Isabel

Lady Dais of the Han Dynasty is China’s eternal mummy. Found over 2,000 years after her death, her skin was still soft and her arms and legs could flex at the joints. She was buried in a mystery liquid that scientists can’t replicate, and remains to be the most well-preserved ancient human ever discovered. Source

There are more public libraries in the U.S. than there are McDonald’s. Good job, America. Source

Timothy Ray Brown is the only human ever cured of HIV. He had the virus for 11 years before developing leukemia. When he was given a bone marrow transplant, the HIV virus disappeared. His blood has been studied for years but there’s still no definitive answer as to why he recovered. Source

If you want someone to like you, ask them to do you a favor. It might sound backwards, but studies show that if you do someone a favor, you like them more and want to help them again. It’s called the Ben Franklin effect. According to legend, Franklin asked an enemy if he could borrow a book, then thanked him profusely. They became lifelong friends. Source

You lose weight overnight. Each time you exhale, you expel water vapor and carbon dioxide, so every breath you take overnight adds up to enough lost atoms (over ten billion trillion) that there’s often a noticeable change when you step on the scale in the morning. Source

Stress kills your brain. Studies show that months of exposure to stress can permanently destroy neurons in your brain, which affects learning, reasoning, impulse control, and memory. Source

There are more people living inside this circle than outside of it. Source

A Luneta do Tempo é o empreendimento audiovisual biográfico-ficcional-musical-e-metafísico de estreia na direção e no roteiro do cantor Alceu Valença. Biográfico porque seu quase-protagonista é Lampião, vivido por Irandhir Santos; ficcional porque aproveita as brechas para inserir assuntos caros ao autor, como a vida circense; musical porque suas músicas, muitas delas do próprio diretor, são mais do que adornos, mas ferramentas narrativas que costuram toda a história; metafísica porque trabalha com um conceito transcendental e é, sobretudo, uma ode ao espírito vivo do cangaceiro pernambucano.

Há também filosofia nessa fábula, misturando a lei do eterno retorno nietzschiano com o preceito de Karl Marx de que a história repete-se duas vezes, a primeira vez como tragédia, a segunda como farsa: no sertão pernambucano, Lampião, Maria Bonita (Hermila Guedes) e seu bando fogem da caçada da polícia local, liderada por Antero Tenente (Helder Vasconcelos). O embate final entre eles é trágico (e lindamente filmado), deixando resquícios para os tempos futuros e as gerações vindouras em situações muito semelhantes.

O projeto demorou cerca de quatorze anos para se concretizar, em parte para o amadurecimento audiovisual do realizador, outra pelas dificuldades inerentes às produções brasileiras¹. Inicialmente uma história de cordel, até que por indicação de Walter Carvalho (Raul – o início, o fim e o meio, 2012) começou a ser pensado como filme. Passou então por algumas aulas básicas de Cinema (“Plongée e contra-plongée” – como disse Alceu, desdenhosamente, na première do filme no Festival do Rio), com uma professora particular. Mas ele queria fazer algo diferente, algo do jeito dele e do jeito do sertão: abandonou as aulas e começou a produzir seu filme.

O resultado foi uma obra muito particular, talvez irregular em roteiro e edição, talvez sem ritmo no segundo ato, mas certamente um filme cheio de poesia, lindamente fotografado, com ótimo figurino, que comove, anima e bem retrata tipos clássicos da vida nordestina. Nada mais justo que escusar Alceu por seus erros, se até nossos diretores mais tarimbados pecam por roteiros desiguais e buracos na trama. O cantor consegue, com suas limitações, atingir o objetivo de estruturar uma história própria, prestando homenagens aos temas que lhe são mais caros e achando espaço até para se aventurar na atuação, no papel do palhaço Véio Quiabo.

As cenas mais lindas são as de Lampião e Maria Bonita num universo transcendental, com o cangaceiro enfrentando dificuldades para assumir sua nova condição e sua mulher sofrendo com isso. Ambas as atuações estão precisas, pontuais, sem exageros: Irandhir Santos sabe a hora certa de falar, de calar, de sorrir e de brigar. Hermila é grave, como mulher séria e sofrida, mas seus olhos estão sempre apaixonados.

O que Alceu Valença fez aqui, portanto, foi uma verdadeira realização cultural, imprimindo uma nova estética ao cangaço, explorando o marrom opaco da terra e árvores secas, em oposição ao céu azul claro, sempre sem nuvens, de um nordeste seco. Construiu um roteiro ousado, que apesar das escorregadas, consegue nos trazer uma abordagem inovadora, sem perder-se na dezena de personagens ou nos três espaços temporais da trama. Acima de tudo, nesse filme Alceu nos reapresenta ao nordeste; nós, aqui das terras mais ao sul que às vezes tendemos a achar que o Brasil só acontece aqui.

In the 1960s and 70s, activists in Britain opened experimental “free schools” where there were no headmasters, lessons, schedules, punishments, or rules, and the kids could do whatever they wanted. The girls demanded uniforms. Source

Twins who are separated at birth have an equal chance of being alike as those who are raised together, because genetics are more influential than environment. The “Jim Twins,” who first met when they were 39, learned that their wives, ex-wives, sons, and dogs have the same names, and they’ve both vacationed in the same places. Source

People who are able to control their emotions are more successful. Research shows that 90% of successful people are able to stay calm around toxic people at work. Rising above their negativity and finding solutions to your own problems gives you more control in your professional and personal life. Source

In 1793, Madame Tussaud was forced to make a death mask of Marie Antoinette’s guillotined head, along with many others that were paraded around Paris during the French Revolution. Tussaud was also set to be executed, but her sculpting skills saved her. She was spared from the guillotine so she could make copies of heads that were cut off by the guillotine. Source

Snapdragon flowers have a long history of paranormal folklore that dates back to Ancient Greece. Beliefs about the plant have varied, but one thing always remains the same: when they die, their seed pods look like skulls. Source

These two dinos never lived together. In fact, we live closer in time to the Tyrannosaurus rex than it did to the Stegosaurus. Source

Each year, 500 cubic kilometers of ice melts in Greenland and Antarctica. That’s the equivalent of a 3.5 mile thick iceberg the size of Manhattan. Antarctica lost so much ice between 2009 and 2012 that it actually caused a shift in gravity. Source

Life moves faster as you get older, and there are biological reasons why. Your internal clock slows down while the rest of the world seems to speed up. Your brain remembers significant events, but the rest of the time that passes is a blur. As daily life becomes more mundane, there are fewer events to remember, which causes you to underestimate time. Source

Nikola Tesla predicted the Internet. In 1900, he wrote an article for Century Magazine describing a “world system” of wireless communications that could send telephone messages, news, music, and pictures to any part of the world. Source

Electric cars were invented before silent movies. Source

Almost 2,000 years before the industrial revolution, Hero of Alexandria invented a steam engine, automatic doors, the first wind-powered machine in history, and the world’s first vending machine. Source

Real-life superheroes are taking on pedophiles in British Columbia. The 4 young men pose as underage girls online and troll for predators, lure them to public places, ambush them in Batman and The Flash costumes, then post videos to expose them on YouTube. Source

Mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animal. They kill more people per year than any other species on the planet- including humans. Source

Oxford University is older than the Aztec civilization. Source

Vejam só os reflexos da crise econômica na Espanha: cerca de 86 mil pessoas responderam ao anúncio da produção de “Game of thrones”, que buscava 600 figurantes para uma cena de batalha perto de Sevilha.

Fake art can be detected because of nuclear bombs. Strontium-90 and cesium-137 are isotopes that didn’t exist in nature before nuclear explosions, so any piece of artwork containing these elements that’s supposed to be made before 1945 is a forgery. Source

In the time it took scientists to discover Pluto, label it a planet, un-label it a planet, then say it might be a planet again, it never made a full orbit around the sun. Pluto’s 248-year orbit might actually be slower than Internet Explorer. Source

Humans got smarter when cave men stopped being so manly. The debated theory of the Great Leap Forward, which says we suddenly became more advanced 50,000 years ago, is supported by studies that show a big drop in testosterone levels around the same time that tools and cave paintings showed up. Source

Just after the Emancipation Proclamation, Sarah Breedlove was the 1st in her family to be born into freedom. Though she was orphaned at 6 and a widowed mother at 20, she developed her own hair and beauty products for black women and became the 1st self-made millionairess in America. Source

People used to use bread to erase pencil marks. In 1770, Edward Naine accidentally picked up a piece of rubber instead of breadcrumbs and decided to start selling rubber erasers. Basically, erasers exist to fix mistakes, but the only reason erasers exist is because of a mistake. Source

The characters, names, plot, and setting of Bram Stoker’s Dracula were heavily influenced by Carmilla, a Gothic novella about a lesbian vampire that preys on young women, which was written 25 years before. Source

The bananas we eat are all clones of one another. If just one of them gets a disease, it could wipe them all out because there’s no genetic diversity. Source