nubbsgalore:

a waterfall of mist flowing over golden cliffs of west bay in dorset. noted the videographer, “when i walked on to the beach i couldn’t see anything because of the fog. i could barely see the top of the cliffs. i sent up my drone well above the cliffs to see what was happening and i could see the fog just flowing over the cliffs like a waterfall. 

normally, hot air will cool as it rises, but the opposite can sometimes occur in what is known as temperature inversion, where hot air high up acts as a seal to keep cold air and fog trapped below, creating the scene of a river of fog seeming to flow into the sea below. (x)

alithographicaart:

ucresearch:

Why we need GMOs to survive climate change

Genetically modified organisms get a bad rap for many reasons, but we’ve actually been genetically altering what we eat since the dawn of human history.

“For 10,000 years, we have altered the genetic makeup of our crops,”explains UC Davis plant pathology professor Pamela Ronald.

“Today
virtually everything we eat is produced from seeds that we have
genetically altered in one way or another.” (You can read more about Ronald’s thoughts on genetically engineered food here.)

Right now her focus is on rice. It’s one of our basic crops and without it, we would struggle to feed much of the world.

With climate change, we’re seeing an increase in flooding in places like India and Bangladesh, which makes it harder to grow this important food staple.

So Ronald and her lab have developed a flood-tolerant strain of rice. It’s known as Sub1a or “scuba rice” and millions of farmers in South Asia are now growing it in their fields. 

Today is National Food Day, a day dedicated to hunger awareness. But as we focus on food insecurity, we need to talk more about how global warming will make the problem worse.

As our climate continues to heat up, it has huge impacts on what foods we are able to grow. Will our crops be able to survive droughts and floods? The University of California leads six labs that are working to develop other climate-resilient crops including chickpea, cowpea and millet.

Find out what other scientists are doing to improve our food.

Your daily reminder that GMOs are not evil – profit-mongering corporations are.

rejectedprincesses:

Kazakh filmmakers are making a trilogy of films about the Scythian/Saka warrior women of the ancient world. These historical reenactment movies focus on the women who in part inspired the Greek Amazon myths – the same women to whom former RPs Tirgatao and Tomyris are closely linked!

There’s very little English language information on the films so far, but the Women of Kazakhstan page on Facebook has translated an article found here (translation below): http://www.m.kazpravda.kz/news/view/97896/ 

Movie about women in Saka period has started in Almaty region of Kazakhstan.
Kazpravda.kz informs that the Amazons documentary about female conquerors from Saka-Scythian tribes is shot by Colibri films Kazakh production studio upon the request of Smithsonian channel USA, Urban canyons production company UK and ZDF channel Germany. Amazons project is the first part of the trilogy named Warrior women, which will consist of three series for 52 minutes each and tell the world about the most skillful and iconic female warriors that have existed since the V century BC to the present time. Thus, the theme will be disclosed on military achievements of the Amazons who lived on the territory of the Altai to the Black Sea, gladiatrix, which the Romans used for entertainment as well as the history of the African Women’s shelf Mino, noted in the war against the French colonial forces.

The film will be presented in the genre of historical reconstruction, also based on the staged shooting and computer graphics. In addition, the idea of directors includes interviews with historians, archaeologists and museum curators, with an exciting narrative, in which the sacrifice and perseverance has become a way of life of girls who fell in the bloody battle of their time. 

 The main customer of the documentary is the Smithsonian channel, American television channel that is a part of Smithsonian Scientific and Research Institute that is respected all over the world. The reliability and accuracy of the rankings of which is even ahead of the National Geographic Channel. After Kazakhstan shootings will continue in West Africa, France, the United States and UK.

First film of Amazons trilogy tells the story of three Amazons of the Eurasian steppes named Alkaya, Samsi and Aella, played by Gaziza-Tansholpan Tleubay (“Kazakh khanate”), Hulan Chuluun and Dinara Baktybaeva (“He and She”). 

Online casting of actors was done by Colibri films studio, but the final choice yet remained on foreign producers who wanted to show the diversity and uniqueness of the appearance of representatives of Saka-Scythian tribes, and therefore chose three main facial features faces: Mongolian, Turkish and European. United Kingdom company that partners the film asked to invite Chuluun Hulan actress, who had remembered to the world for the femalrole in Sergei Bodrov’s “Mongol” movie. Now Chuluun and her husband Naryn Igilik – executive producer of Amazona and director of the Colibri films are expecting a baby the filmmakers rewrote the script especially for her where she will play a married woman with her real eldest daughter. 

 Team of Colibri films recreated unique costumes and weapons of 5 century BC. of Saka-Scythian period specially for this film. Shooting elements were reproduced on the basis of real objects found in ancient burial mounds of Saka. It is noteworthy that even Scythian conical folding structures that did exist and are considered the prototype of the Kazakh yurt were shown. The accuracy of all the details of the films are checked by consultants of the project professor Adrienne Mayor from Stanford University, author of the American best-seller the Amazons, as well as international and Kazakh historians and archaeologists. 

“This film is about how and why Saki women were warriors on the example of a girl who lost her family and from an early age learned to hunt and fight. Saka Amazon is a strong, brave and sacrificing women, she easily could lead the tribe, use the armor and had the ability to negotiate. She was the guardian of the hearth and the beautiful muse at the same time”, – said the executive producer of the project Naryn Igilik. 

 Filming of trilogy has began in June this year in Malta. The filmmakers started filming in Kazakhstan on October 18 in Almaty and Almaty region. The film was shot near the village Museum of Zhambyl of Zhambyl district of Almaty region. Small homeland of Naryn Igilik, which was demonsrated in Ermek Tursunov’s “Shal” movie upon his recommendation, immediately amazed the foreign producers with its diversity and pristine wilderness. Mountains of Zailiyskiy Alatau, hills and Zhailau perfectly suited the filming of Amazons. 

Art director of the movie is Marat Sagit, costume director – Zauresh Zhabagina, makeup artist – Sergei Maurin (Ukraine). 

“At first we wanted to order the project at “Kazakh film” JSC named after Shaken Aimanov, but because of the protracted bureaucratic delays in the negotiations and the deadline we had to change the mind and seek for independent private studio. So, we went to the director of Colibri films Naryn Igilik, that stands behind such famous films as “Mongol”, “Shal”, and is soon expected to release “Kazakh Khanate” movie. I am glad that the Naryn and stunt group “Nomad” invited by him fully met our expectations. They could qualitatively shot realistic scenes even with not so big television budget “, – Peter Sebastian producer of the Urban canyons production company from UK. 

The world premiere will take place in October 2017 on Smithsonian channel, and the trilogy will be broadcasted on following channels Viasat history, the German ZDF, Scandinavian MTG and many TV channels in the UK.
But the pecularity of this global project is that the producer Naryn Igilik already agreed with foreign partners that his studio Colibri films won the right to represent and sell this film in Kazakhstan. Therefore, as an exception the first premiere of this global trilogy on Amazons will be held in our country. Igilik dreams to present this documentary about the ancient history to the millions of foreign visitors in frames of "EXPO-2017” exhibition. 

 "This is my first experience in the documentary historical filming and I was very struck by the story, costumes, weapons and, above all, the image of our foremothers. In those days, it turns out, the feminism was quite vibrant. There was even a scene where my character chose a man for herself. It was funny! It’s too bas there was not enough time for preparations works, that is why I was replaced in the archery and horse racing scenes. When I had free time, I often tried to ride, and all this, together with the surrounding environment, affected my future decision to try myself in “Nomad” group and possibly start filming in the historical genre, “- said the actress Dinara Baktybaeva.

fuckyeahhistorycrushes:

I would like to present to you my boy Mursili II, King of Hatti (a Bronze Age kingdom and later empire in central Turkey). Unfortunately, there are no known statues or reliefs of him, so the picture above is a screenshot from the 2003 Turkish documentary The Hittites which I may or may not have chosen because the actor playing Mursili is pretty damn handsome.

Mursili was a badass warrior but also a sensitive sweetheart, a writer and a historian. He was the youngest of five sons and nobody expected him to rule, but when his father and eldest brother died, he was the only son left to be king. (Two of his other brothers were already local rulers in Syria, and the last brother, Zannanza, had died in an affair which is a story in its own right.) Mursili was very young at his accession, barely an adult, and after his badass father’s rule nobody took him seriously. His allies belittled him and called him a child, and when Mursili sent out envoys to negotiate, they never sent them back.

So Mursili defeated them all.

Within ten years, he had either conquered or allied himself with all the kings of the region. He was also the first Hittite king to subjugate Arzawa, a neighbouring kingdom which Hatti had been at odds with for centuries. Despite his young age, Mursili quickly became known for his success in battle. Under his rule and that of his father, the Hittite empire reached its peak.

But Mursili’s rule wasn’t just about fighting. For twenty years he struggled with a plague that was killing masses of his people. In those days, such a plague meant that the Gods were angry against the king, and Mursili clearly took it to heart. He wrote a number of extremely emotional prayers in which he asked for forgiveness, and as time went by, argued with the Gods about the unfairness of such suffering. These prayers are some of the most beautiful examples of Hittite literature.

But as if that wasn’t enough for poor Mursili, in his tenth year as king, his wife died of a mysterious illness. He accused his stepmother of cursing her (probably the most controversial thing he did) but though he was legally and religiously allowed to have her executed, he only banished her. He also wrote about this episode in his prayers, in vivid words:

I punished her with this one thing, that I sent her down from the palace. (…) Has her life now become miserable? Because she is alive, she beholds the sun of heaven with her eyes. She eats the bread of life. My punishment is the death of my wife. Has this gotten any better? Because she killed her, throughout the days of life [my soul] goes down to the dark netherworld [on her account]. For me it has been unbearable. (translation: Harry A. Hoffner Jr)

A few more facts about Mursili:

  • he suffered from temporary speech loss that might’ve been caused by a stroke due to all the stress he was under
  • he was interested in history and wrote not only annals (year-by-year events) for his own rule, but also for his father’s
  • during the first years of his reign, his two surviving brothers regularly helped him out. They both died the same year as Mursili’s wife.
  • he witnessed an eclipse which can (probably) be dated to the 24th of June 1312 BC. This is really useful for establishing a chronology of Bronze Age history!

Mursili died in his 40s after a successful but difficult life. He’s hardly known outside of Hittitology circles but he will always be my sweet, badass, scholarly history crush!

archatlas:

Necropolis of Cerveteri

A major centre of Etruscan civilisation that was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, the Necropolis stretches for more than two kilometres. This certainly makes it the most imposing in all Etruria and one of the most magnificent monuments of its kind anywhere in the Mediterranean basin. These monumental tombs are located inside tumuli, partly cut into the tufa rock and partly built over it. The purpose of these edifices was to illustrate the desire of a handful of aristocratic families to make a statement about their wealth and to perpetuate a lifestyle of the highest quality also after death. 

Images and text via, additional images via + via

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trompehue-studios:

ivanalifan:

Oil on panel, 60 by 48 inch. I wanted to explore texture and use nontraditionally paintings tools to make the figure seem as if she is walking out of the painting. Also, please VOTE for me again on my website. I am a semi finalist in a competition !

@omnikozmicillustrator bruh…..