It has everything, a fascinating place I am now itching to visit. For example:
The Kilmartin Valley is an area of enormous archaeological significance. There are more than 350 ancient monuments within a six mile radius and 150 of those are prehistoric, including standing stones, cairns and chambered tombs, some of the relics dating back 5000 years.
Kilmartin seems remote – is remote, in the 21st century. But in megalithic times, this was as central as Glasgow or London today. In fact, it was the site of a capital – the true Scottish capital even.
It is even speculated that the infamous Stone of Destiny was used at Dunadd before going to Scone – and then onwards to Westminster Abbey and more recently Edinburgh Castle. In fact, Dunadd and the rock on which sits Edinburgh Castle all have something in common – something that is also shared by Dumbarton Rock Castle. All are geological anomalies: solitary hills rising from an otherwise relative plane.
In short, the whirlpool is a great event: these spinning cauldrons are formed where tides crash or sea water is forced into narrow vortices. The Corryvreckan is one of only seven major whirlpools in the world and the biggest and most dangerous in Europe. The Gulf of Corryvreckan is over 300 feet deep, but when the whirlpool is at full power, the depth of the water is less than a hundred feet. The particular cause of this awesome power is a subterranean spike, called An Cailleach, which causes the great Atlantic waves to form into a giant vortex and create the whirlpool.
Daniel Pinchbeck has a chapter of his new book online at Disinformation. The book is called 2012: The Return Of Quetzalcoatl (Jeremy P. Tarcher, New York, 2006).
SARAJEVO - An Egyptian geologist who has joined Bosnian researchers unearthing what are thought to be Europe's first pyramids believes they bear similar hallmarks to the ancient structures in his homeland, an official said.
Aly Abd Alla Barakat, of the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority, believes large stone blocks found near Sarajevo were man-made and polished in the same way as the pyramids of Giza, said the Bosnian Pyramid Foundation's Mario Gerussi.
"Barakat has also found the presence of a special material linking the stone blocks which is identical to that used for pyramids in Giza," he added.
Barakat had extensive knowledge of the pyramids in Giza and had been recommended for the Bosnian mission by Zahi Hawass, one of the world's foremost Egyptologists, said Gerussi.
Over the next month, he is to work with Bosnian experts at Visoko valley, some 30 kilometres north of Sarajevo, which is believed to be hiding three major pyramids.
Since the digging work began in mid-April on one of the three hills there believed contain pyramids, researchers have unearthed a number of large stone blocks.
Semir Osmanagic, a self-styled Bosnian explorer who initiated the work, says he believes the blocks are part of a pyramid's surface.
Previously, satellite images showed that the hills in the valley cooled a lot faster than their surroundings, proving the substance of the structures was less dense and therefore probably made by men.
Also, the structures are precisely aligned with the four points of the compass.
The excavation work at Visoko, led by the foundation of local archaeologists and volunteers, will last 200 days and is expected to cost some 125,000 euros (160,000 dollars).
While most Bosnians are hopeful the pyramids will be found, a group of the country's archaeologists and historians have dismissed Osmanagic's mission as a "farce."
Japanese enthusiasts recently released new aerial photographs of figures etched in the ground of the Nazca region...Some difficult to spot The Japanese, for example, needed several flights to identify their figures. Among their more striking images: what appears to be an animal with horns, measuring nearly 200 feet long.
A Slovakia doctor claims to have linked peak solar flare activity to an increase in strokes and brain haemorrhages, Reuters reports.
Dr Michal Kovac started probing incidence of strokes in southern Slovakia's Nove Zamky back in the 1980s "after observing unexplained increases in stroke patients on certain days, weeks, months and years". He subsequently discovered a correlation between 11 year peaks in coronal mass ejections and strokes.
Kovac also found that fewer people suffered strokes when the moon was at its apogee. His findings, published in the Bratislava Medical Journal further the idea that people are physically affected by "fluctuations in the earth's geomagnetic field".
In the Peruvian Andes archaeologists have discovered the oldest known celestial observatory in the Americas - a 4200-year-old structure marking the summer and winter solstices that is as old as the stone pillars of Stonehenge. More...
Meanwhile, the ancient Maya turn out to be sophisticated a lot earlier than previously thought. More...
The archaeologists made the discovery in the state of Amapa, in the far north of Brazil.
A total of 127 large blocks of stone were found driven into the ground on top of a hill. Well preserved and each weighing several tons, the stones were arranged upright and evenly spaced.
It is not yet known when the structure was built, but fragments of indigenous pottery found at the site are thought to be 2,000 years old.
What impressed researchers was the sophistication of the construction. The stones appear to have been laid out to help pinpoint the winter solstice, when the sun is at its lowest in the sky.
Some light reading for those interested in 2012, sounds a little like the Celestine Prophecy (which I hated!)
December 2012 - The final day of the 5000 year old Mayan calendar nears. The world is in turmoil - as wars and international tensions continue. People everywhere seem lost in the complications of day to day struggles - poverty - misfortune - anger and greed.
A small team of scientists have uncovered a riddle concerning this "End of Days". As they reveal the symbolic meaning of the riddle, their serendipitous mission is discovered by the Ancient Fraternity of the Veni Victus - determined to thwart such revelations. These two powers - of good and evil - converge. Only the spirits of the ancients know the outcome.
The 100th Human is a spiritual quest delving deeply into matters of physics, metaphysics, evolution and the human condition.
Join Jack, Apu and Alana as they race against time searching for those who can assist in revealing the mystery of the ancient symbols - before time literally runs out.
Archeologists said Wednesday they have discovered a massive 6th-century Indian pyramid beneath the site of a centuries-old re-enactment of the crucifixion of Christ.
Built on a hillside by the mysterious Teotihuacan culture, the pyramid was abandoned almost 1,000 years before Catholics began re-enacting the crucifixion there in the 1800s, unaware they were celebrating one of the holiest moments of their faith on a site originally dedicated to gods of earth, wind and rain.
While residents around the hillside in Iztapalapa, on the east side of Mexico City, express pride at the discovery, it illustrates the difficulty of preserving the many layers of Mexican history: archaeologists have decided not to fully excavate the site so as to avoid disturbing the Christian rites.
Getting very little media outside of Bosnia, but it looks like a bona-fide pyramid has been discovered, complete with compass orientation. Hopefully it will soon be competely uncovered. More here
An investigation into this mysterious place, from someone who has actually just been there.
Read Part 1 today, with parts 2 & 3 to follow. Or subscribe for just $2.99 and read the entire (expanded) article now. Chris Maier is always worth reading. Follow the link below.
Subtle changes in a regional magnetic field, the earth's ionosphere or other physical phenomena may portend a major earthquake, according to emerging research.
...After a major quake in the greater San Francisco Bay Area in 1989, scientists at Stanford University, looking retroactively at data from a magnetometer, noted that two weeks before the quake, electromagnetic readings for an area near one of the faults active in the quake jumped significantly. Three hours before the quake, the readings from an electromagnetic field rose to 60 times the normal level.
"A rock, when you squeeze it, becomes a battery," he said.
It all makes sense! Changes in the electromagnetic field can be picked up by animals, explaining their "sixth sense" regarding earthquakes. The same changes can cause lights to appear in the sky. The combination of the lights and humans sensitive to electromagnetic field causes folk to believe they saw a UFO. Deveraux has proven that UFO sightings in the UK appear predominantly along fault lines.
I've come across a web site which serves as a nice reminder of the ancient mysteries that can be found in the Pacific - plenty of pyramids and prehistoric remains, built not by the locals. JaneResture.com
Quasar / Black Hole – without a surrounding galaxy?
Astronomers have observed what appears to be a quasar floating all by its lonesome in space. If confirmed, it would be the first instance of a quasar – and therefore a black hole – without a surrounding galaxy.
Quasars are extremely bright light emissions from super-massive black holes, caused when gas is drawn in by a hole’s enormous gravity. The process heats the gas to extreme temperatures, creating brilliance observable from Earth.
The new discovery raises questions about whether super-massive black holes could form before galaxies and whether a halo of dark matter around a black hole could spark a quasar.
The discovery of the twisted nebula, which stretches across 80 light-years at the center of the Milky Way, the galaxy that includes Earth, was reported in the current edition of the journal Nature.
Just wait until they decode it and find that it represents the DNA of a newt! Or a hyena!
"The result means that polarity reversals are not random events that are independent of each other," explains team member Fabio Lepreti. "Instead, there is some degree of memory in the magnetic dynamo processes giving rise to the reversals," he says. "We hope that our work will serve as a useful reference point for models that aim to describe the phenomenon of pole reversal." The Italy team now plans to build new dynamic models to describe the field reversal sequences in a simple way, so that the physical mechanisms that trigger pole reversals can be more easily explained.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that a small congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God.
Justices, in their first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, moved decisively to keep the government out of a church's religious practice.
Federal drug agents should have been barred from confiscating the hoasca tea of the Brazil-based church, Roberts wrote in the decision.
The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, which has a blend of Christian beliefs and South American traditions. Members believe they can understand God only by drinking the tea, which is consumed twice a month at four-hour ceremonies.
Mostly due to changes in diet, scientists have say they "have found more than 700 genetic variants that evolution may have favored during the past 10,000 years, illustrating how human evolution is continuing."
Basically, the less "gene shuffling that occurs each generation, called recombination", there is, the more recent the genetic variation should be.
The most convincing and most easily understood is the "lactase mutation, which lets adults digest milk, appeared in about 90 percent of Europeans". This would have begun with humans domesticating animals that can be milked. Lactose intolerance would have been the norm prior to agriculture.
AT least one new disease is jumping the species barrier from animals to human beings every year, exposing people to emerging germs at a rate that may be unprecedented.
The first work to catalogue the range of germs capable of infecting people has disclosed that 38 new human pathogens have emerged in the past 25 years. Three quarters of these, including Aids, avian flu, Sars and new variant CJD, originated as animal diseases.
The survey, led by Mark Woolhouse, of the University of Edinburgh, has identified more than 1,400 pathogens that can cause disease in human beings, at least 800 of which crossed the species barrier from animals.
While it is not known whether the rate at which diseases are jumping species is accelerating, Dr Woolhouse said it was impossible that human beings had been exposed to so many new pathogens so quickly through most of history.
According to physicist Mausimi Dikpati, the next sunspot cycle will be 30-50 percent stronger than the current cycle, and it will peak in 2012.
Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, have used a new model of the sun's interior to refine predictions of future sunspot activity. By using data going back over a century, the scientists were able to determine that the sun's magnetic field has a memory of around 20 years. This model was able to predict the past six cycles with around 97 percent accuracy, and has led to revised predictions about the next cycle, number 24.
