Intellectual

Naseer Shamma

Naseer Shamma (Arabic: نصير شمه) is a renowned Iraqi musician and oud player.

He was born in 1963 in K*t, a city on the Tigris River. He began studying the oud at the age of 12 in Baghdad, following in the footsteps of Jamil and Munir Bashir. He received his diploma from the Baghdad Academy of Music in 1987. He began to teach oud after three years at the academy, as well as continuing his own studies. Shamma has composed music for films, plays and television.

Inana

A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system consisting of stars, stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and dark matter, an important but poorly understood component. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias (γαλαξίας), literally "milky", a reference to the Milky Way. Examples of galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million (107) stars to giants with one hundred trillion (1014) stars, each orbiting their galaxy's own center of mass.
Galaxies contain varying numbers of planets, star systems, star clusters and types of interstellar clouds. In between these objects is a sparse interstellar medium of gas, dust, and cosmic rays. Supermassive black holes reside at the center of most galaxies. They are thought to be the primary driver of active galactic nuclei found at the core of some galaxies. The Milky Way galaxy is known to harbor at least one such object.
Galaxies have been historically categorized according to their apparent shape, usually referred to as their visual morphology. A common form is the elliptical galaxy, which has an ellipse-shaped light profile. Spiral galaxies are disk-shaped with dusty, curving arms. Those with irregular or unusual shapes are known as irregular galaxies and typically originate from disruption by the gravitational pull of neighboring galaxies. Such interactions between nearby galaxies, which may ultimately result in a merger, sometimes induce significantly increased incidents of star formation leading to starburst galaxies. Smaller galaxies lacking a coherent structure are referred to as irregular galaxies.
There are probably more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Most are 1,000 to 100,000 parsecs in diameter and usually separated by distances on the order of millions of parsecs (or megaparsecs). Intergalactic space (the space between galaxies) is filled with a tenuous gas of an average density less than one atom per cubic meter. The majority of galaxies are organized into a hierarchy of associations known as galaxy groups and clusters, which, in turn usually form larger superclusters . At the largest scale, these associations are generally arranged into sheets and filaments, which are surrounded by immense voids.
In October 2013, z8 GND 5296 was confirmed to be the most distant galaxy yet discovered whose redshift was measured through the Lyman-alpha emission line of hydrogen, at a distance of approximately 13.1 billion light-years from Earth. The galaxy appears to astronomers as it was "just 700 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only about 5 percent of its current age of 13.8 billion years." It produces stars at a phenomenal rate of about 300 suns per year in mass and has a redshift of 7.51.

Inanna

Inanna

Inanna is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare, and goddess of the E-Anna temple at the city of Uruk, her main centre , she can be considered the most prominent female deity in ancient Mesopotamia.
As early as the Uruk period (ca. 4000–3100 BC), Inanna was associated with the city of Uruk. The famous Uruk Vase (found in a deposit of cult objects of the Uruk III period) depicts a row of naked men carrying various objects, bowls, vessels, and baskets of farm produce, and bringing sheep and goats, to a female figure facing the ruler. This figure was ornately dressed for a divine marriage, and attended by a servant. The female figure holds the symbol of the two twisted reeds of the doorpost, signifying Inanna behind her, while the male figure holds a box and stack of bowls, the later cuneiform sign signifying En, or high priest of the temple. Especially in the Uruk period, the symbol of a ring-headed doorpost is associated with Inanna.
Seal impressions from the Jemdet Nasr period (ca. 3100–2900 BC) show a fixed sequence of city symbols including those of Ur, Larsa, Zabalam, Urum, Arina, and probably Kesh. It is likely that this list reflects the report of contributions to Inanna at Uruk from cities supporting her cult. A large number of similar sealings were found from the slightly later Early Dynastic I phase at Ur, in a slightly different order, combined with the rosette symbol of Inanna, that were definitely used for this purpose. They had been used to lock storerooms to preserve materials set aside for her cult. Inanna's primary temple of worship was the Eanna, located in Uruk .


Inana J

Mesopotamia, as shown by successive law codes, those of Urukagina, Lipit Ishtar and Hammurabi, across its history became more and more a patriarchal society, one in which the men were far more powerful than the women. For example, during the earliest Sumerian period, the "en", or high priest of male gods was originally a woman, that of female goddesses, a man. Thorkild Jacobsen, as well as many others, has suggested that early Mesopotamian society was ruled by a "council of elders" in which men and women were equally represented, but that over time, as the status of women fell, that of men increased. As for schooling, only royal offspring and sons of the rich and professionals, such as scribes, physicians, temple administrators, went to school. Most boys were taught their father's trade or were apprenticed out to learn a trade.[30] Girls had to stay home with their mothers to learn housekeeping and cooking, and to look after the younger children. Some children would help with crushing grain or cleaning birds. Unusual for that time in history, women in Mesopotamia had rights. They could own property and, if they had good reason, get a divorce.

On this day...
February 16:

1862 – American Civil War: Union victory in the Battle of Fort Donelson gave General Ulysses S. Grant the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.

1923 – English archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun (mask pictured), an Egyptian Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty.

1961 – The DuSable Museum, the first museum dedicated to the study and conservation of African American history, culture, and art, was chartered.

1983 – The Ash Wednesday fires burned 513,979 acres (2,080 km2) in South Australia and 518,921 acres (2,100 km2) in Victoria, killing 75 people and injuring 2,676 others.

2005 – The Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the international treaty on climate change, entered into force.

Sara

مين قال إذا حكينا عربي منبطل "كول"؟ - Suzanne Talhouk at TEDxBeirut 2012 Suzanne Talhouk: Founder of Feil Amer سوزان تلحوق: رئيسة جمعية فعل أمر The talk: Taking the initiative to revitalize the Arabic language by modernizing it,...

The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italian: Torre pendente di Pisa) or simply the Tower of Pisa (Torre di Pisa) is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa, known worldwide for its unintended tilt to one side. It is situated behind the Cathedral and is the third oldest structure in Pisa's Cathedral Square (Piazza del Duomo) after the Cathedral and the Baptistry. The tower's tilt began during construction, caused by an inadequate foundation on ground too soft on one side to properly support the structure's weight. The tilt increased in the decades before the structure was completed, and gradually increased until the structure was stabilized (and the tilt partially corrected) by efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries .

SARA

The Minaret of Samarra, also known as the Malwiya Minaret or Malwiya Tower (malwiyah) is part of the Great Mosque of Samarra in Samarra, Iraq. The mosque is one of the largest in the world, and was built by the Abbasid caliph Al-Mutawakkil .The minaret was originally connected to the mosque by a bridge.
The minaret or tower was constructed in 848 – 852 of sandstone, and is unique among other minarets because of its ascending spiral conical design. 52 metres high and 33 metres wide at the base, the spiral contains stairs reaching to the top. The word "malwiya" translates as "twisted" or "snail shell".
Unlike most minarets, the Malwiya was not used for the "call to prayer"; its height made it impractical for such use. However, it is visible from a considerable distance in the area around Samarra and therefore may have been designed as a strong visual statement of the presence of Islam in the Tigris Valley.

Sara

Which kind of science do you prefer to study? and how?

Mena

Did you know...

.. that 2012 French Olympic gold medallist Teddy Riner (pictured) was the first male judoka to win five world titles?
.. that the first documented specimens of the spring beauty rust were collected by a former mayor of Buffalo, New York?
.. that sculptor Chintamoni Kar received civilian awards from India and France and won an Olympic medal for Great Britain?
.. that Jane Lee is the first woman from Southeast Asia to climb the Seven Summits?
.. that a research team from Gibraltar Museum and a dive club shared an award for investigating around a Detached Mole?
.. that Zach Vincej won the Brooks Wallace Award, given to the best shortstop in college baseball, in 2012?
.. that Amaryllis was Gordon Ramsay's first Scottish restaurant?
.. that 2012 Olympic javelin thrower Sean Furey spends time bomb-proofing electronics?

Sara