Ancient Amulet Discovered with Curious Palindrome Inscription

Live Science | Jan 1, 2015 | Owen Jarus

An ancient, two-sided amulet uncovered in Cyprus contains a 59-letter inscription that reads the same backwards as it does forwards.

Archaeologists discovered the amulet, which is roughly 1,500 years old, at the ancient city of Nea Paphos in southwest Cyprus.

The amulet contains a Greek inscription, 59 letters
long, which reads the same backwards as it
does forwards, a feature known as a palindrome.
The three letters at the very bottom, ΕΑΙ, were
squeezed in and are hard to read. The amulet
is about 1.4 inches by 1.6 inches (34.9 millimeters
by 41.2 millimeters) in size. The inscription
translates as “Iahweh is the bearer of the
secret name, the lion of Re secure in his
shrine.” Although the translation doesn’t
read as a palindrome, the original
ancient Greek text does.
Credit: Photo by Marcin Iwan, artifact
from the excavations of Jagiellonian
University in Krakow at Paphos Agora

One side of the amulet has several images, including a bandaged mummy (likely representing the Egyptian god Osiris) lying on a boat and an image of Harpocrates, the god of silence, who is shown sitting on a stool while holding his right hand up to his lips. Strangely, the amulet also displays a mythical dog-headed creature called a cynocephalus, which is shown holding a paw up to its lips, as if mimicking Harpocrates' gesture. [The 7 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth]

On the other side of the amulet is an inscription, written in Greek, that reads the same backwards as it does forwards, making it a palindrome. It reads:

ΙΑΕW

ΒΑΦΡΕΝΕΜ

ΟΥΝΟΘΙΛΑΡΙ

ΚΝΙΦΙΑΕΥΕ

ΑΙΦΙΝΚΙΡΑΛ

ΙΘΟΝΥΟΜΕ

ΝΕΡΦΑΒW

ΕΑΙ

This translates to "Iahweh (a god) is the bearer of the secret name, the lion of Re secure in his shrine."

Researchers have found similar palindromes elsewhere in the ancient world writes Joachim Śliwa, a professor at the Institute of Archaeology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, in an article recently published in the journal Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization.

Śliwa notes that the scribe made two small mistakes when writing this palindrome, in two instances writing a "ρ" instead of "v."

The amulet was discovered in the summer of 2011 by archaeologists with the Paphos Agora Project. Led by Jagiellonian University professor Ewdoksia Papuci-Wladyka, this team is excavating an ancient agora at Nea Paphos, and uncovered this amulet during their work. Agoras served as gathering places in the ancient world.

Amulets like the one found at Nea Paphos were made to protect their owners from danger and harm, Papuci-Wladyka told Live Science in an email.

Christians and pagans

During the 5th and 6th centuries, Cyprus was part of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had split in two during the 4th century, with Cyprus falling under control of the east. When the Western Roman Empire fell during the 5th century, the Eastern Roman Empire continued to flourish and became what is sometimes called the Byzantine Empire.

The amulet has several images. At the bottom,
there is a mummy (likely the Egyptian god Osiris)
wrapped in bandages, lying on a boat. Above
the mummy, there is an image of Harpocrates,
a god of silence, shown sitting on a stool.
Harpocrates’ right hand is raised up to his
lips and there is a scepter in his left hand.
To the right of Harpocrates there is a
dog-headed creature called a cynocephalus
that has a paw beside its lips, mimicking
Harpocrates gesture. There is a snake
between the cynocephalus and Harpocrates,
the snake’s head facing Harpocrates. There
are also depictions of a crocodile,
bird (likely a rooster), half moon and a star.
Credit: Photo by Marcin Iwan, artifact from
the excavations of Jagiellonian University
in Krakow at Paphos Agora

By the 5th century, Christianity was the official religion of the Eastern Roman Empire, and as time went on, traditional polytheistic (also called pagan) practices came under tighter restrictions and bans. Nevertheless, some people continued to practice the old beliefs, worshipping the traditional gods.

This amulet adds to evidence that people practiced traditional, polytheistic beliefs on Cyprus for an extended time, Papuci-Wladyka said. She notes that a structure called the Villa of Theseus has a mosaic with pagan elements that was likely repaired as late as the 7th century A.D.

It "rather seems that Christian and pagan religions coexisted in Paphos in times of [the] amulet being in use," Papuci-Wladyka told Live Science in an email.

Strange iconography

Despite that coexistence, the amulet has several unusual features that suggest its creator didn't fully understand the mythological characters depicted.

"It must be stated that the depiction is fairly unskilled and schematic. It is iconographically based on Egyptian sources, but these sources were not fully understood by the creator of the amulet," Śliwa wrote in the journal article.

For instance, rather than sitting on a stool, Harpocrates should be sitting on a lotus flower, with legs drawn up, Śliwa said. Additionally, the dog-headed cynocephalus should not be mimicking Harpocrates. In "the classic version, the cynocephalus faces Harpocrates with paws raised in adoration," Śliwa wrote."We can find no justification for the cynocephalus's gesture of raising its right paw to its lips in a manner similar to Harpocrates."

Even stranger is the fact that Harpocrates and the cynocephalus have crisscrossing lines on their bodies, which suggest the ancient artist thought these figures should be mummified along with Osiris. While the cynocephalus can be shown with mummy bandages, Harpocrates is not supposed to have them. Mummy bandages have "no justification in the case of Harpocrates," Śliwa wrote.

Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Earth's 10 Most Mysterious Lost Worlds

Hybrid Librarian | Oct 25, 2014

Aerial Japan volcano footage: Mt Ontake spews giant ash cloud, locals flee

RT | Sep 27, 2014

The Ontake volcano on the border of Nagano and Gifu prefectures, 200 kilometers west of Tokyo, started erupting at about 11:53 local time (02:53 GMT). More than 250 people were left stranded near the top of the volcano, police told NHK, adding that one hiker was rescued after being buried in ash near the volcano. He remains unconscious.


FULL STORY: http://on.rt.com/hbi2yi

Water discovered in a small, warm exoplanet’s atmosphere for first time

Guardian | Sep 24, 2014

The planet is a ball of gas with surface temperatures of 600C, but future studies of alien atmospheres may reveal signs of life

Astronomers have detected water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet that orbits a star far beyond our solar system.

Observations of the Neptune-sized planet, which lies 120 light years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, revealed that its atmosphere was mostly hydrogen with around 25% made up from water vapour.

Until now, researchers have been frustrated in their efforts to study the atmospheres of planets much smaller than Jupiter because their skies were thick with clouds. The problem was so persistent that astronomers had begun to think that all warm, small planets formed with substantial cloud cover.

But writing in the journal Nature, scientists in the US describe how they found a Neptune-sized planet with cloud-free skies, enabling them to make detailed measurements of a small planet’s atmosphere for the first time.

The planet, named HAT-P-11b, is about four times the diameter of Earth. It orbits so close to its star that surface temperatures reach more than 600C and a year passes in five Earth days. Like our own Neptune, the planet lacks a rocky surface – it’s a ball of gas – and is thought to be lifeless.

Scientists from the University of Maryland used Hubble’s wide field camera to analyse light from HAT-P-11b’s host star through the planet’s atmosphere. They found that light with a wavelength of 1.4 micrometres was absorbed, matching the absorption spectrum of water molecules.

“Although this planet is not classically habitable, it reveals to us that when we find Earth 2.0, we will be able to use this technique, transmission spectroscopy, to understand its atmosphere and determine the quality of life available on its shores,” said Jonathan Fraine, a graduate student and first author on the study.

If cloud cover were widespread on smaller planets beyond the solar system, astronomers would need radically different approaches or far more advanced technology to probe their atmospheres. “Now we know that not all warm Neptunes form with high-altitude clouds, we can again explore the diversity of planet formation and gain greater context for our own creation,” said Fraine.

Future studies of alien atmospheres may detect proportions of gases that point to life below. On Earth, methane, ammonia and nitrous oxide are produced mostly by bacteria, while oxygen comes from plants and other photosynthesising organisms. Because the gases are not made in large amounts by anything else, they are considered “biosignatures”, or signs of life.

“Biosignatures are much harder to find, but with bigger, exoplanet-specific telescopes and precise instruments, we should be able to start looking for them too,” said Fraine. “We may be far from analysing an Earth analogue, but now we know that our train is on the right tracks.”

In 2018, Nasa is due to launch its successor to Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope. The observatory has been designed to pick up signals much fainter than Fraine’s team spotted with the Hubble camera.

In an accompanying article, Eliza Kempton at Grinnell College in Iowa praised the breakthrough. “Searching for water vapour absorption in the atmosphere of an exoplanet passing in front of its host star is akin to looking for a tiny insect passing in front of a bright coastal lighthouse lamp,” she wrote.

“By first pinpointing and studying those planets that provide a clear window into their atmospheres, researchers will ultimately be able to extend the search for water and other molecules to smaller planets, perhaps even Earth-sized planets, with the James Webb telescope and beyond.”

Something is going on! - STRANGE EVENTS Around The World (2014)

Jason A | Aug 31, 2014

California’s Drought Has Reached a Grave New Milestone

Activist Post | Aug 26, 2014 | Joshua Krause

The residents of the San Joaquin Valley are facing an ominous crises due to California’s drought. Unlike most communities in the drought stricken state, the unincorporated town of East Porterville isn’t just running low on water. For some residents, they’ve completely run out.

At least 182 of the 1400 households in the town have run out of well water, prompting the county to provide 12 gallons of water for each resident that is facing water scarcity. With the help of the Red Cross, the bottled water was supplied at the cost of 30,000 dollars, and is expected to last 3 weeks.

For some residents, the shortage is just too much.

East Porterville resident Angelica Gallegos fought back tears as she described being without water for four months in the home she shares with her husband, three children and two other adults.

“It’s hard,” she told The Bee. “I can’t shower the children like I used to.”

Farmworker Oliva Sanchez said she still gets a trickle from her tap, but dirt started coming out with the water about a week ago.

“I try to use the least possible. I’ll move if I have to,” she said.

If you can believe it, the number of properties with dry wells may in fact be higher. Some residents are afraid to report these issues for fear of being evicted by their landlords, or possibly having their kids taken away by CPS.

As insane as that sounds, it may be the least asinine part of this whole situation. Perhaps it’s fitting that these folks are receiving their aid in the form of bottled water, because nearly every water bottle company is situated in some of the most drought stricken places in California. Apparently, California is one of the few states that doesn’t protect groundwater usage, so corporations are free to bottle it up from the local springs or the municipal water supply.

 It’s total madness when you really think about it. These companies are still bottling up precious water so it can be sold across the country. And there isn’t even anything special about it, since nearly half of all bottled water is nothing more than tap water. In parts of the country where people do have plenty of water, they can buy California’s dwindling supplies at a significantly higher price than their tap water, even though it is essentially the same thing. As reported by Mother Jones:

Despite the fact that almost all US tap water is better regulated and monitored than bottled, and despite the hefty environmental footprint of the bottled water industry, perhaps the biggest reason that bottling companies are using water in drought zones is simply because we’re still providing a demand for it: In 2012 in the United States alone, the industry produced about 10 billion gallons of bottled water, with sales revenues at $12 billion.

Perhaps running out of drinking water isn’t the only major milestone of this drought. We have now reached the same situation that countries like India have been dealing with for decades, where the Coca Cola Corporation can build a bottling plant that soaks up all the groundwater from the region, leaving the locals high and dry. The drought is showing Californians what it’s like to live in a third world country for the very first time.

Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple, where this article first appeared. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author. You can follow Joshua’s reports at Facebook or on his personal Twitter. Joshua’s website is Strange Danger.

Large Holes Forming Near The New Madrid Fault And A Giant Crack In The Earth In North Mexico

End of the American Dream | Aug 21, 2014 | Michael Snyder

Did you know that the number of big earthquakes during the first three months of 2014 was more than double the yearly average of what we have experienced since 1979? And did you know that the number of earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S. has quintupled in recent years?  If you do not believe this, just keep reading.  We live at a time when earthquakes are increasing in frequency and severity.  And we are starting to see some very unusual activity in places that have been quiet for a very long time.  For example, large holes are starting to mysteriously appear in Indiana near the New Madrid fault zone.  And a giant crack in the ground nearly a kilometer long has appeared in northern Mexico.  Could these be indications that even greater earthquake activity is on the way?

Most Americans don’t realize that the greatest earthquakes in U.S. history happened along the New Madrid fault zone.  Back during the early part of the 19th century, a series of immensely powerful earthquakes rattled the entire eastern half of the nation.  Documents that we have from that era say that those earthquakes were so powerful that they were felt more than 1,000 miles away.  And there are many that believe that if we had a similar earthquake today that the damage caused would almost be incalculable.

That is why what has been happening in Indiana is so alarming.  According to reports, half a dozen mystery holes have been discovered on Mount Baldy…

More than a year after a 6-year-old boy was almost buried alive in a popular sand dune, more holes are appearing and scientists still aren’t sure why. The 126 foot sand dune, called Mount Baldy, in Indiana, remains closed as new potentially dangerous holes are appearing. Three geologists arrived last week with high tech equipment in the hope of using radio waves and core samples to see if they can determine what’s causing the holes. Their plan? To eventually build a three dimensional map of the dune to try and see it’s internal structure.

You can view a video news report about these mysterious holes right here…


So what should we think about all of this?

Well it could be something or it could be nothing.

But any weird activity near the New Madrid fault always gets my attention.  This fault is so dangerous that it could literally change the shape of the country overnight.  For much more on how dangerous the New Madrid fault is, just check out this video.

Most Americans never even give the New Madrid fault a second thought, but the federal government considered it important enough to hold a major five day simulation known as “National Level Exercise 11″ just a few years ago…

In May, the federal government simulated an earthquake so massive, it killed 100,000 Midwesterners instantly, and forced more than 7 million people out of their homes. At the time, National Level Exercise 11 went largely unnoticed; the scenario seemed too far-fetched — states like Illinois and Missouri are in the middle of a tectonic plate, not at the edge of one. A major quake happens there once every several generations.

…

National Level Exercise 11, or NLE 11, was, in essence, a replay of a disaster that happened 200 years earlier. On Dec. 16, 1811, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit the New Madrid fault line, which lies on the border region of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. It’s by far the largest earthquake ever to strike the United States east of the Rockies. Up to 129,000 square kilometers [50,000 square miles] were hit with “raised or sunken lands, fissures, sinks, sand blows, and large landslides,” according to the U.S. Geological Service. “Huge waves on the Mississippi River overwhelmed many boats and washed others high onto the shore. High banks caved and collapsed into the river; sand bars and points of islands gave way; whole islands disappeared.” People as far away as New York City were awakened by the shaking.

More quakes, of a similar size, followed. But the loss of life was minimal: Not too many people lived in the area at the time. Today, there are more than 15 million people living in the quake zone. If a similar quake hit, “7.2 million people could be displaced, with 2 million seeking temporary shelter” in the first three days, FEMA Associate Adminsitrator William Carwile told a Congressional panel in 2010. “Direct economic losses for the eight states could total nearly $300 billion, while indirect losses at least twice that amount.”

And officials at the U.S. Geological Survey recently released a report that stated that the New Madrid fault zone has the “potential for larger and more powerful quakes than previously thought“.

That certainly sounds quite chilling.

In addition, retail powerhouse Wal-Mart is so concerned about the potential for a major quake that it “participated in an exercise to prepare for an earthquake on the New Madrid fault line” earlier this year…

Walmart Stores Inc., with its huge network of stores and facilities, has also taken note. “We are seeing increased earthquake activity in the central U.S. That is an area we are focusing on even more,” said Mark Cooper, senior director of emergency management at Walmart, in an interview. He explained that Walmart takes an “all-hazard” approach to emergency preparedness, but focuses on specific risks in areas of the country where those risks are particularly relevant, such as hurricanes in Louisiana. “A few weeks ago, we participated in an exercise to prepare for an earthquake on the New Madrid fault line,” he said.

You can read much more about all of this in my previous article entitled “Why Is Wal-Mart Preparing For A Major Earthquake On The New Madrid Fault?”

But the New Madrid fault zone is certainly not the only area to be keeping an eye on.

Down in north Mexico, a giant crack in the ground about a kilometer long has recently appeared.  It is estimated to be approximately 16 feet across and 8 feet deep.  You can view some stunning aerial footage of this giant crack in the Earth right here…


Some believe that an earthquake along the San Andreas Fault may be to blame for this giant fissure.

Others believe that it is being caused by an underground stream.

While footage of giant cracks in the Earth such as you have just seen can be quite spectacular, what is far more alarming to me personally are the cold, hard earthquake numbers.

For example, as I mentioned above, the number of big earthquakes that we have seen this year has been far higher than usual.  The following is from a recent CBS News report…

If you think there have been more earthquakes than usual this year, you’re right. A new study finds there were more than twice as many big earthquakes in the first quarter of 2014 as compared with the average since 1979.

And this is not something that has just started happening.  As that same article explained, this is all part of a much longer trend…

The average rate of big earthquakes — those larger than magnitude 7 — has been 10 per year since 1979, the study reports. That rate rose to 12.5 per year starting in 1992, and then jumped to 16.7 per year starting in 2010 — a 65 percent increase compared to the rate since 1979. This increase accelerated in the first three months of 2014 to more than double the average since 1979, the researchers report.

In particular, things really seem to be heating up in the middle portion of the United States.  As I mentioned at the start of this article, the frequency of earthquakes in the central and eastern parts of the nation has quintupled over the past 30 years…

According to the USGS, the frequency of earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S. has quintupled, to an average of 100 a year during the 2011-2013 period, up from only 20 per year during the 30-year period to 2000.

Most of these quakes were minor, but research published by the USGS earlier this year demonstrated that a relatively minor magnitude 5.0 quake caused by wastewater injection after conventional oil drilling triggered a much bigger, 5.7 magnitude quake in Prague, Okla.

“We know the hazard has increased for small and moderate size earthquakes. We don’t know as well how much the hazard has increased for large earthquakes. Our suspicion is it has but we are working on understanding this,” said William Ellsworth, a scientist with the USGS.

What we are watching happen is truly unprecedented.  Oklahoma alone has experienced more than 2,300 earthquakes so far this year.  Scientists don’t really know what to make of this alarming increase in seismic activity.

Could all of this be leading up to something really big?

And what will things look like if we do get hit by a magnitude 8 or a magnitude 9 earthquake in a very heavily populated area?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

History Secrets: The Sphinx, Gobekli Tepe, Ancient Catastrophes - Dr. Robert Schoch

Suspicious0bservers | Aug 17, 2014

www.robertschoch.com
www.Suspicious0bservers.org
www.ObservatoryProject.com
Help Support the Educational Information: http://tiny.cc/f195ww
[...]

Water Restrictions Imposed After Mining Spill Turns Mexico River Orange

(Credit: Twitter/@betoeliasm)

Common Dreams | Aug 11, 2014 | Max Ocean

Residents told to avoid any contact with water

Officials in Mexico imposed water restrictions on towns and cities along a river in the state of Sonora on Sunday following a spill late last week of around 10 million gallons of contaminated wastewater containing sulfuric acid from mining operations in the north of the country.

Local media and residents reported the river turning a bright orange, and fish and livestock dying from the contamination.

The wastewater came from the Buenavista copper mine in Cananea, Mexico, situated only about 25 miles from the U.S. border, and contaminated the Bacanuchi River, a tributary of the Sonora River. The spill affects seven different municipalities, including the state capital of Hermosillo, which has a population of nearly 800,000 people, although the river is not a major water source for the capital.

PROFEPA, Mexico's federal agency charged with environmental protection, is monitoring water quality at multiple points along the river and has already ordered that the company, Buenavista del Cobre, part of the mining giant Grupo Mexico, provide "full remediation" for the spill.

“In addition to ordering the implementation of a total remediation plan, PROFEPA initiated proceedings against Buenavista del Cobre to determine possible sanctions,” the agency said on its website.

According to the Spanish-language website iagua, "authorities have said the concentration of sulfuric acid is low, but have advised people not to swim in the river until further notice."

But many affected residents said the alerts concerning the spill came long after they noticed effects from it.

All day Friday "the water was a bright, bright orange, and smelled like it was rotten,"  a resident from Tahuinchopa, in the Arizpe municipality said on Saturday. "My animals drank it, and just now they told me that two cows died."

“The bad thing is that nobody said anything, nobody warned us," agreed resident Patricia Serrano. "People were panicked; imagine if they told you you can't have contact with the water, not even to wash or bathe yourself."

The state of Sonora is Mexico's leading producer of gold, copper, and graphite.

In 2009 an American subsidiary of Grupo Mexico, Asarco, payed the U.S. government a record $1.79 billion to settle hazardous waste pollution in 19 U.S. states.

Mysterious lake appears in the middle of Tunisian desert

English.alarabiya.net | Aug 2, 2014

A mysterious lake recently appeared in the middle of the Tunisian desert.

The lake, which appeared in a drought-stricken area, has attracted many who wish to bathe in the waters, despite its green, sludgy appearence.

Tunisia’s civil defense said the area of the lake is about 2.6 acres with depth ranging from 10 to 18 meters.

While the lake seems to have emerged from the earth, officials are still investigating how the body of water formed into its current state.

Hail Fire? Golf ball sized frozen rain pelts Siberian beachgoers

RT | Jul 13, 2014

Sunbathers in Novosibirsk were caught out by a surprise hailstorm which erupted unexpectedly during an unseasonable heat wave on Saturday. Temperatures in the city had climbed to a high of 37 degrees Celsius, before heavy winds and frozen rain hit the beach along the Ob River. Local reports described the hail stones as being the size of golf balls or chickens' eggs.

Scientists discover noctilucent cloud intensity is precursor to changes in global weather patterns

Sott.net | Apr 11, 2014 | NASA

NASA's AIM spacecraft is discovering unexpected "teleconnections" in Earth's atmosphere that link weather and climate across vast distances.

Woody Harrelson 'Ethos' Epic Documentary! Time to Unslave Humanity

Steven Gil | Sept 24, 2013 | CHANNEL

Important Information For All Human Eyes. Please Watch This Video.


H/T Activist Post

Massive Dinosaur Soft Tissue Discovery In China – Includes Skin And Feathers!

The Truth | Mar 6, 2014 | Michael Snyder

A fossil bed in China that is being called “Jurassic Park” has yielded perhaps the greatest dinosaur soft tissue discovery of all time.  According to media reports, “nearly-complete skeletons” have been discovered that even include skin and feathers.  But of course if these dinosaurs are really “160 million years old”, that should be absolutely impossible.  Needless to say, this shocking discovery is once again going to have paleontologists scrambling to find a way to prop up the popular myths that they have been promoting.  What they have been telling us simply does not fit the facts.  The truth is that this latest find is even more evidence that dinosaurs are far, far younger than we have traditionally been taught.

Once upon a time, scientists believed that it would be impossible to find anything other than the hardened fossilized remains of extinct dinosaurs.  And if those dinosaurs really were millions of years old, those scientists would have been 100% correct.  But instead, we are now starting to find dinosaur soft tissue all over the place.  The following is an excerpt from a recent Daily Mail article about this new discovery in China…

Almost more impressive than the diversity of the biota is the preservation of many of the vertebrate specimens, according to the study published in the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology.

Fossils include complete or nearly-complete skeletons associated with preserved soft tissues such as feathers, fur, skin or even, in some of the salamanders, external gills.

One is the feathered dinosaur Epidexipteryx whose soft tissues have been revealed by the use of ultraviolet light scanners.

A fossil of the salamander Chunerpeton shows not only the preserved skeleton but also its skin and external gills.

Wow.

Hopefully scientists in the west will get a chance to closely examine these soft tissue samples.

Prior to 1991, you would have been laughed out of the room if you had suggested that we might dig up the soft tissue of dinosaurs someday.

But all of that changed when Mary Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University, did something that was absolutely unthinkable.  The following comes from an article in Smithsonian Magazine…

In 1991, Schweitzer was trying to study thin slices of bones from a 65-million-year-old T. rex. She was having a hard time getting the slices to stick to a glass slide, so she sought help from a molecular biologist at the university. The biologist, Gayle Callis, happened to take the slides to a veterinary conference, where she set up the ancient samples for others to look at. One of the vets went up to Callis and said, “Do you know you have red blood cells in that bone?” Sure enough, under a microscope, it appeared that the bone was filled with red disks. Later, Schweitzer recalls, “I looked at this and I looked at this and I thought, this can’t be. Red blood cells don’t preserve.”

Schweitzer showed the slide to Horner. “When she first found the red-blood-cell-looking structures, I said, Yep, that’s what they look like,” her mentor recalls. He thought it was possible they were red blood cells, but he gave her some advice: “Now see if you can find some evidence to show that that’s not what they are.”

What she found instead was evidence of heme in the bones—additional support for the idea that they were red blood cells. Heme is a part of hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood and gives red blood cells their color. “It got me real curious as to exceptional preservation,” she says.

Posted below is an excerpt from a 60 Minutes video report about her remarkable discovery…


Of course since that time, many others have also dug up dinosaur soft tissue.  At this point, more than thirty specimens have been discovered and tested, and the specimens have come from an impressive array of various dinosaurs…

The dinosaurs and other Mesozoic creatures that have yielded their biological material are hadrosaur, titanosaur, ornithomimosaur [ostrich-like dinosaurs], mosasaur, triceratops, Lufengosaurs, T. rex, and Archaeopteryx.

When Schweitzer originally made her discovery public, she was viciously attacked by other evolutionists who insisted that finding dinosaur soft tissue that was millions of years old was absolutely impossible.

And those evolutionists were right.

If the dinosaurs were really that old it would be impossible.

But now sample after sample and test after test have proven without a shadow of a doubt that we really are digging up dinosaur soft tissue.

Schweitzer and other paleontologists that are desperate to prop up their existing theories are now suggesting that “iron in the blood” could have preserved the soft tissue that we are finding for all of these millions of years.

If you believe that laughable theory, I have a bridge to sell you.

But there are a lot of people out there that are so desperate to keep believing their flawed version of “the truth” that they are actually buying it.

If you are interested in more of the technical details of this theory, you can find a more detailed explanation right here.

And of course it is not just soft tissue that scientists have to account for…

It is not just dinosaur soft tissue, either, but the presence of detectable proteins such as collagen, hemoglobin, osteocalcin, actin, and tubulin that they must account for. These are complex molecules that continually tend to break down to simpler ones.

Not only that, but in many cases, there are fine details of the bone matrix, with microscopically intact-looking bone cells (osteocytes) showing incredible detail. And Schweitzer has even recovered fragments of the even more fragile and complex molecule, DNA. This has been extracted from the bone cells with markers indicating its source such that it is extremely likely to be dinosaur DNA.

In this case, I think that it would be very appropriate to apply Occam’s razor.  The reason why we are finding dinosaur bones with soft tissue in them is because they simply are not very old.

And when we carbon date dinosaur bones, it tells us the exact same thing.

Due to the rate that it decays, there should be absolutely no measurable radioactive carbon left in anything that was once living that is greater than 100,000 years old.

So there should be absolutely no measurable radioactive carbon in dinosaur bones.

But instead, that is precisely what we find.  Here is one example…

“In June of 1990, Hugh Miller submitted two dinosaur bone fragments to the Department of Geosciences at the University in Tucson, Arizona for carbon-14 analysis. One fragment was from an unidentified dinosaur. The other was from an Allosaurus excavated by James Hall near Grand Junction, Colorado in 1989. Miller submitted the samples without disclosing the identity of the bones. (Had the scientists known the samples actually were from dinosaurs, they would not have bothered dating them, since it is assumed dinosaurs lived millions of years ago—outside the limits of radiocarbon dating.) Interestingly, the C-14 analysis indicated that the bones were from 10,000-16,000 years old—a far cry from their alleged 60-million-year-old age.”

And the truth is that radioactive carbon is being found in dinosaur bones that have been excavated all over the planet…

Real Science Radio interviewed a scientist returning from the American Geophysical Union’s conference in Singapore where his international team presented results from five respected laboratories documenting significant quantities of Carbon 14 in bones from ten dinosaurs excavated from Alaska, Europe, Texas, Montana, and China’s Gobi Desert.

Additional evidence for the young age of dinosaurs comes from the fact that we find very accurate depictions of dinosaurs in ancient artwork all over the planet.  This is something that I covered in my previous article entitled “Why Does Ancient Art Contain Depictions Of Flying Aircraft, Helicopters And Dinosaurs?”
Considering the fact that we only started digging up dinosaurs a couple hundred years ago, how did those ancient people know what they looked like?

That is something to think about.

I realize that this article is going to directly challenge things that a lot of people have believed all of their lives.

But we are never going to get anywhere if we just have blind faith in whatever the system tells us to believe.

It pays to question everything and to allow logic and reason to lead us to the truth.

So what are your thoughts on all of this?  Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

About the author: Michael T. Snyder is a former Washington D.C. attorney who now publishes The Truth. His new thriller entitled “The Beginning Of The End” is now available on Amazon.com.

Matt Damon on the need for Disobedience to the State

Matt Damon on the need for Disobedience to the State
Nov 22, 2013 | Sott.net | Matt Damon

Matt Damon speaks for just 5 minutes, but packs in a lot of truth, truth that so many people around the world, and especially in the 'Western world' need to hear NOW.

Noam Chomsky warns Canada’s shale gas energy plans will have dire consequences

© Raw Story

Noam Chomsky warns Canada’s shale gas energy plans will have dire consequences
Nov 1, 2013 | By Martin Lukacs, The Guardian

Canada’s rush to exploit its tar sands and shale gas resources will destroy the environment “as fast as possible”, according to Noam Chomsky.

In an interview with the Guardian, the linguist and author criticised the energy policies of the Canadian government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

He said: “It means taking every drop of hydrocarbon out of the ground, whether it’s shale gas in New Brunswick or tar sands in Alberta and trying to destroy the environment as fast as possible, with barely a question raised about what the world will look like as a result.”

But indigenous peoples in Canada blocking fossil fuel developments are taking the lead in combatting climate change, he said. Chomsky highlighted indigenous opposition to the Alberta tar sands, the oil deposit that is Canada’s fastest growing source of carbon emissions and is slated for massive expansion despite attracting international criticism and protest.

“It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‘least advanced’ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction,” said Chomsky.

Chomsky expressed concern about an indigenous community in New Brunswick whose encampment blockading shale gas exploration was raided by a heavily armed Canadian police force two weeks ago.

Those protests come on the heels of the indigenous-led Idle No More movement that sprang up in late 2012 in response to the Harper government’s repeal of numerous environmental protections and aggressive promotion of resource projects, often on indigenous lands.

Chomsky was in Montreal last weekend to give a lecture and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the magazine Canadian Dimension.

He told the Guardian that progressives “should work climate change into their efforts to organise”, but in a way that emphasises how addressing climate change can improve rather than worsen peoples’ lives.

“If it’s a prophecy of doom, it will act as a dampener, and people’s reaction will be ok, I’ll enjoy myself for a couple of years while there’s still a chance. But as a call to action, it can be energising. Like, do you want your children, and grandchildren, to have a decent life?”

While supporting the principles of the “degrowth” movement that aims to reign in over-production and over-consumption, Chomsky cited mass transportation, localised agriculture, and energy efficiency improvements as useful forms of growth that could mitigate climate change and improve quality of living.

“If you could take a subway from the suburbs in Boston, where I live, to downtown in 10 minutes, that improves your life over sitting in a traffic jam. People should see that.”

Chomsky said that a “major issue” behind climate change is the deficiencies of the market system.
“Markets are lethal, if only because of ignoring externalities, the impacts of their transactions on the environment,” he said.

“When you turn to energy production, in market exchanges each participant is asking what can I gain from it? You don’t ask what are the costs to others. In this case the cost to others is the destruction of the environment. So the externalities are not trivial.”

Chomsky said during the 2008 financial crisis, the big banks could “forget the fact that they’re supposed to believe in markets, run cap in hand to the government and say bail us out”.

“In the case of the environment there’s no one to bail it out.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2013

‘Melting’ Starfish Along West Coast Prompts Fukushima Fears

‘Melting’ Starfish Along West Coast Prompts Fukushima Fears
Oct 30, 2013 | Story Leak | Mikael Thalen

Scientists are attempting to find out why one species of starfish is literally melting in the waters off of Washington state and Canada.

Biologists in Seattle took to the Puget Sound waters last weekend to collect sick and healthy sunflower starfish for testing. Several labs including one at Cornell University will examine and compare samples with Canadian specimens already being analyzed.



“We’ve got some sea stars that look like they’re melting on the bottom,” Seattle Aquarium biologists Jeff Christiansen said.

Whether the cause is environmental or disease related is currently unknown, but the number of melting starfish increases drastically with each passing day.

“At this time, we don’t have a good idea of what’s causing it, so we’re going to look for everything,” Christiansen said. “There are a lot of melting sea stars out there, more than even a couple days ago.”
According to Veterinarian Lesanna Lahner, the starfish specie’s condition is rapidly deteriorating, with more than half displaying the same disturbing symptoms.

“It’s concerning to hear in a short time period we’re seeing 60% of this species diseased in this area,” Lahner said.

Strangely, the symptoms have only been seen in certain areas of Washington’s Puget Sound and Canadian waters. While the verdict is still unknown, many are pointing fingers to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, which has continued to leak over 300 tons of highly radioactive water into the ocean every day.

As reported by investigative journalist Michael Snyder, massive evidence of Fukushima’s effect on the West Coast continues to be evident despite the silence from most most western media.

Earlier this month, Canadian authorities found massively high radiation levels in sea bass, with one fish showing 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium.

Plankton tested from Hawaii to the West Coast have been found to have high levels of cesium-137, with scientists in California finding the same isotopes present in 15 out of 15 Bluefin Tuna tested.

Even in light of one Canadian study that found cesium-137 present in 100 percent of carp, seaweed, shark and monkfish sold to the Canadian public, western governments have continued to import Japanese sea food.

As radiation levels rise, it is likely the EPA will continue to raise ‘acceptable levels’ of radiation in the food supply. With experts predicting a grim outlook, the best options now available are informing others while protecting one’s thyroid health from increased radiation exposure.

Storyleak’s Anthony Gucciardi sits down with Dr. Edward Group to discuss the importance of protecting yourself from radiation exposure with high-quality nascent iodine.

About 40 Percent Of All Food In The United States Is Thrown In The Garbage

About 40 Percent Of All Food In The United States Is Thrown In The Garbage
Oct 1, 2013 | ECB | Michael Synder

Could that headline actually be true?  Do Americans waste about 40 percent of all the food that we produce?  That sounds like an absolutely crazy number, but it is actually quite accurate according to a study conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council.  What the NRDC discovered is that approximately 40 percent of our total food supply is either thrown into dumpsters by grocery stores, is discarded by restaurants, never gets harvested on our farms, or is thrown into the garbage by consumers in their homes.  Even though 47 million Americans are on food stamps and millions of children go to bed hungry in this country every single night, we continue to waste approximately 263 million pounds of food every single day of the year.  One day people will look back and regard us as probably the most wasteful society in the history of the planet.

So where does all of that food go?

Well, according to a recent Seattle Times article, "food waste" takes up more space in our landfills than anything else does...

Last year, the NRDC found that Americans throw out as much as 40 percent of the country’s food supply each year, adding up to $165 billion in losses.

Food waste makes up the largest portion of solid trash in landfills, according to researchers.

Some $900 million of expired food is dumped from the supply chain annually, much of it a result of confusion. Misinterpreted date labels cause the average American household of four to lose as much as $455 a year on squandered food, according to researchers.

The expired food that gets wasted is one of my personal pet peeves.

I don't do this a lot, but today I am going to share a personal story with you.

Earlier today I was out running errands and I decided that I wanted to pick up some mini-cupcakes from Safeway that I just love.  I do try to eat a healthy diet, but I do also like a treat from time to time.  So I got over to Safeway, and I noticed that the only mini-cupcakes that they had out were ones with chocolate frosting, but I wanted ones with vanilla frosting.

So I went up to the bakery counter and there was nobody there, but behind the counter I saw a stack of several containers of vanilla cupcakes.  I waited until the bakery lady got back and I asked her if I could have them.

I was astounded when she very firmly told me that I could not buy them.

She said that it was against regulations.

I implored her to sell them to me.  I explained that I had come over to Safeway just to buy them and I didn't care if they were a little old.

Again she very firmly told me that I could not buy them.

I could not understand this.  I knew that the cupcakes were just going to be thrown out, so I asked to speak to her manager.

After a few moments her manager came over and I was once again told very firmly that under no circumstances would I be able to buy the cupcakes.

So needless to say, I left the store with a sad look on my face and without any cupcakes.

Now of course I probably didn't need the cupcakes anyway.  They are not healthy for me.  But big chains such as Safeway throw away massive amounts of very good food as well.  The level of the waste that goes on is absolutely astounding.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans that are dealing with hunger and malnutrition grows with each passing day.  I want to share with you an excerpt from a recent article authored by Jason Ford entitled "I Work On The Breadline"...

I work as a cashier at a nationally known discount store. I sell clothing, cleaning products, house wares and food. The people I sell to are people of all colors, races, ages and sex, but most of them have one thing in common; EBT cards. I would say about half of every transaction I do is paid for with an EBT card. Sometimes people will use three different methods of payment. They will use whatever is left on their EBT card, then use whatever is left on their debit card, and then scrape their purse to find the remaining balance, and sometimes they still don’t have enough.

Another common trait of the people I serve besides the poverty is the poor health. The food I sell is not healthy, by any stretch. I sell potato chips, candy bars, bread, canned food, ice cream, soda, packaged meat, cigarettes and alcohol. I noticed quickly that a common ingredient of most of the foods is sugar and grains. Sugar and grains are easy to grow and produce cheaply and are used as fillers in processed food to cut cost and mask the taste of other questionable ingredients. Grains work in conjunction with sugars to inflame the body and compromise the immune system. Grains and sugars also have no nutritional value besides calories, so on top of inflaming the body; they do not provide the sustenance the body needs to survive. As the functions of the body require these nutrients the diet lacks, the body sucks these minerals from the bones, teeth and brain. Bone loss, and tooth decay and decreased brain function are the unfortunate symptoms of malnutrition. The poorest of the customers I serve are also the sickest. I have witnessed toothless mouths in the young and old. Mental retardation is also a common trait among many of them. I have even witnessed one unfortunate woman whose skin was a pale green color. These people are dying a slow starvation and they don’t even know it.

Doesn't that just break your heart?

People are living like that, and yet America discards 263 million pounds of food every single day.

Something is fundamentally wrong with the way our system works.

So what is society going to do as the number of hungry people continues to grow in this country and around the world?

Well, according to ABC News, some scientists plan to feed them with flour made out of bugs...

A team of MBA students were the recipients of the 2013 Hult Prize earlier this week, providing them with $1 million in seed money to produce an insect-based, protein-rich flour for feeding malnourished populations in other countries. The product is called Power Flour.

"It's a huge deal because we had a very ambitious but highly executable five-year plan in place," said team captain Mohammed Ashour, whose team hails from McGill University in Montreal. "So winning this prize is a great step in that direction."

Ashour, along with teammates Shobhita Soor, Jesse Pearlstein, Zev Thompson and Gabe Mott, will be immediately working with an advisory board to recruit farmers and workers in Mexico, where a population of roughly 4 million live in slum conditions with widespread malnutrition.

"We will be starting with grasshoppers," Ashour said.

Are you ready for a "protein-rich flour" made out of grasshoppers?

I know that I am not.

And in Japan, scientists have actually been working on a way to create meat out of poop.  You can read more about that right here.

Perhaps if we just quit wasting so much food we would be able to feed everybody without resorting to such craziness.

These days, an increasing number of Americans are fighting back against the colossal waste that they see all around them.  Some have even chosen to take advantage of the waste by regularly going "dumpster diving".  The following is how I described "dumpster diving" in one of my previous articles...

Have you ever thought about getting your food out of a trash can?  Don't laugh.  Dumpster diving has become a hot new trend in America.  In fact, dumpster divers even have a trendy new name.  They call themselves "freegans", and as the economy crumbles their numbers are multiplying.  Many freegans consider dumpster diving to be a great way to save money on groceries.  Others do it because they want to live more simply.  Freegans that are concerned about the environment view dumpster diving as a great way to "recycle" and other politically-minded freegans consider dumpster diving to be a form of political protest.  But whatever you want to call it, the reality is that thousands upon thousands of Americans will break out their boots, rubber gloves and flashlights and will be jumping into dumpsters looking for food once again tonight.

Who knows - perhaps some enterprising young dumpster diver will end up fishing the vanilla cupcakes that I wanted out of Safeway's dumpsters this evening.

It is amazing what some of these dumpster divers are able to recover from "the trash".  In North Carolina, one man even takes his son dumpster diving with him...

A programmer by day, Todd takes to the streets of North Carolina by night, digging through Dumpsters at drug stores and grocery stores all around his rural neighborhood.

"You would be simply amazed at what businesses throw out," he said. "I've only had to buy two loaves of bread all year. ... Last week I had a trunk full of cereal, cookies, chips and ramen noodles." 

Todd slinks in and out of smelly places with low-light flashlights to evade rent-a-cops who will shoo him away.  Most nights, his 14-year-old son comes along.

Unfortunately, dumpster diving is not as easy as it used to be.

As dumpster diving has soared in popularity, some grocery stores have responded by putting locks on their dumpsters.

And in some areas of the country, police have even started regularly arresting dumpster divers.

But in the end, dumpster diving was not going to be a permanent solution anyway.

A permanent solution would be to quit wasting so much food.

I applaud the grocery store chains that choose to donate their expired food to homeless shelters and food banks.

We need to see a lot more of that going on.

And in our own homes we need to find ways to give more food away and waste less of it.

All of this needless wasting of food does not have to happen.  Let's work together to find some solutions.

The Resident: Recycling now goes to landfills

The Resident: Recycling now goes to landfills
Sept 19, 2013 | RTAmerica

The US has been exporting millions of tons of recyclables to China, but China's Operation Green Fence has put an end to much of that. It was implemented to curb the growth of China's huge garbage mountains. But the US doesn't have an industry to recycle much of its own waste. As a result, much of our recyclables now ends up in landfills. The Resident (aka Lori Harfenist) discusses.

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As Louisiana SinkHole Expands - Amazing Footage Swallowing Trees

As Louisiana SinkHole Expands - Amazing Footage Swallowing Trees
Aug 22, 2013 | GabeHashTV


ORIGINAL FOOTAGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRhesB...

VER VIDEO EN ESPAÑOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xoTy-...