Spassky Cave Church in Russia
13 years ago
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Vicar in Sweden has figured out how to attract young Christians to religious services - by making them into a party.
Ole Idestrom from All Saints Church in Stockholm has asked local producers to come up with special techno track that plays in between worship.
Vicar's reading quotes from the Bible and singing of traditional hymns is replaced with these techno songs, and his church became a hit in Stockholm.
"Rarely you can see young Christians who literally dancing in the seats in the church, but it's important to come into God's house," "techno-priest" said modestly.
Ole Idestrom from All Saints Church in Stockholm has asked local producers to come up with special techno track that plays in between worship.
Vicar's reading quotes from the Bible and singing of traditional hymns is replaced with these techno songs, and his church became a hit in Stockholm.
"Rarely you can see young Christians who literally dancing in the seats in the church, but it's important to come into God's house," "techno-priest" said modestly.
On Oct. 5, a video was posted to YouTube: A white horse skitters through the bushes in a sun-dappled forest. The camera zooms in. The white horse has what looks to be a horn on its head.
A unicorn? In Ontario? Hogwash!
A unicorn? In Ontario? Hogwash!
Not so fast, doubting Thomas. The video was followed up by a rather official-sounding backer: the 
Ontario Science Center, an agency of the Canadian government. A news release was issued:
"Amateur video depicting what could be one of the most elusive legendary creatures, the unicorn, has been captured on film by a Toronto resident. ... The Science Centre is reviewing the footage frame-by-frame to determine whether Hickey-Jones' claim is legitimate."
The center set up an emergency unicorn hotline for more information and sightings.
Could it be true? Could a unicorn exist?...
In a phone call yesterday to the center's media office, the spokeswoman predicted a new unicorn would be sighted sometime in November. Oh really? They're predicting their sightings now?The group just happens to have an new exhibition to promote "Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids" and, well, the unicorn sighting may have something to do with that, the spokeswoman conceded.
Way to ruin a dream, Ontario Science Center.
Amateur video depicting what could be one of the most elusive legendary creatures, the unicorn, has been captured on film by a Toronto resident. The video in question, shot by a local birdwatcher, Peter Hickey-Jones, shows what appears to be a white horse with a single horn on its head emerging from the trees in the Don Valley wetland. "I was trying to film a pileated woodpecker when I saw what looked like a bright white horse in the distance. When I got a little closer, I noticed the horn on its head. I'm not one to jump to conclusions but I'm certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that what I saw was a unicorn. I'm 
just glad I got it on film."
Hickey-Jones brought the footage to the Ontario Science Centre to be analyzed by experts. The Science Centre is reviewing the footage frame-by-frame to determine whether Hickey-Jones' claim is legitimate. With closer examination, Science Centre staff is hoping to establish whether or not a genuine unicorn sighting has occurred.
In the meantime, the Science Centre is asking the public to use caution if they think they see a unicorn. Do not make any sudden movements or attempt to use flash photography. Although legends of unicorns state that they are peaceful creatures, scientists worry that they may harm themselves or others if they end up on a road or highway. The Ontario Science Centre has set up an emergency unicorn hotline for the public for further information on unicorns or to report any unusual or questionable sightings.
*in India...
WASHINGTON – A "hidden" language spoken by only about 1,000 people has been discovered in the remote northeast corner of India by researchers who at first thought they were documenting a dialect of the Aka culture, a tribal community in the foothills of the Himalayas.
They found an entirely different vocabulary and linguistic structure.
Even the speakers of the tongue, called Koro, did not realize they had a distinct language, linguist K. David Harrison said Tuesday.
Culturally, the Koro speakers are part of the Aka community in India's Arunachal Pradesh state, and Harrison, associate professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, said both groups merely considered Koro a dialect of the Aka language.
But researchers studying the groups found they used different words for body parts, numbers and other concepts, establishing Koro as a separate language, Harrison said.
"Koro is quite distinct from the Aka language," said Gregory Anderson, director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. "When we went there we were told it was a dialect of Aka, but it is a distant sister language."
People of the Aka culture live in small villages near the borders of China, Tibet and Burma (also known as Myanmar). They practice subsistence hunting, farming and gathering firewood in the forest and tend to wear ornate clothing of hand-woven cloth, favoring red garments. Their languages are not well known, though they were first noted in the 19th century.
The region where they live in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains requires a special permit to enter. There, the researchers crossed a mountain river on a bamboo raft and climbed steep hillsides to to reach the remote villages, going door-to-door among the bamboo houses that sit on stilts.
Harrison and Anderson spoke at a news conference organized by the National Geographic Society, which supported their work.
The northeast corner of India is known as a hotspot of language diversity and researchers were documenting some of the unwritten tongues when they came across Koro in research started in 2008.
The timing of their discovery was important.
"We were finding something that was making its exit, was on its way out. And if we had waited 10 years to make the trip, we might not have come across close to the number of speakers we found," said Anderson.
Previously undocumented languages are "noticed from time to time" Harrison said, so such a discovery is not rare. But at the same time linguists estimate that a language "dies" about every two weeks with the loss of its last speakers.
Counting Koro there are 6,910 documented languages in the world, Harrison said. But he added that is really just a best estimate that can change regularly.
Many languages around the world are considered endangered, including Koro, he explained, because younger people tend to shift to the more dominant language in a region.
Unusually, Koro has been maintained within the Aka community, the researchers said, even though there is intermarriage and the groups share villages, traditions, festivals and food. In addition to the estimated 800 to 1,200 Koro speakers, the West Kameng and East Kameng districts of Arunachal Pradesh contain 4,000 to 6,000 Aka speakers.
The Koro speakers "consider themselves to be Aka tribally, though linguistically they are Koro. It's an unusual condition, such arrangement doesn't usually allow for maintenance of the minor language," Anderson said.
The threat, however, is from the spread of Hindi, a dominant language in India, and many youngsters go to boarding schools where they learn Hindi or English.
The researchers said they hope to figure out how the Koro language managed to survive within the Aka community.
They said Koro is a member of the Tibeto-Burman language family, a group of some 400 languages that includes Tibetan and Burmese. While Koro differs from Aka, it does share some things with another language, Tani, which is spoken farther to the east.
The research was started in 2008 to document two little known languages, Aka and Miji, and the third language, Koro, was discovered in that process.
"We didn't have to get far on our word list to realize it was extremely different in every possible way," Harrison said.
They said Koro's inventory of sounds was completely different, and so was the way sounds combine to form words. Words also are built differently in Koro, as are sentences.
The Aka word for "mountain" is "phu," while the Koro word is "nggo." Aka speakers call a pig a "vo" while to Koro speakers, a pig is a "lele."
"Koro could hardly sound more different from Aka," reported Harrison, author of a new book "The Last Speakers," about vanishing languages. Joining the two was linguist Ganesh Murmu of Ranchi University in India.
The researchers detail Koro in a scientific paper to be published in the journal Indian Linguistics.
LIMA (Reuters) – Archaeologists say scrawl on the back of a letter recovered from a 17th century dig site reveals a previously unknown language spoken by indigenous peoples in northern Peru.
A team of international archaeologists found the letter under a pile of adobe bricks in a collapsed church complex near Trujillo, 347 miles (560 km) north of Lima. The complex had been inhabited by Dominican friars for two centuries.
"Our investigations determined that this piece of paper records a number system in a language that has been lost for hundreds of years," Jeffrey Quilter, an archaeologist at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, told Reuters.
A photograph of the letter recently released by archaeologists shows a column of numbers written in Spanish and translated into a language that scholars say is now extinct.
"We discovered a language no one has seen or heard since the 16th or 17th century," Quilter said, adding that the language appears to have been influenced by Quechua, an ancient tongue still spoken by millions of people across the Andes.
He said it could also be the written version of a language colonial-era Spaniards referred to in historical writings as pescadora, for the fishermen on Peru's northern coast who spoke it.
So far no record of the pescadora language has been found.
The letter, buried in the ruins of the Magdalena de Cao Viejo church at the El Brujo Archaeological Complex in northern Peru, was discovered in 2008.
But Quilter said archaeologists decided to keep their discovery secret until the research showing evidence of the lost language was published this month in the journal American Anthropologist.
"I think a lot of people don't realise how many languages were spoken in pre-contact times," Quilter said. "Linguistically, the relationship between the Spanish conquistadors and the indigenous was very complex."
Prototaxites have sparked controversy for more than a century. Originally classified as a conifer, scientists later argued that it was instead a lichen, various types of algae or a fungus. Whatever it was, it stood in tree-like trunks more than 20 feet tall, making it the largest-known organism on land in its day.
“No matter what argument you put forth, people say, well, that’s crazy. That doesn’t make any sense,” said C. Kevin Boyce, Assistant Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. “A 20-foot-tall fungus doesn’t make any sense. Neither does a 20-foot-tall algae make any sense, but here’s the fossil.”
Plant-like polymers have been found in the fossils, but nutritional evidence supports heterotrophy, which is not commonly found in plants. These are a few of the confounding factors surrounding the identification of Prototaxites fossils.
Prototaxites existed during the Late Silurian to Late Devonian periods-- approximately 420-370 million years ago (ma). Prototaxites fossils have a consistent tubular anatomy, composed of primarily unbranched, non-septate tubes, arranged in concentric or eccentric rings, giving the fossils an appearance similar to that of a cross-section of a tree trunk. The fossil "trunks" vary in size and may be up to 8.8 m long and 1.37 m in diameter, making Prototaxites the largest organism on land during the Late Siluarian and Devonian periods.
Dr. Linda Graham, one of the world's experts in the evolutionary origin of land plants at the University of Wisconsin, and her colleagues believe that they have resolved this long-standing mystery.
Their hypothesis is that Prototaxites fossils may be composed of partially degraded wind-, gravity-, or water-rolled mats of liverworts that are associated with fungi and cyanobacteria. This resembles the mats produced by the modern liverwort genus Marchantia. The authors tested their hypothesis by treating Marchantia polymorpha in a manner to reflect the volcanically-influenced, warm environments typical of the Devonian period and compared the resulting remains to Prototaxites fossils. Graham and her colleagues investigated the mixotrophic ability of M. polymorpha by assessing whether M. polymorpha grown in a glucose-based medium is capable of acquiring carbon from its substrate.
"For our structural comparative work," Graham said, "we were extremely fortunate to have an amazing thin slice of the rocky fossil, made in 1954 by the eminent paleobotanist Chester A. Arnold."
Their structural and physiological studies showed that the fossil Prototaxites and the modern liverwort Marchantia have many similarities in their external structure, internal anatomy, and nutrition. Despite being subjected to conditions that would promote decomposition and desiccation, the rhizoids of M. polymorpha survived degradation, and with the mat rolled, created the appearance of concentric circles. The fungal hyphae associated with living liverworts also survived treatment, suggesting that the branched tubes in fossils may be fungal hyphae. The very narrow tubes in the fossils resemble filamentous cyanobacteria that the researchers found wrapped around the rhizoids of the decaying M. polymorpha.
"We were really excited when we saw how similar the ultrastructure of our liverwort rhizoid walls was to images of Prototaxites tubes published in 1976 by Rudy Schmid," Graham said.
In their investigations into the nutritional requirements of M. polymorpha, Graham and her colleagues found that the growth of M. polymorpha in a glucose-based medium was approximately 13 times that seen when the liverwort was grown in a medium without glucose. Stable carbon isotope analyses indicated that less than 20% of the carbon in the glucose-grown liverwort came from the atmosphere. The stable carbon isotope values obtained from M. polymorpha grown with varying amounts of cyanobacteria present span the range of values reported for Prototaxites fossils. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the liverworts have a capacity for mixotrophic nutrition when glucose is present and that mixotrophy and/or the presence of cyanobacteria could be responsible for the stable carbon isotope values obtained from Prototaxites.
Graham and her colleagues' results demonstrate that liverworts were important components of Devonian ecosystems. Their results support previous hypotheses that microbial associations and mixotrophy are ancient plant traits, rather than ones that have evolved recently.
More information: The full article in the link mentioned is available for no charge for 30 days at http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/full/97/2/268
The most famous mummy in history, Tutankhamun, has had his artifacts exhumed and studied since 1922. For the last two years, in an effort to reveal why the Egyptian 'boy king' died young, teams of scientists from Egypt, Germany, and Italy, have studied Tut's DNA and come up with some interesting conclusions.
Ten royal members of King Tut's family, mummified during the the late 18th century BC, have also been exhumed to study lineage, as well as possible diseases to which the royal family succumbed, and whether they were inherited or opportunistic. Using genetic fingerprinting, the scientists confirmed the identity of Tut's grandmother and father, but not the specific relationships of the other eight members.
Tutankhamun, who died at the age of 19, was a frail boy, was thought to have inherited Marfan syndrome, a connective tissue disorder whose sufferers often had voluptuous, feminine appearances. But the genetic evidence, made possible by the study of so many members of the royal family, makes it very unlikely that any one of Tut's family had Marfan syndrome, according the Egypt's chief archaeologist, Dr. Zahi Hawass.
The king probably did inherit Kohler disease II, however, a rare bone disorder affecting the foot. Additionally, he had a club foot and curvature of the spine. These disorders would affect the King's mobility, which explains, say the researchers, why there were sticks and staves in Tut's tomb; he must have used them as canes.
Like an episode of CSI, the scientists then proceeded to investigate cause of death. They learned that just before his death, King Tut fractured his leg, possibly in a fall from his carriage, and the fracture did not heal properly. This would leave the King in a weakened condition.
It was malaria that actually killed the King; the researchers actually found evidence of the disease in Tut's blood - evidence that is the oldest mummified proof of malaria in ancient populations found yet.
Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family is published in the February 17, 2010 issue Journal of the American Medical Association (2010;303(7):638-647).
Ten royal members of King Tut's family, mummified during the the late 18th century BC, have also been exhumed to study lineage, as well as possible diseases to which the royal family succumbed, and whether they were inherited or opportunistic. Using genetic fingerprinting, the scientists confirmed the identity of Tut's grandmother and father, but not the specific relationships of the other eight members.Tutankhamun, who died at the age of 19, was a frail boy, was thought to have inherited Marfan syndrome, a connective tissue disorder whose sufferers often had voluptuous, feminine appearances. But the genetic evidence, made possible by the study of so many members of the royal family, makes it very unlikely that any one of Tut's family had Marfan syndrome, according the Egypt's chief archaeologist, Dr. Zahi Hawass.
The king probably did inherit Kohler disease II, however, a rare bone disorder affecting the foot. Additionally, he had a club foot and curvature of the spine. These disorders would affect the King's mobility, which explains, say the researchers, why there were sticks and staves in Tut's tomb; he must have used them as canes.
Like an episode of CSI, the scientists then proceeded to investigate cause of death. They learned that just before his death, King Tut fractured his leg, possibly in a fall from his carriage, and the fracture did not heal properly. This would leave the King in a weakened condition.
It was malaria that actually killed the King; the researchers actually found evidence of the disease in Tut's blood - evidence that is the oldest mummified proof of malaria in ancient populations found yet.
Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family is published in the February 17, 2010 issue Journal of the American Medical Association (2010;303(7):638-647).
London, Jan 24 (ANI): A group of scientists is seeking permission to open the tomb in which Leonardo da Vinci is believed to lie, in a bid to reconstruct his face and discover whether his masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, is a disguised self-portrait.
Leonardo is laid at Amboise castle, in the Loire valley, where he died in 1519, aged 67.
The team from Italy's National Committee for Cultural Heritage, a leading association of scientists and art historians, wants to exhume the remains of the great painter to be able to throw new light on his most famous work, reports The Times.
Giorgio Gruppioni, an anthropologist, said: "If we manage to find his skull, we could rebuild Leonardo's face and compare it with the Mona Lisa," he said.
Mona Lisa's true identity has been a mystery for ages, with speculation ranging from Leonardo's mother to Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant.
Silvano Vincenti, head of the Italian team, said: "There aren't any clues in the history books, but we'll be able to find out if Leonardo died of a disease such as syphilis or tuberculosis, because that shows up in the bones." Syphilis was seen as a form of plague at the time: some 20m people died of it in the first quarter of the 16th century," Vincenti said.
Nicholas Turner, a former curator of drawings at the Getty Museum, said: "It sounds a bit fanciful, slightly mad, as if the Leonardo bug has taken hold too firmly in the minds of these people. We know that Mona Lisa was a specific person, she existed and it's her portrait. If Leonardo heard about all this, he'd have a good chuckle."
Leonardo is laid at Amboise castle, in the Loire valley, where he died in 1519, aged 67.
The team from Italy's National Committee for Cultural Heritage, a leading association of scientists and art historians, wants to exhume the remains of the great painter to be able to throw new light on his most famous work, reports The Times.Giorgio Gruppioni, an anthropologist, said: "If we manage to find his skull, we could rebuild Leonardo's face and compare it with the Mona Lisa," he said.
Mona Lisa's true identity has been a mystery for ages, with speculation ranging from Leonardo's mother to Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant.
Silvano Vincenti, head of the Italian team, said: "There aren't any clues in the history books, but we'll be able to find out if Leonardo died of a disease such as syphilis or tuberculosis, because that shows up in the bones." Syphilis was seen as a form of plague at the time: some 20m people died of it in the first quarter of the 16th century," Vincenti said.
Nicholas Turner, a former curator of drawings at the Getty Museum, said: "It sounds a bit fanciful, slightly mad, as if the Leonardo bug has taken hold too firmly in the minds of these people. We know that Mona Lisa was a specific person, she existed and it's her portrait. If Leonardo heard about all this, he'd have a good chuckle."
Laptops and Blackberry mobile phones have been blessed in a church ceremony in the City of London.
Canon David Parrott blessed the gadgets at the St Lawrence Jewry church in an updated version of a traditional "Plough Monday" back-to-work ceremony.
A number of parishioners held their mobile phones up as Rev Parrott recited a prayer.
He said: "It's the technology that is our daily working tool and it's a technology we should bless."
The 17th Century building is the official church of the City of London Corporation.
On Monday Canon Parrott placed a number of laptops and phones on its altar.
He said it would remind the capital's busy office workers that God's grace could reach them in many ways.
Canon Parrott then recited a blessing over the parishioners and their electronic devices.
He said he hoped the ceremony had made worship "lively and relevant to the people who work nearby, in the financial district".
The traditional Plough Monday ceremony blessed a symbolic farming implement which had been dragged to the church's door.
Canon Parrott updated that ceremony, as he said it didn't have much relevance for his church, which was "nowhere near a field, in the middle of London".
Canon Parrott, who took up the post seven months ago, described the ceremony as "a fresh idea for a fresh post".
Rare Buddhist treasures, not seen for more than 70 years, have been unearthed in the Gobi Desert.
The historic artefacts were buried in the 1930s during Mongolia's Communist purge, when hundreds of monasteries were looted and destroyed.
The relics include statues, art work, manuscripts and personal belongings of a famous 19th Century Buddhist master.
The leader of the search team, Michael Eisenriegler, described it as an "adventure of a lifetime".
A total of 64 crates of treasures were buried in the desert by a monk named Tudev, in an attempt to save them from the ransacking of the Mongolian and Soviet armies.
They belonged to Buddhist master Danzan Ravjaa and only Tudev knew where they were hidden. He passed on the secret to his grandson who dug up some of the boxes in the 1990s and opened a museum.
The current Austrian-Mongolian treasure hunt team found two more boxes. Mr Eisenriegler told the BBC World Service they were filled with "the most amazing Buddhist art objects".
"It is of tremendous value for Mongolian culture because Buddhism was almost extinct in the Communist times, especially in the 1930s.
"I'm totally exhausted right now but I'm also totally impressed with what I've seen."
The latest finds will be put on show at the Danzan Ravjaa Museum in Sainshand, 400km (250 miles) south of the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator.
About 20 boxes remain hidden in the desert.
The historic artefacts were buried in the 1930s during Mongolia's Communist purge, when hundreds of monasteries were looted and destroyed.
The relics include statues, art work, manuscripts and personal belongings of a famous 19th Century Buddhist master.
The leader of the search team, Michael Eisenriegler, described it as an "adventure of a lifetime".
A total of 64 crates of treasures were buried in the desert by a monk named Tudev, in an attempt to save them from the ransacking of the Mongolian and Soviet armies.
They belonged to Buddhist master Danzan Ravjaa and only Tudev knew where they were hidden. He passed on the secret to his grandson who dug up some of the boxes in the 1990s and opened a museum.
The current Austrian-Mongolian treasure hunt team found two more boxes. Mr Eisenriegler told the BBC World Service they were filled with "the most amazing Buddhist art objects".
"It is of tremendous value for Mongolian culture because Buddhism was almost extinct in the Communist times, especially in the 1930s.
"I'm totally exhausted right now but I'm also totally impressed with what I've seen."
The latest finds will be put on show at the Danzan Ravjaa Museum in Sainshand, 400km (250 miles) south of the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator.
About 20 boxes remain hidden in the desert.
Date: August 01 2009
An earthenware vessel from the time of Jesus Christ bearing a rare inscription has been found at a dig in Jerusalem.
‘‘It is possible that this type of vessel was used by Jesus to wash his hands before eating,’’ said Shimon Gibson, an archaeologist and author of The Final Days of Jesus.
Similar artefacts have been found at the dig just outside Jerusalem’s Old City, but what makes this one rare is the writing engraved on it. The letters — either ancient Hebrew or Aramaic — are legible, though the meaning of the 10 lines of text is yet to be deciphered.
An earthenware vessel from the time of Jesus Christ bearing a rare inscription has been found at a dig in Jerusalem.
‘‘It is possible that this type of vessel was used by Jesus to wash his hands before eating,’’ said Shimon Gibson, an archaeologist and author of The Final Days of Jesus.
Similar artefacts have been found at the dig just outside Jerusalem’s Old City, but what makes this one rare is the writing engraved on it. The letters — either ancient Hebrew or Aramaic — are legible, though the meaning of the 10 lines of text is yet to be deciphered.
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