Clipmarks | invictus's clips

California burning

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:16:26 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Californian clippers, take care...

Los Angeles firefighters douse a burning hillside with water during a wind driven wildfire in northern Los Angeles on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008. The fire sent thousands of residents fleeing in the dark, forcing a hospital to evacuate and destroyed an untold number of homes.

Tags: california, wildfire

It's been 3 years, guys...

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:30:17 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: omega.wordpress.com

Yes guys, time runs really fast. Three years ago today, I joined Clipmarks and my online experience has never been the same since the very first day I start clipping. No other web site, online service or community could give me so much valuable things that Clipmarks and the “clippiverse” generously offered. I enjoyed every single day very much and I learned so many things here, following your clips or reading your comments. More important than this, I have many good friends now all around the world - some of them have already become “old pals” for me.

So, thank you again EricG, Adam, EricSkiff, Derek and EricW: I owe all these to you. Hope to celebrate my 4th, 5th, 6th ….. clippiversaries here together!

And dear clippers, my friends, thank you for sharing your knowledge, feelings, recommendations and friendship.

Tags: clipmarks

"Spider God" Temple Found in Peru

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:46:46 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Watch the video at the source site.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

A 3,000-year-old temple featuring an image of a spider god may hold clues to little-known cultures in ancient Peru.

People of the Cupisnique culture, which thrived from roughly 1500 to 1000 B.C., built the temple in the Lambayeque valley on Peru's north coast.

The finds suggest that the three valley sites may have been part of a large capital for divine worship, said archaeologist Walter Alva, director of the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum.

The entire religious complex houses every ancient Peruvian architectural style up to the Inca, Walter Alva said, one of only a few sites in Peru that spans so many cultures.

The spider-god image appears often in other sites created during Peru's Early Formative Period, 1200 to 400 B.C.

Tags: archaeology, south america, peru, pre-inca

New Pyramid Found in Egypt

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:04:34 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Nov. 11, 2008 -- Egypt's chief archaeologist has announced the discovery of a 4,300-year-old pyramid in Saqqara, the sprawling necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis.

The pyramid is said to belong to Queen Sesheshet, the mother of King Teti who was the founder of the 6th Dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom.

Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass made the announcement Tuesday at the site in Saqqara, about 12 miles south of Cairo.

Hawass' team has been excavating the site for two years. He says the discovery was only made two months ago when it became clear that the 16-foot-tall structure uncovered from the sand was a pyramid.

Hawass says the new pyramid is the 118th discovered so far in Egypt.

Tags: archaeology, egypt, pyramids, egyptology

Obama moves to brink of historic win

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:50:57 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Congrats go to all my American friends...

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama moved to the brink of becoming the first black U.S. president on Tuesday with a breakthrough win in Ohio, leaving Republican John McCain fighting for his political life.

Tags: elections, united states, barack obama, democrats

Wealth gap creating a social time bomb

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:37:12 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Growing inequality in US cities could lead to widespread social unrest and increased mortality, says a new United Nations report on the urban environment.

"High levels of inequality can lead to negative social, economic and political consequences that have a destabilising effect on societies," said the report. "[They] create social and political fractures that can develop into social unrest and insecurity."

According to the annual State of the World's cities report from UN-Habitat, race is one of the most important factors determining levels of inequality in the US and Canada.

"It is clear that social tension comes from inequality. The trickle down theory [that wealth starts with the rich] has not delivered. Inequality is not good for anybody," said Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-Habitat, in London yesterday.

Tags: inequality, economy, capitalism, wealth

'Oldest Hebrew script' is found

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:00:00 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Five lines of ancient script on a shard of pottery could be the oldest example of Hebrew writing ever discovered, an archaeologist in Israel says.

The shard was found by a teenage volunteer during a dig about 20km (12 miles) south-west of Jerusalem.

Experts at Hebrew University said dating showed it was written 3,000 years ago - about 1,000 years earlier than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Other scientists cautioned that further study was needed to understand it.

Preliminary investigations since the shard was found in July have deciphered some words, including judge, slave and king.

The characters are written in proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet.

Tags: archaeology, israel, middle east, hebrew, writing

The Problem Is Capitalism, Not Just the Banks

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:33:15 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks:

This article is based on the Deutscher Lecture which Rick Kuhn, Reader in Political Science at the ANU, will deliver in London on 7 November. Dr. Kuhn's book Henryk Grossman and the Recovery of Marxism won the 2007 Deutscher prize.

Clip Source: mrzine.monthlyreview.org

Don't panic! That's the panicked cry of governments and central bankers around the world. Meanwhile their behaviour shows that they expect a very, very deep recession.

More 'transparency' and better regulation of banking won't deal with the underlying issue which is low average rates of profit across the global economy.

Capitalism has a tendency to break down that is expressed in deep crises like the current one. Grossman argued that

capitalist production is characterized by insoluble conflicts. Irremediable systemic convulsions necessarily arise . . . from the immanent contradiction between value and use value, between profitability and productivity, between limited possibilities for valorisation and the unlimited development of the productive forces.

The fact that production is organised not to satisfy human needs but to make profits for the capitalist class is the ultimate cause of the system's recurrent crises.

Tags: capitalism, economy, crisis, finance

Plants send S.O.S. signal when under attack

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 02:06:30 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: This reminded me the legendary (and controversial) book of the '70s, "The Secret Life of Plants".

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2008) — Researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered that when the leaf of a plant is under attack by a pathogen, it can send out an S.O.S. to the roots for help, and the roots will respond by secreting an acid that brings beneficial bacteria to the rescue.

The finding quashes the misperception that plants are “sitting ducks”--at the mercy of passing pathogens--and sheds new light on a sophisticated signaling system inside plants that rivals the nervous system in humans and animals.

Top: This Arabidopsis plant infected with the pathogen Pseudomonas syringae shows typical yellowing and disease symptoms. Bottom: This plant's roots were treated with the beneficial bacterium Bacillus subtilis. (Credit: Photos by Thimmaraju Rudrappa)

Tags: plants, biology, science

Welcome back, "Blue America"

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:42:14 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: It's exciting witnessing the history... The eight-year-long nightmare is over at last.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.

Mr. Obama’s election amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.

Tags: barack obama, elections, united states

12,000-year-old female shaman’s bones found

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:49:11 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: An amazing discovery.

Clip Source: www.gulf-times.com

Archaeologists have found the 12,000-old skeleton of a female shaman buried in northern Israel alongside 50 tortoises, body parts of a leopard, a boar and other animals as well as a human foot.
The burial site is among the earliest known of a shaman, or healer, according to the archaeological team led by Leore Grosman of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The grave was found during excavations of a 12,000-year-old cave site of the Natufian culture in Hilazon Tachtit, in the Galilee area of northern Israel.
Analysis of the bones show that the shaman was 45 years old, petite and had an unnatural, asymmetrical appearance due to a spinal disability that would have affected the woman’s gait, causing her to limp or drag her foot.
The burial site was unlike any from the Natufian or the preceding Paleolithic periods discovered to date, said Grosman.

Tags: archaeology, anthropology, prehistory, israel, shaman, natufian

Stonehenge 'older than believed'

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:25:25 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Say goodbye to "conventional" 2300 BCE date. Every evidence backs the "older" theories which suggested a construction date well before 3000 BCE.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

New findings at Stonehenge suggest its stones were erected much earlier than thought, challenging the site's conventional history.

A new excavation puts the stones' arrival at 3000 BC - almost 500 years earlier than originally thought - and suggests it was mainly a burial site.

The latest results are from a dig by the Stonehenge Riverside Project.

It is in conflict with recent research dating construction to 2300 BC and suggesting it was a healing centre.

The 2300 BC date was arrived at by carbon dating and was the major finding from an excavation inside the henge by professors Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright.

That dig was the subject of a BBC Timewatch documentary.

The team suggests the 2300 BC date relates to the time when the stones were moved from the outer pits to the centre of the site.

Professor Parker-Pearson said: "It's very exciting that we have evidence for stones right from its beginnings around 3000 BC.

Tags: archaeology, britain, stonehenge

World's Most Advanced Microscope Unveiled

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:14:59 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: "The Hubble Telescope" of microcosmos.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2008) — It's the equivalent of taking the Hubble Telescope and aiming it at the atomic level rather than at stars and galaxies, says Gianluigi Botton, director of the new Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy at McMaster, site of the world's most advanced and powerful electron microscope.

The Titan 80-300 Cubed was installed at the University early in the summer, and since then it has been put through its paces to achieve unprecedented resolution, and is quickly gaining attention from the media and scientists who work in the field.

"We are certainly the first university in the world with a microscope of such a high calibre," says Botton. "With this microscope we can now easily identify atoms, measure their chemical state and even probe the electrons that bind them together."

Mo Elbestawi, McMaster's vice-president, Research and International Affairs, says the power of the microscope is making McMaster a hub for a fast growing field.

Tags: microscopes, optics, science

The World's Oldest Temple - 12,000 year-old Gobekli Tepe

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:51:24 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: From Archaeology Magazine's November/December 2008 issue...

The press here is fond of calling the site "the Turkish Stonehenge," but the comparison hardly does justice to this 25-acre arrangement of at least seven stone circles. The first structures at Göbekli Tepe were built as early as 10,000 B.C., predating their famous British counterpart by about 7,000 years.

Clip Source: www.archaeology.org

The oldest man-made place of worship yet discovered, Göbekli Tepe is "one of the most important monuments in the world," says Hassan Karabulut, associate curator of the nearby Urfa Museum. He and archaeologist Zerrin Ekdogan of the Turkish Ministry of Culture guide me around the site. Their enthusiasm for the ancient temple is palpable.

Before the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, archaeologists believed that societies in the early Neolithic were organized into small bands of hunter-gatherers and that the first complex religious practices were developed by groups that had already mastered agriculture. Scholars thought that the earliest monumental architecture was possible only after agriculture provided Neolithic people with food surpluses, freeing them from a constant focus on day-to-day survival. A site of unbelievable artistry and intricate detail, Göbekli Tepe has turned this theory on its head.

Tags: gobekli tepe, turkey, prehistory, neolithic, archaeology, science

yBook: Free e-book reader

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:01:01 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: A free etext reader with a built in "Project Gutenberg" catalogue, which makes to download a book a snap. Couple of nice features - easy to use.

Clip Source: www.spacejock.com

Freeware pdb, text, html and rtf ebook reader software

Features:

Runs on any Windows PC (Win95 or later)
Display your book on side-by-side or single pages.
Resize the pages, adjust the margins, set text and paper colour.
Text, html and RTF reader
PDB and PRC reader
Search for words or phrases
Automatic bookmarks
Text sizes from tiny to HUGE
No zooming, panning or scrolling
Direct download of all Gutenberg titles, with index.
Internationalised menus - Spanish, German, etc

Completely free to use: No registration, no adware, no spyware.

Tags: books, etext, free, reading, software