Pinewood Design

By Alex Morales

March 1 (Bloomberg) — The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.

Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects.

“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”

The changes can be modeled, though they’re difficult to physically detect given their small size, Gross said. Some changes may be more obvious, and islands may have shifted, according to Andreas Rietbrock, a professor of Earth Sciences at the U.K.’s Liverpool University who has studied the area impacted, though not since the latest temblor.

Santa Maria Island off the coast near Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, may have been raised 2 meters (6 feet) as a result of the latest quake, Rietbrock said today in a telephone interview. He said the rocks there show evidence pointing to past earthquakes shifting the island upward in the past.

‘Ice-Skater Effect’

“It’s what we call the ice-skater effect,” David Kerridge, head of Earth hazards and systems at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, said today in a telephone interview. “As the ice skater puts when she’s going around in a circle, and she pulls her arms in, she gets faster and faster. It’s the same idea with the Earth going around if you change the distribution of mass, the rotation rate changes.”

Rietbrock said he hasn’t been able to get in touch with seismologists in Concepcion to discuss the quake, which registered 8.8 on the Richter scale.

“What definitely the earthquake has done is made the Earth ring like a bell,” Rietbrock said.

The magnitude 9.1 Sumatran in 2004 that generated an Indian Ocean tsunami shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by about 2.3 milliarcseconds, Gross said.

The changes happen on the day and then carry on “forever,” Benjamin Fong Chao, dean of Earth Sciences of the National Central University in Taiwan, said in an e-mail.

“This small contribution is buried in larger changes due to other causes, such as atmospheric mass moving around on Earth,” Chao said.

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: Axis, Chilean, Earth, earthquake, NASA

A rarely seen Buddhist flower, which blossoms every 3,000 years, has been discovered under a nun’s washing machine.

Rarely seen Buddhist Udumbara flowers, which blossom every 3,000 years, was found under a washing machine in Lushan Mountain, Jiangxi province, China Photo: REX

The Udumbara flower was found in the home of a Chinese nun in Lushan Mountain, Jiangxi province, China.

The rare Youtan Poluo or Udumbara flower, which, according to Buddhist legend, only blooms every 3,000 years, measures just 1mm in diametre.

Miao Wei, 50, was cleaning when she discovered the cluster of white flowers under the washing machine.

At first she thought the barely-there stems were worm eggs, however, the next day she discovered that the stems had grown 18 white tiny flowers on top and smelled “fragrant”.

Local temples believe the mini blooms are specimens of the miraculous Youtan Poluo flower – called “Udumbara” or “Udambara” in Sanskrit, meaning “an auspicious flower from heaven.”

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

More Udumbara flower’s photo:

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: buddist, China, flower, Udumbara

May 19, 2009—Meet “Ida,” the small “missing link” found in Germany that’s created a big media splash and will likely continue to make waves among those who study human origins.

In a new book, documentary, and promotional Web site, paleontologist Jorn Hurum, who led the team that analyzed the 47-million-year-old fossil seen above, suggests Ida is a critical missing-link species in primate evolution (interactive guide to human evolution from National Geographic magazine).

(Among the team members was University of Michigan paleontologist Philip Gingerich, a member of the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)

The fossil, he says, bridges the evolutionary split between higher primates such as monkeys, apes, and humans and their more distant relatives such as lemurs.

“This is the first link to all humans,” Hurum, of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, said in a statement. Ida represents “the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor.”

Ida, properly known as Darwinius masillae, has a unique anatomy. The lemur-like skeleton features primate-like characteristics, including grasping hands, opposable thumbs, clawless digits with nails, and relatively short limbs.

“This specimen looks like a really early fossil monkey that belongs to the group that includes us,” said Brian Richmond, a biological anthropologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the study, published this week in the journal PLoS ONE.

But there’s a big gap in the fossil record from this time period, Richmond noted. Researchers are unsure when and where the primate group that includes monkeys, apes, and humans split from the other group of primates that includes lemurs.

“[Ida] is one of the important branching points on the evolutionary tree,” Richmond said, “but it’s not the only branching point.”

At least one aspect of Ida is unquestionably unique: her incredible preservation, unheard of in specimens from the Eocene era, when early primates underwent a period of rapid evolution. (Explore a prehistoric time line.)

“From this time period there are very few fossils, and they tend to be an isolated tooth here or maybe a tailbone there,” Richmond explained. “So you can’t say a whole lot of what that [type of fossil] represents in terms of evolutionary history or biology.”

In Ida’s case, scientists were able to examine fossil evidence of fur and soft tissue and even picked through the remains of her last meal: fruits, seeds, and leaves.

What’s more, the newly described “missing link” was found in Germany’s Messel Pit. Ida’s European origins are intriguing, Richmond said, because they could suggest—contrary to common assumptions—that the continent was an important area for primate evolution.

Read more abt this at

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: Fossil, Humans, Lemurs, MISSING LINK

IT TAKES a lot to get teenagers’ minds off sex at the best of times – and in the bedroom it’s next to impossible. So it’s little wonder that one charity is turning to the most shocking of shock tactics to remind young people to use condoms.

AIDES, a French NGO, has created a series of posters depicting a couple making love – in which one of the pair is, unusually, a giant creepy-crawly.

And while having a pair of legs wrapped around you in a passionate embrace sounds entertaining, when it’s four pairs, it looks a lot less fun.

In one, a woman is seen getting seriously intimate with a massive spider. In another, a man is caught in flagrante with a scorpion the size of a grizzly bear, its poison sting inches from his back. The idea is to suggest that no matter how attractive your partner may be, they could have a STD bug of their own – one that could kill you as easily as any spider bite.

The slogan for the adverts reads: “Without a condom you’re making love with Aids. Protect yourself.”

But do you think shock tactics like these would encourage people to use a condom? Leave your comments below…

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: adverts, AIDES, condom, French, NGO, std

Thought you knew everything there is to know about Valentine’s Day? Then think again! We give you ten weird and wacky facts about the day that strikes fear into the heart of singletons and glee into those in couples.
1. Teachers receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, closely followed by children, mothers, wives and partner.

2. Penicillin, a popular treatment for STDs such as syphilis, was introduced to the world on February 14, 1929.

3. If you’re single don’t despair. You can celebrate Singles Awareness Day (SAD) instead. Meant as an alternative to Valentine’s Day, the holiday is for single people to celebrate or to commiserate in their single status. A common greeting on this day is “Happy SAD!”

4. Or you could pop over to Finland where Valentine’s Day is called Ystävänpäivä, which translates into “Friend’s day”. This day is more about remembering all your friends, not only your loved ones.

5. Durex claims that condom sales are highest around Valentine’s Day – 20 percent to 30 percent higher than usual.

6. More home pregnancy testing kits are sold in March than in any other month.

7. About 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged each year. This makes it the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas.

8. About 3 per cent of pet owners will give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets.

9. In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their Valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. Nowadays to wear your heart on your sleeve means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.

10. In Victorian times it was considered bad luck to sign a Valentine’s Day card.

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: Ten things, Valentine's Day

For the first time in history (at least publicly known) two satellites collided in Space. This space accident was happening 485miles over Siberia already on Tuesday.

The US satellite is owned by Satellite phone service provider Iridium. The Russian satellite is said to be not in use anymore.

The crash generated a huge cloud of debris and it is expected to take weeks until the “dust settles” again. NASA says that there is no risk to the ISS right now. Space agencies are tracking the debris of the satellite crash and hope most of it burns in the earth atmosphere.

The orbit around earth is already pretty full with satellites and with debris. At some point they really need to clean up.

More details on BBC News and Reuters. See also the Iridium site.

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: crash, NASA, RUSSIAN, satellite, space, US

At 122 seconds, it is one of the longest adverts ever shown.

Advertising the little brown Hovis loaf, which was first sold 122 years ago, it follows a 13-year-old boy through 12 decades of British history and will be shown for the first time on Friday, in the middle of ITV’s Coronation Street.

This scene is one stop on the boy’s extraordinary journey and vividly brings a bustling Victorian street back to life.

Here, historians Nigel Jones and Lawrence James explain the detail behind the opening street scene.

1 FASHION

Top hats  -  known as ’stovepipes’  -  first appeared in the 18th century and were an upper middle-class status symbol.

Their most famous populariser was diminutive Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who wore specially tall ones to compensate for his lack of height.

The best and most expensive hats were made from the pelts of Canadian beavers.

Bowlers were originally the headgear of lowly Victorian clerks and foremen.

Mass-produced, they were cheaper than top hats but more upmarket than cloth caps.

Cloth caps, made from off-cuts, meanwhile-were the typical badge of the working class.

When Keir Hardie, founder of the Labour Party, entered Parliament in 1892, he wore one (actually a Sherlock Holmes-style deer stalker)  -  as a defiant sign that the working man had finally arrived.

Women’s fashions in the Victorian era with whalebone corsets tied so tight they led to fainting fits, reflected the female role as submissive wife and mother.

But Victoria’s death in 1901 led to the freeing of fashions  -  and the rise of women’s rights.

2 GAS LAMPS

When Victoria became Queen in 1837, street lighting was in its infancy and only middle-class urban areas had methane gas lamps, lit every day at dusk by a lamplighter using a long pole with a wick at the end.

Lighting spread only slowly, however, and by 1888 when Jack the Ripper committed his serial sex murders in the streets of Whitechapel, his crimes were conveniently cloaked in the gloom that still covered working-class slums.

After the murders, Victoria herself suggested lighting up the East End, but by the end of her reign in 1901, street lighting was still patchy and even Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective Sherlock Holmes said he always carried a revolver when east of London’s Aldgate after dark.

3 DRAY HORSES

Horses were the only practical means of transport in cities.

Drays stood six feet at the shoulder and were specially bred to supply the thousands of urban pubs with beer barrels.

Coal, bread and milk churns were also delivered daily by horse and cart.

The drayman who worked the horse and cart was an unskilled labourer who could expect to be paid up to £1 per day, plus regular rations of beer as an extra perk.

The horses, when they retired, were less fortunate. They were sent to the knacker’s yard and boiled down to make glue.

The first cars appeared on Britain’s streets in 1895, but were still very rare at the turn of the century, while the first motorised taxis began to appear in 1900, replacing London’s 7,000 ‘hansom cabs’  -  named after designer Joseph Hansom, who patented it in 1834  -  which were drawn by a single horse.

4 THE STREET

Victorian thoroughfares, which were mostly cobbled, were filthy and strewn with dung from horses and the rotting produce that had fallen off the countless delivery carts.

In fact, people were officially encouraged to collect the dung to manure their gardens, and street urchins would often do so, selling it on for a small fee.

There were also plenty of unofficial street cleaners and if a lady passed by, gangs of children would offer to sweep a clean path across a road for a halfpenny.

Leather tanneries, breweries and factories all contributed to the vile smell.

In 1858, London suffered the Great Stink, when the pong became overwhelming.

Parliament was forced to adjourn because of the overpowering stench from the nearby Thames, which served as London’s main sewer.

Four years earlier, in 1854, a cholera epidemic in Soho killed 616 people within a few days.

Joseph Bazalgette, chief engineer to London’s Board of Works, subsequently persuaded Parliament to stump up the cash to build a network of sewers under the capital. This network of sewers is still operating today.

5 CANDLEMAKERS

Nearly all working-class homes relied on candles for light.

There were candlemakers  -  or ironmongers, where candles were also sold  -  on every high street. A pack of 12 cost 1d.

Candles were made not from the perfumed beeswax of today, but from tallow  -  animal fat  -  the evil aroma of which contributed to the smell of Victorian slum tenements.

6 SADDLERY AND BOOTMAKERS

In the age when the horse was all important, saddlers did a roaring trade.

Not only making saddles, bridles and reins, but repairing wornout equipment, too.

Bootmakers sometimes doubled as saddlers, selling new shoes as well as cobbling and repairing old ones.

Both got their leather, which was generally cow hide, from the numerous urban tanneries and contributed to the stink.

7 FOOD 

Unscrupulous butchers would often paint meat with red lead (a dye) to make it look fresher and shiny. Unfortunately, the appetising effect would have soon worn off, leaving those who consumed it feeling sick  -  and possibly badly poisoned.

Pork was not the only food to be contaminated with chemicals to make it look better.

In 1855, a Sanitary Commission report found red lead and ochre contaminating cayenne pepper, and copper and chlorate of lead in sweets and preserved fruits.

Milk and beer were often diluted with water.

The average weekly wage for an unskilled labourer was about 80 shillings, or £4 (about £7 in modern money  -  although you got much more for your cash then).

In 1899, Quaker philanthropist Seebohm Rowntree, calculated that a poor working man could afford only to spend 3 shillings a week on meat.

With a pig costing 10 shillings, pork was expensive and most customers would buy only the occasional slice of bacon, sold as ‘butcher’s bits’ and chopped up on a dirty and often flyblown wooden block outside the shop.

Game, such as the pheasants and rabbits in this picture, was cheaper and more readily available. A rabbit cost just 3d and a pheasant 2 shillings.

The 1882 Game Law insisted that every butcher that sold game had a licence and bought meat from a legitimate farmer.

Poaching was still rife, however, although the penalties were harsh. A poacher could expect six months in jail if caught.

Geese, meanwhile, were pricey and were generally bought for special occasions, such as Christmas.

Because it was so hard to keep food fresh, and meat generally had to be eaten immediately, people often shopped on a daily basis.

Urban Victorians ate a huge amount of meat but little fruit and vegetables.

Predominantly, as suggested by this picture, they ate potatoes and some cabbage.

8 ENLISTMENT

The words are unclear in this photo but this sign actually offers a bounty of two guineas to those volunteering for service in the Royal Navy.

Such notices would have been a common sight  -  the Services were always short of men in the Victorian era.

The Press Gang  -  the brutal practice of using gangs of seamen to kidnap able-bodied men for forced service at sea had been abolished after the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815.

Two guineas  -  around £2.10  -  would have been an incentive at the time but was often spent on alcohol  -  it would have bought about eight bottles of whisky.

As an extra inducement, sailors at sea were entitled to a daily dram of ‘grog’  -  watered down rum.

Soldiers who survived the imperial campaigns and retired were paid a pension of a ha’penny a day  -  4p a day in today’s money.

AAAHHHH. the good old days – I don’t think…..

i remember HOVIS though as very GOOD !

 

 

 

- Roge Wheeler, Mexico, 11/9/2008 7:11

Cripes, surely we can’t be seen to be proud of our British heritage? Surely wont we be offending sections of the public? PC Brigade where art though?

- James, Sydney, 11/9/2008 8:22

There are some errors here! I think you’ll find that a dray-man earned about 1 shilling per day…..a good wage was considered to be £50 per year, an unskilled labourer would not earn as muchAnd a halfpenny, in “old ” money was about equivalent to a bit less than a quarter of a “new” penny when decimalisation came in!!

Does anyone remeber the Public Info Films?…”use your old pennies in sixpenny lots..” 1shilling=5p

 

 

- Juscoll, Lancashire UK, 11/9/2008 8:47

This advert will probably be the only British history the children of this country get this year. How sad.

- Dorothy Quinlan, Angeles City Philippines, 11/9/2008 9:23

British history? I thought nu labour had air brushed that from our minds.

- peter, kings lynn, 11/9/2008 10:31

Wish we could see this ad in Australia! It would probaly be better than whats on TV!

- Marion Jenkins, Karingal, Australia, 11/9/2008 11:33

“The drayman who worked the horse and cart was an unskilled labourer who could expect to be paid up to £1 per day…” Wow, that’s a good wage for an unskilled labourer – perhaps you meant to write 1d (one shilling) ?

- Harry Jackson, Sydney, Australia, 11/9/2008 12:05

What an interesting article!! As a keen family historian I found it fascinating. I have family roots in Victorian London and it made me think not quite the good old days was it!!

- Chris Wright, Penrith, Cumbria, 11/9/2008 12:11

As a very young boy, I was encouraged to collect horse droppings by my grandfather for the garden, he would give me a silver threepenny bit (a ‘joey’) for doing this!

- John Rodwell, Rye, UK, 11/9/2008 12:20

Excellent article. Could we have more of this type of enlightening news in place of the daily more depressing news we are subjected to 24 hrs a day?

- Marlene, France, 11/9/2008 14:35

What a great article – can’t wait to see the advert – will be far more entertaining than most of the ‘tripe’ we watch!My Mom is 92 and her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchild will sit for hours listening to her account of ‘the good old days’. Doubt very much if ‘our’ history will create such interest. Might I add everyone seemed far happier in those days and ‘neighbours’ ‘mucked in’ to lend a helping hand with everything from delivering babies to providing food and a good old ‘cuppa’!

Personally, I wished I had been around then to experience this fascinating era.

 

 

- Pee, Redditch, UK, 11/9/2008 14:57

Such a delight to read this interesting article rather than all the doom and gloom. Will Hovis
be dragged through the courts for daring to portray a little of our British history?

- Jennifer, UK, 11/9/2008 15:24

In a hundred years time people will look back into our history and will say why did they let this once proud beautifull country get into such a mess, and they will be correct as we have allowed NuLabour to destroy us and our country. How sad.

- Janet, Dartmouth, England, 11/9/2008 15:26

Source: Daily Mail

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: advert, British, history, Hovis, tv

Christian was a lion purchased in 1969 by two Australians living in London from Harrods for around £263 – they decided to keep him in their flat and let him run around in a local graveyard to play but, when his food bills became in the excess of £300 per week, they decided they needed to let him into the wild, they did so successfully and 1 year on they wanted to revisit him, they were told he would not remember them, this is what happened. The reunion lasted until the next morning when everyone went to bed. According to Rendall that was the last anyone saw of Christian

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: Christian, Reunited, The Lion

World’s ten oldest jokes

The Dave Historical Humour study spent two months trawling the annals of history to produce the first report of its kind into the world’s oldest recorded jokes. Here is the results:

1. Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap (1900 BC – 1600 BC Sumerian Proverb Collection 1.12-1.13)

2. How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish (An abridged version first found in 1600 BC on the Westcar Papryus)

3. Three ox drivers from Adab were thirsty: one owned the ox, the other owned the cow and the other owned the wagon’s load. The owner of the ox refused to get water because he feared his ox would be eaten by a lion; the owner of the cow refused because he thought his cow might wander off into the desert; the owner of the wagon refused because he feared his load would be stolen. So they all went. In their absence the ox made love to the cow which gave birth to a calf which ate the wagon’s load. Problem: Who owns the calf?! (1200 BC)

4. A woman who was blind in one eye has been married to a man for 20 years. When he found another woman he said to her, “I shall divorce you because you are said to be blind in one eye.” And she answered him: “Have you just discovered that after 20 years of marriage!?” (Egyptian circa 1100 BC)

5. Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his real name is nobody. When Odysseus instructs his men to attack the Cyclops, the Cyclops shouts: “Help, nobody is attacking me!” No one comes to help. (Homer. The Odyssey 800 BC)

6. Question: What animal walks on four feet in the morning, two at noon and three at evening? Answer: Man. He goes on all fours as a baby, on two feet as a man and uses a cane in old age (Appears in Oedipus Tyrannus and first performed in 429 BC)

7. Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey – his purse is what restrains him (Egyptian, Ptolemaic Period 304 BC – 30 BC)

8. Augustus was touring his Empire and noticed a man in the crowd who bore a striking resemblance to himself. Intrigued he asked: “Was your mother at one time in service at the Palace?” “No your Highness,” he replied, “but my father was.” (Credited to the Emporer Augustus 63 BC – 29 AD)

9. Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said “I’ve had a great loss. Just when he had learned not to eat, he died.” (Dated to the Philogelos 4th /5th Century AD)

10. Asked by the court barber how he wanted his hair cut, the king replied: “In silence.” (Collected in the Philogelos or “Laughter-Lover” the oldest extant jest book and compiled in the 4th/5th Century AD)

see also: World’s oldest joke traced back to 1900 BC

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: jokes, oldest, top ten, World

Golden Ray photos of amazing mass migration

Magical: Golden Rays migrating in the Gulf of Mexico

Looking like giant leaves floating in the sea thousands of Golden Rays are seen here gathering off the coast of Mexico.

The spectacular scene was captured as the magnificent creatures made one of their biannual mass migrations to more agreeable waters.

Gliding silently beneath the waves they turned vast areas of blue water to gold off the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Sandra Critelli, an amateur photographer, came across the phenomenon whilst on a whale shark expedition with the Shark Research Expeditions of Philadelphia, on the northern tip of the Jucatan Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico. But upon seeing these leaf-like animals, her attentions were quickly switched to the school of fish commonly known as Golden Rays.

Stunning: Onlookers watch as thousands of Golden rays make their migration in the Gulf of Mexico

She said: “It was an unreal image, very difficult to describe. The surface of the water was covered by warm and different shades of gold and looked like a bed of autumn leaves gently moved by the wind.

“It’s hard to say exactly how many there were but in the range of a few thousand.

“We were surrounded by them without seeing the edge of the school and we could see many under the water surface too.

“I feel very fortunate I was there in the right place at the right time to experienced nature at his best.”

Measuring up to 7ft (2.1 metres) from wing-tip to wing-tip, Golden rays are also more prosaically known as cow nose rays.

Arc: The rays, swimming in a long line, was spotted by amateur photographer Sandra Critelli

They have long, pointed pectoral fins that separate into two lobes in front of their high-domed heads and give them a cow-like appearance.

Despite having poisonous stingers they are known to be shy and non-threatening when in large schools.

The population in the Gulf of Mexico migrates, in schools of as many as 10,000, clockwise from western Florida to the Yucatan.

The great ocean migration… thousands of stingrays swim to new seas

Close up: The rays, properly known as Cow-nosed Stingrays, are known because of their bovine-like high-domed heads

written by Pinewood Design \\ tags: animal, golden ray, migration, ocean, Sandra Critelli