Swedes find Viking-era Arab coins

Swedish archaeologists have discovered a rare hoard of Viking-age silver Arab coins near Stockholm's Arlanda airport.

About 470 coins were found on 1 April at an early Iron Age burial site. They date from the 7th to 9th Century, when Viking traders travelled widely.

There has been no similar find in that part of Sweden since the 1880s.

Most of the coins were minted in Baghdad and Damascus, but some came from Persia and North Africa, said archaeologist Karin Beckman-Thoor.

The team from the Swedish National Heritage Board had just started removing a stone cairn at the site "when we suddenly found one coin and couldn't understand why it was there", she told the BBC News website.

"We continued digging and found more coins and realised it was a Viking-age hoard." The coins were left there in about AD850, she said.

Such Viking hoards usually come from Gotland - a large Swedish island in the Baltic Sea, she explained.

"No Viking was buried at this site - the grave is older. Maybe the Vikings thought the hoard would be protected by ancestors," Ms Beckman-Thoor added. Vikings had settled in a village nearby.

The Vikings travelled widely in their longships in the Baltic region and Russia from the late 8th to the 11th Century. They are known to have travelled as far as North Africa and Constantinople (now Istanbul).

Malaysian Bigfoot

The village of Mawai Lama in the Malaysian state of Johor is a sleepy row of wooden fronted shop-houses set back from the Sedili River.

Yet Mawai is one of the most intriguing places in Malaysia.

According to local historians, Mawai's original name was Mawas, and Mawas is the name locals give to a legendary creature known the world over as Bigfoot.

The people of Mawas certainly seem to believe in the creature from which their village takes its name.

Some, like Aji the boatman, say they have seen it.

"It was about 10 or 11 at night. I saw something, but I didn't know what sort of creature it was. But I can definitely see the eyes were red. And it made a noise, Woooooo!" Aji said.

"Maybe it was scared off by my headlight and I was scared by him so we both rushed off in different directions and later I came back and found the footprints," he said.

Hunt for food

Mawai lies at one end of the Panti mountains, a densely forested and steep-sloped ridge at the southern end of the Malay peninsular.

On the other side of the range is Kampung Batu Empat. A few weeks ago some unusual muddy footprints were found on the road nearby.

Vincent Chow, of the Malaysian Nature Society, had some photos.

"Based on what we've learned, this is the southern end of their migratory route and because the forests have become fragmented they're rather confined now," Mr Chow said.

Traces of the muddy prints were still on the road.

"They move around looking for fruits, sometimes they go looking for them in villages. They're also looking for a mate and for salt."

Prompted by the footprints and a recent spate of sightings, the Johor state government is planning a team to start looking for Bigfoot.

The reports of sightings are nothing new. Five years ago, while driving up Malaysia's main North-South highway, public relations consultant Eva Hawa says she saw a creature fitting Bigfoot's description crossing the road in broad daylight

"It was hairy, it was big, it was about six to seven feet tall. He moved right across in front of my car. He has a hunch and walked like a very old man," she said.

Factors which can be argued in favour of Bigfoot's existence include the legends from different parts of the world which seem to bear a degree of similarity to one another, despite having emerged separately. There are the sightings. And there is the fact that a giant ape, Gigantopithecus blacki, is known to have lived in Asia until around 300,000 years ago.

And there is the discovery, on the Indonesian island of Flores in late 2004, of skeletons interpreted by some anthropologists as belonging to a hominid population dubbed hobbits. There are still natural wonders to be discovered, even in this day and age, not least in the forests of South East Asia.

The primatologist Jane Goodall is one of those who expect Bigfoot to be found.

"People from very different backgrounds and different parts of the world have described very similar creatures behaving in similar ways and uttering some strikingly similar sounds," she said in a newspaper interview three years ago. "As far as I am concerned, the existence of hominids of this sort is a very real probability."

Doubters

However, the doubters - and they are legion - ask why no giant ape remains more recent than a quarter of a million years old have been found. And as the forests and wilderness shrink, why has Bigfoot not broken cover and been definitively recorded?

One man who has no doubts is Abdul Rahman Ahmad, a former factory manager. His late brother was Johor's Chief Game Warden and had seen Bigfoot footprints 30 years ago.

When we arrived to visit him, Abdul Rahman was very excited.

"Four days ago my [workers] heard Bigfoot calling in the jungle. They've found footprints."

Early the next morning, accompanied by four of Abdul Rahman's Indonesian workers, we set off to find the site where the prints were spotted. As we trekked through the forest there was a crashing in the trees. We had disturbed a herd of wild water buffalo.

But when we got to the riverside where the workers said they had seen Bigfoot tracks, all we found was buffalo hoof marks. There was nothing. We pressed on. I was shown a branch "broken by Bigfoot", another stripped of leaves "by the ape man".

For almost three hours the Indonesians led us through the trees, through rivers and for all I know around in circles.

Finally we reached the first river at a point higher up than we had originally explored.

And there, beside the river, in the soft sand, were footprints.

They were distinctive, perhaps 20cm across and 40, perhaps 45cm long.

There was a bulge where a human corn might be, as though the foot had an opposable thumb rather than a big toe. There were three of them, some better defined, some more complete, than others.

All I can tell you is they were big, they were foot shaped and they were there.

Article from - BBC NEWS

Deep Brain Stimulation

Deep brain stimulation is like a pacemaker for your brain: it can stop tremors, wake you from a coma, and maybe even make you smarter. All these miraculous results, but nobody knows exactly how it works. Maybe I'm crazy, but I always find it reassuring when I talk to a scientist and find out that they don't know what's going on either.

For this episode I spoke with Dr. Michele Tagliati, a neurologist at Mt. Sinai, and a leader in the field of DBS. He's approaching the question from a clinician's perspective: tweaking parameters and discovering which techniques work best for patients suffering from Parkinsons and other movement disorders. I didn't have enough time to include it in the podcast, but we also talked about the researchers who are coming from the other direction, using computer models of brain circuitry to try and predict how certain kinds of electrical stimulation will affect actual brains. The idea is that these two lines of research will eventually meet somewhere in the middle: if we can understand enough about how it works, we may be able to apply this technique to all sorts of neurological disorders. I might even be able to do the Sunday Times Crossword without making up words.

He didn't ask, but my theory is that it has something to do with electricity. In your brain.

—Jonathan Coulton

Nikola Tesla

Tesla was considered an eccentric who talked of death rays that could destroy 10,000 airplanes at a distance of 250 miles, claimed to be able split the Earth in two, believed that both voice and image could be transmitted through the air (in the late 1800's), and essentially told Edison to take his DC electrical system and stick it you know where.

In other words, anyone that has even heard of Tesla probably considers him to be a first class wacko.

But, the times are a changin'.

The problem is that Tesla probably could do all these things that he claimed were possible. In fact, Tesla invented every single one of the items listed above (but gets no credit) and much more. Look around you and chances are Tesla is somehow responsible for most of the things that make modern life so modern.

No doubt about it, Nikola Tesla is the greatest mind since da Vinci.

So who is this genius?

Little Nicky Tesla was born in Smijlan, Croatia way back in 1856. He had an extraordinary memory and spoke six languages. He spent four years at the Polytechnic Institute at Gratz studying math, physics, and mechanics.

What made Tesla great, however, was his amazing understanding of electricity. Remember that this was a time when electricity was still in its infancy. The lightbulb hadn't even been invented yet.

When Tesla first came to the United States in 1884, he worked for Thomas Edison. Edison had just patented the lightbulb, so he needed a system to distribute electricity.

Edison had all sorts of problems with his DC system of electricity. He promised Tesla big bucks in bonuses if he could get the bugs out of the system. Tesla ended up saving Edison over $100,000 (millions of $$$ by today's standards), but Edison refused to live up to his end of the bargain.

Tesla quit and Edison spent the rest of his life trying to squash Tesla's genius (and the main reason Tesla is unknown today).

Tesla devised a better system for electrical transmission - the AC (alternating current) system that we use in our homes today. AC offered great advantages over the DC system. By using Tesla's newly developed transformers, AC voltages could be stepped up and transmitted over long distances through thin wires. DC could not (requiring a large power plant every square mile while transmitting through very thick cables).

Of course, a system of transmission would be incomplete without devices to run on them. So, he invented the motors that are used in every appliance in your house. This was no simple achievement - scientists of the late 1800's were convinced that no motor could be devised for an alternating current system, making the use of AC a waste of time. After all, if the current reverses direction 60 times a second, the motor will rock back and forth and never get anywhere. Tesla solved this problem easily and proved everyone wrong.

He was using fluorescent bulbs in his lab some forty years before industry "invented" them. At World's Fairs and similar exhibitions, he took glass tubes and molded them into the shapes of famous scientists' names - the first neon signs that we see all around us today. I almost forgot - Tesla designed the world's first hydroelectric plant, located in Niagara Falls. He also patented the first speedometer for cars.

Word began to spread about his AC system and it eventually reached the ears of one George Westinghouse.

Tesla signed a contract with Westinghouse under which he would receive $2.50 for each kilowatt of AC electricity sold.

Suddenly, Tesla had the cash to start conducting all the experiments he ever dreamed of.

But Edison had too much money invested in his DC system, so Tommy did his best to discredit Tesla around every turn. Edison constantly tried to show that AC electricity was far more dangerous than his DC power.

Tesla counteracted by staging his own marketing campaign. At the 1893 World Exposition in Chicago (attended by 21 million people), he demonstrated how safe AC electricity was by passing high frequency AC power through his body to power light bulbs. He then was able to shoot large lightning bolts from his Tesla coils to the crowd without harm. Nice trick!

When the royalties owed to Tesla started to exceed $1 million, Westinghouse ran into financial trouble. Tesla realized that if his contract remained in effect, Westinghouse would be out of business and he had no desire to deal with the creditors. His dream was to have cheap AC electric available to all people. Tesla took his contract and ripped it up! Instead of becoming the world's first billionaire, he was paid $216,600 outright for his patents.

In 1898, he demonstrated to the world the first remote controlled model boat at Madison Square Garden. So you can thank Tesla for the invention of those remote controlled planes, cars, and boats (and televisions!), also.

Tesla had a dream of providing free energy to the world. In 1900, backed by $150,000 from financier J.P. Morgan, Tesla began construction of his so called "Wireless Broadcasting System" tower on Long Island, New York. This broadcasting tower was intended to link the world's telephone and telegraph services, as well as transmit pictures, stock reports, and weather information worldwide. Unfortunately, Morgan cut funding when he realized that it meant FREE energy for the world.

Many stories claim that the U. S. government destroyed the tower during World War One for fear that the German u-boat spies would use the tower as a landmark to navigate by. In reality, Tesla ran into financial trouble after Morgan cut funding for the project and the tower was sold for scrap to pay off creditors.

The world thought he was nuts - after all, transmission of voice, picture, and electricity was unheard of at this time.

What they didn't know was that Tesla had already demonstrated the principles behind radio nearly ten years before Marconi's supposed invention. In fact, in 1943 (the year Tesla died), the Supreme Court ruled that Marconi's patents were invalid due to Tesla's previous descriptions. Still, most references do not credit Tesla with the invention of radio. (Sidenote: Marconi's radio did not transmit voices - it transmitted a signal - something Tesla had demonstrated years before.)

At this point, the press started to exaggerate Tesla's claims.

Tesla reported that he had received radio signals from Mars and Venus. Today we know that he was actually receiving the signals from distant stars, but too little was known about the universe at that time. Instead, the press had a field day with his "outrageous" claims.

In his Manhattan lab, Tesla made the earth into an electric tuning fork. He managed to get a steam-driven oscillator to vibrate at the same frequency as the ground beneath him (like Ella Fitzgerald breaking the glass with her voice in those old Memorex commercials).

The result? An earthquake on all the surrounding city blocks. The buildings trembled, the windows broke, and the plaster fell off the walls.

Tesla contended that, in theory, the same principle could be used to destroy the Empire State Building or even possibly split the Earth in two. Tesla had accurately determined the resonant frequencies of the Earth almost 60 years before science could confirm his results.

Don't think he didn't attempt something like splitting the Earth open (well, sort of).

In his Colorado Springs lab in 1899, he sent waves of energy all the way through the Earth, causing them to bounce back to the source (providing the theory for today's accurate earthquake seismic stations). When the waves came back, he added more electricity to it.

The result? The largest man-made lightning bolt ever recorded - 130 feet! - a world's record still unbroken!

The accompanying thunder was heard 22 miles away. The entire meadow surrounding his lab had a strange blue glow, similar to that of St. Elmo's Fire.

But, this was only a warm-up for his real experiment! Unfortunately, he blew out the local power plant's equipment and he was never able to repeat the experiment.

At the beginning of World War I, the government desperately searched for a way to detect German submarines. The government put Thomas Edison in charge of the search for a good method. Tesla proposed the use of energy waves - what we know today as radar - to detect these ships. Edison rejected Tesla's idea as ludicrous and the world had to wait another 25 years until it was invented.

His reward for a lifetime of creativity? The prized (to everyone but Tesla) Edison Medal! A real slap in the face after all the verbal abuse Tesla took from Edison.

The stories go on and on.

Industry's attempt (obviously very successful) to purge him from the scientific literature had driven him into exile for nearly twenty years. Lacking capital, he was forced to place his untested theories into countless notebooks.

The man who invented the modern world died nearly penniless at age 86 on January 7, 1943. More than two thousand people attended his funeral.

In his lifetime, Tesla received over 800 different patents. He probably would have exceeded Edison's record number if he wasn't always broke - he could afford very few patent applications during the last thirty years of his life.

Unlike Edison, Tesla was an original thinker whose ideas typically had no precedent in science. Unfortunately, the world does not financially reward people of Tesla's originality. We only award those that take these concepts and turn them into a refined, useful product.

Scientists today continue to scour through his notes. Many of his far flung theories are just now being proven by our top scientists. For example, the Tesla bladeless disk turbine engine that he designed, when coupled with modern materials, is proving to be among the most efficient motors ever designed. His 1901 patented experiments with cryogenic liquids and electricity provide the foundation for modern superconductors. He talked about experiments that suggested particles with fractional charges of an electron - something that scientists in 1977 finally discovered - quarks!

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Is based on the tragic case of a young German woman named Anneliese Michel, who in the early 1970s underwent an ordeal that eventually led to her death. The details of her case can be found in such Web article as "The Real Emily Rose" and "What Really Happened to Emily Rose?". The controversy surrounding her illness, exorcism and death resulted in a sensational trial, all of which are part of the Emily Rose film.

Anneliese was diagnosed by doctors as suffering from grand mal epilepsy, a condition of the brain that causes severe seizures.

This, compounded by other possible mental and psychological disorders, resulted in hallucinations of demonic faces and voices. Her religious parents, apparently baffled and frustrated by their 16-year-old daughter’s increasingly psychotic and often violent behavior, chose to thwart the medical diagnosis and sought an exorcism.

For years, the Church refused to grant an exorcism. They accepted the medical diagnosis, finding no supernatural criteria to warrant an exorcism. There were certainly very serious and highly disturbing symptoms: Anneliese would mutilate herself, eat flies and coal, drink her own urine and physically lash out at her family. A profoundly disturbed girl. But there was no levitation, no documented telekinesis (heck, even poltergeist cases have some telekinesis) – nothing whatsoever that could be deemed supernatural.

Making Matters Worse

Despite this lack of evidence, however, in 1975 the Michels finally convinced priests to perform exorcisms – a whole series of them, in fact, sometimes two rites a week! Certainly, this only reinforced Anneliese’s delusion that demons were inside her. And not just any demons. She claimed to be possessed by the spirits of Cain, Judas Iscariot, Nero, even Adolf Hitler, among others.

Only for a short time did she seem to improve because of the exorcism rites. But soon the mental anguish returned with a vengeance. She stopped eating and her knees ruptured from the 600 genuflections she performed obsessively.

Ultimately, the exorcisms failed. On July 30, 1976, Anneliese died of starvation, and her parents and exorcising priests were charged with negligent homicide – and rightly convicted.

The exorcisms failed because there was nothing to exorcise. Anneliese Michel was not possessed; she required heavy duty medical attention. Had her parents sought proper medical care for their daughter instead of seeking refuge in superstition, Anneliese might be alive today. With the improved medications and treatments now available, she might even be living a normal life.
watch movie trailer of emily rose

Achieving your Dreams through the Power of your Mind

As 2007 arrived, what did you dream for? Prosperity? Health? Harmony? Whatever you wished for, you can manifest in your life, but only if…Yes, there is an “if”… To be able to manifest anything in this world, you must first believe it in your subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind holds the key to our expressing and manifesting in this world. So, in order to create that new job or more money or getting rid of that illness, we must first access our subconscious mind and make sure that it accepts our wish.

How do we do this? First, we need to understand that only because we wish something or because we think we deserve something, it does not mean that we automatically can manifest it in our lives. Nor can our dreams become reality but just praying.

We must also believe it with our subconscious mind. The Universe can’t bring anything to us unless we open the doors of that mind. In other words, deep in our minds, we must hold the belief that we are worth it, that we are special, that we are children of God and that, therefore, it is our birth right to have all the abundance, the peace, and harmony in this world. Instead of seeing ourselves as deserving, beautiful and powerful beings, most of us see ourselves as not good enough, with low confidence, low self esteem. This is the part we must first change. We must begin to believe with all of our hearts the truth of who we truly are, beautiful, powerful, deserving. We must believe this with more than our conscious mind, we must believe it with our subconscious mind and with our hearts.

Our subconscious mind loves and understands images, and so a very effective way to communicate with this part of our mind is through images, or what we call, visualization. Think of your subconscious mind as a garden where we have planted many things. We have planted good beliefs, and unknownly, some not so good. Let’s call the good beliefs flowers, and let’s call the not so good, weeds. We want to feed the flowers and get rid of the weeds. Here is a good way to work with this garden in your mind. Every morning as you awaken, stay in bed for a few minutes and create an image in your mind. Imagine a garden filled with beautiful flowers. Imagine that the different variety of flowers represent different areas of your life, like prosperity, abundance, good health, good relationships, etc. Without giving much attention look at the weeds, observe them too. Come up with your own images, your own ways of removing the weeds, those areas you want to remove from your life, such as low self esteem, a life of financial difficulties, illnesses. See yourself killing these weeds, unrooting them in your own way. Now, feed the flowers knowing what they represent. Send them love, water them, give them sunshine. See the flowers become bigger and more beautiful. Feel the joy in your heart as you see the flowers grow.

Do this every single morning and do the same as you fall sleep at night. If you have time, take a couple of minutes and do at noon too. There is no such a thing as too much visualization. The more you do it, the faster you will see results. Remember that it is very important to feel emotions as you visualize, to feel the joy and happiness of knowing that the garden is becoming more and more beautiful. During the day, do not give power to the weeds by thinking of the negative aspects of your life, only focus on the positive, on your blessings. Remember that your thoughts will be feeding either the flowers or the weeds. We want to make sure we starve the weeds and feed the flowers. You have the most powerful mind, have fun this year creating what you deserve. Happy gardening and many blessings to you.

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Laura Bonilla, C.Ht. is a Spiritual Counselor and Clinical Hypnotherapist. Her holistic approach is to bring Spirit-Mind-Body into Oneness. She has her private practice in the Glendora/San Dimas area. She conducts workshops on Remembering your Purpose, Self-Hypnosis, and on Past Live Regressions. You can reach her directly at 909-994-5701. Her website is www.themindclinic.net.

Mysterious Alignment

Another puzzle is mysterious alignment of world's ancient sites.
Easter Island is exactly aligned along a straight line around the center of the Earth, with the Nazca lines, Ollantaytambo and the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Other world wonders that are within one tenth of one degree of this alignment include: Perseopolis, the capital city of ancient Persia; Mohenjo Daro, the ancient capital city of the Indus Valley; the Oracle of Zeus-Amon at Siwa; and the lost city of Petra. The Ancient Sumarian city of Ur and Angkor temples in Cambodia and Thailand are within one degree of latitude of this alignment.

The alignment of these sites is easily observable on a globe of the Earth with a horizon ring. If you line up any two of these sites on the horizon ring, all of the sites will be right on the horizon ring. 3-D world atlas software programs can also draw this line around the Earth. Start on the Equator, at the mouth of the Amazon River, at 48° 36' West Longitude; go to 30° 22' North Latitude, 41° 24' East Longitude, in the Middle East, which is the maximum latitude the line touches; then go to the Equator at 131° 24' East Longitude, near the Northwest tip of New Guinea; then to 30° 22' South Latitude, 138° 36' West Longitude, in the South Pacific; and then back to 48° 36' West Longitude, at the Equator. Centre on :-

0.00° N 48° 36' W

30° 22' N 41° 24' E

0.00° N 131° 24' E

30° 22' S 138° 36' W

The circumference of this line around the center of the Earth is 24,892 miles. Along this line, the great circle distance from the Great Pyramid to Ollantaytambo is 7,472 miles, 30.0% of the circumference. Ollantaytambo is 2,579 miles from Easter Island, 10.3%. Easter Island is 10,096 miles from Angkor Wat, 40.6%. Angkor Wat is 2,490 miles from Mohenjo Daro, 10.0%. Mohenjo Daro is 2255 miles from from the Great Pyramid, 9.1%. In addition to calculating the distances between these sites as a percentage of the circumference of the Earth, the distances may also be calculated in degrees of the 360° circumference, by multiplying the percentage by 3.6. For example, the Great Pyramid is 108° away from Ollantaytambo. Near Ollantaytambo, Machupicchu is within one quarter of a degree and Cuzco is within one third of a degree of the alignment.