Wednesday, January 30, 2019




Beautiful, no?

I’d like to honor some folks whose lives I admire.
 

Mary Wollstonecraft was a famous woman writer of the late 18th century. Mary was born in Spitalfields, London on 27 April 1759. She was the second of 7 children. Mary had an older brother called Edward or Ned, on who, she claimed her mother lavished affection. Ned was also well educated while Mary only had a basic schooling. She learned to read and write but Mary was mainly self educated. Her first job was a companion to a lady in Bath in 1778. However in 1781 she returned home to London to care for her ailing mother who died in 1782. Wollstonecraft then set up a school with her friend Frances Blood. However Blood died in 1785 and the next year Wollstonecraft closed the school. For a short time she worked as a governess but she did not get on with her employer.
However Mary then tried her hand at writing and in 1787 she published a book called Thoughts on The Education of Daughters. 

In 1788 she published a novel called Mary: a Fiction. She also published a book for children called Original Stories From Real Life. Afterwards Wollstonecraft wrote for Johnson's Critical Review. She also translated foreign books into English. However her opportunity for fame came when the French Revolution began in 1789.


Millie Bailey grew up in the Deep South. During World War II she joined the Army. She ended up the Commander of a women’s unit. Now she lives in a Senior Apartment complex in Columbia, Howard County. It’s been a memorable journey for this accomplished Senior Citizen!


Like most of you I had heard of William Blake but as with so many other people I heard of I did not discover this man’s genius until much later. Here’s a nice, concise article about the man that’s definitely worth a read.

William Blake was a famous poet, painter and engraver of the late 18th century and early 19th century. Blake was a radical, anti authority figure.

William Blake was born at 28 Broad Street in Soho, London on 28 November 1757. His father James Blake was a hosier. He and his wife Catherine had 6 children. Apart from William they had 4 boys and 1 girl. From an early age William Blake was artistic. He also had 'visions' of things like angels. When he was 14 William was made apprentice to an engraver called James Basire. William served 7 years and became an engraver himself in 1779. Blake also wanted to paint and the same year he became a student at the Royal Academy of Arts.
On 18 August 1782 William Blake married Catherine Sophia Boucher at the Church of St Mary in Battersea. Blake also wrote poems. A book of poems called Poetical Sketches was published in 1783. In 1789 he published a book of poems called The Song of Innocence.

In 1793 Blake published Visions of the Daughters of Albion. The same year, 1793 Blake published The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Also in 1793 Blake published America, a Prophecy.
In 1794 Blake published a book of poems called Songs of Experience. It included the famous poem The Tiger. The Book of Urizen was also published in 1794. Also in 1794 William Blake published Europe, a Prophecy.
In 1800 William Blake moved to the village of Felpham near Bognor in Sussex. Then on 12 August 1803 Blake got into a fight with a soldier named John Schofield who entered his garden. Schofield later told a magistrate that Blake damned the king of England during the altercation. William Blake was tried for sedition (a serious charge) in Chichester in January 1804. However he was acquitted. 

Meanwhile in 1803 Blake and his wife returned to London. In the years 1804-1810 William Blake wrote and illustrated his work Milton A Poem in Two Books. The preface included the famous poem now know as Jerusalem, which was written in 1804. (Blake did not actually give it that title. It was originally called 'And did those feet in ancient time'. Hubert Parry wrote music for it in 1916). In 1820 Blake painted The Goblin. He also painted a miniature called The Ghost of a Flea.
In 1825 Blake was commissioned illustrate Divine Comedy by Dante but he died before he could complete the task. William Blake died on 12 August 1827. He was buried in Bunhill Fields in London.
His father James Blake was a hosier. He and his wife Catherine had 6 children. Apart from William they had 4 boys and 1 girl. From an early age William Blake was artistic. He also had 'visions' of things like angels. When he was 14 William was made apprentice to an engraver called James Basire. William served 7 years and became an engraver himself in 1779. Blake also wanted to paint and the same year he became a student at the Royal Academy of Arts.

On 18 August 1782 William Blake married Catherine Sophia Boucher at the Church of St Mary in Battersea. Blake also wrote poems. A book of poems called Poetical Sketches was published in 1783. In 1789 he published a book of poems called The Song of Innocence.
In 1793 Blake published Visions of the Daughters of Albion. The same year, 1793 Blake published The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Also in 1793 Blake published America, a Prophecy.
In 1794 Blake published a book of poems called Songs of Experience. It included the famous poem The Tiger. The Book of Urizen was also published in 1794. Also in 1794 William Blake published Europe, a Prophecy.
In 1800 William Blake moved to the village of Felpham near Bognor in Sussex. Then on 12 August 1803 Blake got into a fight with a soldier named John Schofield who entered his garden. Schofield later told a magistrate that Blake damned the king of England during the altercation. William Blake was tried for sedition (a serious charge) in Chichester in January 1804. However he was acquitted. 
In 1825 Blake was commissioned illustrate Divine Comedy by Dante but he died before he could complete the task. William Blake died on 12 August 1827. He was buried in Bunhill Fields in London.

Some folks doing "the good work".

“You’ve got to be really gentle with them," says Trish. “They know what you’re doing. I think they can pick up your energies.”

  Trish & Wally Franklin


Researchers from Mexico and the United States have concluded that a population of fin whales in the rich Gulf of California ecosystem may live there year-round -- an unusual circumstance for a whale species known to migrate across ocean basins.

  
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190110160938.htm

Just a couple of really beautiful photos:



And where does this appearingly placid yet majestic earth scape come from? How did it come to be? Well from a phenomenon called Continental drift and it’s resultant science of Plate Tectonics. Right under our feet lies a veritable cauldron of movement and alchemy.

From this


I was first introduced to this process as a freshman in an introductory class in Geology at Washington State Univ. Though a Zoology major this intellectual discovery helped shape my entire evolving philosophy of life.  

And to think that all that resulted in this:


To survive in the far north, arctic foxes have been known to steal up to 40 goose eggs each day. Whatever isn’t immediately eaten is stored away, serving as an essential food source in the frigid weeks to come.

https://www.facebook.com/biographic.magazine/photos/a.1168248919861716/2275306045822659/?type=3&theater

And what is wonderful and amazing is that now and forever it is all still changing.

A new species combining wolves, coyotes and dogs is evolving before scientists’ eyes in the eastern United States.


Wolves faced with a diminishing number of potential mates are lowering their standards and mating with other, similar species, reported The Economist.



On #NationalBirdDay, a spotlight on a bird that spends almost as much time in flight as it does in any one place. The tiny northern wheatears' 9,000-mile cross-hemisphere trek—across deserts, oceans, and mountain ranges—is one of the animal kingdom’s most impressive migrations.


OK, just a little astronomy to maintain perspective.
On October 19th, 2017, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System-1 (Pan-STARRS-1) in Hawaii announced the first-ever detection of an interstellar object, named 1I/2017 U1 (aka. ‘Oumuamua).


In the months that followed, multiple follow-up observations were conducted to learn more about this visitor, as well as resolve the dispute about whether it was a comet and an asteroid.
Rather than resolving the dispute, additional observations only deepened the mystery, even giving rise to suggestions that it might be an extra-terrestrial solar sail. For this reason, scientists are very interested in finding other examples of similar-like objects. According to a recent study by a team of Harvard astrophysicists, it is possible that interstellar objects enter our system and end up falling into in our Sun somewhat regularly.

After only three months of operation, NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) spacecraft is delivering on its mission to find more exoplanets. A new paper presents the latest finding: a sub-Neptune planet with a 36-day orbit around its star. This is the third confirmed exoplanet that TESS has found.


The planet orbits a K-dwarf star about 52 light years away, in the constellation Reticulum. In astronomical terms, this makes the planet pretty close to us, and a great candidate for follow-up observations. Even better, it may have a sibling planet about the same size as Earth.


Bizarre Double Star System Flipped its Planetary Disk on its Side

Astronomers theorize that when our Sun was still young, it was surrounded by a disc of dust and gas from which the planets eventually formed. It is further theorized that the majority of stars in our Universe are initially surrounded in this way by a “protoplanetary disk“, and that in roughly 30% of cases, these disks will go on to become a planet or system of planets.

Ordinarily, these disks are thought to orbit around the equatorial band (aka. the ecliptic) of a star or system of stars. However, new research conducted by an international group of scientists has discovered the first example of a binary star system where the orientation was flipped and the disk now orbits the stars around their poles (perpendicular to the ecliptic).


Plasmas -- hot gases consisting of chaotically-moving electrons, ions, atoms and molecules -- can be found inside of stars, but they are also artificially created using special equipment in the laboratory. 

If a plasma comes in contact with a solid, such as the wall of the lab equipment, under certain circumstances the wall is changed fundamentally and permanently: atoms and molecules from the plasma can be deposited on the solid material, or energetic plasma ions can knock atoms out of the solid, and thereby deform or even destroy its surface.
A team from the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics at Kiel University (CAU) has now discovered a surprising new effect, in which the electronic properties of the solid material, such as its electrical conductivity, can be changed in a controlled, extremely fast and reversible manner, by ion impact.


MADRID, SPAIN—According to an El PaĆ­s report, researchers at Spain’s National Archaeology Museum have analyzed the results of computer tomography scans conducted on three Egyptian mummies several years ago, and determined that one of the mummies belonged to Nespamedu, a high-ranking priest who lived between 300 and 200 B.C. The nearly 3,000 images of Nespamedu’s mummy revealed a range of charms and plaques tucked in its wrappings. The iconography of these items suggests he worked as an eye doctor in a chapel in Saqqara, and was Ptolemy II’s personal eye physician, which may have required him to travel to Alexandria. This conclusion is based on the presence of two plaques that feature the god Thoth and the Eye of Horus. Thoth was known in Egyptian mythology for replacing Horus’ eye after it was lost in a battle with Set, the god of chaos. For this reason, Thoth is seen as the god of ophthalmologists. On his head, Nespamedu wore a headband adorned with a winged scarab charm with a solar disc that featured an image of the god Khepri, who was linked to resurrection and rebirth. Nespamedu also wore a Usekh collar, an item reserved for the Egyptian elite.


A hoard of 6,500-year-old Copper Age axes and ax hammers – Europe’s largest such find so far – has been discovered by accident near the town of Polkovnik Taslakovo, Dulovo Municipality, Silistra District, in Northeast Bulgaria.

The discovery of the hoard of prehistoric axes and ax hammers from the Chacolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age) has just been announced for the first time by archaeologist Dimitar Chernakov based in the Danube city of Ruse in Northeast Bulgaria, the Ruse Regional Museum of History informs.
rchaeologyinbulgaria.com/2019/01/09/europes-largest-hoard-of-copper-age-axes-ax-hammers-discovered-in-northeast-bulgaria/


The core, or “heart" of the ancient city of Philipopolis, today’s Plovdiv in Central South Bulgaria, during the time of the Roman Empire consisted of six luxury quarters with residential and public buildings, including a brothel similar to the famous Lupanar of Pompeii in Italy, archaeologists reveal.


In the Antiquity period, Plovdiv was known as Philipopolis as it was named after King Philip II of Macedon. After Ancient Thrace’s conquest by the Romans in the 1st century AD, it was also called Trimontium because of the three hills on which the ancient city was located.