Long before the invention of the computer, Italian academics had their own version of Facebook.Facebook and other social networking sites revolve around providing users with the ability to stay in touch while sharing and commenting on topical subjects and points of interest. In the 16th and 17th centuries, scholars participated in similar activities using yearbooks, letters, volumes and speeches to communicate their points. They even used nicknames,mottoes and logos to represent themselves while forming groups and sharing their music, poetry and writings with one another."Just as we create user names for our profiles on Facebook and Twitter and create circles of friends on Google plus, these scholars created nicknames, shared - and commented on - topical ideas, the news of the day, and exchanged poems, plays and music," said Professor Jane Everson.
The discovery was made during a collaborative research project between Royal Holloway, theBritish Library and Reading University, in which a team of academics are cataloguing and investigating the works of the Italian Academies, dating from 1525 to 1700.
The fabled lost city of gold lured conquistadors on futile treks through the rainforest for centuries.The myth of a lost city arose following Columbus" discovery of the Americas in 1492 and prompted several expeditions over the next few centuries aimed at locating its whereabouts and claiming its treasures. To this day however no such city has ever been found, but was there ever really a city made of gold to find in the first place ?Researchers now believe thatEl Dorado was not a place at all but a person, a ruler who was so rich he"d cover himself in gold every morning and wash it off at night.
The story stemmed from a succession ritual of the Muisca peoples who lived in Central Colombia from 800 AD to the present day. The concept of a lost city, it seems, was nothing more than the product of a combination of myth and the unquenchable thirst for gold of early European conquerors. The dream of El Dorado, a lost city of gold, led many a conquistador on afruitless trek into the rainforests and mountains of South America. But it was all wishful thinking. The "golden one" was actually not a place but a person - as recent archaeological research confirms.
There will be no change to the hands of the infamous "Doomsday Clock" this year, say scientists.The clock represents humanity"s proximity to destruction based on a number of political and environmental factors including the state of nuclear arsenals around the world, the recovery from the Fukushima disaster and the prevalence of extreme weather events. The clock was first implemented in 1947 in the wake of the first atomic weapons at which point it was set to seven minutes tomidnight.
In 1953 it was set to just two minutes to midnight following the first hydrogen bomb test, but recovered significantly at seventeen minutes to midnight at the end of the Cold War."We have as much hope for Obama"s second term in office as we did in 2010, when we moved back the hand of the Clock after his first year in office," the science team wrote in an open letter to President Obama. "This is the year for U.S. leadership in slowing climate change and setting a path toward a world without nuclear weapons." Thehands of the infamous "Doomsday Clock" will remain firmly in their place at five minutes to midnight — symbolizing humans" destruction - for the year 2013, scientists announced Jan. 14.
The European Space Agency is appealing for ideas for a future mission to study asteroid deflection.The concept of sending a crew on a mission to prevent a catastrophic asteroid impact has been explored in science fiction for years in movies such as "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact", but in reality how close are we to such a solution ? In an effort to work towards a method to save us from a possible threat from space, the European Space Agency is seeking research ideas for a joint US–European mission called AIDA that will send two probes to collide withasteroids.It is hoped that the results will provide enough data to determine whether it would be possible for a probe to alter the course of an asteroid.
Because both spacecraft will be able to operate independently, one of them will still be able to complete the mission if the other fails. "Both missions become better when put together - getting much more out of the overall investment," said mission study manager Andrés Gálvez. "And the vast amounts of data coming from the joint mission should help to validate various theories, such as our impact modelling." A space rock several hundred metresacross is heading towards our planet and the last-ditch attempt to avert a disaster – an untested mission to deflect it – fails. This fictional scene of films and novels could well be a reality one day. But what can space agencies do to ensure it works?
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Source: Sci-News.com
