Ancient trading

"Joakim Wehlin of the University of Gothenburg and Gotland University has examined Bronze Age stone monuments that sit along Sweden’s Baltic Sea coasts. It had been thought that the monuments, which resemble stone ships, were used primarily as grave sites. Wehlin, however, thinks that they were used by maritime groups trading in metal objects. “It seems like the whole body was typically not buried in the ship, and some stone ships don’t even have graves in them. Instead, they sometimes show remains of other types of activities. So with the absence of the dead, the traces of the survivors tend to appear,” he explained. The monuments may have been used to mark ports, waterways leading inland, and potential meeting places." From http://www.archaeology.org/news/690-130322-sweden-stone-ships-bronze-age

https://sites.google.com/site/stoneships/

Stone ship at Blomsholm

The stone ship at Blomsholm near Strömstad in Bohuslän measures more than 40 metres in length and consists of 49 large menhirs. The bow and stern are about 4 metres high. There are several other large megaliths in the area. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_ship

Lindholm Høje

"Lindholm Høje (Lindholm Hills, from the word for hill or mound) is a major Viking burial site and former settlement situated to the north of and overlooking the city of Aalborg in Denmark. The southern (lower) part of Lindholm Høje dates to 1000 – 1050 AD, the Viking Age, while the northern (higher) part is significantly earlier, dating back to the 5th century AD.[1] An unknown number of rocks were removed from the site over the centuries, many, for example, being broken up in the 19th century for use in building roads..." 

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindholm_H%C3%B8je

Anundshög

Anundshög is a tumulus in Sweden. It has a diameter of 60 metres (200 ft) and is about 9 metres (30 ft) high, dated between the Bronze Age and the late Iron Age. A fireplace under it has been dated by radiocarbon dating to sometime between AD 210 and 540. Some historians have associated the mound with the legendary King Anund. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anundsh%C3%B6g

At the foot of the mound are 2 large stone ships placed end to end, 51 metres (167 ft) and 54 metres (177 ft) long. Two other stone ships are visible. The site was a thing-place and the ship settings may be associated with this function, according to Wikipedia.

On the Ales Stenar and its solar orientation, please visit http://porto.polito.it/2507517/

Astrophile: Saturn's egg moon Methone is made of fluff - space - 17 May 2013 - New Scientist

"Out among Saturn's menagerie of moons, a shiny white egg rests in a nest of ice crystals.
Named Methone, this small, oval moon was seen in close-up for the first time last year by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Methone is utterly unlike the other small balls of ice and rock that dot the solar system, which are deeply scarred by impacts. Instead it is smooth, with not a hill or pockmark in sight. Now astronomers may have a clue as to why: Methone is made of lightweight fluff."Astrophile: Saturn's egg moon Methone is made of fluff - space - 17 May 2013 - New Scientist

Assembly line

"The assembly line was invented 100 years ago. It’s time to invent the disassembly line", Steven Cherry is telling at http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/at-work/innovation/the-future-of-the-assembly-line
in a conversation with David Nye, professor of American history at the University of Southern Denmark.

Deep Space Beacon

Pulsed gamma rays from the Vela pulsar from photons detected by Fermi's Large Area Telescope. The Vela pulsar is the brightest persistent source of gamma rays in the sky. The bluer colour in the latter part of the pulse indicates the presence of gamma rays with energies exceeding a billion electron volts (1 GeV). For comparison, visible light has energies between two and three electron volts. Red indicates gamma rays with energies less than 300 million electron volts (MeV); green, gamma rays between 300 MeV and 1 GeV; and blue shows gamma rays greater than 1 GeV. The image frame is 30 degrees across. The background, which shows diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Milky Way, is about 15 times brighter here than it actually is.
Source Goddard Space Flight Center
Author Roger Romani (Stanford University) (Lead), Lucas Guillemot (CENBG), Francis Reddy (SPSYS)

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...."