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Post by GhostofEd on Apr 25, 2018 20:02:46 GMT
I wonder, how do they know the carvings are as old as the wood?
Good question.
Can't they date carvings in stone?
Crystal
I'll have to research it. I'm sure there are ways to examine and analyze the surface of the markings and material under them. There would be different characteristics (oxidation, corrosion, wear, etc.) vs. unmarked areas. How accurate such methods are I don't know. Maybe tool marks can give a clue of the instruments and techniques used that tie it to a certain time era. Would be embarrassing if the marks matched a modern engraving tool you can buy at the local hardware store! |
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Post by GhostofEd on Apr 25, 2018 20:34:45 GMT
Terrifying giant mosquito discovered in ChinaBy Aletha Adu, The Sun April 25, 2018 | 3:39pm  A giant mosquito with a wingspan of more than four inches has been found in China. The super-sized insect belongs to the Holorusa mikado species, the largest mosquito family in the world. Read the rest of this terrifying discovery here:
nypost.com/2018/04/25/terrifying-giant-mosquito-discovered-in-china/
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Apr 25, 2018 22:30:11 GMT
Hey Ed,
Good question.
Can't they date carvings in stone?
Crystal
I'll have to research it. I'm sure there are ways to examine and analyze the surface of the markings and material under them. There would be different characteristics (oxidation, corrosion, wear, etc.) vs. unmarked areas. How accurate such methods are I don't know. Maybe tool marks can give a clue of the instruments and techniques used that tie it to a certain time era. Would be embarrassing if the marks matched a modern engraving tool you can buy at the local hardware store!
This video is just for fun Doesn't really have anything to do with dating old carvings.
posted 23 April 2018
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Apr 25, 2018 22:38:06 GMT
Science
This 11,000-year-old statue unearthed in Siberia may reveal ancient views of taboos and demons
By Andrew Curry
Apr. 25, 2018 , 7:00 AM
In 1894, gold prospectors digging up a peat bog near the Russian city of Yekaterinburg unearthed something bizarre: a carved wooden idol 5 meters long. Carefully smoothed into a plank, the piece was covered front and back with recognizable human faces and hands, along with zigzag lines and other mysterious details. It also had a recognizably human head, with its mouth open in an “o.” For more than a century, the statue was displayed as a curiosity in a Yekaterinburg museum, assumed to be at most a few thousand years old.
This week, a paper published in the journal Antiquity argues that the statue was crafted from a single larchwood log 11,600 years ago, making it one of the world’s oldest examples of monumental art. In age and appearance although not material, the authors write, the so-called Shigir Idol resembles the stone sculptures of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, which are often cited as the first monumental ritual structures. Both monuments represent a leap beyond the naturalistic images of the ice age.
The idol also shows that large-scale, complex art emerged in more than one place—and that it was the handiwork of hunter-gatherers and not, as was once assumed, of later farming societies. “We have to conclude hunter-gatherers had complex ritual and expression of ideas. Ritual doesn’t start with farming, but with hunter-gatherers,” says Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist at the University of Göttingen in Germany and a co-author of the paper.
The first radiocarbon dating of the idol, in the 1990s, yielded a startlingly early date: 9800 years old. But many scholars rejected the result as implausibly old. They argued that hunter-gatherers couldn’t have produced such a large sculpture, nor have had the complex symbolic imagination to decorate it.
New samples were taken in 2014. At a 2015 press conference in Yekaterinburg, team members announced (before the results were peer reviewed), that these samples revealed even older dates, moving the age of the sculpture back 1500 years, to a time when the world was still transitioning out of the last ice age.
The new dates come from samples taken from the core of the log, uncontaminated by earlier efforts to conserve the wood. “The further you go inside, the older [the date] becomes—it’s very indicative some sort of preservative or glue was used” after discovery, says Olaf Jöris, an archaeologist at the Monrepos Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution in Neuwied, Germany, who wasn’t involved with the study. An antler carving discovered near the original find spot in the 19th century yielded similar dates, adding credibility to the result.
The date places the statue at a time when forests were spreading across a warmer, postglacial Eurasia. As the landscape changed, art did, too, perhaps as a way to help people come to grips with the unfamiliar forest environments they were navigating, says Peter Vang Petersen, an archaeologist at The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen who was not involved with the study. “Figurative art in the Paleolithic and naturalistic animals painted in caves and carved in rock all stop at the end of the ice age. From then on, you have very stylized patterns that are hard to interpret,” Petersen says. “They’re still hunters, but they had another view of the world.”
At a conference in Yekaterinburg last year, experts debated the meaning of the Shigir symbols, comparing them to other art from the period and more recent ethnographic examples. The most similar finds from that time are those at Göbekli, more than 2500 kilometers away, where hunter-gatherers gathered for rituals and carved similar stylized animals on stone pillars more than 5 meters high.
Terberger sees a more recent parallel: the totem poles of the Pacific Northwest, meant to honor gods or venerate ancestors. Co-author and archaeologist Mikhail Zhilin of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow says the idol might depict local forest spirits or demons. Petersen suggests that the zigzag carvings could be a kind of “Keep out!” sign intended to mark a dangerous or taboo space.
The society that carved the idol is starting to come out of the shadows. Equipped with pumps and special equipment, Zhilin has returned to Shigir and another bog site about 50 kilometers away to excavate finds buried several meters deep in the waterlogged soil. He and his team have found hundreds of small bone points and daggers from the same time period, along with elk antlers carved with animal faces.
They’ve also found ample evidence of prehistoric carpentry: stone adzes, other woodworking tools, and even part of a pine log smoothed with an adze. “They knew how to work wood perfectly,” Zhilin says. The idol is a reminder that stone wasn’t the only material people in the past used to make art and monuments—just the one most likely to survive, possibly skewing our understanding of prehistory. “Wood normally doesn’t last,” Terberger says. “I expect there were many more of these and they’re not preserved.”
www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/11000-year-old-statue-unearthed-siberia-may-reveal-ancient-views-taboos-and-demons
Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Apr 26, 2018 12:01:57 GMT
Good morning all,
Asahi Shimbun
'Gundam’ designer helps to create car-robot transformer
By SHINYA TOKUSHIMA/ Staff Writer
April 26, 2018 at 16:20 JST
A Tokyo-based company has created a real-life “transformer” machine that can change from a functional car into a walking robot.
Asratec Corp., a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp., spent three years developing J-deite RIDE.
As a car, it is 4 meters long and 1.4 meters high. Within a minute or so, it can transform into a robot 3.7 meters high and 4.2 meters wide.
During the transformation, the car seats and hood elevate, and the robot’s legs and head appear.
The switch back to the car takes about the same time.
Kunio Okawara, who designed many of the mobile suits used in the “Gundam” anime franchise, designed J-deite RIDE.
As a car, it can theoretically reach a maximum speed of 60 kph. In robot form, it can walk about 100 meters per hour.
Two people, including the driver, can fit into the “cockpit.” But J-deite RIDE can also be controlled wirelessly without a driver onboard.
Asratec is considering marketing the vehicle to amusement parks.
www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201804260031.html
Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Apr 26, 2018 12:03:37 GMT
posted 26 April 2018
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Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Apr 26, 2018 12:11:30 GMT
Mysterious Universe
The Mysterious Monster Of the Deep Blue Holes of the Bahamas
Brent Swancer
April 26, 2018
Sea monsters come in all shapes and sizes, and have been reported from all corners the globe for centuries. Coming in all shapes and sizes, such accounts never cease to amaze and inspire the imagination, and remain a staple of the field of cryptozoology. One very interesting type of sea monster comes to us from the postcard-perfect paradise of the Bahamas, in the Caribbean Sea, where something seemingly rather fierce and malevolent has long been reported to prowl these blue waters.
Among all of the islands in the archipelago of the Bahamas the largest is the island of Andros, which consists of an area greater than all the rest of the islands combined. Here is a land of sun-kissed white sand beaches, idyllic small islets and cays, sprawling mangrove swamps, clear azure waters, majestic coral reefs, and some of the greatest biodiversity in the region, and tourists flock here from all over the world to see it all. Andros is also home of the most famous of what are called “Blue Holes,” a phenomenon in which deep sinkholes form in the carbonate bedrock and descend down into the clear depths.
more after the jump:
mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/04/the-mysterious-monster-of-the-deep-blue-holes-of-the-bahamas/
Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Apr 27, 2018 13:54:03 GMT
Good mornin' Good mornin'
Express
UFO alert: Footage captures moment mysterious object FALLS from sky
A MYSTERIOUS object that looks eerily similar to a UFO has been caught on camera falling from the sky in Somerset after footage of the large black object plunging to earth from the middle of a rainbow was caught by a bystander in Bridgwater.
By Belinda Robinson
PUBLISHED: 17:57, Thu, Apr 26, 2018
It is not clear what the object was or why it fell from the sky on Saturday, but the sight of it has sparked feverish speculation among viewers who watched the video that it could be anything from a bird to a UFO.
The footage was captured by Meghan Taylor, who was recording a storm in the historic market town last weekend.
Ms Taylor told the Bridgwater Mercury she had only been trying to capture the lightning when she spotted the black object hurtling towards the ground.
She said: "I've never seen a storm quite like it, and I've definitely never seen something falling to Earth like that either. I have no idea what it was."
Nigel Watson, a UFO expert who has written a book called the Haynes UFO Investigation Manual, said: “The video does make it look like this is something solid falling from the sky, like one of the Martian cylinders in The War of the Worlds.
But he added that it looked “artificial in its descent” for such a big object and "would have made a big impact on landing but nothing of this nature has been reported. “
Viewers were divided over the video.
Rick1973 wrote: “It's a bird."
more after the jump:
www.express.co.uk/news/weird/951722/ufo-mystery-alien-object-sky-bridgwater-somerset
Crystal
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Apr 27, 2018 13:58:39 GMT
mavi 777
Published on Apr 26, 2018
Megan Taylor claimed to have captured the moment a UFO was 'falling from the sky' during the storm that struck Bridgewater in Somerset.
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Crystal
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Post by philliman on Apr 27, 2018 15:03:39 GMT
I wonder if she checked the room after he left.
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Post by swamprat on Apr 27, 2018 15:43:44 GMT
Dress up like Chewbacca and surprise your friends.....
Life-size holograms set to revolutionize videoconferencing
New light field displays effectively simulate teleportation
Date: April 25, 2018
Source: Queen's University
Summary: TeleHuman 2 -- the world's first truly holographic videoconferencing system -- is being unveiled. TeleHuman2 allows people in different locations to appear before one another in life-size 3-D -- as if they were in the same room.
"People often think of holograms as the posthumous Tupac Shakur performance at Coachella 2012," says Roel Vertegaal, Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the Queen's University School of Computing. "Tupac's image, however, was not a hologram but a Pepper Ghost: A two-dimensional video projected on a flat piece of glass. With TeleHuman 2, we're bringing actual holograms to life."
Using a ring of intelligent projectors mounted above and around a retro-reflective, human-sized cylindrical pod, Dr. Vertegaal's team has been able to project objects as light fields that can be walked around and viewed from all sides simultaneously by multiple users -- much like Star Trek's famed, fictional 'holodeck'. Capturing the remote 3D image with an array of depth cameras, his team has 'teleported' live, 3D images of a human from one room to another -- a feat that is set to revolutionize human telepresence. Because the display projects a light field with many images, one for every degree of angle, users need not wear a headset or 3D glasses to experience each other in augmented reality.
"Face-to-face interaction transfers an immense amount of non-verbal information," says Dr. Vertegaal, who is also the head of the Queen's Human Media Lab. "This information is lost in online tools, promoting poor online behaviours. Users miss the proxemics, gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact that bring nuance, emotional connotation and ultimately empathy to a conversation. TeleHuman 2 injects these missing elements into long-distance conversations with a realism that cannot be achieved with a Skype or Facetime video chat."
Dr. Vertegaal first debuted the TeleHuman technology in 2012, but at that time the device only allowed for a single viewer to see the holographic projection correctly. With TeleHuman 2, multiple participants are able to see their holographic friend or colleague, each from their individual perspective. To test the system, Dr. Vertegaal had users judge angles at which a robotic arrow, mounted on a tripod, was pointing whilst physically present in the room, and whilst rendered on the TeleHuman 2. They did not judge the angles between the real and the virtual representation as significantly different.
"In a professional environment like a meeting, our latest edition of TeleHuman technology will do wonders for attendees looking to address colleagues with eye contact or to more effectively manage turn taking" says Dr. Vertegaal. "But it has potential beyond professional situations. Think again of a large music festival, and now imagine a performer capable of appearing simultaneously, and in true 3D, on TeleHuman 2 devices throughout the venue -- bringing a whole new level of audience intimacy to a performance. The TeleHuman technology could even mitigate environmental impacts of business travel -- enabling organizations to conduct more engaging and effective meetings from a distance, rather than having to appear in person. "
Dr. Vertegaal and his collaborators will be presenting TeleHuman 2 to the general public at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, the premier international conference on Human-Computer Interaction, in Montreal, Canada on April 25, 2018.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Queen's University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
1. Daniel Gotsch, Xujing Zhang, Timothy Merritt, Roel Vertegaal. TeleHuman 2.0: A Cylindrical Light Field Teleconferencing System for Life-size 3D Human Telepresence. Proceedings of CHI'18 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2018; DOI: 10.1145/3173574.3174096
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180425120208.htm
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Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2018 17:57:24 GMT
 Sterling brain cell busting posts people!
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Apr 27, 2018 22:11:17 GMT
I wonder if she checked the room after he left.
Crystal |
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Post by WingsofCrystal on Apr 27, 2018 22:13:15 GMT
Sterling brain cell busting posts people! 
Crystal
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Post by GhostofEd on Apr 27, 2018 22:54:23 GMT
Sterling brain cell busting posts people! 
Crystal
I remember that from the old site's Stuff and Nonsense.  |
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Sterling brain cell busting posts people!
