Category: Culture & Society

• The mind-boggling clifftop Meteora Monasteries, Greece

  

  It’s mind-boggling to imagine how the first monks built the monasteries of Meteora in the 14th century, most notably the one in Peneas Valley located northeast of Kalabaka, Greece.

  This Holy Trinity sits on top of a rocky precipe over 1300 feet, forming one of six surviving monasteries constructed on top of steep natural pillars in seemingly impossible locations. These clifftop monasteries of Meteora translate to “suspended in the air.”

  Art on top of rocks

  There were originally 24 total monasteries situated in central Greece. The cliffs of Meteora formed about 60 million years ago as a result of a mix of wind, rain, and earthquakes.

  The first monks started building the complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in the 14th century in search of isolation, protection from the Turks, and a greater connection with God. At one point, the complexes were only reachable by rope ladder.

  Today, the eremite monasteries are proof that heaven can be a place on Earth.

  

  

  

  

  Wells Baum

  November 26, 2021

  Architecture & Design, Culture & Society, Travel

  design, Greece, Meteora Monasteries

• Diver finds 900-year-old crusader sword off Israel’s Carmel coast

  

  A scuba diver discovered an ancient sword off Israel’s Carmel coast near the port city of Haifa. The iron sword is thought to have belonged to a crusader knight 900 years ago when the Crusaders were fighting Muslim forces for control over the Holy Land.

  Eagle-eyed diver Shlomi Katzin stumbled upon the three-foot blade on October 18. Kobi Sharvit, the director of the Marine Archaeology unit at Israel’s Antiques Authority, believes that the shallow waters off Haifa once served as a shelter for seafarers.

  Sharp-eyed diver recovers crusader sword from Mediterranean seabed https://t.co/hfzj9LJyJp 📷 @ZvulunRonen pic.twitter.com/BZZNg5K7r4

  — Reuters Pictures (@reuterspictures) October 18, 2021

  “The archaeological finds at the site show that it served as a small, temporary natural anchorage for ships seeking shelter,” said Katzin in a statement.

  “Identification of the various finds shows that the anchorage was used as early as the Late Bronze Age, 4,000 years ago,” he added. “The recent discovery of the sword suggests that the natural cove was also used in the Crusader period, some 900 years ago.”

  A lucky 900-year-old find!

  The rare sword remains in pristine condition despite being “encrusted with marine organisms,” announced the Authority’s chief inspector Nir Distelfeld.

  The iron sword resurfaced from the Mediterranean seabed as a result of shifting sands and undercurrents. But Sharvit’s find came down to sheer luck and timing.

  “Because of the dynamics of shallow water, the sand keeps moving,” Sharvit revealed. “Each time, a new area is exposed.”

  The government experts will clean and restore the archaeological treasure before putting it on public display. Meanwhile, the diver received a “certificate of appreciation for good citizenship.”

  Wells Baum

  October 20, 2021

  Culture & Society, Science

  history, Israel, Mediterranean Sea, sword

• World’s third-largest diamond discovered in Botswana

  

  A unit of De Beers unearthed one of the world’s largest diamonds in Botswana earlier this month.

  The 1,098-carat diamond is believed to be the third-largest gem-quality stone ever mined. It’s worth a jaw-dropping $100+ million. 80% of the income through sales will be passed on to the state to “be used to advanced national development in the country,” according to the Botswana Government.

  President Mokgweetsi Masisi revealed the palm-sized stone to the public on Wednesday.

  This afternoon Botswana's president announced that they discovered the 3rd biggest diamond in the world. pic.twitter.com/jrqeBggIiW

  — Kasi Economy Group (@KasiEconomy) June 16, 2021

  The government receives as much as 80% of the income from Debswana's sales through dividends, royalties and taxes.
  
  Production at Debswana fell 29% in 2020 to 16.6 million carats while sales fell 30% to $2.1 billion as the pandemic impacted both production and demand pic.twitter.com/bK4JwUDG8c

  — Reuters (@Reuters) June 17, 2021

  The world’s largest stone remains the 3,106 carat Cullinan stone discovered in South Africa in 1905. It was cut and placed into the British Crown Jewels where it remains to this day.

  

  The second-largest diamond remains the 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona found in the Lucara Diamonds in Botswana in 2015. That’s a whole lot of rings.

  Wells Baum

  June 18, 2021

  Culture & Society, Nature

  africa, Diamond, Nature

• Meet Bolivia’s powerful female wrestlers, Flying Cholitas

  

  Photographer Todd Anthony took pictures of Bolivia’s indigenous female wrestlers for his new project, Flying Cholitas.

  This unique group of athletes wear more than stylish dresses and beautiful petticoats — they come together to demonstrate pride in their history.

  Once colonized by the Spanish and rejected as lower-class citizens, pejoratively known as “cholita,” they have since embraced the name to symbolize their persistent fight against subjugation and hierarchy.

  Symbolizing the culmination of strength, power, and beauty, the cholitas will not be denied in activism nor aesthetics.

  

  

  

  

  Wells Baum

  April 3, 2021

  Architecture & Design, Culture & Society

  art, Bolivia, Photography, Wrestling

• Born to dive: The Bajau sea nomads

  

  The Bajau sea nomads are people from the Malay Archipelago (Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia).

  Among the world’s best divers, the sea nomads act like the real mermaids — aquatic life is literally in their DNA.

  According to a study from the journal Cell:

  They are renowned for their extraordinary abilities, diving to depths of over 70 m with nothing more than a set of weights and a pair of wooden goggles (Schagatay, 2014) and spending 60% of their daily working time underwater (Schagatay et al., 2011).

  They’ve evolved to harbor extreme breath-holding capabilities with up to 13 minutes underwater. Even without weights, the Bajau can stay negatively buoyant enough to walk across the sea bottom as one does on terra firma. 

  This is La Udedi, a Bajau spear-fisherman who can dive down 30m on just one breath. Discover more about sea nomads in #BBCEarthMagazine pic.twitter.com/5uu3BPdzGg

  — BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) February 19, 2017

  For thousands of years, the Bajau people have developed expanded spleens due to their dependency on diving underwater for food.

  No one knows what originally compelled the Bajau to dive other than their need to survive and feed entire families.

  Without experimentation, evolution does not exist. It is through struggle and adaptation we evolve.

  Learn more in the video below.

  Featured photo by James Morgan.

  Wells Baum

  December 1, 2020

  Culture & Society, Nature, Travel

  Bajau sea nomads, Ocean, Philippines, Travel

• Two ash-covered bodies from Vesuvius eruption uncovered at Pompeii

  

  Archaeologists uncovered the body of a wealthy 40-year old man and his young slave in Pompeii, 2,000 years after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. 

  Excavations at the suburban villa Civita Giuliana, a suburb outside Pompeii, discovered the bodies covered in a bed of 6.5-foot ash.  

  Researchers believe that the two men survived the initial eruption from Mount Vesuvius, only to succumb to a massive and more destructive cloud of scorching ash while seeking shelter in a cryptoporticus. 

  The skeletal remains follow last year’s discovery of another Ancient Roman man crushed by a flying rock during Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 A.D. 

  

  

  

  Wells Baum

  November 21, 2020

  Culture & Society, Science, Travel

  history, Italy, Mount Vesuvius, science, volcano

• Iceland invites the world to scream out its lockdown stress

  

  The COVID-19 pandemic got you stressed?

  Iceland’s government, in partnership with the country’s tourist agency Promote Island, will allow anyone in the world to scream into an app and broadcast it into the nation’s vast wilderness.

  Let it all out on a speaker in Iceland

  All one needs to record a loud scream, wail, or shriek — whatever they want to get off their chest — at lookslikeyouneediceland.com and their frustration will play on one of the seven speakers situated around Iceland’s vacant countryside.

  Don’t be afraid to let Iceland know how you feel.

  Looks like you’ve been through a lot. It looks like you need to let it out. It looks like you need Iceland. Record your scream from anywhere in the world at https://t.co/sTLs7Fafhi and we’ll release it in Iceland. You’ll feel better, we promise! #LetItOutIceland pic.twitter.com/YFoZeMIMNi

  — Inspired by Iceland (@iceland) July 15, 2020

  Wells Baum

  July 18, 2020

  Culture & Society, Health, Travel

  Coronavirus, COVID-19, Iceland, Nature, Travel

• Oxygen in the house: Barcelona opera house reopens with performance to over 2,000 plants

  

  No, this is not an article from The Onion.

  To mark Spain’s lifting of lockdown restrictions, Barcelona’s Liceu Opera House reopened for the first time in three months with a performance to 2,292 potted plants.

  The three classical musicians performed Puccini’s “Crisantemi” to “reaffirm the value of art, music and nature” after Covid-19 lockdowns.

  Even more, the plants will be donated to the city’s healthcare workers.

  You love to see it! Watch the full performance below.

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  Wells Baum

  June 23, 2020

  Culture & Society, Nature

  Barcelona, Covid19, culture, Music, Nature, Plants, society

• Natural light prevents myopia

  

  A report issued in Nature reveals that staying inside is the leading cause of myopia.

  The finding refutes the myth that nearsightedness is the result of intense reading sessions and screen activity.

  Myopia is prevalent in East Asian countries, where the focus on studying means staying indoors rather than benefiting from the outside environment.

  According to another study in journal Lancet, 90% of young adults in China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea are nearsighted compared to 30% in Britain.

  

  Outdoor light is beneficial to the eyes because it triggers the release of dopamine in the retina.

  One myopia researcher recommends spending at least three hours a day in natural light, even if means sitting under a tree.

  But what scientists really needed was a mechanism: something to explain how bright light could prevent myopia. The leading hypothesis is that light stimulates the release of dopamine in the retina, and this neurotransmitter in turn blocks the elongation of the eye during development. The best evidence for the ‘light–dopamine’ hypothesis comes — again — from chicks. In 2010, Ashby and Schaeffel showed that injecting a dopamine-inhibiting drug called spiperone into chicks’ eyes could abolish the protective effect of bright light 11 .

  Wells Baum

  May 15, 2020

  Culture & Society, Health, Nature

  culture, eyes, health, Nature, vision

• Neanderthals were great hunters but poor artists

  

  Neanderthals were great hunters but poor artists.

  According to a study done by UC Davis psychology professor Richard Coss, Neanderthals used basic spear hunting techniques to capture tame prey.

  Meanwhile, Homo Sapiens developed the ability to throw spears as a result of chasing more elusive game in the open grasslands of Africa.

  Homo Sapiens were also careful planners, sharpening their hand-eye coordination by drawing out hunting scenes on cave walls.

  

  Such artistry not only made modern humans better visualizers and hunters, but it also helped them develop smarter brains.

  Historian and author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Yuval Noah Harari also argued that while Neanderthals might have had larger brains and finer tools than their fellow Homo Sapiens, they lacked the cognitive abilities for language.

  Homo Sapiens developed rounder skulls and bigger parietal cortexes that allowed them not only to translate visual images but share stories through word of mouth.

  Wells Baum

  May 15, 2020

  Animals, Culture & Society, Nature

  art, culture, humans, Nature, Neanderthals

• Time travel back to New York City, 1911

  

  In 1911, Swedish film company Svenska Biografteatern recorded its trip to New York.

  Fortunately, the footage survived and most recently was speed-corrected (slowed down) and reproduced with the ambient audio of street sounds of car horns, horses, and police whistles to give us a sense of the environment back then.

  There’s also a color version of the 8-minute long video restored via neural networks, featuring 60 frames per second and 4k image resolution.

  Some observations:

  • Notice all the people wearing hats
  • The streets look a bit empty compared to today’s zoo
  • Cable powered trolleys
  • The kids go nuts when the camera is on them. Nothing’s changed!

  This might be the closest we get to time travel.

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  Wells Baum

  April 22, 2020

  Architecture & Design, Culture & Society

  culture, film, history, NYC

• The treadmill was originally a torture device

  

  Treadmills were originally torture devices, meant to break the mind, body, and spirit of English prisoners.

  Two hundred years ago, the treadmill was invented in England as a prison rehabilitation device. It was meant to cause the incarcerated to suffer and learn from their sweat.

  Groups of prisoners were forced to walk 6 hours a day, pumping out water, milling corn powering the mills, thus the term “tread-mill.”

  Treadmills evolved into a mechanism for punishment to prevent poor people from committing crimes to take advantage of the necessities in jail.

  

  

  Britain banned treadmills in 1989, seeing their punishment no longer useful.

  An 1885 British Medical Journal article called “Death on the Treadmill,” chastized Durham Prison for the treadmill-induced death of a prisoner with heart disease. Its overall high death rate—one fatality a week—prompted the conclusion that “[t]he ‘mill’ is not useful, and has proved itself occasionally injurious.”

  Having banned treadmills in 1828 to adopt a “collective industry” where prisoners became factory workers, America revamped the treadmill as an exercise machine.

  It resurfaced in 1913 with a U.S. patent for a “training-machine.” In the 1960s, the American mechanical engineer William Staub created a home fitness machine called the PaceMaster 600. He began manufacturing home treadmills in New Jersey. (He used it often himself, right up until the months before his death at the age of 96.)

  As this article points out, treadmills are the top-selling training equipment in the US but still come with all the baggage (injuries and boredom) that prisoners endured in England.

  Wells Baum

  April 4, 2020

  Architecture & Design, Culture & Society, Health

  culture, design, exercise, health, Treadmill