- Sweet, that long-lost Chinese coin that someone misplaced
600 years ago has finally been located. That 600-year-old coin has been track
down on an
island just off the coast of Kenya and if it’s authentic, the coin could offer
conclusive proof that Chinese explorer Zheng He did travel to east Africa. "This
finding is significant. We know Africa has always been connected to the rest of
the world, but this coin opens a discussion about the relationship between
China and Indian Ocean nations," said archaeologist Chapurukha M. Kusimba
of The Field Museum in Chicago. Kusimba’s team found the copper and silver disk
with a square hole in the center during their first day of excavations on
Manda, an island just off Kenya's coast about 200 miles northeast of Mombasa. Kusimba
and Sloan R. Williams of the University of Illinois at Chicago led the joint
expedition from this past December through February and spent extensive time
studying the site where the coin was found. It was issued some time between 1403
and 1425 and bears the name of Emperor Yongle, leader of the Ming Dynasty, who
started building China's Forbidden City. During that time frame, Manda was
nearing the end of its run as an important trading post and in 1430, the island
was abandoned and never inhabited again. Kusimba cited the coin as proof that Zheng
He, a court eunuch who rose to commander of the Chinese Navy, visited the
island. Emperor Yongle sent Zheng He on several long voyages to explore the
Indian Ocean with the hope of increasing Chinese trade and political influence.
"Zheng He was, in many ways, the Christopher Columbus of China,"
Kusimba said. "It's wonderful to have a coin that may ultimately prove he
came to Kenya." The Kenyan government gave the researchers permission to
export the coin to Chicago to undergo chemical analysis at The Field Museum.
While the coin is being authenticated, the research team will return to Manda
for another digging season with the goal of finding other interesting
artifacts…….
- Spider-Man, Spider-Man…..does whatever a spider can –
except for pacify the angry residents of New York City’s ultra-conservative
Orthodox Jewish community. The latest installment of the wholly unnecessary series
of “new” remakes of the superhero franchise is making a stop in New York and one
of the city’s many ethnic neighborhoods is none too happy about it. “The Amazing
Spider-Man” is filming in the Jewish neighborhood of Williamsburg and many
locals are none too happy about it. Producers want to film at a local armory
during Passover and the plan is not getting a free pass from Jewish leaders who
are angry over the prospect of a web-slinging hero trying to save the world
from evil inside an unused facility that should theoretically have no bearing
on their ability to celebrate an important religious holiday. “There’s no
reason they couldn’t have avoided this conflict and it’s very disrespectful,”
said community leader David Needelman. Needelman and his fellow Jewish
Brooklynites clearly don’t understand how Hollywood works or how complicated it
can be to schedule shoots for a big-budget project that is set in multiple
locations. Columbia Pictures informed local leaders they wanted to shoot from
March 22 through March 27 and the tail end of that span includes the first few
days of Passover. The studio doesn’t need permission from Community Board 1,
the group speaking on the neighborhood’s behalf, but that didn’t stop the board
from sending a letter to the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, saying
“We ask that you not issue a permit for any of the High Holy Days.” In laying
out its concerns, the board explained that the film crew will “be driving trucks
and trailers during the most heaviest week of the year, which is preparation
from the Passover holiday.” Working against the Jewish complainers in their
fight is the knowledge that films shooting at the armory in the past have not
been disruptive at all, according to residents who live near the facility.
Should the filming take place in the currently scheduled window, it should make
for an interesting scene if producers follow through with their plan to return to
Williamsburg in May and June to do more shooting…….
- So it turns out that not everyone is a fan of the South By
Southwest Festival. Zachary Cole Smith, the frontman for obscure rockers Diiv,
doesn’t have any love for the popular music, movie and technology event in
Austin, Tex. and made that point infinitely clear with a Tumblr rant on
Thursday. "Hi Austin. F**k SXSW. There…I said it," he wrote. He had
to be serious about what he wrote because he signed the post with his middle
name Cole, then laid out his case for why he dislikes the festival so much. He
anger centered on "drunk corporate goons" and "industry
vampires" who he accused ruining the musical portion of the festival by
turning it into a polluted, contrived event. "Here, the music comes last.
5 minute set-up, no sound check, 15 minute set. The 'music' element is all a
front, it’s the first thing to be compromised,” he added. “Corporate money
everywhere but in the hands of the artists, at what is really just a glorified
corporate networking party. Drunk corporate goons and other industry vampires
and cocaine. Everyone is drunk, being cool. 'Official' bureaucracy and all
their mindless rules. Branding, branding, branding. It's bullsh*t… sorry."
Maybe Smith could have rosier feelings toward SXSW if Diiv were the darlings of
the festival, a development they may have expected after releasing their debut
album, “Oshin,” to a mostly positive reception last year. Perhaps the video for
“Wait,” the latest single from the album, will hit big by including the
über-hot model/singer Sky Ferreria………
- A diverse new world full of life and energy may have been
discovered deep
beneath the ocean floor off the Pacific Northwest coast. Danish geomicrobiologist
Mark Lever of Aarhus University believes he and his team have found what is a
potentially vast realm of life, one with little apparent connection to the
world above it. This new world was identified in microscopic cracks in the
basalt rocks of Earth’s oceanic crust. It is a complex microbial ecosystem
fueled entirely by chemical reactions with rocks and seawater, the polar
opposite of organisms that exist in sunlight or the organic byproducts of
light-harvesting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Known scientifically as chemosynthetic,
these modes of life have previously been found deep in mine shafts and around
seafloor hydrothermal vents. However, this is the first time they have been
found on such a massive scale. “We know that Earth’s oceanic crust accounts for
60 percent of Earth’s surface, and on average is four miles thick,” Lever said.
That means if what his team found also exists in other places beneath Earth’s
oceans, “the largest ecosystem on Earth, by volume, is supported by chemosynthesis.”
The data from the study represents the culmination of findings that have
gathered over the last two decades and builds on a discovery of strange
microscopic holes in the basalt rocks that form much of Earth’s outer crust in
the 1990s. These holes appeared as if they were made by bacterial activity, but
scientists didn’t believe life existed within them. Inside, the crust is
extremely hot, dark, dense and mostly devoid of the organic compounds. In the
past two decades, scientists have began to notice that the crusts within these
openings differed greatly between the centers and edges. Rocks in the center are
suffused with energy-rich compounds that support microbes, but those chemicals
do not exist on the edges. Study co-author Andreas Teske of the University of
North Carolina explained that the results of the study represent a culmination
of more than 15 years of work. “All these pieces of evidence have been coming
together for over 15 years. It was time to put it all together,” Teske
said…….
- At least Nick Diaz is up front about what he’s doing. The
No. 1 contender for the UFC welterweight title has earned his way into a
title bout Saturday night at UFC 158 against current champion Georges St-Pierre
in more ways than one. Diaz’s in-ring performance has pushed him into the top
contender’s spot, but he’s also spent the weeks leading up to the bout doing
everything possible to antagonize St-Pierre. He has positioned himself as a
thorn in the champion’s side and made himself out to be the one type of person
St-Pierre hates more than any other: a bully. Because he was bullied as a
child, St-Pierre detests bullies and he believes that’s exactly what Diaz is. The
inherent dislike between the two men has made the normal pre-fight buildup more
antagonistic than it typically is an Diaz kicked the chatter up a notch on
Thursday following a UFC news conference at the Bell Centre in Montreal. In a
statement he almost certainly doesn’t really believe, Diaz accused St-Pierre of
taking steroids. . "I believe [St-Pierre] is on plenty of steroids, and I
don't think they test around here, either," Diaz said. "I doubt I'll
be tested. I don't care what they're saying or marketing to the media -- and if
so, he's probably got a bottle of p--- in his pocket. I doubt they're standing
over him making sure he's not on steroids." Diaz took his allegations a
step further by suggesting that UFC officials, specifically president Dana
White, willingly turn a blind eye to St-Pierre's alleged steroid use. Whatever
is fueling him, St-Pierre is 23-2 and hasn't suffered a loss since April 2007.
He has also never tested positive for a banned substance, a fact White
reinforced at Thursday's news conference. "He's never been busted for
anything," White said. "The guy's fought a million times in title
fights, and mostly guys in title fights are the ones that get tested."
St-Pierre also denied the allegations, saying, "I've never cheated once in
my life." Ironically, Diaz has failed two drug tests in his career, both
due to marijuana use. He is a certified medical marijuana user in California,
so maybe he’s been smoking too much medicinal marijuana and that’s why
he’s talking nonsense now………
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