In Search of the Lost Civilisation

Anthony North: Most religions have the belief that there was once a more perfect world, from which man has been banished. This has often been interpreted as meaning a real previous civilization used to exist, populated by beings we now see as gods. Outside religion, central to such ideas is Atlantis, a mythical island deep in our past with a perfect, but powerful society, finally destroyed by the gods when they were corrupted. Could such a lost world have actually existed?: Well, perhaps not a single island of Atlantis. But the idea of a lost civilization is something quite different -and something I think can be explained rationally. Of course, many ideas for such a civilization have been put forward, mostly of a spurious or sensational nature. Hence, academe is loath to even consider such a possibility. But I think they are mistaken. Does evidence exist for a lost civilization?: No. Not of a definite kind - but there are plenty of indicators around the world that could fit into the concept, if, that is, they were properly researched. These concern the myriad myths of sunken cities, and structures off-shore that could be man-made. From the Bimini Road in the Caribbean, to Yonaguni in the Far East, tantalizing glimpses of possible human endeavour exist under the sea, not far from the coast. How do we make sense of the implications?: By providing a theory that allows them to be, at least, man-manipulated, and tying that theory with known or reasoned elements from the past. The predominant theory of man's proliferation around the planet is the Out of Africa hypothesis.

In this model, modern man moved out of Africa in prehistory and populated the globe. However, this would only have been achieveable by the crossing of large expanses of water. Boats, it seems, would have been needed some 40,000 years ago.: How else would we explain this proliferation? These boats would have been rudimentary, but is it feasible to suggest that the boat builders then abandoned their boats and continued Stone Age existence? I think this is unlikely.

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Australian researcher saves the world

August 23, 2008 - 11:03AM

An Australian researcher has won an international prize for her plan to wrap a giant asteroid with reflective sheeting to stop it colliding with the earth and destroying all life.

Such an impact would have the force of 110,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs if the asteroid, which actually exists, hits the planet in 2036, said Mary D'Souza, a PhD student with the University of Queensland's School of Engineering.

Far from being daunted by the prospect of global annihilation, Ms D'Souza went to work on a possible solution and took out the top prize in an international competition to find new ways of stopping asteroids from hitting Earth.

She beat entries from around the world in the Space Generation Advisory Council's Move An Asteroid 2008 competition and will travel to Glasgow at the end of September to present her plan at the International Astronautical Congress, the world's largest space conference.

Her proposal involves using enhanced solar radiation pressure to move the threatening asteroid off its path to Earth by wrapping it with Mylar film, "a step up from Kevlar", she said.

The solar reflecting material is already used on satellites.

Satellites also could do the wrapping.

"I'm using a satellite that's orbiting the asteroid and the rotation of the asteroid itself to wrap this ribbon," Ms D'Souza said today.

"So it's kind of like it wraps as it rotates."

The Mylar film covering just 50 per cent of the asteroid would change its surface from dull to reflective, a necessary step to harness the power of the sun.

"What happens then is light from the sun shines on the body (of the asteroid) so more of it is reflected ... and it actually acts to move it away from the sun and the earth."

The asteroid is 330 metres in diameter, only a fraction of the 10km wide asteroid which some scientists say caused the weather event which led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

But having a 330 metre asteroid hit the planet did not bear thinking about.

"We'd rather not consider that," she said.

"It's kind of like a very, very, bad day for earth.

"Scientists say if it did impact the earth, it would carry the force of 110,000 Hiroshima bombs."

The rogue asteroid spends most of its time on the other side of the sun to the earth and the next observation period would be in 2011, Ms D'Souza said.

"At that time we'll probably be able to refine its orbit and determine how likely it is to hit the earth.

"If this one were to hit the earth, you could say that most of life would be extinguished," Ms D'Souza said.

Source : http://www.smh.com.au/

Optical Illusion [Part 1]

Are they moving up or down?
That looks like a girl is sitting on an eagle, paintings are so close to reality that people think they are not paintings but actual objects

It looks so real

Lost world frozen 14m years ago found in Antarctica

A lost world has been found in Antarctica, preserved just the way it was when it was frozen in time some 14 million years ago. The fossils of plants and animals high in the mountains is an extremely rare find in the continent, one that also gives a glimpse of a what could be there in a century or two as the planet warms. A team working in an ice-free region has discovered the trove of ancient life in what must have been the last traces of tundra on the interior of the southernmost continent before temperatures began to drop relentlessly.An abrupt and dramatic climate cooling of 8°C in 200,000 years forced the extinction of tundra plants and insects and brought interior Antarctica into a perpetual deep-freeze from which it has never emerged, though may do again as a result of climate change. An international team led by Prof David Marchant, at Boston University and Profs Allan Ashworth and Adam Lewis, at North Dakota State University, combined evidence from glaciers, from the preserved ecology, volcanic ashes and modelling to reveal the full extent of the big freeze in a part of Antarctica called the Dry Valleys. The new insight in the understanding of Antarctica's climatic history, which saw it change from a climate like that of South Georgia to one similar to that seen today in Mars, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We've documented the timing and the magnitude of a tremendous change in Antarctic climate," said Prof Marchant. "The fossil finds allow us to examine Antarctica as it existed just prior to climate cooling at 13.

9 million years ago. It is a unique window into the past. To study these deposits is akin to strolling across the Dry Valleys 14.1 million years ago." The discovery of lake deposits with perfectly preserved fossils of mosses, diatoms and minute crustacea called ostracods is particularly exciting, noted Prof Lewis. "They are the first to be found even though scientific expeditions have been visiting the Dry Valleys since their discovery during the first Scott expedition in 1902-1903," he said.

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New "Minor Planet" Found in Solar System

Brian Handwerk

for National Geographic News

August 19, 2008

The solar system as we know it is a bit more crowded due to the recent discovery of an intriguing new "minor planet."

The object, dubbed 2006 SQ372, is a kind of tailless comet that's currently some two billion miles (three billion kilometers) from Earth, a bit closer to the sun than Neptune.

But the lump of ice and rock is moving on a long, elliptical orbit that will take it on a round-trip journey lasting about 22,500 years.

At its peak distance, the body will be about 150 billion miles (241 billion kilometers) from Earth—1,600 times farther than the distance between Earth and the sun.

Visitor From the Oort Cloud?

Scientists first sighted the unusual object in 2006 while scanning the skies for distant supernovae that help measure the ongoing expansion of the universe.

Based on data collected between 2005 and 2007, Andrew Becker of the University of Washington and colleagues charted the object's unusual orbit—an ellipse four times as long as it is wide.

The object appears to be a comet that does not get close enough to the sun for its ice to evaporate and form a tail.

"Currently it's in a transient orbit right now, an unstable orbit," Becker said.

"It's close to the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, and we think that in a couple of hundred million years, one of those planets will scatter it."

Becker's team believes 2006 SQ372 probably came from the inner edges of the Oort cloud, a theoretical region of asteroid-like bodies several trillion miles away that is believed to be the source of many known comets.

The scientists think the body was bounced into the Oort cloud from the inner solar system during planet formation some 4.5 billion years ago.

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Meditate on it

A couple hundred-thousand years ago—sometime after our hominid ancestors had controlled fire, but long before they were telling ghost stories—early humans huddled around campfires to meditate and partake in shamanistic rituals. Today, when we slow down for a yellow light, recognize a dollar sign or do anything, really, that involves working memory, we have these ancient brainstorming sessions to thank.

That's the somewhat controversial connection psychologist Matt J. Rossano is making. Ritualistic gatherings sharpened mental focus, he argues. Over time, this focus strengthened the mind's ability to connect symbols and meanings, eventually causing gene mutations that favored the enhanced memory we now possess.

"We have decent evidence that shamanistic rituals may go very deep into history, and that these rituals might have had positive psychological effects," says Rossano of Southeastern Louisiana University, whose theory appears in the February Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

Fossil records suggest that anatomically modern humans split from Neanderthals about 200,000 years ago. Around that time, says Rossano, early humans practiced shamanistic meditation to help heal the sick.

The deep focus achieved during such rituals strengthened parts of the brain involved in memory, argues Rossano. Recent brain research supports this notion. In 2005, neuroscientist Sara Lazar of Harvard University studied people with meditation experience and found that several areas of their brains—notably, areas associated with attention—were thicker than normal.

As neural areas of attention grew stronger, the minds of subsequent generations became better equipped to hold information and make the connections necessary in modern working memory, Rossano suggests.

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