Deluge (dilúvio)

God warns in the Book of Genesis (chapter 7) “I will send a flood upon the earth, flood that will destroy all living beings”. Some people think it came down to the regions mentioned in the Bible. The presence of water seems to present some analogy with baptism (the idea of purification).


Deus avisa no Livro do Génesis (VI, 17) «vou enviar o dilúvio sobre a Terra, inundação que exterminará todos os seres vivos». Há quem pense que se resumiu às regiões mencionadas na Bíblia. A presença da água parece apresentar alguma analogia com o baptismo (ideia de purificação).

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564)-'the deluge'-fresco-(1508-1509) Città del Vaticano-Cappella Sistina

Paollo Uccello (1397-1475)-'flood and waters subsiding'-fresco-(1447-1448) Firenze-basilica di Santa Maria Novella (chiostro verde)

Gustave Doré (1832-1883)-'the deluge'-wood engraving The Holy Bible, plate I

Francis Danby (1793-1861)-'the deluge'-oil on canvas-1840 London-Tate Gallery

Jean-Louis-André-Théodore Géricault (1791-1824)-'scene of deluge'-oil on canvas Paris-Musée du Louvre

Forensic Sleuthing Ties Ring Ripples to Impacts

Like forensic scientists examining fingerprints at a cosmic crime scene, scientists working with data from NASA's Cassini, Galileo and New Horizons missions have traced telltale ripples in the rings of Saturn and Jupiter back to collisions with cometary fragments dating back more than 10 years ago.

The ripple-producing culprit, in the case of Jupiter, was comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, whose debris cloud hurtled through the thin Jupiter ring system during a kamikaze course into the planet in July 1994. Scientists attribute Saturn's ripples to a similar object – likely another cloud of comet debris -- plunging through the inner rings in the second half of 1983. The findings are detailed in a pair of papers published online today in the journal Science.

"What's cool is we're finding evidence that a planet's rings can be affected by specific, traceable events that happened in the last 30 years, rather than a hundred million years ago," said Matthew Hedman, a Cassini imaging team associate, lead author of one of the papers, and a research associate at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "The solar system is a much more dynamic place than we gave it credit for."

From Galileo's visit to Jupiter, scientists have known since the late 1990s about patchy patterns in the Jovian ring. But the Galileo images were a little fuzzy, and scientists didn't understand why such patterns would occur. The trail was cold until Cassini entered orbit around Saturn in 2004 and started sending back thousands of images. A 2007 paper by Hedman and colleagues first noted corrugations in Saturn's innermost ring, dubbed the D ring.

A group including Hedman and Mark Showalter, a Cassini co-investigator based at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., then realized that the grooves in the D ring appeared to wind together more tightly over time. Playing the process backward, Hedman then demonstrated the pattern originated when something tilted the D ring off its axis by about 100 meters (300 feet) in late 1983. The scientists found the influence of Saturn's gravity on the tilted area warped the ring into a tightening spiral.

Cassini imaging scientists got another clue when the sun shone directly along Saturn's equator and lit the rings edge-on in August 2009. The unique lighting conditions highlighted ripples not previously seen in another part of the ring system. Whatever happened in 1983 was not a small, localized event; it was big. The collision had tilted a region more than 19,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) wide, covering part of the D ring and the next outermost ring, called the C ring. Unfortunately spacecraft were not visiting Saturn at that time, and the planet was on the far side of the sun, hidden from telescopes on or orbiting Earth, so whatever happened in 1983 passed unnoticed by astronomers.

Hedman and Showalter, the lead author on the second paper, began to wonder whether the long-forgotten pattern in Jupiter's ring system might illuminate the mystery. Using Galileo images from 1996 and 2000, Showalter confirmed a similar winding spiral pattern. They applied the same math they had applied to Saturn – but now with Jupiter's gravitational influence factored in. Unwinding the spiral pinpointed the date when Jupiter's ring was tilted off its axis: between June and September 1994. Shoemaker-Levy plunged into the Jovian atmosphere during late July 1994. The estimated size of the nucleus was also consistent with the amount of material needed to disturb Jupiter's ring.

The Galileo images also revealed a second spiral, which was calculated to have originated in 1990. Images taken by New Horizons in 2007, when the spacecraft flew by Jupiter on its way to Pluto, showed two newer ripple patterns, in addition to the fading echo of the Shoemaker-Levy impact.

"We now know that collisions into the rings are very common – a few times per decade for Jupiter and a few times per century for Saturn," Showalter said. "Now scientists know that the rings record these impacts like grooves in a vinyl record, and we can play back their history later."

The ripples also give scientists clues to the size of the clouds of cometary debris that hit the rings. In each of these cases, the nuclei of the comets – before they likely broke apart – were a few kilometers wide.

"Finding these fingerprints still in the rings is amazing and helps us better understand impact processes in our solar system," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Cassini's long sojourn around Saturn has helped us tease out subtle clues that tell us about the history of our origins."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens 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 team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. JPL managed the Galileo mission for NASA, and designed and built the Galileo orbiter. The New Horizons mission is led by Principal Investigator Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo., and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20110331.html

Neverwhere (by Neil Gaiman, TV series co-written by Lenny Henry)

Neverwhere is both a book and a TV series - that is to say, both were written at more or less the same time, neither is an adaptation of the other. I read the book a couple of years ago, so my memory of it is a little bit fuzzy now, but I visited an old friend last weekend and we watched the whole TV show from beginning to end.

The first thing we quickly realised was that it was much newer than we thought - both of us were convinced the show must have been from the late 80s, but it turned out to have been made in 1996. The special effects, style of direction and cinematography (telematography?!) and even the style of the acting, however, could have come from any point from the 70s to the 90s, I think - my friend wondered aloud how spectacular it could be if made now. The first of two standouts, acting wise, was clearly Patterson Joseph as the Marquis de Carabas (that's why he always looks irritatingly familiar to me!) who was shorter and less skinny than the Marquis was in my head, but absolutely brilliant. We both finished the series desperate for a twenty-years-on follow-up showing us where the Marquis is now, and what he's doing - killing alligators in New York, possibly. (Joseph ought to have been the Doctor, I think - him or Adrian Lester - but I digress).

As in much of Gaiman's work, there are Classical references scattered liberally around the place. My friend is not, I think, 100% convinced of the value of Latin in the school curriculum, so I couldn't resist suggesting that if Classics was better taught in schools, our hero would have known that whenever a woman introduces herself as 'Lamia', it is time to run away very fast. The name of the ancient bogeywoman who ate children is perfect for a sultry heat-vampire (played by Tamsin Grieg, the first time I've seen her play sexy or dramatic as she's much better known now as a comedienne, though she did play mildly sinister in Doctor Who once) and Gaiman obviously likes it a lot, since he used it for the witch in Stardust as well. Oddly enough, my friend felt that this was not a situation her students were likely to come across in life, though I think there's no harm in being prepared.

Various other Classical references crop up every now and again, chiefly attributing just about every major disaster you can think of, including the mythological destructions of Atlantis and Troy, to the hired thugs, Croup and Vandemar or to the ultimate villain, Islington. The main Classical reference, though, is the Labyrinth containing the Beast, clearly modelled after the famous Cretan Labyrinth which contained the Minotaur. This being 1996, the peculiar fashion for minotaurs that I noticed last year didn't seem to have come in yet, so the beast was not half-man, half-bull, but a simple bull. To be honest, it wasn't even an especially large or menacing bull - it was quite clearly just a Highland cow, shot in shadow. This was one sequence where the book definitely had the edge over the TV series. The battle between Hunter, Richard and the Beast was exciting, scary and tragic in the book, whereas I'm afraid, on TV, it was mildly comical and far too short. I can't help thinking they should have gone for a Minotaur and used a man in costume, so they could have choreographed a proper fight, but I suppose that wouldn't fit the Beast's backstory, nor Hunter's African-beast-hunter identity. For her to pursue it, it had to be a proper beast.

A Highland cow, or coo if you're trying to do a bad Scottish accent. They're gorgeous creatures and I love them because they remind me of holidays in Scotland when I was little.

The thing that had stuck in my mind for 15 years after I first saw the TV series was Peter Capaldi's performance as the Angel Islington. I loved the idea that there was actually an Angel called Islington (being familiar with the name from Monopoly), I loved that he turned out be evil and I loved Capaldi's fabulously creepy, yet strangely serene, performance (complete with mid-90s big hair which looked a bit like a halo). The whole evil-angel thing didn't bother me because it's quite sensibly pointed out that Lucifer was an angel, so it doesn't come across as a dig at Christianity (I realise that would be an improvement for some, but not for me), but a perfectly logical idea, given the mythology.

Watching Neverwhere again, at first I was struck by how old school Doctor Who it all felt, but soon became swept up in the story, just as I was the first time (albeit occasionally jerked out of it by trying to place the various familiar faces in the cast). I think the reason I love Neverwhere it that, like Narnia but in a different tone, it blends a whole bunch of different stuff together very successfully - Christian mythology, Greek mythology, urban mythology (I love the use of old, abandoned tube stations) and a fabulous assortment of styles, chiefly what looks gothic to me and aspects of the medieval. And it's all held together by a genuine concern about the homeless and the way people 'fall through the cracks' in our society - it's no coincidence that the TV version was co-written by Lenny Henry, the founder of Comic Relief. If you haven't come across Neverwhere, it's well worth seeking out in either book or TV form, though if you find slightly ropey special effects off-putting, you might be better off with the book!

I'm away for the weekend and will be back next week with another Spartacus review.

Countryside life by Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899)

The English painter Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899) portrays rural life of the English countryside.


O pintor inglês Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899) apresenta retratos da vida rural inglesa do seu tempo.

Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899)-'the farm cart'-watercolor

Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899)-'the country inn'-watercolor

Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899)-'a peep at the hounds, here they come!'-watercolor

Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899)-'an afternoon in the garden'-watercolor

Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899)-'a highland burn, Balcamara, near kyle of Lochalsh'-watercolor and pencil heighten

First Image Ever Obtained from Mercury Orbit

Of Interest: Early this morning, at 5:20 am EDT, MESSENGER captured this historic image of Mercury. This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System's innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER acquired an additional 363 images before downlinking some of the data to Earth. The MESSENGER team is currently looking over the newly returned data, which are still continuing to come down. Tomorrow, March 30, at 2 pm EDT, attend the NASA media telecon to view more images from MESSENGER's first look at Mercury from orbit.

The dominant rayed crater in the upper portion of the image is Debussy. The smaller crater Matabei with its unusual dark rays is visible to the west of Debussy. The bottom portion of this image is near Mercury's south pole and includes a region of Mercury's surface not previously seen by spacecraft. Compare this image to the planned image footprint to see the region of newly imaged terrain, south of Debussy. Over the next three days, MESSENGER will acquire 1185 additional images in support of MDIS commissioning-phase activities. The year-long primary science phase of the mission will begin on April 4, and the orbital observation plan calls for MDIS to acquire more than 75,000 images in support of MESSENGER's science goals.

On March 17, 2011 (March 18, 2011, UTC), MESSENGER became the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury. The mission is currently in its commissioning phase, during which spacecraft and instrument performance are verified through a series of specially designed checkout activities. In the course of the one-year primary mission, the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation will unravel the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet. Visit the Why Mercury? section of this website to learn more about the science questions that the MESSENGER mission has set out to answer.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/multimedia/mercury_orbit_image.html

Istanbul by Amedeo Preziosi (1816-1882)

It is said to have been founded in Thrace by Byzas, king of Megara. It was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire (5th century BC), Alexander the Great (3rd century BC), the Romans (1st century BC), and the Ottomans (15th century). It was known as Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul (the city). The Bosphorus divides the city and separates Europe from Asia. Among the most visited places are the former Church of St. Sophia, the Topkapi Palace, and the Pera Museum.


Teria sido fundada na região da Trácia por Bizas, rei de Mégara. Conquistaram-na: Persas Aqueménidas (séc. V aC), Alexandre Magno (séc. III aC), Romanos (séc. I aC) e Ottomanos (séc. XV). Conheceu os nomes de Bizâncio, Constantinopla e Istambul (a cidade). O Bósforo divide a cidade e separa a Europa da Ásia. Entre os locais mais visitados, encontram-se a ex-Igreja de Santa Sofia, o Palácio Topkapi e o Museu de Pera.

Amedeo Preziosi (1816-1882)-'Maiden Tower'-oil on canvas

Amedeo Preziosi (1816-1882)-'Istanbul'-oil on canvas

Amedeo Preziosi (1816-1882)-'sellers in Istanbul'-oil on canvas

Amedeo Preziosi (1816-1882)-'a street in Istanbul'-oil on canvas

Amedeo Preziosi (1816-1882)-'a cafe in Istanbul'-oil on canvas

NASA Satellites Detect Extensive Drought Impact on Amazon Forests

A new NASA-funded study has revealed widespread reductions in the greenness of the forests in the vast Amazon basin in South America caused by the record-breaking drought of 2010.

"The greenness levels of Amazonian vegetation -- a measure of its health -- decreased dramatically over an area more than three and one-half times the size of Texas and did not recover to normal levels, even after the drought ended in late October 2010," said Liang Xu, the study's lead author from Boston University.

The drought sensitivity of Amazon rainforests is a subject of intense study. Scientists are concerned because computer models predict that in a changing climate with warmer temperatures and altered rainfall patterns the ensuing moisture stress could cause some of the rainforests to be replaced by grasslands or woody savannas. This would cause the carbon stored in the rotting wood to be released into the atmosphere, which could accelerate global warming. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that similar droughts could be more frequent in the Amazon region in the future.

The comprehensive study was prepared by an international team of scientists using more than a decade's worth of satellite data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM).

Analysis of these data produced detailed maps showing vegetation greenness declines from the 2010 drought. The study has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

The authors first developed maps of drought-affected areas using thresholds of below-average rainfall as a guide. Next they identified affected vegetation using two different greenness indices as surrogates for green leaf area and physiological functioning. The maps show the 2010 drought reduced the greenness of approximately 965,000 square miles of vegetation in the Amazon -- more than four times the area affected by the last severe drought in 2005.

"The MODIS vegetation greenness data suggest a more widespread, severe and long-lasting impact to Amazonian vegetation than what can be inferred based solely on rainfall data," said Arindam Samanta, a co-lead author from Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc. in Lexington, Mass.

The severity of the 2010 drought was also seen in records of water levels in rivers across the Amazon basin. Water levels started to fall in August 2010, reaching record low levels in late October. Water levels only began to rise with the arrival of rains later that winter.

"Last year was the driest year on record based on 109 years of Rio Negro water level data at the Manaus harbor. For comparison, the lowest level during the so-called once-in-a-century drought in 2005, was only eighth lowest," said Marcos Costa, coauthor from the Federal University in Vicosa, Brazil.

As anecdotal reports of a severe drought began to appear in the news media during the summer of 2010, the authors started near real-time processing of massive amounts of satellite data. They used a new capability, the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), built for the NASA Advanced Supercomputer facility at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. NEX is a collaborative supercomputing environment that brings together data, models and computing resources.

With NEX, the study's authors quickly obtained a large-scale view of the impact of the drought on the Amazon forests and were able to complete the analysis by January 2011. Similar reports about the impact of the 2005 drought were published about two years after the fact.

"Timely monitoring of our planet's vegetation with satellites is critical, and with NEX it can be done efficiently to deliver near-real time information, as this study demonstrates," said study coauthor Ramakrishna Nemani, a research scientist at Ames. An article about the NEX project appears in this week's issue of Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/amazon_drought.html

Spartacus Gods of the Arena: Missio

Like the first season episode 'Great and Unfortunate Things', this episode was much lower on sex and violence than usual and rather more depressing (not to mention difficult to be amused by). As with that episode, this almost certainly makes it a better show, but you can't help feeling a tiny bit of guilty disappointment, because when you sit down to be amused by ridiculous levels of public nudity and people being hacked up in interesting ways and instead are made to really care about the horrible tortures being visited on the characters, it can be a bit of a sobering experience.

Batiatus is still alive, just about, but his appearance is now scaring small children after the almighty beating inflicted on him by Max from Neighbours' minions. (I'm reminded of Max's character in Neighbours, and temporarily amused by the idea of Max suddenly giving up on the whole responsible single father thing and getting in to the hired hit men/organised crime business instead. That could been an interesting development for the character - and actually, I wouldn't put it past Neighbours when it's in an overly melodramatic mood). We skip to a week later, at which point the girl from Hustle comfortingly reassures Batiatus that his wounds look 'less gruesome' (in fact, you can barely see them, at least from the back, though the bare bottom randomly on display was a little distracting). His face is still a bit bruised, though.

Max and Not!Octavian are enjoying some good plotting while our old friend with the fabulous earring goes pot-shopping (actual pots, not drugs, though knowing this show, probably both). Max insists on accompanying Earring to visit Batiatus.

Hustle-girl fancies Crixus, which Naevia clearly doesn't yet since she doesn't know his name. Hustle-girl flirts with a slave-girl we don't know (who is, presumably, doomed). DSG, Crixus and Gannicus engage in gladiator-style pissing contests, which are of course a bit bloodier than the regular kind.

We discover that Silly Beard Man speaks a different langauge, which makes a pleasant change. He speaks it to another man with a silly beard, so presumably they are from the same place, and everyone else must be speaking Latin. Historically, after the Spartacan revolt, lanistas stopped putting gladiators who spoke the same language or were from the same place together, because one of the reasons the revolt was as successful as it was was that the rebels could all communicate. That hasn't really come up in the series though, possibly because the makers don't think blood and tits go very well with subtitles (they obviously haven't seen enough Fellini). There really ought to be more languages around, but they are making up for this lack by going all out on the abbreivated English. I think 'Close f**king mouth' is my favourite short-English-Latin-thing so far.

Batiatus reminisces about his father's greatest gladiators, so of course, we get to see them all (they all have their own colour palette, it's like a rainbow of gladiators. It reminds me of a picture book I absolutely loved as a child, about a little girl who goes on an adventure in a rainbow and visits a series of brightly coloured lands with various exciting flora and fauna - only this version has fewer cute animals and more fake blood.). Earring tries to persuade Batiatus to sell Gannicus to Max, and they argue, but Xena gets between them. It emerges that Quinctilius Varus is coming to Capua, looking for gladiators (not, presumably the Quinctilius Varus, but his grandfather). Batiatus is feeling the strain and decides that all gladiators that surrender will be sent to the mines (a worse fate than the arena, since the work is constant and there's no opportunity to win your freedom, plus the silver was worth more than the slaves so slaves died quickly).

Gannicus boasts that he would beat and kill DSG if it came to it, because he has never seen the Scream movies and doesn't realise that saying things like this gets you an automatic one-way ticket to Deadtown. This worries DSG's wife, while Gannicus feels that, as they are slaves, there's no point worrying about the future since they can't make any decisions, which is a fair point and explains his cheerful demeanor and lack of resentment over his position. After passing Barca snogging in the corridor, presumably to remind us that he's still alive, Crixus tells Gannicus he wants to become champion and Gannicus points out this means he must never lose, which is fairly obvious given Batiatus' current mood.

These are the smiles of two people who don't realise they're in a TV show and are therefore guaranteed much misery for daring to look this happy

At this point, having seen Barca's boyfriend go down to his knees but nothing more than that, most viewers are probably starting to wonder what happened to all the sex. This is a good thing, as the episode is all about plot and dialogue and character, but I'm not 100% convinced everyone in the audience will see it like that.

Once again in the spirit of pointing out the obvious, Batiatus has to explain the difference between slaves and recruits to his current Doctore. He then compares Xena to Venus and she tells him he's blaspheming, which is nonsense, Roman religion didn't work that way. If comparing beautiful women to goddesses was blasphemy, there would be no time to punish murderers, robbers and so on because the courts would have been completely tied up prosecuting poets.

Hustle-girl has decided to try to snare Varus as a husband while Batiatus' minion distracts Not!Octavian from a planned meeting with him (and they're really getting carried away with the abbreviated English now, everyone seems to have entirely forgotten that English actually has a definite article 'the' and indefinite article 'a', even if Latin doesn't. What I really want is for someone Greek to turn up and start speaking in a ridiculously verbose manner with no abbreviations at all, to reflect the fact that Greek does have definite and indefinite articles). Batiatus' minions do for Not!Octavian as Max had done for him, though they nearly get carried away and kill him - luckily Silly Beard Man has more self-control, but the minion who let the guy see his face gets his throat quite spectacularly cut. No simple line of gushing blood is enough for Silly Beard Man, he practically rips out the whole of the guy's neck. He's obviously missing the usual level of blood and guts as well.

Varus appears and he looks sensible and fairly sane so far - that won't last. Xena and Hustle-girl persuade him to come to their villa where they ply him with wine and all three of them convince him that Not!Octavian's gladiators are rubbish, Batiatus' are much better, and wouldn't he like to hire the men he needs from Batiatus instead. Varus asks for a demonstration and Hustle-girl suggests Crixus should fight Gannicus, even though he's not even marked as a gladiator yet (and is sporting a pronounced limp). Varus then insists that, rather than using wooden practice swords as even Batiatus points out is only practical, they should fight with proper swords.

Considering all we've seen so far this episode is a brief glimpse of Batiatus' bottom, Barca kissing his boyfriend, one cut throat and a few memories, I was expecting this fight to be quite something. It's actually fairly tame, though, since both of them have to survive this episode - Hustle-girl saves Crixus, but annoys Batiatus by focussing more on her marriage plans than on gladiator-shopping. Xena encourages him to trust her, which is bound to end badly as well. Though I guess I should stop saying that, since this is all ultimately leading to the bloodbath we saw at the end of season 1 anyway.

Batiatus takes his temper out on his Doctore and fires him from the position, then tells Gannicus he has to go do whatever Varus wants him to do. Varus decides he wants to watch Gannicus have sex with DSG's wife because he's too tired to do it himself. Given that they've allowed her to get married, Batiatus and Xena actually look a little embarrassed about this, not that that stops them. They're clearly much less into rape and sexual abuse at this point than they would be by the time of the main series. Meanwhile, the old Doctore gives the mark to the Silly Beard Men (Syrians apparently) without the oath, and when DSG challenges him, picks a fight with him with the steel swords still lying around from the earlier demonstration.

Feeling the need to make up for lost time, the director now gives us close-up shots of Gannicus' backside while he shags DSG's wife, and Varus masturbates, all while DSG has an especially dramatic showdown with the old Doctore in the rain which ends with him spearing the guy just as everyone else reaches their happy moment. That's two episodes in a row that have put together images of sex and fighting - perhaps they needed more time for plot and dialogue but didn't want to lose either sex or violence, so started just putting them all together... To be fair, though, this scene is rather well done and although the rain, darkness, cliff edge etc in the fight is a bit over the top, it works on a dramatic and emotional level.

DSG has to 'fess up to Batiatus, but Batiatus acknowledges that it was his fault really and agrees to send his wife along 'when she's finished her duties'. Which currently consist of getting dressed and feeling guilty while Batiatus orders her not to tell DSG. She goes away to wash, and she would be sitting in the bottom of the shower looking miserable if the Romans had had showers.

Hustle-girl, meanwhile, joins Xena and Batiatus for a threesome and the director tries to use the last minute or so to make up for the unusually low amount of sex in the rest of this episode. The final scene, though, belongs to DSG and his wife both feeling guilty, as she reassures him that they do what they have to do in that house.

There was an astonishing lack of either blood or tits in this episode, by Spartacus' standards. This series is also taking the issue of slaves forced to have sex with their masters or with each other much more seriously than season 1 did. Where, previously, we've watched Batiatus casually rape slaves while chatting to Xena, Naevia getting Xena started and various slaves ordered to have sex with each other and it's been presented almost as background noise, here the dilemma of a slave in such a position is fully explored and the implications for DSG's wife are shown to be serious and traumatic. This was a good, solid, dramatic episode and the series seems to be heading in the direction of some quality drama - though if they're going to become too serious, they're going to need to start putting some jokes in soon, or it'll start to get really depressing.

Cult of Mithras (Culto de Mitra)

Mithras was the sun god in Indian and Persian mythologies. They called it “winner sun”. It represented good and liberation from material things. According to the Persian legend it was born from a rock (petra generatrix) next to a sacred tree and fountain. Its symbol was the bull, which was sacrificed in honor of the deity (tauroctony). It must have been an important worship in Imperial Rome judging from the number of shrines (Mithraea).


Mitra era deus solar nas mitologias da Índia e Pérsia. Chamavam-lhe “Sol vencedor”. Representava o bem e a libertação material. Segundo lenda Persa nasceu de uma rocha (petra generatrix) próximo de árvore e fonte sagradas. O seu símbolo era o touro. Sacrificavam-no em honra da divindade (tauroctonia). Terá sido culto importante na Roma Imperial a avaliar pelo número de santuários (Mithraea).

Unknown-'Mithra bull sacrifice or tauroctony'-roman relief Wien-Kunsthistorisches Museum

Unknown (2th century)-'Mithras killing a sacred bull (tauroctony)'-roman marble relief Paris-Musée du Louvre (Ma 3441)

Unknown (3th century)-'Mithra performing the tauroctony'-roman sculpture Palermo-Museo Archeologico Regionale

Unknown-'tauroctony (inscription Sol invicto deo)'-roman marble relief Città del Vaticano-Museo Pio-Clementino

Unknown-'Mithras ceremony'-lapidarium Mythras stele Sibiu (Romania)-History Museum

Future Engineers Unite at Robotics Competition

The 20th season of the Los Angeles regional FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition, held at the Long Beach Convention Center, March 25 and 26, proved to be a fierce competition between 63 high school teams from across California and as far away as Chile.

Students from three California schools – South High School, Torrance; West Covina High School, West Covina; and Diamond Bar High School, Diamond Bar, won the overall regional competition. Two other California schools also took top honors. Chaminade College Preparatory, West Hills, receied the coveted Regional Chairman's award, while Foshay Learning Center, Los Angeles, a team mentored by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., took home the Engineering Inspiration award.

The winners will represent the California region at the FIRST championships April 27 to 30 in St. Louis, where they will compete against 51,000 other students on more than 2,000 teams.

The FIRST program was founded two decades ago to encourage students to pursue careers in science and technology through robotics competitions. With the help of engineers from JPL, aerospace and other companies and institutions of higher education, FIRST continues to grow and inspire students.

For more information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-098

Edward John Poynter (1836-1919)

This English painter was born in Paris. He studied at Ipswich School, Paris and Rome. He paintings display various themes: biblical, mythological, Greek, and others.


Este pintor inglês nasceu em Paris. Estudou na Ipswich School, Paris e Roma. Pintou temas diversos: bíblicos, mitológicos gregos, entre outros.

Edward John Poynter (1836-1919)-'the visit of the queen of Sheba to King Solomon-oil on canvas-1890 Sydney-Art Gallery of New South Wales

Edward John Poynter (1836-1919)-'a visit to Asclepius: Venus (with a thorn in her foot ask the help of Asclepius) and the three Graces'-oil on caqnvas-1777 London-Tate Gallery

Edward John Poynter (1836-1919)-'the fortune teller'-oil on canvas-1877 Private collection

Edward John Poynter (1836-1919)-'corner of the villa'-oil on canvas Private collection

Edward John Poynter (1836-1919)-'the Siren'-oil on canvas-1864 Private collection

NASA Stardust Spacecraft Officially Ends Operations

NASA's Stardust spacecraft sent its last transmission to Earth at 4:33 p.m. PDT (7:33 p.m. EDT) Thursday, March 24, shortly after depleting fuel and ceasing operations. During a 12-year period, the venerable spacecraft collected and returned comet material to Earth and was reused after the end of its prime mission in 2006 to observe and study another comet during February 2011.

The Stardust team performed the burn to depletion because the comet hunter was literally running on fumes. The depletion maneuver command was sent from the Stardust-NExT mission control area at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. The operation was designed to fire Stardust's rockets until no fuel remained in the tank or fuel lines. The spacecraft sent acknowledgment of its last command from approximately 312 million kilometers (194 million miles) away in space.

"This is the end of the spacecraft's operations, but really just the beginnings of what this spacecraft's accomplishments will give to planetary science," said Lindley Johnson, Stardust-NExT and Discovery program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The treasure-trove of science data and engineering information collected and returned by Stardust is invaluable for planning future deep space planetary missions."

After completion of the burn, mission personnel began comparing the computed amount of fuel consumed during the engine firing with the anticipated amount based on consumption models. The models are required to track fuel levels, because there are no fully reliable fuel gauges for spacecraft in the weightless environment of space. Mission planners use approximate fuel usage by reviewing the history of the vehicle's flight, how many times and how long its rocket motors fired.

"Stardust's motors burned for 146 seconds," said Allan Cheuvront, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company program manager for Stardust-NExT in Denver. "We'll crunch the numbers and see how close the reality matches up with our projections. That will be a great data set to have in our back pocket when we plan for future missions."

Launched Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust flew past the asteroid named Annefrank and traveled halfway to Jupiter to collect the particle samples from the comet Wild 2. The spacecraft returned to Earth's vicinity to drop off a sample return capsule eagerly awaited by comet scientists.

NASA re-tasked the spacecraft as Stardust-NExT to perform a bonus mission and fly past comet Tempel 1, which was struck by the Deep Impact mission in 2005. The mission collected images and other scientific data to compare with images of that comet collected by the Deep Impact mission in 2005. Stardust traveled approximately 21 million kilometers (13 million miles) around the sun in the weeks after the successful Tempel 1 flyby. The Stardust-NExT mission met all mission goals, and the spacecraft was extremely successful during both missions. From launch until final rocket engine burn, Stardust travelled approximately 5.69 billion kilometers (3.54 billion miles).

After the mileage logged in space, the Stardust team knew the end was near for the spacecraft. With its fuel tank empty and final radio transmission concluded, history's most traveled comet hunter will move from NASA's active mission roster to retired.

"This kind of feels like the end of one of those old western movies where you watch the hero ride his horse towards the distant setting sun -- and then the credits begin to roll," said Stardust-NExT project manager Tim Larson from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Only there's no setting sun in space."

Stardust and Stardust-NExT missions were managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The missions were part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Joe Veverka of Cornell University was the Stardust-NExT principal investigator. Don Brownlee of the University of Washington in Seattle was the Stardust principal investigator. Lockheed Martin Space Systems built the spacecraft and managed day-to-day mission operations.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/news/stardust20110325.html

What are the details so far.. about Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012) Film

What are the details so far.. about Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012) Film

March 27, 2012

Summary
Prometheus is a new Sci-fi film from director Ridley Scott, scripted by Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, based on a story idea from Scott and an earlier script by Jon Spaihts. That earlier script WAS for the originally planned Alien prequel, but it appears that Lindelof and Scott have come up with something more stand-alone, though that’s not to say that there is no longer any connection to the original franchise.
Who’s in it?
So far, original Swedish Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace has been confirmed as the leading lady, and will play a character called Elizabeth Shaw.  Charlize Theron to play Vickers.  Michael Fassbender is widely reported to be playing an android character (see below)
Story and Characters
The storyline is currently under wraps, but some alleged character profiles were leaked late last year:

• Elizabeth Shaw – a scientist to be played by Noomi Rapace
• Vickers – a female supporting character, is a tough, 40-something crew member. Charlize Theron has been selected for this role.
• David – an android crew member, and apparently the role that Michael Fassbender will be playing. It’s unknown yet whether he will be a bad guy, like Alien’s Ash, or good guy, like the sequel’s Bishop
• Engineer One – this is a rumours character from the days when the film was an Alien prequel. Could this have been from the same species as what is commonly refered to as ‘The Space Jockey’ that was found in the derelict space ship in Alien? No the film has moved on from that storyline, will we still see the character? Perhaps when Scott mentioned that we would still see some ‘Alien DNA’, this is the link he was refering to?
• The businessman – perhaps linked to the Weyland-Yutani ‘company’ that has lurked in the background of all the Alien movies, including the AvP duo. Don’t forget, it was the company that sent the crew of the Nostromo down to the surface of LV-426 in the first film, knowing full well what was down there. Perhaps this character’s story arc will be to lay the ground work of the plan to create a new bioweapon. Again, now the story is stand-alone, rather than an Alien prequel, this element and character may be dropped – on this other hand, this may be another bit of the ‘Alien DNA’  we may be seeing

When’s it out?
The film originally had a very tight scheule, with a US release date of March 2012. This has now wisely been moved back to June 8th 2012.

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Everything has a cause (tudo tem uma causa)

The Discourse on Method by René Descartes (1596-1650) shows that we cannot rely on Common Sense exclusively because there are no causes without effects.


O Discurso do Método de René Descartes (1596-1650) mostra que não podemos ficar-nos pelo Bom Senso porque não há causas sem efeito.

John Lautermilch (21th century)-'beauty grows everywhere'

Hans Baldung Grien (1484-1545)-'Aristotle and his lover Phylis'-drawing-1513

Max Ernst (1891-1976)-'birds, fish, snake, scarecrow'-oil on canvas-1921

Walter Crane (1845-1915)-'the capitalism vampire' Justice Journal (1888)

Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805)-'village betrothal'-oil on canvas-1761 Paris-Musée du Louvre

The Eagle (dir. Kevin Macdonald, 2011)

I really enjoyed this movie, a lot more than I thought I would. It dragged a bit in the middle, but was largely entertaining and really nicely – well, skillfully is perhaps a better word – filmed, Kevin Macdonald’s documentary background really contributing to creating a realistic-feeling world. It also helps that the source material (Rosemary Sutcliff’s boys’ adventure novel, The Eagle of the Ninth) provides plenty of opportunities to see different aspects of life both north and south of the wall, so we see more than just Scottish woodlands, pretty as those are. Spoilers follow.

First of all, I suppose it’s necessary to point out for the umpteenth time that scholars now believe the ninth legion didn’t get lost in Scotland at all. I’m not sure how much that really matters – it’s a good story, set in a time and place for which evidence is pretty sketchy, so why not? It’s also worth pointing out that, this being the story of the recovery of the Eagle of the Ninth, one character discusses re-forming the legion at the end, so the Ninth recorded running about in the Rhineland later could easily be the re-formed version.

All the Romans in the film speak in American accents, with the British characters in a variety of British regional accents (Jamie Bell uses a toned down version of his natural Geordie, the British physician is Welsh and the Picts, of course, Scottish). This makes a refreshing change from The Queen’s Latin and also really emphasises the Romans’ position as an occupying force. This could be done by giving the Romans English accents and the Britons Welsh or Scottish accents, but to an English viewer (and I realize the Scots and the Welsh will feel very differently about this!) the use of ‘foreign’ accents to represent a foreign invading force works particularly well. The Picts speak Scots Gaelic, as in Centurion and presumably for the same reason – although Welsh would be more accurate, viewers would probably be confused as to where they were, or why the inhabitants of Scotland sounded Welsh. The film also seems to imply that all British tribes, north or south of the Wall and including all Picts, speak the same language, which seems phenomenally unlikely to me, but there you go.

The film features a gladiatorial sequence which I almost totally loved (thumbs pointing the way everyone understands, accurate or not – see the reasoning behind Scots Gaelic). We got to see something not-fighting happening in the arena, which we hardly ever see, and it was taking place in a rickety, wooden, tiny local amphitheatre, which we also see very rarely (though the small amphitheatre where Proximo is based in Gladiator is similar). But, of course, as always, we had to have a fight to the death, because it’s physically impossible for any TV producer or film-maker to show us gladiatorial combat without fatalities, or near-fatalities, despite the economic craziness of the idea of just about every fight being to the death (a Roman might not care about slaves or their welfare, but they still cost money. The worst place to be a slave was a silver mine – silver was worth even more money. Executions are another matter, of course – there were plenty of those in the arena). Still the story wouldn’t work otherwise, so fair enough.

The film is very well shot, though the opening few shots did appear to be trying to make Romans in Britain into Apocalypse Now, which was interesting. Most British-set historical films try to make Britain look like The Lord of the Rings, which works pretty well because JRR Tolkien was British and it looks right – Apocalypse Now doesn’t fit quite so well. The performances are all fine, though all three of us who saw the film agreed that its biggest flaw was that we couldn’t quite ‘believe’ the relationship between Esca and Marcus. We felt like a whole bunch of character development from the book had been left out (none of us have read the book, but that was the sense we got) and the film played up the hostility between them far too much, making their eventual trust and friendship feel like it came out of nowhere. This wasn't the actors' fault - Bell in particular was very good - more a script/editing problem perhaps.

Mark Strong as a veteran of the Ninth, unrecognisible under Aragorn-hair and a slightly dodgey American accent

I was also genuinely shocked by how much you can get away with in a 12A these days. Back when The Fellowship of the Ring came out, I remember hearing that the orcs had to bleed black blood because red blood would raise the film’s certificate, and poor Boromir manages to die of multiple arrow wounds without, apparently, bleeding at all (he just looks sort of wet). In this film, however, we see a head chopped off – and we see it fall right off and blood spurt from the neck and everything – we see a leg chopped off, we see stabbings and although the camera does cut away from this one, a small child is murdered right in front of our heroes. I was a sensitive child (I’ve only very recently becomes somewhat immune to massive amounts of blood and gore on screen) and would have been completely traumatized by this. Which leads me to another minor problem – the film doesn’t really know what it wants to be. The book is a children’s book, but this is not a children’s film (see above!). On the other hand, as one of my friends pointed out, there were no women in skimpy outfits (no women at all, in fact, at least none with any lines), the blood-letting was relatively tame for a modern sword’n’sandals movie, there was no swearing… (‘and it would have been much better if there was’, he added). It doesn’t quite fit with modern grown-up swashbuckler type films, but it’s too gory for kids, so it sits a bit awkwardly in the middle somewhere (though, personally, I can live quite happily without skimpily-clad women, blood, guts and swearing! I’m an old-fashioned girl who enjoys a good Errol Flynn swashbuckler, where no one bleeds at all). Aside from that, though, the fight sequences were excellent – I especially liked seeing the Roman turtle formation (I think that’s what it’s called – where they all create a sort of box with their shields to protect themselves) in action, and we saw exactly how effective it could be in close combat and how the training and tactics of the Roman army could work against far bigger forces (all in miniature, with a small skirmish, but it worked well).

The part where the excellent realism-style filming falls down comes as the story goes on and we drift into the less plausible parts of what is, in its origin, a light adventure story. Our hero has a leg wound that is slowly killing him and he can’t walk any further… but after a night sitting in a freezing river (full of lovely gangrene-carrying bacteria, presumably), cuddling the titular Eagle (this is a man badly in need of a teddy bear) he is magically made well enough to fight a bunch of crazy Picts and end up one of the battle’s few survivors, then walk all the way home and cheerfully present the Eagle with nothing more than a limp. The serious tone of the fight sequences also brought home rather sharply the notion that the old Ninth Legion soldiers’ wives and children are probably not very impressed that they’ve run off to die in defence of a shiny metal bird (I mean, if it was the owl in Clash of the Titans maybe it would be worth it, but this one doesn’t even click…).

The Seal People's body paint makes more sense when you see how well it camoflages them against the rocks where they live

I’d recommend this film, because it is an entertaining story and offers a nice slice of first century life, beautifully filmed (the shot as our heroes pass through the gate in the Wall and head out into the wild lands on the other side is particularly effective). Just be prepared for a slightly over-long mid-section, slightly too-silly finale and slightly too gory product for a 12A certificate!

Report from the set: Ridley Scott's Prometheus, the movie - Pinewood Studios

Report from the set: Ridley Scott's Prometheus, the movie - Pinewood Studios
March 26, 2011

First report form Pinewood Studios, Prometheus News:

Prometheus, the movie, is be released: June 8, 2012.  Prometheus is currently in Production.

First report form Pinewood Studios.

A screen writing student in Canada was lucky enough to visit the Pinewood Studios in Toronto and shared his experience on the IMDB boards. Part of Prometheus is currently being filmed at the 250.000 sq ft studios, in addition to the original Pinewood Studios in London.

Although he didn't actually get to see any of the sets for himself, he did manage to talk to someone who has. And once again Prometheus is being referred to as something huge.

I met one of the guards or officials and talked to him for around twenty minutes. This is the only film being shot and its bigger than anything he's seen. Pinewood had been the locale for many major films like Resident Evil(whatever the latest version was), Incredible Hulk, Cinderrela Man, X-Men(second one) and this, he says, dwarfs them all. 

He told me that there is a set piece which is 3 blocks high and one of the most "alien" things he has ever seen.The highlight was when he said they had build two massive spaceships or some futuristic vehicle which was very un-futuristic.
I was confused but realized what he meant was the spaceships would probably be very un-glossy.

Latest Prometheus News =
Actors Rafe Spall (son of Brit acting legend Timothy Spall) and Logan Marshall-Green have both recently joined the cast of Ridley Scott’s not-an-Alien-prequel, Prometheus.
Spall will be familiar to viewers from appearances in films like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and UK TV shows like A Room With A View and Pete Vs Life. Meanwhile Marshall-Green has appearances in films including Devil and TV show 24 to his credit.
As well as filming in the UK, to film will also spend some time at Pinewood’s Canadian studios and carry on throughout the summer.
Prometheus is directed by Ridley Scott, from a screenplay by Damon Lindelof, based on an earlier, abandoned Alien prequel script by Jon Spaihts. The film also stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Sean Harris and Kate Dickie, and is due for release on June 8th 2012.

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Bonaparte by Viktor Vinkentevich Mazurovsky (1859-1923)

The invasion of Russia by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1812 was used as the theme in some of the works of Russian painter Viktor Vinkentevich Mazurovsky (1859-1923).


A invasão da Rússia por Napoleão Bonaparte em 1812 serviu de tema para alguns trabalhos do pintor Russo Viktor Vinkentevich Mazurovsky (1859-1923).

Viktor Vinkentevich Mazurovsky (1859-1923)-'fire of Moscow in 1812'-oil on canvas

Viktor Vinkentevich Mazurovsky (1859-1923)-'a charge of the Russian Leib Guard on June 1897 (Friedland battle)'-oil on canvas-ca 1914

Viktor Vinkentevich Mazurovsky (1859-1923)-'after the battle (the Lifeguard Horse present the captured French color to the Tzar)-oil on board

Viktor Vinkentevich Mazurovsky (1859-1923)-'who will win?'-oil on canvas

Viktor Vinkentevich Mazurovsky (1859-1923)-'a cavalry skimish'-oil on canvas