This is the place where YOU can make some noise!

Here are some video clips from my wee duo "BlonnaHooley" playing at a Hogmanay (New Years Eve) party on 31st Dec 2015...












PLEASE - I know, I KNOW that some of our Rogues have music in their very souls and bones!
THIS is the place to share!
It doesn't matter how good or bad, professional or amateur (feck - you've seen mine!!!) please feel free to post links to your own music, that's what this thread is for, and I would LOVE to hear it!
G

There have been several reports in the media recently regarding the Zika Virus which has been causing many birth defects (mainly microcephaly) in newborn babies in Brazil (and other regions).
The Zika Virus is spread by a Mosquito (Aedes aegypti).
This mosquito is also responsible for spreading other viruses (including Dengue Fever)

A BioTech firm called Oxitec has been developing Genetically Modified (GMO) Mosquitos as an way of combating the spread of virus carrying wild mosquitos. The GMO ones are specifically engineered with the addition of genes from several different species of animals and plants, to interact with the wild mosquitos which then produce offspring which soon die off. Thereby reducing the population over time.

LINK to article on Mercola dotcom

Quote:In the Cayman Islands, for instance, 96 percent of native mosquitoes were suppressed after more than 3 million GM mosquitoes were released in the area, with similar results reported in Brazil.6 But as we’ve seen in the past with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), when you tinker with nature, it often comes back to bite you.

Quote:NEWSLETTER July 2014

Oxitec’s mosquito control approved in Brazil

The National Technical Commission for Biosecurity (CTNBio), the collegiate body responsible for approval and regulation of transgenic organisms in Brazil, recently approved the commercial release of the genetically modified (GM) mosquito, OX513A, developed by Oxitec. It is the first GM insect to be considered safe for commercial use in Brazil and the latest of a long series of biotechnology approvals by CTNBio.

Quote:Achieving over 90% suppression of the local Aedes aegypti population is particularly pleasing because the project took place going into the rainy season, when mosquito numbers rise significantly. Furthermore, these results are wholly consistent with those from studies by collaborators in the Cayman Islands and Brazil.”

Quote:Until recently, few people had heard of Zika. As of 2013, it had never been recorded in the Western Hemisphere. By 2014, the virus made an appearance in the Americas, arriving in the Easter Islands, and then it showed up in Brazil.

Now it's spreading quickly throughout the Americas, and the World Health Organization warned that it's expected to reach every country in the Americas (except for Canada and Chile, where the mosquitoes that carry the virus don't live).

Quote:In parallel with our lead dengue mosquito product strain’s successes in Brazil and Panama field trials, we have built a new research facility near our UK headquarters. With improved insect-rearing laboratories and offices, and greatly increased space, our ability to develop and test new mosquito strains is enhanced. We have also added product development capacity to develop optimised insect mass-production methods and areas for laboratory-testing of strains as part of the rigorous development process.

DISCLAIMER: This is the Short Story that I entered in the ATS writers contest "ORIGINS".

ANCIENT ALIENS...Or?

Part One:
PRESENT DAY - JEITA GROTTO CAVE SYSTEM - NAHR AL-KALB, LEBANON.

David shuddered as he slipped off his gloves and took hold of the hot flask Ian held before him, his eyes flickering back towards the entrance of the cave, his head-torch rythmically scanning left and right over and over again.

"Are you OK Dave? What happened down there?" Ian gestured towards the cave.

"Something... something grabbed me! It... they..." David's reply tailed off to no more than a whisper.

"Something????"

"I thought I saw... It was dark, but I KNOW I saw it. It... they... stood up on legs but... they looked like... like a... Crocodile or something.."

"Dave - LOOK! Your backpack... it's all shredded... it's been slashed!"




Part Two:
1934 - EASTERN VALLEY OF THE KINGS - THEBES, EGYPT.

Alex Solomon squinted his eyes against the bright sunlight which came streaming in through the gaps around the huge stone tablet, and it took him a few seconds to be able to focus on the newly illuminated figures on the wall in front of him.

"They look like some early form of Hieroglyph" he whispered, "but not typically Egyptian... perhaps Sumerian or...?"

He stopped suddenly as his eyes fell upon a Cartouche which had a reptile-headed figure facing a man, below what looked like.... no it couldn't be... but there it was... a disc-shaped flying machine!
His face screwed up into that familiar; "this can't be right!" sort of expression, then gradually fell back into a blank stare of inevitable realisation, until it finally gave way to a huge grin of triumphal euphoria!

"I've done it!" he exclaimed, "I've finally found REAL evidence of an Advanced Ancient Civilisation!"

He quickly scanned over the surrounding glyphs and although he couldn't decipher them all yet, a fantastic story began to emerge;
A story Of an ancient, peaceful and happy tribe who were victims of a huge and deadly flood, being visited by strange looking creatures who came down from the heavens in shiny metallic craft which roared like a hundred lions and spat-forth fire!

"Oh My God!!! This is far better than I could ever have imagned! Just wait till I send word to the Society - I'll get a commendation for Sure!"

Alex had always suspected that Earth's ancient history was somewhat different from that taught in the Schools and Colleges. In fact, it was probably this belief that got him into History and Egyptology in the first place.
Of course, nothing could have prepared him for the magnitude of the discovery that he had just made, it was just unthinkable to the vast majority of experts and scholars of the subject, but here it was... undenyable proof that the Earth was "visited" long ago!

He paused to reflect on what he should do next, and quickly came to realise that not everyone back at the Society would be pleased with his findings.
He would have to be absolutely sure, and be able to produce absolute proof of his discovery before making any such claims, or he risked being ridiculed and, worse still, barred from the Society itself!
So, over the next few weeks, he diligently and accurately catalogued each and every symbol in the chamber, then secretly spent months alone in his Cairo apartments making sure that his translations were perfectly accurate before even considering making any announcement.

The only problem was... when properly deciphered and accurately translated... the story didn't make any real sense!

The first set of symbols tell the story of the "arrival" of the moon!

"Arrival?? that just can't be right, but I've checked it a dozen times... what do they mean by "arrival??? Could it be rising? or becoming Full?? NO! It definitely translates as "arrival", it makes no sense!!"

Then there is the flood, which was very typical of flood myth stories of that period from all over the ancient world.
Then the "visitation" part, where man and reptilian meet for the first time, quickly followed by War and the almost entire annihilation of the population.
And then the final section where the reptiles are leaving to "hide" in the deepest, darkest caverns underground??

"Why would they annihilate the population and then go and hide?? What were they hiding from?? Where did they all go?
...and How did Man then manage to finally recover from his near total extinction to emerge as rulers of the Earth once more??"

The questions spun round and around in his head, and the more he pondered upon them, the more puzzled and confused he became.
He began to skip his meals and led a very lonely, solitary existence until eventually, inevitably his health suffered greatly.

His strange behaviour and worsening health caused panic among the local guides and porters.
Talk of The Doctor being "cursed" spread like wild fire and one by one they made their excuses and left.



About one month later, an entry in the obituary column of the London Evening Gazette read:

"SOLOMON.
The Explorer and Egyptologist, Dr Alexander P.Solomon of London and Cairo, has died of Influenza at his home in Cairo, Egypt on the 11th of last month.
Having no living relatives, and no Will & Testament, his estate will be sold to pay for his funereal arrangements."

The "Curse" had been fulfilled, and none of the superstitious locals wanted anything to do with this tainted property, and so it lay unsold, untouched and over the years it gradually fell into disrepair.



Part Three:
PRESENT DAY - CAIRO, EGYPT.

Mike turned the huge key in the creaky old lock and after a brief struggle, it lurched open with a loud clunk!
He turned to smile and wink at Amelia, then leaned against the heavy wooden door to prise it open.
A long and theatrical C R E E E A A A K K ! then followed, as it's dry and rusty hinges rebelled against the movement of the door as it swung open to reveal an extremely dusty and sparsely furnished room.

"Home Sweet Home!" chirped Amelia, as she skipped past Mike and began exploring their new holiday apartment.

Mike worked for NASA, and had spent the previous 3 years (without a proper holiday), analysing streams of Data from the Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) missions.
Now it was time for some well deserved R&R in the Egyptian sunshine, so he and Amelia had bought an old Cairo apartment on an online auction to renovate as a future holiday home, and here they were on their very first visit.

"Hummm, a bit of a fixer-upper then?" Mike sighed.
"Well, at least we know why it was soooooo cheap now!" Amelia said, as she immediately set to work, lifting the old dust-covered sheets off of the furniture; "It looks like it hasn't been disturbed in.... decades!"

The apartment was very small by modern standards, so after a couple of hours they actually had it looking reasonably habitable, and very pleased with their efforts, they decided to pop open a bottle of wine and sit down to a meal of flatbreads, cheese & olives!
Mike pulled open a drawer to look for a corkscrew and found an old green leather-bound ledger with "A.P.S." in gold letters scrolled on the front.

"OOoooooh! What's this???" he cooed, as he presented the book with a flourish; "It looks like a diary or note...book..."

His jaw dropped as his eyes fell on the handwritten notes in the ledger;

"I don't believe it! This is... just so freaky!"...

"What is it?" asked Amelia, intrigued by Mike's reaction to the strange book,

"Look at THIS!" he beamed, as he held up the open book, revealing a drawing of a set of ancient cartouches depicting the MOON and a GREAT FLOOD.
"Don't you see??? THIS is what I've been working on at NASA! All the LRO data for months now has been indicating something... strange about the Moon.
The data has been suggesting that the Moon isn't the correct weight. That it might be... hollow. Artificial even! And here is evidence, ANCIENT EVIDENCE that it "Arrived" here from elsewhere! It's just extraordinary!"

"Hollow? Artificial??? How can that even be... I mean... there's no way that... it just doesn't... it's the MOON for god's sake, you can't be seriously suggesting that.... what? aliens?? or??? something?

"Amelia. I KNOW this sounds crazy, and I shouldn't even be discussing this outside of the team, but we've... found stuff. On the Moon. On the Darkside of the Moon."

"Stuff? What do you mean? Stuff."

"Uhhm, sort of structures... and uhm... markings, erm... language. Listen you HAVE to keep this QUIET! It's Earth shattering, paradigm shifting information we're dealing with here!"

"ohhkaaay" came Amelia's bemused response; "but how can the Moon be artificial, how CAN IT BE???? Hasn't it always been here??"

Mike poured the wine, and pulled his chair over to face close to Amelias, he took her hand and stared deep into her beautiful green eyes then softly and calmly said;

"Do you remember the stories about Noahs Ark? The Great Flood?"

"Of course I do - yes!"

"Well, almost every single ancient civilisation upon this Earth has a similar story. Cultures that never met, share exactly the same myths about cataclysmic and devastating floods right?
Well, something caused those floods to happen right?, and ever since our data started pointing to the possible artificial nature of the Moon, the team have been... speculating.
Speculating that... what if a Huge artificial structure suddenly arrived and placed itself in close orbit around the Earth? What effect might that have had on the Earth itself?
And ONE ANSWER kept cropping up;
The gravitational effect of an object the size of the Moon, would have a major impact on the magnetic fields of the Earth, possibly even inducing a field inversion."

"Sorry, a what? You've lost me."

"A Flip of the Earths magnetic field. A reversal. A complete change in the polarity of our gravitational field.
It would cause chaos, natural disasters beyond imagination, volcanic eruptions, storms, but mainly... Flooding on a Global Scale!"

"You mean, Noah's Flood?"

"Exactly. And here in this book, is actual evidence of ancient eye-witness accounts of the arrival of this... Moon! and the cataclysms which followed!
It's confirmation of our data! Jesus... it makes it... REAL!"

"But, what about these reptile-head Aliens?? What happened to them??" asked Amelia, pointing at the drawings, still trying to take it all in.

"That's the problem Amelia, you see... all of the markings we found, there on the Moon... they weren't strange hieroglyphic symbols or unreadable cartouches; they were recogniseable modern Alphanumeric Characters!
Letters! Numbers! and we could read them - easily! They match all of our known Modern languages but NONE of the Ancient ones! and It made no sense.... unless...

...Amelia, The Reptilians didn't come here on the Moon, they were already here. All of the evidence on the moon suggests that WE were the ones who brought it here!
So, "they" are not the Aliens. WE ARE!!"

"Whaaaat??" Amelia's jaw dropped open as the realisation dawned;

"It was us, the Humans who had built the Moon, and who flew it here thousands of years ago, who caused the floods, and then wiped out the surviving indigenous reptilians.
It was THEIR WORLD, and we destroyed them, scattered them to the four winds, and took it all from them."

"Oh My GOD!" gasped Amelia, "that's unbelievable! But what happens if... they want it back?"


THE END

The STRANDBEEST

There is a man called Theo Jansen who, since 1990 has been creating "new forms of life".

Not in a lab, from DNA or pollen or genetics or alien spores.... but from plastic tubing and old coke bottles!

His "StrandBeest" are skeletal structures, made from the aforementioned items, powered by nature (the wind) and capable of capturing and storing energy from the environment, in the form of compressed air.
They have "wings" and/or sails whose motion in the wind drives various bicycle pumps up and down repeatedly pumping air into the sealed bottles.

Once the correct air pressure is reached, a valve releases the power of the compressed air into the limbs of the "Beest" and miraculously, hypnotically... it starts to walk!

Like a huge insect of some sort, rows of mechanical legs perform a magical Mexican wave of footsteps, propelling these creatures along the beach that they stand on.

It is Theo's ambition that these Beests will one day be "set free" to roam the beaches in herds!!

The technology behind this is superb, and it's simply jaw-droppingly amazing to watch.

I hope that you enjoy this as much as I do!

Theo Jansens StrandBeest.



More information at STRANDBEEST DOTCOM

kindest regards,
BigG

(PS - I'd love to see an "Inventions" forum in the Tech area!)

The MARCH SHORT STORY CONTEST is NOW OFFICIALLY CLOSED!!!



(credit:BoyInADress for the Artwork!)

Fellow Rogues and Roguettes,
Welcome to our Rogue-Nation Dragons-Tale Writers Contest for March 2016!

As a (lucky) winner of the previous writers contest, I received the honour of coming up with a theme for this one! So, here we go…
Our Theme is...

"FIRST LINE, LAST LINE!"

For this writers' contest, you are challenged to write a short story on;
ANY (Rogue Nation “T&C friendly”) subject that you want!

BUT...

Your story MUST start with the line:
"I thought it was going to be just an ordinary Tuesday..."

AND...

It MUST finish with the line:
"I'm never doing that again!
THE END”


The competition will OPEN on Tues 1st March and will run for 3 weeks,
CLOSING on Mon 21st March.

I’m already looking forward to seeing some great entries from our very talented bunch of Rogues!


RULES AND GUIDELINES


- This Contest is open to all members and staff.

- Each Entrant is allowed up to Two Entries.

- The prefix – “MARWC” – (For “March Writers Contest”) has to be inserted in front of the Title of your entry.

- Each entry MUST include the FIRST LINE and LAST LINE as shown in the competition description above.

- There are no word counts, but we’d ask that Each Entry has No More Than TWO Posts please.

- Each entry has to end with – “The End” - so that we know that the story came to a conclusion.

- The Contest will have a Voting Poll as it closes, so all of our members can vote for their favourite stories, and a Moderators Background Panel will judge.

- The Judge’s decision, taken in combination with the member vote, will be final.

- Entrants will receive rewards in accordance with the previous writers contests.

GOOD LUCK and HAVE FUN!

Gordi


OK Folks, I'm afraid that the Time has come...


THE MARCH SHORT STORY CONTEST IS NOW OFFICIALLY CLOSED

To keep things simple for the voting, I'm just going to rely on the "likes" cast during the contest, ...and by My Calculations.... the winners are;

*DRUMROLL*

1. BIAD - "GRIST" - 5 votes
=2. Amaterasu Solar - "Quite The opposite" - 3 votes
=2. 727sky - "Not Your Usual Tuesday" - 3 votes.

Congratulations to all of Our Winners! and Thank You to everyone who entered, read and voted for our stories!

There is an artist called Castro Regis, who "finger-paints" beautiful images onto ordinary bathroom tiles in 2 minutes flat.

He shows his work on youtube videos and there is a facebook channel too..

FB Channel LINK

But my descriptions could NEVER do the guy's talents justice, so... just watch the video and prepare to be amazed!



Kindest regards,
BigG

from webmd:

Quote:Turmeric is the root stalk of a tropical plant that's part of the ginger family. One of the main components of the spice is a substance called curcumin which has potentially healing properties.

You can buy fresh turmeric in Chinese and Indian supermarkets. It's widely available in a dried powder form in supermarkets. The spice is used in lots of Asian dishes, mustards and pickles.

The Tesla Motor Company, who specialise in Electric Vehicles, also use their Lithium-Ion battery technology for domestic power storage systems.
This means that you can take "off-peak" cheaper energy from the grid and store it in your battery system to use when YOU want to.
It also means that you can easily store any energy that you generate yourself using solar panels or turbines etc.

They look pretty good too!



From their press release:

Quote:Tesla Powerwall is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery designed to store energy at a residential level for load shifting, backup power and self-consumption of solar power generation. Powerwall consists of Tesla’s lithium-ion battery pack, liquid thermal control system and software that receives dispatch commands from a solar inverter. The unit mounts seamlessly on a wall and is integrated with the local grid to harness excess power and give customers the flexibility to draw energy from their own reserve.

The battery can provide a number of different benefits to the customer including:

Load shifting – The battery can provide financial savings to its owner by charging during low rate periods when demand for electricity is lower and discharging during more expensive rate periods when electricity demand is higher
Increasing self-consumption of solar power generation – The battery can store surplus solar energy not used at the time it is generated and use that energy later when the sun is not shining
Back-up power – Assures power in the event of an outage

Powerwall increases the capacity for a household’s solar consumption, while also offering backup functionality during grid outages.

THE ROSWELL INCIDENT - A ROGUE FILE

Video embedded with link

Victim's wife: U.S. "siding with Saudi Arabia over the 9/11 families"

<blockquote>President Obama is under new pressure from families of Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack victims who want him to back legislation allowing them to sue the Saudi government.

The controversy picked up new urgency this month after a "60 Minutes" investigation that looked at possible links between Saudi officials and the 9/11 hijackers, which revealed that information may be in a classified section of a Congressional report.

Saudi Arabia - a key U.S. ally - has threatened to retaliate financially if the bill becomes law and administration officials have been lobbying to kill the legislation, but that has made many 9/11 families very angry, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.</blockquote>

very interesting

It appears the US government will not allow the victims families to sue