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🔗 Chemistry 🔗 Plants

Lignum nephriticum (Latin for "kidney wood") is a traditional diuretic that was derived from the wood of two tree species, the narra (Pterocarpus indicus) and the Mexican kidneywood (Eysenhardtia polystachya). The wood is capable of turning the color of water it comes in contact with into beautiful opalescent hues that change depending on light and angle, the earliest known record of the phenomenon of fluorescence. Due to this strange property, it became well known in Europe from the 16th to the early 18th-century. Cups made from lignum nephriticum were given as gifts to royalty. Water drunk from such cups, as well as imported powders and extracts from lignum nephriticum, were thought to have great medicinal properties.

The lignum nephriticum derived from Mexican kidneywood was known as the coatli, coatl, or cuatl ("snake water") or tlapalezpatli ("blood-tincture medicine") in the Nahuatl language. It was traditionally used by the Aztec people as a diuretic prior to European contact. Similarly, the lignum nephriticum cups made from narra wood were part of the native industry of the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish. The cups were manufactured in southern Luzon, particularly in the Naga region. The name of which was derived from the abundance of the narra trees, which was known as naga in the Bikol language (literally "serpent" or "dragon").

🔗 Religion 🔗 Central Asia 🔗 Archaeology 🔗 Visual arts 🔗 Buddhism 🔗 World Heritage Sites 🔗 Religion/Interfaith 🔗 Public Art 🔗 Afghanistan 🔗 Sculpture 🔗 Hazara

The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two 6th-century monumental statues of Vairocana Buddha and Gautama Buddha carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of central Afghanistan, 130 kilometres (81 mi) northwest of Kabul at an elevation of 2,500 metres (8,200 ft). Carbon dating of the structural components of the Buddhas has determined that the smaller 38 m (125 ft) "Eastern Buddha" was built around 570 AD, and the larger 55 m (180 ft) "Western Buddha" was built around 618 AD.

The statues represented a later evolution of the classic blended style of Gandhara art. The statues consisted of the male Salsal ("light shines through the universe") and the (smaller) female Shamama ("Queen Mother"), as they were called by the locals. The main bodies were hewn directly from the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco. This coating, practically all of which wore away long ago, was painted to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands, and folds of the robes; the larger one was painted carmine red and the smaller one was painted multiple colors. The lower parts of the statues' arms were constructed from the same mud-straw mix supported on wooden armatures. It is believed that the upper parts of their faces were made from great wooden masks or casts. The rows of holes that can be seen in photographs held wooden pegs that stabilized the outer stucco.

The Buddhas are surrounded by numerous caves and surfaces decorated with paintings. It is thought that the period of florescence was from the 6th to 8th century AD, until the onset of Islamic invasions. These works of art are considered as an artistic synthesis of Buddhist art and Gupta art from India, with influences from the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire, as well as the country of Tokharistan.

The statues were blown up and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were idols. International and local opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas. Some Taliban sources credited Omar's decision to blow up the Buddha statues to the growing influence of Osama bin Laden.

🔗 Mathematics

The Cox–Zucker machine is an algorithm created by David A. Cox and Steven Zucker. This algorithm determines if a given set of sections provides a basis (up to torsion) for the Mordell–Weil group of an elliptic surface E → S where S is isomorphic to the projective line.

The algorithm was first published in the 1979 paper "Intersection numbers of sections of elliptic surfaces" by Cox and Zucker, and it was later named the "Cox–Zucker machine" by Charles Schwartz in 1984. The name is a homophone for an obscenity, and this was a deliberate move by Cox and Zucker, who conceived of the idea of coauthoring a paper as graduate students at Princeton for the express purpose of enabling this joke, a joke they followed through on while professors at Rutgers five years later. As Cox explained in a memorial tribute to Zucker in Notices of the American Mathematical Society in 2021: "A few weeks after we met, we realized that we had to write a joint paper because the combination of our last names, in the usual alphabetical order, is remarkably obscene."

🔗 Psychology

Fart lighting also known as pyroflatulence, or flatus ignition is the practice of igniting the gases produced by flatulence. The resulting flame is often of a blue hue hence the act being known colloquially as a "blue angel", "blue dart" or in Australia, a "blue flame". The fact that flatus is flammable and the actual combustion of it through this practice gives rise to much humorous derivation. Other colors of flame such as orange and yellow are possible depending on the mixture of gases formed in the colon.

In 1999 author Jim Dawson observed that fart lighting has been a novelty practice primarily among young men or college students for decades but is discouraged for its potential for causing harm. Such experiments typically occur on camping trips and in same-sex group residences, such as tree-houses, dormitories, or fraternity houses. With the advent of video sharing features online, hundreds of self-produced videos, both documentary as well as spoof, have been posted to sites such as YouTube. The people appearing in the videos are predominantly young teen males. In his book The Curse of the Self: Self-Awareness, Egotism, and the Quality of Human Life author Mark Richard Leary explains how a great deal of unhappiness is due to people's inability to exert control over their thoughts and behavior and that "stupid stunts", including lighting flatulence, were a way to make an impression and be included in group bonding or hazing.

Although there is little scientific discourse on the combustive properties of flatus, there are many anecdotal accounts of flatus ignition and the activity has increasingly found its way into popular culture with references in comic routines, movies, and television; including cartoons. In Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story of Frank Zappa author Neil Slaven quotes Frank Zappa for calling fart lighting "The manly art of fart-burning", and another book quotes the musician Kenny Williams for saying that it demonstrates "compression, ignition, combustion and exhaust."

There have been documented cases of flatulence during surgery being inadvertently ignited causing patient injury and the risk of death.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Poetry 🔗 United Kingdom

The person from Porlock was an unwelcome visitor to Samuel Taylor Coleridge during his composition of the poem Kubla Khan in 1797. Coleridge claimed to have perceived the entire course of the poem in a dream (possibly an opium-induced haze), but was interrupted by this visitor from Porlock while in the process of writing it. Kubla Khan, only 54 lines long, was never completed. Thus "person from Porlock", "man from Porlock", or just "Porlock" are literary allusions to unwanted intruders who disrupt inspired creativity.

🔗 India 🔗 Organizations 🔗 India/Uttar Pradesh

The Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People (Hindi: उत्तर प्रदेश मृतक संघ, Uttar Pradesh Mritak Sangh) is an Indian pressure group based in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh that seeks to reclaim the legal rights of those falsely listed by the Uttar Pradesh State government as being dead.

In the overcrowded regions of Uttar Pradesh, many have resorted to bribing officials to have the owner of a plot of land declared deceased and the title transferred to their ownership. The process to undo this is long, arduous, as well as often inefficient and corrupt. The Association seeks to reverse the declarations, call attention to the problem and prevent others from being exploited in similar fashion.

The founder and president is Lal Bihari, who was "dead" from 1976 to 1994 and used the word Mritak (Hindi: मृतक, transl. Dead) in his name during the period.

After being inspired by the story of Bihari, Indian film director Satish Kaushik made a movie Kaagaz, starring Pankaj Tripathi, based on his life. It was released on ZEE5 on 7 January 2021.

🔗 Archaeology 🔗 Museums 🔗 Merseyside

The Williamson Tunnels are a series of extensive subterranean excavations, of unknown purpose, in the Edge Hill area of Liverpool, England. They are thought to have been created under the direction of tobacco merchant, landowner and philanthropist Joseph Williamson between 1810 and 1840. Although popularly described as "tunnels", the majority comprise brick or stone vaulting over excavations in the underlying sandstone. The purpose of the works remains unclear and remains a subject of heavy speculation; suggestions include commercial quarrying, a philanthropic desire to provide employment, and Williamson's own eccentric interests.

After being gradually infilled with rubble and spoil during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they remained largely inaccessible until archaeological investigations were carried out in 1995. Since then volunteers have rediscovered and excavated an extensive network of tunnels, chambers and voids across several sites, with sections open to the public. Guided tours are available at the Williamson Tunnels Heritage Centre and the Friends Of Williamson's Tunnels, and excavation continues as volunteers continue to uncover new sections.

🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Military history/Military science, technology, and theory 🔗 Military history/Weaponry

The Apollo Affair was a 1965 incident in which a US company, Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC), in the Pittsburgh suburbs of Apollo and Parks Township, Pennsylvania was investigated for losing 200–600 pounds (91–272 kg) of highly enriched uranium, with suspicions that it had gone to Israel's nuclear weapons program.

From 1965 to 1980, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated Zalman Shapiro, the company's president, over the loss of 206 pounds (93 kg) of highly enriched uranium. The Atomic Energy Commission, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), other government agencies, and inquiring reporters conducted similar investigations, and no charges were ever filed. A General Accounting Office study of the investigations declassified in May 2010 stated "We believe a timely, concerted effort on the part of these three agencies would have greatly aided and possibly solved the NUMEC diversion questions, if they desired to do so."

In February 1976 the CIA briefed senior staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about the matter, stating that the CIA believed the missing highly enriched uranium went to Israel. The NRC informed the White House, leading to President-elect Carter being briefed about the investigation. Carter asked for an assessment by his National Security Advisor, whose staff concluded "The CIA case is persuasive, though not conclusive."

Some remain convinced that Israel received 206 pounds (93 kg) or more of highly enriched uranium from NUMEC, particularly given the visit of Rafi Eitan, later revealed as an Israeli spy and who was later involved in the Jonathan Pollard incident. In June 1986, analyst Anthony Cordesman told United Press International:

There is no conceivable reason for Eitan to have gone [to the Apollo plant] but for the nuclear material.”

In his 1991 book, The Samson Option, Seymour Hersh concluded that Shapiro did not divert any uranium; rather "it ended up in the air and water of the city of Apollo as well as in the ducts, tubes, and floors of the NUMEC plant." He also wrote that Shapiro's meetings with senior Israeli officials in his home were related to protecting the water supply in Israel rather than any diversion of nuclear material or information.

A later investigation was conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (successor to the AEC) regarding an additional 198 pounds (90 kg) of uranium that was found to be missing between 1974 and 1976, after the plant had been purchased by Babcock & Wilcox and Shapiro was no longer associated with the company. That investigation found that more than 110 pounds (50 kg) of it could be accounted for by what was called "previously unidentified and undocumented loss mechanisms", including "contamination of workers' clothes, losses from scrubber systems, material embedded in the flooring, and residual deposits in the processing equipment." Hersh further quoted one of the main investigators, Carl Duckett, as saying "I know of nothing at all to indicate that Shapiro was guilty."

In 1993, Glenn T. Seaborg, former head of the Atomic Energy Commission wrote a book, The Atomic Energy Commission under Nixon, Adjusting to Troubled Times which devoted a chapter to Shapiro and NUMEC, the last sentence of which states:

Distinguished as Shapiro's career has been, one cannot but wonder whether it might not have been even more illustrious had these unjust charges not been leveled against him.

Later U.S. Department of Energy records show that NUMEC had the largest highly enriched uranium inventory loss of all U.S. commercial sites, with a 269 kilograms (593 lb) inventory loss before 1968, and 76 kilograms (168 lb) thereafter.

At the prompting of Zalman Shapiro's lawyer, senator Arlen Specter asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to clear him of any suspicion of diversion in August 2009. The NRC refused, stating:

NRC found no documents that provided specific evidence that the diversion of nuclear materials occurred. However, consistent with previous Commission statements, NRC does not have information that would allow it to unequivocally conclude that nuclear material was not diverted from the site, nor that all previously unaccounted for material was accounted for during the decommissioning of the site.

In 2014, further documents about the investigation were declassified, though still heavily redacted.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing a cleanup of contaminated land at the site of NUMEC's waste disposal. The project was scheduled to be completed in 2015, but the discovery of a substantially larger amount of contamination resulted in a seven year delay. Excavation is now scheduled to begin in 2021, with an estimated project time of 10 years.

🔗 Aviation

Airliner Number 4 was a design by Norman Bel Geddes and Otto A. Koller for a 9-deck amphibious passenger aircraft intended to replace the large transatlantic liners that traveled between Europe and North America before the Second World War. It was never built.

🔗 Economics 🔗 Politics 🔗 Futures studies 🔗 Civil Rights Movement

"The Triple Revolution" was an open memorandum sent to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and other government figures on March 22, 1964. Drafted under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, it was signed by an array of noted social activists, professors, and technologists who identified themselves as the Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution. The chief initiator of the proposal was W. H. "Ping" Ferry, at that time a vice-president of CSDI, basing it in large part on the ideas of the futurist Robert Theobald.