अजब-गज़ब – Page 4 – आवारा मुसाफिर

The quilt stories : stitched for ever

April 27, 2023850 Views

From simple geometric shapes to the intricately wrought details of daily life, the quilt designs in a show now running at the American Folk Art Museum show how powerfully this art form has told stories for centuries and been a vehicle for creativity. “What That Quilt Knows About Me” comprises 35 quilts and related works in an intimate gallery space. Some tell stories about the maker’s life or process. Others explore quilting technique, using different materials. One quilt estimated to be from the early 1800s bursts with details, including tropical flowers and pugs with fancy collars. Curators don’t know who the artist was, but the appliqued imagery reflects popular pastimes of women in the 19th century. This image provided by the American Folk Art Museum shows the Original Des...

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Severe solar storm creates dazzling auroras farther south

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

April 26, 2023856 Views

An intense solar storm has the northern lights gracing the skies farther south than usual. A blast of superhot material from the sun late last week hurled scorching gases known as plasma toward Earth at nearly 2 million mph (3 million kph), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday. Earth felt the brunt of the storm Sunday, according to NOAA, with forecasters warning operators of power plants and spacecraft of the potential for disruption. The northern lights are seen over a farm near Pulaski, Wis., on Sunday, April 23, 2023. An intense solar storm has the aurora borealis gracing the skies farther south than usual. (Sarah Kloepping/The Post-Crescent via AP) Auroras were reported across parts of Europe and Asia. In the U.S., skygazers took in the sights fr...

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The “Stonehenge calendar” shown to be a modern construct

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

March 25, 2023930 Views

Stonehenge is an astonishingly complex monument, which attracts attention mostly for its spectacular megalithic circle and “horseshoe”, built around 2600 BC. Over the years, several theories have been put forward about Stonehenge's meaning and function. Today, however, archaeologists have a rather clear picture of this monument as a “place for the ancestors”, located within a complex ancient landscape which included several other elements. Archaeoastronomy has a key role in this interpretation since Stonehenge exhibits an astronomical alignment to the sun which, due to the flatness of the horizon, refers both to the summer solstice sunrise and to the winter solstice sunset. This accounts for a symbolic interest of the builders in the solar cycle, most probably related to the connect...

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Bulgarians ward off evil spirits in ancient winter festival

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

January 17, 20231046 Views

Revellers dressed in red, some wearing huge masks and belts strung with large copper bells, dance around a fire on the main square of a Bulgarian village to drive away evil spirits and bring in good health and crops for the New Year. The festival, held every January in the village of Kosharevo, is known as "Surva" and is a mixture of Christian and pagan rituals that can be traced back to Thracian times. People wearing masks made of feathers participate in a winter festival in the village of Kosharevo, Bulgaria January 14, 2023. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov Some of the dancers, known as Survakars, or kukers (mummers), wear hand-made wooden masks decorated with feathers, which can be up to two metres high. The loud clanging of the bells on their belts is believed to ward off evil and disea...

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‘Dress like a cabbage’: Surviving Yakutsk, the world’s coldest city

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January 16, 20231140 Views

Temperatures have plunged to minus 50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit) this week in Yakutsk during an abnormally long cold snap in the Siberian city known as the coldest on earth. Located 5,000 km (3,100 miles) east of Moscow on the permafrost of the Russian Far East, residents of the mining city often see the thermometer regularly drop well below minus 40. "You can't fight it. You either adjust and dress accordingly or you suffer," said Anastasia Gruzdeva, outside in two scarves, two pairs of gloves and multiple hats and hoods. "You don't really feel the cold in the city. Or maybe it's just the brain prepares you for it, and tells you everything is normal," she added in the city shrouded by icy mist. Another resident, Nurgusun Starostina, who sells frozen fi...

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Army of pest-munching ducks keep South African vineyard blooming

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

January 16, 2023990 Views

Flocks of white, black and brown ducks hunt for snails and bugs as they patrol the grapevines at a vineyard in South Africa's winemaking town of Stellenbosch, helping the owners steer clear of pesticides and synthetic fertilisers. Around 500 Indian runner ducks work as a natural pest control at the Vergenoegd Löw Wine Estate, but also entertain wine-quaffing tourists. A flock of Indian Runner ducks, which assist as natural pest-control, in place of pesticides, by eating all the snails and bugs, walk amidst the grape vines during their daily patrol around the Vergenoegd Wine Estate, in Stellenbosch, in Cape Town, South Africa, January 12, 2023. REUTERS/Esa Alexander "We call them the soldiers of the vineyards," the managing director of the estate, Corius Visser, told Reuters. D...

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Peru communities settle scores with Christmas ritual fighting

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 28, 2022770 Views

Most Christmas ceremonies would be ruined if attendees threw a punch. But in Peru's mountainous south, participants of one Dec. 25 festival have exactly that in mind. On Christmas Day, hundreds of residents of Chumbivilcas province in Peru's Cusco region gather to take part in an ancient fighting ritual aimed at settling scores and resolving conflict before the year's end. Andean men participate in a one-on-one fight during the "Takanakuy", a traditional festivity at Chumbivilcas province, in Cuzco. REUTERS/Enrique Castro-Mendivil The tradition, which dates back generations, is known as Takanakuy, a Quechua name that roughly translates to hitting each other with fists. The ritual has been described as a method of alternative governance outside Peru's justice system. Fighters a...

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As climate clock ticks, aviator races to photograph glaciers

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 24, 2022727 Views

Chunks of ice float in milky blue waters. Clouds drift and hide imposing mountaintops. The closer you descend to the surface, the more the water roars — and the louder the “CRACK” of ice, as pieces fall from the arm of Europe’s largest glacier. The landscape is vast, elemental, seemingly far beyond human scale. The whole world, it seems, lies sprawled out before you. Against this outsized backdrop, the plane carrying the man who chases glaciers seems almost like a toy. Garrett Fisher, an American aviator and adventurer, looks out the window of his plane while on a mission to photograph glaciers in Norway, on July 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen) “No one’s there,” the man marvels. “The air is virtually empty.” This is Garrett Fisher’s playground — and, you quickly realize, his...

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Notorious island prison is now a Pacific tourist resort

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 18, 2022992 Views

One of Mexico's most notorious prisons begins a new chapter this weekend as a Pacific Ocean getaway after a makeover aimed at bringing in tourists to the former penal colony. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday evening opened the Islas Marias Tourist Center, bidding to turn the decades-old federal prison in the Islas Marias archipelago into an environmental attraction and place for history lovers. "This is tourism for excursions, to explore, to live with nature," Lopez Obrador said this week. "To recreate history, it's something exceptional, extraordinary." Alongside villas to lodge guests, a restaurant, a cafe and beaches, the revamped site includes an arch named after Nelson Mandela, who spent some 18 years behind bars on South Africa's Robben Island before bein...

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Faithful mates, hot tempers form primal life for gannets

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

November 16, 2022673 Views

Northern gannets share two maxims familiar to humans: “home sweet home” and “don’t tread on me.” They pack together on a Bonaventure Island plateau like New York commuters jamming a subway, only they’re louder. They are devoted parents and could teach humans a thing or two about loyalty in marriage. Year after year, gannet pairs come separately from distant, scattered Atlantic waters to reunite, mate again and raise new chicks on the precise nesting spots they called home before heading south for the winter. A northern gannet is visible on Bonaventure Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off the coast of Quebec, Canada's Gaspe Peninsula, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) The island just off Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula offers remarkable insights into the northern ga...