New Delhi citizens turn traffic police on Facebook – CNN.com

New Delhi citizens turn traffic police on Facebook – CNN.com.

BBC News – World News America – Saudi women photograph their world

Women peacefully fighting for their rights!

via BBC News – World News America – Saudi women photograph their world.

More Students Choose a Junior-Year Abroad in the Mideast – NYTimes.com

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via More Students Choose a Junior-Year Abroad in the Mideast – NYTimes.com.

Taliban executes pregnant widow accused of adultery – CNN.com

We must  stop violence against women all over the world.

via Taliban executes pregnant widow accused of adultery – CNN.com.

1 min reading: Killing our dreams « Paulo Coelho’s Blog

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via 1 min reading: Killing our dreams « Paulo Coelho’s Blog.

NANCY KHEIRY DIA A DIA: Abueleando!!!

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via NANCY KHEIRY DIA A DIA: Abueleando!!!.

Restored Da Vinci painting reveals hidden details http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100715/ap_on_en_ot/eu_britain_da_vinci

LONDON – A restoration project for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Virgin of the Rocks” has revealed new details and suggest the Renaissance artist may have painted all the picture himself, instead of with his assistants as previously thought, a British gallery said Wednesday.

The 18-month conservation project involved removing much of some badly degraded varnish that was applied to the painting in the late 1940s, enabling experts to take a much closer look at the picture’s brush strokes and styles, the National Gallery said.

The cleaning revealed the painting’s full tonal range, especially in the darker areas, and resulted in a clearer sense of how the artist intended for space to recede through the rocky landscape, the gallery said.

It also affirmed that Leonardo likely painted the entire picture himself and intended for it to be unfinished.

The restored painting showed a range of completion from the barely sketched hand of the angel to the fully realized heads of the main figures — consistent with many of Leonardo’s works. The Italian artist, said to be the “eternal perfectionist,” is thought to have left his pictures unfinished because he wished to return to them later, gallery spokesman Thomas Almeroth-Williams said.

In the past, scholars believed the different levels of finish in “Virgin of the Rocks” showed that Leonardo was helped by assistants.

The painting dates from about 1491 to 1508 and is a later version of one on display in the Louvre in Paris.

The latest cleaning project followed years of scrutiny of the masterpiece.

In 2005, experts using infrared technology found two drawings hidden beneath the surface of the picture — one design was never painted, and the second one revealed Leonardo changed his mind about the subject several times.

The painting goes back on display in the National Gallery on Wednesday.

Online:

http://nationalgallery.org.uk/

Ancient species discovered in Barrier Reef depths http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100715/wl_asia_afp/australiaenvironmentcoralreef;_ylt=ArFga2GD8LF7F6p92dMNcg50fNdF

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian scientists have discovered bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometres below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.

Ancient sharks, giant oil fish, swarms of crustaceans and a primitive shell-dwelling squid species called the Nautilus were among the astonishing life captured by remote controlled cameras at Osprey Reef.

Lead researcher Justin Marshall Thursday said his team had also found several unidentified fish species, including “prehistoric six-gilled sharks” using special low-light sensitive cameras which were custom designed to trawl the ocean floor, 1,400 metres (4,593 feet) below sea level.

“Some of the creatures that we’ve seen we were sort of expecting, some of them we weren’t expecting, and some of them we haven’t identified yet,” said Marshall, from the University of Queensland.

“There was a shark that I really wasn’t expecting, which was a false cat shark, which has a really odd dorsal fin.”

The team used a tuna head on a stick to attract the creatures, which live beyond the reach of sunlight.

Marshall said the research had been made more urgent by recent oil spills affecting the world heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, and the growing threat to its biodiversity by the warming and acidification of the world’s oceans.

“One of the things that we’re trying to do by looking at the life in the deep sea is discover what’s there in the first place, before we wipe it out,” Marshall told AFP.

“We simply do not know what life is down there, and our cameras can now record the behaviour and life in Australia’s largest biosphere, the deep sea,” he added.

Scientists have already warned that the 345,000-square kilometre (133,000-square mile) attraction is in serious jeopardy, as global warming and chemical runoff threaten to kill marine species and cause disease outbreaks.

Chinese coal ship Shen Neng 1 gouged a three-metre scar in the reef when it ran aground whilst attempting to take a short cut on April 3, leaking tonnes of oil into a famed nature sanctuary and breeding site.

About 200,000 litres of heavy fuel oil spewed into waters south of the reef last March when shipping containers full of fertiliser tumbled off the Hong Kong-flagged Pacific Adventurer during a cyclone, piercing its hull.

It was one of Australia’s worst ever oil spills.

Marshall said the cameras would now be sent to the sludge-ridden Gulf of Mexico to monitor the effects of the oil spill there on marine life.

Healthier Office Spaces Benefit Everyone : TreeHugger

Healthier Office Spaces Benefit Everyone : TreeHugger.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mika-ono/5-healthy-eating-tips-fro_b_632977.html#s109275