“RoboBee is a tiny robot capable of flight developed by a research team at Harvard University. The culmination of twelve years of research, RoboBee solved two key technical challenges of micro-robotics. Engineers invented a process inspired by pop-up books that allowed them to build on a submillimeter scale precisely and efficiently. To achieve flight, they created artificial muscles capable of making the wings beat 120 times per second.”
“In his book, The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (1887), Henry Lee describes the legendary lamb as believed to be both a true animal and a living plant. However, he states that some writers believed the lamb to be the fruit of a plant, sprouting forward from melon-like seeds. Others, however, believed the lamb to be a living member of the plant that once separated from it, would perish. The vegetable lamb was believed to have blood, bones, and flesh like that of a normal lamb. It was connected to the earth by a stem, similar to an umbilical cord, that propped the lamb up above ground. The cord could flex downward, allowing the lamb to feed on the grass and plants surrounding it. Once the plants within reach were eaten, the lamb died. It could be eaten, once dead, and its blood supposedly tasted sweet like honey. Its wool was said to be used by the native people of its homeland to make head coverings and other articles of clothing. The only carnivorous animals attracted to the lamb-plant (other than humans) were wolves.”
A supposed source of the jiangshi stories came from the folk practice of “transporting a corpse over a thousand li” (simplified Chinese: 千里行尸; traditional Chinese: 千里行屍; pinyin: qiān lǐ xíng shī). The relatives of a person who died far away from home could not afford vehicles to have the deceased person’s body transported home for burial, so they would hire a Taoist priest to conduct a ritual to reanimate the dead person and teach him/her to “hop” their way home. The priests would transport the corpses only at night and would ring bells to notify others in the vicinity of their presence because it was considered bad luck for a living person to set eyes upon a jiangshi. This practice, also called Xiangxi ganshi (simplified Chinese: 湘西赶尸; traditional Chinese: 湘西趕屍; pinyin: Xiāngxī gǎn shī; literally “driving corpses in Xiangxi”), was popular in Xiangxi, where many people left their hometown to work elsewhere.[7][8] After they died, their bodies were transported back to their hometown because it was believed that their souls would feel homesick if they were buried somewhere unfamiliar to them. The corpses would be arranged upright in single file and be tied to long bamboo rods on the sides, while two men (one at the front and one at the back) would carry the ends of the rods on their shoulders and walk. When the bamboo flexed up and down, the corpses appeared to be “hopping” in unison when viewed from a distance away.
“
| — |
Jiangshi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ghost ride… the ghost? (via iamdavidbrothers) |
“The legend holds that a team of Russian scientists purportedly led by someone named “Mr. Azzacov” in an unnamed place in Siberia had drilled a hole that was nine miles (14.5 km) deep before breaking through to a cavity. Intrigued by this unexpected discovery, they lowered an extremely heat tolerant microphone, along with other sensory equipment, into the well. The temperature deep within was 2,000 °F (1,100 °C) — heat from a chamber of fire from which (purportedly) the tormented screams of the damned could be heard. The recording, however, was later revealed to have been a cleverly remixed portion of the soundtrack of the 1972 movie Baron Blood, with various effects added.
The story eventually made its way to the American Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), which broadcast it on the network, claiming it to be “proof” of the literal existence of Hell as taught in theBible.
Åge Rendalen, a Norwegian teacher, heard the story on TBN while visiting the United States. Disgusted with what he perceived to be mass gullibility, Rendalen decided to augment the tale at TBN’s expense.
Rendalen wrote to the network, originally claiming that he disbelieved the tale but, upon his return to Norway, supposedly read a “factual account” of the story….To perpetuate his hoax, Rendalen deliberately mistranslated a trivial Norwegian article about a local building inspector into the “story”, and submitted both the original Norwegian article and the English “translation” to TBN. Rendalen also included his real name, phone number, and address, as well as those of a pastor friend who knew about the hoax and had agreed to expose it to anyone who called seeking verification.
However, TBN did nothing to verify Rendalen’s claims, and aired the story as proof of the validity of the original story.”
Research Log for 3/17/2013-3/23/2013
