Thursday, June 2
Amazon River Has No Bridges
Here we see an aerial view of part of the Amazon River – note the lack of bridges.
(Image credit: mantaphoto via Getty Images)
The Amazon River is the world's second-longest river and one of the planet's most significant waterways. It contains more fresh water by volume than any other river, is home to the world's largest species of river dolphin, and hosts 100 species of electric fish and up to 60 species of piranhas.
Yet, despite its many and varied qualities, there is something that cannot be found on the Amazon River: bridges.
Given the Amazon flows through three countries (Peru, Colombia and Brazil) and more than 30 million people live in the river's basin, according to the World Wildlife Fund(opens in new tab), it seems somewhat improbable that no bridges span the river. So why is this the case? Are there fundamental difficulties with building such structures in a rainforest containing swamps, extensive wetlands and deep, thick undergrowth? Are there financial barriers? Or is it simply not worth the effort?
The Amazon anomaly
When compared with some of the world's other most recognisable rivers, the Amazon's lack of bridge crossings is an oddity. There are about nine Nile-spanning bridges in Cairo alone; more than 100(opens in new tab) bridges have been completed in the last 30 years across the Yangtze, Asia's premier river; while Europe's Danube, which is only one-third as long as the Amazon, has 133 bridge crossings(opens in new tab).
So what's the deal with the Amazon?
"There is no sufficiently pressing need for a bridge across the Amazon," Walter Kaufmann, chair of Structural Engineering (Concrete Structures and Bridge Design) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, told Live Science in an email.
The Amazon, for much of its 4,300-mile (6,920 kilometers) length, meanders through areas that are sparsely populated, meaning there are very few major roads for any bridge to connect to. And in the cities and towns that border the river, boats and ferries are an established means of moving goods and people from bank to bank, meaning there is no real need for bridges to be built, other than to make trips slightly quicker. READ MORE...
When compared with some of the world's other most recognisable rivers, the Amazon's lack of bridge crossings is an oddity. There are about nine Nile-spanning bridges in Cairo alone; more than 100(opens in new tab) bridges have been completed in the last 30 years across the Yangtze, Asia's premier river; while Europe's Danube, which is only one-third as long as the Amazon, has 133 bridge crossings(opens in new tab).
So what's the deal with the Amazon?
"There is no sufficiently pressing need for a bridge across the Amazon," Walter Kaufmann, chair of Structural Engineering (Concrete Structures and Bridge Design) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, told Live Science in an email.
The Amazon, for much of its 4,300-mile (6,920 kilometers) length, meanders through areas that are sparsely populated, meaning there are very few major roads for any bridge to connect to. And in the cities and towns that border the river, boats and ferries are an established means of moving goods and people from bank to bank, meaning there is no real need for bridges to be built, other than to make trips slightly quicker. READ MORE...
Rennaisance Man Da Vinci
Leonardo Da Vinci—arguably one of history’s most resourceful geniuses—was the unwanted result of casual sex between a local peasant girl and a young man from a prosperous family. Both were from Vinci, a small hill town not far from Florence with winding cobblestoned streets, wooden shutters, and spindling trees. It was in this village that Leonardo was conceived and surrendered by his mother as an infant to his father’s family.
In an era referred to as “the age of bastards,” Leonardo’s illegitimate birth would not have involved any injury to his future: his eighty-year-old paternal grandfather set down a few basic details unapologetically.
“A grandson of mine was born, son of Ser Piero, my son… his name was Leonardo.”
The entry of birth, through brief, was followed with the name of the priest who baptized the newborn and a list of the people present at the ceremony.
Leonardo’s grandfather had been a notary of repute, as had his great-grandfather. Leonardo’s father also entered the profession and married the daughter of another notary family. While the couple established their residence in Florence, Leonardo remained in Vinci with his grandparents, whose stolidly middle-class household provided a stability of routine but no formal education. The lack of structured schooling makes the abundant body of Leonardo’s entirely self-taught knowledge almost unfathomable.
He was an irrepressible force of nature and fortunate enough to have been nurtured in a time that was daring his country further and further. Revolutions in the sciences and the humanities tend to occur in clusters of extraordinary individuals: Giotto, Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante, Machiavelli, Marco Polo, and Columbus—all were Italians, each with a key role in paving the way for the future. READ MORE...
Mayan City Discovered
The style of architecture of the buildings at Xiol is more typical of the style
found in regions further south
Archaeologists working in the Yucatan region of Mexico have revealed the remains of a centuries-old Mayan city, local media reported on Friday.
The city of Xiol — which means "the spirit of man" in Mayan — is believed to have been the home of some 4,000 people between 600 and 900 CE, during the late classic period.
The area was first uncovered in 2018 on a construction site for a future industrial park close to the town of Merida on Yucatan's northern coast. Archaeologists from the National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH) then took over the site.
The Mayan civilization was destroyed by Spanish colonizers in the 17th century
Palaces, priests, pyramids
The site is of particular interest due to its Puuc style architecture — famously used for the Chichen Itza pyramid — which is more typically found in the southern part of the Yucatan region.
The archaeologists also highlighted the array of palaces, pyramids and plazas found at the site as well as evidence of various social classes residing there.
"There were people from different social classes ... priests, scribes, who lived in these great palaces, and there were also the common people who lived in small buildings," Carlos Peraza, one of the archaeologists leading the excavations, said. READ MORE...
The site is of particular interest due to its Puuc style architecture — famously used for the Chichen Itza pyramid — which is more typically found in the southern part of the Yucatan region.
The archaeologists also highlighted the array of palaces, pyramids and plazas found at the site as well as evidence of various social classes residing there.
"There were people from different social classes ... priests, scribes, who lived in these great palaces, and there were also the common people who lived in small buildings," Carlos Peraza, one of the archaeologists leading the excavations, said. READ MORE...
Wednesday, June 1
Unintended Consequences
These consequences can be defined as: In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by American sociologist Robert K.
EXAMPLES
1. “Three strikes” laws may actually be increasing the murder rate, and not decreasing it.
2. Seat belt laws increase the number of car accidents, and increase pedestrian and cyclist deaths.
3. Banning the insecticide DDT almost certainly has led to more deaths, not fewer.
4. Teaching children not to talk to strangers (e.g. the “Stranger Danger Campaign”) may be making them less safe, not more safe.
5. The lengthy and costly FDA approval process might be causing more, not fewer, deaths.
6. Government regulations that reduced logging in America’s national forests (e.g. to protect the threatened northern spotted owl) may have resulted in more acres of forest being harvested worldwide, not less.
7. Increasing state cigarette taxes may significantly decrease government tax revenues, not increase revenues as expected.
8. Tariff on imports are passed in order to protect domestic industries and jobs from foreign competition, but often end up costing more American jobs than are saved by protectionism.
9. Vegetarianism may lead to an increase in animal deaths, and not a decrease.
10. Thanks to the efforts of animal rights activists, horse slaughter is now banned in the US. But that ban is very likely making the treatment of horses worse, not better.
Now... all that I ask you here is for you to consider all the unintended consequences of our unmolested illegal immigrant issues at our southern border, in light of the following:
- terrorists entering the US
- illegal drugs entering the US
- undetected diseases entering the US
- Criminals entering the US
- Child molesters entering the US
- draining medical resource
Trans is Trans
... those who feel that trans males do not have an unfair advantage are simply trying to justify their own beliefs...
Maybe we should allow trans females to play college football... or ice hockey... or rugby...
Obviously, this is a rhetorical question.
Cowboy America
- I understand the self protection concept...
- I understand the entertainment of hunting...
- I understand the challenge of shooting on a target range
- I understand the collector's mentality as well
BUT I WOULD NEVER OWN A FIREARM PERSONALLY...
I would not have a problem if a majority of Americans and States wanted to take the 2nd amendment out of the US Constitution... as I do not think it is needed...
In 1776, we were a new country without a standing army except those who fought in the war against Great Britain. We did not have a law enforcement agency, nor did we have the FBI, the CIA, or Homeland Security.
We needed our residents and citizens to be armed in case we were attacked or invaded... the SECOND AMENDMENT made perfect sense.
Criminals and other bad people are going to find a way to acquire guns and firearms regardless of how many laws we pass and enforce... that is just human nature...
While the NRA is a powerful organization and lobby, it can be defeated.
EDUCATION and PSYCHOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING & COUNSELING will not stop violence... And, if you think that it will, you got your head firmly implanted up your tail section...
Survival of the fittest and just plain survival is embedded in our DNA. Power and Control is also embedded in our DNA. Having what others have is the soul of our DNA. THEREFORE, we will always have crime and violence...
Victims of crimes and violence, never get payback... or if they do, it is very seldom... in some ways those that commit crime and violence are seen as folk heroes until they kill one of our family members...
The families of the victims never get satisfaction or payback... especially when the shooter is killed by law enforcement. Killing the shooter removes the element of revenge... so these families have to live with the fact that they will never get revenge...
The freedoms that Americans perceive that they have negates the fact that we are mature enough to control ourselves... consequently, we will always need to be controlled.
Only in a Democracy do we have these freedoms...
There would be no second amendment in most all other countries in the world... The USA is the only country in the world to have the second amendment....
What do these other countries know that we do not?
Living in the Valley
The State of Tennessee collects no state income tax but has a 7/8% sales tax and the cost of living as a result of moderate wages is or was 10-15% less on average than anywhere else in the US. Like all states, COVID has taken its toll on the cost of living in the East Tennessee area. But, the quality of life which is laid back and void of a lot of crime, violence, and traffic is an ideal place to live if that is your mentality.
I remember living in Alexandria, Virginia until high school and my parents lived there afterward so I would visit. Alexandria is only 8 miles from Washington, DC but because of the traffic, it would take me twice as long to drive into Washington as it does for me to drive from my house to Knoxville 35 miles away.
My community is very quiet and provides a lot of interconnecting roads, inclines, and declines making it an ideal environment in which to walk anytime during the day or night, although I have never seen any reason to walk after dark.
I don't miss North Carolina nor do I miss larger cities like Washington, DC or New York City, but I can fly to both for a long weekend anytime I want just to remind myself how much I don't want to live there...
Please don't come to East Tennessee and make it crowded!!!
Religious and Spiritual Beliefs
SUFFERING (and pain) seems to be a pretty consistent theme among religions and most spiritual beliefs...
In Christianity, our suffering (and pain) was done by Jesus so that we would not have to suffer, but then entry into the kingdom of God could only take place in you believed in Jesus.
Still, there was suffering...
In Buddhism, suffering is also a key component that revolves around life's 4 truths:
- all of life is based upon pain, suffering, and sorrow
- the cause of suffering are our illusive desires
- the cure to suffering in to overcome desires
- we overcome desire by following a 8-fold path
In Hindu, suffering is again present...
- an essential life (Karma) revolves around good and suffering
- religious duties can help you acquire merit for the next life
In Christianity, one seeks to enter the kingdom of God after death but it Hindu and Buddhism, one seeks to become unified with the universe. In essence, all three of these are the same.
These three spiritual beliefs are different and yet they all reach the same conclusion after death... So, death is the ultimate similarity and is actually what happens to all of us regardless of what we believe. It seems that becoming one with the universe is our justification for death.
Regardless of what kind of life we live, we all die... Death is certain and absolute... but, if one has spiritual faith, then death becomes more than being in a state of nothingness... or as some call it a void.
Are we just rationalizing our FATE?
Loogically, there has to be a creator... and, while that seems logically true... who is the creator's creator? At this point, our logic, like death, cease to exist and we are left with a question that cannot be answered except through spiritual faith... or, is this what they call circular logic?
Nonetheless, it is mental quicksand.
Neolithic Settlements in Turkey
Archaeology professer and director of the Göbeklitepe Culture and Karahantepe Research Project
in front of Karahantepe excavation site.
(photo credit: JUDITH SUDILOVSKY)
Istanbul archaeology professor Necmi Karul picks his way as nimbly as a gazelle along the hilly back slope of Karahantepe. A monumental Neolithic site near the Syrian-Turkish border, Karahantepe has turned what archaeologists until now believed about the evolution of human sedentism on its head.
It, along with the nearby Gobeklitepe Stone Hill site, is considered one of the first permanent settlements. They have brought into question the process of organized human society, suggesting that it was established before the emergence of agriculture, and included some kind of cultic or communal rituals.
Karul points out spots where some 11,000 years ago Neolithic humans carved out huge blocks of limestone and somehow brought the heavy pillars to the other side of the mound. After being carved with images of animals and humans, these blocks were placed in concentric circles in what he calls “special buildings.”
Walking along the sloping hillside Karul also points at stones jutting out from the earth in a circular pattern. Underneath, he said casually, there are the same thousands-year-old monumental pillars that have been excavated just on the other side of the mound.
He said 250 such pillars visible on the surface have been identified, and some 60 pillars have been found in the excavations. READ MORE...
Ancient Settlements Discovered
134 ancient settlements have been found during a survey of the region north of Hadrian’s Wall in the United Kingdom.
These locations belong to Indigenous communities that date to the Roman occupation. The findings were published in the journal Antiquity on Tuesday.
Following Hadrian’s ascension to the throne in AD 117, he built a wall unlike any other in the Roman world, a wall that was a tangible representation of Rome’s might, solidifying the Roman defense strategy and indicating the Empire’s most northern limit.
Hadrian’s Wall (Vallum Aulium) was a Roman defensive structure that extended 73 miles (116 kilometers) from Mais (Solway Firth) to Segedunum (Tyne River) (Wallsend).
In AD 142, Emperor Antoninus Pius extended the frontier further north and constructed the Antonine Wall (Vallum Antonini). This wall ran 39 miles (62.7 km) and annexed lands formerly ruled by the Damnonii, Otadini, Novantae, and the Selgovae tribes.
Earthworks can be seen at the Woden Law hill fort in southern Scotland, close to a Roman road, with the remains of Roman camps less than a mile away. Antiquity
Most research into the area has focused on the Roman side of history to learn more about the roads, forts, camps, and iconic walls they used in their attempts to control northern Britain.
Manuel Fernández-Götz, head of the Department of Archaeology at the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, is interested in uncovering the other side of the story: how Roman rule affected the lives of Iron Age Indigenous communities in Britain. READ MORE...
Treasures Found in Curious Places
From a tyrannical Roman emperor’s pleasure boat to a Manhattan apartment coffee table,
this mosaic has gone on quite the adventure.
ERNESTO RUSCIO/GETTY IMAGES
In 2018, at a Goodwill store in Austin, Texas, a marble bust of a dour-looking man caught antique dealer Laura Young’s eye. She liked the look of him and bought the bust for $34.99, dubbing it “Dennis” after the self-obsessed character Dennis Reynolds in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Young guessed the statue was old, but never imagined it was a 2,000-year-old original. A Greek sculpture expert at Sotheby’s deduced that Dennis was actually a Roman bust of Germanicus, father of infamous madman Caligula.
A Mosaic From Caligula’s Ceremonial Ship, Turned Into a Coffee Table (image above)
The striking piece sat in a Manhattan apartment for decades, until the Italian military police’s Art Recovery Unit showed up.
Antique dealer Helen Fioratti had no idea the mosaic that sat in her Upper East Side apartment had been dredged up from a mysterious Roman barge in Lake Nemi, Italy. After buying the red-and-green mosaic in Europe, Fioratti spent thousands of dollars shipping it home to New York and converting it into a coffee table. For 45 years, the table sat as a beloved accent piece, garnering many compliments from visitors, Fioratti told The Associated Press.
But that wasn’t all: Young learned the bust had been stolen during World War II. Most likely a G.I. looted the bust in Germany and brought it back to the United States, where it eventually ended up at Goodwill. Young was determined to return it to Germany, but sorting everything out would take years. Now, after a brief stint at the San Antonio Museum of Art, Dennis is finally set to return home in 2023.
It’s quite the story, but finding hidden treasures in surprising places isn’t as rare as you might imagine. Here at Atlas Obscura we love these kinds of stories. So in honor of the return of Dennis, we went digging through the archives to uncover some other stories of priceless artifacts discovered in unusual places.
It’s quite the story, but finding hidden treasures in surprising places isn’t as rare as you might imagine. Here at Atlas Obscura we love these kinds of stories. So in honor of the return of Dennis, we went digging through the archives to uncover some other stories of priceless artifacts discovered in unusual places.
A Mosaic From Caligula’s Ceremonial Ship, Turned Into a Coffee Table (image above)
The striking piece sat in a Manhattan apartment for decades, until the Italian military police’s Art Recovery Unit showed up.
Antique dealer Helen Fioratti had no idea the mosaic that sat in her Upper East Side apartment had been dredged up from a mysterious Roman barge in Lake Nemi, Italy. After buying the red-and-green mosaic in Europe, Fioratti spent thousands of dollars shipping it home to New York and converting it into a coffee table. For 45 years, the table sat as a beloved accent piece, garnering many compliments from visitors, Fioratti told The Associated Press.
That is until the Italian military police’s Art Recovery Unit and New York’s district attorney’s office caught wind of it. The mosaic, since returned to Italy, had been stolen from the opulent “pleasure boats” of Rome’s tyrannical emperor, Caligula (yes, as in the son of Germanicus, aka Dennis). Caligula’s pleasure boats boasted lush gardens, baths, and even hot water. Unfortunately for Fioratti, Caligula’s mosaic landed her in some hot water of her own. READ MORE...
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