Clipmarks | JohnWaterman's clips

Mediterranean was created in Earth's biggest deluge

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:02:06 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

The Mediterranean Sea was formed by the most spectacular flood in Earth's history when water from the Atlantic Ocean breached the mountain range joining Europe and Africa with the force of a thousand Amazon rivers

The devastating surge lasted as long as two years and at its peak caused the level of the Mediterranean to rise by more than 10 metres a day. The floodwaters moved at more than 100 kilometres per hour and created scars on the seabed that are still visible today

The deluge was triggered 5.3m years ago by subsidence in the seabed that caused a land ridge between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean basin to collapse

At the time, the Mediterranean basin was an almost entirely dry expanse of low lying land, between 1.5km and 2.7km beneath today's sea level

The floodwater discharged around 100m cubic metres of water every second, creating a 200km-long channel across the strait. Today, the Mediterranean contains 4m cubic kilometres of water.

Hubble Advent Calendar

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:38:09 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Once more, we enter the month of December and the traditional western Holiday Season, and once again, I'd like to present a Hubble Space Telescope imagery Advent Calendar for 2009. Keep checking this page, because every day, for the next 25 days, a new photo will be revealed here from the Hubble Space Telescope, some old and some new. I have felt extremely fortunate to have been able to share photographs and stories with you all this year, and I wish for a Happy Holiday to all those who will celebrate, and for Peace on Earth to everyone. - Alan (25 photos total - eventually) [previously: the 2008 calendar]

Boom-boom-krak-oo

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:54:09 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Campbell's monkeys combine just six 'words' into rich vocabulary.

Difficult to do this justice in a clip so please follow the link to the whole article.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Campbell's monkeys have just six basic types of calls but they have combined them into one of the richest and most sophisticated of animal vocabularies

By chaining calls together in ways that drastically alter their meaning, they can communicate to each other about other falling trees, rival groups, harmless animals and potential threats. They can signal the presence of an unspecified threat, a leopard or an eagle, and even how imminent the danger is

six different types of call

described as boom (B), krak (K), krak-oo (K+), hok (H), hok-oo (H+) and wak-oo (W+)

With no danger in sight

a pair of booms - is made when the monkey is far away from the group and can't see them

a summons

Adding a krak-oo to the end of the boom pair changes its meaning

the signal now means "Watch out for that branch"

Interspersing the booms and krak-oos with some hok-oos changes the meaning yet again

"Prepare for battle"

hok-oo is essentially meaningless

they only use it to change the meaning of another call

Our Rights

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:40:18 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.humanrightsactioncenter.org

[Video]

Campaign to Print the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Into Passports

[Video]

Given that less than 5% of the world knows of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights existence at this time, it seems that the only way to get the document seriously distributed is through the passports.
What I want is for governments to own their own document. It is for all people, but governments need to acknowledge its existence. Because passports are the official representation of government, if the declaration is in all passports, it becomes an official documentation of the world.

I would like you to WRITE A SIMPLE LETTER of this affect, asking your senator, congressmen and our new government to do this. If the United States Government were to do this, it would send a good signal to the rest of the world that we intend to live by international standards and would signal that the new government is quite serious about protecting the rights of all people.

Five-Story Steel Ball Makes Novel Hospital (Jan, 1929)

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:36:46 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: blog.modernmechanix.com

Clip Source: www.lakesidepress.com

One of the strangest experiments in medical science's long and constant fight against disease, an experiment to which H.H. Timken, Canton, Ohio, manufacturer, has given $1,000,000, has been undertaken in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the Timken Tank, a huge airtight, steel ball fitted out as a hospital, in which patients suffering from diabetes and other maladies will live under 30 pounds air pressure, which is forced into the steel ball by powerful compressors.
[Original Photo and Legend, from 1928. Courtesy of Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland]

Questions and Answers about the Monster Steel Ball

Lawrence Martin, M.D.

the Steel Ball "was sold a few times in the mid-1930s and the ground was bought by the Cleveland Catholic Diocese in 1941

The steel ball was dismantled and sold for scrap metal during World War II."

"Rubenesque" Proportions

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:53:05 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.all-art.org

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Herlinde Koelb

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Herlinde Koelb

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Herlinde Koelb

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Peter Paul Rubens

Fernando Botero

Lauriet Toby Edison

Isaac Asimov and the fuzzy nature of knowledge

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:24:44 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

when people list great science popularizers of the past

Sagan and Feynman always pop up

people seem to have forgotten Isaac Asimov

one example, in which he addresses a claim we hear all the time, that the errors of the past mean our knowledge now is on very shaky ground. He's answering a complaint from an English Lit student who chastised Asimov for thinking he knew anything at all

My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that "right" and "wrong" are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts

Go read the rest, it's worth the time.

Butterflynauts Emerge from Cocoons on ISS

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:10:16 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

Four “butterflynauts” have emerged on the International Space Station. They are part of a suitcase sized educational experiment that was launched Nov. 16 on space shuttle Atlantis as part of the STS-129 mission. Students of all ages and the public are invited to follow the tiny crew’s development from larvae to adult butterflies in the microgravity of space.

In over 100 classrooms across the U.S., students have set up habitats and are replicating the space experiment. Their objective is to compare the growth and behavior of ground-based butterfly larvae and adult butterflies with those living in the microgravity environment of space. New pictures and videos and Powerpoint slides are available almost daily.

A free Butterflies in Space teacher’s guide can be downloaded from BioEd Online at the Butterflies in Space website here. The project is sponsored by National Space Biomedical Research Institute.

[Video]

The World Cup: South Africa 2010 - Who's going and how they got there.

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:30:09 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: misschee.files.wordpress.com

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The road to South Africa

Highlights of all the qualifiers

USA

Clip Source: www.fifa.com

Latest Photos

On the case with Weegee the Famous

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:18:53 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

24 November 2009: Part artist, part detective, Arthur Fellig – better known as Weegee – prowled the seedy underbelly of pre-war New York, looking for crime scenes to photograph. A press photographer whose nickname came from his mysterious, ouija-like ability to sense trouble, he developed his stark and noirish signature style by chasing the city's emergency services.

Clip Source: www.rachelhulin.com

Clip Source: www.bakedinny.com

Clip Source: www.rachelhulin.com

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Weegee later went on to work in film, collaborating with the likes of Stanley Kubrick, but is best remembered for photography that typified New York street life between the wars. A selection of his works – many of which have never previously been seen in the UK – go on display at Michael Hoppen Gallery from 25 November until 10 January 2010

Clip Source: www.michaelhoppengallery.com

Weegee-It's a crime to take photographs this good...

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Colour Seen Through The Microscope

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:23:04 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.colourlovers.com

Started in 1974, the Nikon Small World Competition has been recognizing excellence in photography through the microscope.

"A photomicrograph is a technical document that can be of great significance to science or industry. But a good photomicrograph is also an image whose structure, color, composition, and content is an object of beauty, open to several levels of comprehension and appreciation."

Today, we're taking a look at a selection of palettes from the top photos in the 2009 competition.

Clip Source: www.nikonsmallworld.com

The 2009 Winners

Clip Source: www.colourlovers.com

Meet the Fuggers

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:21:40 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: bibliodyssey.blogspot.com

The Fugger family dynasty began in the mid-14th century with a modest textile business in the Swabian town of Augsburg. Over the next two hundred years the family amassed one of the greatest fortunes of all time. Through banking and mining interests they acquired the wealth and assets of the Florentine House of Medici and exerted great influence over the Holy Roman Empire and the royal courts of Europe. Like the Medici, the Fuggers were also significant patrons of the arts during the Renaissance.

The Fugger family history, going back to the 1300s, was documented pictorially in two manuscripts from different time periods, displaying the crests, family trees and portraits of family members.

The Fugger family manuscripts are available from Bayerische Landesbibliothek Online in both regular browsing format and 3-D Java (turn-the-page by any other name) displays. The landing page is in English. An exhibition of these works will be held at the Bavarian State Library in March to May 2010.

Native American Prints from the Pennington Photo Studio

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:34:59 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: blogs.denverpost.com

In the early 1900s, William Pennington and Lisle Updike spent most days traveling the four corners area of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona in a wagon photographing the people and landscapes

These prints were recently uncovered by Denver Post librarians, tucked away in a folder in a file cabinet. The captions were hand written on the back of each print

Navajo woman

The Scout, Ute Indian

Navajo Indian woman posing with child

Ute Indian, This is the man that made his X, signing away a part of the Ute reserve which is now Mesa Verde Park

Ute Indian Girl

Ute Indian in plain clothes

Old Navajo Warrior holding his weapon

Navajo Brother and Sister

On the shoreline

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:52:24 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.boston.com

We humans are drawn to the shore, with some 40% of the world's population living within 100 kilometers of a coast

here are a handful of photographs from around the world of people and animals at the shoreline, playing, working, struggling or relaxing on the border between land and sea

Surfer Andrew Brooks is surprised to have company on a wave at Cape Adieu, 160 kms (99 miles) west of Ceduna

Indonesians play in the water at Ancol beach during the Eid al-Fitr holiday in Jakarta, Indonesia on September 21

Women wearing their wedding dresses are pictured on a North Sea beach in Scheveningen, Netherlands, on September 09 2009. The photographer Melanie Rijkers initiated the act after she found out about the American phenomenon "Trash the dress" on the internet. The idea behind it is to have fun once more with your used wedding dress

Spain's Queen Sofia releases a marine turtle

Australian dare-devils

Ani Triastuti prays while sitting on a desk, in her house which has been flooded by sea wate

Renounce your pomp!

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:03:33 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

I think I like this woman. Nell McCafferty rips into representatives of the Catholic church, asking, "What's holy about the Vatican?" and insisting that they ought to set aside the titles of "Father" and "Grace" and so forth, because they've betrayed them. I love the Irish when they get that fire in their eye!

[Video]

Clipmarks | JohnWaterman's clips

Mediterranean was created in Earth's biggest deluge

Hubble Advent Calendar

Boom-boom-krak-oo

Our Rights

Campaign to Print the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Into Passports

Five-Story Steel Ball Makes Novel Hospital (Jan, 1929)

Questions and Answers about the Monster Steel Ball

"Rubenesque" Proportions

Isaac Asimov and the fuzzy nature of knowledge

Butterflynauts Emerge from Cocoons on ISS

The World Cup: South Africa 2010 - Who's going and how they got there.

Latest Photos

Team galleries

On the case with Weegee the Famous

Weegee-It's a crime to take photographs this good...

Colour Seen Through The Microscope

The 2009 Winners

Meet the Fuggers

Native American Prints from the Pennington Photo Studio

On the shoreline

Renounce your pomp!