Clipmarks | rnilanjan's clips

35,000-year-old statue thought to be world's first nude sculpture

Tue, 19 May 2009 13:44:56 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

The sexually explicit figurine was carved out of mammoth ivory and was given huge breasts and private parts along with a bloated belly and thighs that by today's standards "could be seen as bordering on the pornographic."

The prehistoric figurine, named 'Venus' after the Roman goddess of love

Cavemen were obsessed with big breasts and bottoms and exaggerated these traits in their art as they regarded these parts of the female anatomy as signs of fertility.

The statue, described in Nature, was found buried in the Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura region of south-western Germany

The 'Venus of Hohle Fels' lacks a head and instead there is an off-centre but carefully carved ring located above the figurine's broad shoulders.

Venus has "grotesquely exaggerated sexual features

it is 5,000 years older than well-known 'Venuses' from the Gravettian culture

Tags: news, science

Sleep can improve your word power

Tue, 19 May 2009 13:40:44 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Psychologists have discovered that a good night's sleep plays a crucial role in allowing the brain to store and remember new words learned during the day.

The researchers also found the effect was strongest for words that were learned just before going to bed as opposed to earlier in the day.

It is good news for anyone who likes to listen to the radio before going to sleep or reading a book to their children at bedtime as they may be unconsciously improving their vocabulary.

"After sleep, people can process new words just as effectively as they can words that are already well-established in their vocabulary.

"Good advice for students revising for their exams would be to get a good night's sleep after studying to help them remember what they have learned."

it fits with the idea that teaching children new words at the end of the day is a really optimal way of learning

Tags: news, science

Mystery of the 'sardonic grin' solved

Tue, 19 May 2009 13:29:43 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

The word 'sardonic' has its roots in the name Sardinia, because a plant commonly found on the island was used in potions which gave corpses a grimace after death.

The plant was used in pre-Roman times for the ritual killing of old people who had become a burden to society.

elderly people unable to support themselves were intoxicated with the herb and then killed by being dropped from a high rock or by being beaten to death

The facial muscular contraction induced by the sardonic herb mimicked a smile, and the expression risus sardonicus (sardonic smile) to indicate a sinister smile

The Punics were convinced that death was the start of new life, to be greeted with a smile

The plant, which is common on the Mediterranean island, is known in Latin as Oenanthe crocata but to Sardinians as water celery. It is distantly related to carrots

Tags: news, science

Obesity is best for heart disease sufferers

Tue, 19 May 2009 13:21:24 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Researchers found that obese heart patients respond better to strokes and heart attacks compared to normal or underweight patients.

Although obesity is a leading cause of heart disease, paradoxically scientists say fat and even high cholesterol may have protective benefits.

Cardiologist Carl J. Lavie, of the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, said: " Overweight heart patients do better than thin patients, but overweight patients who lose weight do best of all.

It is knowns as "reverse epidemiology" where obesity and even high cholesterol may have protective benefits and be associated with a greater survivability in certain groups of people such as the very elderly and those with certain chronic diseases.

Tags: news, science

Check. This. Out. Amazing photo of the Sun…

Fri, 15 May 2009 17:52:14 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

OK, so you look at it and say, "So what? It’s a picture of the quiet Sun seen in overcast conditions. Big deal!"

Ah, but a big deal it is. See those spots in the lower left quadrant of our nearest star? Those aren’t sunspots… here, let me show you what those are:

Yes, that is in fact the Space Shuttle Atlantis silhouetted against the Sun. But wait, there’s something else, isn’t there. What’s that spot below the Shuttle?

That, me droogs, is the Hubble Space Telescope. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

Tags: astronomy, space, photos

'Jesus in jeans' sculpture unveiled

Thu, 14 May 2009 14:06:28 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Father David Buckley unveiled the £35,000 seven-foot high bronze statue at the Our Lady Immaculate and St Philip Neri Catholic church in Uckfield.

Christ is wearing jeans and a shirt billowing in the wind while his hair and beard are neatly and fashionably trimmed.

Tags: pictures odd

Stealth Bomber Snapped At The Sound Barrier

Wed, 13 May 2009 21:37:33 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: news.sky.com

The US military has released a spectacular photograph showing its B-2 stealth bomber as it approaches the sound barrier over the Californian desert.

The aircraft's unusual design and use of composite materials makes it difficult to be detected by enemy radar.

The B-2 can travel as high as 50,000ft and weighs 153,700lbs without its payload of bombs.

Tags: pictures

Dwarf Galaxies Orbiting The Milky Way Nix Newton

Mon, 11 May 2009 17:42:34 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.universetoday.com

Maybe Newton was indeed wrong

As modern cosmologists rely more and more on the ominous “dark matter” to explain otherwise inexplicable observations

no direct proof could be found

Their only problem is that they conflict with Newton’s theory of gravitation

examined so-called “satellite galaxies

there is something unusual about their distribution

It would not be the first time that Newton’s theory of gravitation had to be modified over the past hundred years

theoretical calculations tell us that the satellites created cannot contain any dark matter

The stars in the satellites we have observed are moving much faster than predicted by the Gravitational Law

lie more or less in the same plane, they are forming some sort of a disc in the sky

According to the best cosmological models, they exist presumably in hundreds around most of the major galaxies

Tags: astronomy, space

Why Young Earth Creationists Must Deny Gravity

Wed, 06 May 2009 23:39:08 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: astronomy, space

Ear noise can be used as identification

Fri, 01 May 2009 14:15:31 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Researchers have discovered that they can identify individuals from the faint sounds made deep inside the human ear and are now developing security devices using the technology.

iPods and mobile phones could be fitted with antitheft devices that detect "acoustic fingerprints" so they only work when they are being used by the registered owner.

The sounds produced are not audible to the human ear and people are unaware they are being produced in their own ears

The technology uses extremely faint sounds that are produced inside the human ear called otoacoustic emissions.

Otoacoustic emissions are already used by doctors as a way of testing the hearing of babies

"When you phone your bank, they could send out a series of clicks through your headset or phone and analyse the response to confirm whether you are who you say you are."

Tags: science, news

Second-born children really are more rebellious

Fri, 01 May 2009 11:37:27 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

have found firstborn children are likely to conform while younger siblings are prone to more independent personalities, confirming what generations of parents have long suspected.

Second-born children showed increases in traits like adventurousness and independence across adolescence, whereas in firstborns, these traits did not change much over time

firstborns conform more, while second-borns are more likely to rebel

Girls who spent time with other girls developed more feminine characteristics while boys became more masculine if they played with other boys, the study found. However, both boys and girls appeared to benefit from having female friends, becoming more adventurous and independent if they played with girls.

It also found children who showed faster rates of increase in the hormone testosterone in early adolescence were not as affected by social influences on their personality development.

Tags: science, news

'Alien skull' spotted on Mars

Fri, 01 May 2009 11:22:41 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

this image of the Mars landscape has got space-gazers talking.

An oddly shaped space boulder appears to show eye sockets and a nose leading to speculation it might be a Martian skull.

One alien-spotter speculated: "The skull is 15 cm with binocular eyes 5 cm apart. The cranial capacity is approximately 1400 cc.

"There appears to be a narrow pointed small mouth, so this creature most likely is a carnivore."

Another joked: "The coronal ridge shows ample structure to support the musculature of antennae, although none are visible in this view.

Previous images of a skull spotted on Mars in 2006 were believed to have been the result of tampering.

Tags: space

Debut for world's fastest camera

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:27:51 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The fastest imaging system ever devised has been demonstrated

Their camera snaps images less than a half a billionth of a second long, capturing over six million of them in a second continuously.

The approach will be instrumental in analysing, for example, flowing blood samples in a search for diseased cells.

the camera works with just one detector, rather than the millions in a typical digital camera.

the technique depends on carefully manipulating so-called "supercontinuum" laser pulses.

These pulses, less than a millionth of a millionth of a second long, contain an enormously broad range of colours.

the system can be improved to acquire more than 10 million images per second - more than 200,000 times faster than a standard video camera.

what if you needed to detect the presence of very rare cells that, although few in number, signify early stages of a disease?

But with the Steam camera, fast-flowing cells can be individually imaged.

Tags: news, technology, tech

Sun-like star's 'oddball' planet

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:51:34 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Astronomers have discovered a strange Jupiter-sized world circling a star similar to our own Sun.

At its furthest point, the planet is about as far from its star as the Earth is from the Sun.

But at its nearest, it is about 10 times closer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun

makes its close approach every 111 days

If an observer were to hover above the cloud tops of this world, they would see their parent star grow to 30 times the size that the Sun appears in our own sky.

HD80606b would now appear to hold the record for both the longest orbital period and most eccentric orbit of all observed transiting planets.

The temperature on the planet is changing from about 3C - which is what you might have on Earth - to about 1,200C. So it is going through a huge change in the amount of heating

the companion star tugs on the planet's orbit over millions of years to leave it in the strange configuration we see today

Tags: astronomy, space

Mt. Everest From Above

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:52:32 GMT

clipped by: rnilanjan

Clip Source: www.nasa.gov

Tags: photos