A group of amateur cave explorers discovered a river in Mexico with banks, trees and leaves just like an ordinary river, but with an additional metric shit ton of “WTF,” because they were hovering 25 feet over it in scuba gear when they discovered it.
While underwater water doesn’t seem possible, the “river” is actually a briny mix of salt water and hydrogen sulfide. It’s much more dense than regular salt water, so it sinks to the bottom and forms a distinct separation that acts and flows like a river.
Deep sea lakes look like normal lakes, complete with sandy and rocky shores. Scientist call these lakes “cold seeps,” but they’re a hotbed for life, because apparently waterfront real estate is a hot commodity under water, too. The “rocky” shores are actually made up of hundreds of thousands of mussels. Even weirder, the lakes under the waves have waves of their own.
Photos by Anatoly Beloshchin, source.
The ‘walking’ megalithic statues (moai) of Easter Island
“Explaining how the monumental statues (moai) of Easter Island were transported has remained open to debate and speculation, including their resource expenditures and role in deforestation. Archaeological evidence including analysis of moai variability, particularly those abandoned along ancient roads, indicates transport was achieved in a vertical position. To test this proposition we constructed a precise three-dimensional 4.35 metric ton replica of an actual statue and demonstrate how positioning the center of mass allowed it to fall forward and rock from side to side causing it to ‘walk.’ Our experiments reveal how the statue form was engineered for efficient transport by a small number of individuals.
We show how Easter Island statue variability is explained by transport in a vertical position. ► We ‘walk’ a precise road statue replica demonstrating how form enables vertical transport. ► ‘Walking’ multi-ton statues did not require timber and could be accomplished by relatively small groups” (read more).
***I don’t often post non-Palaeolithic articles, but this was too cool and the images were great.
(Source: Journal of Archaeological Science, 2013, in press)
Most of you probably know this is one of the Angel’s from Hellboy. But did you know that this is actually a more accurate protrayel of what angels are apparently supposed to look like according to The Bible? Although, and correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I remember they had 6 wings, covered with eyes on the wings. And had two eyes on their face, but used 2 wings to cover their face at all times, because if a mortal ever saw their face they would die. Angels from the bible are fucking terrifying honestly. :P
boring personal tidbit/rambling: When I was a kid I used compulsive behaviors to control my extreme anxiety. I was also raised Southern Pentecostal which focuses a lot on Old Testament scripture. We were told about what angels really looked like in Sunday School when I was 6 or so. The bible mentions multiple faces, being covered in eyeballs, constant singing, lion heads, etc. This spawned an extreme fear of angels and they became the butt of my anxieties (“If I open and close this door 10 times I won’t see an angel”). I use to pray to never see an angel, and I had recurring nightmares that my sister locked me in a room with cement angel statues that came to life and approached me while screaming. Then they would skin me and sacrifice me.
If you think about it, angels are kind of horrifying. Besides being described as beasts and monsters, they’re practically brainless drones. Heavenly angels are only one step removed from demons. The only difference is demons fell from heaven because they chose to follow Lucifer… who was an angel (angel of music and one of god’s favorites). So they are these eyeball covered animal mashed up monsters who were only created to worship for eternity (part of humanities creation was so that something would choose to love god, not just worship him because they were created to). Angels fall into a lot of new age and conspiracy beliefs too which my church believed and taught. We were taught that the supernatural realms went in the order of Heaven, Hell, then Earth. So when the angels fell from heaven with Lucifer, some fell through hell and landed on Earth. We were taught they intermarried with early humans and created giants (Goliath’s origins) and taught witch craft to women (make-up, sluttiness, etc.) Imagine learning all of that nonsense as a 5 year old kid.
HEY!! haha, this is EXACTLY the concept amy & I are messing around with in the angel project. Angels are such creepy and interesting beings when you examine the source material. We’re also playing with the fact that technically, angels have made their only moral choice, and so experience morality only in theory, which is fun
our designs for our angel characters are based on the non-humanoid or vaguely humanoid “canon” angels, which can be anything from a ball of wings covered in eyes to a huge, living wheel to animals on fireI love it when people actually know Angels are not winged bishies that sparkle and love mankind. They’re abominations, they’re alien, they’re beyond us. They’re creatures that biology as we know it does not apply to. Often they do not love mankind, they love God and God alone.
Really, Neon Genesis Evangeleon had a better idea of what Angels should really look and behave like (mindlessly subservient and driven towards their goal) than any other work of fiction I’ve seen so far. Though I’ve heard some tidbits from Supernatural at least, which has angels taking on human form but describing just what they look like when they’re not wearing their skin.
Just a little side note: the entire concept of the phrase “One-Winged Angel” (from Final Fantasy 7) was based on a phrase in the Bible concerning seraphim. It reads, “Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft.” This is much more evident in the form of Safer (?) Sephiroth, who has six white wings and one black wing, thus making him a one-winged angel. The description of angels posted above seems to match that near perfectly.
The angel that visited Mary first said “Do not be afraid”
Supposedly, somewhere in a work of text, Christ is described as a gored sheep with many heads and many horns and maybe many nimbuses/halos as well.
The Abrahamic religions were fucking metal, man.
Aren’t Archangels also supposed to be on fire all the time and have flaming swords or something? I think I once heard of something like this.
I’ve tried looking some of this stuff up, but i’ve never had much luck. I’ really love to see more info on more “accurate” angels…
Righty-o, I used to be something of a freak when it came to angelogy back in middle/high school, I guess you can chalk it up to that ol’ eighth grader syndrome but angels are split into different ranks with their appearance becoming more alien and bizzare the higher up you go. From bottom to top we have…
The Third Sphere:
Angels: Basic messengers to humankind.
Archangels: Superiors to angels. There seems to be a differentiation between archangels and “Archangels” who are senior named angels that can belong to a different rank, i.e Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, etc.
Principalities/Rulers: They wear crowns or wield scepters. They oversee groups of people and inspire things like art and science.
Second Sphere:
Powers/Authorities: Warrior angels, they oversee the distribution of power among the rulers of man.
Virtues: They oversee the movement of the cosmos.
Dominions: The angels who are Lords among angels and preside over nations. They look much like the everyday thought of angels but orbs of light above their heads.
First Sphere:
Thrones/Orphanim: Living symbols of justice and authority. They appear as a beryl-coloured wheel-within-a-wheel, their rims covered with hundreds of eyes.
Cherubim: Cherubim have four faces: one of each a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle. They have four conjoined wings covered with eyes, a lion’s body figure, and they have ox’s feet. They guard the way to the Tree of Life and God’s Throne.
Seraphim: The caretakers of God’s Throne. The name Seraphim means “the burning ones.” The Seraphim have six wings. Two wings cover their face, two cover their body, and two cover their feet.
Evoland (PC, Mac)
Recently accepted by Steam Greenlight, Evoland is an RPG with the unique hook that the graphics and gameplay evolve as you play. Beginning with a monochromatic Gameboy Zelda-style adventure, you play through and discover the emergence of JRPG active battle systems, and, eventually, fully 3D dungeons with modern real-time combat. It helps that throughout it all, the art looks to be superb, and the music is already proving to be fantastic.
wow what a neat concept!
why hasn’t this been done before…
Based on what I learned when we went over genetics in my biology classes (and what I’ve researched on my own)… this all makes no sense.
Eye colors other than Dark Brown Eyes are actually almost nonexistent in some parts of the world. Dark Brown Eyes are a very strongly dominant trait. Meaning that this “Brown + Brown” = 18.75% chance of green or 6.25% chance of blue” is only going to happen where people have a high percentage of recessive eye-color gene admixture. There are places where you’ll go in the world where, guess what, there are almost no people in the entire area (who are from the native population) who have blue/green eyes.
This doesn’t exclude mutations, but still doesn’t invalidate my point because the chances of two people with dark brown eyes (with only dark-brown eyed ancestors throughout their entire genetic history) having a child with a mutated gene to make their eyes blue is very rare. It doesn’t happen often, and isn’t even close to 6.25%
There are also different shades of all of these and it’s really hard to determine.
With Brown eyes there are different categories— the largest two they can be split into are light brown eyes and dark brown eyes.
Dark Brown eyes are most common in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Oceania, Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and Southern Europe.
Light and Medium Brown Eyes (usually grouped together as “light”) are most common in various places in Europe, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Northern India, some parts of the Middle East, and a large portion of the Americas.
Then there are Amber eyes, which are a golden color. These people often think their eyes are hazel, but they actually have a solid gold color.
Then you have Blue eyes, which are a recessive trait. Blue eyes are most common in areas around the Baltic Sea and Northern Europe, but obviously they’ve spread somewhat.
Gray eyes, much like blue eyes, are also a recessive trait. Gray eyes are a bit of a “we don’t know how they work” scenario, but people believe that they may have more melanin than blue eyes. They’re most common in Northern and Eastern Europe, but will also pop up in North West Africa, the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Green eyes are actually quite the rare trait. Only 1 to 2% of people in the entire world have green eyes. They’re quite common in some parts of the world, but are otherwise very uncommon. They happen most often in Northern and Central Europe, and sometimes pop up in Southern Europe and in parts of Central Asia. For some reason or another, they’re more common for women to have than they are with men.
Hazel eyes are actually quite varied, and it’s hard to pin down what is hazel and what isn’t. They range from having light browns to greens but have plenty of admixture.
Red and Violet eyes are very rare and only naturally happen with people who have albinism. This happens because they have virtually no pigmentation in their iris, and so their blood vessels show through. Many like to state Elizabeth Taylor as someone who has “violet eyes”, but they only appeared that way because they were a very deep blue that sometimes would appear to take on a more violet hue.
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This means that it all depends on what genes each individual parent has. It is possible to have two parents with brown eyes who have a close to 0% (including mutations) chance of having a child with green or blue eyes. Some people simply don’t have the recessive genes for a child to have green or blue eyes.
If a person with dark brown eyes who has no recessive green/blue genes has a child with someone with blue eyes… Every single child will have brown eyes. Those children all now carry the recessive blue eye gene, but none of them will have blue eyes.
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Please note when speaking of these, the general native population’s genetic ancestry is taken into account. This doesn’t account for immigration and genetic admixture over time.
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Heterochromia (you didn’t think I’d pass up a chance to touch on this, did you?)
Heterochromia is a condition in which a person’s eyes are different colors.
Sometimes this only happens in a small portion of someone’s eye, such as “central heterochromia”
Sectoral heterochromia is where a part of one iris is different, but the rest is the same as the other eye.
Complete heterochromia is where one eye is an entirely different color from the other.
Heterochromia has many different causes, from certain genetic disorders, to medical chimerism (a person’s body actually being made up of two different people’s genetics in different places) and injury.
The bottom part is actually pretty helpful for figuring out how genetics will work with my characters and their parents’ traits.
Wow, that was actually very informative and interesting. I have grey eyes (which I’ve always called blue because it’s easier) so it was nice to be able to read something about them.
Look at the center of this image for 30sec, then watch Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ come to life.
This is brilliant.
There are quite a few letters we tossed aside as our language grew.
I really like learning shit.
development of script ≠ development of language
I never knew about that ‘ond’ though pretty cool
German photographer Kara-a. takes awesome macro photos using single drops of water to beautifully reflect and transform their surroundings. The clever Jack Skellington drop is our favourite. Take a moment to check out her DeviantArt gallery to view more of her wonderful photography.
[via Free York]
