Insanity (Insânia)

Insanity was considered a disorder or disturbance as the result of mental illness. The Greeks called it 'mania'. William Shakespeare referred to insanity stating: “current misery: madmen lead the blind”.


Consideram a insânia como transtorno ou distúrbio resultante de doença mental. Os gregos chamavam-lhe 'mania'. William Shakespeare pronunciou-se assim «infelicidade actual: os loucos guiam os cegos».

Pieter van der Heyden (ca 1530-1575)-'the sailing scale'-enghraving-1562 Liège-University Art Collection

Jacob Goltzius (ca 1535-1609)-'a fool pouring the content of a barrel into a goblet held by a young man'-engraving-ca 1600

Pieter Janszoon (1638-1678)-'a fool'-engraving

Nicolaus Alexander Mair von Landhut (ca 1450-1504)-'women and fools'-woodcut

Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533)-'a fool and a woman'-engraving-1520

Cassini Finds Warm Cracks on Enceladus

New images and data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft give scientists a unique Saturn-lit view of active fissures through the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus. They reveal a more complicated web of warm fractures than previously thought.

Scientists working jointly with Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer and its high-resolution imaging camera have constructed the highest-resolution heat intensity maps yet of the hottest part of a region of long fissures spraying water vapor and icy particles from Enceladus. These fissures have been nicknamed "tiger stripes." Additional high-resolution spectrometer maps of one end of the tiger stripes Alexandria Sulcus and Cairo Sulcus reveal never-before-seen warm fractures that branch off like split ends from the main tiger stripe trenches. They also show an intriguing warm spot isolated from other active surface fissures.

"The ends of the tiger stripes may be the places where the activity is just getting started, or is winding down, so the complex patterns of heat we see there may give us clues to the life cycle of tiger stripes," said John Spencer, a Cassini team scientist based at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

The images and maps come from the Aug. 13, 2010, Enceladus flyby, Cassini's last remote sensing flyby of the moon until 2015. The geometry of the many flybys between now and 2015 will not allow Cassini to do thermal scans like these, because the spacecraft will be too close to scan the surface and will not view the south pole. This Enceladus flyby, the 11th of Cassini's tour, also gave Cassini its last look at any part of the active south polar region in sunlight.

The highest-resolution spectrometer scan examined the hottest part of the entire tiger stripe system, part of the fracture called Damascus Sulcus. Scientists used the scan to measure fracture temperatures up to190 Kelvin (minus 120 degrees Fahrenheit). This temperature appears slightly higher than previously measured temperatures at Damascus, which were around 170 Kelvin (minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit).

Spencer said he isn't sure if this tiger stripe is just more active than it was the last time Cassini's spectrometer scanned it, in 2008, or if the hottest part of the tiger stripe is so narrow that previous scans averaged its temperature out over a larger area. In any case, the new scan had such good resolution, showing details as small as 800 meters (2,600 feet), that scientists could see for the first time warm material flanking the central trench of Damascus, cooling off quickly away from the trench. The Damascus thermal scan also shows large variations in heat output within a few kilometers along the length of the fracture. This unprecedented resolution will help scientists understand how the tiger stripes deliver heat to the surface of Enceladus.

Cassini acquired the thermal map of Damascus simultaneously with a visible-light image where the tiger stripe is lit by sunlight reflecting off Saturn. The visible-light and thermal data were merged to help scientists understand the relationships between physical heat processes and surface geology.

"Our high-resolution images show that this section of Damascus Sulcus is among the most structurally complex and tectonically dynamic of the tiger stripes," said imaging science team associate Paul Helfenstein of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Some details in the appearance of the landforms, such as a peculiar pattern of curving striations along the flanks of Damascus, had not previously been noticed in ordinary sunlit images.

The day after the Enceladus flyby, Cassini swooped by the icy moon Tethys, collecting images that helped fill in gaps in the Tethys global map. Cassini's new views of the heavily cratered moon will help scientists understand how tectonic forces, impact cratering, and perhaps even ancient resurfacing events have shaped the moon's appearance.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. The composite infrared spectrometer team is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., where the instrument was built.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20101130.html

Galleria degli Uffizi (profane selection)

Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) was responsible for the design of the building. The Grand Duke Francesco I (Medici) (1541-1587) ordered the execution of this construction (1560-1580) for the headquarter offices (uffizi) of the administrative services of Tuscany. It comprises an impressive collection of paintings from the fourteenth century, as well as numerous antique statues.


O projecto do edifício pertence a Giorgio Vasari (1511--1574). O Grão-Duque Francesco I (Medici) (1541-1587) mandou executar esta construção (1560-1580) para sede das repartições (uffizi) dos serviços administrativos da Toscana. Compreende impressionante colecção de pinturas desde o séc. XIV, assim como inúmeras estátuas antigas.

Johann Zoffany (1733-1810)-'the Tribune'-oil on canvas-(1772-1778)

Annibale Carracci (1560-1609)-'Venus with a satyr and Cupid'-oil on canvas-ca 1588

Caspar Netscher (1639-1684)-'woman cleaning'-oil on canvas

Rutilio Manetti (1571-1639)-'Masinissa (238-149 BC) and Sophonibe ( -204 BC)'-oil on canvas-(1624-1625)

David Teniers, the Elder (1582-1649)-'the interior of a rustic house'-oil on canvas-ca 1640

Dark Dune Fields of Proctor Crater, Mars

The dark rippled dunes of Mars' Proctor Crater likely formed more recently than the lighter rock forms they appear to cover, and are thought to slowly shift in response to pervasive winds. The dunes arise from a complex relationship between the sandy surface and high winds on Mars. Similar dunes were first seen in Proctor Crater by Mariner 9 more than 35 years ago.

This image was taken by HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, currently in orbit around Mars.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1810.html

Animula, vagula, blandula

This verse from a poem by Emperor Hadrian (2nd century) meaning “gentle wanderer soul” is associated with the wanderings and the conception of life of one of the best Roman leaders. He was disciplined, cultured, appreciative of beauty, tolerant, more interested in the population’s welfare than in the territorial expansion.


Este verso dum poema do Imperador Adriano (séc. II) com o significado de «alma vagamunda, folgazã» está associado às deambulações e à concepção de vida de um dos melhores dirigentes Romanos. Era disciplinado, culto, apreciador da beleza, tolerante, mais interessado no bem-estar da população do que na expansão territorial.

Alexandre Gabriel Decamps (1803-1860)-'scissor grinder'-oil on canvas

Jacques Callot (1592-1635)-'the two pantalooms'-etching-1616 London-British Museum

Herzog von Anhalt-'medieval tournament'-ca 1304 Heidelberg-Biblioteca Palatina (Codex Maness, folio 17r)

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1829)-'Johann Wolfgang von Goëthe (1749-1832) in der Römischen Campagna' 'Goëthe in the Roman Campagna'-oil on canvas-1787 Frankfurth am Main-Städel Museum

Unknown (séc. II AD)-'Neptune and Thyrranean pirates'-Roman mosaic Tunis-Musée National du Bardo

Thin Air - Cassini Finds Ethereal Atmosphere at Rhea

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected a very tenuous atmosphere known as an exosphere, infused with oxygen and carbon dioxide around Saturn's icy moon Rhea. This is the first time a spacecraft has directly captured molecules of an oxygen atmosphere – albeit a very thin one -- at a world other than Earth.

The oxygen appears to arise when Saturn's magnetic field rotates over Rhea. Energetic particles trapped in the planet's magnetic field pepper the moon’s water-ice surface. They cause chemical reactions that decompose the surface and release oxygen. The source of the carbon dioxide is less certain.

Oxygen at Rhea's surface is estimated to be about 5 trillion times less dense than what we have at Earth. But the new results show that surface decomposition could contribute abundant molecules of oxygen, leading to surface densities roughly 100 times greater than the exospheres of either Earth's moon or Mercury. The formation of oxygen and carbon dioxide could possibly drive complex chemistry on the surfaces of many icy bodies in the universe.

"The new results suggest that active, complex chemistry involving oxygen may be quite common throughout the solar system and even our universe," said lead author Ben Teolis, a Cassini team scientist based at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Such chemistry could be a prerequisite for life. All evidence from Cassini indicates that Rhea is too cold and devoid of the liquid water necessary for life as we know it."

Releasing oxygen through surface irradiation could help generate conditions favorable for life at an icy body other than Rhea that has liquid water under the surface, Teolis said. If the oxygen and carbon dioxide from the surface could somehow get transported down to a sub-surface ocean, that would provide a much more hospitable environment for more complex compounds and life to form. Scientists are keen to investigate whether life on icy moons with an ocean is possible, though they have not yet detected it.

The tenuous atmosphere with oxygen and carbon dioxide makes Rhea, Saturn's second largest moon, unique in the Saturnian system. Titan has a thick nitrogen-methane atmosphere, but very little carbon dioxide and oxygen.

"Rhea is turning out to be much more interesting than we had imagined," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The Cassini finding highlights the rich diversity of Saturn’s moons and gives us clues on how they formed and evolved."

Scientists had suspected Rhea could have a thin atmosphere with oxygen and carbon dioxide, based on remote observations of Jupiter's icy moons by NASA's Galileo spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope. Other Cassini observations detected oxygen escaping from icy Saturn ring particles after ultraviolet bombardment. But Cassini was able to detect oxygen and carbon dioxide in the exosphere directly because of how close it flew to Rhea – 101 kilometers, or 63 miles – and its special suite of instruments.

In the new study, scientists combined data from Cassini's ion and neutral mass spectrometer and the Cassini plasma spectrometer during flybys on Nov. 26, 2005, Aug. 30, 2007, and March 2, 2010. The ion and neutral mass spectrometer "tasted" peak densities of oxygen of around 50 billion molecules per cubic meter (1 billion molecules per cubic foot). It detected peak densities of carbon dioxide of around 20 billion molecules per cubic meter (about 600 million molecules per cubic foot).

The plasma spectrometer saw clear signatures of flowing streams of positive and negative ions, with masses that corresponded to ions of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

"How exactly the carbon dioxide is released is still a puzzle," said co-author Geraint Jones, a Cassini team scientist based at University College London in the U.K. "But with Cassini's diverse suite of instruments observing Rhea from afar, as well as sniffing the gas surrounding it, we hope to solve the puzzle."

The carbon dioxide may be the result of “dry ice” trapped from the primordial solar nebula, as is the case with comets, or it may be due to similar irradiation processes operating on the organic molecules trapped in the water ice of Rhea. The carbon dioxide could also come from carbon-rich materials deposited by tiny meteors that bombarded Rhea's surface.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The ion and neutral mass spectrometer team and the Cassini plasma spectrometer team are based at Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20101126.html

I, Claudius: Augustus (radio adaptation)

BBC Radio 4 have just started a brand new radio adaptation of Robert Graves' I, Claudius, confusingly but brilliantly starring Derek Jacobi as Augustus. It co-stars Harriet Walter as Livia, who has just the right maliciously dripping tones for Graves' interpretation of Livia as poison-tongued serial muderess, and Tim McInnerny as Tiberius, a gruffer, more evil Captain Darling. Claudius is played by Tom Goodman-Hill, who is very good but sounds unnervingly like the young Derek Jacobi. Comparisons to the TV series are somewhat unfair, since this is a fresh adaptation of the novel and should be judged on its own merits, but I'm afraid they are also inevitable, and I'm going to proceed to compare them directly, repeatedly, for the next six weeks!

(My posts on the television series also cover the plot in detail, so I won't describe the plot too much here).

The television adaptation usually dispensed with Claudius' famous stammer for the narrative sections, since these are written, not spoken. Interestingly, the radio series chooses to include the stammer at all times, albeit in a milder form for the narration. There are advantages to this, since, without being able to see Claudius writing, hearing him speak as if in an interview or conversation is more effective and easier to follow. On the other hand, aside from slowing down the narration a bit, it does make it less clear when Claudius is writing and when he is speaking, which may become awkward later.

The Sibyl's prophecy which opens the book is well done. One of the conceits of the book is that her prophecy is genuine, and this interpretation walks a fine line between depicting her state of ecstasy through stilted delivery, but also giving it a strange, unearthly echo which could be an ancient special effect, or could be a sign of something genuinely spooky going on.

After the Sibyl's scene we get into the main flashback and the story proper. The series has chosen an interesting selection of incidents to highlight. It goes back much further than the television adaptation did, showing us Livia's divorce from her first husband and going into much more detail concerning her marital relationship with Augustus, even referring briefly to the civil war between Augustus and Antony which is already over by the time the television adaptation kicks in. Like the source novel, the radio adaptation embraces Suetonius' rather salacious, gossipy suggestion that the reason Augustus and Livia had no children together was because Augustus couldn't get it up for her, which is, of course, possible, but it seems to me there are other equally, even more likely, possibilities (they may have married for reasons not relating to wanting to sleep together, or they may have had perfecty healthy marital relations and just not been a good match, fertility-wise).

On the other hand, the series then skips ahead in leaps and bounds and covers two to three hours of TV material in 45 minutes (though this is, of course, necessary in a six-hour radio adaptation). Marcellus is introduced and killed in the same sentence and before half an hour has passed we've reached Drusus' death and Claudius' youth. Julia is missing a son, as well. None of the missing or skimmed over scenes are desperately missed, though there is a bit of an overall effect of temporal whiplash simply from moving through so many years so quickly. This adaptation does, however, include some really nice scenes from the novel which didn't make it onto the TV, especially Augustus' cautious questioning concerning Julia's fate after her banishment - though Livia's use of a powerful aphrodisiac to drive Julia to her bad behaviour in the first place is positively mythical.

We also hear a lot more scenes from the novel which describe Claudius' youth and his own private life, his education and childhood friends. This, I think, is the key to the differences in the adaptations. The TV series was a massive, epic production with a huge cast of theatrical big-hitters all doing their thing and taking thirteen hours to tell all their stories. The radio series has no less impressive a cast, but quite apart from having only six hours to tell its story, because radio is not a medium that lends itself to large, epic casts and sprawling stories, it needs to tell a more intimate tale. So the radio series focuses itself as much as possible on Claudius himself and on his personal story, telling as much of everyone else's story as is necessary but always bringing it back to the person of Claudius. This is an effective strategy, and its nice to hear so much of the detail of Claudius' childhood, especially his tragic betrothal to a girl called Camilla and the full horror of his later betrothal to his wife Urgulanilla.

As with almost all BBC adaptations, this is extremely faithful to its source material (BBC adaptations cut all sorts of things for time, but very rarely make substantial changes to the scenes they do include). It's a highly enjoyable adaptation and the actors are uniformly excellent. This first episode perhaps condenses a little too much into one short hour, and might have benefitted from following the TV adaptation's example and picking a slightly later starting point, but it isn't a huge problem, and future episodes will be able to cover Claudius' youth and adulthood in more detail.

Alhambra - Granada

Alhambra (Arabic, the red) includes a palace complex and an alcazar (al-Ksar) located in the southeast of Granada in Andalucía. It housed the monarchs of the Nasri dynasty, lords of the Kingdom of Granada until 1492. The decoration of the palace represents the best of Islamic art in the Iberian Peninsula. Charles V decided to build a palace inside the enclosure (1527).


Alhambra (Árabe, a vermelha) compreende um complexo palaciano e um alcácer (al-Ksar), situado a sudeste de Granada na Andaluzia. Nele se alojavam os monarcas da dinastia Nasrida, senhores do Reino de Granada até 1492. A decoração do palácio corresponde ao melhor da arte Islâmica existente na Península Ibérica. No interior do recinto mandou Carlos V construir um palácio (1527).

Edwin Lord Weeks (1849-1903)-'a court on the Alhambra in the time of the Moors'-oil on canvas-1876

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz (1848-1921)-'the capitulation of Granada'-oil on canvas-1882

David Roberts (1796-1864)-'tower of Comaris, Alhambra'-oil on canvas

Rudolf Ernst (1854-1932)-'in the Alhambra'-oil on panel-1888 Private collection

Adolph Seel (1829-1907)-'Innenhof der Alhambra' 'inner yard in Alhambra'-gouache 1892

Hindu Mythology by Ravi Varma (1848-1906) (Mitologia Hindu)

Ravi Varma was born in the palace of Kilimanoor, principality of Travancore, state of Kerala in the Indian Union. Above all, he is recognized for depicting scenes related with epic texts like the Mahabharata and Ramayana. He was given the title of Raja.


Nasceu no palácio de Kilimanoor no principado de Travancore, Estado de Kerala, na União Indiana. Tratou principalmente de temas relacionados com textos épicos como Mahabharata e Ramayana. Recebeu o título de Rajá.

Ravi Varma (1848-1906)-'Jatayu attempting to save Sita Devi from Ravana'-oil on canvas

Ravi Varma (1848-1906)-'Meganathan, after his victory ove Indran presenting Sacchi Devi to Ravana'-oil on canvas

Ravi Varma (1848-1906)-'Bhishma abdicating his right to the throne, in order to get the fisher girl married to the father Shantanu'-oil on canvas

Ravi Varma (1848-1906)-'Khrisna and Balarama freeing Vasudevar and Devaki after killing Kamsan'-oil on canvas

Ravi Varma (1848-1906)-'Lord Khrisna as the envoy of the Pandavas in the Kaurava court'-oil on canvas

In illo tempore

Time passes inexorably. The present is so fast that everything is virtually past and out of fashion. Heraclitus of Ephesus (540-470 BC) considered that 'you cannot enter the same river twice' (quoted by Plato, Cratylus). Luis de Camoes also refers to the inevitability of change in the sonnet ‘Times change, desires change’.


O tempo passa inexoravelmente por nós. O presente é tão rápido que praticamente tudo é passado e fora de moda. Considerava Heráclito de Éfeso (540-470 aC) 'não podes entrar duas vezes no mesmo rio' (citado por Platão-Crátilo). Para Luís de Camões (Sonetos) 'mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades'.

Johann Jacob Bruun (1715-1789)-'prospect of Copenhagen Castle'-gouache-1739

François Boucher (1703-1770)-'the breakfast'-oil on canvas-1739 Paris-Musée du Louvre

Alexander Gabriel Decamps (1803-1860)-'Albanian dancers'-oil on canvas-1835 Private collection

Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699-1779)-'die Besorgerin' 'the shopping bag'-oil on canvas-1739 Paris-Musée du Louvre

Edwin Longsden Long (1829-1891)-'the Babylonian marriage market'-oil on canvas-1875 Surrey (UK)-Royal Holloway and Bedford New College

Harrat Khaybar

Harrat Khaybar, Saudi Arabia lies in the western half of the Arabian peninsula and contains not only large expanses of sand and gravel, but also extensive lava fields known as haraat (harrat for a named field). According to scientists, the volcanic field was formed by eruptions along a long north-south linear vent system over the past 5 million years; the most recent recorded eruption took place between 600-700 A.D.

The presence of tuff cones -- formed by eruption of lava in the presence of water together with other volcanic features indicative of water -- in the Harrat Khaybar suggest that the local climate was much wetter during some periods of volcanic activity. Today, however, the regional climate is hyperarid -- little to no yearly precipitation -- leading to an almost total lack of vegetation.

The image was taken by the Expedition 16 crew aboard the Inernational Space Station in March 2008.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1808.html

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Pangs

Today is Thanksgiving in the US, a festival I have celebrated several times over the last few years with American friends (we had a delicious dinner last year, my friend is an excellent cook!). I can't be with them this year, so I'm missing out on Thanksgiving, but I thought I'd at least do a celebratory post. As you can probably tell, I've been watching through a lot of old Buffy DVDs lately, so of course this, the only Thanksgiving episode of Buffy, seemed the natural choice.

'Pangs' is another classic comedy episode of Buffy, though it also features the first return of Angel since going over to his own show and a fascinating discussion about the problem of how we remember the past, something very close to my current research. Best of all, this is where Spike starts to become integrated into the main cast, albeit bound in a chair at this point (what on earth do Giles' neighbours think?!).

Early on in the episode, Anya calmly informs Buffy and Willow, who are aghast, that,

'To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice, with pie.'

She's more or less right. To really be a ritual scarifice, the animal ought to be killed on an altar and its bones dedicated to the gods, and ancient rituals varied in ther reasoning behind them, but Thanksgiving roughly fits the bill. Some ancient rituals did commemorate past events, but many were explained by myth and were more related to the natural cycle of the year than commemoration; the events they commemorated, being mythological, are closer to stories people chose to pass on and celebrate than to modern commemorations of much more recent events. At first glance, this might seem to separate them from Thanksgiving, but actually, Anya is not quite accurate in her summation. Although Thanksgiving does commemorate a past event, that's not its main purpose as a festival. Thanksgiving is a harvest festival, something we still celebrate in churches and schools over here in the UK (usually at the end of September or beginning of October) and this function, of marking the point in the year where the harvest is brought in and giving thanks for having food for the winter, is probably more significant for the development of the festival than the commemorative aspect, though the latter has become more significant in recent times.

Much of the episode is taken up by an argument between Willow and Giles over whether Buffy should slay the vengeful Native American spirit who is going around killing people and chopping off their ears. Leaving aside the specific argument about the vengeful spirit (I tend to take Xander's side there, who has been given syphilis by the spirit and is not happy about it) the question of how to remember controversial past events is always a delicate one. When the past event is still having an effect on the present, the cultural memory of it is much more than memory, and any attempt to remember the past will be completely dominated by present issues - Voyager's 'Living Witness' is an excellent fictional example of this.

The last word in Willow and Giles' argument, in the end, comes from Spike, whose argument has a number of advantages over Giles' attempt to, as he bitterly points out, make many of the same points. Spike is evil, so he can say potentially offensive or controversial things without causing offence, because we expect evil characters to say offensive things. Like Giles, he's British, which gives him a certain distance from the particular issue (not a lot of distance, granted, since many pilgrims came to America to escape persecution in Britain, but he still has slightly more distance than the American characters). But most importantly, Spike uses an analogy with ancient Rome to make his point, which allows him to highlight brutal truth without sounding too heartless.

Ancient Greece and Rome (along with Persia, Babylon and other Near Eastern places) hold an unusual position in our cultural memory, because we don't connect them particularly strongly with a modern political situation. We make a mental break at the end of the Roman Empire and you don't hear too many people in North Africa complaining about these pesky camels those Italians brought over, or people from the various Roman provinces complaining about how the Italians occupied our country - in fact, we tend to be rather proud of it. The Romans conquered and subjugated half the known world, but whereas more recent examples of this behaviour are condemned, we praise the Romans for it (probably because of all the roads and irrigation and stuff).

So when Spike needs to make a fairly brutal, but true, point about how history works, the Romans are the perfect example. Their conquering is usually considered in a fairly positive light, so by pointing out that more recent situations are no different (though I suspect the Romans were quite a bit more violent than the Pilgrim Fathers) he is able to demonstrate the problem without getting too wrapped up in past wrongs at the expense of the present. Also, they way he puts it is brilliant:

'You won, all right? You came in and you killed them and you took their land. That's what conquering nations do. That's what Caesar did, and he isn't going around saying "I came, I conquered, I feel really bad about it". The history of the world isn't people making friends.'

(James Marsters' delivery of 'I feel really bad about it' is hilarious).

It's a harsh point, but also a true one, and using the Romans allows him - or rather, the show, since Spike is evil and doesn't care - to make it without directly offending anyone still feeling the cultural pain of historical wrongdoing (the Romans invaded my country, but I think I'm OK with it). Most importantly, though, it's really, really funny.

Luxembourg Gardens in Paris (Jardim do Luxemburgo em Paris)

The main entrance to this garden of over 20 hectares is located in the Latin Quarter at the bifurcation of the streets Sufflot and Boulevard Saint Michel. Inside you will find the Palace of the Senate and some statues, among which is the original model of the Statue of Liberty in New York.


A entrada principal deste jardim de mais de 20 hectares situa-se no Bairro Latino na bifurcação das ruas Sufflot e Boulevard Saint Michel. No seu interior encontra-se o Palácio do Senado e algumas estátuas entre as quais está o modelo original da Estátua da Liberdade em Nova Iorque.

Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904)-'Statue of Liberty'-1900

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)-'in the Luxembourg Gardens'-oil on canvas-1879 Philadelphia-Museum of Art

Henri Rousseau (1844-1910)-'Luxembourg Gardens. Monument to Chopin'-oil on canvas St Petersbourg-Hermitage

Henri Matisse (1869-1854)-'the Luxembourg Gardens'-oil on canvas St Petersbourg-Hermitage

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (1857-1918)-'a wetnurse (nanny) in the Luxembourg Gardens'-oil on canvas-ca 1875 Montpellier-Musée Fabre

Astronomers Probe 'Sandbar' Between Islands of Galaxies

Astronomers have caught sight of an unusual galaxy that has illuminated new details about a celestial "sandbar" connecting two massive islands of galaxies. The research was conducted in part with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

These "sandbars," or filaments, are known to span vast distances between galaxy clusters and form a lattice-like structure known as the cosmic web. Though immense, these filaments are difficult to see and study in detail. Two years ago, Spitzer's infrared eyes revealed that one such intergalactic filament containing star-forming galaxies ran between the galaxy clusters called Abell 1763 and Abell 1770.

Now these observations have been bolstered by the discovery, inside this same filament, of a galaxy that has a rare boomerang shape and unusual light emissions. Hot gas is sweeping the wandering galaxy into this shape as it passes through the filament, presenting a new way to gauge the filament's particle density. Researchers hope that other such galaxies with oddly curved profiles could serve as signposts for the faint threads, which in turn signify regions ripe for forming stars.

"These filaments are integral to the evolution of galaxy clusters -- among the biggest gravitationally bound objects in the universe -- as well as the creation of new generations of stars," said Louise Edwards, a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and lead author of a study detailing the findings in the Dec. 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Her collaborators are Dario Fadda, also at Caltech, and Dave Frayer from the National Science Foundation's National Radio Astronomy Observatory, based in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Blowing in the cosmic breeze

Astronomers spotted the bent galaxy about 11 million light-years away from the center of the galaxy cluster Abell 1763 during follow-up observations with the WIYN Observatory near Tucson, Ariz., and radio-wave observations by the Very Large Array near Socorro, N.M. The WIYN Observatory is named after the consortium that owns and operates it, which includes the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, Yale University, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories.

The galaxy has an unusual ratio of radio to infrared light, as measured by the Very Large Array and Spitzer, making it stand out like a beacon. This is due in part to the galaxy having twin jets of material spewing in opposite directions from a supermassive black hole at its center. These jets have puffed out into giant lobes of material that emit a tremendous amount of radio waves.

Edwards and her colleagues noticed that these lobes appear to be bent back and away from the galaxy's trajectory through the filament. This bow shape, the astronomers reasoned, is due to particles in the filament pushing on the gas and dust in the lobes.

By measuring the angle of the arced lobes, Edwards' team calculated the pressure exerted by the filaments' particles and then determined the density of the medium. The method is somewhat like looking at streamers on a kite soaring overhead to judge the wind strength and the thickness of the air.

According to the data, the density inside this filament is indeed about 100 times the average density of the universe. This value agrees with that obtained in a previous X-ray study of filaments and also nicely matches predictions of supercomputer simulations.

Interconnected superclusters

Galaxies tend to bunch together as great islands in the void of space, called galaxy clusters. These galaxy groupings themselves often keep company with other clusters in "superclusters" that loom as gargantuan, gravitationally associated walls of galaxies. These structures evolved from denser patches of material as the universe rapidly expanded after the Big Bang, some 13.7 billion years ago.

The clumps and threads of this primordial matter eventually cooled, and some of it has condensed into the galaxies we see today. The leftover gas is strewn in filaments between galaxy clusters. Much of it is still quite hot -- about one million degrees Celsius (1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit) -- and blazes in high-energy X-rays that permeate galaxy clusters. Filaments are therefore best detected in X-ray light, and one direct density reading of the strands has previously been obtained in this band of frequencies.

But the X-ray-emitting gas in filaments is much more diffuse and weak than in clusters, just as submerged sandbars are extremely hard to spot at sea compared to islands poking above the water. Therefore, obtaining quality observations of filaments is time-consuming with current space observatories.

The technique by Edwards and her colleagues, which uses radio frequencies that can reach a host of ground-based telescopes, points to an easier way to probe the interiors of galaxy-cluster filaments. Instead of laboring to find subtle X-rays clues, astronomers could trust these arced "lighthouse" galaxies to indicate just where cosmic filaments lie.

Knowing how much material these filaments contain and how they interact with galaxy clusters will be very important for understanding the overall evolution of the universe, Edwards said.

The Spitzer observations were made before it ran out of its liquid coolant in May 2009 and began its warm mission.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20101124.html

Birth of Dionysus (Nascimento de Dioniso)

In mythology there are always several legends or versions, whatever the subject might be. At the birth of Dionysus, the son of Semele and Zeus, the pregnant mother dies, and the fetus is transferred to the father's right thigh where it remains until the end of the pregnancy.


Na mitologia existem sempre várias lendas ou versões qualquer que seja o assunto. No nascimento de Dioniso, filho de Sémele e Zeus, a mãe morre grávida e o feto é transferido para a coxa direita do pai onde permanece até ao fim da gestação.

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)-'Zeus and Semele'-oil on canvas-(1894-1895) Paris-Musée Gustave Moreau

Attributed to the Alkimachos painter-'birth of Dionysus'-lekythos-attic-(red-figure)-(470-460 BC) Boston-Museum of Fine Arts (Boston 95.39)

Painter the birth of Dionysus-'birth of Dionysus'-volute krater-apulian-(red-figure)-(405-385 BC) Taranto-Museo Nazionale Archeologico (Taranto 8264)

Unknown-'birth of Dionysus'-wall painting-Pompeii Napoli-Museo Nazionale Archeologico

Unknown-'birth of Dionysus'-relief-2nd century AD Perge (Asia Minor)-Roman theater

Earth Observing-1: Ten Years of Innovation

Scheduled to fly for a year, designed to last a year and a half, EO-1 celebrated its tenth anniversary on November 21, 2010. During its decade in space, the satellite has accomplished far more than anyone dreamed.

"Earth-Observing-1 has had three missions," says mission manager Dan Mandl of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Its original mission was to test new technologies, a mission completed in the first year. Its second mission was to provide images and data. Its third mission was to test new cost-saving software that operates the satellite semi-autonomously and allows users to target the sensors.

All of the missions come down to one thing: "We're the satellite people can try things on." Mandl calls EO-1 NASA's on-orbit test bed, and the name rings true.

Testing New Technology: Faster, Better, Cheaper

EO-1 was commissioned as part of NASA's New Millennium Program, set up to develop and fly technology that would reduce the risk and cost of future science missions. In short, NASA told its engineers: find a way to fly faster, better, and cheaper.

"EO-1's primary purpose was to demonstrate that the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) was a suitable follow-on instrument for Landsat," says Bryant Cramer, the program manager at Goddard during EO-1's development and launch. Like Landsat-7, ALI records seven wavelengths of light reflected from Earth's surface. ALI also records an additional two wavelengths to improve measurements of forests and crops, coastal waters, and aerosols.

Later, an innovative new instrument, the Hyperion imaging spectrometer, was added to the mission. Hyperion records more than 200 adjacent wavelengths of light to even better understand the makeup of Earth's surface.

"EO-1 succeeded beyond anyone's expectations," says former project scientist Steve Ungar of NASA Goddard. He credits the mission's success to EO-1's "crackerjack team" of engineers and scientists, who were drawn to the mission because they recognized that they could have a stake in the future of satellite technology.

Hyperion

"Hyperion is probably the future of remote sensing," says Cramer. Hyperion is a hyperspectral instrument, a change in technology that is like going from black-and-white to color television, Mandl adds.

Other remote sensing instruments—multispectrometers—measure discreet wavelengths of light. It is as if your eyes could only see red and blue light; you could tell much about the world based on how much red and how much blue you saw, but your vision would have gaps in the green tones. A hyperspectral instrument corrects this color blindness by measuring many more wavelengths of light.

The science behind the hyperspectral instrument is spectroscopy, says current EO-1 project scientist, Elizabeth Middleton of NASA Goddard. "Spectroscopy is the study of constituents of materials using specific wavelengths," she notes. "Hyperion measures the chemical constituents of Earth's surface."

Space-based imaging spectroscopy enables a wide range of science, including tracking the amount of carbon plants take out of the atmosphere everywhere from the Amazon Rainforest to the Alaskan tundra. It also has been used to find evidence of microbial life in the Arctic and to monitor volcanic activity.

Perhaps the most important thing Hyperion has done, says Middleton, is teach the community how to work with complex hyperspectral data. Germany will soon launch the next hyperspectral instrument, EnMap, followed by NASA's HyspIRI satellite, which is still in the planning stage. Both missions build on lessons learned from Hyperion.

Advanced Land Imager

The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) was built, says Cramer, to test new technology and to provide a safe technology shift for future Landsat missions. The Landsat series of satellites has provided a continuous record of changes in Earth's landscape from 1972 to the present.

ALI differs from previous Landsat sensors because of how it takes images. Previous Landsat instruments scanned from side to side, like a whiskbroom. The image is built from horizontal strips of information. ALI, on the other hand, is more like a push broom. It has detectors arranged parallel to one another and facing forward, and they collect information in vertical strips. This arrangement eliminates the need for the sensor optics to move from side to side, and fewer moving parts means less chance of failure, says EO-1 engineer Stuart Frye of NASA Goddard.

After ten years of operation, ALI has proven that the push-broom technology is stable and reliable enough that the next Landsat satellite uses the same design. "The Landsat community is treating push-broom sensors like we've been building them for years," says Cramer. "That's a tribute to EO-1."

NASA's On-orbit test bed

As the EO-1 mission has aged, perhaps the most critical innovation has come from the onboard computer. "EO-1 has two separate computer processors with 256 megabytes of extra memory each," says Mandl. "It meant we had excess capacity to try new things."

The first new software loaded onto EO-1 was the Autonomous Science Experiment, an onboard intelligent scheduling tool that allows the satellite to decide for itself which images Hyperion and ALI should take. The on-board scheduler prioritizes requests based on what they are for (ranked by theme) and the weather.

"It's a customer-driven method of running a mission," says Mandl. Anyone from an archeologist to a disaster response agency can request images. "Flying a mission with a customizable user experience is one of EO-1's greatest achievement."

Sometimes the "customers" targeting EO-1 are other satellites. As part of SensorWeb, EO-1 automatically acquires images that are triggered by other satellites. For example, EO-1 monitors 100 volcanoes. When another satellite detects a hot spot at any of them, EO-1 automatically acquires an image on its next overpass. Hyperion records the temperature and position of lava flows, while ALI tracks ash plumes.

SensorWeb and the scheduling tool have saved money. "Initially, we were spending about $7,500 per image to acquire them. Now the cost is less than $600 a scene," says Cramer.

"EO-1 is one of the cheapest of NASA's Earth missions," confirms Middleton. These cost savings mean that anyone can now target EO-1 and access all data free of charge, making it useful to a growing range of people.

"EO-1 has done so many different things, NASA got three or four missions for the price of one," says Cramer. "We achieved all of the things that we hoped for and then some."

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/eo1-10th.html