colomares castle, dedicated to christopher colombus

The ‘Castillo de Colomares’ (ColomaresCastle) in Benalmadena is one of the most interesting tourist attractions the municipality has to offer. It’s not really a castle, it’s more of a monument which was built between 1987 and 1994 by Esteban Martín MD as a tribute to Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America.
This unique monument unifies various architectural styles which had a marked effect on Spanish culture: Bizantine, Romanesque, Arabic and Gothic.
A walk around the Colomares Castle will allow you to discover various elements from the symbols of the Catholic Kings, from the three cultures present in medieval Spain (Judaism, Christianity and Islamism) and other elements from Christopher Columbus’ epic voyage.

bone art

   Japanese artist Hideki Tokushige uses animal bones to recreate various flowers.when Hideki Tokushige was coming home from work. He saw a dead raccoon in the middle of the street, and instead of simply ignoring it or throwing it in a waste bin, he took it home, removed the bones and used them as an art medium. Originally trained in photography, Hideki found a way to assemble the bones into intricate floral sculptures that are shockingly beautiful to look at.
 

top 9 beach of 2013

main beach
Main Beach, located in East Hampton on Long Island, N.Y., snagged the top spot on the Top 10 Best Beaches of 2013.  Wealthy and often famous summertime residents flock to the beaches, which are protected by a conservation easement that dates back some 300 years. "The big, wide sandy beach made of quartz has towering sand dunes and beautiful clean and clear blue water," according to Leatherman. In addition to the natural wonders, Main Beach is a great place to spot celebs.

This is the 23rd year of the Best Beaches list, put together by Stephen Leatherman, director of Florida International University's Laboratory for Coastal Research in Miami, who is also called Dr. Beach. Check out the other hot spots for beachgoers. 

kahanamoku beach A shallow offshore reef protects Kahanamoku Beach from big waves, making it a great swimming area for families with children. 

st.george islandWhile Florida beaches took a dive on the 2010 list due to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where tarballs on beaches were not uncommon, this year they're back, according to Leatherman. Even so, Leatherman said, the brilliant white sands and clear waters of St. George Island, located in northwestern Florida, were fortunately not even impacted last summer. "Stingrays are sometimes resting in the shallow waters so shuffle your feet when entering," Leatherman said. It's also a great place to see birds, like this ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) 

hamoa beachHamoa Beach in Maui, like other Hawaiian spots, is sure to have beautiful blue water and plenty of sunshine. The half-moon-shaped beach is covered in gray-hued sand, a mix of ground coral and lava. One side, the left, has calmer waters than the other side, which is often swept by powerful rip currents, according to travel sites. 

waimanalo bay state parkLocated on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, this beach park has ample parking, restrooms, outdoor showers, and a good beach for swimming. Leatherman says the beach may not be as stunning as some other Hawaiian paradises, it's save because big waves and dangerous currents are rare and lifeguards are present. 

cape florida state parkCape Florida State Park, located at the south tip of Key Biscayne, boasts of emerald-colored water and gentle surf. The white coral sand beach is great for swimming, as a large sand shoal offshore absorbs wave energy. In addition, the Cape Florida Lighthouse (shown here) allows for a great view of the beautiful beach. 

cape hatterasBulging far offshore of the mainland coast as a barrier island, Cape Hatteras was the first National Seashore, shown here in an aerial image taken in October 1999. The beach offers some of the best surfing along the East Coast and is famous for its lighthouse.   

coast guard beachCoast Guard Beach was formed where a sand spit attached to the eroding glacial cliffs, according to Leatherman. Located on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, the sand is fairly coarse, resulting in a beach that slopes steeply into the water, where temperatures only reach 60-70 degrees F. 

beach walker parkA public beach located on the southern end of Kiawah Island, S.C., the water isn't clear, but it's clean and is a great place for seafood, Leatherman said. Lots of activities here, including tennis, golf, interpretative tours of the fauna and flora of the island, and canoeing and kayaking. Leatherman says the sand is compact enough to bike ride along the 10-mile-long barrier island.     

minas tirith(LOTR) replica from sand

Lord of the Rings fan Joseph Alvenaz has created a replica of Minas Tirith, almost exclusively out of sand and water. Believe it or not, this was his first major sand sculpture.
We’ve featured some pretty impressive models of Gondor’s capital city. The young California artist chose the iconic setting of J.R.R. Tolkien’s LOTR – The Return of the King as his first large-scale sand sculpture, and judging by the images below, it’s safe to say he did an amazing job. Even more impressive is the fact that he didn’t use a frame for his incredibly detailed sand sculpture, save for a single brace added in the top tower, after it was repeatedly destroyed by birds. Apart from that one element, no reinforcement or adhesive was added; the entire structure was made exclusively from sand and water. The white is made of out of a chalkish wash he applied over the sand.
Tolkien’s White City of Gondor might have resisted the forces of Mordor, but Joseph’s replica was destroyed by its most feared enemy – rain. “A rain storm came from the south blasting half of the city and causing the buildings to melt and crumble. The other half however was sheltered from the storm by the spur which protrudes from the middle city and remained mostly intact,” the artist wrote on his DeviantArt page. The awesome-looking sand structure may not be standing anymore, but the photos taken by Joseph in its glory days are a worthy legacy.

 

misterious ring naimb desret

Fairy circles are circular patches of perennial grasses with a barren center that emerge in the deserts along the southwest coast of Africa. Dotting the Namibian deserts, these rings can persist for decades and occur in regular patterns. Now, research detailed in the March 29, 2013, issue of the journal Science suggests a species of sand termite (Psammotermes) may be the artists behind the grassy artwork.

Here, numerous tracks of Oryx antelopes crossing fairy circles in an interdune pan, shown in this aerial view of Namibrand, Namibia. 

 

true story about pi

arch 14, when written as 3.14, is the first three numbers of pi (π). To commemorate the (completely artificial) confluence of the world’s most famous and never-ending mathematical constant with the way we can write the date, math enthusiasts around the country embrace their inner nerdiness by celebrating π, the ratio of the circumference of a circle and its diameter.
The date–which also happens to be Einstein’s birthday–inspires celebrations every year. Today. the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is posting password-protected decision letters on its admissions office site–would-be attendees can view whether they gained admittance at 6:28 pm (approximately equal to 2π, or the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its radius). Not to be outdone, Princeton’s celebrations of pi span an entire week, complete with a pie eating contest, an Einstein look-alike contest and a π-themed video contest (videos extolling pi and Einstein’s birthday must be less than 3.14 minutes; the winner will be announced at 3:14 today and will receive–you guessed it–$314.15).
Just why are people crazy about pi? The number–three followed by a ceaseless string of numbers after the decimal point, all randomly distributed–is the world’s most famous irrational number, meaning that it cannot be expressed as through the division of two whole numbers. In fact, it is a transcendental number, a term which boils down the idea that it isn’t the square root, cube root or nth root of any rational number. And this irrationality and transcendental nature of pi appeals, perhaps because pi’s continuous flow of numbers reflects the unending circle it helps to trace.
Pi has held an almost mystical quality to humans throughout time. Its unspoken presence can be felt in the circular ruins of Stonehenge, in the vaulted ceilings of domed Roman temples, in the celestial spheres of Plato and Ptolemy. It has inspired centuries of mathematical puzzles and some of humanity’s most iconic artwork. People spend years of their lives attempting to memorize its digits–they hold contests to see who knows the most numbers after the decimal, write poems–”piems,” if you will–where the number of letters in each word represents the next digit of pi, compose haikus (pikus)…the list goes on and on like pi itself.

Archimedes’ method of approximating pi involved sandwiching a circle in two other shapes.

Here are some notable moments in the history of pi:

1900-1650 BC: A Babylonian tablet gives a value of 3.125 for pi, which isn’t bad! In another document, the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian scribe writes, in 1650 BC “Cut off 1/9 of a diameter and construct a square upon the remainder; this has the same area as the circle” This implies that pi is 3.16049, “which is also fairly accurate,” according to David Wilson of Rutgers University’s math department.
800-200 BC: Passages in the Bible describe a ceremonial pool in the Temple of Solomon: “He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it” (I Kings 7:23-26). This puts pi at a mere 3.

250 BC: Archimedes of Syracuse approximates the area of a circle by using the Pythagorean Theorem to find the areas of two shapes–a 96-sided polygon inscribed within the circle and an equally faceted polygon within which the circle was circumscribed. The areas of the 96-sided shapes sandwiched the area of circle, giving Archimedes upper and lower bounds for the circle’s extent. Though he knew that he had not found the exact value of pi, he was able to approximate it to between 3 1/7 and 3 10/71.
Late 1300s: Indian mathematician and astronomer Madhava of Sangamagrama first posits the idea that pi could be represented as the sum of terms in an infinite sequence–for example, 4 – 4/3 + 4/5 – 4/7 + 4/9…His work helped inspire branch of mathematics that examines the results of mathematical operations performed over and over on a never-ending stretch of numbers.
1706: Welsh mathematician William Jones began to use π as a the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Famed Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler adopted this usage in 1737, helping to popularize it through his works.
1873: Amateur English mathematician William Shanks calculates pi out to 707 digits–his number was written on the wall of a circular room–appropriately named the Pi Room–in the Palais de la Découverte, a French science museum. But his number was only correct to the 527th digit–in 1946, the error was finally caught, and in 1949, the number was corrected.
1897: Lawmakers in Indiana almost pass a bill that erroneously labels the value of pi to 3.2. Cajoled by an amateur mathematician Edwin Goodwin, the Indiana General Assembly introduced House Bill 246, which introduced “a new mathematical truth” for sole use by the state. The “truth” was an attempt to square the circle–a puzzle which requires that a circle and square of the same area be constructed using only a geometrical compass and a straightedge. The bill unanimously passed the house, but the senate and hence the state was spared from embarrassment by C.A. Waldo, a Purdue mathematics professor who coincidentally happened to be in the State House that day. “Shown the bill and offered an introduction to the genius whose theory it was, Waldo declined, saying he already knew enough crazy people,” Tony Long of Wired wrote. Waldo gave the senators a math lesson, and the bill died.
1988: Larry Shaw of San Francisco’s Exploratorium inaugurates the first Pi Day celebration. This year, even as it prepares for its grand re-opening in April, the museum holds its 25th annual Pi Day extravaganza.
2005: Chao Lu, then a graduate student in China, becomes the Guinness record holder for reciting digits of pi–he recited the number to 67,980 digits. The feat took him 24 hours and 4 minutes (contest rules required that no more than 15 seconds could pass between any two numbers).
2009: Pi Day becomes official! Democratic Congressman Bart Gordon of Tennessee’s 6th congressional district, along with 15 co-sponsors, introduced HR 224, which “supports the designation of a Pi Day and its celebration around the world, recognizes the continuing importance of National Science Foundation math and science education programs, and encourages schools and educators to observe the day with appropriate activities that teach students about Pi and engage them about the study of mathematics.” The resolution was approved by the House of Representatives on March 12 of that year, proving that a love of pi is non-partisan.

source

earth equinoxes and solstices

inspired chair design

design by : daniel libeskind

design by : george nelson

design by : abie abdillah

design by : kate rider

design by : phillip grass

design by : phillip grass

design by : phillips de pury

design by : hendrick thor-larsen

design by : kyle buckner

design by : world war ll

eruption sun

Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Almost too fiery to seem real, this image of the sun's surface was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in August 2012. Shortly afterward, this prominence on the sun's surface erupted, blasting solar particles toward Earth. According to NASA, this eruption may have been the cause of a temporary radiation belt that surrounded Earth last year.     

Amazing Electromagnetic Winds

The interaction between the sun and Earth isn't limited to light. This artist's conception shows how electromagnetic solar winds influence the Earth's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere. University of Texas at Arlington physicist Yue Deng is currently studying these solar winds and how their energy is distributed in the atmosphere. "Right now, estimation of the amount of energy entering the Earth's thermosphere is not very precise and can be underestimated by 100 percent. We know even less about how that energy is distributed," Deng said in a March 11, 2013 statement. "This information is critical because if you put the same amount of energy at 400 kilometers the impact can be 100 times larger than if you put it at 100 kilometers."   

credit : NASA

Artist Recreates the World’s Most Famous Cities from Cardboard Boxes

Using only corrugated cardboard boxes and glue, renowned English artist Chris Gilmour has managed to recreate some of the world’s most famous cityscapes in stunning detail.
We first featured Chris Gilmour’s amazing cardboard sculptures back in 2009, but his latest project, titled “You can build anything when you put your mind to it“, is probably the most impressive one yet. The talented artist used common packaging boxes and glue to build models of some of the most iconic landmarks in the world, and did it all in record time. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but Gilmour managed to make a 40-foot-wide replica of London in just two days. Featuring the river Thames at the center, the fragile work of art also includes an intricate replica of Big Ben, a functional model of Tower Bridge and a rotating cardboard Big Eye. Part of an advertising campaign for the Bankers Box brand, the project also included incredibly detailed cardboard replicas of Paris and Berlin.

“Creating the iconic landmarks from each city was a real challenge,” Gilmour said. “This is the largest project of its kind that I’ve undertaken. Thankfully the boxes were really easy to work with and build. The biggest challenge was placing the iconic sculptures in the correct place in each city to successfully convey the depth and size of the entire build.” But the artist says the amazing result of his hard work proves you can actually build anything if you put your mind to it. Make sure to check out the timelapse video of putting together cardboard-box London, at the bottom of the page.

giethoorn: city of water

The tiny Dutch village of Giethoorn, located right in the middle of the De Wieden nature reserve, is fondly known as the Venice of Netherlands. Quite an apt name for the place, since it has distinct features that are reminiscent of the romantic Italian city – 7.5 km of canals, about 50 little wooden bridges, boat rides, quaint houses, and more.
If there’s something that Giethoorn does not have in common with Venice, it’s history. The small village was first inhabited in the year 1230 by a group of fugitives from the Mediterranean regions. It is said that when they first arrived in the area, they noticed an unusually large number of goat horns that were left over after the big flood of St Elisabeth had ravaged the area in 1170. So they named their settlement Geytenhorn (horn of goats), but with dialect changes over the years the name gradually changed to Giethoorn. There’s a story about how all the lakes came to be as well. Early settlers took to peat mining; they dug for peat in the areas that suited them the most and left holes in the ground. These holes soon filled up and turned into lakes of varying sizes. So to carry the peat from one area to another, they would sail through navigable canals and ditches. The means of transportation that was once a necessity is now a huge tourist attraction.

 It was in the year 1958 that Geithoorn first became popular as a tourist destination. A great Dutch filmmaker named Bert Haanstra made a movie at this location, after which tourists started arriving in large numbers, calling it the Venice of Netherlands. The boats called punters are typical to Giethoorn, however, and have become famous the world over. They are driven by an electric motor that make a sound no louder than a whisper. The village itself is the main attraction, where the atmosphere is said to be extremely peaceful and relaxing. Tourists also love admiring the classic Dutch architecture, including houses with thatched roofs and some carefully preserved 18^th and 19^th century farm houses. There are no roads in the old part of Giethoorn, so tourists generally take a boat ride around the village. A few cycling paths have been build recently for locals to use as transportation.
Giethoorn sounds like a delightfully picturesque location that you would not want to miss if you ever happen to be in the Netherlands.