Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Calendar Transiences: Belief on a Breeze

  1. Circles in the Sand

    According to the Homeric hymns, Pallas Athene possessed "owl-gray" eyes or γλαυκῶπις – glaukōpis.

    Interstitial, connective tissue in animals cells is the stroma (strôma or bed-covering) versus the parenchyma (parénchyma or something poured in beside) in the cells of plants.

    Van Gogh painted all of his self-portraits with green eyes.

    A notable quotation from D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love: "Her father was not a coherent human being, he was a room full of echoes."

    The half-life of Adrenocortiotropic hormone in the blood is ten minutes.

    Meth mouth, or the characteristic decay patterns of methamphetamine users, can be attributed to drug-induced changes (due to the acidity of the powder?), xerostomia and neglected oral hygiene.

    Before its pharmaceutical use, valproic acid was used as a metabolically inert organic solvent.

    In a study at the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago (2006):
    "Loneliness is a Unique Predictor of Age-Related Differences in Systolic Blood Pressure" : lonely people have blood pressure readings as much as 30 points higher than non-lonely people, perceived stressors and depressive symptoms aside.

    The Kappa number signifies the lignin content (for delignification) and bleachability of wood pulp.

    A former biomedical use of the oxidizing potassium permanganate solution (used for determining Kappa no.):
    self-inducing abortions.

    Sandro Botticelli was fully aware of the classical implication of the sea shell (as the vulva) when he painted The Birth of Venus.

    Overlooking the volcanic lake (30 km from Rome), Lake Nemi, is the sacred grove of Diana; and thus, Tiberius and Caligula were the Nemorensi of the sacred spot.

    According to Sister Miriam Joseph, in preparation for the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy) the trivium consisted of:

    Logic, as it is concerned with the thing as-it-is-known,
    Grammar, as it is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-symbolized, and
    Rhetoric, as it is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-communicated.

    In a human eye, the cornea accounts for two-thirds of its refractive power and the crystalline lens comprises the remaining third.

    The first man-made polymer, polystyrene, was discovered from the resinous exudate of the Sweetgum tree, storax.

    Why would a sphinx--which signifies her wont, "to strangle"--be usually typified as a woman with a beast's body? Is this perhaps some view into her chthonic nature?

    Later, the chthonic is, according to Jung, the unconscious earthly impulses of Self: envy, lust, deceit; all of which carry a feminine embodiment.

No comments: