Il Buddha dei Leoni

Il Buddha siede su un trono sorretto da tre leoni, che poggia a sua volta su un piedistallo fiancheggiato da due  devoti monaci. La veste monastica dalle pieghe accuratamente disegnate e priva di cintura rivela il corpo ben modellato. Il lembo dello scialle scende dalla spalla sinistra terminando in un doppia “coda di pesce”.

Il leone in questa iconografia evoca  il suo ruggito (simhanada) ossia la voce del Buddha che penetra lo spazio divulgando la Dottrina.

Museo Arte Orientale, Torino

Planets heated by dark matter

Audacious notion of the week: planets heated by dark matter - March 30, 2011
"It’s dark outside, permanently. The sun twinkles in the distance barely bigger than other stars. But the ground is warm, and oceans are teaming with life. That’s the scenario envisioned by Dan Hooper and Jason Steffen of Fermi National Laboratory in Batavia Illinois, who released a preprint yesterday about the possibility of dark matter heating planets that are otherwise too far from their host stars to be habitable."

More Nature.com

According to Dan Hooper and Jason Steffen, they " have calculated the capture rate of dark matter particles in Earth-like and super-Earth planets, and determined the resulting surface temperature of those planets that would result from dark matter annihilations. While planets in the local region of our galaxy receive only a negligible quantity of energy from dark matter annihilations," the authors" find that planets in dwarf spheroidal galaxies and in the innermost volume of the Milky Way could plausibly accumulate and annihilate enough dark matter to heat their surfaces to temperatures capable of sustaining liquid water, even in the absence of energy from starlight or other standard sources. Although" they "expect ecologically relevant quantities of energy to be released through dark matter annihilations only within the interiors of planets that reside in very special environments (such as near the Galactic Center, or near the center of a dwarf spheroidal galaxy), and only in the case of dark matter models which feature large elastic scattering cross sections with nuclei (near the current upper limits)," the authors "expect that within such models planets will exist which derive enough heat from dark matter to almost indefi nitely sustain surface temperatures suffi cient to yield liquid water. Even in the absence of starlight, such planets could plausibly contain life. And, given their extremely long lifetimes, such planets may prove to be the ultimate bastion of life in our universe."

Tevatron claims glimpse of particles beyond standard model

Tevatron claims possible glimpse of particles beyond the standard model - April 06, 2011
"Just as the Tevatron, the proton-antiproton collider at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, enters its final months of operations, possible signals of new physics are emerging. First came a report from the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) experiment of a puzzling asymmetry in the way top quarks decay into lighter particles. Now the same experiment is reporting on the possible observation of particles beyond the standard model in collisions that produce a W boson – a particle of the weak nuclear force. Spokesmen for the experiment say the signal may be due to random fluctuations, but that it’s nonetheless causing some excitement. “Either what we thought we knew about this process is wrong or there’s a totally new effect,” says Giovanni Punzi, CDF co-spokesman."

More Nature.com

Chankillo - 2 - Peru

Image obtained after processing Google Maps

The Thirteen Towers of Chankillo are built north to south along a ridge of a low hill, regularly spaced. To the east and west investigators found two observation points, to observe the rising and setting positions of the Sun over the year. This suggests that some activities of the ancient civilization were regulated by a solar calendar. The towers had been known to travelers for centuries, but the astronomical function of the towers was discovered in 2007 by Iván Ghezzi and Clive Ruggle. 

Read more Wiki

Chankillo - 1 - Peru

Chankillo

Image obtained after processing Google Maps

Chankillo is an ancient monumental complex in the Peruvian coastal desert, in the Ancash Department of Peru. The ruins include the hilltop Chankillo fort, the nearby Thirteen Towers solar observatory, and residential and gathering areas. The Thirteen Towers are believed to have been a solar observatory built in the 4th century BC. As of 2008, the culture that produced Chankillo is unnamed.

More wiki

Einstein secret

James Dacey (physicsworld) is blogging on a new iconic image of Einstein, creation of Spanish artist Juan Osbourne. It is a game to find some hidden numbers.

Play the game at
http://www.juanosborne.com/2010/01/playing-with-einstein/

Created by Juan Osborne (under this Creative Commons License)

This is an image from a beautiful collection

http://www.juanosborne.com/

The hunt for the elusive Higgs

"Physicists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are confident that they can find the Higgs boson by the end of 2012, when the machine will be shut down temporarily...The most sought after particle in particle physics – the Higgs boson – is believed to endow all other particles with mass. It is also the last undiscovered component of particle physicists' great theoretical framework – the Standard Model. After decades searching for the Higgs in particle collisions at CERN, and at Fermilab in the US, researchers at the LHC believe they may finally have the elusive particle within their grasp."

The hunt for the elusive Higgs - physicsworld.com

Thin film has 'astonishing' ability to rotate light

"Physicists in Austria and Germany have taken the Faraday effect to a new extreme by rotating the polarization of light by 45° by passing it through an extremely thin film. This "giant Faraday effect" could someday be used to create optical transistors that switch light or to improve terahertz imaging systems."
Thin film has 'astonishing' ability to rotate light - physicsworld.com

The teacher appears

But lo! the teacher Jizô appears,
All gently he comes, and says to the weeping infants:
"Be not afraid, dears! be never fearful!
Poor little souls, your lives were brief indeed!
Too soon you were forced to make the weary journey to the Meido,
The long journey to the region of the dead!
Trust to me! I am your father and mother in the Meido,
Father of all children in the region of the dead."
And he folds the skirt of his shining robe about them;
So graciously takes he pity on the infants.
To those who cannot walk he stretches forth his strong shakujô,
And he pets the little ones, caresses them, takes them to his loving bosom.
So graciously he takes pity on the infants.
Namo Jizo Bosatsu!

The Legend of the Humming of the Sai-no-Kawara,
by Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo)

Jizo - matrix of the earth

Jizo was a bodhisattva (bosatsu in Japanese), a man who achieved enlightenment but forsaked nirvana to help others find paradise. He was worshiped  as the protector of those in distress, of children, of mothers in childbirth, and of travelers.  Worship of the bodhisattva Jizo began in the eighth century with the importation of esoteric Buddhist practices from China. Jizo, whose name means "matrix of the earth," was revered as one of the Eight Great Bodhisattvas of the esoteric sect. Jizo and his counterpart, Kakuzo ("matrix of the void"), represent the union of the physical and metaphysical realms.
The Jizo figure is defined by his clothing, by the objects he holds, and by his physical attributes. His head is shaven, and he is dressed in monk's robes, a simple rectangle of cloth (kesa) tied in front over a longer skirt. In his left hand, Jizo holds a wish-granting jewel; he would have held a shakujo (jingle-staff) in his right. The shakujo was used to alert insects and small animals of his approach, so that he would not accidentally harm them. Jizo's idealized face and head-the perfectly proportioned features, third eye, elongated ears, and folds of skin at the neck-also show attributes of an enlightened being.
adapted from http://www.lacma.org/japaneseart/sculpture/jizo.htm