Nexus - 1406 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Men of this class in Madras are notable for their lithe and supple bodies. One of them will place a tall ladder upright on the ground and wind himself in and out through the rings [sic] until he reaches the top, descending in the same manner, keeping the ladder, which has no other support whatever, in a perpendicular position. Their exhibitions with edged and pointed weapons are no less surprising, though not so pleasing, swallowing the sword being an operation so common as to be left only to the inferior performers. A woman (for there are female jugglers quite as expert as the men) will dip the point of a sword in black pigment, fix the hilt firmly in the ground, and then, after a few rapid whirlings in the air, will take off a portion of the pigment with her eyelid. There is another of these perilous feats of which they make nothing. A sword and four daggers are placed in the earth, with their points upwards, at such a distance from each other as barely to admit of a man's head between them; the operator plants a scimitar firmly in the ground, sits down behind it, and suddenly at one bound throws himself over the scimitar, pitching his head exactly in the centre of the space encircled by the daggers, and then, by a reverse spring, turns over and resumes his place on the other side of the sword. It is an act of very ordinary merit for them to walk upon the edges of sabres, and to stick a sword in the ground and step upon the point in crossing over it. Sometimes a piece of thin linen is stretched out slightly in the hands of four persons, and the performer will walk across it without forcing it from the grasp of the holders, or even perceptibly ruffling it. THE "WOW!" MYSTERY TURNS 30! bring more sensitivity and wider spectral r “Nhirty years ago on 15 August 1977, coverage to the quest, Shostak said. astronomer Dr Jerry R. Ehman was After the single radio burst was detected, looking over a printout of radio data astronomers tried to track down a terrestrial from Ohio State University's Big Ear Radio cause. But they could find no glitch in the Observatory when he saw a string of code system, and no source that could have so remarkable that he had to circle it and _ explained the strength and the frequency of then scribbled "Wow!" in the margin. — the seconds-long signal. Since then, the This comment has since become the name "Wow!" signal has stood as one of the of the signal. central enigmas for alien-hunters, even Was it a burst of human-made _ inspiring a scene in The X-Files. interference, or an alien broadcast from the Ehman said aliens weren't the first thing stars? No one knows. The source of the _ that came to his mind when he saw the Big "Wow!" signal has never been heard from _ Ear data and wrote his famous word. again—even though astronomers have "The 'Wow!' was just an instantaneous looked for it dozens of times. response in writing," he said. "I had no Now the SETI Institute is gearing up to expectations, other than: "Here's something look for it one more time, using the latest extremely interesting—and gee, let's try to tool for seeking signals from extraterrestrial find out what it is, or what it isn't." civilisations: the Allen Telescope Array in Ehman recently updated his own report California. The array combines on the "Wow!" signal for the 30th observations from dozens of separate six- anniversary, but the report's conclusion metre-wide (20-foot-wide) radio dishes to _ hasn't changed over all this time. produce an instrument that will eventually "It's still an open question what the become more sensitive than the world's _ source of the signal was," he told me. "We largest single-dish telescope, the Arecibo just don't have enough information to Observatory. determine that... We just can't draw any "Once the Allen Telescope Array is up conclusion other than it still allows for the and running, and that should be later this possibility that it was a signal from an year, there's going to be a small project in _ extraterrestrial civilization." which we'll look at the same section where (Source: by Alan Boyle, 15 August 2007, the ‘Wow!’ signal was detected, and of — http://cosmiclog.msnbe.msn.com/archive/ course the same spot on the radio dial," 2007/08/15/319127.aspx. "The Big Ear said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the Wow! Signal (30th Anniversary Report)" by SETI Institute. Although that area of the Jerry R. Ehman, PhD, dated 2 August 2007, sky has been searched dozens of times is at http://www. bigear.org/Wow30th/ before, the Allen Telescope Array will wow30th.htm.) * This Prince was the great grandson of Baber, the restorer of the dynasty of Timur, and the son of the renowned Akbar, by whose chivalrous valour in the field the twenty-two provinces, then composing the empire India, were firmly subdued and tranquillised. Jahangueir succeeded to the empire in the year 1605, at a period when the ordinary annual revenue is estimated to have been fifty-two millions of our money, and when the standing army of the Monarch consisted of three hundred thousand horse, and as many foot. °° 11 This image is from a scan of a colour copy of the original computer printout taken several years after the 1977 arrival of the "Wow!" signal and after the printout had faded noticeably. (Source: http://www.bigear.org/Wow30th/wow30th.htm) (Source: The Illustrated London News, "Relics of the Past" column, 27 April 1861) NEXUS 63 THE "WOW!" MYSTERY TURNS 30! OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2007 www.nexusmagazine.com