Rainbow Warrior

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...rough it out with a backpack

You will often hear that backpacking is a way of life, a different approach to traveling and far away more than just walking around and sightseeing. Backpacking is a way to discover the world in completely new way. Backpacking doesn’t teach you independence; you already have to be independent and strong. It teaches you how to survive in tough and sometimes violent environment. Backpacker has to explore the world weather is that small local bar in Barcelona or walking around jungle of Congo. The principle is the same, you have to go across the boundaries of what seems impossible and go into the wilderness.



If you are ready to become backpacker head and first buy backpack. No, suitcase won’t work it out. Do you think you can struggle with jungles and big crowded cities with suitcase? Yes, we know, suitcases have wheels and they are easy to carry around but not in the places where a real backpacker wants to go. When you put backpack on your shoulders and plug the bucket around your waist you can bring much more things than carrying suitcase in one hand. The system of backpack is created that way that shares the weight around evenly, allowing you to walk for much longer, and across far more uneven terrain. Without backpack you will probably stay closer to the main sights and you will never become a true traveler.



True backpacker wants to learn from its traveling. When you have everything on a plate by tourist agency, that is not interesting anymore, not for a backpacker. Backpacker will always explore, ask around, meet other travelers, hear their stories, and transfer own experiences. You need to understand the world that you are traveling to, the local culture; you have to try local food, see local customs and go not just one step behind the curtains. Nowadays, the only limits to travel are imagination, ambition and courage. You need to put yourself over there on the road and really enjoying your traveling. Being a backpacker means that you have to pursuit the unique things and catch moments of beauty. You have to realize that beauty is all around you and when you feel that you will be completely happy and true backpacker. Sunrises over the ocean, mist in the mountains, temples and houses scattered on hills are just few of those things. You have to catch something exotic and strange, something you know you don’t have at home. If that is something weird or you don’t understand it, just ask, explore but you also need to know that not everything is meant to be understood.

When you pick up all of the experiences and knowledge of traveling you will realize that, that is all you need. They will become part of you and that is something that can never be taken away from you. You will be rich even without money in your pocket. Backpacking will give you your hidden smile, the one you never knew you have.   

Source : http://www.hostels.st/blog/hostels/backpacking

...Tyche...NASA's tenth planet

If you grew up thinking there were nine planets and were shocked when Pluto was demoted five years ago, get ready for another surprise. There may be nine after all, and Jupiter may not be the largest.

The hunt is on for a gas giant up to four times the mass of Jupiter thought to be lurking in the outer Oort Cloud, the most remote region of the solar system. The orbit of Tyche (pronounced ty-kee), would be 15,000 times farther from the Sun than the Earth's, and 375 times farther than Pluto's, which is why it hasn't been seen so far.

But scientists now believe the proof of its existence has already been gathered by a Nasa space telescope, Wise, and is just waiting to be analysed.  

    

The first tranche of data is to be released in April, and astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette think it will reveal Tyche within two years. "If it does, John and I will be doing cartwheels," Professor Whitmire said. "And that's not easy at our age."

Once Tyche has been located, other telescopes could be pointed at it to confirm the discovery.

Whether it would become the new ninth planet would be decided by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The main argument against is that Tyche probably formed around another star and was later captured by the Sun's gravitational field. The IAU may choose to create a whole new category for Tyche, Professor Matese said.

The IAU would also have the final say about the gas giant's name. To the Greeks, Tyche was the goddess responsible for the destiny of cities. Her name was provisionally chosen in reference to an earlier hypothesis, now largely abandoned, that the Sun might be part of a binary star system with a dim companion, tentatively called Nemesis, that was thought responsible for mass extinctions on Earth. In myth, Tyche was the good sister of Nemesis.

Tyche will almost certainly be made up mostly of hydrogen and helium and will probably have an atmosphere much like Jupiter's, with colourful spots and bands and clouds, Professor Whitmire said. "You'd also expect it to have moons. All the outer planets have them," he added.

What will make it stand out in the Wise data is its temperature, predicted to be around -73C, four or five times warmer than Pluto. "The heat is left over from its formation," Professor Whitmire said. "It takes an object this size a long time to cool off."

Most of the billions of objects in the Oort Cloud – a sphere one light year in radius stretching a quarter of the distance to Alpha Centauri, the brightest star in the southern constellation – are lumps of dirty ice at temperatures much closer to absolute zero (-273C).

A few of these are dislodged from their orbits by the galactic tide – the combined gravitational pull from the billions of stars towards the centre of the Milky Way – and start the long fall into the inner solar system.

As these long-period comets get closer to the Sun, some of the ice boils off, forming the characteristic tails that make them visible.

Professors Matese and Whitmire first proposed the existence of Tyche to explain why many of these long-period comets were coming from the wrong direction. In their latest paper, published in the February issue of Icarus, the international journal of solar system studies, they report that more than 20 per cent too many of the long-period comets observed since 1898 arrive from a band circling the sky at a higher angle than predicted by the galactic-tide theory.

No other proposal has been put forward to explain this anomaly since it was first suggested 12 years ago. But the Tyche hypothesis does have one flaw. Conventional theory holds that the gas giant should also dislodge comets from the inner Oort Cloud, but these have not been observed.

Professor Matese suggests this may be because these comets have already been tugged out of their orbits and, after several passes through the inner solar system, have faded to the point that they are much harder to detect.

So if it is real, Tyche may not only be disrupting the orbits of comets, it may also overturn an established scientific theory.


Source :  www.independent.co.uk

'After Disclosure'...the penultimate must read

Dolan's multi-volume "UFOs and the National Security State" explores the complex and multi-faceted aspects of this fascinating subject. He is a frequent speaker on the UFO topic and has appeared on many TV programs that attempt to examine it.
Zabel is a former CNN journalist and now Hollywood writer and producer. He won the 2008 Writers Guild of America award for the Hallmark miniseries "Pandemic" and has written feature film scripts for Warner Brothers, Universal, Fox, Disney and New Line.
He co-created the NBC drama series, "Dark Skies" (scheduled for DVD release in 2011). His writing and producing of the original made-for-TV film "Official Denial" dovetailed with his work on the development team of the Steven Spielberg series "Taken."
So what will the publication of "A.D. After Disclosure" tell us?

Upcoming book "After Disclosure"

PRAISE FROM RESEARCHERS
Apollo 14 Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Sc.D, says, "This new book by Richard Dolan and Bryce Zabel is an important attempt to prepare us for what will one day be inevitable: an open understanding that we are not alone. Not in this universe, and not even on Planet Earth."
Nick Pope, former chief of the "UFO desk" for the UK Ministry of Defence states, "What if the UFO cover-up is real and what if it ended? 'After Disclosure' poses this fascinating question and looks at the societal consequences of such a revelation."
Pope concludes that, "Richard Dolan and Bryce Zabel have produced a thoughtful and provocative analysis that goes well beyond the usual scope of books on UFOs and alien life."
And Stanton T. Friedman, MSc., nuclear physicist and author of "Top Secret/Majic" notes that, "Considering the overwhelming evidence that Earth is being visited by alien spacecraft and that many intelligence agencies and military groups have known this to be true for some time, we certainly need to consider the serious question of what happens when disclosure actually occurs."
"This book by Zabel and Dolan is the first in-depth attempt to answer that question. It is long overdue and sets a high standard of discussion about this very complex issue. Well worth reading," said Friedman.
Investigative journalist and New York Times best-selling author of "Crossfire" Jim Marrs tells us, "You may not have ever considered what life will be like after the reality of UFOs becomes publicly known. But Richard M. Dolan and Bryce Zabel have. Their book is absorbing and thought provoking. Don't miss it."
Stephen Bassett, executive director of the Paradigm Research Group claims, "Disclosure, the formal acknowledgment by the world's governments of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race, is inevitable. So was this how-to book on what to do when a new world begins."
PREPARATION AND READINESS
Zabel himself writes, "We want our book to be accessible to people who have never read a UFO book before, to be a 'cross-over' project. Given that we're already living in life after contact, albeit in official denial and secrecy, we think it's time to get the general population up-to-speed on the issues so that when the truth finally is widely accepted it won't be such a shock."
"The reality is that this transition from denial to truth is coming at humankind sooner than later now," According to Zabel. "When the line gets crossed, it's going to affect everything from the economy and government to religion and science and even media and culture."
Zabel adds, "The book, weighing in at over 300 pages ... touches on all these issues. Lurking behind them all is the warning, one we've often heard expressed by concerned observers, that history is replete with cases where the weaker civilization is overwhelmed and ultimately destroyed by the stronger one. Think Cortez and the Aztecs."
"We just don't think that has to be the fate of humanity," says Zabel. "We do, however, believe that knowing what's coming and being mentally prepared is absolutely the most intelligent thing we can do now to make sure the outcome we get is the best one available when it all goes down."
"What if UFO secrecy ended tomorrow?" Zabel asks. "What happens when the powers-that-be finally admit that we are not alone? And that the Others we share the universe with are not light years away, some kind of cosmic pen-pals chatting by radio telescope, that they are here, now. How will the truth change our society and your life?"
"'A.D. After Disclosure' is the first work of non-fiction to tackle these questions about the new winners and losers in government, science, religion, media, culture, law, education, and politics," Zabel notes. "Life will go on, but it will never be the same."
This book seems sure to be a valuable new resource for people trying to figure out what is going on with regard to UFOs and rumors of extraterrestrial visitation to, and activities on Earth.
Dolan and Zabel certainly seem to take it seriously, as do many other researchers and citizens who have carefully looked into this interesting and important subject.
One theory is that there have been decades-long public preparedness and acclimation efforts to get us ready for these kinds of developments.
Are we ready?
Many people think they are. But such a situation could be quite challenging in many ways.
The new book "A.D. After Disclosure" will undoubtedly inform and fascinate us, help public readiness and take us to the next level of understanding about this sensitive situation.  




 Source : http://www.ufodigest.com 
              http://jointreconstudygroup.blogspot.com
              http://tvtranscend.blogspot.com  

Climate Campaign

Dear friends,

For months now we have been calling on Facebook to go green and announce a plan to lead an Energy [R]evolution by using renewable energy to power the social network that we've all grown to love. Recently they've started to move, but not fast enough.

So now, we are giving Facebook a deadline - Earth Day, April 22, 2011.

That's 77 days away. To bring together campaign supporters like you from all over the world for the next 77 days, we have created a united, multi-lingual Facebook Page.

Come see it, click the LIKE button, and share it with your friends! From there, you'll find options for different ways you can take action – starting with a call for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to sign the coal-free "Big IDEA" pledge that Greepeace Executive Director Kumi Naidoo presented to Facebook last week.

With your help, it won't be long until we have "Facebook: proudly powered by Renewable Energy" appearing on all our profiles!



  Greenpeace International

P.S. Don't forget to join our new, multi-lingual Facebook page so you can stay updated all the latest Facebook news.

Gobekli Tepe, Turkey

The archaeological team at Gobekli, working under Klaus Schmidt, has used radiocarbon analysis on the soils adhering to the stones. The analysis shows that the main stones at Gobekli Tepe were erected between 10,000 and 9,000 BC. The characteristics of flint arrowheads found here confirm these dates.

Q: How big is the site?
A: So far, 40-odd standing stones (two to four metres high) have been dug out. They are T-shaped and returning to Gobekli at specified times of the year.
Q: Why was the site buried in 8,000BC?
A: No one knows. But the way the dust is packed around the stones shows that Gobekli was entombed deliberately, and with some care.
pic

Q: How do they know it's a temple?
A: Evidence of any domestic use is entirely lacking. No remains of settled human habitation have been found nearby. But human skeletons have been found, in telling positions, which indicate that Gobekli was possibly a funerary complex, a shrine that celebrated the life and death of the hunters. It seems people brought the corpses of relatives here, and installed them in open niches by the stones. The many rock carvings on the stones also appear more ritualistic than domestic; likewise, the architectural arrangement of Gobekli prefigures much later Stone Age temples - like Avebury or Stonehenge.

Is it a reptile, wolf, cat, or some animal-spirit?

Q: How do they know the recently uncovered sculpture is a 'reptile'?

A: They don't know. Schmidt thinks it may be a reptile but isn't sure. Gobekli Tepe is so bizarre - and the newest finds so mysterious - no consensus has yet developed. Others believe the sculpture shows a wolf, a cat, or some other mammal. It possibly represents a kind of animal-spirit, watching over the dead.
Q: Is there really a link with the Garden of Eden?
A: The idea that the Eden story is a kind of allegorical folk memory - of the switch from hunter-gathering to farming - is not a new one: it's been canvassed by writer Hugh Brody, among others. What is new is the combination of data that links Genesis to this area of Turkey, and very early farming to this area: thus placing a 'metaphorical Eden' arguably in these environs. However, Klaus Schmidt emphasises that this is just a theory: "Gobekli Tepe is extraordinary enough, without speculation".
Q: How does the world of archaeology perceive Gobekli?
A: Academics agree on the site's revolutionary implications for our view of Stone Age civilisation and religion. No one knew Neolithic people were this artistic and leisured. Harald Hauptman at Heidelberg University believes the discoveries at Gobekli rank with the first uncovering of cave paintings in Lascaux, France in the 1940s. South African expert in palaeolithic art David Lewis Williams calls Gobekli Tepe "the most important archaeological dig anywhere in the world".           


Source : www.thefirstpost.co.uk