Monthly Archives: March 2014

Name a Martian crater for just $5 bucks

Name a Martian crater for just $5 bucks

By Mike Wall

Published February 28, 2014

  • Mars Landscape

    NASA’s 1997 Pathfinder mission to Mars returned this stunning image of the planet’s rocky red landscape. (NASA/JPL)

  • new impact crater on Mars.jpg

    A dramatic, fresh impact crater on Mars dominates this image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 19, 2013. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

Naming landmarks on Mars isn’t just for scientists and rover drivers anymore.

Starting Wednesday, anybody with an Internet connection and a few dollars to spare can give a moniker to one of the Red Planet’s 500,000 or so unnamed craters, as part of a mapping project run by the space-funding company Uwingu.

“This is the first people’s map of Mars, where anybody can play,” said Uwingu CEO Alan Stern, a former NASA science chief who also heads the space agency’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. “It’s a very social thing.” [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]

Putting your stamp on Mars isn’t free. Naming the smallest craters will set you back $5, with prices going up as crater size increases. Uwingu will use the money raised by the project — which could be more than $10 million, if people name every available Martian crater — to fund grants in space exploration, research and education, which is the company’s stated chief purpose.

“We’re developing this grant fund — the Uwingu fund — for people who’ve been hit by sequestration,” Stern told Space.com. “There’s nothing like it right now. They have no place to go; it’s either NASA, NSF [the National Science Foundation] or you’re out of luck.”

Stern hopes the effort will succeed in naming all of Mars’ cataloged craters by the end of 2014, helping to fill in a lot of gaps in Red Planet cartography. (The company aims to solicit names for other Red Planet features, such as canyons and mountains, in the future.)

The project could also provide a sort of cultural snapshot, revealing what people are thinking about and what’s important to them at this moment, he added.

“It’s like taking a picture of ourselves,” Stern said. “What will people put? Will there be a lot of craters named for politicians? For artists, for relatives, for places on Earth? Sports teams?”

The crater-naming project is not a contest, working instead on a first-come, first-served basis. Names will be accepted immediately and will remain approved unless Uwingu officials later determine them to be profane or otherwise offensive.

Stern stressed that Uwingu (whose name means “sky” in Swahili) is not trying to supplant other Mars maps, such as the one generated by the United States Geological Survey. The 15,000 Red Planet features whose names have already been approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) will be grandfathered into Uwingu’s base map, officials said.

The Uwingu project also will not seek approval from the IAU, which has traditionally authorized “official” names for celestial bodies and their features. Rather, the crater monikers will be informal or popular names, Stern said. (Unofficial names can still come into wide usage: “The Milky Way,” for example, is not IAU-sanctioned.)

This is not Uwingu’s first foray into celestial-object naming. The company has also raised funds by asking the public to choose monikers for the thousands of exoplanets and exoplanet candidates being discovered around the galaxy, including Alpha Centauri Bb, the closest alien world to Earth.

IAU officials expressed disapproval of these previous projects, asserting last year that the exoplanet-naming efforts misled people into thinking they were helping select officially recognized names. But Stern fought back hard against this claim at the time, saying that Uwingu has always made clear that the projects sought only to choose “people’s choice” monikers.

To learn more about the Mars map project, and to buy a crater name of your own, go to www.uwingu.com.

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Florida woman dubbed ‘hot convict’ sues website over mug shot photo

Florida woman dubbed ‘hot convict’ sues website over mug shot photo

Published February 28, 2014

Associated Press
  • simmons.jpg

    Meagan Simmons, of Zephyrhills, Fla., seen here in a 2010 mug shot, filed the lawsuit in Hillsborough County Court against InstantCheckmate.com. (Hillsborough County)

TAMPA, Fla. –  A 28-year-old mother of four has filed a lawsuit against a background check website, saying the company used her attractive arrest booking photo for commercial and advertising purposes, without compensating her or even getting her permission.

Meagan Simmons of Zephyrhills filed the lawsuit in Hillsborough County Court against InstantCheckmate.com.

In her lawsuit, she says all the exposure has disturbed her peace of mind, invaded her privacy and caused her mental anguish. The suit seeks monetary damages and an injunction to prevent further use of her picture.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that Simmons’ image popped up on countless websites where she was branded “a hot convict.”

The photo was taken during a 2010 DUI charge.

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Giant Human Finger Found in Egypt

NOTE:  This is a repost from ufoblogger and I am not able to verify the veracity of the following.  Still, it seemed bizarre, interesting and ancient, which means I like it and thought you might as well…

Giant Human Finger Found in Egypt

Allegedly down below pictures were photographed in Egypt by photographer Gregor Spörri in 1988. Europe’s biggest newspaper bild.de is showing them for the first time in public “exclusively”.
What you are looking at is a gigantic 15 inches long, mummified humanoid finger and the creatures height would be over 16.4 feet!
Article Translation : 
In 1988, on the last day of his private investigation trip, he contacted an old man from a grave robber dynasty. The meeting was took place in a farm-house in Bir Hooker, 100 kilometers northeast of Cairo.
After paying, $ 300 Spörri had a look at the grave robber unsold treasure. Wrapped in old rags was the bone and dermis.
Spörri told BILD.de: “It was an oblong package, smelled musty. I was totally flabbergasted when I saw the dark brown giant finger.
I was allowed to take it in hand and also to take pictures; a bill was put next to it to get a size comparison. “The bent finger was split open and covered with dried mold.”It was surprisingly easy, maybe a few hundred grams My heart was up to his neck. That was incredible. In size to a matching body should have been about 15 feet tall”
The grave robber also showed the Swiss certificate of authenticity and an X-ray image. Both are from the 60s.

Source: http://www.bild.de/news/mystery-themen/mystery/in-aegypten-gefunden-23053704.bild.html

Its not a first time that Giant human body part was discovered or photographed.
The down below petrified finger found in cretaceous limestone, belonged to a “prehistoric” human. Broken short of the middle joint, it measures 7.6 cm (3 inches). At full length it would measure about 15 cm (6 inches). In the photo, it is compared to a regular full-length finger. Excavations of this limestone has also revealed a child’s tooth and human hair.

Sectioning reveals the typical porous bone structure expected in a human finger. Cat-scan and MRI identified joints and traced tendons throughout the length of the fossil.
Cat-scan shows dark areas interpreted as the interior of bones and marrow. Areas less dense than surrounding stones, easily pass X-rays, causing darkening of the image. Black area is caused by sectioning.
Source :  http://www.scribd.com/doc/59685586/Giant-Humans
Giants in the Hindu epics and Vedas
In the world of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, Rakshasas are a populous race of supernatural humanoids. There were both good and evil rakshasas, and as warriors they fought along side the armies of both good and evil. They are powerful warriors, expert magicians and illusionists. As shape-changers, they can assume various physical forms, and it is not always clear whether they have a true or natural form. As illusionists, they are capable of creating appearances which are real to those who believe in them or who fail to dispel them. Some of the rakshasas are said to be man-eaters, and make their gleeful appearance when the slaughter on the battlefield is at its worst. Occasionally they serve as rank-and-file soldiers in the service of one or the other warlord.
Aside from its treatment of unnamed rank-and-file Rakshasas, the epic tells the stories of certain members of the race who rose to prominence, some of them as heroes, most of them as villains.
In the Ramayana
According to the Ramayana, the Raksha people (also known as Raksasas) were the inhabitants of Sri Lanka who were said to have lived among the Naga, Yakkha, and Deva, and governed Sri Lanka in 2370 BCE
In the Mahabharata
The Pandava hero Bhima was the nemesis of forest-dwelling Rakshasas who dined on human travellers and terrorized human settlements.
Hidimba was a cannibal Rakshasa who was slain by Bhima. The Mahabharata (Book I: Adi Parva, Section 154) describes him as a cruel cannibal with sharp, long teeth and prodigious strength. When Hidimba saw the Pandavas sleeping in his forest, he decided to eat them. He made the mistake of sending his sister Hidimbi to reconnoiter the situation, and the damsel fell in love with the handsome Bhima, whom she warned of the danger. Infuriated, Hidimba declared himself ready to kill not only the Pandavas but also his sister, but he was thwarted by the heroism of Bhima, who defeated and killed him in a duel.
Ghatotkacha, was the son of Bhima and Hidimbi. His name refers to his round bald head with ghata meaning pot and utkacha meaning head in Sanskrit.
Ghatotkacha, when he was young, lived with his mother Hidimbi, when one day he had a fight with Abhimanyu, his cousin, without knowing that Abhimanyu was Arjuna’s son.
Ghatotkacha is considered to be a loyal and humble figure. He made himself and his followers available to his father Bhima at any time; all Bhima had to do was to think of him and he would appear. Like his father, Ghatotkacha primarily fought with the mace. Rigveda 7.104.24 O warrior! You should destroy both the male Rakshas and female Rakshas who kills by deceit . May such Rakshas not see the light of dawn.
They are termed as Yatudhaan (those who attack human dwellings) and Kravyaad (those who eat raw flesh). Rigveda 7.104.17
A female Rakshasi who like an owl ventures out to kill in night should be destroyed along with other Rakshas. Rigveda 7.104.18
O Powerful Ones! You should stand up to protect the masses and capture the Rakshas who intend to kill and destroy peace in night. Rigveda 7.104.21
The king should destroy those Rakshas who kill others and destroy peaceful activities. Rigveda 7.104.22
Destroy the Rakshas who attack like an owl, hound, wolf , eagle or vulture.
Rigveda 7.104.15
May I be killed today itself, if I become a Yatudhaan (one who attacks human dwellings) or reduce the life of any human. But if I am not so, those who falsely implicate me as being a Yaatudhaan be destroyed.
Giant Human Femur

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Cosplay Pictures for Your Saturday

Cosplay pictures for your Saturday enjoyment!

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