2011

(About a comprehensive archive of climate data in Europe for the past 2,500 years established from tree-rings.) - Der Spiegel, January 13, 2011.Translated by Ami de Grazia We have all heard of the story of Hannibal crossing the Alps - but is it accurate? In 218 BC the Carthaginian general crossed the highest mountain range of Europe with 37 elephants, thousands of horsemen...
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by Angelika FranzDer Spiegel, December 27, 2010Translated from the German by Ami de Grazia Scientists have discovered in Serbia the oldest copper implements in the world. Some 7000 years ago, tradesmen of great wealth flourished on the Balkan peninsula. They present the archaeologists with a puzzle: why did the age of copper begin there so early - and why...
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(Der Spiegel, Aug. 11, 2011)It was a shock for a German tourist group: a ball-lightning hit their bus in the vicinity to the city of Kaliningrad in Russia. The rare natural phenomenon destroyed the entire on-board electronic - the passengers got away with the scare of their lives.MOSCOW: An extremely rare natural phenomenon has brutally interrupted the trip of a German...
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(Der Spiegel, December 1st, 2010)Green balls of fire lit up the night sky over Australia - evoking thoughts of alien visitors to many. Now a scientist has come up with another sensational theory: fragments of a comet may have triggered the heavenly show and sent a ball lightning down the slope of a mountain.It was an evening which many inhabitants of the Australian federal...
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"Greek Zeus-Jupiter hurling a lightning-bolt. Juergens suggest that this 'unreal' bolt may be all too real, a plasmoid of electricity of immense power, well beyond the bi-dental fork that represents Jovean lightning in the typical artistic sublimations." (Alfred de Grazia, Chaos and Creation, 1981). Of all the phenomena...
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