randomfactsandinfo-blog

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Everyday Life of a Guardian of the Pope

The Swiss Guard, also known as the “smallest army in the world” are the extreme few charged with the honorable task of guarding the pope from harm. They were first formed when Pope Julius II invited Helvetian soldiers to Rome. January 22nd, 1506 is the official birthday of the Swiss Guard when the first 150 troops were blessed by the pope.

There are a total of only 110 troops: 1 commandant, 4 officers, 6 sergeants, 1 priest, 1 staff sergeant, 10 corporals, 10 vice-corporals, and 77 halberdiers.

Their duties are not just guarding the pope; they guard the Apostolic Palace, keep vigil at Vatican checkpoints, and take part in celebratory masses and events. Their starting salary is 18,400 in American dollars. However, it is not all seriousness. The Swiss Guard enjoy soccer games and choir groups in their downtime.

Requirements:

Must be male, no female guards allowed.

Must be Roman Catholic

A citizen of Switzerland

At least 1.74 meters tall

between 19 and 30 years old

Retired guards over 30 are allowed to return for special occasions

Must be single

There is a special exception that allows marriage if the Swiss guard is over 25, have already complete 3 years of service, is at least the rank of corporal, and agrees to serve an extra 3 years.

An Australian woman married a corporal and now has an Instagram documenting her life as the wife of a Swiss guard (pictured below)

Must have a high school diploma

Must have served in the Swiss army

Must commit to a minimum of two years of service

Must be deemed to have “good moral standing”

There are 3 patron saints of the Swiss guard: St. Martin of Tours (a soldier turned monk), St. Sebastian (patron saint of soldiers), and St. Niklaus (patron saint of Switzerland).

New recruits swear an oath to die protecting the pope, and to remain loyal to him and his successors. The swearing-in occurs on May 6th, commemorating the day almost all the Swiss guard were killed in the Sack of Rome in 1527, defending the pope from the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

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Sedna: The Inuit Goddess of the Deep Sea

Sedna is a goddess known as “The Mistress of Life and Death.” Her origin myth follows as such:

Sedna was the daughter of a widower who was constantly trying to marry her off. She had plenty of suitors but she refused to say yes to any of their proposals. One day, a sea bird came to her and promised to take her to glorious palace if she promised to marry him. She agreed and they eloped. However when they got to the “palace” she discovered that it was a filthy hovel and she was made not to be his wife, but his slave.

She called to her father and asked to come back, and he agreed. They crossed the waters on a boat to get home, but on they way a giant flock of sea birds surrounded the boat. The flapping of their wings stirred up a storm, and the boat shook and threatened to capsize.

To appease the sea birds, he threw her off the boat. Sedna caught herself on the side of the boat, and in a panic, her father cut off her fingers, but still she grasped on with the palms of her hands. So he then cut off the rest of her hands. After this she finally sank in the water.

On the way down, her severed fingers and hands became fish, seals, and whales for the Inuit to eat and survive off of. She now lives at the bottom of the sea, where she reigns as goddess of the deep.

To keep in Sedna’s favor, the tribe shaman has to make a terrible journey to her dwelling to massage her pained limbs and comb her hair. First they must pass among the souls of the dead, then an icy wheel that never stops turning, and get passed the giant wolf that guards the paper-thin passageway to her home. Only then will she promise to keep sending animals for the shaman’s tribe to hunt and eat. If they fail to appease Sedna, her hands will sear with pain and she will bring sickness, storms, and starvation.

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Profiling Jack the Ripper

Basic facts:

Jack the Ripper (also known as “The Leather Apron” and “The Whitechapel Murderer”) was the terror of London in the year 1888, murdering prostitutes and mutilating their bodies, then disappearing into the night, leaving the victims in dirty alleyways, and thus became the most infamous unidentified serial killer in the history of the world.

The five women that we know were victims of Jack the Ripper are known as the Canonical Five, which are as follows:

Mary Ann Nichols’s body was discovered in Buck’s Row, throat severed by two cuts, lower abdomen partially torn open with a jagged wound, there were several other cuts along the abdomen with the same knife; all the wounds except the throat wound were inflicted after death. Annie Chapman’s body was found near a doorway in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street, her throat severed, too, with two cuts. Her abdomen, too, was cut, this time fully, and her uterus was removed. Elizabeth Stride’s body was discovered in Dutfield’s Yard off of Berner Street. Her throat was cleanly severed in one slice over an artery on the left side of the neck. Her body was not mutilated. Catherine Eddowes’s body was found in Mitre Square, throat severed and abdomen ripped open. Her left kidney and most of her uterus was removed. Finally, Mary Jane Kelly was found lying on a bed in her home at 13 Miller’s Court off of Dorset Street. Her throat was severed almost down to the spine, her abdomen emptied, and her heart removed.

Profile:

The source of this profile is the analysis provided by FBI agent John Douglas.

All of the victims were prostitutes with drinking problems, which places them in the “high-risk” category, meaning that their lifestyles made them highly vulnerable to be victims of violence. All of these women were not necessarily considered “attractive,” and other than those few details, the women had nothing in common. It is quite possible that there were a lot more murders that were the work of Jack the Ripper prior to the Canonical Five, as prostitute-murders were not uncommon at the time, especially in the Whitechapel area. He could have been responsible for murders that were not seen by police as connected or the murders could have gone unreported altogether.

The murders themselves had a lot in common. All of the murders took place in the early morning hours on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. All of the murders occurred within a quarter-mile of each other in the Whitechapel area of London. The fact that the murders were in such close proximity of each other suggests that Jack the Ripper lived somewhere close; it has also been established among criminal psychologists that the location of a serial killer’s first murder is somewhere near their home or workplace. Also, the murders were so bloody and brutal that he'd have to find some place to clean up very quickly to avoid detection.

The bodies showed no evidence of rape or torture prior to their deaths, and the victims were killed quickly in what is known as a “blitz attack.” Rings were taken as trophies. All of the wounds that were not the fatal blow were done after the victims had died. The mutilation of the genital organs classifies this as a “lust murder.” The removal of the organs suggests the killer had experience in anatomy, suggesting that his occupation had something to do with that. Also his occupation has to allow him to act out his destructive fantasies, such as a butcher, a mortician’s assistant, or a hospital attendant. The latter has more possibility, as the murders were committed near London Hospital. His employment schedule has him working five days a week, excluding weekends, as all of his murders occurred on weekends. When working, he is neat and orderly.

Jack the Ripper grew up with a domineering mother who drank heavily and entertained many men, and a father who was either weak or absent, depriving him of a strong, adult male role model as a child. The lifestyle of his mother could have driven him to attack prostitutes, as they remind him of his mother, and also because they are easily accessible. With time, Jack exhibited decreased emotional responses, and detached socially, becoming a loner, shy, and submissive for the rest of his life. However, he may be more at ease socially when drunk. As a boy, he would have a history of starting fires or harming small animals for sense of power and control, and also allowed him to learn how to act out his violent and destructive habits while avoiding detection. Because of his mother, as he grew older, he fantasized domination, violence, and cruelty of women. If you looked through his belongings, you would probably find writings or drawings describing the desire to commit violence against women. He carries a knife wherever he goes in case of an attack; this paranoia stems from the need for justification for his poor self-image. For the most part, he looks ordinary. However, he does harbor some minor physical abnormality that he is blowing way out of proportion and is really sensitive about, and he feels he must make up for it. This abnormality could include below or above average height or weight, problems with speech, maybe a scar. Because he only attacks white women, it suggests he is a white male, and based on the need to avoid detection and be charming, between the ages of 28 and 36. He also probably wears fancy clothes when hunting for victims so as to appear that he has money and the prostitutes will be more likely to approach him than him having to approach them. He is not married; if he ever was, it was to an older woman and the marriage didn’t last very long. Most of his relationships are with prostitutes. He could have contracted an STD, further fueling his hatred for women. If he buried any of his women, he would visit the gravesite frequently to relive the murder.

Jack the Ripper would not inject himself into an investigation like other serial killers, and he was probably already questioned by the police, but overlooked. He is not the type to commit suicide after his last murder. 

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The Cult Order of the Solar Temple

The Order of the Solar Temple was founded in Geneva in 1984 by Luc Jouret and Joseph De Mambro. In a matter of six years the cult gained 400 members, and had spread to Canada, Switzerland, and Australia. Some celebrities were even members. They claimed to be remnants of the knights templar, a military-religious order that disbanded in 1312. The knights templar was revived just after the French Revolution in factions, and it is one of these factions they claimed to be.

The initial beliefs of the Order of the Solar Temple was mainly based in survival of a coming disaster (most likely a volcano eruption) that would occur in the mid-90′s, and thus at that time their main mission was stockpiling supplies and doomsday-prepping, even starting an organic farm that is still in use today. Later on, however, they morphed their beliefs into believing in the disaster, but that their lives on earth were an elaborate illusion, and the only way to survive the apocalypse was to shed their mortal bodies and be reborn on a planet orbiting the star Sirius.

Jouret had all his followers eating out of the palm of his hand. He had them believe he was the third incarnation of Jesus Christ, and that in a past life he was a templar. Before ceremonies held in “lodges” (in which De Mambro was in charge of conducting) Jouret would have sex with his female underlings, claiming it gave him “spiritual strength.” De Mambro also claimed that his son was conceived through a marriage with the gods, and also claimed his daughter was born without sex, like Mother Mary.

On September 30th, 1994, three members of the Order of the Solar Temple were found stabbed to death in Quebec. Antonio and Nicky Dutoit, and their three month old child were murdered by two members of the cult under order of De Mambro. To make it easier to kill an innocent child, De Mambro told them that the baby was the anti-christ.

On October 4th and 5th of 1994, after a last supper organized by De Mambro, 53 members committed suicide in Canada and Switzerland. The authorities were alerted when the buildings containing the bodies were set on fire. One year later, 16 more members followed suit in the French Alps. In the burnt farmhouse in Switzerland, there contained 23 bodies, and 25 more were found in ski chalets. 15 were found in Canada. Some were shot in the head, others were poisoned, and some were found with bags over their heads. The most curious element of the deaths was the body of De Mambro’s son, who defected. Was he murdered?

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Dark Matter 101: Looking for the missing mass

Here’s the deal — here at NASA we share all kinds of amazing images of planets, stars, galaxies, astronauts, other humans, and such, but those photos can only capture part of what’s out there. Every image only shows ordinary matter (scientists sometimes call it baryonic matter), which is stuff made from protons, neutrons and electrons. The problem astronomers have is that most of the matter in the universe is not ordinary matter – it’s a mysterious substance called dark matter.  

What is dark matter? We don’t really know. That’s not to say we don’t know anything about it – we can see its effects on ordinary matter. We’ve been getting clues about what it is and what it is not for decades. However, it’s hard to pinpoint its exact nature when it doesn’t emit light our telescopes can see. 

Misbehaving galaxies

The first hint that we might be missing something came in the 1930s when astronomers noticed that the visible matter in some clusters of galaxies wasn’t enough to hold the cluster together. The galaxies were moving so fast that they should have gone zinging out of the cluster before too long (astronomically speaking), leaving no cluster behind.

Simulation credit: ESO/L. Calçada

It turns out, there’s a similar problem with individual galaxies. In the 1960s and 70s, astronomers mapped out how fast the stars in a galaxy were moving relative to its center. The outer parts of every single spiral galaxy the scientists looked at were traveling so fast that they should have been flying apart.

Something was missing – a lot of it! In order to explain how galaxies moved in clusters and stars moved in individual galaxies, they needed more matter than scientists could see. And not just a little more matter. A lot … a lot, a lot. Astronomers call this missing mass “dark matter” — “dark” because we don’t know what it is. There would need to be five times as much dark matter as ordinary matter to solve the problem.  

Holding things together

Dark matter keeps galaxies and galaxy clusters from coming apart at the seams, which means dark matter experiences gravity the same way we do.

In addition to holding things together, it distorts space like any other mass. Sometimes we see distant galaxies whose light has been bent around massive objects on its way to us. This makes the galaxies appear stretched out or contorted. These distortions provide another measurement of dark matter.

Undiscovered particles?

There have been a number of theories over the past several decades about what dark matter could be; for example, could dark matter be black holes and neutron stars – dead stars that aren’t shining anymore? However, most of the theories have been disproven. Currently, a leading class of candidates involves an as-yet-undiscovered type of elementary particle called WIMPs, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles.

Theorists have envisioned a range of WIMP types and what happens when they collide with each other. Two possibilities are that the WIMPS could mutually annihilate, or they could produce an intermediate, quickly decaying particle. In both cases, the collision would end with the production of gamma rays — the most energetic form of light — within the detection range of our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

Tantalizing evidence close to home

A few years ago, researchers took a look at Fermi data from near the center of our galaxy and subtracted out the gamma rays produced by known sources. There was a left-over gamma-ray signal, which could be consistent with some forms of dark matter.

While it was an exciting finding, the case is not yet closed because lots of things at the center of the galaxy make gamma rays. It’s going to take multiple sightings using other experiments and looking at other astronomical objects to know for sure if this excess is from dark matter.

In the meantime, Fermi will continue the search, as it has over its 10 years in space. Learn more about Fermi and how we’ve been celebrating its first decade in space.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.  

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Zeus: I’m cheating on the girl I’m cheating on my wife with

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Castle at night, 1912, Nicholas Roerich

https://www.wikiart.org/en/nicholas-roerich/castle-at-night-1912

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Old House in Germany, 1957, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky

Medium: charcoal,gouache,ink,paper

https://www.wikiart.org/en/mstislav-dobuzhinsky/old-house-in-germany-1957

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The Revolution, Marc Chagall

Medium: oil,canvas

https://www.wikiart.org/en/marc-chagall/the-revolution-1937

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Amsterdam, Netherlands 🇳🇱

Source

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‘face-off’

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Galacidalacidesoxyribonucleicacid, Salvador Dali

https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali/galacidalacidesoxyribonucleicacid

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Flora, Lovis Corinth

https://www.wikiart.org/en/lovis-corinth/flora-1923

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Stockholm Harbour, Oskar Kokoschka

https://www.wikiart.org/en/oskar-kokoschka/stockholm-harbour

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The bouquet of roses on the window, Balthus

Medium: oil,canvas

https://www.wikiart.org/en/balthus/the-bouquet-of-roses-on-the-window-1958