Budi: Naik apa yang nggak pernah turun?
Wati: Naik haji, dong!
Budi: Yak,tul!

Lebih kurang seminggu lagi umat Muslim sedunia berkumpul di Masjidil Haram untuk menunaikan ibadah haji. Teriring do’a dan air mata melepas kepergian kakek, nenek, bapak, ibu, paman, bibi, saudara, dan kerabat yang sudah berangkat memenuhi seruan Allah yang agung ini. Semoga mereka menjadi haji yang mabrur, dan yang wafat menjadi syahid / syahidah.

Kita yang belum bisa memenuhi panggilan itu hendaknya berkurban di tanah air sebagai bukti ketaatan kita pada perintahNya sekaligus menjadi jalan kebaikan untuk saudara-saudara kita yang membutuhkan.

Ya Allah, Ka’bah ini indah nian, kapankah giliran kami bisa memenuhi  panggilanmu? Kalaulah film bilang “Emak ingin naik haji”, bolehlah judul itu ditimpali “Aye juga pengen, mak”. Lalu tahun depan muncul sekuelnya, “Emak ingin naik haji (sekali lagi)”, dan seterusnya

Selamat Idul Adha 1430 H

Keterangan sketsa:
Sketsa ka’bah bersumber dari foto postcard di majalah National Geographic Indonesia:

Mekah, Arab Saudi (1965)
oleh Thomas J. Abercrombie
Seprempat juta Muslim mengelilingi Ka’bah untuk berdoa kepada Allah.
Efek buram pada foto orang-orang yang mengelilingi Ka’bah tepat di tengah,
menciptakan, “bayangan tentang gerakan kosmis,” kata Abercrombie.

Gambar “Emak ingin naik haji” diambil dari sini.

The name Jane Goodall  usually triggers the memory. For myself, her name triggers years of rich, interesting photos and stories I observed and read as a child from my mother’s vast National Geographic collection. I used to dream of what it would be like to live her life. In my young mind, it seemed to be the ultimate way to live, in the wild with animals. This young woman was living a dream.

Jane Goodall is  a trailblazer respected by all who learn of her work. She taught us about our commonality with the natural world and its inabitants. She introduced us to the humanity of the animal kingdom and developed our compassion for chimpanzees and other animals through years of tireless work and patient study.

A lifetime of memories about Jane Goodall’s work came flooding forth in a breathless moment last week as I was walking through the 2009 Women’s Conference in Long Beach. There she was. The icon, the legend, petite and lithe, graceful and calm. She was being taped during an interview for the conference. A small croud of fans surrounded her, I among them. 

Feeling like a child, I waited for the moment, opened my journal, and quickly asked her if she could sign my journal so I could share this moment with my children and grandchildren. She quietly obliged, looking at me a little strangely as if she was thinking,  “What does this have to do with anything?” I thanked her and stepped back, making room for others as I could see this window of opportunity was brief.  Her ‘peeps’ were getting ready to hurry her off to another important affair.

I never know what to say to famous people I admire! In hindsight, I always have a better response; the one I replay in my mind over and over, as if I will ever have a second chance.  The funniest memory I have of this repetitive dilemma in my life is the moment when I met Stevie Wonder. The story that led to that both memorable and regretful occation is worth another posting at a later date. During that moment when I met him so many years ago, all I could say to him was, “I take your Stevie Wonder Special” or something to that effect. The Stevie Wonder Special was only known to me, however.* Stevie could not have known what I was talking about, but I was so nervous I didn’t know what else to say that would make me stand apart from the hundreds of others surrounding him.

To make up for that wasted opportunity with Stevie Wonder, I went back to my home of Grass Valley the next week after meeting him. I found a braille specialist and wrote Stevie a 3 page letter in braille, which I sent to him, to get all of those unspoken thoughts out of my system. It was something that benefitted me more, not him and a silly thing to do in retrospect. But I really wanted him to know how one lifelong fan had been touched by his work.

Not every famous person leaves me speechless, only those I hold a reverence for, like Jane Goodall! So, this time, instead of dithering about what I should write to her, I will do something different.

Jane’s acceptance speech at the 2009 Minerva Awards this year was the closing speech and well worth every single word. She brilliantly formulated a message that spontaneously included the other winners, her life, and our future as a human race. It was intimate, powerful, inspiring! As a member of Toastmasters International, I am aware of the elements of an exceptional speech.

Jane Goodall  is an incredible speaker, a revolutionary leader, a doer and advocate for the natural world. To honor her work and support her latest project Roots and Shoots, I encourage you to check out: http://www.rootsandshoots.org/ and invite others to do the same. As an inspired young person that literally changed the world’s view of the chimpanzee, Jane Goodall understands the power of youth, especially when it is combined with meaning and inspiration. She is effectively empowering this generation of youth to be an integral part of the solution. Jane Goodall is synonymous with “change agent”. She knows like so many other memorable leaders, that when we understand our mission on the planet, our work is never done; nor do we every tire of doing it!

You are also invited you to listen to the eloquence of Jane Goodall’s timeless message. She expresses something we will all benefit from hearing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QlAC5llsOg&feature=channel

Thank you Jane Goodall! I aspire to follow your inspirational leadership and willingness to break through barriers, educate the masses, and to be an effective part of the global solutions we need.

WHEN AND HOW DID YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT JANE GOODALL? ANY MEMORIES TO SHARE? I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT THEM!

Christina Ivazes

aka Granny Pants

* Stevie Wonder Special: To be used for scratchy sore throats, laryngitis, voice loss, (many years ago I was watching Stevie being interviewed by Dick Cavett. Dick asked him how he kept his voice intact. This is what he said he used regularly:  red cayenne pepper, (about 1/8 tsp. powdered),  honey, and hot water. Drink as a tea. I have been using this for years with great success as well. It is very soothing and effective.

This morning I left sleepy Takayama for Kyoto.  At the moment, it is positively pouring, and I’m nestled in the rather sleek and modern cafe that is downstairs in my hostel, enjoying the free WiFi and waiting for the clock to strike 3pm so I can be admitted to my room.  This morning consisted of a mere two train rides — a welcome change from always needing to switch trains; boarding and disembarking, climbing countless staircases and switching tracks can be cumbersome when you’re juggling the hippopotamus that is my backpack.

I digress.  The ride from Takayama to Nagoya, where I switched to the shinkansen, was the lengthier of the two (about two and a half hours), and absolutely gorgeous.  At first, I wasn’t looking forward to the hokey “limited express” that wound its way down through the mountains.  It’s far too steep and windy for the bullet trains, and I had grown accustomed to zooming from Point A to Point B at speeds rivaling those of sound and light and F-16 fighter jets (Top Gun control tower fly-bys, anyone?).

Boy was I wrong.  Having arrived in Takayama so late and in the pitch black, I had no idea what my eyes were missing.  The ride was wonderful.  Gorgeous, breathtaking, awe-inspiring, you name it.  The train winds down through the mountains (and while not a bullet train, this ain’t no slow poke either), through lush forests, along countless rivers, across bridges and dams and dare I say a gorge or two.  It was the kind of scenery that would cause National Geographic to send its top photographers out to capture surreal images for a glossy, several page spread highlighting the beauties of the region, and I’ve no doubt they’ve already done so.  Simply gorgeous.

After scarfing my breakfast and finishing Miss Austen, you can picture me staring out the window, grinning from ear to ear, jamming to The Clash, with all the dignified Japanese thinking “what is that goofy tourist smiling at now?”

It was a good ride.

(Note: my photos are a terrible rendering and don’t begin to do the beautiful scenery justice.)

Like police and nurses, cleaner fish on coral reefs wear uniforms to signal their “professions”—a tactic that also helps the fish avoid being eaten by their clients, a new study says.

Several species of small reef fish are known to invite larger fish to stop by “cleaning stations,” where the cleaners groom their customers and pick them free of parasites.

The clients swim away spic-and-span, and the cleaners get an easy meal: “a classic example” of a mutually beneficial relationship, the researchers write.

However, scientists have long wondered how bigger, fish-eating clients find cleaners and apparently recognize that the smaller fish are off the menu.

Karen Cheney and colleagues decided to test the theory that the cleaners’ colors and body patterns are what set the fish apart.

Her team found that cleaner fish—such as gobies and wrasses—are more likely to sport a dark side stripe accentuated by patches of blue and yellow.

“We believe that they do exhibit a ‘cleaner uniform’ in order to make them conspicuous and easy to distinguish on a coral reef,” Cheney, a biologist at the University of Queensland in Australia, said by email.

Getting the Blues

Cheney and colleagues observed the behavior of several species of wild fish known to visit the cleaners at a site in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

The team then added fake fish, which had been painted with a range of colors and patterns, to the reef.

The researchers found that fish painted with blue colors and striped body patterns enticed more clients to pull up to a cleaning station.

The team also used a well-known model for how fish see colors to examine how three types of client fish—barracuda, damselfish, and surgeonfish—were likely to respond to various hues.

Though each fish species has a different kind of visual system, for all of them blue would contrast most against the colors of coral reefs.

Yellow would best stand out against blue water backdrops and dark lateral stripes, the authors wrote.

This would make a blue-and-yellow striped fish very obvious to clients as they passed by a reef.

Which Came First?

Though no one knows for sure, Cheney said her new study implies that the fish’s cleaning behavior evolved before the uniform.

The blue-and-yellow patterns possibly became more common over time as fish flashing those colors attracted more clients.

(Source :  National Geographic )

When Hawking loses his voice to a tracheotomy, new speech software technology keeps his research on track.

Naked Science: Hawking’s Universe : SUN AUG 23 10P et/pt : http://channel.nationalgeographic.com…

Ecco qui sotto le 15 foto che hanno arricchito i post di Giugno, vota quella che ti piace di più, la vincitrice sarà l’immagine della “testata” sulla home page;per votare usa il sondaggio a fine intervento:

1 - Elefante Africano

2 - Arcobaleno in Canada

3 - blue iceberg

4 - bushmen

5 - muraglia

6 - china landscape

7 - china human rice

8 - fire dancer

9 - marostica scacchi

10 - orange birds

11 - orange sunset

12 - penguins underwater antarctica

13 - translated bible amos

14 - huntington beach lightning

15 - jogger lincoln

guarda le foto e VOTA nel sondaggio il tuo baby-animals preferito!(collaborazione con il nationalgeographic)

coccodrillo americano

orso bruno

leopardo

lince

orso polare

National Geographic Adventure, which is based in New York City, is an outdoor travel magazine published by the National Geographic Society. We cover the world of adventure, from travel destinations and outdoor pursuits, to accounts of expeditions and scientific exploration. Our editorial offices are located in midtown in New York City.

Adventure is accepting applications for unpaid, for-credit internships in spring and summer. If you are interested in a summer internship, you must be an enrolled student. Adventure offers internships in our editorial, photo, art, and online departments.

On the heels of the NewScientist YouTube channel we have the offering from Nature. Where NewScientist provides a news-style clip of current Science headlines, Nature’s YouTube channel takes the approach of a video background to articles published in their journal. So far they have ten videos, though they provide useful background to articles such as the Antikythera mechanism, whale evolution and this one on sequencing the platypus genome:

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It’s an encouraging trend to see these journals reach out into internet video publishing – cheap, easy and a great starting place for students getting involved in science. Let’s hope Nature can keep their channel going longer than ScientificAmerican, who started strongly but seem to have given up.

Of course, the bees knees of YouTube channels so far are NationalGeographic, with 847 videos to date. Here’s a gratuitous Great White clip:

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JoVE

Another great channel (though not on YouTube) is the Journal of Visualised Experiments – actually publishing scientific research papers as videos. A good idea, and some really effective videos – especially for letting us see what is going on in the experiment or operation.  Unfortunately, their videos can’t be embedded, so get yourself on over there and have  a look.

Now comes the question of citing online videos in your work – and here is the answer! (pdf)

Other ‘tube’ resources worth a look are DNAtube and TeacherTube.

Bulan haji…telah tiba lagi….menunaikan ibadah…panggilan baitullah…tanah suci Mekah………i will keep this video published until end of zulhijjah.

This video has been screened on discovery channel few years ago.  A very special appearance, a journey of one Malaysian to Mecca for hajj. He is En Ismail Mahboob of MNRB-Retakaful Bhd.

I take the opportunity here to wish En Ismail A Jaabar and wife all the best on their journey to Mecca – took off for mecca on Nov 5, 2008

A blood feud in Albaniaa country where taking revenge is a virtual duty.

Source: NationalGeographic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM6f43giUcg

En un post anterior publiqué un documental, bajo la perspectiva de National Geographic Channel. Ahora les comparto estos otros videos acerca de la visión de Juan y el Apocalipsis.

Los siguientes son los enlaces correspondientes.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

I was watching one of these science programs on National Geographic about the connection of the relation between testosterone exposure in the womb and finger length.

The foetus makes most of the testosterone itself. In males, it comes from the testes and adrenal glands; in females from the adrenals alone. Only a small amount will comes from the mother. In women this results in the ring finger and index finger being about the same length. However in men the index finger will usually be the shorter of the two digits.

“It has been known for some time that there is a direct correlation between finger lengths and the amount of the male sex hormone testosterone that a baby is exposed to in the womb.
In women, the two fingers are usually almost equal in length, as measured from the crease nearest the palm to the fingertip. A longer index finger is associated with higher levels of oestrogen and luteinising hormone, both of which are known to play critical roles in egg production. In men, the ring finger tends to be much longer than the index.”¹

Elevated or high levels of testosterone in the womb have been linked to several brain-related phenomena, including aggression, fertility, left-handedness, autism, dyslexia and controversially male and female sexual orientation.

Aggression
The shorter the index finger of a man is compared to the ring finger, the more boisterous he is. This doesn’t true for verbal aggression or hostile behaviours.² “No such connection was found in women.“

However a different study found a correlation for women exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the womb, they had a more ‘male’ pattern of finger length. And they displayed more frustrated behaviour when answering challenging telephone calls than other women, to the point of smashing down the phone after the conversation.

Fertility
A long ring finger in men and symmetrical hands are an indication of fertility. Men with mirror-image hands are more likely to have a high sperm count than those with two asymmetrical hands. Twelve of the least fertile men in the study, who were producing almost no sperm, had the least symmetrical hands. Women are more likely to be fertile if they have a longer index finger.

Experimentation on mice found that the gene Hox affects digits as well as the ovaries and testes, although a similar genetic link in humans has yet to be found.³

Autism
Autistic children had extremely long ring fingers compared with their index fingers, whereas children with Asperger’s also had abnormal index-to-ring finger ratios, though less so than full-blown autistics. It’s possible that families with autistic children may have a genetic predisposed for the production of high levels of testosterone during early development, as even the unaffected siblings and parents of the autistic children had ratios that differed significantly from the normal controls.⁴

Sexual Orientation
The length of the fingers could also be an indication of sexual orientation, although the study is controversial.⁵ In both lesbian women and homosexual males with several older brothers (I don’t do the tests) have a greater difference in length between their ring and index fingers than their straight counterparts.⁶

Other
Excess testosterone has also been implicated in the origins of migraine, stuttering, schizophrenia and depression.⁷

1. Finger length ‘key to aggression’
2. Finger Length Predicts Aggression in Men
3. Fingers point to fertility levels
4. Finger Length Ratios
5. A finger on sexuality
6. Finger-length ratios and sexual orientation
7. Hidden significance of a man’s ring finger

• Finger length heart attack clue
• Finger length helps predict SAT exam results, study shows
• Digit Ratio (Wikipedia)

technorati tags: nationalgeographic, bbc, university, study, finger, autism, migraine, stuttering, schizophrenia, depression, aggression, fertility, left-handedness, dyslexia, sexual, orientation, homosexuality

National Geographic

February 08, 2008

Harp Seal, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, 2004

Photograph by Brian Skerry

A young harp seal tests the frigid waters in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence. Once the object of a bitter controversy between sealers and animal-welfare groups, import restrictions on their pelts and Canadian laws protecting seal pups have helped populations of these charismatic sea mammals recover.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, “Harp Seals: The Hunt for Balance,” March, 2004, National Geographic magazine)

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