Earth seen from Apollo

Courtesy: NASA, Apollo 11

Bellissima!

Courtesy: NASA Apollo 8

Sun reflection

Courtesy: NASA Apollo 8

View of Earth as photographed by the Apollo 8 astronauts on their return trip from the moon. The terminator crosses Australia. India is visible. The sun reflection is within the Indian Ocean.

Nanocanyons in Multilayer Laue Lenses

Nanocanyons in Multilayer Laue Lenses

 Brookhaven National Laboratory:  A scanning electron microscope captured this from the bottom of a trench carved by reactive ion etching. 

Caesar and Arles

Image processing of the Arles bust 

It was probably between 49 and 46 BC, when Caesar had close relationships with Arles that, according to the French archaeologist Luc Long, who found it in 2007 after struggling with poor visibility, strong currents and the catfishes of Rhone, the famous marble bust of Arles had been carved. This beautiful portrait, discovered in the depths of the right bank of the river near Arles, has been undoubtedly attributed by Long to Julius Caesar. Here we compare the Arles bust with some others and propose the application of image processing and multimodal biometric systems to the ancient artifact. ... More at SSRN

Dancing Men in Renaissance Painting May Be Native Americans

Dancing Men in Renaissance Painting May Be Native Americans
Friday, May 03, 2013
VATICAN CITY—While restoring a fresco painted in 1494 by Pinturicchio on the walls of the Vatican’s Borgia Apartments, Maria Pustka found small images of dancing men that may be the first Western depictions of Native Americans. “The Borgia Pope was interested in the New World, as were the great chancelleries of Europe. It is hard to believe that the papal court, especially under a Spanish pope, would have remained in the dark about what Columbus encountered,” wrote Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums. That pope would eventually arbitrate the division of New World lands between Spain and Portugal.

A Year Without a Summer

The 'Year Without a Summer' AAAS
"In many parts of the country winter refuses to release its icy grip, and records are being broken for spring’s late arrival. Although we know that spring and summer will come eventually, we are still a far cry from rivaling the “Year Without a Summer.”  That year was 1816. It was near the end of the Little Ice Age, a period that began around 1350 AD. It was also in the middle of what became known as the Dalton Minimum, an unusual period of low solar activity named after English meteorologist John Dalton that lasted from 1790 to 1830...."

Caesar and Caesarion

Quello sguardo amaro: i volti di Cesare e Cesarione. Intervista a Paolo Moreno

24/01/2011 - UmbriaLeft, by Giovanni Corazzi

Giusto un anno fa, nella nostra Umbrialeft veniva pubblicato un articolo in cui si parlava di una grande mostra, iniziata allora da qualche settimana (ottobre 2009) nel centro francese di Arles (presso il Musée départemental Arles antique) e dedicata agli oggetti riemersi dal fiume Rodano (riva destra, all’altezza, appunto, della cittadina provenzale) nel corso di una ventennale campagna condotta dal Drassm, il dipartimento ministeriale francese delle ricerche archeologiche, subacquee e sottomarine, guidato da Luc Long. .. tra cui un bellissimo busto. .. il Long sin dall’inizio avesse proposto senza esitazioni il nome di Cesare per il busto riemerso. Tale attribuzione, sebbene confermata da studiosi di valore quali lo storico Christian Goudineau (un classico il suo saggio su Cesare e la Gallia) e l’esperto di iconografia cesariana Flemming Johansen (autore di un importante lavoro del 1967, revisionato vent’anni dopo, dedicato ai ritratti in marmo di Cesare), è stata inizialmente contestata da altri studiosi, che hanno pensato a un magistrato romano o a un notabile di Arles. Fin dall’annuncio della scoperta (maggio 2008) era intervenuto al dibattito uno dei più importanti archeologi italiani, Paolo Moreno, ... Il Moreno ha toccato la questione anche nel 2009, con l’interessante ed elegante volume Cleopatra Capitolina (Editinera), e lo scorso ottobre in una lezione tenuta a Torino in occasione del «FestivalStoria». I suoi interventi hanno fornito nuove indicazioni sul ritratto, inserendolo in un ampio contesto che abbraccia il tratto mediterraneo da Arles ad Alessandria e che parla di una famiglia tanto grande quanto sfortunata. Divengono, infatti, protagonisti anche la regina d’Egitto Cleopatra e il figlio da lei avuto con Cesare, Tolemeo XV Cesare, meglio noto come Cesarione. Questi, nato nel 47 a.C., venne associato al regno a soli tre anni per volontà della madre, che evidentemente nutriva per il piccolo grandi progetti. ... 

http://www.umbrialeft.it/approfondimenti/quello-sguardo-cos%C3%AC-amaro-volti-cesare-e-cesarione-intervista-paolo-mor

Monte Viso

 "Monte Viso is the location of a neolithic jadeite quarry, at an elevation of 2000 to 2400 metres. Its productivity peaked around 5000 BC. The jadeite was used to make cult axes, which are found all over western Europe." From Wiki

Geheimnisvolle Kult-Beile: Statussymbole der Steinzeit, Von Almut Bick
Sie sind ein Mysterium, eines der größten Rätsel aus der Zeit der Jäger und Sammler: Steinklingen aus kostbarstem Jadeit. Wozu dienten diese Äxte, die Archäologen in halb Europa gefunden haben? Forscher sind dem Geheimnis nun dicht auf der Spur ...Über sechstausend Jahre ist es her, dass die steinzeitlichen Bergleute mit dem äußerst seltenen Jadeit heimkehrten. Hoch oben, jenseits der Schneegrenze des Monte Viso in den italienischen Alpen, betrieben sie einen regelrechten Steinbruch für das grüne Mineral. ...

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/geheimnisvolle-kult-beile-statussymbole-der-steinzeit-a-477917.html

See also:
Zwischen Atlantik und Schwarzem Meer , Die großen Beile aus alpinem Jadeit im 5. und 4.Jt. v. Chr
by Serge Cassen
http://www.academia.edu/1954923/Zwischen_Atlantik_und_Schwarzem_Meer_Die_grossen_Beile_aus_alpinem_Jadeit_im_5._und_4.Jt._v.Chr

Zu den Jadeit-Quellen am Monte Viso
by Rengert Elburg
http://www.academia.edu/3119319/Zu_den_Jadeit-Quellen_am_Monte_Viso

Liath Meisicith

From "The Mystery of Fire", by Mainly Palmer Hall, 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manly_Palmer_Hall

The burning glass of Druids

C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS

Comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS as seen from Mount Dale, Western Australia. Image credit: Astronomy Education Services/Gingin Observatory

Image obtained after processing with AstroFracTool the original at

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/comet20130307.html

Air curtains for Terracotta Warriors

"New system can shield national relics from damage by pollution. Even the Terracotta Warriors are feeling the effects of China's choking air pollution. Chinese scientists have found that the indoor environment where the Terracotta Warriors are housed could cause them to deteriorate, prompting some scientists to raise the idea of using air curtain technology to help control the environment in the pits."
More at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2013-03/02/content_16268606.htm

Adapted from Wikipedia, courtesy Maros

Physics of archaeology

"Physics is breaking new ground in the field of archaeology and human evolution.
So much so that in just a few years the gains in archaeology now equal the gains made from the past 100 years of using traditional methods, explains nuclear physicist and University of Wollongong visiting Professor Claudio Tuniz. Dr Tuniz, who began his career in the United States using physics to analyse moon rocks and meteorites, has spent almost two decades examining how advanced scientific technology in nuclear physics and X-rays can tell us more about palaeoanthropology and human evolution. ..."
more at
http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/1333188/hi-tech-discoveries-archaeology-transformed/?cs=12

Mosaic - Palazzo Madama, Turin

XI-XII Century, Palazzo Madama, Torino

Karazuri - A ghost

Nishiki-e print with Karazuri; a work by Utagawa Toyokuni II (Toyoshige), 1825-1830, representing a ghost, Museo di Arte Orientale, Torino.


On Karazuri, read please
The Japanese art of using an inkless printing
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2747878

Torino - Cariatidi e Telamoni

Torino - Statues

Leonardo da Vinci and Amboise

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Château_d'Amboise

 "The royal Château at Amboise is a château located in Amboise, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France. Confiscated by the monarchy in the 15th century, it became a favoured royal residence and was extensively rebuilt. 

...

King Francis I was raised at Amboise, which belonged to his mother, Louise of Savoy, and during the first few years of his reign the château reached the pinnacle of its glory. As a guest of the King, Leonardo da Vinci came to Château Amboise in December 1515 and lived and worked in the nearby Clos Lucé, connected to the château by an underground passage." 

In 1516, Francis I invited Leonardo da Vinci to Amboise and hosted him in the Clos Lucé, then called Château de Cloux. Leonardo arrived in Amboise with three of his famous paintings:  Mona Lisa, Sainte Anne, and Saint Jean Baptiste. Leonardo lived at the Clos Lucé for the last three years of his life. He died there on 2 May 1519.

Image processing from a picture of the modern statue in Amboise of Leonardo in the pose of a river god.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_IMG_1759.JPG

Horned frog - Robert Wilson

Horned frog

Robert Wilson

Palazzo Madama, Torino

http://www.palazzomadamatorino.it/mostra.php?id_evento=169

Dodecahedral die

"In modern role-playing games, the dodecahedron is often used as a twelve-sided die, one of the more common polyhedral dice" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodecahedron

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dice#Non-cubical_dice

Even in the past, the dodecahedron was used for dice.

Here an example form the site archéologique de la Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Genève 

http://www.site-archeologique.ch/contenu.php?id-node=25&id-img=84

Copie d'un dé romain, en forme du dodécaèdre, datant du IVe siècle

Even older are the Etruscan dodecahedra:

More on the etruscan dodecahedron at sites:

https://sites.google.com/site/ancientdodecahedra/etruscan-dodecahedron

http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.it/2012/05/etruscan-dodecahedron.html

CALCULI, COMPAS, DODECAEDRE

Very interesting page at http://www.alienor.org/Articles/ecriture/instrument3.htm
telling that "Les Gallo-Romains possédaient également différents instruments destinés aux disciplines scientifiques Pour compter, on utilisait des petits cailloux appelés calculi qui étaient placés dans des cases. On disposait aussi de compas se rapportant à la géométrie mais aussi au traçage des lignes d’écriture. ... Aujourd’hui, les avis convergent pour interpréter les dodécaèdres en bronze, creux, comme des instruments de géomètre."

Musée de Poitiers. Visit the site!

Les dodécaèdres gallo-romains (2)

Adapted from http://letarot.com/pages-vrac/pages/Truc-a-trous.html

Les dodécaèdres gallo-romains (1)

Adapted from http://letarot.com/pages-vrac/pages/Truc-a-trous.html

Chimu Surveying

An Ancient Surveying Equipment of Chimu
The Chimu lives in the pre-Columbian Peru, struggling to survive in one of the world's driest desert.

They were therefore "hydraulic engineers". Some of their knowledge about the management of water came from their predecessors, the Mochica, who lived in the Peru's Moche Valley during the 1st millennium AD. Mochica built a network of canals to irrigate their fields. 

 Adapted from http://www.specialtyinterests.net/eop.html

This is a Chimu surveying instrument shows how calculate the slope of the land. "The device consisted of a ceramic bowl pierced by a hollow sighting tube passing through a calibrated, cross-shaped opening (inset). And artificial horizon was established by aligning water with the three dots in the bowl, which was leveled in a larger, sand-filled vessel atop a tripod (far left); when the sighting tube was in the center of the cross-shaped opening it was parallel to the artificial horizon. Chimu surveyors marked a rod at the height of the level sighting tube, then moved the rod a known distance along uneven ground and sighted the mark. The ground slope corresponded to the tube angle indicated by the calibrations inside the bowl." From

Feats and wisdom of the ancients

Time-Life Books

2 Reviews

Time-Life Books, Aug 1, 1990 - History - 143 pages

Surveying and Hydraulic Engineering of the Pre-Columbian Chimú State: ad 900–1450, Charles R. Ortloff, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Volume 5 / Issue 01 / April 1995, pp 55-74
Abstract The Chimú state of northern coastal Peru (ad 900–1480) developed massive irrigation-based agricultural systems supplied by intricate networks of canals drawing water from river sources in coastal valleys under their political control. Further intervalley canal systems, some up to 50 miles in length, were constructed to shunt water between river valleys to augment intravalley supplies. A high degree of civil engineering skill was necessary to construct and maintain such complex systems; knowledge of surveying and of open channel flow hydraulics was paramount. Some of the technology used by the Chimú has been investigated: surveying instruments and calculating tools have been unearthed and analyzed to provide some understanding of the technical base used for canal design. Details of the hydraulics knowledge-base have been extracted from computer simulation of the functioning of ancient Chimú canal designs. This article assembles known pieces of information related to Chimú civil engineering practice and attempts to provide a plausible methodology that could have been implemented by the Chimú to survey the precise canal bed slopes necessary for proper hydraulic functioning of large canal systems through rugged Andean foothill and mountain areas.

Vienne Roman Dodecahedron

Print! Cut! Fold! Glue!

Image obtained from some data in the paper:

Duval Paul-Marie. Comment décrire les dodécaèdres gallo-romains, en vue d'une étude

comparée. In: Gallia. Tome 39, fascicule 2, 1981. pp. 195-200, doi : 10.3406/galia.1981.1829

Bristol Roman Dodecahedron

Adapted from the paper:

Etwas Gewisses hievon zu bestimmen waere ein Gewagtes

260 Jahre Dodekaeder-Forschung, by Michael Guggenberger

Roman Dodecahedron replica

Print! Cut! Fold! Glue!

Dimensions for making a replica Roman Dodecahedron (3)

Let us prepare a copy of the Roman Dodecahedron of Jublains.
We can use the paper:
Une fouille en bordure des thermes de Jublains (Mayenne) : enfin un dodécaèdre en contexte archéologique !
Gérard Guillier, Richard Delage et Paul-André Besombes, at http://rao.revues.org/680

For the dimensions please see the image http://rao.revues.org/docannexe/image/680/img-16.png

Or print and cut

Dimensions for making a replica Roman Dodecahedron (2)

Let us suppose somebody wants to make a replica of a Roman dodecahedron,.
Here another recipe. Consider the image

Centered at the center of each face, draw a circle, which will be a hole. These circles usually have different diameters. Print and cut the image.
 If you want some figures, you can, for instance use the article by

Duval Paul-Marie. Comment décrire les dodécaèdres gallo-romains, en vue d'une étude
comparée. In: Gallia. Tome 39, fascicule 2, 1981. pp. 195-200, doi : 10.3406/galia.1981.1829

Here I reproduce an image.

You have the exact potions of holes.
According to the image of the dodecahedron, 1 is opposite 12, 2 opposite 11, 3 opposite 10, etc.

Dimensions for making a replica Roman dodecahedron (1)

Let us suppose somebody wants to make a replica of a Roman dodecahedron,
here a recipe. Consider the following image

Centered at the center of each face, draw a circle, which will be a hole. These circles usually have different diameters. Print and cut the image.
If you want some figures, you can, for instance use the article at the following link:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/116123429/The-Roman-Dodecahedron-of-Kadath
Here I am reproducing a table.

Here we have not the exact potions of the holes, but we have the diameters of holes on the opposite faces.
According to the image of the dodecahedron, 1 is opposite 12, 2 opposite 11, 3 opposite 10, etc.

See the next post too!

Roman Dodecahedron of Kadath

The web site http://www.kadath.be/ is publishing the review Kadath. The site tells that it is based on the "projet KADATH". "Dans l’œuvre de H.P. Lovecraft, Kadath est la cité légendaire des Grands Anciens, symbole de l’origine des civilisations. Notre quête, appliquée aux réalités archéologiques, est de remonter à pareilles sources, en cherchant à déchiffrer l’empreinte que laissèrent les premiers civilisateurs, dieux et ancêtres présents dans tous les mythes et toutes les traditions."

At the link http://www.scribd.com/doc/116123429/The-Roman-Dodecahedron-of-Kadath

the reader can find a paper from Kadath, written by Pierre Méreaux-Tanguy discussing the Roman Dodecahedron as an optical instrument. For other reference on the Roman Dodecaedron see the papers: Ancient and modern rangefinders at http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2078 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.0946

Cooking ... the brain

"Brains demand exceptional amounts of energy," says Ed Yong at Discover Magazine — energy that raw food simply can't provide. That's where cooking comes in.
Writes Yong:
Our ancestors overcame this constraint when they learned how to cook. Cooked food offers more calories than raw food, and is easier to chew and digest. These early chefs could gain more energy from the same amount of eating time. That, in turn, fueled more neurons and larger brains.

Read the interesting article The Week
http://theweek.com/article/index/235334/cooking-the-secret-to-the-evolution-of-the-human-brain

Let me suggest

Let me suggest to visit the link
From WWII to the end of Apartheid, relive 20th century history with Google

De bello Parthico

Roma. Anno 44 avanti Cristo, mese di marzo. Da un futuro lontanissimo in cui la scienza ha raggiunto vertici inimmaginabili, ma insanguinato da una guerra cruenta, appare nell'Urbe un misterioso personaggio. E' un viaggiatore del tempo dotato di straordinari poteri. Nessuno saprà mai qual è la sua vera identità, si fa chiamare Sesto Mercurio e con questo nome verrà ricordato negli annali dell'Impero. Ha una sola missione da compiere: salvare Caio Giulio Cesare dall'imminente attentato delle idi di marzo. ...
 http://www.edizionirei.com/products/de-bello-parthico2/

October, horse chestnut blossoming

Today, 21 October in Torino the temperature is of 24 degrees.

In Corso Palestro, some horse chestnuts trees are blossoming.

 

Dry leaves and blossoms

Terra Madre

Slow Food’s Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre is an international food fair. Held from October 25-29 this year and fully open to the public, it’s an opportunity to discover the foods that change the world.
"‘Foods that change the world’ is the slogan behind Slow Food’s biggest international event - Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre taking place in Turin over October 25-29 - in recognition of the collective power of the hundreds of responsible small-scale food producers, chefs and experts who will gather for these five days." They are coming in Torino from all the world,  with  stories, products and passion, to present their experience of the world of food and wine, to allowing discovering different cultures and related knowledge and skills behind foods.

More: http://www.terramadre.info/

Cupriavidus metallidurans

"The ability to create gold from base materials has eluded alchemists since the Middle Ages, but two U.S. university professors have found a way to produce small amounts of gold using metal-loving bacteria to make the magic. ... the two professors at Michigan State University found that a certain type of metal-loving bacteria can transform high amounts of the toxic chemical compound gold chloride from a liquid into solid 24-karat gold. " Kazem Kashefi, assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Michigan State University and Adam Brown, associate professor of electronic art and intermedia at Michigan State, found that the bacteria, Cupriavidus metallidurans, can withstand concentrations of gold chloride 25 times higher than previously reported by scientists.
More at
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kitconews/2012/10/05/focus-microbial-alchemy-produces-gold-from-toxic-chemical/

Australian centuriation

Here the Nullarbor Plain in Australia.

The lines seem a centuriation on the territory

When was this centuriation made?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullarbor_Plain

Mombracco e Leonardo da Vinci

"Monbracho sopra saluzo sopra la certosa un miglio a piè di Monviso, a una miniera di petra faldata la quale e biancha come marmo di carrara, senza machule che è della durezza del porfido o più, delle quali il compare mio Maestro Benedetto scultore a impromesso donarmene una tabuletta per li colori.
 Adì 5 di genaro 1511", Leonardo da Vinci, manoscritto “B” Archive National Paris

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Bracco

Here in the satellite map, the quartzite quarry on the top of Mombracco, a mountain near Saluzzo.

Leonardo da Vinci, as we can read from his words,

knew the white marble-like stone coming from this quarry.

Mombracco is a  is over Rifreddo, Sanfront and Barge.

Amianto

« C'era amianto dappertutto, come una neve cenerina: se si lasciava per qualche ora un libro su di un tavolo, e poi lo si toglieva, se ne trovava il profilo in negativo; i tetti erano coperti da uno spesso strato di polverino, che nei giorni di pioggia si imbeveva come una spugna, e ad un tratto franava violentemente a terra. »
(Primo Levi, Il sistema periodico)

L'Amiantifera di Balangero è una cava di amianto situata in provincia di Torino, non più attiva. Fu la più grande cava di amianto in Europa e una tra le prime nel mondo; copriva una buona parte dei territori comunali di Balangero e di Corio.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiantifera_di_Balangero