Wikipedia photo description: The geoglyph of Cuzco, map E.G. Squier, c. 1860. The fortification Sacsahuman (north of the town) represents the head of an animal (El Puma Yacente, puma lying down), the back, legs and tail of the animal are recognizable in the patterns of the town, the backshape follows a mountainriver, the feet are standing on the shore of the river Sapi

Nazca Lines are drawings on the ground often referred to as ‘geoglyphs’ which are positioned in the Nazca Desert, a high waterless plateau that spreads across hundreds of miles amidst the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the pampa, a huge flat region of southern Peru. They were originally detected by chance during an airplane in flight in 1927. There are hundreds of distinctive figures, ranging in intricacy from modest lines to stylised lizards, giant spiders, fish, orcas, and the now infamous hummingbird and even llamas in the Nasca lines.

These important Nazca markings were formulated in the period of the Nazca Indians, who thrived in the region from 200 BC to about 600. The lines were made by removing the red-brown iron oxide covered stones which cover the terrain of the Nazca desert. When the gravel is taken away, the lines contrast severely with the light coloured earth underneath. The total expanse encompassing the lines is almost 190 square miles, with the greatest illustrations measuring 886 feet. The Nazca desert is one of the driest on the Planet with only a few millimetres of rainfall in a five year period and maintains a temperature close to 25°C (77°F) all year round, and the absence of any discernable wind has assisted in the preservation of the lines to the present day.

Since their discovery, the Nazca Lines have inspired sensational interpretations from ancient gods, an approach strip for returning aliens, and a heavenly calendar invented by the ancient Nazca culture. It is thought the formation of the lines ranges from somewhere between 200 BC and 600 AD.

Nazca Lines Peru

Maria Reiche was a German mathematician and archaeologist who was well known for examining the Nazca Lines. She conceived the lines were an Astronomical Calendar revealing the bearing of the rising stars and planetary occurrences the likes of sun solstices. One hypothesis of the objective of the lines is that the Nazca people’s motives were religious, and that the pictures were made so that gods in the heavens could view them. Swiss writer Erich von Däniken stated in his publication ‘Chariots of the Gods’ the lines were constructed by ancient space travellers as a landing field. He recognises the pictures as “signals” and the longer lines as “landing strips.

The majority opinion of archeologists, and scientists, however, is the Nazca Lines were produced by the Nazca people themselves, lacking help from extraterrestrial visitors or aerial views and are conceived to be ritual pathways, designed to be walked upon and to lead processions to places where worships for more water would be most productive. It is practically certain that the Nazca Lines had a spiritual purpose, considering that other artefacts of the Nazca civilization indicate a preoccupation with death and additional major monuments of the ancient world are known to be ritual in nature and no credible realistic resolution has nevertheless yet been unearthed.

The most troubling of issues in relation to the lines is of course the location of the creations in relation to the individuals whom constructed them. Clearly, the creators would not have been in a position to view the huge drawings from the flat arid terrain and yet produced some stunning drawings accurately and without assistance from geometrical tools. One individual has contested that the Nascans managed to construct a make shift hot air balloon and using materials available at the time managed to build such an vehicle sufficient to carry himself high above the drawings. This demonstrated that perhaps these mystical drawings were indeed meant to viewed from above.

The final piece of the puzzle in terms of the potential UFO connection with the lines of Nazca are the presence of what appears to be a ’spaceman’ etched into the surface of a nearby mountain. The figure does indeed appear to be wearing some form of space suit and helmet and if taken in combination with the enormous ‘landing strip’, a huge line which appears to have been cleared to allow an object from the air to land you would be forgiven for considering that these lines are in fact effectively ’sign posts’ to the travellers from the skies….

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Out of the Past (1947), featuring stars Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer

The aesthetic of film noir was hugely influenced by German Expressionism of the 1910s and 1920s. Many of the major contributors to film noir were immigrants from Europe, who had been directly involved in the Expressionism movement who were fleeing Nazi Germany. Another underlying influence and definitive antecedent was 1930s French poetic realism and it’s romantic, fatalistic attitude and celebration of doomed heroes.

Italian neo-realism also contributed to film noir’s evolution with it’s focus on a quasi-documentary style. The pulp American literature of crime thrillers and detective stories was another overriding influence. The burgeoning emancipation of women played a part in noir’s formation with female characters toying with their male counterparts and helping in their downfall. These characters realise and understand that their eroticism empowers them to manipulate men with ease.

Major examples include Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (1944), Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Ava Gardner in The Killers (1946) and Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947). Most of the film noirs of the classic period were low budget productions that did not feature major stars and so were relatively free from big budget constraints and studio interference. Film noir turned conventional Hollywood on it’s head, producing sophisticated often bleak pieces of work that often factored cynical, minimalist, absurdist or realist themes shot with strikingly expressionist lighting and though-provoking camera angles. The noir style gradually began to influence the mainstream and indeed, film noir continues to be made, re-made, satirised and lauded right to the present day.

Related posts:

1. What Was the Lost Generation? World War I devastated everything – nothing could ever be...
2. What Was the Beat Generation? The Beat Movement, The Beats, The Beat Generation –...
3. What on Earth is Scientology? Scientology is a body of beliefs created by American...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Gertrude Stein

World War I devastated everything – nothing could ever be the same again, there was no way back to what it was like before. Everybody had bought into the values of class-consciousness, the formalism of societal norms and the constraints of culture but in the end these axioms had failed humanity. Everybody had played ball and everybody had been horrifically maimed, no more would everybody be so obsequious, trusting and indeed so care-free.

In America, artists began congregating in enclaves in the major cities seeking to develop new values, new methods of living, new approaches to the way society should co-exist. Others went even further, maybe to seek more or perhaps to abandon the whole shebang- many of these seekers shored up in Paris. The Lost Generation was the moniker that they became known as, it was originally applied to them by the apparently ubiquitous Gertrude Stein. From their disillusionment, followed their aimless wanderings, followed their self-imposed exile, resulting in an original and innovative style of literature. They were marked out by their realism – romanticism, flowery idealism and dishonest clichés were abandoned.

Likewise, language was pared down and frank – no more formal, strait-laced, Victorian cloak and daggers palaver. Paris and Montparnasse in particular was the ideal location and – full of flamboyant characters immersing themselves in bohemian lifestyles disputing and debating philosophical points, historical facts and thoughts on modern living. Paris was the breeding ground of such exciting and challenging movements as Dadaism, Futurism, Expressionism and Surrealism. Picasso was there, Joyce was there, Duchamp was there, Stravinski was there, Cocteau was there, Breton was there, Apollinaire was there – Paris was the place to be.

The young American radicals – Hemingway, Pound, Fitzgerald, Miller, Anais Nin and Don Passos – flung themselves into this innovative cauldron. They played hard – plunging into the hedonistic lifestyle – but they worked even harder – producing startlingly literature of astonishing range and depth. Paris possessed other advantages – it was damn cheap and there was a plethora of small, independent publishing houses that were willing to publish unknown and innovative writers. In addition, there were many literary reviews operating out of small rooms on the Left Bank that gave exposure to these writers. Also beneficial was the fact that alcohol was legal, unlike Prohibition era America.

Related posts:

1. What Was the Beat Generation? The Beat Movement, The Beats, The Beat Generation –...
2. What Was Classic Film Noir? The aesthetic of film noir was hugely influenced by...
3. What on Earth is Scientology? Scientology is a body of beliefs created by American...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Allen Ginsberg

The Beat Movement, The Beats, The Beat Generation – what exactly was it? Truth is I don’t know and I don’t think anybody else does. I mean beat generation was a moniker that Kerouac applied to his close circle of friends – it hardly defines a generation – indeed Corso saw that only three were in it – himself, Ginsberg and Orlovsky.

But then again, what a circle of friends, it often strikes me that the Beats when young where just like any other young group of people, they believe in what they believe, they might compile a half-baked manifesto – but to follow it to the letter, to keep faith in it, to see it to the end – well that’s Beat I suppose. Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs met at Columbia University, envisioning themselves as future literary figures but they were absolutely astonished when they sparked a literary movement. They didn’t even know they had, they were living in Europe, whittling away their days in the Beat Hotel, Paris immersing themselves in creative and hedonistic activity. Their circles in New York, San Francisco and Paris included people who were solely hedonists, they would be intricate cogs in the movement, providing distraction, entertainment and inspiration. Poetry by the people for the people.

Indeed, the original beats were Columbian University academics, they needed the influence of the hucksters and hipsters or they may have went the way of the formalists. Well, maybe not, the work that they produced was so fresh, raw and provoking – far from mainstream and it’s producers refused to compromise even though it appeared for years that their work would forever remain misunderstood and unpublished.

Related posts:

1. What Was the Lost Generation? World War I devastated everything – nothing could ever be...
2. What on Earth is Scientology? Scientology is a body of beliefs created by American...
3. What Was Classic Film Noir? The aesthetic of film noir was hugely influenced by...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Scientology building in New York City.

Scientology is a body of beliefs created by American science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, the first Scientology church was established in New Jersey in 1953. Scientology believes that people are immortal spiritual beings (thetans) which have lived many lifetimes, thetans lived among extraterrestrial cultures before being trapped in human forms on earth. It is believed that thetans were brainwashed by these cultures and sent to Earth as a form of population control. Scientology materials are structured in sequential levels, the easier steps are taken first, progressing to more complex beliefs as time progresses.

Scientologists believe that people are composed of three distinguishable parts – mind, body and spirit. The Church of Scientology provides Sunday services as well as social ceremonies for marriage, birth and death that are performed by an ordained Scientology minister. It is believed that further spiritual awareness and physical benefits are accomplished through counselling sessions referred to as auditing. Most auditing requires an E-meter, a device that measures minute changes in electrical resistance through the body when a person holds electrodes and a small current is passed through them.

Scientology states that this process helps locate an area of concern. During the auditing process, the auditor may collect personal information from the person being audited. The Church of Scientology claims in a legal waiver that all auditing records are kept confidential, however some former members have claimed that this information was used against them. Scientology has attracted some high profile followers including John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley, Isaac Hayes and Tom Cruise.

Related posts:

1. What Was the Beat Generation? The Beat Movement, The Beats, The Beat Generation –...
2. It Was Grand When it Left Belfast! What Exactly Sank the Titanic? They said she was unsinkable, they said that she...
3. What Was Classic Film Noir? The aesthetic of film noir was hugely influenced by...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

RMS Titanic before departing Southampton, England.

They said she was unsinkable, they said that she was the greatest ship to have ever sailed. Yet, she never even completed her maiden voyage, floundering in the icy waters of the Atlantic, four hundred miles south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. She was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland for the White Star Line, she was the largest passenger ship in the world and as the famous Belfast wits maintain, she was grand when she left Belfast. And grand she was, she had it all – a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a Turkish bath, two libraries and a squash court. The first class compartments were works of art and did not come cheap, the most expensive retailing at eighty thousand dollars in today’s money! And that was only for one way! A whole lot of wedge! She first set sail from Southampton, England on 10 April 1912 bound for New York City. Five nights later she was to meet her Waterloo with the tragic loss of 1,517 lives. Theories abound as to the cause of the sinking, investigations into the disaster still take place; from which countless analyses have being derived.

At 13:45 on the day of the sinking, a message was received by one of the Marconi wireless operators aboard the Titanic from the steamer Amerika, warning of large icebergs in the Titanic’s path. However, the Marconi operators were employed solely to transmit messages to and from passengers and the vital warning ridiculously never made it to the bridge. Indeed, another ship, the Mesaba sent similar warnings later that evening but these too failed to be passed on to the captain. At 23:40, the ship struck an iceberg and seawater began flooding into the forward compartments, by the time the watertight doors were shut, five of the forward compartments were already filling with water, one too many, the ship could stay afloat with four flooded but not with five. The five water-filled compartments weighed down the ship so that the tops of the forward watertight bulkheads fell below the ship’s waterline, allowing water to begin pouring into the additional compartments. It was inevitable, the unthinkable was going to occur, the unsinkable Titanic was sinking.

Related posts:

1. What Was the Beat Generation? The Beat Movement, The Beats, The Beat Generation –...
2. What on Earth is Scientology? Scientology is a body of beliefs created by American...
3. What Was Classic Film Noir? The aesthetic of film noir was hugely influenced by...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dalí, 1931

“The Persistence of Memory” is one of Salvador Dalí’s most famous paintings.

Created in 1931, the well-known surrealistic painting introduced the image of the soft melting pocket watch. This image epitomizes Dalí’s theory of ’softness’ and ‘hardness’, which was central to his thinking at the time.

The painting has been owned by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City since 1934. It was, however, on display at the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida February–June 2008. The Persistence of Memory returned to the Museum of Modern Art in June 2008 as part of the exhibition Dalí and Film, on view from 29 June – 15 September 2008.

Several authors have used “The Persistence of Memory” as titles for books as well.

The Persistence of Memory is the title of a book by Tony Eprile.  The book takes place in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa, and covers the life of the main character, Paul Sweetbread, a South African man with a near-photographic memory.   The book takes a look at the injustices of the secret 1980s wars in Namibia and Angola.

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes entitled a recent novel by the same name, as well.

Related posts:

1. Where is My Computer’s Memory? Sometimes, it is difficult to sort out just where...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So what are phloem bundles?  They are the strings on a banana and are part of the system that carries nutrition to all parts of the banana.

For those who want more details on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” – it is a TV game show that offers very large cash prizes for correctly answering 15 (or in some countries, 12) consecutive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty. The format is owned and licensed by the Japanese production company Sony Pictures Television International.

The American version offers 1 million dollars as its maximum cash prize while the maximum cash prize in the original British version is one million pounds. Most international versions offer a top prize of one million units of the local currency, though the actual value of the prize varies widely, depending on the currency’s exchange rate. In the United States the top cash prizes have been changed to annuities.

Now my only question for you is – does anyone know what that millionaire question was that involved the phloem bundle, exactly?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If you remember a few months ago, we answered a question on “where do wolves live.” That answer led to more questions about the life of wolves and we thought we would answer one of those questions today. If you do have more questions about wolves, feel free to email us your question or to post it here and we will try to post new answers as the questions arise.

So with that little introduction, let’s look at what wolves eat.

Before I get into the actual diet of a wolf, it is important to note that wolves are carnivores, meat is their primary food source but they have been known to eat some berries and even insects like grasshoppers or even earthworms.

Since wolves rely on fresh meat as their food supply, the actual food that they eat depends on a number of things; their environment, the prey that is available in their environment and the season. If the herd has migrated to an area where the wolves are not, the pack will find other means to feed themselves.

Wolves, like dogs, can eat several times in a day, usually every 5 hours or so but generally, food is not plentiful enough for that type of feeding behavior so wolves are able to live without food for several weeks.

When it comes to hunting, wolves hunt in packs and will often single out old, sick or young animals to attack. This is beneficial to both the pack and the herd since the animals that are weakened by age or sickness are less likely to injure a wolf and the wolves keep the herd healthy and strong by removing the diseased members.

Since wolves hunt in packs, they are able to take down large game and will often hunt deer, moose and other large game. When large game is not readily available or the pack is too small to successfully kill one, wolves will survive on mice, birds, fish and the berries and insects that I have already mentioned.

A wolf’s digestive system is very efficient and it will digest 95% of the meat swallowed. Any bone splinters or undigested food will be wrapped inside the hair the wolf swallowed and will prevent the intestines from becoming damaged as the bone passes out of the body.

Young wolves are nursed by their dam (mother) until they are old enough to eat food. When they are, adult wolves will take the food back to the den and regurgitate it for the young. As they grow, the adult wolves will begin to take pieces of the kill back to the den for the pups.

Photo Credit

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

He was also a private scholar and is believed to be one of the “greatest scholars of the time.”

His most famous work is the A Shropshire Lad, which is a cycle of his poems printed in 1896. He is also went on to publish Last Poems in 1922. He has several lectures including “Swinburne” (1910), “The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism” (1921), “The Name and Nature of Poetry” (1933) and several others.

For more information on A.E. Housman, I would recommend visiting this site.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.