M.J. Rose

Mona Lisa’s ‘twin sister’ is discovered – 500 years late

The Mona Lisa at the Prado in Madrid was thought to be just

another fine copy, with added eyebrows and an odd black background.

But curators at Spain’s national art museum yesterday announced a

startling discovery: the painting was actually executed by an

artist in Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop at the same time as the

original.

It is the first known copy of the most famous painting in history, and a discovery that curators believe sheds new light on the creation of the masterpiece.

Deputy conservator, Gabriele Finaldi, said: “It’s as if we were standing in the workshop itself, and at the next easel. You can see that the artist was working step by step with Leonardo. When Leonardo made a change, he made a change.”

The copy sits in a dimly-lit room awaiting the finishing touches of a two-year restoration, during which its true origin was revealed….

Click here for the complete story.

An idea! If You Blog:  Why not write a post about the mysteries you have encountered recently?  Send a trackback to this blog and leave a comment below so we can share the mystery!

Depressed? Go dig in the dirt…

How to Get High on Soil

by Pagan Kennedy (The Atlantic)

M. vaccae, a living creature that resides in your backyard compost pile, acts like a mind-altering drug once it enters the human body, functioning like antidepressant pills to boost your mood.

I’m holding a bowl of dirt up to my nose, in hopes of getting high on the fumes of my backyard compost pile. The microbe that I’m after today is M. vaccae, a living creature that acts like a mind-altering drug once it enters the human body. It has been shown to boost the levels of serotonin and norepinephrine circulating in the systems of both humans and mice. In other words, it works in much the same manner as antidepressant pills. And yes, it is possible to dose yourself by simply breathing in the smell of good dirt.

The drug-like effects of this soil bacteria were discovered, quite by accident, about a decade ago. A doctor named Mary O’Brien created a serum out of the bacteria and gave it to lung-cancer patients, in hopes that it might boost their immune systems. Instead, she noticed another effect: The hospital patients perked up. They reported feeling happier and suffered from less pain than the patients who did not receive doses of bacteria. Further studies in mice confirmed the mood-boosting effect of the soil bugs….

For the complete article click here.

Here is some more everyday amazingness, courtesy of Rob Brezsny’s Facebook newsfeed (Free Will Astrology):

“You have at least a million relatives as close as tenth cousin, and no one on Earth is any further removed than your fiftieth cousin. With each breath, you take into your body 10 sextillion atoms, and, owing to the wind’s circulation, every year you have intimate relations with oxygen molecules exhaled by every person alive, as well as by everyone who ever lived” (Source: Guy Murchie, “The Seven Mysteries of Life”)

“And our atoms, born in stars, are so vigorously recycled, we each contain a few that once belonged to William Shakespeare, Buddha, or Genghis Khan.” (Source: Bill Bryson, “A Short History of Nearly Everything”)

Could it be?

Mystery object found on Baltic Sea floor

A renowned shipwreck surveyor has come across a large unidentified object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, leading to speculation it could be anything from an underwater Stonehenge to a crashed UFO.

Swedish firm, Ocean Explorer, located the mystery object in an undisclosed part of the Baltic Sea near Sweden, using sonar technology, Daily Mail reports.

However, due to insufficient funding the Swedes cannot launch an operation to find out what the object is.

Sonar images reveal the object is a 60m cylinder, about the same size as a jumbo jet, with about 400m of drag marks.

A similar disc shaped object was observed 200m away…

For the complete story and to watch a video on the discovery, click here.

By the way!

The Book of Lost Fragrances will be a Starbucks book club pick the week of March 20th and a summer pick for the amazing Pulpwood Queens! (You can pre-order your copy and get a sample of the fragrance it inspired here.)