Photographer goes to great heights for call to arms on sprawl

Photographer goes to great heights for call to arms on sprawl
BY VICTORIA FLEISCHER May 30, 2014 at 2:58 PM EDT


SKYE ISLE II Florida. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013

Christoph Gielen’s large-scale aerial images of urban planning are his means of participating in a conversation about sustainable development. He sees his collection of photographs, titled “Ciphers,” as a code of human habitation — one that needs to be deciphered.

“At first glance, they may really appear as something that they are not, something organic or even as proliferating cell growth seen under a microscope,” said Gielen.

Gielen is not an architect and he can’t speak to the future of development, but he hopes his photographs will serve as a tool for those who can make a difference. And if he drums up interest by compelling viewers to pay attention to land use, he will consider his work a success.

Art Beat recently spoke to Christoph Gielen about “Ciphers.” The transcript below was lightly edited for length.

ART BEAT: How did this project come about?

CHRISTOPH GIELEN: The initial idea behind the project was to really make a case for sustainable planning but from an artist’s perspective. I want to reach out to anyone interested in society’s role in land use and the effects on the environment. That was the initial idea behind it and my goal with Ciphers was really to examine the broader ramifications of building trends well beyond American borders, to really bring about an understanding of growth machines that systematically develop car dependency and more car dependent low-density organization. If photography can be used as a call to action, I like utilizing my photography as a primary medium for that. Then I invite land use experts to comment on and to solve.


STERLING RIDGE II Florida. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013

ART BEAT: Can you explain what we’re seeing in the photos?

CHRISTOPH GIELEN: We’re all familiar with sprawl and the inherent problems of sprawl and it’s really quite a drab subject so what I wanted to do is utilize photography to make it compelling. I chose settlement patterns that were particularly striking. What we’re looking at is housing formations that I found that were compelling enough for people to pay attention to. They are symbolic of poor land use, if you will. So after a lengthy research period I came up with those particular locations and ended up photographing them.


CONVERSIONS VII Urban California. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013

ART BEAT: What was the process like to get these images? What were you looking for in the research?

CHRISTOPH GIELEN: The photographing itself is actually the smallest part of it all. In the research part, I would look at variables that are relevant to land use, so one big determining factor for me was foreclosure rates, so that was probably one of the biggest factors and I saw that they, as a phenomenon, really directly tie to rates of housing development. I found that foreclosure hotspots for instance occur in places with the least location efficiency. Foreclosure statistics are publicly available by state and by county; they all list them at companies like RealtyTrac. Other statistics would have been settlement rates, I was looking at some of the fastest developing regions and then I would target in on specific regions and travel there.

I would use a car and I would just travel to all these destinations and examine these locations from the ground and see how stricken are these regions and what do they look like and I would oftentimes pose as a prospective homebuyer and go around with a realtor for instance and have them explain how these neighborhoods see themselves and what the selling points would be.


UNTITLED VIII Arizona. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013

Then I would work with mapping services from the U.S. Geological Survey — I found them to be a fantastic partner, they really make all these maps available publicly. I would look at current maps and look for compelling clusters and once I found those I would go with a satellite search often times and see what does it look like from great height.

At the very end I would then sometimes be able to get in touch with the folks who actually planned and designed those neighborhoods and to find out what’s the background story, what were the priorities. In all cases, they would have nothing to do with today’s standards of sustainability.

And then I would go up at the very end with a helicopter and photograph very specifically. We would perform these vertical spiral movements to get it from different altitudes until I felt like I had what I wanted to get, how I wanted to show those.


UNTITLED XI Arizona. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013

ART BEAT: What did you find out when you spoke to the people who planned the neighborhoods you were photographing?

CHRISTOPH GIELEN: Some of the most startling news I found was from a region that was growing very fast south of Las Vegas. There is a region that is called the Black Mountains and until the real estate crash that was really some of the fastest growing in the U.S. What the developers did there was almost as if with zip code marketing, they would come up with buyer profiles and look at statistics such as age group, gender, family, but also, aside from income structure, they would look at shopping preferences, so you would end up with a very targeted development for a very specific group of prospective homebuyers. You would end up with a neighborhood that is completely homogeneous, so not only do you end up with people that are the same race, the same income, but even that have the same preferences as consumers. Not only does each house look the same, but the people actually have the same preferences that live there, so that was a little bit spooky.


UNTITLED X Nevada. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013

Then on the other hand, which was great, was the Department of Transportation, for instance, in California, they made some of their original maps, blueprints, plans available of some of these major interchanges because it is part of the public record. So I was able to look at how they pieced it together. What is interesting to me from a sustainability perspective is seeing that there’s no consideration whatsoever in terms of land wasted. One interchange that made it into the book that I’m quite fond of that looks quite abstract in San Bernardino County and it looks huge. You would never know it from the ground, but it’s absolutely gigantic and it wastes so much land just simply to connect two highways in the middle of nowhere. The consideration of the land itself isn’t anywhere in these plans.

What I’m really after is that some of these circular plane communities may well be somehow an intrinsic expression of human culture, but maybe the challenge of today, with overpopulation, requires a new set of settlement patterns.


UNTITLED III Arizona. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013


UNTITLED Nevada. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013


DEER CREST II Suburban California. DEER CREST II Suburban California


CONVERSIONS Suburban California. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013


UNTITLED VI Nevada. Photo by Christoph Gielen courtesy of Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2013

An Old Bird on the Greenland Ice

acquired May 1, 2014download large image (8 MB, JPEG, 5760x3840)

Flying over the polar regions can be both awesome and tedious, beautiful and boring. It's a frontier that few eyes have seen, but the utter whiteness of the snow and ice can start to blend into a sameness that becomes disorienting. Landmarks become welcome signs, even when that landmark is a somber reminder of flights gone wrong.

The image above shows the Kee Bird, a wrecked B-29 Superfortress that made an emergency landing on a northwest Greenland ice sheet in 1947. The image was acquired on May 1, 2014, by the Digital Mapping System (DMS), an instrument attached to NASA’s P-3 Orion airplane for the Operation IceBridge campaign.

The Kee Bird was a U.S. Air Force plane that made a crash landing after running into foul weather and other issues during a reconnaissance flight to the North Pole. The entire crew survived the crash, but then had to wait for more than three days to be found and rescued. In the 1990s, a private group of airplane and history aficionados attempted to restore and fly the plane, only to have it catch fire in the process. The wreck still lays on the ice sheet and is slowly being covered by wind-blown snow and ice.

Since 2009, Operation IceBridge has made annual campaigns to the Arctic and Antarctic to monitor glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice. The 2014 northern spring campaign ended on May 23 after eleven weeks of flights.

“The plane wreck lies right in between two of major science targets—Humboldt and Petermann Glaciers—and because of that we fly almost directly over it nearly every year,” said John Sonntag, a researcher from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility who has collected Kee Bird photos since the early 1990s. “When you spend eight hours a day, five days a week staring at a blinding white ice sheet, something interesting to look at comes as a rather welcome sight.”

acquired April 20, 2013

Michael Studinger, the NASA scientist who leads IceBridge, shot the second photo in the spring of 2013. In the oblique view, you can see the shadow of the P-3 research plane. Faint thin lines across the ice are likely polar bear tracks.

NASA photographs courtesy of IceBridge Digital Mapping System (top) and Michael Studinger, NASA GSFC (lower). Caption by Mike Carlowicz.

Instrument(s): 

Aircraft Sensors - DMS

5/18/14 Wright to Newcastle, WY Supercell Time-Lapse

alma4anttimelapse2

MOTO GP MUGELLO ITALIA

Marquez comes out on top in duel with Lorenzo

Sunday, 1 June 2014

An intriguing duel between Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) and Jorge Lorenzo (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) saw the former come out on top at Mugello, with Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) joining them on the podium.

The two Spaniards put on a great show in front of the Italian crowd, battling for the lead for several laps, only for Marquez to clinch a sixth successive victory in 2014 by 0.121s on the final lap.

At his 300th Grand Prix the yellow sea of fans were willing Rossi to capitalise on any mistake from the front two, and although The Doctor had to settle for third by just under three seconds it was still a great ride for him from 10th on the grid.

With Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team) and impressive rookie Pol Espargaro (Monster Yamaha Tech3) the next two across the line – albeit more than 10 seconds further back – there were four Spaniards in the top five.

Behind them Italians Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) and Andrea Iannone (Pramac Racing) also got great support from the crowd en route to sixth and seventh respectively, with Iannone making a brilliant start and leading in the early stages having started second on the grid.

The top ten was completed by Alvaro Bautista (GO&FUN Honda Gresini),Aleix Espargaro (NGM Forward Racing) and Yonny Hernandez (Energy T.I. Pramac Racing).

Hector Barbera (Avintia Racing) and Michel Fabrizio (Octo IodaRacing Team) both retired from the race with technical problems.

Bradley Smith (Monster Yamaha Tech3) crashed out on lap 4, but walked away unharmed. Shortly afterwards Cal Crutchlow (Ducati Team) and Stefan Bradl (LCR Honda MotoGP) went down, the German hitting the Englishman's bike as it slid across the track, with both riders fortunately avoided injury.

Click here for Mugello MotoGP race results.

 

Skylon ‘spaceplane economics stack up’

Skylon ‘spaceplane economics stack up’

Skylon is the result of 30 years' development and probably about 100m euros (£80m) of investment so far



It appears a feasible proposition, economically. That is the conclusion of a study that considered a European launch service based on a Skylon re-usable spaceplane.

The report, commissioned by the European Space Agency (Esa), was led by Reaction Engines Limited (REL) of Oxfordshire with help from a range of other contractors such as London Economics, QinetiQ and Thales Alenia Space (TAS).

It looked closely at how an operator of the UK-conceived vehicle might meet the demands of its market.

Those requirements would be primarily to loft big telecoms satellites high above the equator of the Earth, but also to put smaller, Earth-observing spacecraft in Sun-synchronous orbits (a type of orbit around the poles). These are the sorts of jobs the Ariane 5 rocket does today, and which Ariane 6, currently under discussion among European governments, may do from the early 2020s onwards.

Skylon is not in that discussion space at the moment - but it may get there at some point in the future if further technical studies prove positive and the financing can be found to push the concept forward.

The Skylon-based European Launch Service Operator (S-ELSO) study examined some of the hardware the vehicle would need to place satellites in orbit, and aspects of the economic model that would allow the operator to turn a profit. It even looked at how the vehicle could work out of Kourou in French Guiana - Europe's spaceport.

In all the areas the study considered, it found positive outcomes. The report was intended to provide Esa with the information it needs to help evaluate what would be a completely different way for Europe to go about its launcher business.
To get telecoms satellites in position, Skylon would deploy a re-usable upper-stage propulsion unit

For starters, Skylon is nothing like the conventional rockets that Europe uses today. Skylon would operate like an aeroplane, taking off from, and returning to, a standard runway.
Traditional rockets dump exhausted boosters and propellant tanks as they ascend

Its technological trick would be its novel propulsion system - power units that work like jet engines at low altitudes and slow speeds, but then transition to full rocket mode at high altitudes and velocities in excess of five times the speed of sound.

This approach, if it can be made to work, would reduce that fraction of the vehicle's mass that must be carried as propellant, enabling the vehicle to take a practical payload to orbit in a single leap.

Although expensive to develop - think of a new Airbus design - it ought to be a good long-term investment because - again, like an Airbus - a Skylon is designed to be used over and over again. Today's rockets can be used just the once.

Indeed, the aviation model is a good one, because the idea as currently envisaged is that there would be a vehicle manufacturer (like an Airbus or a Boeing) that would sell Skylons to many operators (space equivalents of BA, Air France, Lufthansa, etc).
Even though it carries a smaller fraction of propellant, its bulk is still dominated by tankage

The S-ELSO study examined whether a Skylon vehicle could handle the types of payloads governments and commercial interests are likely to want to launch over the next 20 years and more. These include the huge TV-relay, telephony and broadband satellites, the biggest of which could be eight tonnes in mass.

Skylon itself is designed only to go a few hundred km above the Earth, so it would need an additional "upper-stage" module to push the satellite into its final, 36,000km-high orbit.

For the S-ELSO study, TAS was asked to assess this piece of hardware - what it might look like and how it would perform.

It found that the module should have no difficulty putting up all the different types of telecoms satellites, including the new "electric" platforms that use solar power to do some of their own orbit raising and position-keeping.

What it did find, though, was that for the very biggest satellites (eight tonnes), the upper-stage was unlikely to be recovered. It had been an aspiration for Skylon always to try to capture the stage after it had done its job and bring it back to Earth so it too could be re-used.

In a very limited number of cases (for satellites weighing 6.4 tonnes and above), TAS says, this would not be possible. That is about one in 10 cases. In that instance, the upper-stage would be commanded just to destroy itself via re-entry into the atmosphere.

And getting satellites into Sun-synchronous orbits, where a lot of Earth-observing satellites go to picture the planet, is likely to take a different approach to traditional rockets, the study found.

Because Skylon only goes a few hundred km above the Earth, these spacecraft would have to do more of the work themselves to get into their final positions some 800km up - particularly the large ones at four tonnes or more. But with Skylon able to lift seven tonnes to the drop-off point, these satellites could be equipped with much bigger fuel tanks to complete the orbit-raising task.

The study didn't specifically assess the capability, but a Skylon should be able to loft an 11-tonne payload to the space station. It should also be able to put a probe weighing up to two tonnes on an escape path from Earth's gravity to visit other planets.
UK Chancellor George Osborne (second left) sees the Sabre engines as a breakthrough technology

Whether Skylon ever becomes a reality depends in large part on the successful development of its Sabre engines, now in the final phase of design and demonstration with REL. To date, Esa's independent audits have found "no showstoppers".

If the hurdle is crossed - and the UK government is providing £60m to help complete the phase - then a Skylon-like vehicle ought to be producible and flying in the 2020s.
Engine development is in its final phase of design and demonstration

Of course, a key driver is launch prices, and the need to reduce them in order for Europe to stay competitive. Europe's current benchmark target for its next-generation launcher is 70m euros per big telecom satellite.

How much would Skylon launch prices be? That's a "how long is a piece of string?" question. Re-usability and fast turnaround for the operator obviously have a significant downward pressure on prices, but there is also an issue of initial development cost and how that is recovered.

As the S-ELSO document states: "Assuming successful development of the Skylon vehicle, it was found that the S-ELSO business could be economic in exploitation and would be very competitive against a price target of 70m euros. It would also be competitive against the 41.5m-euro price target if there is some level of public support for the Skylon vehicle development programme, which would reduce the vehicle acquisition cost to S-ELSO." (The 41.5m-euro target would be the equivalent of an American Falcon 9 launch according to current SpaceX prices.)

What this means is that Skylon manufacturing and operations could be fully commercial, but some sort of lubrication in the form of a public-private partnership is probably going to be needed.

This touches on the issue of de-risking. The more governments put in at the beginning, the more likely they are to pull in private investors and reduce the overall scale of the financial burden that needs to be recovered - through the purchase price of the spaceplanes and ultimately in the prices they demand to launch satellites.
The model is an aviation one in which an operator might purchase a number of vehicles from a manufacturer

Ἡ Ἀνάληψις τοῦ Κυρίου. Η ΣΑΣ στο Διδυμότειχο(ΦΩΤΟ)

Η ΣΑΣ στο Διδυμότειχο (ΦΩΤΟ)

Δημιουργηθηκε στις Πέμπτη, 29 Μαΐου 2014

Γράφτηκε από τον/την Ι.Μ. Διδυμοτείχου - 15.02

Οι μαθητές της Σχολής Αξιωματικών Σωμάτων στα πλαίσια εκπαιδευτικού ταξιδιού τους, επισκέφθηκαν το Διδυμότειχο, την Πέμπτη της Αναλήψεως, 29η Μαΐου ε.έ.

Στα πλαίσια αυτής της επίσκεψης οι μαθητές συναντήθηκαν με τον Σεβασμιώτατο Μητροπολίτη Διδυμοτείχου κ. Δαμασκηνό, ο οποίος τους μίλησε και τους ξενάγησε στον Ιερό Καθεδρικό Ναό Παναγίας Ελευθερωτρίας και στο Εκκλησιαστικό Μουσείο.

 Βλέπετε αὐτὴ τὴν κοινὴ γιὰ μᾶς ἑορτὴ καὶ εὐφροσύνη, τὴν ὁποία ὁ Κύριός μας Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς χάρισε μὲ τὴν ἀνάσταση καὶ ἀνάληψή του στοὺς πιστούς; Πήγασε ἀπὸ θλίψη. Βλέπετε αὐτὴ τὴ ζωή, μᾶλλον δέ, τὴν ἀθανασία; Ἐπιφάνηκε σὲ μᾶς ἀπὸ θάνατο. Βλέπετε τὸ οὐράνιο ὕψος, στὸ ὁποῖο ἀνέβηκε κατὰ τὴν ἀνύψωσή του ὁ Κύριος καὶ τὴν ὑπερδεδοξασμένη δόξα ποὺδοξάσθηκε κατὰ σάρκα; Τὸ πέτυχε μὲ τὴν ταπείνωση καὶ τὴν ἀδοξία. Ὅπως λέγει ὁ ἀπόστολος γι’ αὐτόν, «ταπείνωσε τὸν ἑαυτότου γενόμενος ὑπήκοος μέχρι θανάτου, καὶ μάλιστα σταυρικοῦ θανάτου, γι’ αὐτὸ καὶ ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ὑπερύψωσε καὶ τοῦ χάρισε ὄνομα ἀνώτερο ἀπὸ κάθε ὄνομα, ὥστε στὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ νὰ καμφθεῖ κάθε γόνατο ἐπουρανίων καὶ ἐπιγείων καὶ καταχθονίων καὶ νὰ διακηρύξει κάθε γλώσσα ὅτι ὁ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς εἶναι ὁ Κύριος σὲ δόξα Θεοῦ Πατρός».(Φιλιπ. β ,8 – 11).

 Ἐὰν λοιπὸν ὁ Θεὸς ὑπερύψωσε τὸ Χριστό του γιὰ τὸ λόγο ὅτι ταπεινώθηκε, ὅτι ἀτιμάσθηκε, ὅτι πειράσθηκε, ὅτι ὑπέμεινε ἐπονείδιστο σταυρὸ καὶ θάνατο γιὰ χάρη μας, πῶς θὰ σώσει καὶ θὰ δοξάσει καὶ θὰ ἀνυψώσει ἐμᾶς, ἂν δὲν ἐπιλέξουμε τὴνταπείνωση, ἂν δὲν δείξουμε τὴν πρὸς τοὺς ὁμοφύλους ἀγάπη, ἂν δὲν ἀνακτήσουμε τὶς ψυχές μας διὰ τῆς ὑπομονῆς τῶν πειρασμῶν, ἂν δὲν ἀκολουθοῦμε διὰ τῆς στενῆς πύλης καὶ ὁδοῦ, ποὺ ὁδηγεῖ στὴν αἰώνια ζωή, τὸν σωτηρίως καθοδηγήσαντα σ’ αὐτήν; «διότι, καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς ἔπαθε γιὰ μᾶς, ἀφήνοντάς μας ὑπογραμμό, γιὰ νὰ παρακολουθήσουμε τὰ ἴχνη του». (Α’ Πέτρ. β, 21).

 Ἡ ἐνυπόστατος Σοφία τοῦ ὑψίστου Πατρός, ὁ προαιώνιος Λόγος, ποὺ ἀπὸ φιλανθρωπία ἑνώθηκε μ’ ἐμᾶς καὶ μᾶς συναναστράφηκε, ἀνέδειξε τώρα ἐμπράκτως μιὰ ἑορτὴ πολὺ ἀνώτερη καὶ ἀπὸ αὐτὴ τὴν ὑπεροχή. Γιατί τώρα γιορτάζουμε τὴ διάβαση, τῆς σὲ αὐτὸν εὑρισκομένης φύσεώς μας, ὄχι ἀπὸ τὰ ὑπόγεια πρὸς τὴν ἐπιφάνεια τῆς γῆς, ἀλλὰ ἀπὸ τὴ γῆ πρὸς τὸν οὐρανὸ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ πρὸς τὸν πέρα ἀπὸ αὐτὸν θρόνο τοῦ δεσπότη τῶν πάντων.

Σήμερα ὁ Κύριος ὄχι μόνο στάθηκε, ὅπως μετὰ τὴν ἀνάσταση, στὸ μέσο τῶν μαθητῶν του, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀποχωρίσθηκε ἀπὸ αὐτοὺς καί, ἐνῶ τὸν ἔβλεπαν, ἀναλήφθηκε στὸν οὐρανὸ καὶ εἰσῆλθε στ’ ἀληθινὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων «καὶ ἐκάθησε στὰ δεξιὰ τοῦ Πατρὸς πάνω ἀπὸ κάθε ἀρχὴ καὶ ἐξουσία καὶ ἀπὸ κάθε ὄνομα καὶ ἀξίωμα, ποὺ γνωρίζεται καὶ ὀνομάζεται εἴτε στὸν παρόντα εἴτε στὸν μέλλοντα αἰώνα».(Ἐφ. α’, 20)

 

 

Γιατί λοιπὸν στάθηκε στὸ μέσο τους καὶ ἔπειτα τοὺς συνόδευσε;«Τοὺς ἐξήγαγε, λέγει, ἔξω ἕως τὴ Βηθανία», ἀλλὰ «καὶ ἀφοῦ σήκωσε τὰ χέρια του, τοὺς εὐλόγησε». (Λουκᾶ κδ’, 50).

Τὸ ἔκαμε γιὰ νὰ ἐπιδείξει τὸν ἑαυτό του ὁλόκληρο σῶο καὶ ἀβλαβή, γιὰ νὰ παρουσιάσει τὰ πόδια ὑγιῆ καὶ βαδίζοντα σταθερά, αὐτὰ ποὺ ὑπέστησαν τὰ τρυπήματα τῶν καρφιῶν, τὰ ὁμοίως ἐπὶ τοῦ σταυροῦ καρφωμένα χέρια, τὴν ἴδια τὴ λογχισμένη πλευρά, ἂν ἔφεραν πάνω τους, τοὺς τύπους τῶν πληγῶν, πρὸς διαπίστωση τοῦ σωτηριώδους πάθους.

Ἐγὼ δὲ νομίζω ὅτι διὰ τοῦ «στάθηκε στὸ μέσο τῶν μαθητῶν»δεικνύεται καὶ τὸ ὅτι αὐτοὶ στηρίχθηκαν στὴ πίστη πρὸς αὐτόν, μὲ αὐτὴ τὴ φανέρωση καὶ εὐλογία του. Γιατί δὲν στάθηκε μόνο στὸ μέσο ὅλων αὐτῶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ στὸ μέσο της καρδιᾶς τοῦ καθενός, γιατί ἀπὸ ἐκείνη τὴν ὥρα οἱ ἀπόστολοι τοῦ Κυρίου ἔγιναν σταθεροὶ καὶ ἀμετακίνητοι.

Στάθηκε λοιπὸν στὸ μέσο τους καὶ τοὺς λέγει, «εἰρήνη σὲ σᾶς», τοῦτο τὸ γλυκὸ καὶ σημαντικὸ καὶ συνηθισμένο του προσφώνημα. Τὴν διπλὴ εἰρήνη, πρὸς τὸ Θεὸ ποὺ εἶναι γέννημα τῆς εὐσέβειας καὶ αὐτὴ ποὺ ἔχουμε οἱ ἄνθρωποι μεταξύ μας.

Καὶ καθὼς τοὺς εἶδε φοβισμένους καὶ ταραγμένους ἀπὸ τὴν ἀνέλπιστη καὶ παράδοξη θέα, γιατί νόμισαν ὅτι βλέπουν πνεῦμα – φάντασμα, αὐτὸς τοὺς ἀνέφερε πάλι τοὺς διαλογισμοὺς τῆς καρδιᾶς των, καὶ ἀφοῦ ἔδειξε ὅτι εἶναι αὐτὸς ὁ ἴδιος, πρότεινε τὴ διαβεβαίωση διὰ τῆς ἐξετάσεως καὶ ψηλαφήσεως. Ζήτησε φαγώσιμο, ὄχι γιατί εἶχε ἀνάγκη τροφῆς, ἀλλὰ γιὰ ἐπιβεβαίωση τῆς ἀναστάσεώς του.

Ἔφαγε δὲ μέρος ψητοῦ ψαριοῦ καὶ μέλι ἀπὸ κηρύθρα, ποὺ εἶναι καὶ αὐτὰ σύμβολα τοῦ μυστηρίου του. Δηλαδὴ ὁ Λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ ἕνωσε στὸν ἑαυτό του καθ’ ὑπόσταση τὴ φύση μας, ποὺ σὰν ἰχθὺς κολυμποῦσε στὴν ὑγρότητα τοῦ ἡδονικοῦ καὶ ἐμπαθοῦς βίου, καὶ τὴν καθάρισε μὲ τὸ ἀπρόσιτο πῦρ τῆς Θεότητός του. Μὲ κηρύθρα δὲ μελισσιοῦ μοιάζει ἡ φύση μας γιατί κατέχει τὸ λογικὸ θησαυρὸ τοποθετημένο στὸ σῶμα σὰν μέλι στὴ κηρύθρα. Τρώγει ἀπὸ αὐτὰ εὐχαρίστως γιατί καθιστᾶ φαγητό του τὴ σωτηρία τοῦ καθενὸς ἀπὸ τοὺς μετέχοντας τῆς φύσεως. Δὲν τρώει ὁλόκληρο, ἀλλὰ μέρος «ἀπὸ κηρύθρα μέλι» ἐπειδὴ δὲν πίστευσαν ὅλοι καὶ δὲν τὸ παίρνει μόνος του, ἀλλὰ προσφέρεται ἀπὸ τοὺς μαθητές, γιατί τοῦ φέρνουν μόνο τοὺς πιστεύοντες σ’ αὐτόν, χωρίζοντάς τους ἀπὸ τοὺς ἀπίστους.

Κατόπιν τοὺς ὑπενθύμισε τοὺς λόγους του πρὶν τὸ πάθος, ποὺ ὅλοι πραγματοποιήθηκαν. Τοὺς ὑποσχέθηκε νὰ τοὺς στείλει τὸ ἅγιο Πνεῦμα, τοὺς εἶπε νὰ καθίσουν στὴν Ἱερουσαλὴμ μέχρι νὰ λάβουν δύναμη ἀπὸ ψηλά. Μετὰ τὴ συζήτηση ὁ Κύριος τοὺς ἔβγαλε ἀπὸ τὸ σπίτι καὶ τοὺς ὁδήγησε ἕως τὴ Βηθανία καὶ ἀφοῦ τοὺς εὐλόγησε, ὅπως ἀναφέραμε, ἀποχωρίσθηκε ἀπὸ αὐτοὺς καὶ ἀνυψώθηκε πρὸς τὸν οὐρανό, χρησιμοποιώντας νεφέλη σὰν ὄχημα καὶ ἀνῆλθε ἐνδόξως στοὺς οὐρανούς, στὰ δεξιά της μεγαλοσύνης τοῦ Πατρός, καθιστώντας ὁμόθρονο τὸ φύραμά μας.

Καθὼς οἱ Ἀπόστολοι δὲν σταματοῦσαν νὰ κοιτάζουν τὸν οὐρανό, μὲ τὴ φροντίδα τῶν ἀγγέλων πληροφοροῦνται ὅτι ἔτσι θὰ ἔλθει πάλι ἀπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸ καὶ «θὰ τὸν ἰδοῦν ὅλες οἱ φυλὲς τῆς γῆς, νὰ ἔρχεται πάνω στὶς νεφέλες τοῦ οὐρανοῦ». (Ματθ. κδ’, 30).

Τότε οἱ μαθητὲς ἀφοῦ προσκύνησαν ἀπὸ τὸ Ὄρος τῶν Ἐλαιῶν, ἀπὸ ὅπου ἀναλήφθηκε ὁ Κύριος, ἐπέστρεψαν στὴν Ἱερουσαλὴμ χαρούμενοι, αἰνώντας καὶ εὐλογώντας τὸ Θεὸ καὶ ἀναμένοντες τὴν ἐπιδημία τοῦ θείου Πνεύματος.

Ὅπως λοιπὸν ἐκεῖνος ἔζησε καὶ ἀπεβίωσε, ἀναστήθηκε καὶ ἀναλήφθηκε, ἔτσι καὶ ἐμεῖς ζοῦμε καὶ πεθαίνουμε καὶ θὰ ἀναστηθοῦμε ὅλοι. Τὴν ἀνάληψη ὅμως δὲν θὰ πετύχουμε ὅλοι, ἀλλὰ μόνο ἐκεῖνοι γιὰ τοὺς ὁποίους ζωὴ εἶναι ὁ Χριστὸς καὶ ὁ θάνατος εἶναι κέρδος, ὅσοι πρὸ τοῦ θανάτου σταύρωσαν τὴν ἁμαρτία διὰ τῆς μετανοίας, μόνο αὐτοὶ θὰ ἀναληφθοῦν μετὰ τὴν κοινὴ ἀνάσταση σὲ νεφέλες πρὸς συνάντηση τοῦ Κυρίου στὸν ἀέρα. (Α’ Θεσ. δ’, 17).Ἂς ἔρθουμε στὸ ὑπερῶο μας, στὸ νοῦ μας προσευχόμενοι, ἂς καθαρίσουμε τοὺς ἑαυτούς μας γιὰ νὰ πετύχουμε τὴν ἐπιδημία τοῦ Παρακλήτου καὶ νὰ προσκυνήσουμε Πατέρα καὶ Υἱὸ καὶ ἅγιο Πνεῦμα, τώρα καὶ πάντοτε καὶ στοὺς αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων. Γένοιτο.

Ancient 'Fish Lizard' Graveyard Discovered Beneath Melting Glacier

By Tanya Lewis, Staff writer   |   May 28, 2014 10:30am ET

One of the 46 ichthyosaur fossils discovered near a glacier in southern Chile.Credit: Wolfgang Stinnesbeck View full size image

Dozens of nearly complete skeletons of prehistoric marine reptiles have been uncovered near a melting glacier in southern Chile.
Scientists found 46 specimens from four different species of extinct ichthyosaurs. These creatures, whose Greek name means "fish lizards," were a group of large, fast-swimming marine reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic Era, about 245 million to 90 million years ago.
The newly discovered skeletons are from both embryos and adults. The creatures, likely killed during a series of catastrophic mudslides, were preserved in deep-sea sediments that were later exposed by the melting glacier, the researchers said in the study, published May 22 in the journal Geological Society of America Bulletin. [See Photos of the Ichthyosaur Graveyard Found in Chile]


Ichthyosaurs had torpedo-shaped bodies with vertical flippers, and long snouts with teeth.
"They look a lot like dolphins today," said Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, a paleontologist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and the leader of the study.
Stinnesbeck and his team found the Early Cretaceous (150 million to 100 million years old) specimens near the Tyndall Glacier in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. As the glacier melted, the rock containing the fossils became exposed, Stinnesbeck told Live Science.
Very few of the ancient reptiles have been found in South America before; only a few remnants of rib cages and vertebrae had been found.
The largest ichthyosaur skeleton unearthed in Chile measures more than 16 feet (5 meters) long. The skeletons were extremely well preserved — some even retained soft tissues. The researchers also found fossil embryos inside a female specimen. They assigned the fossils to the family Ophthalmosauridae.
These "fish lizards" probably hunted in an underwater canyon near the coastline, pursuing a diet of squidlike animals and fish, the researchers said. Occasionally, there would have been mudflows that cascaded into the water like an avalanche, and the researchers think these mudflows killed the ichthyosaurs. The animals likely became disoriented and drowned, getting sucked into the deep sea, where their bodies were entombed in the sediment, the researchers said.
Ichthyosaurs swam the seas at the same time as dinosaurs roamed the Earth and pterosaurs reigned the skies, but they may have died out before their land- and air-dwelling brethren, Stinnesbeck said. A global depletion of oxygen in the oceans, possibly due to volcanism, may have caused the extinction of these seagoing reptiles, he said.
The discovery of these creatures establishes the Chilean glacier as one of the prime sites for Early Cretaceous marine reptiles worldwide, the researchers said. But getting to the fossil site is half the battle. To reach it, the team had to drive for five hours, hike for 10 to 12 hours to camp and then hike another two hours, sometimes in heavy rain, hail or snow.
"This has been one of the toughest field camps I ever had," Stinnesbeck said.