Researchers: Shocks to the brain boost math skills | Science Recorder

Researchers: Shocks to the brain boost math skills | Science Recorder

Swallow's Nest

Swallow's Nest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Swallow's Nest (Ukrainian: Ластівчине гніздо, Lastivchyne hnizdo)^{[nb 1]} is a decorative castle located between Yalta and Alupkaon the Crimean peninsula in southern Ukraine. It was built between 1911 and 1912 in Gaspra, on top of 40-metre (130 ft) high Aurora Cliff, to a Neo-Gothic design by the Russian architect Leonid Sherwood.^{[nb 2]} The castle overlooks the Cape of Ai-Todor of theBlack Sea and is located near the remnants of the Roman castrum ofCharax.^[2] Swallow's Nest is one of the most popular visitor attractions in Crimea, becoming the symbol of Crimea's southern coastline.^[3][4][5]

The building is compact in size, measuring only 20 m (66 ft) long by 10 m (33 ft) wide.^[6] Its original design envisioned a foyer, guest room, stairway to the tower, and two bedrooms on two different levels within the tower. The interior of the guest room is decorated with wooden panels; the walls of the rest of the rooms are stuccoed and painted.^[6]An observation deck rings the building, providing a view of the sea, and Yalta's distant shoreline.

Indian Marker Trees

Indian Marker Trees 

'Gate to Hell' found in Turkey

It sounds like the plot for a new Indiana Jones film.

Archaeologists say they have discovered the 'Gates of Hell', the mythical portal to the underworld in Greek and Roman legend.

The site, in the ancient Phrygian city of Hierapolis, now Pamukkale in southwestern Turkey, is said to closely match historical descriptions of what was known as Ploutonion in Greek and Pluutonium in Latin.

In its heyday, a small temple with traditional Greco-Roman pillars was said to have stood next to wall with steps leading down to a cave doorway filled with foul and noxious gasses.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2302755/Gate-Hell-Turkey-Hierapolis-temple-doorway-matches-mythical-portal-underworld.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Super-dense alien planet could be entirely new type

Mysterious dense "super-earths" discovered by Kepler could be the "fossil cores" of wandering ice giants.

Among the most mysterious finds of NASA’s Kepler space mission to find exoplanets are bodies too heavy for their size. In some cases, planets the size of Earth are denser than pure iron, according to a report in the journal Nature.

No standard theories about planet formation could explain such dense bodies. “There is no way to explain that in the Solar System,” says Olivier Grasset, a geophysicist at the University of Nantes in France.

But scientists believe these planets could be the "fossil cores" of ice giants similar to Neptune that veered too close to their suns, according to research presented this week at a meeting on exoplanets at the Royal Society in London. These cores would have formed under the intense pressure of their outer layers -- 5 million times the atmospheric pressure on Earth - and temperatures up to 6,000 kelvin.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/03/14/Super-dense-alien-planet-could-be-entirely-new-type/1741363288389/#ixzz2OmjQXfXj

Read more: http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/03/14/Super-dense-alien-planet-could-be-entirely-new-type/1741363288389/#ixzz2OmjLDDWk

crystal found at bottom of English Channel may be a fabled sunstone

Historians have long wondered at the ability of Vikings explorers to travel long stretches of open water. Some say they used transparent calcite crystals — whose properties can allow a skilled sailor to guess the position of the sun during overcast or foggy days — as navigational aids.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/08/researchers-say-crystal-found-at-bottom-english-channel-may-be-fabled-sunstone/?intcmp=obnetwork#ixzz2NSzvgHBs

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/08/researchers-say-crystal-found-at-bottom-english-channel-may-be-fabled-sunstone/?intcmp=obnetwork

Stonehenge Was Ancient Rave Spot

British researchers unveiled a new theory for the origins of Stonehenge, saying the ancient stone circle was originally a graveyard and venue for mass celebrations.

The findings would overturn the long-held belief that Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in southwestern England was created as a Stone Age astronomical calendar or observatory.

A team led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson of University College London said Stonehenge, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is both older and had a different function than previously thought.

http://news.discovery.com/history/religion/stonehenge-was-ancient-rave-spot-130310.htm

"In many ways our findings are rewriting the established story of Stonehenge," Parker Pearson said.

The archaeologists carried out a decade of research which included excavations, laboratory work and the analysis of 63 sets of ancient human remains.

They said the original Stonehenge appeared to have been a graveyard for elite families built around 3000 BC, 500 years earlier than the site that is famous today.

The remains of many cremated bodies were marked by the bluestones of Stonehenge, Pearson said.

Further analysis of cattle teeth from 80,000 animal bones excavated from the site also suggest that around 2500 BC, Stonehenge was the site of vast communal feasts.

These would have been attended by up to one tenth of the British population at one time in what Parker Pearson said resembled "Glastonbury festival and a motorway building scheme at the same time."

It seemed that ancient people traveled to celebrate the winter and summer solstices but also to build the monument, he said.