Many UFOs had “visited” China last year. Some of the UFOs were captured on photos or even videos for human scrutiny, and some just disappeared in a flash. But, most of them were debunked by astronomers, and still others remain a mystery. Check out the top 7 list of UFO sightings in China in the year of 2010.
1. Pujiang, Zhejiang province, Sept 3
Wang Chunlin, of Pujiang, Zhejiang province, told the local media that he had a video clip of a UFO sighting and he promised that the video was real. Another resident, Yang Zhenhai, saw the shiny object in the sky first and spread the news in an online chat group. Wang was also in that group, so he went to shoot the object on video.
2. Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, July 7
Staff members at Hangzhou International Airport saw the object through their monitoring equipment about 21:00, and immediately shut down the airport and many flights were delayed. The airport staff said they could not look at the object directly, but some Hangzhou residents claimed they saw a UFO that day about 17:00. No evidence surfaced that what they saw was the same object that appeared near the airport.
3. Leshan, Sichuan province, July 26
Three shiny objects resembling the sun appeared in the sky about 8 pm and many Leshan residents reported seeing them. They lingered for more than 10 minutes. Wang Sichao, an astronomer from the Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that may have been caused by refraction of the sun’s rays.
4. Chongqing, March 21
About 8 pm, people began discussion on the local BBS about some shiny objects they saw. The objects were described to be two to four shiny objects moving swiftly across the sky. Local astronomers said that may have been caused by refraction of lightning.
5. Hong Kong, Sept 8-9
It was a stormy day in Hong Kong, Sept 8, and many residents said they saw a UFO. The object was described to be round with a row of lights. Wang Sichao, an astronomer at the Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that may have been caused by refraction of lightning.
6. Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, Aug 11
An extremely shiny object flew at a high speed and became a hot topic on local BBS. It was described to be “a diameter of 20 centimeters and a length of 120 centimeters, with a yellow front end and a light green back end.” Some residents said that children feared the shiny object and cried. Some residents from Guilin and Nanning cities said that they also saw the object. Some astrophiles explained it was a meteor.
7. Baotou, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Sept 11
Local air traffic management bureau saw a UFO through their monitoring equipment 40 kilometers east of Baotou about 20:00 and told the airport in Baotou to rearrange some flights. At 22:00, the flights returned to normal.
The next time you’re in Chicago looking for something to do outside of the Wizard World Chicago Convention that you attend every year, you might want to check out some of the many Geek-friendly attractions the city has to offer. You’ll be amazed at just how wonderful the real world is when you give your World of Warcraft account a day’s rest and venture out into the city for some brain stimulating fun.
Here are 7 of Chicago’s finest attractions that any Science loving traveler would love to visit:
1. Adler Planetarium
As the oldest planetarium in Chicago, the Adler Planetarium is home to the Atwood sphere which allows you to see the night sky with all light pollution removed so that you can step into outer space and explore all the majesty it has to offer. At the Adler Planetarium you will learn about what NASA is up to these days and experience the Milky Way through nine exhibitions and multiple 3-D theaters. Before you put Return of the Jedi into your portable DVD player for the forty-second time, try seeing what the final frontier is really like.
2. Chicago Architecture Foundation
The city of Chicago is full of modern architectural wonders. You can learn a lot about the art of architecture just by walking around the city on your own but you’ll have a whole lot more fun if you take one of the 85 guided city tours available at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Did you know that Weird Al Yankovic went to school for architecture before becoming the white and nerdy musical parodist?
3. Field Museum
Do you like Dinosaurs? How about Ancient Egypt? Maybe the double helix of DNA is more your speed? Regardless of what scientific field you’re interested in studying, the Field Museum has something for you to enjoy. Here are just a few of the many exhibits designed to inspire and enlighten you: the Grainger hall of gems, the underground adventure, inside ancient Egypt, our evolving planet, and McDonald’s fossil prep lab.
4. Legoland Discovery Centre
Remember when you were a kid and built fantastical space crafts, pirate ships, and buildings out of Lego blocks? Well, at the Legoland Discovery Centre you can feel that joy once more and play with Lego like you have never played with them before. You can even learn building secrets from the master model builders at Legoland and learn about how they made giant Lego sculptures.
5. Museum of Science and Industry
The human race has made exponential progress over the years and in this age of the internet and gadgetry it can be easy to forget where it all started. At the Museum of Science and Industry you will see all of the technological wonders that brought us into the modern age and get a taste for what the future of technology holds for us.
6. Shedd Aquarium
The Ocean is a strange and mysterious place unless you’ve visited the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. In just one day you can do everything from hang out with blue iguanas in the desert to follow a sea turtle swimming through the pristine waters of the Caribbean. Learn about marine biology and all of the fascinating creatures of the sea by getting up close and personal behind the safety of clear glass walls.
7. Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
Speaking of up close and personal, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is your number one stop for getting to know the world around you. At the heart of Lincoln Park the museum provides thought-provoking and hands-on exhibits like the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven and the Look-In Animal Lab. You’ll never look at mother Earth the same way again after visiting the nature museum.
Trying to jam pack your day-trip to Chicago with all of these wonderful attractions might be a little daunting. It might be better to stay for a few extra days just to take in all that the city has to offer. You can learn more about Chicago’s various attractions and even save some money on admission to most of them when you pick up a Chicago Pass from Smart Destinations.
So, I went to some fast food places (I won’t say “restaurants”, just “places”), and picked up burgers and tacos, so I could compare them with the ads. (I’m always on the hunt for little projects like this. Stoked.) I brought the food home, tossed it into my photography studio, and did ad-style shoots, with pictures of the official ads on my computer next to me, so I could match the lighting and angles.
People around the world know fast food as one of the most reliable distributors of disappointment ever produced by the business world. We know that if we ever feel the need to complain about something, we can just grab a page out of a coupon booklet, adorned in pictures of juicy burgers, go to a fast food place, then have a party. Why, the places themselves usually plaster their walls with pictures of juicy burgers – often hanging right over your table – so that you need only open your eyes to find something to compare your food with, while you eat it.
Needless to say, the results of my little project were unsurprising… which shouldn’t be a surprise.
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Don’t ask me how this advertising is legal. It seems that the law – at least in the US – is sometimes designed to please the God of Technicality (who I imagine as a big, super-angry robot, who demands absolute conformity to rules and formulas), while blatantly insulting man’s ability to perceive and judge. The law for this stuff should take into account things like the “innards-to-bun ratio” (in other words, if the ads show 70% innards, 30% buns, the real thing can’t be 10% innards, 90% buns), or, better yet, whether or not something is false advertising should be determined by an ordinary group of people.
In all cases, I gave the items as fair a chance as absolutely possible, though I didn’t take the time to buy multiples of anything except the tacos (whether that would’ve been to choose the BEST stuff I could find, or pick out an average). …though, you know, that Whopper really is from Hell. I want to leave it, just so that the Burger King people can enjoy a little, what, maybe disappointment?
Via: ALPHAILA.COM
A wealth of human history lies submerged in ancient cities at the bottoms of lakes, seas and oceans of the world. Some of these were sent into the water via earthquakes, tsunamis or other disasters thousands of years ago. Many have just recently been rediscovered, by accident or through emergent technological innovations. Some have even caused scientists to question the history of human civilization.
7. The Lost Villages (Canada)
"The Lost Villages" are ten communities in the Canadian province of Ontario, in the former townships of Cornwall and Osnabruck (now South Stormont) near Cornwall, which were permanently submerged by the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958.
The flooding was expected and planned for. In the weeks and months leading up to the inundation, families and businesses in the affected communities were moved to the new planned communities of Long Sault and Ingleside. These negotiations were controversial, however, as many residents of the communities felt that market value compensation was insufficient since the Seaway plan had already depressed property values in the region.
The town of Iroquois was also flooded, but was relocated 1.5 kilometres north rather than abandoned. Another community, Morrisburg, was partially submerged as well, but the area to be flooded was moved to higher ground within the same townsite. A portion of the provincial Highway 2 in the area was flooded; the highway was rebuilt along a Canadian National Railway right-of-way in the area.
At 8 a.m. on July 1, 1958, a large cofferdam was demolished, allowing the flooding to begin. Four days later, all of the former townsites were fully underwater. Parts of the New York shoreline were flooded by the project as well, but no communities were lost on the American side of the river.
In some locations, a few remnants of sidewalks and building foundations can still be seen under the water, or even on the shoreline when water levels are sufficiently low. Some high points of land in the flooded area remained above water as islands, and are connected by the Long Sault Parkway. Lock 21 of the former Cornwall Canal (since replaced by the Saint Lawrence Seaway) is a popular scuba diving site, a few feet from the shore along the Parkway.
6. Dwarka Port (India)
Among the most exciting archaeological discoveries made in India in recent years are those made off the coast of Dwarka and Bet Dwarka in Gujarat. Excavations have been going on since 1983. These two places are 30 km away from each other. Dwarka is on the Arabian sea coast, and Bet Dwarka is in the Gulf of Kutch. Both these places are connected with legends about the good Krishna and there are many temples here, mostly belonging to the medieval period.
Rated as one of the seven most ancient cities in the country, the legendary city of Dvaraka was the dwelling place of Lord Krishna. It is believed that due to damage and destruction by the sea, Dvaraka has submerged six times and modern day Dwarka is the 7th such city to be built in the area.
Archaeologists were keen to find out whether there were any older remains off the coast at these places.
5. Pavlopetri (Greece)
The ancient town of Pavlopetri lies in three to four metres of water just off the coast of southern Laconia in Greece. The ruins date from at least 2800 BC through to intact buildings, courtyards, streets, chamber tombs and some thirty-seven cist graves which are thought to belong to the Mycenaean period (c.1680-1180 BC). This Bronze Age phase of Greece provides the historical setting for much Ancient Greek literature and myth, including Homer's Age of Heroes.
Although Mycenaean power was largely based on their control of the sea, little is known about the workings of the harbour towns of the period as archaeology to date has focused on the better known inland palaces and citadels. Pavlopetri was presumably once a thriving harbour town where the inhabitants conducted local and long distance trade throughout the Mediterranean — its sandy and well-protected bay would have been ideal for beaching Bronze Age ships. As such the site offers major new insights into the workings of Mycenaean society.
Underwater archaeologist Dr Jon Henderson, from The University of Nottingham, is the first archaeologist to have official access to the site in 40 years. Despite its potential international importance no work has been carried out at the site since it was first mapped in 1968 and Dr Henderson has had to get special permission from the Greek government to examine the submerged town. According to him, this site is of rare international archaeological importance. It is imperative that the fragile remains of this town are accurately recorded and preserved before they are lost forever.
4. 8000-year-old Yonaguni-Jima (Japan)
Situated 68 miles beyond the east coast of Taiwan, Yonaguni Islands are a remarkable place for its rugged and mountainous coastlines. The special attraction is the submerged ruins located in the southern coast of Yonaguni: a superb 100×50x25 meters man-made artifact out of solid rock slabs stands erect at right angles. Its is estimated to be around 8000 years old, which is remarkably early for the kind of technology that has been used for carving it. Different theories exist about the possible identities of this structure.
While some say these ruins are the remnants of the missing Continent of Mu, other archeologists attribute them to be the outcome of unexplained geological processes, although, when you see the finely designed hallways and staircases, this ‘natural phenomenon' idea will appear sheer out of place.
The megalith was discovered quite accidentally by a sport diver in 1995 when he had strayed beyond the permissible limit off the Okinawa shore. The interesting thing about this massive stone building is that it had arches made of beautifully fitted stone blocks bearing resemblance with the building architectural style of the Inca civilization. Debates were rife about the ruins being associated with the prehistoric Motherland of Civilization. Surveying the ruins minutely takes time and skill because of the rough oceanic currents. (Link | Photo 1 | Photo 2 | Photo 3)
3.The submerged temples of Mahabalipuram (India)
According to popular belief, the famous Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram wasn't a single temple, but the last of a series of seven temples, six of which had submerged. New finds suggest that there may be some truth to the story. A major discovery of submerged ruins was made in April of 2002 offshore of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu, South India. The discovery, at depths of 5 to 7 meters (15 to 21 feet) was made by a joint team from the Dorset based Scientific Exploration Society (SES) and marine archaeologists from India's National Institute of Oceanography (NIO). Investigations at each of the locations revealed stone masonry, remains of walls, square rock cut remains, scattered square and rectangular stone blocks and a big platform with steps leading to it. All these lay amidst the locally occurring geological formations of rocks.
Based on what at first sight appears to be a lion figure at location four, the ruins were inferred to be part of a temple complex. The Pallava dynasty, which ruled the region during the 7th century AD, was known to have constructed many such rock-cut, structural temples in Mahabalipuram and Kanchipuram.
The reasons for the submergence of the ruins are remain unclear. (Link 1 | Link 2)
2. World's Wickedest City, Port Royal (Jamaica)
One of the advantages of marine or nautical archeology is that, in many instances, catastrophic events send a ship or its cargo to the bottom, freezing a moment in time. A catastrophe that has helped nautical archeologists was the earthquake that destroyed part of the city of Port Royal, Jamaica. Once known as the "Wickedest City on Earth" for its sheer concentration of pirates, prostitutes and rum, Port Royal is now famous for another reason: "It is the only sunk city in the New World," according to Donny L. Hamilton.
Port Royal began its watery journey to the Academy Awards of nautical archeology on the morning of June 7, 1692, when, in a matter of minutes, a massive earthquake sent nearly 33 acres of the city -- buildings, streets, houses, and their contents and occupants -- careening into Kingston Harbor. Today, that underwater metropolis encompasses roughly 13 acres, at depths ranging from a few inches to 40 feet.
In 1981, the Nautical Archaeology Program of Texas A&M University, in cooperation with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) and the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT), began underwater archaeological investigations of the submerged portion of the 17th-century town of Port Royal, Jamaica. Present evidence indicates that while the areas of Port Royal that lay along the edge of the harbor slid and jumbled as they sank, destroying most of the archaeological context, the area investigated by TAMU / INA, located some distance from the harbor, sank vertically, with minimal horizontal disturbance.
In contrast to many archaeological sites, the investigation of Port Royal yielded much more than simply trash and discarded items. An unusually large amount of perishable, organic artifacts were recovered, preserved in the oxygen-depleted underwater environment. Together with the vast treasury of complimentary historical documents, the underwater excavations of Port Royal have allowed for a detailed reconstruction of everyday life in an English colonial port city of the late 17th century. (Link 1 | Link 2)
1. Cleopatra's Palace in Alexandria (Egypt)
Off the shores of Alexandria, the city of Alexander the Great, lies what is believed to be the ruins of the royal quarters of Cleopatra. A team of marine archaeologists led by Frenchman Franck Goddio made excavations on this ancient city from where Cleopatra, the last queen of the Ptolemies, ruled Egypt. Historians believe this site was submerged by earthquakes and tidal waves more than 1,600 years ago.
The excavations concentrated on the submerged island of Antirhodus. Cleopatra is said to have had a palace there. Other discoveries include a well-preserved shipwreck and red granite columns with Greek inscriptions. Two statues were also found and were lifted out of the harbour. One was a priest of the goddess Isis; the other a sphinx whose face is said to represent Cleopatra's father, King Ptolemy XII. The artifacts were returned to their silent, because the Egyptian Government says it wants to leave most of them in place to create an underwater museum. (Link 1 | Link 2)
