M.J. Rose

(from Viewzone.com)

“Given that Tesla’s inventions generally possessed an element of social conscience, of doing good for humanity, it may seem surprising that he created a number of devices with military applications. And the notion of the Tesla harnessing his mind for purposes of war may seem immensely frightening. After all, this is the man who boasted that with his resonance generator he could split the earth in two… and no one was ever quite sure whether he was joking.

The first Tesla invention with a proposed military use was his automaton technology, with which the labor of human beings could be performed by machines. Specifically, Tesla produced remote-controlled boats and submarines. He demonstrated the wireless ship at an exposition in Madison Square Garden in 1898. The automaton apparatus was so advanced, it used a form of voice recognition to respond to the verbal commands of Tesla and volunteers from the audience.

In public, Tesla spoke only of the humanitarian virtues of the invention: it would lessen the toils and drudgery of mankind and keep human lives out of harm’s way. But Tesla actually had his hopes on a contract with the U.S. military…”

For the complete article click here. Be sure to watch the video below for some very interesting background on the mystery…

It seems like almost every day we hear about something completely new out there in our grand, mysterious universe.

A star-less, ‘homeless’ planet is finally discovered after much searching…

An artist’s impression of lonely ‘homeless’ planet CFBDSIR2149 Photo: European Southern Observatory

By Hannah Furness

A young “homeless planet”, up to seven times the size of Jupiter and with no gravitational ties, has been spotted by scientists for the very first time.

The lonely planet, called CFBDSIR2149 at the moment, is deemed “homeless” as it does not orbit a star.

It is the first isolated planet of its kind ever to be discovered by scientists, after more than a decade of searching in a process described as “looking for a single needle in amongst thousands of haystacks.”

Up to seven times the size of Jupiter, it is free-floating with no gravitational link and meets the specific criteria of mass, temperature and age to be designated as a “planet”…

For the complete post click here to go to The Telegraph.

Sometimes I encounter a website that reminds me of a cabinet of curiosity – beautiful, exotic, mysterious, delicious for the eyes. This blog, Res Obscura, is one of these. Even better, it has its own post about actual cabinets of curiosity from the 17th century. These are some of the most visually luxurious images you will ever see….and it’s very interesting to learn the history behind these “Wonder-rooms”. Enjoy.

Cabinets of Curiosities in Seventeenth Century (Res Obscura)

“There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosm, and carries the whole world about him… There is all Africa, and her prodigies in us.”- Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, 1642

Early modern Europeans envisioned their own bodies as miniature worlds which echoed God’s Creation in every detail. And in the expansionist, acquisitive and globalizing era of the seventeenth century, the wonders of Creation frequently became conflated with the treasures of the tropical world that Europeans were busy exploiting. The physician and mystic philosopher (and favorite author of Virginia Woolf) Sir Thomas Browne opined that we all carry the “prodigies” of Africa within ourselves, while the poet John Donne famously wrote that “both th’ Indias of spice and mine…lie here with me.” The early modern curiosity cabinet (often called Kunstkammer or Wunderkammer, “Wonder-rooms”) stood at the intersection of this dual preoccupation with microcosms and the treasures of Africa and “the Indies.”…

For the complete post click here.