-cant-explain_p1
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Heart contributes to human personality?
A while back I had a discussion with some peers about whether the heart was a contributing factor to your make up and personality. A friend told me about a story where after a heart transplant, the person with the new heart experienced similar emotions and joys to the donor. This was from as little as a suddenly acquired taste to the memory of the donors old family relatives. Whilst "stumbling" I ran into this site that further develops this theory.
A remarkable story, with a sad ending :
A man who received a heart transplant 12 years ago and later married the donor's widow died the same way the donor did, authorities said: of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Grateful for his new heart, Graham began writing letters to the donor's family to thank them. In January 1997, Graham met his donor's widow, Cheryl Cottle, then 28, in Charleston.
"I felt like I had known her for years," he said.
source: planetofstrangethings
A remarkable story, with a sad ending :
A man who received a heart transplant 12 years ago and later married the donor's widow died the same way the donor did, authorities said: of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Grateful for his new heart, Graham began writing letters to the donor's family to thank them. In January 1997, Graham met his donor's widow, Cheryl Cottle, then 28, in Charleston.
"I felt like I had known her for years," he said.
source: planetofstrangethings
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Photographic Memory.
Spanish researches may have found a way to provide photographic memory to all humans. Their testing has found that with a boost of RGS-14 to a special area in the brain named the visual cortex, people may be able to greatly enhance their visual memory. After testing on mice they found that the drugged mice were able to remember objects for up to 2 months while the non affected mice would forget within one hour.
This could be a major breakthrough for many areas of life, proffessions and much more however there is still a long way to go before you will be able to photographically remember every visual object you view.
Read full article: io9.com/5306489/a-drug-that-could-give-you-perfect-visual-memory
This could be a major breakthrough for many areas of life, proffessions and much more however there is still a long way to go before you will be able to photographically remember every visual object you view.
Read full article: io9.com/5306489/a-drug-that-could-give-you-perfect-visual-memory
Monday, May 17, 2010
Interesting Facts about our Planet.
Human Beings all live on the planet we like to call earth. Our Earth is very unique and different from any other planets or large bodies ever seen in the universe. The earth has the ability to sustain life in many forms and is perfectly placed with the right conditions to host the life phenomena. A bit closer to the sun or a bit further away and life would cease to exist. Here are some interesting facts about our planet.
The North Magnetic Pole is about 1600 kms from the true North Pole. While the South Magnetic Pole is about 2570 kms from the South Pole.
Life on Earth began about 3,500 million years ago, just after 1,100 million years of its origin.
Among the 50 big rivers of the world, Nile is 6,650 km long and Amazon 6,450 km long.
Atacama desert of Chile never had any rainfall for about 400 years until 1971. It is considered as the driest plateau across the world.
The oldest known rocks, found in Western Australia are about 3,200 million years old - about 300 million years younger than the planet itself.
Water which has been evaporated today from the oceans will reach back after a period of 1,000 years.
The greatest tides occur in the bay of Fundy.
Man has made beautiful and long bridges all over the world, but Nature has made bridges of its own. Such a highest natural bridge exists in sinkiang, china, which is 312 mts high with a span of 45 mts.
Due to the global warming effect, the level of water in the caspian sea has started rising. This is a warning to human race that any day, the continents may become over-flooded.
Lowest point : Dead sea
Largest Desert : Sahara
Deepest Lake : Lake Baikal
Largest Island : Greenland
Highest peak : Mt. Everest-8848 mts
Largest sea : South China Sea
Largest and Deepest ocean : Pacific
Newest Island : Lateiki
Highest waterfall : Angel falls
Largest Delta : Ganga & Brahmaputra in Bangladesh
Largest salt water lake : Caspian sea
Largest fresh water lake : Lake superior
Longest Glacier : Lambert Glacier
Surface area of earth : 510,101,000 sq. kms.
Source: hubpages.com
The North Magnetic Pole is about 1600 kms from the true North Pole. While the South Magnetic Pole is about 2570 kms from the South Pole.
Life on Earth began about 3,500 million years ago, just after 1,100 million years of its origin.
Among the 50 big rivers of the world, Nile is 6,650 km long and Amazon 6,450 km long.
Atacama desert of Chile never had any rainfall for about 400 years until 1971. It is considered as the driest plateau across the world.
The oldest known rocks, found in Western Australia are about 3,200 million years old - about 300 million years younger than the planet itself.
Water which has been evaporated today from the oceans will reach back after a period of 1,000 years.
The greatest tides occur in the bay of Fundy.
Man has made beautiful and long bridges all over the world, but Nature has made bridges of its own. Such a highest natural bridge exists in sinkiang, china, which is 312 mts high with a span of 45 mts.
Due to the global warming effect, the level of water in the caspian sea has started rising. This is a warning to human race that any day, the continents may become over-flooded.
Lowest point : Dead sea
Largest Desert : Sahara
Deepest Lake : Lake Baikal
Largest Island : Greenland
Highest peak : Mt. Everest-8848 mts
Largest sea : South China Sea
Largest and Deepest ocean : Pacific
Newest Island : Lateiki
Highest waterfall : Angel falls
Largest Delta : Ganga & Brahmaputra in Bangladesh
Largest salt water lake : Caspian sea
Largest fresh water lake : Lake superior
Longest Glacier : Lambert Glacier
Surface area of earth : 510,101,000 sq. kms.
Source: hubpages.com
Alien Hijack?
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This is a story I found on couriermail.com.au that was very interesting. Has voyager 2 been hijacked by aliens or is it a computer error? You decide.
IT left Earth 33 years ago, now it's claimed the Voyager 2 spacecraft may have been hijacked by aliens after sending back data messages NASA scientists can't decode.
NASA installed a 12-inch disk containing music and greetings in 55 languages in case intelligent extraterrestrial life ever found it.
But now the spacecraft is sending back what sounds like an answer: Signals in an unknown data format! The best scientific minds have so far not been able to decipher the strange information – is it a secret message?
Alien expert Hartwig Hausdorf said:"It seems almost as if someone had reprogrammed or hijacked the probe – thus perhaps we do not yet know the whole truth" Read more in Bild
Engineers are working to solve the data transmissions from the Voyager 2 spacecraft near the edge of the solar system, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said today.
The spacecraft late last month began sending science data 8.6 billion miles to Earth in a changed format that mission managers could not decode.
Engineers have since instructed Voyager 2 to only transmit data on its own health and status while they work on the problem.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, explored the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and kept on going. Nearly 33 years later, they are the most distant human-made objects.
Voyager 1 is 10.5 billion miles from Earth and in about five years is expected to pass through the heliosphere, a bubble the sun creates around the solar system, and enter interstellar space.
Voyager 2 will follow after that.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Amazing Pictures from our Planet:
Here are some amazing and cool pictures i found that are a combination of Man made and Natural wonders.
Sources:
http://makefive.com
http://photo.net
Sources:
http://makefive.com
http://photo.net
Coincidence or Fate?
Here are some amazing stories of so called "coincidences", Some are so amazing you will be wondering whether there is an upper hand in these occurences.
Finnish Twins:
Finnish twin brothers, aged 71, were killed in identical bicycle accidents along the same road two hours apart, police said. "This is simply a historic coincidence. Although the road is a busy one, accidents don't occur every day," police officer Marja-Leena Huhtala told Reuters. "It made my hair stand on end when I heard the two were brothers, and identical twins at that. It came to mind that perhaps someone from upstairs had a say in this," she said.
Two Brothers:
This is a similar story of coincidence, not of twins but of two brothers. In 1975, while riding a moped in Bermuda, a man was accidentally struck and killed by a taxi. One year later, this man's bother was killed in the very same way. In fact, he was riding the very same moped. And to stretch the odds even further, he was struck by the very same taxi driven by the same driver and even carrying the very same passenger!
Falling Babies:
In Detroit sometime in the 1930s, a young (if incredibly careless) mother must have been eternally grateful to a man named Joseph Figlock. As Figlock was walking down the street, the mother's baby fell from a high window onto Figlock. The baby's fall was broken and both man and baby were unharmed. A stroke of luck on its own, but a year later, the very same baby fell from the very same window onto poor, unsuspecting Joseph Figlock as he was again passing beneath. And again, they both survived the event.
More Twins:
The stories of identical twins' nearly identical lives are often astonishing, but perhaps none more so than those of identical twins born in Ohio. The twin boys were separated at birth, being adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys James. And here the coincidences just begin. Both James grew up not even knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. They both had sons whom one named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women - both named Betty. And they both owned dogs which they named Toy. Forty years after their childhood separation, the two men were reunited to share their amazingly similar lives.
These accounts are truly amazing and a little freaky...
Finnish Twins:
Finnish twin brothers, aged 71, were killed in identical bicycle accidents along the same road two hours apart, police said. "This is simply a historic coincidence. Although the road is a busy one, accidents don't occur every day," police officer Marja-Leena Huhtala told Reuters. "It made my hair stand on end when I heard the two were brothers, and identical twins at that. It came to mind that perhaps someone from upstairs had a say in this," she said.
Two Brothers:
This is a similar story of coincidence, not of twins but of two brothers. In 1975, while riding a moped in Bermuda, a man was accidentally struck and killed by a taxi. One year later, this man's bother was killed in the very same way. In fact, he was riding the very same moped. And to stretch the odds even further, he was struck by the very same taxi driven by the same driver and even carrying the very same passenger!
Falling Babies:
In Detroit sometime in the 1930s, a young (if incredibly careless) mother must have been eternally grateful to a man named Joseph Figlock. As Figlock was walking down the street, the mother's baby fell from a high window onto Figlock. The baby's fall was broken and both man and baby were unharmed. A stroke of luck on its own, but a year later, the very same baby fell from the very same window onto poor, unsuspecting Joseph Figlock as he was again passing beneath. And again, they both survived the event.
More Twins:
The stories of identical twins' nearly identical lives are often astonishing, but perhaps none more so than those of identical twins born in Ohio. The twin boys were separated at birth, being adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys James. And here the coincidences just begin. Both James grew up not even knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. They both had sons whom one named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women - both named Betty. And they both owned dogs which they named Toy. Forty years after their childhood separation, the two men were reunited to share their amazingly similar lives.
These accounts are truly amazing and a little freaky...
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Exposure to Space
While wondering the internets i stumbled upon a very interesting article from damninteresting.com that addresses the affects of exposure to outer spcae.
In scores of science fiction stories, hapless adventurers find themselves unwittingly introduced to the vacuum of space without proper protection. There is often an alarming cacophony of screams and gasps as the increasingly bloated humans writhe and spasm. Their exposed veins and eyeballs soon bulge in what is clearly a disagreeable manner. The ill-fated adventurers rapidly swell like over-inflated balloons, ultimately bursting in a gruesome spray of blood.
As is true with many subjects, this representation in popular culture does not reflect the reality of exposure to outer space. Ever since humanity first began to probe outside of our protective atmosphere, a number of live organisms have been exposed to vacuum, both deliberately and otherwise. By combining these experiences with our knowledge of outer space, scientists have a pretty clear idea of what would happen if an unprotected human slipped into the cold, airless void.
In the 1960s, as technology was bringing the prospect of manned spaceflight into reality, engineers recognized the importance of determining the amount of time astronauts would have to react to integrity breaches such as a damaged spacecraft or punctured space-suits. To that end, NASA constructed an assortment of large altitude chambers to mimic the hostile environments found at varying distances above the Earth, accounting for factors such as air pressure, temperature, and radiation. Adventurous volunteers were subjected to simulations of the conditions found several miles up, and a handful of animal tests were conducted with even lower pressures.
Using the data from these experiments and their knowledge of outer space, scientists were able to make some reasonable conclusions about how the human body would respond to sudden depressurization. A series of accidents over the years proved most of their extrapolations to be accurate. In 1965, in a space-suit test gone awry, a technician in an altitude chamber was exposed to a hard vacuum. The defective suit was unable to hold pressure, and the man collapsed after fourteen seconds. He regained consciousness shortly after the chamber was repressurized, and he was uninjured. In a later incident, another technician spent four minutes trapped at low pressure by a malfunctioning altitude chamber. He lost consciousness and began to turn blue, but escaped death when one of the managers kicked in one of the machine’s glass gauges, allowing air to seep into the chamber.
Artist’s rendering of a Soviet Soyuz spacecraftIn 1971, three Russian cosmonauts aboard an early Soyuz spacecraft tragically experienced the vacuum of space first-hand, as described in the Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight:
“…the orbital module was normally separated by 12 pyrotechnic devices which were supposed to fire sequentially, but they incorrectly fired simultaneously, and this caused a ball joint in the capsule’s pressure equalization valve to unseat, allowing air to escape. The valve normally opens at low altitude to equalize cabin air pressure to the outside air pressure. This caused the cabin to lose all its atmosphere in about 30 seconds while still at a height of 168 km. In seconds, Patsayev realized the problem and unstrapped from his seat to try and cover the valve inlet and shut off the valve but there was little time left. It would take 60 seconds to shut off the valve manually and Patsayev managed to half close it before passing out. Dobrovolsky and Volkov were virtually powerless to help since they were strapped in their seats, with little room to move in the small capsule and no real way to assist Patsayev. The men died shortly after passing out. [...] The rest of the descent was normal and the capsule landed at 2:17 AM. The recovery forces located the capsule and opened the hatch only to find the cosmonauts motionless in their seats. On first glance they appeared to be asleep, but closer examination showed why there was no normal communication from the capsule during descent.”
When the human body is suddenly exposed to the vacuum of space, a number of injuries begin to occur immediately. Though they are relatively minor at first, they accumulate rapidly into a life-threatening combination. The first effect is the expansion of gases within the lungs and digestive tract due to the reduction of external pressure. A victim of explosive decompression greatly increases their chances of survival simply by exhaling within the first few seconds, otherwise death is likely to occur once the lungs rupture and spill bubbles of air into the circulatory system. Such a life-saving exhalation might be due to a shout of surprise, though it would naturally go unheard where there is no air to carry it.
In the absence of atmospheric pressure water will spontaneously convert into vapor, which would cause the moisture in a victim’s mouth and eyes to quickly boil away. The same effect would cause water in the muscles and soft tissues of the body to evaporate, prompting some parts of the body to swell to twice their usual size after a few moments. This bloating may result in some superficial bruising due to broken capillaries, but it would not be sufficient to break the skin.
A NASA altitude chamberWithin seconds the reduced pressure would cause the nitrogen which is dissolved in the blood to form gaseous bubbles, a painful condition known to divers as “the bends.” Direct exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet radiation would also cause a severe sunburn to any unprotected skin. Heat does not transfer out of the body very rapidly in the absence of a medium such as air or water, so freezing to death is not an immediate risk in outer space despite the extreme cold.
For about ten full seconds– a long time to be loitering in space without protection– an average human would be rather uncomfortable, but they would still have their wits about them. Depending on the nature of the decompression, this may give a victim sufficient time to take measures to save their own life. But this period of “useful consciousness” would wane as the effects of brain asphyxiation begin to set in. In the absence of air pressure the gas exchange of the lungs works in reverse, dumping oxygen out of the blood and accelerating the oxygen-starved state known as hypoxia. After about ten seconds a victim will experience loss of vision and impaired judgement, and the cooling effect of evaporation will lower the temperature in the victim’s mouth and nose to near-freezing. Unconsciousness and convulsions would follow several seconds later, and a blue discoloration of the skin called cyanosis would become evident.
At this point the victim would be floating in a blue, bloated, unresponsive stupor, but their brain would remain undamaged and their heart would continue to beat. If pressurized oxygen is administered within about one and a half minutes, a person in such a state is likely make a complete recovery with only minor injuries, though the hypoxia-induced blindness may not pass for some time. Without intervention in those first ninety seconds, the blood pressure would fall sufficiently that the blood itself would begin to boil, and the heart would stop beating. There are no recorded instances of successful resuscitation beyond that threshold.
Though an unprotected human would not long survive in the clutches of outer space, it is remarkable that survival times can be measured in minutes rather than seconds, and that one could endure such an inhospitable environment for almost two minutes without suffering any irreversible damage. The human body is indeed a resilient machine.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Bizarre Science 2: Keeping a severed head alive
This another interesting science experiment from Museum of Hoaxes
What could be more horrific than creating a two-headed dog? What about keeping the severed head of a dog alive apart from its body!
Ever since the carnage of the French Revolution, when the guillotine sent thousands of severed heads tumbling into baskets, scientists had wondered whether it would be possible to keep a head alive apart from its body, but it wasn't until the late 1920s that someone managed to pull off this feat.
Soviet physician Sergei Brukhonenko developed a primitive heart-lung machine he called an "autojector," and with this device he succeeded in keeping the severed head of a dog alive. He displayed one of his living dog heads in 1928 before an international audience of scientists at the Third Congress of Physiologists of the USSR. To prove that the head lying on the table really was alive, he showed that it reacted to stimuli. Brukhonenko banged a hammer on the table, and the head flinched. He shone light in its eyes, and the eyes blinked. He even fed the head a piece of cheese, which promptly popped out the esophageal tube on the other end.
Brukhonenko's severed dog head became the talk of Europe and inspired the playwright George Bernard Shaw to muse, "I am even tempted to have my own head cut off so that I can continue to dictate plays and books without being bothered by illness, without having to dress and undress, without having to eat, without having anything else to do other than to produce masterpieces of dramatic art and literature."
What could be more horrific than creating a two-headed dog? What about keeping the severed head of a dog alive apart from its body!
Ever since the carnage of the French Revolution, when the guillotine sent thousands of severed heads tumbling into baskets, scientists had wondered whether it would be possible to keep a head alive apart from its body, but it wasn't until the late 1920s that someone managed to pull off this feat.
Soviet physician Sergei Brukhonenko developed a primitive heart-lung machine he called an "autojector," and with this device he succeeded in keeping the severed head of a dog alive. He displayed one of his living dog heads in 1928 before an international audience of scientists at the Third Congress of Physiologists of the USSR. To prove that the head lying on the table really was alive, he showed that it reacted to stimuli. Brukhonenko banged a hammer on the table, and the head flinched. He shone light in its eyes, and the eyes blinked. He even fed the head a piece of cheese, which promptly popped out the esophageal tube on the other end.
Brukhonenko's severed dog head became the talk of Europe and inspired the playwright George Bernard Shaw to muse, "I am even tempted to have my own head cut off so that I can continue to dictate plays and books without being bothered by illness, without having to dress and undress, without having to eat, without having anything else to do other than to produce masterpieces of dramatic art and literature."
Bizarre Science1: Obediance:
An interesting article i found on human obidience from Museum of Hoaxes
#2: Obedience
imageImagine that you've volunteered for an experiment, but when you show up at the lab you discover the researcher wants you to murder an innocent person. You protest, but the researcher firmly states, "The experiment requires that you do it." Would you acquiesce and kill the person?
When asked what they would do in such a situation, almost everyone replies that of course they would refuse to commit murder. But Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiment, conducted at Yale University in the early 1960s, revealed that this optimistic belief is wrong. If the request is presented in the right way, almost all of us quite obediently become killers.
Milgram told subjects they were participating in an experiment to determine the effect of punishment on learning. One volunteer (who was, in reality, an actor in cahoots with Milgram) would attempt to memorize a series of word pairs. The other volunteer (the real subject) would read out the word pairs and give the learner an electric shock every time he got an answer wrong. The shocks would increase in intensity by fifteen volts with each wrong answer.
The experiment began. The learner started getting some wrong answers, and pretty soon the shocks had reached 120 volts. At this point the learner started crying out, "Hey, this really hurts." At 150 volts the learner screamed in pain and demanded to be let out. Confused, the volunteers turned around and asked the researcher what they should do. He always calmly replied, "The experiment requires that you continue."
Milgram had no interest in the effect of punishment on learning. What he really wanted to see was how long people would keep pressing the shock button before they refused to participate any further. Would they remain obedient to the authority of the researcher up to the point of killing someone?
To Milgram's surprise, even though volunteers could plainly hear the agonized cries of the learner echoing through the walls of the lab from the neighboring room, two-thirds of them continued to press the shock button all the way up to the end of scale, 450 volts, by which time the learner had fallen into an eerie silence, apparently dead. Milgram's subjects sweated and shook, and some laughed hysterically, but they kept pressing the button. Even more disturbingly, when volunteers could neither see nor hear feedback from the learner, compliance with the order to give ever greater shocks was almost 100%.
Milgram later commented, "I would say, on the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town."
#2: Obedience
imageImagine that you've volunteered for an experiment, but when you show up at the lab you discover the researcher wants you to murder an innocent person. You protest, but the researcher firmly states, "The experiment requires that you do it." Would you acquiesce and kill the person?
When asked what they would do in such a situation, almost everyone replies that of course they would refuse to commit murder. But Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiment, conducted at Yale University in the early 1960s, revealed that this optimistic belief is wrong. If the request is presented in the right way, almost all of us quite obediently become killers.
Milgram told subjects they were participating in an experiment to determine the effect of punishment on learning. One volunteer (who was, in reality, an actor in cahoots with Milgram) would attempt to memorize a series of word pairs. The other volunteer (the real subject) would read out the word pairs and give the learner an electric shock every time he got an answer wrong. The shocks would increase in intensity by fifteen volts with each wrong answer.
The experiment began. The learner started getting some wrong answers, and pretty soon the shocks had reached 120 volts. At this point the learner started crying out, "Hey, this really hurts." At 150 volts the learner screamed in pain and demanded to be let out. Confused, the volunteers turned around and asked the researcher what they should do. He always calmly replied, "The experiment requires that you continue."
Milgram had no interest in the effect of punishment on learning. What he really wanted to see was how long people would keep pressing the shock button before they refused to participate any further. Would they remain obedient to the authority of the researcher up to the point of killing someone?
To Milgram's surprise, even though volunteers could plainly hear the agonized cries of the learner echoing through the walls of the lab from the neighboring room, two-thirds of them continued to press the shock button all the way up to the end of scale, 450 volts, by which time the learner had fallen into an eerie silence, apparently dead. Milgram's subjects sweated and shook, and some laughed hysterically, but they kept pressing the button. Even more disturbingly, when volunteers could neither see nor hear feedback from the learner, compliance with the order to give ever greater shocks was almost 100%.
Milgram later commented, "I would say, on the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town."
Monday, May 3, 2010
Are you a serial killer?
This is a real question, used by the FBI! There isnt a right or wrong answer to this question however if you provide a certain answer that is looked out for you are 70% likely to become a serial killer sometime in your life. Here is the question:
'You are attending a funeral for Miss X (ladies, think "Mr X"). You notice that Miss Y (Mr Y) has attended the funeral, whom you're really interested in. That night you kill Miss X's (Mr X's) sister (brother). Why do you do it?'
think before you loook for the answer
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Well this is the answer that they look for:
Miss Y is attending Miss X's funeral. So if you killed Miss X's sister, there would be another funeral and you would see Miss Y again!
'You are attending a funeral for Miss X (ladies, think "Mr X"). You notice that Miss Y (Mr Y) has attended the funeral, whom you're really interested in. That night you kill Miss X's (Mr X's) sister (brother). Why do you do it?'
think before you loook for the answer
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Well this is the answer that they look for:
Miss Y is attending Miss X's funeral. So if you killed Miss X's sister, there would be another funeral and you would see Miss Y again!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Julian Beever: Amazing street paintings.
Check out some amazing street paintings by Julian Beever, all hand crafted.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Iron Man 2 Review:
Tonight I hit the cinemas to the sequal of one of my favourite films, Iron Man. I thoroughly enjoyed my viewing of the original and I was looking for something to rival it. After many minutes of listening to advertisements, the movie finally began in the depths of Russia. Two men are seen in a desolate home. One is dying whilst the other is looking after him. After the death of the older man, we see the begginings of what looks a replica of the Iron Man suit before the splash screen is shown.
The movie really begins here and I dont want to spoil it for those who have not viewed it. The audio in the movie is brilliant featuring many classic bands including ACDC and Queen. The content is excellent however, maybe a little much humuor and a little cliche. Whilst not ranking up to the original it did not bomb out like previous sequals and I believe is a worthwhile watch for anyone who enjoyed the original. :)
Rating: 8/10
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Parkour in Australia
If you happen to be an Australian visitor and partake in parkour or are interested be sure to visit the hub of parkour in Australia...
Parkour Aus
There are many dedicated practitioners and teachers to help you out with your technique, progress and confidince.
Parkour Aus
There are many dedicated practitioners and teachers to help you out with your technique, progress and confidince.
Web Templates.
Anyone looking for a web template I can make one for you. Just contact me or message me and I will see what i can do.
stoneman_tarik@hotmail.co.uk
stoneman_tarik@hotmail.co.uk
Parkour: A Passion.
Parkour Video!
This is my parkour video from a long time. I havent really had time to film anything new however I have seen some improvement and shifted my focus to another level of the sport. Enjoy :)
This is my parkour video from a long time. I havent really had time to film anything new however I have seen some improvement and shifted my focus to another level of the sport. Enjoy :)
Monday, April 26, 2010
Interesting Facts.
These are some bizarre and odd facts I found at ebizarre.com and davesdaily.com
1. Time slows down near a black hole; inside it stops completely.
2. Elevators rank as the safest form of transportation, boasting only one fatality every 100 million miles traveled. Stairs, in comparison, are five times more dangerous.
3. Did you know that 85.7% of statistics are made up?
4. During the average human life, you will consume 70 assorted bugs as well as 10 spiders as you sleep.
5. The average person can go as many as eleven days without water. That's assuming a mean temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. The world's worst earthquake occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean in July 1201, killing over one million people that were predominately in Egypt and Syria.
7. Twelve men have landed on and explored the moon.
8. Studies have shown that pigs are one of the more intelligent animals, surprisingly. They come a close second only to primates. They are so smart, in fact, that they can be trained to do tricks like a dog.
9. According to suicide statistics, Monday is the favored day for self-destruction.
10. From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in size.
11. Sound travels 15 times faster through steel than through the air.
12. There are 52 cards in a standard deck and there are 52 weeks in a year. There are 4 suits in a deck of cards and 4 seasons in a year. If you add the values of all the cards in a deck (jack=11 queen=12, etc.) you get a total of 365 the same as the number of days in a year.
13. The average airspeed of the common housefly is 4 1/2 mph. A housefly beats its wings about 20,000 times per minute.
14. Left-handed people are statistically more likely to be geniuses, and to be insane. Left-handedness is more common among writers and some kinds of artists. But lefties tend to be more accident-prone and on average don't live as long.
15. Left-handed people are statistically more likely to be geniuses, and to be insane. Left-handedness is more common among writers and some kinds of artists. But lefties tend to be more accident-prone and on average don't live as long.
The things you can find on the internet. I especially like that 85.7% of the statistics are made up, which begs the question that is that statistic actually correct?
1. Time slows down near a black hole; inside it stops completely.
2. Elevators rank as the safest form of transportation, boasting only one fatality every 100 million miles traveled. Stairs, in comparison, are five times more dangerous.
3. Did you know that 85.7% of statistics are made up?
4. During the average human life, you will consume 70 assorted bugs as well as 10 spiders as you sleep.
5. The average person can go as many as eleven days without water. That's assuming a mean temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. The world's worst earthquake occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean in July 1201, killing over one million people that were predominately in Egypt and Syria.
7. Twelve men have landed on and explored the moon.
8. Studies have shown that pigs are one of the more intelligent animals, surprisingly. They come a close second only to primates. They are so smart, in fact, that they can be trained to do tricks like a dog.
9. According to suicide statistics, Monday is the favored day for self-destruction.
10. From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in size.
11. Sound travels 15 times faster through steel than through the air.
12. There are 52 cards in a standard deck and there are 52 weeks in a year. There are 4 suits in a deck of cards and 4 seasons in a year. If you add the values of all the cards in a deck (jack=11 queen=12, etc.) you get a total of 365 the same as the number of days in a year.
13. The average airspeed of the common housefly is 4 1/2 mph. A housefly beats its wings about 20,000 times per minute.
14. Left-handed people are statistically more likely to be geniuses, and to be insane. Left-handedness is more common among writers and some kinds of artists. But lefties tend to be more accident-prone and on average don't live as long.
15. Left-handed people are statistically more likely to be geniuses, and to be insane. Left-handedness is more common among writers and some kinds of artists. But lefties tend to be more accident-prone and on average don't live as long.
The things you can find on the internet. I especially like that 85.7% of the statistics are made up, which begs the question that is that statistic actually correct?
Planetshakers
"A Chemical Factory wrapped in a water proof bag"
This is term used by my science teacher to describe us mere human being while discussing the affects of a certain chemical upon a human. This firstly slipped through my mind however; hours after, it came to mind again. I thought through my life and experiences and tried to match this term, "A chemical factory wrapped in a water proof bag" and how it actually related to me. Now i felt this was a rather un ethical way to describe people as, life seemed alot deeper and meaningfull than this.
This topic then led to me on to the issue of conciousness, emotions and many other features that make us human. I began to wonder how such a system may work. If we are just a host of chemical reactions, how does such reactions deem us concious with emotions. I searched a few forums and came across an interesting topic summing up on how many of such reactions would be needed to raise conciousness and whether it was a sliding affect or a certain point at where this state occured. I began to wonder whether as humans, through such reactions we could compose a machine who displayed signs of conciousness or whether there was more to us and how we operate.
Emotions came under the same category. I could not grasp the idea that emotions i feel such as love, hatred, joy and anger could all be a chain of chemical reactions and nothing more. Now this got me thinking on the soul and if it existed how it would operate, would it be the system that runs our emotions and other functions. I wondered if this souled resembled our physical appearance or whether it was an invisible yet detectable force.
Now this all led me to the conclusion that we were more than just a chemical factory and it was an unfair term to coin us beings. That us humans had more sophistication, emotion and experience then any factory, computer or any other man made systems!
This topic then led to me on to the issue of conciousness, emotions and many other features that make us human. I began to wonder how such a system may work. If we are just a host of chemical reactions, how does such reactions deem us concious with emotions. I searched a few forums and came across an interesting topic summing up on how many of such reactions would be needed to raise conciousness and whether it was a sliding affect or a certain point at where this state occured. I began to wonder whether as humans, through such reactions we could compose a machine who displayed signs of conciousness or whether there was more to us and how we operate.
Emotions came under the same category. I could not grasp the idea that emotions i feel such as love, hatred, joy and anger could all be a chain of chemical reactions and nothing more. Now this got me thinking on the soul and if it existed how it would operate, would it be the system that runs our emotions and other functions. I wondered if this souled resembled our physical appearance or whether it was an invisible yet detectable force.
Now this all led me to the conclusion that we were more than just a chemical factory and it was an unfair term to coin us beings. That us humans had more sophistication, emotion and experience then any factory, computer or any other man made systems!
The Unknown Terrorist
Recently for my English Course in college, I had to read a novel title "The Unknown Terrorist" by Richard Flanagan. The book was aimed to depict areas of Australian society using a fictional story. The main topics covered were media, government, terrorism and gender in Australia. The novel set forth a very pesemistic view on Australian society. The main character in the story was a pole dancer who ran by the nick name "The Doll". She was one of the several women named over the course of the story and made a living through pole dancing. This woman derived from the non desired suburbs of Sydney and found a "better" life in the rich areas.
The Doll ended up sleeping with a man she met at the Mardi Gras. Later the man named "Tariq" was accused of terrorism and people smuggling and low and behold took the shape of Böll's Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum. The Doll after sleeping with the stranger is accused of being an accomplance and spends her last 4 days on the run before being shot dead.
The plot of the story lacks interest and the main threshhols is in the themes, ideas and values of the author. Firstly the media and government of Australia are described as corrupt bodies that only work to help themselves. Now this seems a very generalized opinion to assume that all members of such groups are part of a dishonest firm. To accept such ideas would be to scorn Australias journalists ethical code and to degrade Australian society.
At first Flanagans opinions on the media and government had some effect on me. The power and influence of the media seemed at first scary however as the novel progressed the realism was stretched to a point where it was non beliavable. The main journalist in the novel, Richard Cody sentenced "The Doll" to her death through a contreversial article on the terms of wanting a promotion with a Hit article. This to me came across very unbeliavable and judgemental to represent Australian journalist in this form.
The next main issue covered in the text was the roles of gender in Australian society. The author used a minority of characters to classify all Australians. In the novel there were 3 females and around 4 men who were used to stereotype all Australians. This seemed closed minded and rather unbelivable especially as most characters displayed similiar persona's and shared similiar goals, greeds and values. All men were represented as rich, un ethical and selfish whereas the females were shown to be independent, lack of need for men and money hungry.
This seemed a very negative outlook on Australia as many males and females I interacted with, differed from these descriptions bestoved upon Australians. To me it seemed as if Flanagan had met some sour people in his time and felt condemned to symbolize the majority of Australians like this.
This book did not stand well with my views as it catogorized life and depictided it as a predictible journey on which you will meet simiar characters and little joy. To me life so far has displayed, diversity, un-predictability and lots of joy and this novel failed to portray Australian society in a realistic manner
The Doll ended up sleeping with a man she met at the Mardi Gras. Later the man named "Tariq" was accused of terrorism and people smuggling and low and behold took the shape of Böll's Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum. The Doll after sleeping with the stranger is accused of being an accomplance and spends her last 4 days on the run before being shot dead.
The plot of the story lacks interest and the main threshhols is in the themes, ideas and values of the author. Firstly the media and government of Australia are described as corrupt bodies that only work to help themselves. Now this seems a very generalized opinion to assume that all members of such groups are part of a dishonest firm. To accept such ideas would be to scorn Australias journalists ethical code and to degrade Australian society.
At first Flanagans opinions on the media and government had some effect on me. The power and influence of the media seemed at first scary however as the novel progressed the realism was stretched to a point where it was non beliavable. The main journalist in the novel, Richard Cody sentenced "The Doll" to her death through a contreversial article on the terms of wanting a promotion with a Hit article. This to me came across very unbeliavable and judgemental to represent Australian journalist in this form.
The next main issue covered in the text was the roles of gender in Australian society. The author used a minority of characters to classify all Australians. In the novel there were 3 females and around 4 men who were used to stereotype all Australians. This seemed closed minded and rather unbelivable especially as most characters displayed similiar persona's and shared similiar goals, greeds and values. All men were represented as rich, un ethical and selfish whereas the females were shown to be independent, lack of need for men and money hungry.
This seemed a very negative outlook on Australia as many males and females I interacted with, differed from these descriptions bestoved upon Australians. To me it seemed as if Flanagan had met some sour people in his time and felt condemned to symbolize the majority of Australians like this.
This book did not stand well with my views as it catogorized life and depictided it as a predictible journey on which you will meet simiar characters and little joy. To me life so far has displayed, diversity, un-predictability and lots of joy and this novel failed to portray Australian society in a realistic manner
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