After the Fox

Dear Author (Rob Lee), thank you for this beautiful picture!

"I was lucky and had my telephoto lens (200mm) on the camera when he came for a visit. He's sporting his winter look. Here he is last spring when he was younger (same angle)" writes Rob Lee on 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fuzzy_Freddy.jpg

 www.flickr.com/photos/roblee/34957634/in/set-773976/

www.flickr.com/photos/roblee/11655198/in/set-1357853/

Author Rob Lee from Evergreen, CO, USA

Suricata suricatta

Suricata suricatta :  A group of Meerkats at Auckland Zoo, New Zealand.

Date 27 June 2009, Source originally posted to Flickr as Meerkats
Author Ashleigh Thompson

 Dear Author (Ashleigh Thompson), Thank you for this beautiful picture! 

When America discovered Europe

A very remarkable book this one
The American discovery of Europe,  By Jack D. Forbes
 Let me suggest the reading of it. To stimulate the curiosity, here some small abstracts

What is Cornelius Nepos telling? And Pliny?

 

 

The world's first seismometer was Chinese

Who was the inventor of the first siesmometer?
 Zhang Heng. He was  (AD 78–139) a Chinese astronomer, mathematician, inventor, geographer, cartographer, artist, poet, statesman. He lived under the Han Dynasty (AD 25–220) of China. He was a  Chief Astronomer, Prefect of the Majors for Official Carriages, and then Palace Attendant at the imperial court.  He invented the world's first water-powered armillary sphere,  improved the inflow water clock by adding another tank and invented the world's first seismometer, which discerned the cardinal direction of an earthquake 500 km away. He improved previous Chinese calculations of the formula for pi. In addition to documenting about 2,500 stars in his extensive star catalogue. Some modern scholars have also compared his work in astronomy to that of Ptolemy (AD 86–161). (Adapted from Wiki)

 A replica of an ancient Chinese Siesmograph  (25-220 CE). Picture taken in July 2004  at Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland California.

"In 132 CE, after several serious earthquakes in China, astronomer Zhang Heng invented this instrument to warn people of the next one. When the ground shook, it moved a pendulum inside the jug. The pendulum pushed a lever that opened one dragon's mouth. A ball rolled out and into the toad's mouth below, sounding an alarm. The open dragon mouth pointed in the direction of the earthquake, notifying the Emperor."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EastHanSeismograph.JPG

Ancient solar observatories: Stonehenge

This is Stonehenge. The image shows directions of sun during the day. “The lines on the drawing show the direction and height (altitude) of the sun throughout the day. Thicker and shorter lines mean the sun is higher in the sky. Longer and thinner lines mean the sun is closer to the horizon”, according to Sollumis.com http://www.sollumis.com/. The site is located in the Google Maps. The direction of the sun is given on the summer solstice, choosing an altar at the circle for observation. We see that, at sunrise, the sun is passing near the stone outside the circle.

The qocha of Chuquiña

Chuquiña is a small town in Bolivia.
Near Chuquiña satellite maps show a huge "qocha".
A "qocha" (small lake, lagoon)  is an artificial pond used to gain water for cultivation.
Waru-warus, camellones, qochas were old pre-incaic cultivation techniques.

On Andean qochas you can find more info here
http://www.archaeogate.org/sperimentale/article/1396/1/qochas-on-andean-highlands-by-amelia-carolina-sparavign.html
http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.it/2011/04/qocha.html
http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.it/2011/04/raised-fields.html
http://stretchingtheboundaries.blogspot.it/2011/05/le-qochas-dellaltopiano-andino.html

Our Starman

Didn't know what time it was and the lights were low
I leaned back on my radio
Some cat was layin' down some rock 'n' roll 'lotta soul,  he said...
Then the loud sound did seem to fade
Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase
That weren't no D.J. that was hazy cosmic jive

There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
There's a starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie

I had to phone someone so I picked on you
Hey, that's far out so you heard him too!
Switch on the TV
we may pick him up on channel two
Look out your window I can see his light
If we can sparkle he may land tonight
Don't tell your poppa or he'll get us locked up in fright

Starman, by David Bowie

Our Starman, farewell

Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11, NASA

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-apollo-11-journey-in-photographs/260125/

The legend of Cangjie

After unifying China, the Yellow Emperor, being terribly dissatisfied with his Quipu method  of recording information, charged Cangjie of creating characters for writing. Cangjie then settled down on the bank of a river, and devoted himself to the completion of the task at hand. ... One day, Cangjie  saw a phoenix flying in the sky above, carrying an object in its beak. The object fell to the ground directly in front of Cangjie, and he saw it to be an impression of a hoof-print. Not being able to recognize which animal the print belonged to, he asked for the help of a local hunter passing by on the road. The hunter told him that this was the hoof-print of a Pixiu. This conversation with the hunter greatly inspired Cangjie  ... From that day forward, Cangjie paid close attention to the characteristics of all things, including the sun, moon, stars, clouds, lakes, oceans, as well as all manner of bird and beast. He began to create characters according to the special characteristics he found, and before long, had compiled a long list of characters for writing. To the delight of the Yellow Emperor, Cangjie presented him with the complete set of characters.
Adapetd from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cangjie

Cangjie

Public domain image

Empresa destruye patrimonio cultural

Empresa destruye patrimonio cultural
"El observatorio más antiguo de América, es afectado por trabajos de empresa autorizada por el INC. Desconocen informes que dan cuenta de restos arqueológicos alrededor de área patrimonial."
http://www.connuestroperu.com/actualidad/miscelanea/22-miscelanea/22705-empresa-destruye-patrimonio-cultural

Ancient solar observatories: Syrian desert

The Syrian desert is covered by ancient stone structures created during Neolithic times, as I discussed in the paper, Stone circles on the harraat of Syrian desert, published at http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.4665
Some of these stone structures are circular, with radial lines of stones. These circles have been also compared with Stonehenge. Therefore, we can ask ourselves, are these solar observatories too, as Stonehenge is.
The answer is probably so, see my paper at http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.2591
I used a software for the solar energy applications to see the direction of sun on sunrise and sunset of solstice. It seems that there is a good agreement. Therefore, the Syrian stone circles are probably the Stonehenges of Middle East.

This is one of the stone structure of Syrian Desert. The image shows directions of sun during the day. “The lines on the drawing show the direction and height (altitude) of the sun throughout the day. Thicker and shorter lines mean the sun is higher in the sky. Longer and thinner lines mean the sun is closer to the horizon”, according to Sollumis.com http://www.sollumis.com/. On the left, the site as it appears in the Google Maps. In the middle, the direction of the sun on the summer solstice, choosing the center of the circle for observation. We see that, at sunrise, the sun is passing near the dot. At the sunset the direction is that of a line. In the image on the right, we see the direction of the sun on winter solstice. At sunrise, the lines is passing between dots. The sunset has the direction of a radius (images have been obtained from original provided by Google Maps and sollumis.com).

Circles and lines!

Alignemnt at the sunrise on the winter solstice

At the site http://www.dp-news.com/en/detail.aspx?articleid=97188
it is told that "He (David Kennedy) explains that they come in a huge variety of forms, some being ‘kites’, structures that funnelled animals, some being seemingly random meandering lines of stone and others being rectangular. None are believed to be aligned with the stars, which has added to the mystery surrounding their purpose." Well, in my opinion it is not so.