CHRISTIAN HOLY WEEK

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry}, Folio 173v
 The Entry into Jerusalem

Holy Week (Latin: Hebdomada Sancta or Hebdomada Maior, lit. 'Greater Week'; Ancient Greek: Ἁγία καὶ Μεγάλη Ἑβδομάς, romanized: Hagia kai Megale Hebdomas, lit. 'Holy and Great Week') is the most sacred week in the liturgical year in Christianity. In Eastern Churches, which includes Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Eastern Lutheran traditions, Holy Week occurs the week after Lazarus Saturday and starts on the evening of Palm Sunday. In the denominations of the Western Christianity, which includes the Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Moravianism, Anglicanism, Methodism and Reformed Christianity, it begins with Palm Sunday and concludes on Easter Sunday. For all Christian traditions it is a moveable observance. In Eastern Rite Churches, Holy Week starts after 40 days of Lent and two transitional days, namely Saturday of Lazarus (Lazarus Saturday) and Palm Sunday. In the Western Christian Churches, Holy Week falls on the last week of Lent or Sixth Lent Week.

Holy Week begins with the commemoration of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, marks the betrayal of Jesus on Spy Wednesday (Holy Wednesday), climaxing with the commemoration of the Mystical or Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and the Passion of Jesus on Good Friday. Holy Week concludes with Christ's rest in death and descent into Hades on Holy Saturday.

It is believed Jesus rested in death from the ninth hour (3 pm) on Good Friday until just before dawn on Sunday morning, the day of his resurrection from death, commonly known as Easter Sunday. This marks the beginning of the season of Eastertide, with its first week being known as Easter Week (Bright Week).

Holy Week liturgies generally attract the largest crowds of the year. Many Christian cultures have different traditions such as special liturgies or services, floats, sculptures or live reenactments of Christ's life, his arrest and crucifixion (also called the Lord's passion, the Passion of Christ or Passion of Jesus). In Eastern Rite Churches there are also many means to commemorate the Great Feasts and emphasize the theme of resurrection.  Many television stations in Anglophone countries air films related to Holy Week, such as The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Jesus Film.  SOURCE:  Wikipedia

Honey

 

Systematic Randomness

Trying to Buy Twitter

Tesla boss Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter, saying he is the right person to "unlock" the social media platform's "extraordinary potential".

In a surprise announcement, Mr Musk said he would pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, valuing it at about $40bn.  It recently emerged that Mr Musk was Twitter's biggest shareholder after he built up a large stake in the firm.  He said that if his offer was not accepted: "I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder".

Twitter's share price rose by 5.3% to $48.32 in early trading.

A filing with the US financial regulator appeared to show text and/or voice messages from Mr Musk to Twitter's board, showing that he had raised the idea at the weekend that the business should go private.

Mr Musk had been invited to join the board, but Twitter announced on Sunday he had decided against it.

In the messages published in the filing, Mr Musk said he was not "playing the back-and-forth game" and said of his offer: "It's a high price and your shareholders will love it."  He said he would have to sell his shares if the deal did not go through.  "This is not a threat, it's simply not a good investment without the changes that need to be made," he added.

Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said: "This is a deeply hostile move from Elon Musk who has threatened to 'reconsider' his 9.2% stake in the company if his 100% acquisition offer is rejected."  In his filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr Musk said he had invested in Twitter because "I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.

"However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company."  He added: "Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it."

Twitter said its board "will carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the company and all Twitter stockholders".

Mr Musk is the world's richest man, according to Forbes magazine, with a net worth of $219bn mostly due to his shareholding in electric vehicle maker Tesla. He also leads the aerospace firm SpaceX.   READ MORE...

Suction Cup

 

Sunspot Launches Ball of Plasma

The "corpse" of a sunspot exploded Monday (April 11), triggering a mass ejection of solar material that is headed in Earth's direction.

The explosion comes courtesy of a dead sunspot called AR2987, according to SpaceWeather.com. The sunspot explosion released loads of energy in the form of radiation, which also led to a coronal mass ejection (CME) — explosive balls of solar material — both of which could spur more intense northern lights in Earth's upper atmosphere. The material in that CME is likely to impact Earth on April 14, according to SpaceWeather.

Sunspots are dark regions on the surface of the sun. They are caused by intense magnetic flux from the sun's interior, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. These spots are temporary and can last anywhere from hours to months. The idea of a "dead" sunspot is more poetic than scientific, said Philip Judge, a solar physicist at the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), but the convection of the sun breaks these spots apart, leaving in their wake magnetically-disturbed bits of quiet solar surface.

"Occasionally," Judge wrote Live Science in an email, "sunspots can 'restart,' with more magnetism appearing later (days, weeks) at the same region, as if a weakness was made in the convection zone, or as if there is an unstable region under the surface that is particularly good at generating magnetic fields beneath."

Whatever the future of AR2987, the sunspot let out a C-class solar flare at 5:21 Universal Time Monday (April 11). Such flares happen when the plasma and magnetic fields above the sunspot give way under stress; they accelerate outward, Judge said, because they would run into dense material if they went downward toward the sun's interior.    READ MORE...

Skiing

 

Certain About our Past

Archaeologists around the world have declared a universal consensus, stating that all archaeological records can give us a consistent understanding of the past.

In a shock move, every single archaeologist has co-signed the same agreement.

No longer will there be disputes about how much meat ancient humans ate, whether they migrated across ice, or what the oldest Homo sapiens remains are – the leading researchers in the field, and also every other researcher in the field, have finally come to the same conclusion.

“There’s enough discord and disagreement in the world as it is. We don’t need to add more rigorous academic debate,” says Professor Helen Hoakes, deputy head of archaeology at the University of Eastern Australia.

“Archaeologists are famous for putting forward different and conflicting theories about what their evidence suggests,” explains Dennis Ovan, director of the Johannesburg Old Knowledge Institute for Excellence in Skulls (JOKIES).

“But when we finally sat down and talked, we realised that almost all of these arguments stemmed from petty disputes on field trips.

“Limited and competitive funding, massive ideological differences, the publish-or-perish world of academia – all of that can be smoothed over by apologising for waking up a whole tent one time, even though you said you weren’t a snorer.”

The centrepiece of the agreement is a comprehensive and universal primer on archaeological ethics, detailing the most ethical way to do archaeological research.

“It turns out that the ethics of archaeology was the easiest to solve of all,” says Dr Anna-Indie Jones, an ethicist at the Centre of Innovation for Dusty Stuff we Thought Looked Important.

“Everyone in the world places exactly the same cultural and spiritual significance in the past, and they all have the same codes for dealing with historic artefacts and ancient human remains.”

Jones would not provide any examples of these codes, saying “it’s all in the agreement” while gently edging out the door of the lab.  READ MORE...

Phone Head

 

Don't Talk About This...

 

Doctors see hundreds of patients each month and thousands of patients each year...  how can they possibly be expected to remember you unless you have been their patient for over 10 years...  but, even then do they actually remember what has taken place between today's visit and your last visit?

IN POINT OF FACT:  they don't remember which is why you sit in the exam room for several minutes while they review the notes from your previous visit and any relevant information about you that they have just received.

They then rely on their medical knowledge and instincts to bullshit their way through the visit.

I am having an MRI done (after waiting 2 months because I am predisposed to anxiety and need to be sedated) and my original follow-up visit was 2 days after the MRI which was perfect.

BUT my orthopedic doctor is not available to tell me what's going on that day for some reason and I have been pushed out over a week....

He cannot give a damn about each and everyone of his patients otherwise it would drive him crazy after constantly having to disappoint him...  as he lives his own life.

Therefore, you must manage your own healthcare and have backup plans in place so that when you get screwed by one, you can flip the switch and go to another...

NOTHING PERSONAL, IT'S JUST MY HEALTH WE ARE TALKING ABOUT...

Cycle

 

Kentucky Derby

Is the Thylacine Extinct or Not?

In March 1982, parked in a remote area of swamp forest in north-western Tasmania, wildlife ranger Hans Naarding was asleep in his vehicle. When he woke up at 2am, it was dark and raining heavily. Out of habit, he switched on his torch and scanned the surrounding area.

“As I swept the beam around, it came to rest on a large thylacine, standing side-on some 6-7m distant,” he later wrote. “I decided to examine the animal carefully before risking movement. It was an adult male in excellent condition with 12 black stripes on a sandy coat. Eye reflection was pale yellow. It moved only once, opening its jaw and showing its teeth.”

When Naarding reached for his camera bag after several minutes, the movement spooked the creature, and it slunk away into the undergrowth.

The encounter was kept secret while an intense search for thylacines was initiated in the surrounding area, but nothing was ever discovered. Naarding’s thylacine, it seemed, had vanished into the night. There was just one problem with this remarkable sighting.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world authority on rare and threatened species, the thylacine – a dog-sized predatory marsupial also known as the Tasmanian tiger – was extinct in 1982. The last known individual died in 1936 in Hobart Zoo; the last reliable sighting of a wild one dates back to 1933. The species died out some time after the mid-1960s.

Why were thylacines hunted to extinction?
Thylacines had long since disappeared from mainland Australia when British colonists arrived in the late 18th century, with an estimated 2,000-4,000 remaining on the island of Tasmania.

But, as a perceived threat to livestock, their days were numbered. The introduction of commercial sheep farming in the 1820s triggered a brutal persecution programme, culminating in a government bounty payment scheme that ran from 1888 to 1909. This probably reduced thylacine numbers to the point of no return.  READ MORE...

Horses

 

Medieval Manuscripts

'Le Régime du corps' described a variety of ways to maintain health by keeping the body in balance. The Bute Painter, circa 1285, MS Arsenal 2510. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France

What type of images come to mind when you think of medieval art? Knights and ladies? Biblical scenes? Cathedrals? It's probably not some unfortunate man in the throes of vomiting.

It might surprise you to learn this scene is found in a luxurious book from the Middle Ages made with the highest-quality materials, including abundant gold leaf. Known as an illustrated manuscript, it was made entirely by hand, as virtually all books were before the adoption of the printing press.

Why would such an opulent art form depict such a mundane topic?

Scholars believe that around 1256, a French countess commissioned the creation of a health manual to share with her four daughters just as they were forming their own households. Known as the "Régime du corps," or "regimen of the body," the book was widely copied and became extremely popular across Europe in the late Middle Ages, specifically between the 13th and 15th centuries. Over 70 unique manuscripts survive today. They offer a window into many aspects of everyday medieval life—from sleeping, bathing and preparing food to bloodletting, leeching and purging.

I'm an art historian who recently published a book called "Visualizing Household Health: Medieval Women, Art, and Knowledge in the Régime du corps" about these magnificent illustrated copies. What's fascinating to me about the "Régime du corps" is how it depicts the responsibilities of women in wealthy medieval households—and how domestic management advice was passed down among them.

In a chapter on caring for one's complexion, two women exchange a remedy. 'Le Régime du corps,' circa 1265-70. British Library, MS Sloane 2435. Credit: The British Library Board

Glimpsing relationships

The illustrations, which are usually located at the start of each chapter, convey information not often found in other historical records. Even if the images are idealized, they reveal an extraordinary amount about the clothes, objects and furnishings of the period. They also show interactions among people that reflect the culture and society in which these books were made.  READ MORE...

Small Black Cat

 

Expansion of Universe Nearing End

The universe is not only expanding, but accelerating that expansion, leading most scientists to anticipate it will keep on growing for a very long time, if not forever. However, a trio of Princeton physicists have challenged this view, presenting a model of the universe in which this expansion is nearly at its end. The universe will start to contract in on itself, they claim, and that could happen surprisingly soon. This is a cosmologist’s “soon”, however, of the order of 100 million years, not something most people would recognize as imminent.

The discovery of acceleration in the expansion of the universe has shaken up cosmology perhaps more than anything else this century. Beforehand the primary debate was whether the universe would expand forever, albeit more slowly, or be dragged back into a “big crunch” as gravity overcame the movement apart.

Acceleration, and the Dark Energy used to explain it, appeared to end the possibility the universe would ever contract again, but a minority of physicists aren't ready to let the idea go. Professor Paul Steinhardt, in particular, has proposed “bouncing” models of the universe. Now Steinhardt and co-authors claim in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the turning point from expansion to contraction could be close without us being able to tell.

The authors do not assert certainty. They refer to three models of Dark Energy's nature. One of these would see the universe continue to expand faster and faster forever, while a second would see it slow at an unpredictable point, probably far in the future.  READ MORE...

Boba

 

Drash

 

Life Flashes Before the Eyes

A new study suggests that life flashes before the eyes upon death (via Wikimedia Commons)

It’s been an age-old trope in works of literature, poetry, and art for ages, but now science confirms it’s true: Life does indeed flash before your eyes when you die.

When an 87-year-old epilepsy patient unexpectedly passed away during a brain scan, the scan found that his brain seemed to replay memories in the 30 seconds before and after his heart stopped beating, according to a recent study published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

The patient, whose name was kept private, suffered a heart attack, and due to his do-not-resuscitate status, the scientists were able to track his brain waves throughout the final moments of his life. The scan was conducted by an international team of 13 neuroscientists led by Raul Vicente of the University of Tartu in Estonia.

The scientists were originally conducting electroencephalography (EEG) scans on the patient to detect and treat seizures. When he unexpectedly died, the EEG machine kept running, providing the scientists a first-of-its-kind glimpse into the brain activity of a dying human.

“This is why it’s so rare, because you can’t plan this,” Ajmal Zemmar, one of the co-authors of the study, told Insider. “No healthy human is gonna go and have an EEG before they die, and in no sick patient are we going to know when they’re gonna die to record these signals.”

The EEG brain scan found an oscillatory brain wave pattern in which activity in the brain’s alpha, beta, and theta bands relatively decreased and activity in the gamma band relatively increased. It’s thought that these oscillatory patterns, and an increase in gamma waves, suggest memory recall (the gamma band decreases external interference, allowing for deep inward concentration like recalling memories). Similar brain oscillations occur during meditation and dreaming.

This is the first time this has been proven in a human, although the concept looms large in our collective imagination. It comes back to us from people who have experienced near-death experiences, defined as when the brain has transitioned into preparing for death. Research into these experiences has reported intense memory recall and a panoramic review of one’s life. They have also reported a hallucinatory and meditative state and a sense of transcendence and bliss. These accounts cross cultures and religions.  READ MORE...