I found a beautiful site today:

Arte Maya Tz'utuhil Museum & Gallery


Pedro Rafael Gonzalez Chavajay
"Las Huellas de Ayer y de Hoy"
Currently with the exhibit:
"Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya"
at the Palace of Legion of Honor in San Francisco


I had always assumed that Henry M. Stanley had said "Dr. Livinstone, I presume," in Africa in 1871.

Now James J. Kilpatrick has me wondering

There's a bunch of interesting search types at Abacci.com

Check out the old, and still reliable, Mamma

Can't get enough of the Olympics?


WWW.OLYMPIC.ORG

Librarians' Index to the Internet Theme Collection: The Olympic Games

2004 Olympic Firsts

Olympics Timeline from Ancient Greece to the Present Day (Infoplease)

Archeology's Ancient Olympics Guide


Have I told you about Fagan Finder?
Well, I should have

Try Harvard's Dialect Survey -- fascinating!

Flying Facts about the Earth

STEWARTVILLE, MN (AP) - A Rochester girl has found a frog near Stewartville with five legs and 23 toes.

The director of Quarry Hill Nature Center says three out of four legs appear normal, but the fourth has another leg and three feet attached to it. Greg Munson says otherwise the frog looks healthy.

Munson says 27 other frogs found by nine-year-old Cori Praska and her friend were normal.

But Munson and others at the nature center say the deformed frog is disturbing. Frogs are particularly sensitive to pollution because they live on land and water and they easily absorb pollutants through their skin. Because of that, scientists consider stressed frog populations and deformations a sign that something could be amiss in the environment.
More

Something new to check out at the mall: library books
The Christian Science Monitor
Barbara Lloyd McMichael

SEATTLE - Typically, people go to malls to shop and to socialize. They may meet a friend for a quick lunch and then hunt for a new outfit. But at two malls in the greater Seattle area, they can also pick up a copy of the latest bestseller, do a computer search for a new job, and listen to a Spanish- language CD - all for free. The freebies aren't some enormous give-away by the malls, but typical library services in a not-so-typical location.
In 2001, the King County Library System, which includes Seattle and is one of the largest circulating libraries in the United States, opened its first library in a shopping mall after the owner of the popular Crossroads Mall in eastern King County contacted the library and offered space.
More

American Environmental Photographs


4,500 photographs documenting natural environments,
ecologies, and plant communities in the United States
between 1891 and 1936


Smithsonian Education


There's something here for everyone— whatever the age,
whatever the interest!
Start planning your visit now. 

This site offers educational content for students, families, and educators. Find teaching materials, links to hundreds of online resources, and access to the world's largest museum complex: The Smithsonian Institution.


Top Ten Satellite Images for 2003

Space Imaging its top 10 images from the IKONOS satellite taken during 2003. The images featured here include Baghdad, Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom; a 17th-century fortress in Bourtange, Netherlands; El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, Calif ... and much, much more; the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center; Lake Arrowhead during the devastating 2003 California fires; Mount St. Helens, Wash.; the Vatican City, featuring St. Peter's Basilica and Square; the Taj Mahal in India; Akkeshi Lake Resort in eastern Hokkaido, Japan; and Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, South Africa, one of the 'Seven Natural Wonders of the World.'
Their home page is here
Go check it out

Time Life Pictures

Time Life Pictures is an unparalleled collection of striking imagery, documenting past and present events in politics, culture, celebrities and the arts. The collection includes some of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, such as Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, Andreas Feininger, John Dominis, Nina Leen and Gjon Mili

Anatomy of the Human Body

The Bartleby.com edition of Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body features 1,247 vibrant engravings?many in color?from the classic 1918 publication, as well as a subject index with 13,000 entries ranging from the Antrum of Highmore to the Zonule of Zinn.

America's Pride

The United States captured two podium spots here Tuesday at the Athens 2004 Games. Top-seeded Misty May and Kerri Walsh continued their amazing string of successes since the start of the Olympic qualifying process in 2003. as the young Americans posted a 21-17 and 21-11 in 43 minutes over second-seeded Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede of Brazil. In the past two years, May and Walsh have won nine of 13 SWATCH-FIVB World Tour events with an 88-6 international match mark. More

The Origins project was organized around virtual field trips to eight scientific observatories where significant, ongoing research is conducted. We went behind the scenes at these institutions and at locations that are generally off limits to the public, including a rain forest research station in Belize, underneath Antarctica's sea ice, and an underground particle accelerator. Using the Web, we enabled our audience to look over the shoulders of scientists at work?in laboratories and in the field.

How does someone get the chance to go to Antarctica?
Check this out!

Ok, sure. We've all got our little preconceived notions about what librarians are and what they do. Many people think of them as diminutive civil servants, scuttling about "Sssh-ing" people and stamping things. Well, think again buster.
Librarians have degrees. They go to graduate school for Information Science and become masters of data systems and human/computer interaction. Librarians can catalog anything from an onion to a dog's ear. They could catalog you. Librarians wield unfathomable power. With a flip of the wrist they can hide your dissertation behind piles of old Field and Stream magazines. They can find data for your term paper that you never knew existed. They may even point you toward new and appropriate subject headings.


She's not your mother's librarian

People become librarians because they know too much. Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories. They cannot be confined to disciplines. Librarians are all-knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve every aspect of human knowledge.
Librarians rule.
And they will kick the crap out of anyone who says otherwise.
'Nuff said?

Andrea Almond
Associated Press
Simi Valley, CA Mary McKnight calls herself Ronald Reagan's No. 1 fan. Gazing somberly at the 40th president's tomb, the retired nurse from Kansas murmured, "It's humbling to be here."
Nearby, a boy in a New York Yankees jersey seemed less impressed by Reagan's library and museum, muttering something about wanting to go to Disneyland.
The contrast illustrates the challenge facing the nation's 11 presidential libraries - soon to be 12 with the opening of Bill Clinton's this fall - as they compete for visitors at a time when many tourists would rather be riding a roller-coaster than sifting through presidential archives.
Although Reagan's death has led to a surge in visitors to the library, attendance at the nation's presidential libraries during the last five years has declined about 13 percent. To reverse the trend, libraries are adding attractions, turning to more aggressive marketing tactics, and leaning on nearby tourist attractions to promote themselves ...
"For all the libraries, tourism depends on how the institutions are promoted," said Jay Hakes, director of Jimmy Carter's library in Atlanta. "Across the board, we need to be more aggressive, and I think we're seeing some of that now."

The Reagan library has not needed any intense marketing efforts this summer. More than 110,000 visitors have poured into the mission-style complex northwest of Los Angeles since the facility reopened on June 14 after a weeklong memorial to the late president.
That is more than half the attendance that the most popular library - Lyndon Johnson's in Texas - sees in an entire year. The Reagan library, which had seen a 31 percent drop in visitors until the former president's death, expects to log an unprecedented 400,000 visitors by the end of the year.
"If you'd told me on June 6 that we'd have such a spike and see it continue at these high levels, I never would have believed it," said John Langellier, assistant director of the complex.
The presidential library tradition began in 1939 when Franklin Roosevelt raised private money to build his facility. He then turned it over to the U.S. government to operate through the national archives.
The Johnson library in Austin, Texas, has drawn the most visitors in the last five years, averaging about 200,000 annual visitors. The John F. Kennedy library in Boston was next, averaging 192,213 visitors. The least visited presidential library is Herbert Hoover's in West Branch, Iowa, which attracts an average of 66,209 visitors.
Regardless of size, the goal of all the libraries is the same - to keep the past fresh. Their strategies include regularly rotating exhibits, hosting speakers and educational series, offering school tours and adding attractions that appeal to all generations ...
"It's a challenge for all libraries and museums, not just presidential ones, to draw young visitors when competing with the Disneylands and other amusements."

Don't know where to find the library near you? They're all listed here
Go see 'em!

Check out Ask Jeeves' new Smart Search
It's fabulous

Citysearch is a leading local search service, providing up-to-date information on businesses: restaurants, retail, travel, professional services, and more

You know, there are more made-up languages than just pig latin. You may have heard of others, like Klingon, but there are also many that were invented by individuals or small groups of people. You can get a raft of information on them at http://www.langmaker.com

TV Guide Online Improves Search Capabilities, Offers New Options
+ Improved search (sitewide search now available, categorized results)


+ Big Movie Guide
++ Lists EVERY movie on TV today and for the next 6 days
++ Sort movies by title, airtime, network, year and tvguide.com rating
++ Detailed descriptions of movie with full cast, photos, and credits
+ Big Sports Guide
++ Lists EVERY sporting event on TV tonight and for the next 6 days
+ Episode Guides and Program News
Info for more than 700 shows is available



Yahoo Launches an "Official" Search Blog

The Operational Significant Event Imagery team produces high-resolution, detailed imagery of significant environmental events which are visible in remotely-sensed data available at the NOAA Science Center in Suitland, Maryland.
"Events" include:

+ Current Events
+ Dust Storms
+ Fires
+ Floods
+ Icebergs
+ Ocean
+ Severe Weather
+ Snow Cover
+ Storms
+ Tropical Cyclones, Hurricanes, & Typhoons
+ Unique Imagery, such as Chesapeake Bay
+ Volcanoes


Lists of Bests is a one-stop shop to find all the "best of" books, music, and movie lists.

Which books have you read?

Which CDs have you listened to?

Which movies have you watched?

I've just heard about the Museum of Hoaxes, " established in 1997 in order to promote knowledge about the phenomenon of hoaxes. "
The Museum is based in San Diego, CA, and is open to visitors 365 days a year.

Speaking of Museums, the Mutter Museum at the Philadelphia College of Physicians {a must see site}, now has a virtual tour

Have you heard about Who2??
Who2 is a question, like a cabbie's "Where to?"
For each famous figure, Who2 gives you the hard facts you're most likely looking for: birth and death dates, famous works, notorious trivia.
Classic authors, movie stars, famous frauds, kings and queens, mythical gods, cartoon dogs: anyone famous is fair game for Who2.
Go check it out

If you're going to research Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, you may want to start at the University of Alberta, CA

Poynter Online's Links to the News column compiles valuable Web resources on current and previous news topics. This page links to resources about hurricanes. Subject headings include: Weather Updates, Media Coverage, Poynter Online, and Additional Resources

Check out Cornucopia, an online database of information about more than 6,000 collections in the UK's museums, galleries, archives and libraries. Whether you are interested in painters or politicians, dinosaurs or space travel, the Romans or the Victorians, Cornucopia can tell you what is available and where to see it.

Lots of Olympic Links from Gary Price

If you're interested in Oral History, as I am, you'll want to check out the Regional Oral History office of the Bancroft Library at Berkeley University

Honk if You Love to Sing Bumper Stickers
New York Times
Samuel G. FREEDMAN
Aug 16 2004

Israeli author David Grossman was driving through a forest preserve just outside this city, when he noticed a car stopped on the shoulder of the road and slowed to see what might be the matter. The motorist, he saw, was scraping off a bumper sticker that said, "Rabin Rotzeach'' ("Rabin is a Murderer").
At that moment Mr. Grossman, a novelist and essayist, fathomed the peculiar and intense importance of bumper stickers in Israel.
He began to scribble down examples, enlisted friends and family members to do the same, and ultimately collected 120 slogans, united only by their brevity and certitude.
Now he has transformed 54 of those phrases into the rhyming lyrics of a song, which has been recorded by one of Israel's leading rap groups, Hadag Nachash, and become the surprise pop-music hit of the season. The album containing it has topped sales charts and sold 15,000 copies in only two months, the equivalent of 750,000 in the United States.
Over a Jamaican dub beat, the singer Sha'anan Streett chants slogans as irreconcilable as "A strong people makes peace," "No Arabs, no terror" and "Long live the king Messiah."
How about "My son is an honor student at Carvel Middle School"?

New Technology Heralds Unlimited Web Sites

ICANN, the U.S. body overseeing Web site allocations globally, has launched a new technology that will allow virtually unlimited Internet addresses, its chairman told Reuters on Tuesday.
Vinton Cerf of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said the next-generation protocol, IPv6, had been added to its root server systems, making it possible for every person or device to have an Internet protocol address.
Just what I need - more Bookmarks!

OmniMedicalSearch.com
a medical metasearch engine, has launched. OmniMedicalSearch.com covers 25 databases including medical search engines, image libraries, and health and medical news. Its search options include: 12 Medical Search Engines (Default Search); eight Health and Medical News Sources; five Medical Image Libraries; MedPro Search for medical professionals; Basic Search for the general public; Related Search Options; Single Site Search Focus; and One-Click Dictionary look up.
There is a Medical Association Mini-Directory (150 and counting); Medical Journal Mini-Directory - (250 and counting); and 72 Searchable Medical Databases.
Go play

Have I told you about TimeTicker?
Timeticker is a simple little utility, but one that's quite useful if you need to check time differences on a regular basis. You can use it for travelling or Cybernet scheduling.
Timeticker displays the current time for dozens of countries throughout the world.
It's easy to use and makes it a snap to compare the time in different zones throughout the world.

Earth's Time Zones

The site uses Flash to display a map of the world. By default, it displays Greenwich mean time (GMT). To see the time anywhere else in the world, just click the map, and the current time in that zone is instantlydisplayed. A sphere at the bottom of the map tells you the difference in hours between the zone you clicked and GMT.

The only downside to the site are its busy sounds. There's a constant ticking sound, and some other sounds ...
My advice to you? Do what you have to, and turn it off!

Travelzoo has announced SuperSearch
It's a meta-search tool for travel sites. It's available at http://www.travelzoo.com/supersearch.
If you've ever searched for travel information this will look familiar. Enter where you want to travel and your date and number of travelers. You may also specify if you want to search nearby hotels and if your dates are flexible.

Check out Ripley's Believe It or Not: even the Museums Page is unbelievable!

Cool Stuff I Do Know Something About
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) is a NASA Explorer mission measuring the temperature of the cosmic background radiation over the full sky with unprecedented accuracy.
There's plenty more here

{Click on picture for details}


WMAP Spacecraft Diagram
Image created by NASA/WMAP Science Team
using Strata Pro 2.5.3 an Illustrator 8

Topix Upgrades News, Adds Email Alerts
By Gary Price

Topix.net has enhanced its service with a number of new features.

Topix now has more than 7000 sources (primarily but not exclusively U.S. publications) and more than 150,000 "topically based" pages, which include local pages (a page for each zip code in the U.S.).

Keyword email alerts are now available. Results are delivered either daily or weekly. On the Topix.net home page you'll now see a "Live Feed" on the right-side of the page. This contains an "up to the second" look at what Topix is adding to their database.

Finally, if you visit a topical or local Topix.net page and then return to the home page, the pages you've visited are added to the main menus as dynamic sub-menus ("flyouts") as you mouse down the top-level category list below the search box.

Go check it out

Scientists in San Diego have described the earth's smallest, lightest animal with a backbone. H.J. Walker of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and William Watson of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, in La Jolla have identified the miniscule stout infantfish, a new species no longer than the width of a pencil.
Read more here


Stout Infantfish - a 8.4 mm {about a quarter-inch} ( standard length mature female fish caught in the Great Barrier Reef in 1982. Note the large eggs visible through the lower side of the fish. Photo: H.J. Walker.

From New Scientist comes a report that Family words came first for early humans One of a Neanderthal baby's first words was probably "papa", concludes one of the most comprehensive attempts to date to make out what the first human language was like.
Many of the estimated 6000 languages now spoken share common words and meanings, notably for kin names like "mama" and "papa". That has led some linguists to suggest that these words have been carried through from humans' original proto-language, spoken at least 50,000 years ago.
Read the rest here


Neanderthal Flute
43,000 - 82,000 - year old Cave Bear femur bone segment with 4 holes.