text:
The Cave of Swimmers
Thousands of years ago, the Sahara was surprisingly green with rich vegetation, trees and lakes that covered almost all of what is now sandy desert. There were vast open grasslands, forests, rivers, lakes and wetlands, that allowed a variety of animal species to survive. Antelopes, gazelles, giraffes, elephants, wildebeest, spotted hyenas, zebras and more roamed the savannah, while crocodiles baked in the river banks and hippos rolled in the mud. Evidence of the Sahara's amiable past is record...
In the beginning of the 19th century, a large Welsh town called Newtown on the River Severn became the center of the woolen industry. Like other towns in the upper Severn Valley, Newtown's population exploded within a short period, as mills jostled for a place by the riverside. Weavers paid extortionate rent to flannel manufacturers to live on the lower floors, the top floors being occupied by sophisticated machines such as the spinning jenny, that spun threads from wool in large open workshop...
Hells Bells
Deep down El Zapote cenote, a 50-meter-deep water-filled sinkhole in Quintana Roo, Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula, stalactites take a different form. Instead of the usual elongated, pointed shape hanging from the roof of caves, the stalactites in El Zapote are conical and hollow resembling bells or lampshades. Divers call them "Hells Bells", after the song by the Australian hard rock band AC/DC. Photo: Eugenio Acevez/ Jerónimo Aviles © Amusing Planet, 2021.
Talakadu: The Temple City Devoured by Sand
The ancient city of Talakadu situated on the banks of the Kaveri river, about 45 km east of Mysore, was once the capital of the Western Ganga dynasty which ruled over Karnataka in southern India about a thousand years ago. The once flourishing city with over 30 temples now lies in ruins, devoured by sand when the Kaveri river shifted course. The loss of Talakadu is an unfortunate ecological disaster, but there are many who believe that an ancient curse is to blame. An excavated temple in Tala
Anderson Shelters: The Backyard Bunkers That Saved Britons From Luftwaffe Bombings
In 1938, before the Second World War had even begun, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain placed Sir John Anderson in charge of air raid preparations. As the Lord Privy Seal, Anderson's responsibility was to organize civil defense such as air raid wardens, rescue squads, fire services, and the Women's Voluntary Service. He was also responsible for providing public shelters. Anderson commissioned engineers William Paterson and Oscar Carl Kerrison to design a small and cheap shelter tha...
The Granaries of Acorn Woodpecker
Woodpeckers are fascinating creatures. They hammer their bills into wood with force so ferocious that it would lead to concussion in any animal. But woodpeckers are equipped with excellent natural shock absorbers that protect their brains against damage caused by rapid and repeated powerful blows, such as a tightly packed brain that prevents it from sloshing around the skull, which itself is composed of compressible sponge-like bone to absorb the energy of the impact, as well as an elongated ton
The Night The Moon Exploded
In the early evening of 18 June 1178, five monks from Canterbury in southern England, reported having witnessed an unusual phenomenon in the sky. According to the monk Gervase, chronicler of the Abbey of Christ Church, the men were looking at a new crescent moon when they saw the upper part "split in two." Gervase wrote: From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the Moon which ...
Why Julius Caesar Built a Bridge Over The Rhine And Destroyed it 18 Days Later
In the early summer of 55 BC Julius Caesar had already begun his conquest of Gaul three years earlier. At that time the eastern border of the new provinces was located on the Rhine. The Germanic tribes on the eastern side of the river launched incursions to the west under the protection provided by this natural border. But on the other side of the river there were also tribes allied with Rome, like the Ubians. They offered Caesar ships for the legions to cross the river and attack the Germanic
Balmis Expedition: How Orphans Took The Smallpox Vaccine Around The World
The biggest hurdle to mass vaccination in the 19th century was keeping the virus alive out of the human body as the precious pus was being transported in sealed tubes to distant communities ravaging under smallpox. At a time when refrigeration, sterile containment, and asepsis were nonexistent, attempts were made to obtain the vaccine lymph dried onto silk threads or sealed between glass plates, but such methods proved unreliable on lengthy journeys and in warm climates. So when the need arose t
The Barbegal Mills: The Largest Concentration of Mechanical Energy in Antiquity
About 12 kilometers north of the city of Arles, in the Provence region of southern France, is the small town of Fontvieille. It is a commune of just 3,500 inhabitants who live from agriculture and tourism, but until the 5th century AD it was also the place where the greatest concentration of mechanical energy was found in the entire ancient world. At the end of the first century A.D., the most important Roman hydraulic complex was built there, consisting of two aqueducts and 16 mills, today cal
Medieval Russians Built Churches in One Day to Ward Off Epidemics
In the middle ages, many Russian communities, especially in the Novgorod and Pskov regions, believed in building churches as response to calamities raging at that time, most often epidemics. The tradition known as obydennye khramy requires that the church be completed within the course of a single day. These one-day votive churches were built by communal labor and were simple in design and small in size. Construction usually began at night and ended before sunset of the following day. By nightfa
Pitch Drop Experiment: The World's Longest Running Lab Experiment
The pitch drop experiment began in 1927 when Professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, set out to demonstrate to his students that some substances that appear to be solid are in fact very high viscous fluids. He used tar pitch, or bitumen, a derivative of coal once used to waterproof boats, in an experiment to prove his point. At room temperature, pitch appears to be solid and can even shatter if hit with a hammer, but despite its look and feel, pitch can a
SS Baychimo: The Unsinkable Ghost Ship
Ships aren't meant to sink, but sometimes you have to wonder what miraculous forces kept a vessel afloat. The SS Baychimo was such a ship. For nearly four decades after it was abandoned, this 1,300-ton cargo ship sailed the Arctic without fuel or crew, until it disappeared just over fifty years ago, but some believe she is still out there drifting among the frozen icebergs. SS Baychimo was launched in 1914, originally as Ã…ngermanelfven, after one of Sweden's longest rivers, Ã…ngerman. She ...
Franz Reichelt's Fatal Jump
The British Pathe film archive has a chilling video of a man jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower. The man in the short video is shown wearing some sort of an oversized suit. Standing on the ledge of the tower's first level, he hesitates for a few long seconds and then takes the plunge. He plummets straight down to the ground below. The man who took the fatal leap was Franz Reichelt, an Austrian-born French tailor, who owned a successful dressmaking business in Paris. Shortly after ope...
The Fighter Plane That Shot Itself Down
Fighter aviation has come a long way from the crude old days when pilots shot down their own planes as often as the enemy's. In those early days pilots had to shoot their machine guns through the spinning blades of their aircraft's propellers. Many pilots ended up shooting holes through their propeller blades. This problem was solved with the invention of a synchronization gear, which prohibited the guns from firing when the spinning propeller was in the way of the muzzle. Modern fighter pl...
The Buried Village of Te Wairoa
Until the late 19th century, the shores of Rotomahana, in northern New Zealand, were adorned by one of the most spectacular travertine terraces called the Pink and White Terraces. They were the largest travertine terraces in the world, created by the deposition of minerals from the nearby hot water springs. So wonderful were these terraces that they were called the 'eighth wonder of the natural world' and were New Zealand's most famous tourist attraction. On the morning of 10 June 1886...
The Fake Dome of The Church of St. Ignatius
One of Rome's lesser-known attractions, the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola (Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola in Italian), lies just a block away from the Pantheon. This incredible 17th century baroque church has a towering façade that dominates the Piazza, and a lavishly decorated interior that's considered one of the best in the entirety of Rome. The first thing most visitors do when they step inside this church dedicated to the founder of the Jesuit order is look up at the sumptuo...
Henley-On-Todd: The Waterless Regatta
Every August, Alice Springs, a large town in the heart of Australia's Northern Territory, holds an unusual boat race on Todd River, a river that's rarely wet. The "boats" are bottomless which enable the "rowers" to poke out their legs and run over the hot sands. The annual event sees hundreds of participants run along the dry riverbed in quirky boats fashioned out of metal frames in the shape of yachts, kayaks as well as regular rowing boats. The final event of the day, known as the ...
Saint Guinefort: The Holy Greyhound
Around the second half of the 13th century, a Dominican friar known as Stephen of Bourbon, began travelling the width and breadth of southern France documenting medieval heresies, superstitious, and heretical beliefs, which he complied into one long treatise on faith called the De septem donis Spiritu Sancti ("On the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit"). On the subject of superstition and idolatry, Stephen relates an incident which occurred in the diocese of Lyon. While preaching there against s...
Gara Medouar: The 'Spectre' Crater
The 1999 Hollywood movie The Mummy is set in Egypt, but was filmed largely in Morocco. Marrakech became the Cairo of 1926, the year the story takes place, and the lost city of "Hamunaptra" was set inside a vast horseshoe-shaped geological feature called Jebel Mudawwa, or Gara Medouar, located near Sijilmasa, in the southeast of the country. Gara Medouar appeared again in the sequel The Mummy Returns in 2001. The exotic location then became the evil lair of the Bond villain Franz Oberhauser i...
Sunomata Castle: The Castle That Was Built on a Single Night
Sunomata Castle stands at the confluence of the Sai and Nagara rivers, in the city of ÅŒgaki in Gifu Prefecture. It's a typical Japanese castle with a strong foundation of stone and a multi-storied wooden building on top with a gable roof and decorated eaves. As far as castles go, Sunomata is very small, but it has a big story. Legend has it that the Sunomata Castle was built during the course of a single night. Sunomata Castle, also known as Ichiya Castle (or the "one night castle"), was...
The Yukon Square Inch Land Rush of 1955
Marketers give away freebies all the time to generate buzz and promote their products. Usually these freebies are cheap trinkets like toys, keyrings and trading cards that cost next to nothing to produce. But back in the 1950s, a Chicago advertising executive named Bruce Baker came up with a stranger-than-fiction marketing gimmick for the Quaker Oats Company. Instead of toys, Baker decided that the cereal manufacturer should give away land, real land in gold-rich Yukon county in Canada, with eve
Hostile Façades
The old city of Segovia, about 90 km north of Madrid, is best known for its aqueduct, but this historic city is full of architectural curiosities, such as the ornamental façades and geometric textures on the walls of many of the houses, the strangest of which is Casa de los Picos, or the "House of Peaks". The façade of this house is covered entirely by granite blocks carved into pyramid-shaped reliefs. There are more than six hundred pyramids jutting out of the walls giving the impression ...
The Great Glass Slab at Beth Shearim
In a cave adjacent to an ancient cemetery near Beit She'arim, an old Jewish town in northern Israel, there lies a huge slab of glass approximately 6.5 feet wide, 11 feet long and 18 inches thick. It weighs 9 tons. Although chemical analysis confirm it's glass, the slab doesn't look anything like the delicate, translucent material. Rather, it looks like a large block of limestone, for it is completely opaque and bluish-gray. When the slab was discovered in the 1960s during an exploratio...
The Wine Cellars of Hercegkút
The Tokaj wine region in northeastern Hungary has been producing wine since Roman times. Tokaj's wines were historically prized throughout Europe, thanks to a gift of numerous bottles that the prince of Transylvania presented to King Louis XIV. Delighted with the precious beverage, Louis XIV declared it the "Wine of Kings, King of Wines". Subsequently, Tokaj's wine became the main drink served at the Versailles Court, where it became known under the name of Tokay. Hobbit's home like...
The Great Bed of Ware
For much of human history, sleeping arrangements were very informal. You heaped a pile of straw or leaves on the floor, covered it with animal skin or a large linen cloth, and tucked yourself in with a cloak or a blanket. It wasn't until the Middle Ages that people started to afford a bit of luxury. Mattresses were stuffed with feathers, wool, or horse hair, depending on the level of comfort desired, with feathers being the softest and the costliest of stuffing. Considerable attention was give...
Charles Crocker's Spite Fence
Back when San Francisco's luxurious destination Nob Hill was just another neighborhood in the newly incorporated city, a young German immigrant named Nicholas Yung built himself a modest three-story house at the top of what was then California Hill. Away from the hustle and bustle of the burgeoning city swamped by gold prospectors, California Hill's steep climb afforded the undertaker and his wife Rosina a peaceful, isolated existence with stunning view of the Bay to the east and the Golde...
The Lost Villages of The Port of Antwerp
In the middle of the Port of Antwerp, in Belgium, surrounded by an endless sea of shipping containers, stands an old church tower on a small patch of grass. Out of place and out of time, this centuries-old tower in the middle of a modern container port is all that remains of the former village of Wilmarsdonk that was wiped away in the 1960s, along with three others, to make way for the expansion of the port. The tower of the St. Laurence church of Wilmarsdonk standing in the middle of the bus
George Cayley: The Man Who Invented Flight
History credits Orville and Wilbur Wright for flying the world's first aircraft, but it was Yorkshire Baronet Sir George Cayley who first proposed, propounded and published the principles of modern aerodynamics. It was George Cayley, who, more than a century before the Wright Brothers took flight, set forth the concept of the modern airplane as a fixed-wing flying machine as opposed to the comical flapping winged machines that many of his predecessors had imagined. It was George Cayley who pro...
How Alexander Turned The Island of Tyre Into a Peninsula
The city of Tyre in southern Lebanon is one of the oldest cities in the world. Originally founded by settlers from the nearby city of Sidon in the 3rd millennium BCE, Tyre became politically independent when Egyptian influence in Phoenicia declined, and later it surpassed even Sidon to become the most important Phoenician trade center and seaport having commercial ties with all parts of the Mediterranean world. The city is situated on a small bulbous peninsula that juts out from the Lebanese co
Pericles' Funeral Oration, The Most Famous Speech in History
The Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens began in 431 BC and would last for almost 28 years. In the end, Sparta prevailed, but its hegemony would not last long, since first Thebes and then Macedonia, would end up imposing themselves on the Greek world. At the end of the first year of the war, the Athenians, as was their custom, gathered for a ceremony to honor and remember the fallen. As Thucydides recounts, it consisted of a procession that accompanied the ten coffins (cypress coffers,
Australia's Great Artesian Basin
Australia is dry, hot, unimaginably infertile and the most inhospitable of all inhabited continents. Yet, underneath the parched land, lies one of the world's largest source of groundwater—a vast underground aquifer, trapped within layers of impermeable rock and clay, containing an astounding 65,000 cubic kilometers of fresh water, enough to fill the Great Lakes of Northern America nearly three times over. Even the world largest freshwater lake, Lake Baikal, is 2.7 times smaller than the Gre...
The Dambusters Raid of 1943
On the night of 16-17 May 1943, a squadron of the Royal Air Force conducted a daring mission deep into German territory to destroy two dams in the Ruhr valley, the industrial heartland of Germany. The subsequent flooding destroyed two hydroelectric power plants and several factories and mines, crippling Germany's steel and coal production. The mission was codenamed Operation Chastise. One of the targets, the Möhne dam in North Rhine-Westphalia, was the largest in Europe. It was built to he...
How Mining Engineers Helped NASA Get to The Moon
The outrageous plot of NASA hiring a group of miners for a space mission may remind you of a certain Hollywood movie, but back in the mid-1960s when the space organization was trying to reach the moon, they did, in fact, look towards coal miners and their tools for inspiration. Back then, NASA had just completed designing the Saturn V, the behemoth of a rocket weighing nearly 3,000 tons that would take the first men to the moon, but they had yet to figure out how to deliver this monstrous rocket
The Nottingham Cheese Riot of 1766
1766 was a bad year for farmers. Crops failed all across Europe, and prices of wheat, flour, corn and other foodstuffs shot up as a consequence. English producers and dealers were tempted to ship much of their supplies to profitable foreign markets, and there were loud cries of protests everywhere. Dozens of food riots broke out across England where goods were seized by force. A satirical cartoon depicting a fat 'forestaller' being dragged along by a rope round his neck by a chain of
Rushton Triangular Lodge
The Triangular Lodge near Rushton, in Northamptonshire, England, is an unusual building. This three-sided house was built in the late 16th century by Sir Thomas Tresham, a devout Catholic, as a way of expressing his faith. The number three, symbolizing the Holy Trinity, is apparent everywhere, from the triangular shape to the use of the trefoil window designs, to the number of floors, the various dimensions and symbolic letters, dates, and numbers which are all multiples of three. Photo: Awe
The Turin Erotic Papyrus
The Turin Erotic Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian papyrus scroll-painting that has long been a subject of intense interest among Egyptologists, because it deals with the subject of sex rather graphically. The Turin Erotic Papyrus is believed to be created during the time of Ramesses III (roughly 1184-1153 BCE), which makes it about a thousand years older than the Kamasutra, the only other great treatise on sex from the ancient world. The original papyrus is in tatters. © Amusing Planet,
New York Moving Day: Mayhem on The Streets
The first day of May used to be absurdly chaotic for New Yorkers, for it was "Moving Day"—the once a year tradition when nearly a million tenants across the city swapped homes. Up until the end of World War 2, all leases expired simultaneously on May 1, causing everyone to change their residences, all at the same time. The landlords gave their tenants a 3-month notice informing them what the new rent would be after the end of the quarter. That day, February 1, was sometimes called "R...
Banda: The Secret Island of Nutmegs
In the Banda Sea, roughly 2,500 km east of Jakarta lies the Banda Islands, a part of Indonesia. For thousands of years, this group of ten islands were the world's only source of nutmeg and mace, which is derived from nutmeg's shell. Before the arrival of Europeans, Banda was ruled by the nobles called orang kaya, who traded with the Indians and the Arabs, who in turn sold spices to the Europeans for exorbitant prices. In those days nutmeg was worth more by weight than gold, as the spice wa...
The German-Japanese Village Where The Most Fearful Weapon Was Tested
One of the most devastating weapons ever invented was not the atomic bomb but napalm, the incendiary agent that was used extensively against German and Japanese cities during the Second World War. Napalm is a thick inflammable gel that sticks to anything that is thrown at and burns at a torturously high temperature destroying buildings made of wood or other combustible materials. Despite being inflammable, napalm is surprisingly stable at high temperatures that allow it to be easily handled and
A la Ronde: The 16-Sided House That's Never Short of Sunlight
Near the village of Lympstone, in Devon, England, stands a unique 18th century property—a one of a kind 16-sided house built by two fiercely independent spinster cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter, after they returned from a decade-long tour of Europe. Jane Parminter was the daughter of a wealthy Devon wine merchant. After her father's death in 1784, Jane set off on a grand tour of Europe, as was the custom among upper-class Britons in those times, accompanied by her invalid sister Elizabeth...
Broomway: Britain's Deadliest Path
Situated on the east coast of Essex, England, on the estuary of River Roach, Foulness Island has long been controlled by the military. The artillery range there was first established by the War Office in the mid-19th century, and is now operated by the Ministry of Defence for testing new weapons and ammunition. Being located a long way from large population centers, the island is ideally suited for this purpose. The island itself, however, is not free of civilians. Cohabiting with killer grena
Casa de las Conchas: The House of Shells
Casa de las Conchas, or the House of Shells, is a curious attraction in Salamanca, Spain. This stately mansion built between the late 15th and early 16th centuries has a façade covered with carvings of scallop shells, the symbol of the military Order of Santiago of which its first owner, Talavera Maldonado, was chancellor. Construction of the house began in 1493, but Maldonado didn't live to see its completion. After his death, the house was completed by his son Rodrigo Arias Maldonado in 15...
Huer's Hut And Pilchard Fishing
Cornwall, in southwest England, once had a thriving fishing industry and at the heart of this industry was the pilchard, also known as sardines. Cornwall fishermen caught sardines in enormous quantities and shipped them to France, Spain and Italy, where salted pilchard was in great demand especially in the remote rural regions. During the mid-18th century, Cornwall exported 30,000 hogsheads (around 6,300 tons) of pilchards every year on average. This rose to more than 40,000 hogsheads (around 8,
The Vespasianus Titus Tunnel
Around 300 BC Seleucus I founded, on the current southeast coast of Turkey, the city of Seleucia Pieria. Located north of the mouth of the Orontes River and at the foot of the Amanus Mountains, he gave it the name of Pieria, because the place reminded him of the Macedonian region of the same name. Seleucia Pieria soon became the seaport for the main city in the area, Antioquia del Orontes, and was a strategic enclave for the control of the Syrian region. For this reason, in 64 BC it was conquer
How Medieval Bridges Were Built—An Animation
Building a bridge over water is a daunting task, and despite the many technological progresses, the basics have remain unchanged since ancient times. First a cofferdam is constructed on the riverbed and the water inside this enclosed structure is pumped out, exposing the muddy button. Upon this ground the piers of the bridge are erected. The historic Charles Bridge in Prague. Photo: Adisa/Shutterstock.com © Amusing Planet, 2020.
Fokker's Synchronizing Gear And The Birth of Fighter Planes
The first airplanes to join the First World War were not made for combat. They merely played the role of an observer, scouting enemy positions and movements. Intelligence gathering was essential for warfare, and this new technological innovation made it possible for an observer to look into enemy territory surreptitiously. Predictably, the enemy began doing the same, and soon it became necessary to prevent enemy airplanes from conducting reconnaissance and surveillance. A British World War On
The Space Museum Inside a Church
About 80 km outside of Kyiv, in the small Ukrainian town of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyy, there is a large complex of museums dedicated to preserving the history, culture and architecture of Ukrainian people. The National Historical and Ethnographic Reserve contains around 30 thematic museums on different profile—history, archaeology, literacy, ethnography, technology, etc. Among these, the museum dedicated to Space Exploration is the most curious, because it is housed inside a 130-year-old wooden ...
Aqueduct of Segovia: The Mortar-Less Miracle
The aqueduct of Segovia is a classic example of Roman water transport architecture—simple in design, yet magnificent to behold, and surprisingly durable. The aqueduct was built in the 1st century AD to convey water from Frío River, 17 km away, to the city, and it has been carrying out this function in one form or another for the past 2,000 years. This is all the more impressive when you realize that this aqueduct was built without a single ounce of mortar. Segovia, situated approximately 100...
Writing Sheds of Famous Writers
Writers usually have their favorite writing spots, a small, secluded space, sparsely furnished, where creativity flows unimpeded. The chosen environment is typically distraction-free, like the library, a hotel room, inside a car, or even a prison cell. Many significant literary works have been produced from within prisons. Indeed, locking oneself up with only a typewriter, or pen and paper, is a reasonable strategy. The The Hunchback of Notre Dame became possible only because Victor Hugo placed
Glacier Birds
High in the Andes among frozen glaciers, where virtually nothing survives, a small and plump, blue-gray feathered bird lays eggs and raises their young. It is the only bird, other than emperor penguins, known to nest on ice—the most ill-suited of environments for raising young ones. The species known as the white-winged diuca-finch (Diuca speculifera) inhabits the high mountain meadows in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. The diuca finch belongs to the large Emberizidae family, members of w...
The Spectacle of Death at The Paris Morgue
Throughout the 19th century, the Paris morgue attracted thousand of visitors every day. Eager tourists consumed by a morbid fascination with death jostled in front of a large glass viewing window and craned their necks to see the corpses recently fished out of the River Seine or murdered in a gruesome fashion. Going to the morgue was often compared to going to the theatre. The official function of the morgue was identification of the bodies, but few, if any, went there with the intention of hel
The Storybook Houses of California
At the intersection of Carmelita Avenue and Walden Drive, in Beverly Hills, California, there stands a house which appears straight out of a fairytale. With its steeply pitched gable roof, wooden shingles, shutters that hang askew and small leaded-glass windows, the house appears jarringly out of place among its upscale neighbors. But the interior is quite charming and spacious with two master suites and a 3,500-square-foot floor plan. The Witch's House. Photo: Lori Branham/Flickr ©...
The Huron King Nuclear Test
The Nevada Test Site in Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles northwest of the city of Las Vegas, is scattered with relics from the United States' nuclear age. Nearly a thousand nuclear tests were conducted at this place, of which about a hundred were atmospheric. Mushroom clouds from these tests were visible from almost one hundred miles away, and their tremors were felt as far away as Las Vegas. The subsidence crater of the Huron King Test of 24 June 1980. © Amusing Planet, 2020.
Abu Ballas: The Pottery Hill
In 1917, British surveyor Dr. John Ball made an unusual discovery in the Libyan desert in Egypt. About 180 km south-west of the Dakhla Oases, he discovered two isolated sandstone cones jutting out of the desert sand. Both hills were covered with thousands of pottery, many broken but some still intact. The Egyptian explorer Prince Kamal el Dine Hussein named the archeological site Abu Ballas, or the "hill of pottery". Prince Kamal el Dine Hussein assumed that the jars were relics of fairly ...
The Strange 1940 Mid-Air Collision at Brocklesby
In New South Wales, Australia, about 120 km south of Wagga Wagga, lies a small community of farmers and cattle rearers called Brocklesby. The village was once an important station on the Culcairn-Corowa railway line, whose main purpose was to haul wheat from the region to the ports for export. Then the railway closed, and now all that remains in Brocklesby are the grain silos, the defunct railway tracks and a couple of scattered houses. It is said that the only exciting thing that ever happened
The Shirt Collar Mail
On April 21, 1906, three days after the terrible San Francisco earthquake, James Graves Jones dispatched a letter to his family in New York, informing them that he was safe and also describing the devastation in the city. The letter read: Dear Wayland and Gussie: All safe but awfully scared. Frisco and hell went into partnership and hell came out winner—got away with the sack. Draw a line from Ft Mason along Van Ness Ave. to Market St., out Market to Dolores to Twentieth, thence to Harriso...
Gbadolite: The Versailles of The Jungle
Deep in the rainforest, more than 1,000 km from Kinshasa, the capital of Democratic Republic of the Congo, lies the decaying city of Gbadolite, home to nearly two hundred thousand people. Fifty years ago, Gbadolite was a just small village of 1,500 with mud brick houses. It wasn't even marked on maps, until Mobutu Sese Seko became the president. Within a decade, Gbadolite was transformed into a sprawling city with an airport, five-star hotels, supermarkets, hospitals with high tech facilities,...
The Failed British Plan to Destroy Nazi Factories With Exploding Rats
During the Second World War, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE)—a secret organization whose job was to conduct espionage and sabotage in occupied Europe, as well as aid local resistance movements—devised an ingenious plan to blow up Nazi factories. A SOE officer posing as a student, procured about a hundred rats under the pretext of conducting laboratory experiments. The rats were killed, and their carcasses were filled with plastic explosives. The idea was to get French Resist...
Pierre André Latreille: The Entomologist Who Escaped Death Because of a Beetle
Pierre Andre Latreille owed his life to a beetle. The French zoologist is often considered to be the father of modern entomology, having made considerable additions to our knowledge of that branch of natural science, especially in the field of crustaceans and insects. He named hundreds of taxa, as well as many species and countless genera. He was the first person who attempted a natural classification of the arthropods. The concept of the "type species", where a species of a genus is regard...
The 1925 Serum Run To Nome: The Incredible Story of How a Remote Alaskan Town Was Saved From an Epidemic
In the winter of 1925, a small Alaskan town called Nome, situated on the edge of the Arctic circle, found itself on the brink of an unimaginable crisis. An outbreak of diphtheria threatened to wipe out the entire community of 1,400. Nome's lone physician, Curtis Welch, feared that if the infection spread, it could put at risk the surrounding communities totaling more than 10,000 people. A large number of these were natives who had no resistance to the disease. To make matter worse, Dr. Welchâ...
Petrozavodsk Phenomenon
On September 20, 1977, between midnight and the early hours of the morning, people over a vast region in eastern Europe, stretching from Copenhagen and Helsinki in the west to Vladivostok in the east, observed an unusual light phenomenon in the sky. According to various eyewitness reports, an unidentified luminous object appeared suddenly on the dark sky, sending pulsed shafts of light to earth. It then moved slowly and silently towards the city of Petrozavodsk and spread over it in the form of
The Underground Fortress of Château de Brézé
Château de Breze is a small castle by European standards. Occupying less than 2 acres, this modest U-shaped building surrounded by a dry moat appears nothing out of the ordinary. But beneath its humble foundation lies one of Europe's largest underground fortress. Château de Breze is located on the outskirts of the small village of Breze, in the Saumur region of the Loire Valley, France. It was built by Arthus de Maille-Breze, the then lord of the castle, in the mid-16th century. Fear...
The Disgrace of Gijon: The Match That Changed World Cup Football
For the first time in the history of FIFA World Cup, the 1982 edition of the tournament in Spain saw 24 teams take part instead of the usual 16. There were a lot of new faces, such as Algeria, Cameroon, Honduras, Kuwait, and New Zealand. Some of the regulars like Netherlands, Mexico and Sweden also failed to qualify, and this left a lot of vacancies up for grabs. Belgium, Czechoslovakia, El Salvador, England and the Soviet Union were all back in the field after more than a decade of absence. T
The Iron Bridge of Shropshire
The world's first cast iron bridge still stands in Shropshire, England, across River Severn. It's more than two hundred years old. Although cast iron has been used since ancient times to make pots and pans, cannon balls, and decorative pieces such as window grills and chimneypieces, it was never used for structural purposes until architect Thomas Farnolls Pritchard suggested that a cast iron bridge be constructed to span the Severn Gorge in Shropshire. The Severn Gorge, later renamed to the...
The Four Inch Flight: The Comical Beginning to Project Mercury
Like many firsts in spaceflight, Project Mercury began with a failure. The goal of the mission was to put a man in space and bring him safely back to earth, ideally before the Soviet Union did. The Soviets beat America by putting into orbit the first satellite, and now the race was on to put the first human. Unfortunately, Project Mercury was having trouble getting off the ground. In July 1960, the very first attempt to launch a Mercury capsule (that would carry future astronauts) on top of an
Vladimir Tatlin's Unbuilt Tower
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the leader of the victorious Bolshevik Party, Vladimir Lenin, launched a massive monument-building program across the Russian Soviet Republic, the precursor to the Soviet Union, as means for propagating revolutionary and communist ideas. As part of this unabashedly-called "Monumental Propaganda", Lenin put a young Bolshevik architect named Vladimir Tatlin in charge of creating the headquarter for the Third International—an organization that Lenin found...
Etienne Bottineau And The Lost Art of Nauscopie
Etienne Bottineau was a sailor and an employee of the French East India Company who possessed a remarkable skill. Bottineau could detect ships located beyond the horizon hundreds of miles from the coast and invisible to the eye. He would baffle anybody including his superiors by predicting the arrival of these yet-to-be-seen fleets up to four days in advance, and even correctly estimate the number of ships in the fleet. One particularly famous anecdote involving Bottineau's almost supernatura...
Désert de Retz
François Racine de Monville had at his disposal a large estate on the edge of a 2,000-hectare-forest, in the commune of Chambourcy, about 15 km to the west of Paris. Being an 18th-century French aristocrat with a sizeable passive income generated from numerous land holdings in Normandy, Monville had little to worry about finances, so he spent most of his spare time learning new social skills and honing his many talents that made him very popular at parties. A handsome and charming man, Monville...
The Audacity of Peter Tordenskjold: The Naval Captain Who Asked His Enemy For Ammo in The Middle of a Battle
On November 12, 1720 Peter Tordenskjold died in a sword duel. It will not sound familiar to most people, but he was one of the great national heroes of Denmark and Norway—countries that were once united, a daring sailor who would be the equivalent of what Nelson is to the British, Ruyter to the Dutch, Jones to the Americans or Bazan to the Spanish. Remembered in several popular songs and honored with several statues, streets, books, films and even a festival, a corvette of the Danish navy and...
Chinese Magic Mirrors
For over a thousand years, a rare type of Chinese artifact has been baffling researchers. It's a polished bronze mirror with a pattern cast on its reverse side. The polished surface appears normal and can be used as a regular mirror. But when a bright light is shone on the mirror face and the reflected light is projected on to a surface, the pattern decorating the reverse face mysteriously appears in the projected reflection, as if the solid bronze mirror had become transparent. The Chinese na...
Burnley Embankment
Regarded as one of the "Seven Wonders of British Waterways", the Burnley Embankment, locally known as "The Straight Mile", is an impressive earth embankment that carries The Leeds and Liverpool Canal some sixty feet above the town of Burnley. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal, that began construction in 1770, was originally designed to bypass Burnley in favor of the coal-and-lime-rich regions lying to the south. Burnley would have been connected to the canal by a branch heading up the valle...
The Train of The End of The World
At the southernmost tip of South America, beyond the Andes, lies the beautiful and colorful city of Ushuaia, regarded by some as the southernmost city of the world. And just beyond the city's outskirts run a small steam railway originally built to serve the penal colony of Ushuaia. Today, the Southern Fuegian Railway takes tourists along the picturesque Pico Valley, through the thickly-forested Toro gorge and into the stunning national park. Photo: Deensel/Flickr © Amusing Planet, 20...
The Post Offices of Love and Romance
The town of Bridal Veil, located in Multnomah County, Oregon, the United States, a little distance from the Bridal Veil waterfalls, remains awfully quiet throughout the year, except during wedding season. Thanks to its unique name and a small one-room post office—the town's only functioning business—Bridal Veil sees an influx of would-be couples every spring and summer, who come to this forgotten outpost just to get their wedding invitation mails cancelled by a special postmark. ©...
Anthropology Days: The Racist Olympic Event of 1904
Starting from the late 19th century through the early 20th, human exhibitions were a routine part of circuses, traveling shows, and major expositions in the west, where indigenous people from around the world and their cultures were exhibited as one displayed animals in a zoo. Exhibits for these human zoos were sourced from the tribes of Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, the Americas, and elsewhere. These men, women and children were often displayed living in mock eth
The Balmoral Pyramid
Hidden among the trees in the woods surrounding the Balmoral Castle in Royal Deeside, Scotland, are eleven stone cairns erected by Queen Victoria in honour of her family, the largest being an impressive pyramid built to commemorate the death of her beloved husband. The Balmoral Estate was bought by Prince Albert in 1852 as a gift for his wife, Queen Victoria. Because the residence that originally stood on the property was not befitting the Royal Family, Prince Albert built a bigger castle about
Vinkensport: Belgium's Competitive Bird Calling
In the Flanders region of Belgium, a favorite pastime among the old Dutch-speaking folks is raising and training the common chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)—a small passerine bird about an ounce in weight, with a bright blue-grey cap and rust-red underparts. The males of the species are the most sought after because of their brighter plumage and stronger voice, which makes them a popular caged songbird. The chaffinch breed between spring and early summer. During this period, the male chaffinch t...
Gallaudet Eleven: The Deaf 'Astronauts'
In the late 1950s, when NASA was still a young organization, one of the biggest challenges for them was to determine whether human spaceflight was a realistic possibility. One thing that was poorly understood was the the effects of prolonged weightlessness on the human body, and whether motion sickness could hinder space missions and endanger crews. In order to test how the body might react to the stomach-churning rigors of spaceflight, NASA needed people who were immune to motion sickness. An
Turlough: Ireland's Disappearing Lakes
Many lakes whose existence depends wholly on rainwater runoffs are seasonal. The phenomenon is not particularly mysterious—the lake forms when rainwater accumulates in a depression, and disappears when the water dries off. However, in Ireland, there is a type of disappearing lake that does not evaporate into the air; it drains underground. They are known as turloughs. Lough Bunny in The Burren, County Clare, Ireland, is a turlough. Every summer it drains into fissures around the lake's ...
The Erfurt Latrine Disaster
Deaths are always unfortunate and even more so if they occur as a result of an accident. But sometimes there are incidents that have particularly humiliating characteristics and probably among the worst recorded in history is the incident that occurred in Erfurt in the middle of the Middle Ages, when dozens of members of the court of Henry VI perished when the floor of the building where they were standing collapsed. Many lost their lives from the fall but others drowned in excrement as they fel
Medieval Rabbit Warrens
Back in medieval England rabbits were not bred in cages but in specially crafted earthen burrows called warrens, or pillow mounds. These were heaps of earth with multiple, well-ventilated inner chambers where rabbits mated, gave birth and raised their families. The pillow-like mounds were often built in oblong shape and sometimes were connected with each other with stone-lined tunnels. To prevent the rabbits from escaping, a field of pillow mounds was surrounded by a moat, or ditch filled with w
The Uranium Cubes From a Nazi Nuclear Reactor
In the summer of 2013, Physicist Timothy Koeth of University of Maryland received an unexpected gift from one of his friends. It was a small metallic cube, 2 inches per side, wrapped in a piece of paper. Koeth recognized the cube immediately from old grainy photos he saw in books on nuclear history, and if there was any doubt, the accompanying note settled it. It read: "Taken from Germany, from the nuclear reactor Hitler tried to build. Gift of Ninninger." This cube was one of hundreds that...
Bull Running in Britain
Bull running as a sport is mostly associated with the city of Pamplona, in northern Spain. But until the 19th century, Britain had a similar thirst for blood sport. The first documented bull running event in the British Isles took place in 1389 in the town of Stamford, in Lincolnshire. In a document recovered from the "Gild of St. Martin", the event was describes as thus: on the feast of St. Martin, this gild, by custom beyond reach of memory, has a bull; which bull is hunted [not baite...
The Very First Image on The Internet
Back in the early nineties, when the World Wide Web was still young, a group of geeky girls hailing from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)—the birth place of the World Wide Web—used to perform at the organization and other HEP (High Energy Physic) events. They called themselves the "Les Horribles Cernettes" which translates to "The Horrible CERN Girls". They sang about colliders, antimatter, Higgs boson and cosmic rays. © Amusing Planet, 2020.
The Ruins of Gleno Dam
In a small valley, among the mountains of Lombardy, in northern Italy, stands a dam, or rather, half a dam. Built on the Gleno Creek, the Gleno Dam was supposed to provide hydroelectric power to the region, but because of shoddy construction, the middle section of the dam collapsed after the reservoir was filled, leading to huge destruction along the downstream valley and the death of over 350 people. The wide gash in the dam is still visible to this day. The Gleno Dam with its gaping hole in
The B-17 That Flew With Its Tail Sliced Off
This famous photograph of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, with its tail section severed but still flying was taken during Word War 2, towards the end of the North African campaign. The story behind this photograph is an interesting one. The airplane shown in the photograph was named "All American" and belonged to the 97th Bomb Group, 414th Bombardment Squadron of the United States Air Force. © Amusing Planet, 2020.
Battle of Surfaces: The Epic Nadal Vs Federer Match
In the spring of 2007, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were two of the best tennis players in the world. But they excelled on different surfaces. Federer was the champion on grass, having won 48 consecutive encounters for 5 straight years, while Nadal was undefeated on clay for an astounding 72 consecutive matches played for 3 years. A question that invariably arose among tennis fans was: who would come out on top if Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer played on a court that is half clay and half gr
Sway Tower, The 14-Story Folly And The World Tallest Unreinforced Concrete Structure
On the outskirts of Sway, a village near Lymington, on Britain's south coast, stands a peculiar Victorian tower. Visible for miles around, the narrow rectangular tower shoots straight up into the sky for more than two hundred feet, and is crowed by a cupola. A spiraling staircase housed within a separate but adjacent hexagonal tower allows visitors access to all the fourteen floors and the top. Sway Tower is a folly, a purposeless building, that housed nothing but pigeons for more than a hun...
Arrhichion, The Olympic Champion Who Won After His Death
Pankration was a violet sport. Practiced in ancient Greece, this brutal combination of boxing and wrestling had virtually no rules. The object was to defeat the opponent by any means necessary, and this included hitting, kicking, twisting of limbs, and even strangling. The only thing competitors were not allowed to do was bite or gouge the eye. The contest ended when one of the fighters acknowledged defeat or was rendered unconscious. Many fighters lost their lives playing Pankration. Two me
Slip Coach: Trains That Split
In the middle of the 19th century, British railway engineers realized that journey times could be appreciably shortened if trains didn't have to make intermediate stops to drop off passengers. This was an era when railway companies were highly competitive, and being efficient and on time were the qualities that set apart one from another. So instead of making a stop and unloading passengers, they decoupled entire passenger cars on the fly and let them roll into the station on their own device,...
Michael Malloy: The Man Who Wouldn't Die
Killing someone takes a lot of wickedness backed by an equal amount of temerity, none of which was lacking in Tony Marino, Joseph "Red" Murphy, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kriesberg, when they gathered at a shabby speakeasy in New York City on a cold winter night in 1933, and hatched a scheme. It was the height of the Depression, and these five lowly men were struggling to make their ends meet. Tony was the proprietor of the establishment—a derelict store wedged between...
Middleton, The World's Oldest Operating Railway
The Middleton Railway in Leeds has been chugging along for the past 260 years, longer than any other railways in the world. It was established by an Act of Parliament in 1758 to transport coal from the collieries of Middleton to the factories of Leeds. At that time, rails were made of wood and although steam engines were being used in industries to drive blast furnaces and pump water from mines, nobody had incorporated one on wheels yet. The Brandlings, who operated the Middleton collieries, w
Of Mice, Men And Moon: A Short History of Animals in Space
More animals have flown to space than human beings. In the early years of space flight, all kinds of living beings from rodents to apes were strapped onto rockets and blasted out of the earth's cocoon and into the uncharted waters of space. Once they came back, their psychological effects were observed and physiological changes studied to understand the impact of exposure to space on living tissues. Many of them never made back alive. Many of us have heard of Laika, the world's first spac...
London Bridge's Nonsuch House
The Old London Bridge that stood for 600 years over Thames was the river's key crossing point, as well as the city's prime real estate area. During medieval times, it was natural for bridges to have buildings built upon them. Usually, it was a couple of shops, the bridge keeper's house, and maybe a church. But London Bridge, being long and spacious, accommodated hundreds of buildings, some of which stood seven stories high and overhung the river precariously by several feet. The London Br...
A Racing Horse Named Potoooooooo
There was once a great racehorse in 18th-century Britain named Potoooooooo, who was famed for his endurance and speed. He won over 30 races defeating some of the best racehorses of the time, and many of his victories were at distances over four miles—more than twice the distance of a typical race. Potoooooooo also had significant influence on the thoroughbred breed, having been sired by a horse named Eclipse, who was a great racehorse himself. Standing 163 cm tall, the bright chestnut Eclipse ...
Thames Tunnel: The World's First Tunnel Under a River
At the beginning of the 19th century, London was one of the busiest river ports in the world, and the 600-year old stone bridge over Thames was long out of capacity. Like many medieval bridges, this too was crammed with buildings, some of which overhung the road creating a dark tunnel through traffic passed. Although the bridge was some 8 meters wide, only half of it was available for traffic. This roadway was shared by ox-carts, wagons, coaches and pedestrians coming from both directions. At pe
Why Britain Lost 11 Days in September 1752
Do you know how many British people were born between September 3 and September 13 in the year 1752? None. Absolutely no one was born, nobody died, and no marriages took place during that period. No wars were fought, no bets were made, no trade deals were signed. As a matter of fact, these eleven days didn't even exist in the British calendar. People went to bed on the night of September 2, 1752, and woke up on September 14. The loss of eleven days was the expected consequence of changing ca...
Schuttberg: Germany's Rubble Mountains
Scores of hills dot the edges of many German cities, but these are not natural. They are known as Schuttberg, or "debris hill". Schuttbergs arose after the end of World War 2, and were created primarily from rubble generated by the destruction of German cities. Allied bombing during the six years of war laid to waste nearly every German city, town and village, destroying millions of homes, public buildings, schools, factories, as well as centuries-old cathedrals, mediaeval houses and other ...
A Licence to Watch Television
In many countries, owing a television involves more than one type of cost. First the device itself, which may cost, depending on your taste, from several hundred to several thousand dollars. Then, there are subscription fees for television channels and online streaming, as well as electricity cost. And lastly, a tax for owning the television set, especially if you live in Europe. The purpose of television licence is to fund public broadcasting services. Many state-owned TV channels are largely
Graft Chimera
On a small traffic island on Rodney Road, in Backwell, in the English county of North Somerset, stands a horticultural curiosity—a cherry tree producing two distinct colors of blossom: pink on one side and white on the other. The dual-color tree is thought to have been planted in the late 1950s. Its name, Strawberries and Cream Tree, was given by the town's children. The Strawberries and Cream Tree in Backwell, North Somerset, England. Photo: Mojo0306/Wikimedia Commons © Amusing Pla...
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Watch the full trailer for Netflix's 'Breaking Bad' mo...' in tech
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Bill O'Reilly Mocks Maxine Waters' Hair While She's Busy Tac...' in T.V.
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Why Han And Chewie Will Butt Heads In Solo: A Star Wars Stor...' in movies
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Just three days to save on passes to TC Sessions: Space 2020' in tech
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Sony Sells Majority Stake In Its Crackle Streaming Service T...' in vids
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Ajak Deng Returns to Modeling a Week After Announcing Her Re...' in fashion
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'US election: 'Help! Everyone around me disagrees with my pol...' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Orioles To Re-Sign Craig Gentry' in baseball
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Comet Lake i5 2-in-1 15.6" Laptop for ...' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'JackRabbit - In-Cart Price: Asics Gel-Nimbus Running Shoes (...' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'How a Day Without Immigrants Affects Restaurants' in food
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'WATCH: The most Oscar-worthy reenactments of Tiffany Trumpâ€...' in lgbt
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'How to watch, stream 2017 NFL Pro Bowl: Start time, TV chann...' in golf
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Brownie Ornaments, Pantry Cheat Sheets and 12 Days of Christ...' in food
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Mom Has Stacked Dinner Party Roster' in humor
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'How to Save an Overwatered Plant' in how-to
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Proozy - Reebok Men's Relay Jacket $9.99' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Cinnamon French Toast with Fresh Berries, Easy 20 Meal Plan ...' in food
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'The Con Man So Good, He Had Mind Control Powers (Basically)' in humor
muskanrajput077 liked the article '10 casual shoes and sandals for vegans' in green
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Why Heath Ledger's Joker Wouldn't Scare Joaquin Phoenix ...' in movies
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Weiner scientist decides to air fry a hotdog for 2 hours. We...' in humor
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Gigi Hadid' in entertainment
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Coronavirus: What has Covid done for climate crisis?' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, suspected Mumbai attack leader, jailed...' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Pubarash Lulu Demo by Edric Studio' in web development
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Amazon - Portable Sealing Machine $9.99' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Contrary to popular belief, these things aren't actually b...' in humor
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Dear Brands, Quit Trying to Be My Best Friend' in fashion
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Gucci Mane Wears $10,000 Outfit for Verzuz Battle with Jeezy...' in fashion
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'How to Set up a Mouse Cage' in how-to
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Twitter Mailbag: 'Cowboy' Cerrone's schedule, Chan Sung Jung...' in mma
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'FREE Baby Zombie Hand FREE' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Karasha by Nurf Designs' in web development
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'CS Video: Gleeson, Robbie and the Goodbye Christopher Robin ...' in movies
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Ryu Ranger : Legacy Wars' in art
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Population density and virus strains will affect how regions...' in science
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Boba Explained: A Taxonomy of Taipei's Bubble Tea' in food
muskanrajput077 liked the article ' Giada De Laurentiis and Todd Thompson Break Up: 23 Meals...' in entertainment
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Grandma picks up a guitar at a music show.' in vids
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Frigidaire Nespresso Capsule Compatible Coffee Maker for $63...' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Billionaire Mike Novogratz says Bitcoin will hit $65,000 —...' in business
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Bioengineering a "Mini-Pancreas" for Insulin Pro...' in health
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'New research reveals a personality trait that can make you a...' in business
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Gen-Z Contestants Chase Wordy Highs, 'Spellebrity' Statu...' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Certified Refurb Acer Spin 3 10th-gen i5 14" Laptop for $480...' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'ASRock Deskmini 110W Intel LGA1151 Mini Barebone System $89....' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Tillys Extra 50% Off Red Tag: Girls' Soda Cozy Classic Girls...' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article '16-Count 4-Oz Dial Antibacterial Deodorant Bar Soap (Various...' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Joe Manganiello Has Written a 'Dungeons & Dragons' M...' in movies
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Space is Big, Empty, and Very Very Lonely. ' in science
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'NBA Draft Grades: Evaluating each team's full draft; Celtics...' in golf
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'April Ryan Got Protection After Receiving Ominous Threats Fo...' in entertainment
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Trump Tariffs Inspire Some to Stockpile Wine and Cheese' in food
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Danny Boyle to Direct Sex Pistols Limited Series For FX' in movies
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Amazon - Acrylic Paint Pour Split Cup $12.99' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Pet cat feared dead in 2018 California mudslide is found ali...' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Ex-Defense Secretary says 'we are standing on the abyss of t...' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Sallsa by AEN Creative Studio' in web development
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Donut Media Sees Open Lane In $11 Billion Online Video Niche' in vids
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'How Your Period Changes During Your 20s, 30s And 40s' in health
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Hurricane Dorian targeting Cape Fear for possible US landfal...' in weather
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Mattis seeks to ban cell phones from Pentagon' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Hychika 3.6V Cordless Screwdriver Kit for $22 + free shippin...' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Donald Trump Is Godfather of a Democratic Renaissance' in politics
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Kimberly Guilfoyle -- Donald Trump Jr.'s girlfriend and top ...' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Parler jumps to No. 1 on App Store after Facebook and Twitte...' in tech
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Sun Flowers by Leonid Afremov' in art
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'New Google UX Playbook Leaked – Autos by @martinibuster' in web marketing
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'YouTube suspends Donald Trump's channel' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Developer Reveals Jet Set Radio Visual Proof of Concept Rece...' in video games
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Reality Check' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Biden expected to name 1st wave of White House senior staff' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Still No Effective Treatment for Zika Virus' in health
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Stealth Is More Significant in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Tha...' in video games
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Latest On Red Sox, Alex Cora' in baseball
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'This Week In Trailers: Run Hide Fight, Go/Don't Go, Music,...' in movies
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Sweetgreen's Now Selling Home Goods at Its New NYC Locatio...' in food
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Calgary minister all shook up by trademark dispute with Elvi...' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'From Bitcoin to McCain's Senate Seat: Let's Break Down E...' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Friday the 13th: The Game Release Date Finally Nailed Down' in video games
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Melania Trump Settles With Daily Mail Parent Company Over Es...' in entertainment
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Coca-Cola Says It Won't Ditch Plastic Bottles' in food
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'The Bills fire general manager Doug Whaley the morning after...' in sports
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Vore Morphs for Giant Fantasy Snake by Predatron' in art
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Kevin Spacey Turns To YouTube For Oblique Retort To New Sexu...' in vids
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'The Bookworm's Guide to Paris (and What to Read Before ...' in animals
muskanrajput077 liked the article '2 California wildfires remain out of control' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'adidas Men's Ultraboost Running Shoes (Core Black / Core Bla...' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Bikini-Clad Lindsay Lohan and Boyfriend Egor Tarabasov Pack ...' in entertainment
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Trump says White House task force has done its job' in news
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Miracle Nature by Letterena Studios' in web development
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Anti Sam and Sam Meet' in art
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Blue Jays Exercise R.A. Dickey's Option' in baseball
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Latest Crossout Update Offers New Game Modes and Reworking t...' in video games
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Radio Flyer Fold 2 Go Children's Tricycle in Classic Red - $...' in shopping
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Can Primary Tumors Program Cancer Cells to Become Dormant an...' in health
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Marshawn Lynch is a big name but not a big addition for the ...' in sports
muskanrajput077 liked the article 'Pelosi just trolled Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Again' in news


text:
Itineraries: Monferrato, Acqui Terme and Brachetto Docg, a walk in the hills Unesco
By Ada Parisi travel	March 21, 2017
It is said that the Sun is the best State to admire a territory. In my three-day trip in the hills of Monferrato Asti and Alessandria have not been very fortunate from the climatic point of view: I was expecting Sun, light and warmth, and instead I got mostly fog, rain and wind. But I made a virtue of necessity and I learned to appreciate the shadows and clouds, Eventually, gave a poignant and romantic air to these unique landscapes, they have become in 2014 Unesco. In these lands, keepers of high quality products, as Brachetto d'acqui Docg or robiola di Roccaverano Dop, the month of March is a period of low tourist season. For me, that i don't like crowded places, I prefer quiet days, a perfect opportunity to build a route between good food, great wine, culture and stunning scenery. The itinerary that I propose part from Acqui Terme and tap Canelli, Roccaverano, the underground cathedrals of the sparkling wine, the wineries that produce Brachetto Acqui Docg and not only so many restaurants to enjoy the excellent cuisine of Piedmont.
The Roman aqueduct of Acqui
The wine-growing hills around Acqui
ACQUI TERME – My itinerary starts from the heart of the Val Bormida, from Acqui Terme. Ancient city, of Roman origins, with the remains of an aqueduct at the bridge over the river Bormida Carlo Alberto and known for centuries for the inexhaustible thermal resources, Acqui Terme is a medieval village, that in its historical centre preserves a cathedral (dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta) and the Paleologi Castle (known since 1000 a.d.), Today it houses the archaeological museum. Start your day with a stroll through the narrow cobbled streets and cobblestones and admire along the way some of the most beautiful buildings of the city, including Casa Lingeri (Eighteenth century), House (Fifteenth century), Carter House (Fifteenth century) and the former Church and convent of Santa Caterina (Sixteenth century). Obviously, in Acqui si is to soak in the hot springs, both those of Grand Hotel liberty in Central Italy, and in those of the bathing area. Healthy waters (Salt-bromine-iodic) that flow primarily from Boiling fountain, at a temperature of 75 degrees (don't touch her in a boyish enthusiasm or, as I did, there a nasty sunburn). A magical place, I advise you to visit the night, silent.
THE CULINARY TRADITION OF ACQUI: Acqui and the Val Bormida are places of great culinary traditions. The proximity to the border and the influences of this kitchen are noticed in the bakery preparations, they see the chickpea flour; or in the custom of cooking rabbit with olives, but also in the habit of routinely prepare the cod, Despite the Sea being away at least 100 km. Traditional Piedmont more exquisitely Acqui boasts the butchery, dairy products, as the goat formaggette, the use of nuts (such as those used to prepare the traditional hazelnut cake), Obviously the truffles (that here, as at sunrise, in the Langhe, can be found in abundance). In the wine industry, Acqui is world famous for its Brachetto, a wine produced from the autochthonous red grape. The most famous is the Brachetto Acqui Docg, common thread of my trip, protected by the Consortium: a Ruby red wine, with aromas of rose, version sweet and bubbly, that the harvest of 2018 will be produced in the dry version is stopped is bubbly.
What to buy in Acqui Terme
WHAT TO BUY – Among the many delights of Acqui Terme, I recommend you bring home at least a pound of ravioli del plin, You can buy in one of the many pasta makers (as El Canton of fresh post, in Piazza San Guido), some robiola di Roccaverano in different ages; amaretti di Acqui, you will find in all the bakeries in the city, the Cardoon of Nizza Monferrato, the PGI Piedmont hazelnuts and hazelnut cake. Lovers of cheeses and meats will have fun with tome of Piedmont, cheeses in Hay or Marc and the excellent local cold cuts. From on-site hot gustara, Instead, the chickpea flour, known here for an ancient past that Genoa had on these territories. Obviously, don't forget to take home a few bottles of good wine, starting from Brachetto d'acqui Docg, but also Dolcetto d'acqui, passing through the Moscato di Asti, La Barbera, the friendly, Freisa.
CELLAR VIOTTI – Guido Viotti is unstoppable. Former teacher and winemaker at seventh generation, with a passion for cooking, loves to talk of his wines around a table spread with food, or walking through the rows of vineyards to 300 meters high in the town of Castel Rocchero. At his side in the Viotti Wines There's White daughter, young and prepared. Descendant of Giovanni Battista Viotti, Vercelli musician of the 19th century to which it attaches the anthem La Marseillaise, Guido has a great eye for the ancient plants, who loves to retrieve one by one in the garden around the House: rose apples, Apple pomace, horse chestnut, Cherry cherry image. Everything becomes raw material for its preparations. With apples, the plums, dried fruit and wine, Guido does mustard, that is very jealous. Lover of Piedmontese traditions, at times nostalgic of bygone days, often tells of local traditions that are losing over the generations. But in her drawer there is always the idea of creating a Museum of old techniques of cultivation of vines.
The Viotti wines is a small company, of 16 hectares (35 thousand bottles) where in addition to Brachetto d'acqui produced Muscat, Barbera and Albarossa, but also Pinots, Cortese and Dolcetto. The vineyards benefit from these heights of wind that comes from the nearby Liguria. You don't do the biological, but 20 years don't use herbicides and 12 years no artificial fertilizer, only the manure. Since 1978, the Viotti Wines grow Brachetto. The first bottles date back to 1982. "Autignan" is one of the labels that takes more: a brachetto latch (dry) that, After changing the specification of March 2017, will go out of scope of table wines and by 2018 boast the Docg. The labels of the bottles, very nice, were conducted by friend and designer friulano, Walter Pozzebon. Guido greets us not before showing us one of his highlights: a Duja (container for wine) by family, in pure chestnut, of over two hundred years, completely restored.
WHERE TO EAT – In Acqui Terme is almost compulsory to try the restaurant's kitchen The Caffi: is a Michelin-starred restaurant, find a kitchen very faithful to the local gastronomic tradition. However, if you do not want to face a busy dinner, You can stop to eat in the brasserie or just grab a tasty drink at the cocktail bar. Holders, In fact, they know at the same time seize the fads and remain firmly anchored to the fundamentals of the Piedmont cooking. If you want, Click here to read the full review of local.
The Canelli hills
Gancia and cathedrals of the traditional method
The castle Gancia
Canelli church
CANELLI – Canelli, for wine, is the silicon valley of the Piedmont. This town has been the history of the industry and it still represents a significant portion, given the presence of historic wineries and dozens of companies working on technologies applied to wine. The city lies between the Langhe and Monferrato and is divided between the lower city, the ' Burgh' and city high, ' Villanuova ': in the village, more modern, There are major wineries and the famous underground cathedrals Unesco. Climbing up a hill is the oldest part of Canelli, dominated by the Castello Gancia. I suggest you walk the Sternia, ancient medieval road, built with river stones (careful not to slip), that from the village leads to the Hill: joints in square, You can admire the Piazza San Leonardo with its Baroque church and, especially, the view of the town below, with its many red tile roofs. Asti preserved Baroque in Canelli other fine examples, including the Church of San Rocco.
The town of Canelli already in the 15th century was known as wine production area. Over the centuries became a customs area, the border between the Kingdom of Savoy and the powerful Duchy of Mantua. And in the rock that makes up much of the underground tunnels and caves were excavated used as warehouses for goods passing from the Savoy to the Duchy. These structures survived to historical events, becoming wine stores and thus arriving intact up to the present day. Today there are 20 km of tunnels in Canelli. Three of them belong to Cellar Gancia.
GANCIA – Just in Canelli Camillo Gancia, After a trip to France and after the first trials in his Chivasso (Turin), decided to transfer the production and, in 1865, It was the first that saw the light in Canelli spumante metodo classico Italian. It was done with the varietal key to these areas the Muscat, and Gancia called Muscat Champagne. Camillo Gancia was the pioneer of Italian sparkling wine and the winery went through the history of Italy: millions of people partied toasting with champagne Gancia, symbol of Italian style, until, in 2012, the cellar is passed into the hands of Russian entrepreneur Roustam Tariko. Today Gancia is a giant of the production of moscato and not only, with cooperative members and more than 20 220 million bottles per year. And just from these amazing galleries, where produce sparkling wines, Thanks to the idea of Enzo Gancia was born the idea of presenting the candidature of this territory to Unesco as a world heritage site. In the early 2000s, the dossier on underground cathedrals – born from the idea of Enzo Gancia – Finally took shape, extending to the whole territory and encompassing the vineyard landscape: in 2014 it's valuable recognition.
THE CANELLI AREA – The Piedmont is not only wine. Family history Sconfienza has more than a century. Were Francis, the great-grandfather of the current owners, and his wife Rosa Bertello, to lay the foundations for what has become today The Canelli Area, Calamadrana-based company that represents an important reference point for the production of Italian vermouth. In 1890, Francis Sconfienza founds the Canelli area as cooperage, but his wife Rosa, passionate about herbs and aromatics, begins a few years after experimenting with wine-based infusions and medicinal and aromatic herbs. Homemade recipes, which in 1920 started a first small production. It was in 1947 that his three children revealed himself to Alfredo Pink Bailie, Edward and Mario the secret recipe of your vermouth. And from that moment the Canelli area starts to stand out in the market. Today in these labs, managed by Alfredo, Brunette and Lucia Sconfienza, We produce some of the best Piedmont Vermouth. And from here and around the world, especially for the United States. Lucia Sconfienza is in love with her work: has that enthusiasm, passion and dedication that you can't pretend, who are true and engaging. The eyes shine when he talks of almost nine hundred formulas of aromatic spirits stored in company. Underlying everything is the certainty of being on the right track, to continue with the work started by the family: It starts with a careful selection of medicinal plants and the use of wine, often obtained from grapes of Piedmont to tie the product to the territory. All stages of production are looking for maximum product naturalness, from the extraction of the essences of medicinal plants: Absinthe, Sage, Green Walnut, Myrtle, rhubarb and gentian, main ingredient for a quality vermouth. The essences are extracted at room temperature, or cold, using alcohol to 35 degrees which is dripped on torn aromatics and, subsequently, rest for two weeks. Operation that is repeated several times to find the right balance of taste. Then, is the experience to find the right formula to apply. The Canelli area produces about one million bottles, of which 30% and the remaining brand for third parties, and traveling around the world.
Restaurant By Violetta
WHERE TO EAT– Between a cellar, a visit to the historic town of Canelli and some depiction in heritage hills, you could spend a lunch or dinner in the restaurant By Violetta. Here awaits you a Cook of ninety years, Violetta, demonstrating far less by its age is in the kitchen and in the spirit. From his hands out the traditional dishes of Piedmont that became a symbol of Italian cuisine: Bonet, Vitello tonnato, Tajarin 40 out, raviolini del plin and financier, that Violetta prepares jealously alone. In the Hall there is his son Charles, He has the rare gift of knowing receive the customer as if it were one of the family, with elegance, guiding the choice never impose it, valuing the dishes coming from the kitchen and knowing perfectly capture the tastes of the guest.
Among the starters, There is also a veal with tuna sauce, raw meat fassona bred with a knife, the artichoke with poached egg and parsley sauce (everyone at 9 euros), But even the Cardoon of Nizza Monferrato, with the classic cheese fondue (10 euro). Among the first, I tasted the agnolotti Malhotra (12 euros), that Violetta prepares by hand, as well as tajarin with ragu (10 euro) and the gnocchi with sausage gravy (10 euro). Among the second, the very rare and unobtainable finanziera (17 euro) made with the innards and poor parts of beef, poultry or pork; then the Guinea Hen stuffed with vegetables (14 euros) and the braised veal in Barbera wine (14 euros). Of course I could not resist the call of Piedmontese cheese cart and I gave up for a taste of Arabia, robiola cheeses and blue cheeses (12 euros). But the sweet I tasted my companion's plate anyway and I assure you that the bonet of violet (7 euros) is the best I've ever tried.
ROBIOLA DI ROCCAVERANO DOP – The hills of Monferrato Asti and Alessandria have one of PDO Italian agrifood: the Robiola di Roccaverano, the first goat cheese to obtain Dop. Matthew Marconi took me on his farm in Damas, where I could have a close look at this extraordinary product. I made a video on production phases starting from the most important thing: the goats. If you want to see it and learn more, you can click here to read my article on the robiola di Roccaverano Dop.
Monastero Bormida
Rocchetta Palafea
TO SEE – On the roads of Robiola, you will meet two very pretty medieval villages. Rocchetta Palafea on top of the hills, and to Damas, in the Valley, with a castle built on the ruins of a monastery dating back to the year 1000 and a long stone bridge, really impressive at sunset. Both are worth a short stop for some photo shoot.
BASEMENT THREE CENTURIES – Helium Pandey, modern Director, sympathetic and forward-looking, greeted me in his basement in Mombaruzzo. The Three Centuries is a cooperative that brings together 400 Vintners who grow 1,200 acres, Brachetto grapes of which 145. Very important point of reference for the territory, La cantina, born in 1887, produces Barbera, Muscat, Brachetto and other varieties of territory as the friendly, Grignolino, the Albarossa, The Gavi, a total of 30 labels. Here the wine Brachetto is an institution, as well as the Moscato. Along with Helium, He is also vice President of the consortium of Brachetto d'acqui Docg, I was lucky enough to open a bottle of Moscato D'Asti dated 1973: you read that right, 1973. Covered with dust, with a CAP that could fail to properly store your wine, This bottle not betrayed us. Well, even in more than forty years away, This white wine has given us great surprises: with its crisp yet scents of apricot, honey, Pera, a lively yet acidic thrust. Concrete evidence of how the wine knows evolve and give emotions.
WHERE TO EAT – Before you visit the Bersano Wine, don't forget to stop in the historic centre of Nizza Monferrato to laze on the premises of the regional wine cellar, at the restaurant Lady in red", a name referring to the Barbera d'Asti that here in Nice is declined for women. There are territorial specialties served in a rustic-chic, with vaulted ceilings and red brick on the walls all wines of the local wineries. Not to be missed, among the starters, the vegetable flan with fondue of Raschera cheese (7 euros); veal with tuna sauce (8 euro), raw meat to the monferrina (9 euro). Among the first, ever the ravioli del plin monferrina and the noodles with meat sauce with sausage: both dishes at 8 euro. The second point on meats: Roast rabbit with potatoes (10 euro), the fassona cut (15 euros). Among the desserts, I suggest you try the typical pecan pie, without flour, served with a warm eggnog Moscato D'Asti, matched by a glass of Brachetto d'acqui Docg.
BAILEY WINES – For wine Brachetto, the Bailey Wines is synonymous with nautical history, because this wine, as we know it today, you have an intuition of its founder Arturo Bersano. The company was founded in 1935 but was in the 1950s that Arturo created for the first time a sweet sparkling version, and low-alcohol, from this aromatic vine. Nizza Monferrato based company today is one of the most important representatives of these types. Owned by households Magdoza and Soave, the Bersano wine has eleven farms around the country, that help diversify production: from Barolo Serralunga d'Alba Moscato D'Asti Docg and the Nice.
Beyond wine production, edited by Philip Mobrici and responsible agronomic oenologist Roberto Mallon, Bersano is also a synonym of local culture and food. Arturo Bersano, eclectic, read, passionate collector, He bequeathed to the winery a wealth of objects that today give rise to two museums. The first devoted to agricultural implements and all those objects that revolve around wine and agriculture: tini, mortars, carts, massive wood presses, bottles and kegs (Wooden containers used to transport the wine). The other Museum is dedicated to the press of the time, including some official documents, photographs and letters that allow the visitor to retrace backwards the golden years of Italian wine and food, but also to learn more about the extraordinary cultural eclecticism and the human value of Arturo Bersano. La cantina di Nizza Monferrato, on the banks of the river Belbo, It is also the seat of the confraternity of Bagna Cauda (traditional Piedmontese dish known oil-based, garlic, salted anchovies and butter), founded in 1964 by Arturo Bersano.
WHERE TO EAT – The last restaurant that I recommend in Acqui Terme is run by a young chef, who has had three generations of cooks acquesi. The New Pai It is a historical place, in an antique building of 1700 and offers one of the best traditional Piedmontese and kitchens, in particular, acquesi. By clicking here You can read the full review of this restaurant that has its point of strength in the perfect combination of tradition and elegance.
TAGS: Brachetto Acqui DocgWhat to buy in MonferratoPiedmontese cuisinewhere to eat in Acqui Termeweekend in monferratoItinerari piemonteLanghe monferrato roero unescoMonferrato Unesco
Blood oranges of Etna
Reviews: Sbanco, pizza and real ales ...
Itineraries: Pastena and Pontecorvo, Ciociaria between ...
The revolution of Bardolino Chiaretto, 50 shades ...
Travel itineraries: Cortona, Tuscany that ...
Seal Jelmar La Fauci, between sea and ...
Itineraries in Val d'Orcia: landscapes, villages and ...
Reviews: "Josto" opens in Cagliari. At Flemmi ...
nidon't − = twor

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In young dogs, viral infection can predispose the lungs to bacterial invasion, and true pneumonia results. "Kennel cough" is the name given to a syndrome caused by viruses and bacteria. It usually results in mild symptoms, mild or no pneumonia, and it resolves within 5 to 7 days. Severe symptoms in combination with poor appetite could indicate pneumonia, or inflammation and consolidation of the lung tissue, a complication of kennel cough. This disease can be difficult to distinguish from pneumonia associated with canine distemper virus, which can attack the nervous system after causing respiratory signs. Young animals can also develop pneumonia because of an abnormal immune system or an inability to respond to an infection. Specific diagnostic tests can be required in these instances.
A complete blood count (CBC) is used to evaluate the body's response to infection by assessing the numbers and types of white cells present. The total number of white cells is usually increased in a dog or cat with pneumonia. Increased neutrophils (a type of white blood cell) are exposed when bacteria are the cause of pneumonia. Parasites or a hypersensitivity response can cause an increase in eosinophils (a type of white blood cell) and fungal infection usually results in increases in both neutrophils and monocytes (another white blood cell).
Your veterinarian may also elect to perform a blood chemical profile and urinalysis to make sure that the liver and kidneys are functioning properly prior to therapy.
Chest x-rays are always recommended when pneumonia is suspected. The x-ray pattern helps determine the most likely cause of pneumonia and also assesses the severity of the disease. Depending on the changes that are seen on x-ray and your animal's general health, your veterinarian may recommend light sedation or anesthesia to obtain samples from the airway for culture and analysis. Airway sampling through a tracheal wash or bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage may be offered.
Most animals with pneumonia usually require initial treatment in the hospital. This is particularly true when your pet is dehydrated or requires oxygen therapy because supportive care is important in aiding resolution of pneumonia. In addition to these treatments, animals often receive "nebulization" and "coupage" therapy to remove excessive secretions from the lung and improve breathing. This type of therapy is achieved by supplying moisture-laden air to your dog or cat in a closed environment and then lightly tapping the chest with a cupped hand to loosen mucus. Sometimes this therapy is also required when animals are discharged from the hospital. Ultrasonic nebulizers can be purchased for home use from a hospital supply company or respiratory therapy unit.
Bacterial pneumonia requires treatment with specific antibiotics that are directed against the organisms isolated from the lung. In severe cases, intravenous (IV) antibiotics are used, which then can be changed to oral medications once the animal's clinical condition is improved. All antibiotics prescribed must be administered to your pet for the full course of treatment. Before stopping any medications, please consult with your veterinarian. Any medication used to treat pneumonia can be associated with side effects such as loss of appetite, vomiting, or diarrhea.


text:
Sticky Post By lia Posted in Bali, Indonesia, Review With 1 Comment Permalink
February 25, 2017 lia
Seminyak, Legian or Kuta? Bali for people who don't like to travel (and five disappointments for people who do)
Sticky Post By lia On February 25, 2017 With 1 Comment
What's the dirty secret behind all those perfect Bali beach sunsets on Instagram?
Bali is famous for its beautiful beaches, friendly locals and delicious food. So why is it that so many tourists stick to the towns immediately surrounding the airport, where there are dirty beaches, few locals and only western food to be found?
We decided to stay in Seminyak — the latest beach town to disthrone Kuta as the most developed tourist area of Bali — because we were visiting Australian friends who were staying there and because we could walk to the beach with our surfboard directly from our villa without needing to take a taxi. What we didn't know…
1. Seminyak, Legian, Kuti, Canggu beaches are filthy
What you can't see in all of those stunning sunset images of Bali is the black sand beach full of trash in the foreground. Considering how much tourists value clean beaches, and considering how much of a driver to the economy tourism is in Bali, I expected the beaches to be well kept and clean. What I didn't know is that the rains push all of the plastic rubbish from the land into the sea during the rainy season, and then when the onshore winds start — especially in January-March — all of that trash washes up onto the beach. Beaches in front of five star hotels, fancy restaurants and nightclubs also weren't cleaned up. Just when we had almost abandoned hope, a Bali-wide beach cleanup was conducted on February 19th, the 'biggest beach clean-up in Bali, in 45 location points by thousands of participants spread across all of Bali's regions.' What a difference! If I had known, I would have happily joined the initiative, but we were very happy to enjoy the fruits of all of the volunteers' labour. Thank you for making Bali beautiful again. However…
2. The surf is not up (on the west coast from January – March)
Once we managed to walk through all of the trash and past the 'No swimming – dangerous' sign with a skull and cross bow on it ('Mummy, where are the pirates?') and found a (very informative) lifeguard to talk to, we learned why there were no surfers in Seminyak beach — all the decent surf is on the east coast in this season. The onshore winds make big waves, but they are choppy and not fun. But bad winds on the west coast mean great waves on the east coast, and he gave us lots of tips on surf spots and buying second hand surfboards. Once we found 'Kiana' — the 6'6 newest member of our family — and had a few decent surf days, all was forgiven. But when it was time to fill our empty surf bellies…
3. Food is expensive, western and bad
This is a bit of an unfair title, because we did eventually find a few little gems in Seminyak and Canggu, but it took a full week before we enjoyed a delicious meal on the southwest coast. Many of the establishments in Seminyak proudly boast 'Australian owned and operated', though I think much tastier in Australia. The only time we got sick on our whole family sabbatical — after eating lots of street food in Vietnam and Philippines — was at a nice Italian restaurant in Seminyak. We had mediocre salads, mediocre breakfasts, and even the fruit juices were bland and tasteless. Good meals we had along the coast included:
The Savage Kitchen, Canggu — excellent salads $5-15
The Joglo, Canggu — good pizzas, big outdoor playground for children $10-20
Soho, Seminyak — excellent burgers $8-15
Wacko Burger Cafe, Kuta — very excellent burgers $8-15
Sangsaka Restaurant, Seminyak — excellent pricey Indonesian food $20-40
Streetside Nasi Goreng, Everywhere $2-4
Streetside Coconuts, Everywhere $1-3
It took a long time for us to get far enough out of the main areas to find tasty street food, because…
4. Unless you are willing to risk your life and ride a scooter, it's difficult to get around
Bali seems to be designed for scooters, and we saw lots of families riding around confidently with everyone in tow on a single scooter. But with little experience riding scooters and no children's helmets available, we couldn't shake the feeling that it was a bad idea for us to take our two little ones on a scooter. In our first two weeks in Bali, we saw half a dozen tourists in casts / wheelchairs / on crutches and our taxi was in an accident with a scooter. Walking around is also rather precarious though, as you are mostly sharing curvy roads with scooters and cars. When there is a sidewalk, there are usually scooters driving up onto it and racing past because Bali traffic is horrendous at all hours of the day, all days of the week. It's also generally 30-35 degrees celsius outside. But if you want a break from the heat and relax in an air conditioned taxi…
5. Taxis are controlled by the mafia and local militias
I love taking taxis and talking with drivers to get a feel for a place. I've learned so much from taxi drivers worldwide. In Bali, we couldn't quite figure out why some taxis had metres and others refused to use them, so we started using Uber. But the Uber drivers were acting strange. As soon as you were connected to a driver, their car would stop moving on the app, and it always said they were six minutes away. And then we would start getting messages from the driver, asking for a 'safe pick up please', or saying 'hurry up, there are lots of taxi drivers here' (when the app was telling us they were still six minutes away!).
Slowly we pieced together the mystery — the taxi system is highly localised and controlled by the mafia and local militias. Uber drivers are constantly being bullied and intimidated, though no one would actually tell us what was happening to them. The local taxi companies use the Uber app to find drivers, so as soon as they have a pick up they turn of their GPS so they can't be detected. Some areas are more off-limits than others, so in Canggu for example, it was much more difficult to find an Uber than in Seminyak.
We took local taxis whenever we could find them, and Ubers whenever we needed to be picked up from a difficult to explain location. Uber is quite a bit cheaper than taxis, but taxis are very reasonably priced along the west coast anyways. It costs $15-20 to get a taxi from the coast to Ubud, or $10-15 to catch an Uber.
So you really have no excuse to stay along the Australianised southwest coast — where Australians who don't like to travel will feel perfectly at home. For everyone else, I recommend to go directly to Ubud, or at least Canggu.
Seminyak, Legian or Kuta? Bali for people who don't like to travel (and five disappointments for people who do) March 5th, 2017lia
Useful. We are thinking of coming over this week.


text:
/* Import the common styles from typography like link colors. */
@import 'typography.css';

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Holy Weapon is a 1993 Hong Kong wuxia film directed by Wong Jing. The film's Chinese title means Seven Princesses of Wuxia.

Plot
Holy Weapon presents the story of Seven Maidens who are recruited to challenge the threat posed by a Japanese swordsman of supernatural power and ability. Sword fighting, sorcery, mistaken identities and gender bending abound in this 1993 wire fu film.

The film is notable for a sequence in which six of the princesses "combine" into one giant warrior by standing on top of each other, invoking Super Robot tropes such as the "firing fist". this movie based from mixing gu long novels and ATV Hong Kong TV series: PARAGON OF SWORD AND KNIFE

Cast
Michelle Yeoh as Mon Ching-sze: Mo Kake's wife, who becomes stoic and jaded after his corruption and abandonment. She disguises herself as a man and becomes a ruthless vigilante and defender of women. She holds the key to unlocking the Yuen Tin Swords Technique, the only thing capable of destroying the Super Sword.
Damian Lau as Mo Kake: Ching-sze's husband and a great swordsman, who originally defeated the Super Sword. He was able to do this by artificially increasing his power, though this corrupts him and he goes into hiding. Eventually he becomes cleansed and trains the Seven Maidens.
Dicky Cheung as Ng Tung: The childish and goofy husband of Doll, he dreads losing his virginity to her. He is revealed to be able to turn into a woman by getting wet, and replaces the Princess as a member of the Seven Maidens. His wife in the end chooses to leave him.
Simon Yam as Super Sword: From Japan, he is the greatest swordsman in the world with a variety of supernatural powers. He is obsessed with getting revenge on Mo Kake, returning after 3 years to fight him again.
Ng Man-tat as Ghost Doctor: A wise but friendly sage, he is an old friend of Mo Kake who helps him recover from his corruption, and reunites him with his wife. He is the one who gathers the Seven Maidens, but is killed by the Super Sword.
Carol Cheng as Doll: Ng Tung's domineering and aggressive wife, who is desperate to consummate their marriage. She is put off by Yam Kin-fai's affections, but after his transformation into a woman, they become friends and fellow eligible bachelorettes.
Sandra Ng as Yam Kin-fai: The bumbling and incompetent bodyguard to the Princess, who falls in love with Doll. Born a man inside a woman's body, Yam is transformed into a (virgin) woman to complete the Seven Maidens by bringing out her lost feminine nature.
Maggie Cheung as Princess Tin Heung: Spoiled and selfish, she runs away from home to escape an arranged marriage to a Korean prince.  She falls in love Ng Tung, who she saves by allowing the Super Sword to hold her hostage.
Sharla Cheung as Spider: A man-killing Spider Ninja who is part of a group ordered to take the Princess back home. She defects after witnessing the master of her group raping her teammate. She was initially in love with Mon Ching-sze, before realizing she was a woman.
Charine Chan as Butterfly: Spider's tomboyish subordinate in their group, she looks up to Spider as an older sister.
Esther Kwan as Blonde: The gentle and kindhearted daughter of Ghost Doctor, who she serves as an assistant and apprentice to.

External links

Holy Weapon on lovehkfilm.com

1993 films
Hong Kong martial arts films
Wuxia films
Films directed by Wong Jing
1990s Hong Kong films

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia