Red carpet for a salmon in Alaska
Governor David Boshell and copilot Melissa Van Dyke of Alaska Air Cargo,carrying with prices a huge royal salmon. The ceremony is part of a tradition of many years for the opening  of the period of disposal of certain salmon in Alaska

reading this I felt so nice after 45 years of guilty feelings

the story goes like this, I was 3 or 4 years old and my parents had dressed all the furniture with very expensive Shanderson clothing. I was a great fisherman and that Saturday I have caught 5 very big  fishes, so when they were barbecued with full of olive oil and parsley, just to celebrate this and to remember them before they would forever vanish into our stomachs I put every fish on every different luxurious armchair and the sofaMy father had a nervous breakdown and he punished me very hard, when they asked me why I did it, i said that I believed that the fishes have equal rights with us and I wanted to honor them and to remember them in this way

I was about 3 years old, it was that time that my father came one morning hasty from his work at the Agricultural Bank and told me quickly to go with him to see a whale. It was very strange because there were no whales in the Mediterranean sea but this one probably had lost its way came in from Gibraltar, and swam all the way from Spain Italy and Aegean sea till she was caught at my hometown Kavala, quite unbelievable story, the fishermen were all friends of my father due to their bussiness with their Bank, they told him the place in the port where the fish was excibited and my father thought that it would be great to take me there, in the beginning I was not enthusiastic to follow but he insisted telling me that I will never have the chance to see a whale again, so I listend to him, actually I couldn’t say no cause he was ready to grab me and take me with him.  Finally we made it to the port. The whale was displayed in there standing on a long stall into a big depot, there were many people all around but I couldn’t see any children, the fishermen had tight the tail and the  mouth of the grey huge fish with ropes from the ceiling, keeping her mouth open with 2 ropes from the sidelines of the ceiling and 2 ropes from the center of the ceiling, in a way that you were able to see inside the whale from a small gap that her teeth left from the down rim of her mouth, her tail was kept high with another rope from the center of the ceiling. Then my father lifted me on his arms and put me in front of her mouth and told me to go inside the whale, I was a bit scared cause there were many people gathered on both sides of the construction but no one on the pedestal and I thought it was forbidden, I was standing all alone in front of the whale’s mouth with her long teeth baleens hanging from above like a curtain, I opened them and started to walk inside the whale, unhappy with what happened to her,  I was surprised that she was not only red but also white and red on the inside of her jowls, my first thought was to feel if she’s still alive so I put my hand on her cold jowl, I felt that she was dead, then I stayed inside for a minute or two  looking bewildered all around, feeling a massive respect for this huge mammal, I saw the entrance to her stomach some meters away, it was only a small hole, then I walked outside with the crowd cheerfull in front of me, I smiled cause I was feeling blessed to live such a rare experience, may be this is why I wanted to honor the fishes the other day

"Mitako yasi"   means   "We are all related"

Olympic torch lit for Rio Olympic Games in Ancient Olympia:) http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/20/seven-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-olympic-flame/

Olympic torch lit for Rio Olympic Games in Ancient Olympia:) http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/20/seven-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-olympic-flame/

 Olive The Blessed Tree

South African teen invents super absorbant polymer solving the problem to drought

An intelligent 16-year-old South African teenager could have come up with a solution to her country’s worst drought in recorded history. Johannesburg schoolgirl Kiara Nirghin recently won the Google Science Fair’s Community Impact Award for the Middle East and Africa with her submission “No More Thirsty Crops.” Using orange peel and avocado skins, the precocious student created a super absorbent polymer (SAP) capable of storing reserves of water hundreds of times its own weight, forming reservoirs that would allow farmers to maintain their crops at minimal cost.

The polymer has the added benefit of sustainability as it uses recycled and biodegradable waste products. The inventor says she wanted to tackle the most urgent aspect of the national crisis.

http://thegreentimes.co.za/teen-scientist-plans-to-solve-sa-crop-woes-with-orange-peels/

“I wanted to minimize the effect that drought has on the community and the main thing it affects is the crops,” says Nirghin, of St. Martin’s School. “That was the springboard for the idea.” The teenager combined the skin and peel and left the mixture in the sun, where they reacted together to form the powerfully absorbent polymer.

source: cnn

From Here To Eternity!

A marriage made in Heaven - I liked this story

         President Barack Obama in Athens

"Again, in questions of general good feeling there is a great contrast between us and most other people. We make friends by doing good to others, not by receiving good from them. This makes our friendship all the more reliable, since we want to keep alive the gratitude of those who are in our debt by showing continued goodwill to them: whereas the feelings of one who owes us something lack the same enthusiasm, since he knows that, when he repays our kindness, it will be more like paying back a debt than giving something spontaneously. We are unique in this. When we do kindnesses to others, we do not do them out of any calculations of profit or loss: we do them without afterthought, relying on our free liberality. Taking everything together then, I declare that our city is an education to Greece, and I declare that in my opinion each single one of our citizens, in all the manifold aspects of life, is able to show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person, and do this, moreover, with exceptional grace and exceptional versatility...

...Mighty indeed are the marks and monuments of our empire which we have left. Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now." from Thukydides Pericles' Funeral Oration

Merry Christmas everyone!

http://www.space.com/35123-christmas-on-space-station-astronauts-celebrate.html

THE DREADED Doomsday Clock has moved to closer to midnight today. But what is the clock and why does it symbolise the threat of global obliteration?

Scientists are have moved the Doomsday Clock's hands to two and half minutes to midnight - the time representing the end of humanity.

After the clock moved 30 seconds closer to midnight, here is look at what the time means and how the Doomsday clock started ticking. 

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/759092/what-is-Doomsday-Clock-why-closer-to-midnight-Bulletin-of-Atomic-Scientists-time-change

It's real: Metallic hydrogen has been created for the first time

Metallic hydrogen is a kind of degenerate matter, a phase of hydrogen in which it behaves as an electrical conductor. This phase was predicted theoretically by Eugene Wigner and Hillard Bell Huntington in 1935. As of 2017, there are still-controversial claims that metallic hydrogen has been observed in the laboratory at a pressure of around 495 GPa. Some observations consistent with metallic behaviour had previously been reported such as the possible observation of some new phases of solid hydrogen under static conditions,  and, in dense liquid deuterium, electrical insulator-to-conductor transitions associated with an increase in optical reflectivity.

At high pressure and temperatures, metallic hydrogen might exist as a liquid rather than a solid, and it is thought to be present in large amounts in the gravitationally compressed interiors of Jupiter, Saturn, and in some extrasolar planets

This is the "holy grail of high pressure physics"

Breakthrough could lead to an electronics revolution with superfast chips.

It could also be used to create superfast maglev trains and rocket fuel

http://www.sciencealert.com/hydrogen-has-been-turned-into-a-metal-for-the-first-time-ever

http://www.livescience.com/57645-elusive-metallic-hydrogen-created.html

The 5 biggest questions about the universe (and how we're trying to answer them)

http://www.nbcnews.com/mach/space/5-biggest-questions-about-universe-how-we-re-trying-answer-n702051

 NASA announced the discovery of the most Earth-sized planets found in the habitable zone of a single star, called TRAPPIST-1. This system of seven rocky worlds–all of them with the potential for water on their surface–is an exciting discovery in the search for life on other worlds. There is the possibility that future study of this unique planetary system could reveal conditions suitable for life

An artist's illustration of TRAPPIST-1d takes you to the surface of the third planet from the red TRAPPIST-1 star. From here, the star looms larger than our sun and its light casts a red glow across the sky. Look up, and you may catch a glimpse of its six sister planets, as visible as our moon is from Earth

Take a trip with the Exoplanet Travel Bureau to the fourth planet in the TRAPPIST-1 system, TRAPPIST-1e, a world swimming in water in perpetual twilight. Its sister planets gracefully light up the sky, promising another adventure just a hop away.

         Artist's impression of a view from the surface of a planet

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski (born June 3, 1993) is an American physicist from Chicago, Illinois who studies string theory and high energy physics. She describes herself as "a proud first-generation Cuban-American & Chicago Public Schools alumna." She completed her undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a graduate student at Harvard University.

Pasterski has made contributions in the field of gravitational memories. She is best known for her concept of "the Triangle," which connects several physical ideas.

The Guardian: “Let’s do a Brexit deal with the Parthenon marbles”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/04/brexit-deal-parthenon-marbles

(“There is no doubt the marbles were stolen. Lord Elgin’s licence to remove “stones” specifically prohibited him from pulling down the superstructure of the building to rip off sculptures.“)

Reuniting the marbles is a cultural imperative, not so much for Greece (its current citizens are of doubtful descent from Pericles) as for Europe. United, they will stand as a unique representation of the beginnings of civilised life in Europe, 2,500 years ago. It will be like putting together a photograph long torn in half, recording people walking and talking, playing and (particularly) drinking. United in the custom-built modern museum beneath the Parthenon, the marbles will be the greatest artistic and architectural treasure on the continent.

There is no doubt that they were stolen. Elgin’s licence to remove “stones” specifically prohibited him from pulling down the superstructure of the building to rip off the metopes and sculptures. Before a parliamentary committee he lied outrageously, pretending to have acted only when he saw with his own eyes how they were being despoiled by the Turks.

(“Reuniting the marbles in Athens is a cultural imperative. They will stand as a unique representation of the beginnings of civilised life in Europe, 2,500 years ago.“)

This was a demonstrable falsehood, because he did not arrive in Athens until most of the marbles had been torn down by his workmen for his own profit, in breach of his duty as British ambassador. They are now vested by the 1963 British Museum Act in the trustees of the institution. But parliament can unvest them, by a simple amendment or a line in the big Brexit bill, and send them back to Athens as part of our final deal with Europe.

It cannot be said that the trustees have kept the marbles responsibly. They covered up the cleaning scandal for decades, after the marbles were scoured and scratched on benefactor Joseph Duveen’s orders. They still exhibit them in a gallery that commemorates Duveen – one of the most controversial, opportunistic art dealers of the 20th century. As for former British Museum director Neil MacGregor’s claim that they belong in a “something for everyone” museum – a quick thrill for tourists before they pass on to the Egyptian mummies via the Lewis chessmen – this is risible. They belong with the other remaining pieces of the astonishing frieze, under the transparent roof of the Acropolis Museum, looking up at the Parthenon and the blue attic sky.

Now is the time to offer to return them, as part of the Brexit deal. 

Jean-Claude Juncker and his bureaucrats, and the governments of Germany, France and Italy in particular often refer to the importance to Europe of its culture – and they shouldn’t miss this opportunity to enhance it. The treaty itself, in my view, obliges them to put the reunification of the marbles on the negotiating table, and to give as much ground as possible to achieve their return to Athens. As for the UK, a willingness to surrender Elgin’s ill-gotten gains will win goodwill as well as concessions. Britain is leaving Europe, so it should leave Europe with its marbles.

https://www.chess.com/blog/Bellerophontis/parthenon-marbles-statues