In Neandertal Enigma by James Shreeve (Wm Morrow, 1995) there's a section explaining new methods of determining the dates of archaelogical sites. I found the following one fascinating.
One night in October 1663, the great English physicist Robert Boyle, for reasons that remain obscure, took a diamond to bed with him. Resting the diamond "close upon a warm part of my naked body," Boyle noticed that it began to glow. So taken was he with his responsive gem that the very next day he delivered a paper on the subject at the Royal Society in London. His surprise at the glow was all the greater, he told his assembled colleagues, because "as you know, my constitution is not of the hottest."
Boyle's body heat had triggered the atomic phenomenon now known as thermoluminescence, or "heat-light." If you were to pick up an ordinary rock and try to describe its essential rockness, phrases like "frenetically animated" would probably not leap to mind. But in fact, minerals are in a constant state of inner turmoil. Minute amounts of radioactive elements, within both the rock itself and the surrounding soil and atmosphere, are constantly bombarding its atoms, sheering electrons out of their normal orbits around the atomic nucleus. All this is normal electron behavior, and after gallivanting around for a hundredth of a second or two, most of the electrons dutifully return to their proper positions. A few, however, become trapped en route -- physically captured within crystal impurities or electronic aberrations in the mineral structure itself. These tiny prisons hold their electrons until the mineral is heated, whereupon the traps spring open and the electrons return to their stable state. In the process, they release energy in the form of light -- a photon for every homeward-bound electron. (pp 179-80)
In fantasy fiction spellcasters sometimes use rocks to produce light but I'd never guessed there was actually a basis in reality for it.
OK, so we're not talking about 60-watt rocks here, but still it's nice to learn that the mundane world has elements of magic in it! At least its existence is Evident Scientifically...hahaha
Blessed Be, Oceanos
OCEANOS
Amazing Russian child From the newspaper Pravda: Boriska-boy from Mars 03/12/2004 19:38
Sometimes, some children are born with quite fascinating talents, unusual abilities.
I was told the story of an unusual boy named Boriska from members of an expedition to the anomaly zone located in the north of the Volgograd region, most commonly referred to as "Medvedetskaya gryada".
"Can you imagine, while everyone was sitting around the campfire at night, some little boy (about 7 years of age) suddenly asked everyone"s attention. Turned out, he wanted to tell them all about life on Mars, about its inhabitants and their flights to earth," shares one of the witnesses. Silence followed. It was incredible! The little boy with gigantic lively eyes was about to tell a magnificent story about the Martian civilization, about megalithic cities, their spaceships and flights to various planets, about a wonderful country Lemuria, life of which he knew in details since he happened to descend there from Mars, had friends there.
Logs were cracking, night's fog enveloped the area and the immense dark sky with myriads of brightly lit stars seemed to conceal some sort of a mystery. His story lasted for about an hour and a half. One guy was smart enough to tape the entire narration. Many were stunned by the two distinctive factors. First of all, the boy possessed exceptionally profound knowledge. His intellect was obviously far from that of a typical 7-year-old. Not every professor is capable of narrating the entire history of Lemuria and Lemurians and its inhabitants in such details. You will be unable to find any mentioning of this country in school textbooks. Modern science has not yet proved existence of other civilizations.
Second of all, we were all amazed by the actual speech of this young boy. It was far from the kind kids his age usually use. His knowledge of specific terminology, details and facts from Mars' and Earth"s past fascinated everyone.
Why did he start the conversation in the first place," said my interlocutor. "Perhaps, he was simply touched by the overall atmosphere of our camp with many knowledgeable and open-minded people," continued he.
"Could he make this all up?" "Doubtful", objected my friend". "To me this looks more like the boy was sharing his personal memories from past births. It is virtually impossible to make up such stories; one really had to know them."
Today, after meeting with Boris' parents and getting to know the boy better, I begin to carefully sort out all the information obtained around that campfire. He was born in Volzhskii town in a suburban hospital, even though officially, based on the paperwork, his birthplace is the town of Zhirnovsk of Volgograd region. His birthday is January 11th, 1996. (Perhaps it will be helpful for astrologers).
His parents seem to be wonderful people. Nadezhda, Boriska's mother, is a dermatologist in a public clinic. She graduated from Volgograd medical institute not so long ago in 1991. The boy"s father is a retired officer. Both of them would be happy if someone could shed the light onto the mystery behind
