A self portrait of Michelangelo has been uncovered during the restoration of the Renaissance artist’s final work, “The crucifixion of Saint Peter”, and can be seen in the top left hand side of the painting, where the artist portrays himself on horseback, wearing a blue turban.
Maurizio De Luca, the Vatican’s head of paintings restoration, said the finding, possibly the only clear Michelangelo self-portrait in existence, was “extraordinary and moving”, and was given extra poignancy by appearing in the artist’s last painted work.
Co-travellers asked if we could keep him as a souvenir of Turkey, but to no avail.
When Albert Einstein said nothing could travel faster than the speed of light, he apparently said nothing about sound waves, according to John Singleton of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who says because radio waves do not constitute “particles and information” they are therefore exempt (in a fashion) from the universe’s ultimate speed limit.
Most people think Einstein said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but that’s not really the case, Singleton said. Einstein predicted that particles and information can’t travel faster than the speed of light – but phenomenon like radio waves? That’s a different story, said Singleton, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow. Singleton has created a gadget that abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light.
Given that a secret is no fun unless it is shared, I’m not sure that the concept of Friend Disclosure Agreements, designed to protect ideas, will actually work… unless possibly a profit-sharing arrangement can also be reached.
This is a “warm blanket” agreement with which, by requesting your agreement to it, I am helping myself sleep at night by placing a small amount of formality on the sharing of The Idea. I believe The Idea will only improve as a result of having solicited your honest and clear feedback.
A range of very cool lunch box packages designed by Emma Smart.
While loneliness is a state many people do not choose, solitude is quite the opposite… while still being exactly the same. Unlike loneliness however, solitude is beneficial in that it gives us the chance to disconnect a little and gather our thoughts.
Loneliness is a negative state, marked by a sense of isolation. One feels that something is missing. It is possible to be with people and still feel lonely – perhaps the most bitter form of loneliness. Solitude is the state of being alone without being lonely. It is a positive and constructive state of engagement with oneself. Solitude is desirable, a state of being alone where you provide yourself wonderful and sufficient company.
Interesting premise, the rise of the internet and even globalisation has not created the global village that many people predicted it would.
At least this is the opinion of two researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, after studying names given to babies since 1995. They found naming trends tended to remain local rather global despite the rise of email and the ability to spread idea quickly via the internet.
The two researchers’ study of the spread of new names was prompted by their discovery that the relationship between the number of private e-mails sent in America and the distance between sender and recipient falls off far more steeply than they expected. People are overwhelmingly e-mailing others in the same city, rather than those far away.
Another reason not to wear shoes inside your home, and to also ask visitors to remove theirs at the door, they are the carriers of all sorts of diseases.
After two weeks, more than 420,000 units of bacteria were found on the outside of the test shoes. Of that bacteria, 27% were deadly E. Coli virus. Also detected was Klebsiella pneumonia, which can cause pneumonia and wound and bloodstream infections and Serratia ficaria, which can lead to infection of the respiratory tract.
After a false start earlier this year (due mainly to one or two over-zealous bureaucrats) Sydneysiders will soon be able to install an app on the likes of their iPhones or Android handsets, which will provide bus, train, and ferry timetables.
The new official app will include more features than existing offerings and will support most mobile phones including the iPhone, BlackBerry, Google Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms. Bus, train and ferry information will be available from a single app, which will incorporate service interruptions and take advantage of a mobile phone’s built-in GPS. This would “allow the system to identify the present location of the user and map relevant transport services from that location to their required destination”, said MoT project manager John Vandyke.
Initially the timetable data will be static, but in time the app will supply real time updates… useful for when a bus or train is running late.
Of course such instances are so very rare in Sydney but it’s reassuring to know the app developers are taking that point into consideration nevertheless.
