Is the identity of the famed Mona Lisa finally near?

Are we closer to finding the real Mona Lisa? DNA testing on bones in a Florence convent could reveal Leonardo da Vinci's lost model
--The bones are thought to belong to Italian noblewoman, Lisa Gherardini
--Gherardini believed to have posed for the painting between 1503 and 1506
--Notes by an official confirm da Vinci was working on her portrait at the time
--If a DNA match is made, scientists will make a 3D reconstruction of Gherardini's face using details from the skull and painting

By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD
DailyMail
February 18, 2014

Italian art detectives are a step closer to identifying the lady behind Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile.

DNA tests are underway on bones that may belong to a Florentine noblewoman, named Lisa Gherardini, who is widely believed to be the model for Leonardo da Vinci’s painting.
Historian Silvano Vinceti has taken samples from a skeleton in Sant’Orsola convent near Florence and is comparing them to DNA from the bones of some of Gherardini's confirmed relatives.

Italian archaeologist Silvano Vincenti (left) sits alongside another archaeologist working on the excavation of a grave inside the medieval Convent Sant'Orsola

If a DNA match is made, Professor Vinceti will make a 3D reconstruction of Gherardini's face from the skull, as well as details in da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting.

‘If we don’t find her, art historians can continue to speculate about who the model really was,’ Professor Vinceti told the Wall Street Journal. The results from the analysis should be ready by May or June, he said. The Florentine family tomb was opened up in August last year for the first time in centuries in a bid to identify the model in da Vinci's painting.


Image left: Silvano Vinceti is conducting DNA test on a skeleton found in the Sant'Orsola convent near Florence

Lisa Gherardini is thought to have posed for the painting between 1503 and 1506.


Some have argued the painting is a self-portrait of the artist, or one of his favourite male lovers in disguise, the evidence they say is the fact Da Vinci kept it with him until his death in Amboise, France in 1519.

The most curious theories have been provided by medical experts turned Renaissance art sleuths.

One theory was that the Mona Lisa's mouth is clamped firmly shut because she was undergoing mercury treatment for syphilis which turned her teeth black.

An American dentist has claimed that the tight-lipped expression was typical of people who have lost their front teeth, while a Danish doctor was convinced she suffered from congenital palsy which affected the left side of her face and this is why her hands are overly large.
‘With the medical techniques that are available today we could rebuild her physique and recreate the famous pose,’ said Leonardo Da Vinci expert Professor Carlo Pedretti.

Great Pyramid of Giza 'vandalyzed' to obtain proof the ancient Egyptians DIDN`T build the pyramids

Great Pyramid at Giza Vandalized to 'Prove' Conspiracy Theory

By Benjamin Radford, 
Live Science 
February 18, 2014 

Two German men who visited the Egyptian pyramids in April 2013 now face criminal charges for their attempt to prove their "alternative history" conspiracy theories through vandalism. The men, Dominique Goerlitz and Stefan Erdmann, were joined by a third German, a filmmaker who accompanied them to document their "discoveries."

The men are convinced Khufu cartouche is a fake;
Credit: youtube screengrab 

The men were allowed to enter the inner chambers of the Great Pyramid at Giza normally off-limits to the public and restricted to authorized archaeologists and Egyptologists. The group reportedly took several items from the pyramids, including taking samples of a cartouche (identifying inscription) of the pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops. Goerlitz and Erdmann, who are not archaeologists but have instead been described as "hobbyists," allegedly smuggled the artifacts out of the country in violation of strict antiquities laws, according to news reports.

In addition to the three Germans, six Egyptians are being held in connection with the case, including several guards and inspectors from the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry who allowed the men into the pyramid. Tourism, one of Egypt's most important industries, has dropped dramatically in recent years due to social and political unrest. Tour-agency owners — including one of the men recently arrested in connection with this case — are often willing to bend or break the rules if it means satisfying wealthy foreigners, news reports suggest. The German government expressed outrage over the acts, and categorically stated the men were private citizens and not in any way affiliated with its German Archaeological Institute.

Trying to prove a conspiracy

Goerlitz and Erdmann acknowledged their acts, and even went so far as to post photographs and videos of themselves vandalizing the archaeological sites. However, they claimed their goal was a noble one: to prove their "alternative history" conspiracy theory that the pyramids were not built by ancient Egyptians.

The men are apparently convinced the cartouche identifying Khufu as the creator of the Great Pyramid at Giza is a fake, and they hoped to do an analysis on the pigments to prove they were not as old as the pyramids themselves. In essence, they claimed, pharaoh Khufu simply put his name on (and took credit for) pyramids that had been built thousands of years earlier by people from the legendary city of Atlantis. They accuse mainstream archaeologists of covering up — or willfully ignoring — evidence pointing to non-Egyptian origins of the pyramids.Aside from that, there's clear evidence that ancient Egyptians did, indeed, build the pyramids. Ken Feder, an archaeologist and professor of anthropology at Central Connecticut State University and author of "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology" (McGraw-Hill, 2013) takes a dim view of such baseless ideas.

"Here's an archaeological shocker: Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids," Feder told Live Science. "Contrary to what some purveyors of fantasy maintain, the technological skills necessary to construct the pyramids were not unknown in ancient Egypt. In actual fact, the Great Pyramid at Giza was the culmination of a lengthy, multigenerational, evolutionary process."

Archaeologists have found several early, failed attempts to build the pyramids, Feder noted. "Early attempts at true, geometric pyramid burial monuments resulted in spectacular screw-ups, including a 'collapsed' pyramid (the slope of the face of the monument was too steep)," Feder said. "In another attempt, cracks appeared in the lower part of the pyramid, again because the slope was too steep and one corner of the pyramid was positioned on a soft, sandy base."

"Finally, the Egyptian builders were not above taking credit for their labors; workers sometimes actually incised dates onto pyramid blocks, and one piece of graffiti in a chamber in the Great Pyramid bears the phrase, 'We did this with pride in the name of our great King Khnum-Khuf,' another name for the Pharaoh Khufu," he added.

In the end, "There is no controversy concerning who built the pyramids," Feder said. "Anyone caught trying to rewrite this history through theft or subterfuge isn't doing archaeology. They're breaking the law and insulting the memory of the thousands of ancient workers whose labors produced one of the wonders of the ancient world."

The conspiracy theories that Goerlitz and Erdmann endorse did not appear in a vacuum; instead, they have been widely promoted by best-selling authors such as Erich von Däniken, who wrote "Chariots of the Gods?" first published in 1968. Such authors claim the true builders of the pyramids were not ancient Egyptians but instead others, like extraterrestrials or residents of the legendary Atlantis. While "alternative history" and "ancient astronaut" theorists such as von Däniken do not explicitly endorse vandalism of any Egyptian sites, Goerlitz and Erdmann's actions were clearly driven by belief in such theories. (Ancient-astronaut theorists propose, unscientifically, that extraterrestrials intelligently designed humans.)

The true pyramid builders

As physicist Wolfgang Pauli famously said about a ludicrous idea, "It's not even wrong." There are countless glaring fallacies in Goerlitz and Erdmann's wild theory, beginning with the fact that Atlantis never existed; it was first described in two dialogues by Plato — the "Timaeus" and the "Critias" — written around 330 B.C. The Atlantis discussed by Plato did not refer to any actual ancient empire, because the dialogues were fictional stories and fables. Suggesting that people from Plato's Atlantis built the pyramids is like saying people from Tolkien's Middle Earth built the pyramids, or inhabitants of Superman's home planet of Krypton built the pyramids — it makes no sense, because they're fictional characters.

Aside from that, there's clear evidence that ancient Egyptians did, indeed, build the pyramids. Ken Feder, an archaeologist and professor of anthropology at Central Connecticut State University and author of "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology" (McGraw-Hill, 2013) takes a dim view of such baseless ideas.

"Here's an archaeological shocker: Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids," Feder told Live Science. "Contrary to what some purveyors of fantasy maintain, the technological skills necessary to construct the pyramids were not unknown in ancient Egypt. In actual fact, the Great Pyramid at Giza was the culmination of a lengthy, multigenerational, evolutionary process."

Archaeologists have found several early, failed attempts to build the pyramids, Feder noted. "Early attempts at true, geometric pyramid burial monuments resulted in spectacular screw-ups, including a 'collapsed' pyramid (the slope of the face of the monument was too steep)," Feder said. "In another attempt, cracks appeared in the lower part of the pyramid, again because the slope was too steep and one corner of the pyramid was positioned on a soft, sandy base."

"Finally, the Egyptian builders were not above taking credit for their labors; workers sometimes actually incised dates onto pyramid blocks, and one piece of graffiti in a chamber in the Great Pyramid bears the phrase, 'We did this with pride in the name of our great King Khnum-Khuf,' another name for the Pharaoh Khufu," he added.

In the end, "There is no controversy concerning who built the pyramids," Feder said. "Anyone caught trying to rewrite this history through theft or subterfuge isn't doing archaeology. They're breaking the law and insulting the memory of the thousands of ancient workers whose labors produced one of the wonders of the ancient world."

Former NASA scientist claims possible evidence of life on Mars got destroyed

posted by Open Minds Productions
Published on Feb 19, 2014

Former NASA Scientist Richard Hoover shares revelations with journalist Lee Speigel from the Huffington Post. Hoover talks about the fact that someone may have destroyed evidence of life on Mars. This took place at the Open Minds 2014 International UFO Congress and Film Festival in Fountain Hills Arizona

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The bogeyman hoax of Bin Laden lives on...truth kept away from Americans

DoD Gave Order to “Destroy” Bin Laden Death Photos Hours After FOIA Request
Cover-up: Pentagon desperate to keep images out of public domain

by: Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 11, 2014

credit: Osama bin Laden (youtube)

U.S. Special Operations Commander Admiral William McRaven ordered his subordinates to destroy photos showing the corpse of Osama Bin Laden just hours after an FOIA lawsuit seeking the documents was filed in the United States Court for the District of Columbia.

Judicial Watch, the group that filed the initial FOIA request, published an email released to them by the Department of Defense in which McRaven writes;

"One particular item that I want to emphasize is photos; particularly UBLs remains. At this point – all photos should have been turned over to the CIA; if you still have them destroy them immediately or get them to the [redacted]."

The email was sent on Friday, May 31, 2011 at 5:09pm, hours after Judicial Watch held a 
morning press conference announcing that their FOIA request had been filed in court.

“The move by McRaven to purge the photos appears to have come, at least in part, in response to aggressive efforts by Judicial Watch to obtain images of the deceased bin Laden that President Obama, in a rewrite of federal open records law, had refused to disclose,” writes the whistleblower organization.

According to Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, the “email is a smoking gun, revealing both contempt for the rule of law and the American’s people right to know. The Obama administration has tried to cover this scandal up – and our lawsuit exposed it. We demand further investigation of the effort to destroy documents about the bin Laden raid.”
Why did McRaven order the photos to be destroyed? Why is the Pentagon so desperate to keep the images out of the public domain?

Is it because the images are fake, that they do not show wounds consistent with the narrative surrounding the Navy SEAL raid on Bin Laden’s compound, or that they are dated from years previously?

Image: Judicial Watch

As we have exhaustively documented, the story surrounding the raid is dubious at best and has been changed on numerous occasions.

Last year, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh said that the whole incident was “one big lie” and that “not one word” of the Obama administration’s narrative on what happened was true.

Speculation that the Obama administration may have embellished or outright lied about the true account of what happened has persisted, mainly because the White House has refused to publicly release images of Bin Laden’s body.

Although the White House said the corpse was immediately “buried at sea” in line with Islamic tradition, it quickly emerged that this was not standard practice.

Numerous analysts have claimed that Bin Laden had in fact been dead for years and that the raid on his alleged compound in Pakistan was little more than a stunt.

Other questions also persist, such as why the narrative and timeline of the raid has changed multiple times, why the White House initially claimed that “situation room” photos showed Obama watching the raid live when in fact there was a blackout on the live feed, and why neighbors in the immediate area surrounding the compound said with absolute certainty that they had never seen Bin Laden and that they knew of no evidence whatsoever to suggest he lived there.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

The North Star Polaris is getting BRIGHTER suddenly reversed two decades of dimming - and nobody is sure why

The mystery of the North Star: Astronomers baffled to find Polaris is getting BRIGHTER
--Team found that Polaris is 2.5 times brighter today than in 137CE
--Experts say find is 'entirely unexpected'

By MARK PRIGG
DAILYMAIL
February 5, 2014

The north Star: Polaris, also known as the North Star, Northern Star or Pole Star, is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor. Historically it has been used to guide travelers, and is very close to the north celestial pole, making it the current northern pole star.

Recent papers calculate the distance to Polaris at about 434 light-years, although some suggest it may be 30% closer which.

Astronomers have discovered that Polaris, the north star, is getting brighter. They say the star has suddenly reversed two decades of dimming. It is expanding at more than 100 times the rate they expected - and nobody is sure why.

Is Polaris getting brighter? Stars appear to rotate around Polaris, the north star, in this long exposure picture taken near the 4-meter telescope dome at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. The image is composed of 114 30-second exposures of the night sky combined to make the equivalent of a nearly one hour exposure in which the earth's rotation causes the stars to appear to move across the night sky.

A team led by Scott Engle of Villanova University in Pennsylvania recalibrated historic measurements of Polaris by Ptolemy in 137 C.E., the Persian astronomer Al-Sufi in 964 C.E., and others. They investigated the fluctuations of the star over the course of several years, combing through historical records and utilizing the Hubble Space Telescope. The team found that Polaris is 2.5 times brighter today than in Ptolemy's time, which they say is a remarkable rate of change.

'If they are real, these changes are 100 times larger than predicted by current theories of stellar evolution,' says Villanova astronomer Edward Guinan.

The team's data also hint that the star's cyclic 4-day variation in brightness, although still weak, is once again growing more robust--but no one knows what's driving these flutterings or how long they will last. Engle and his team began to research the star around the beginning of 2000, when they found that the dropping brightness was on the rise again.

Pinpointing Polaris: Researchers say it is getting brighter far more quickly than they expected after reversing its dimming

'It was unexpected to find,' Engle told SPACE.com.'It started increasing rather rapidly.'
'Polaris is arguably the best-known star in the Northern Hemisphere, since it lies within a degree of the North Celestial Pole,' the researchers wrote.

'For much of human history, Polaris was highly regarded for its unchanging nature.
'However, we now know that Polaris is a Cepheid variable, undergoing ultra-low-amplitude pulsations.

'Thirty years ago, a paper in the Astrophysical Journal by A. Arellano Ferro announced that the amplitude of these pulsations was diminishing. 'This behavior was confirmed, and it was believed that soon enough Polaris would no longer be a Cepheid variable.

'We started photometrically monitoring Polaris in 1999 and discovered that the amplitude of pulsations had reached a minimum and was now, in fact, growing again.

'It was while gathering historic photometry for the amplitude study that we noticed the published magnitudes of Polaris were systematically fainter, the further back in time the data went. 'This is an entirely unexpected behavior for a Cepheid variable, and one that we wanted to investigate further. Engle presented the results of his research in a poster session at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington.

Call it courage: Bangladeshi boy risks his life in raging floodwaters to save baby deer

Astonishing bravery of boy who risked his life to save baby deer in Bangladesh river by holding it above raging floodwaters
--Boy called Belal defiantly held the young fawn in one hand above his head
--Onlookers were unsure whether the boy was going to appear again
--When he made it to the other side the locals cheered
--Teenager jumped into river in Noakhali, Bangladesh to save animal

By TARA BRADY
DAILYMAIL
Feb 6, 2014

A brave boy fearlessly risked his own life and showed astonishing bravery to save a helpless baby deer from drowning.

The boy, called Belal and believed to be in his early teens, defiantly held the young fawn in one hand above his head as he plunged through the surging river. During the ordeal onlookers were unsure whether the boy was going to appear again.

Incredible: A brave boy fearlessly risked his own life to save a helpless baby deer from drowning

Fearless: The boy called Belal plunged through the surging river to save the animal

Cute: The fawn rests on the side of the river bank after it was rescued by the boy in Bangladesh

When he finally made it to the other side the locals cheered as the deer was reunited with its family.

The incident took place in Noakhali, Bangladesh, when the young fawn became separated from its family during torrential rain and fast-rising floods.

Wildlife photographer Hasibul Wahab captured the brave act while visiting on a photography trip.

He said the Noakhali locals lose a lot of deer during the rainy season and that they have to do all they can to protect them. Wildlife photographer Hasibul Wahab captured the brave act while visiting on a photography trip

Brave: The boy called Belal definatly held the young fawn in one hand above his head

He said: 'He was such a brave boy - the river was so full of water and it was high tide so we thought he might drown. 'My friend was even ready to jump into the river to save the boy. But he made it, and when he returned, we thanked the boy. 'There were only five to seven people observe this situation but it was a phenomenal sight.'

Saved: The little deer lives to see another day thanks to the boy who jumped into the river and rescued it

more images of the heroic rescue are here

Ex-TSA screener 'spills the beans' on the agency`s shocking endemic practices upon Ameicans

The Most Important Takeaways From the Ex-TSA Screener’s Exposé
Insider confirms shocking level of corruption that infests federal agency

by:Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
January 31, 2014

Image: Jason Harrington’s Politico Magazine Article.

In an article for Politico Magazine, former TSA screener Jason Harrington exposed the endemic corruption which infests the federal agency, including how TSA workers laughed at naked images of passengers, targeted attractive women and harassed travelers who didn’t display the proper attitude.

Although most of his revelations were already known (we were labeled “conspiracy theorists” for saying the same thing), for guy who saw it with his own eyes every day from the inside to go public with this kind of information is huge. Given that Harrington’s article is lengthy, we’ve summarized the key points with relevant quotes from the piece below.

- TSA agents laugh at naked body scanner images;
“Most of my co-workers found humor in the I.O. room on a cruder level. Just as the long-suffering American public waiting on those security lines suspected, jokes about the passengers ran rampant among my TSA colleagues.”

- TSA body scanners don’t work and are a huge waste of taxpayer money;
“We knew the full-body scanners didn’t work before they were even installed….Officers discovered that the machines were good at detecting just about everything besides cleverly hidden explosives and guns.”

- Jonathan Corbett’s video, which exposed how the body scanners could easily be fooled by placing an object in a sewn on side pocket, prompted the TSA to lie to the public while secretly changing their policy.

“Officially, the agency downplayed the Corbett video….Behind closed doors, supervisors instructed us to begin patting down the sides of every fifth passenger as a clumsy workaround to the scanners’ embarrassing vulnerability.”

- TSA workers are concerned about radiation emitted by x-ray body scanners;
“Many of my co-workers felt uncomfortable even standing next to the radiation-emitting machines we were forcing members of the public to stand inside. Several told me they submitted formal requests for dosimeters, to measure their exposure to radiation. The agency’s stance was that dosimeters were not necessary—the radiation doses from the machines were perfectly acceptable, they told us.”

- TSA workers deliberately target attractive women for enhanced screening;
“Then there was the infamous “guyspeak” in my “Insider’s TSA Dictionary.” One of the first terms I learned from fellow male TSA officers at O’Hare was “Hotel Papa,” code language for an attractive female passenger—“Hotel” standing for “hot,” and “Papa” for, well, use your imagination.”

- TSA agents punish people who don’t display the proper attitude with enhanced screening;
“We would also sometimes pull a passenger’s bag or give a pat down because he or she was rude. We always deployed the same explanation: “It’s just a random search.”

- Most TSA workers hate the TSA;
“Most TSA officers I talked to told me they felt the agency’s day-to-day operations represented an abuse of public trust and funds.”

- The TSA does not stop terrorists;
“I hinted several times on the blog that a determined terrorist’s best bet for defeating airport security would be to apply for a job with the TSA and simply become part of the security system itself. That assertion stemmed from personal experience.”

- The TSA is a monumental waste of money and has been incredibly harmful.
“As I saw it, $40 million in taxpayer dollars had been wasted on ineffective anti-terrorism security measures at the expense of the public’s health, privacy and dignity.”

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and PrisonPlanet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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