20150731 - ebola vaccine

Ebola vaccine is 'potential game-changer'

By James Gallagher Health editor, BBC News website

A vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus has led to 100% protection and could transform the way Ebola is tackled, preliminary results suggest.

There were no proven drugs or vaccines against the virus at the start of the largest outbreak of Ebola in history, which began in Guinea in December 2013.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the findings, being published in the Lancet, could be a "game-changer".
Experts said the results were "remarkable".
This trial centred on the VSV-EBOV vaccine, which was started by the Public Health Agency of Canada and then developed by the pharmaceutical company Merck.
It combined a fragment of the Ebola virus with another safer virus in order to train the immune system to beat Ebola.

 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-33733711

20150730 - happy birthday

Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new. – Sammy Hagar

Birthdays are nature’s way of telling us to eat more cake. – Edward Morykwas

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. – Lucille Ball

Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live. – Unknown

20150729 - windows 10

Windows 10 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Officially unveiled in September 2014 following a brief demo at Build 2014, the operating system reached general availability beginning on July 29, 2015. The main goal of Windows 10 is to culminate an effort to unify the Windows operating system across multiple Microsoft product families—including PCs, tablets, smartphones, embedded systems, and Xbox One, as well as new products such as Surface Hub and HoloLens—allowing these products to share what Microsoft described as a "universal" application architecture and Windows Store ecosystem. Expanding upon the Windows Runtime platform introduced by Windows 8, this architecture allows applications to be adapted for use between these platforms while sharing common code.

Windows 10 introduced revisions to the operating system's user interface, including the addition of Start menu similar to Windows 7 but incorporating Windows 8's live tiles, a virtual desktop system, a notifications sidebar (replacing the charms bar on Windows 8/8.1), and the ability to adjust user interface behaviors based on available input devices—particularly on laplets. Windows 10 provides integration with additional Microsoft services, including the intelligent personal assistant Cortana, and Xbox Live. Windows 10 also introduced a new default web browser, Microsoft Edge, as well as integrated support for fingerprint and face recognition login, and new versions of DirectX and WDDM to improve the operating system's graphics capabilities for games.
Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 10 adopted a tiered approach to updates that Microsoft has described as a "service", and receive new features at no charge for the "supported lifetime" of the device it is installed on. The Home and Pro editions automatically receive all non-critical updates as they are released without the possibility of declining them, in addition to automatic driver updates. Unlike Home, Pro is able to defer updates for a limited time, but not ignore them completely. Enterprise editions are capable of using periodic, long-term support milestones to ensure stability, while the Windows Insider program enables beta testing of future updates. To encourage its adoption, Microsoft announced that during its first year of availability, Windows 10 would be made available free of charge to users of genuine copies of eligible editions of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10

20150728 - ozone layer

What if? Success in Protecting the Ozone Layer

May 26, 2015

by Molly Michelson

Located 20-30 kilometers (or 12-19 miles) above Earth in the stratosphere, the ozone layer works to protect life on Earth by absorbing most of the harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation coming from the Sun. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, scientists discovered zones of ozone depletion over the Antarctic and Arctic (dubbed “holes”), due to hardy chlorine- and bromine-containing chemicals. Remarkably, an international treaty, the Montreal Protocol, was put into place quickly in 1987 to ban these substances. Amendments and adjustments have only made the treaty stronger, and now, all 197 countries are part of the ban.
In fact, atmospheric concentrations of these harmful substances peaked in 1993 and have subsequently declined. But what if the treaty weren’t in place? What if we had continued to produce and emit these chemicals? Several studies have looked into this, including one published today in Nature Communications.


 http://www.calacademy.org/explore-science/what-if-success-in-protecting-the-ozone-layer

20150727 - upfest 2015

Upfest 2015: Europe’s largest street art and graffiti festival – in pictures

Three-day event draws more than 250 artists from 25 countries to paint live on 30,000 sq ft of surfaces in Bedminster and Southville areas of Bristol
 ------------------------------------------------------------------

 http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/jul/27/upfest-2015-street-art-graffiti-festival-in-pictures

20150726 - msc

We are a privately owned global organisation operating a network of over 480 offices in 150 countries, employing a team of over 24,000 dedicated individuals.

 

 https://www.msc.com/nld/about-us

20150725 - antistress

Anti-Stress Coloring Book – 

all ages can enjoy this old-school, 

unplugged activity

My girlfriend squeed when I pulled this book out of my bag. Apparently, this coloring-books-for-adults craze is the real thing! Adult coloring books have been around for some time now, and art has been providing comfort since there has been art. But who suspected there would be a giant, grown-up coloring fad in the year 2015? What’s behind this new trend? Are we simply so overwhelmed with the hustle of our lives that we crave more forms of meditation? Perhaps it’s merely a collective deep-seated need to make something beautiful.
At first I was skeptical and thought that the adult coloring books might be a gateway product for people who have the desire to create but don’t yet have the skills. Then I opened it up, grabbed some colored pencils, and sunk in. The House of Pain lyric, “Stay between the lines and I won’t get pulled over,” repeated in my head for a while, but I soon dropped everything from my mind and focused on which color should go in which tiny space in my psychedelic sea turtle.
There are many such books on the market now and booksellers are having problems keeping them in stock. This one is divided into two sections: Coloring and Doodling. At first I disliked that there was so much color already on many of the pages, but that also gives you a bit of a head start with a nice background. There are many large pages to play with. And the book is hefty with very thick boards holding in the pages. Undoubtedly, there is something refreshing about such an old-school, unplugged activity. It’s nice to know that the kid inside you is still in there scribbling away, and that some of us have never really outgrown the joy of coloring. – Aaron Downey

 http://boingboing.net/2015/07/07/anti-stress-coloring-book.html

20150724 - malaria vaccine

Malaria vaccines are an area of intensive research. Emergence of artemisinin and multi-drug resistant strains of especially P. falciparum are driving research. Current approaches are focusing on recombinant protein and attenuated whole organism vaccines. Various vaccines have reached the state of clinical trials; most demonstrated insufficient immunogenicity. There is no practical or effective vaccine that has been introduced into clinical practice.


 --------------------------------------------------------------

First malaria vaccine given green light by European regulators

European Medicines Agency recommends RTS,S, or Mosquirix, developed by GSK and backed by Gates Foundation, for use in young children in Africa
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria_vaccine
 http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/24/first-malaria-vaccine-given-green-light-by-european-regulators

20150723 - earth 2.0

'Earth 2.0' found in Nasa Kepler telescope haul

By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website

A haul of planets from Nasa's Kepler telescope includes a world sharing many characteristics with Earth.

Kepler-452b orbits at a very similar distance from its star, though its radius is 60% larger.
Mission scientists said they believed it was the most Earth-like planet yet.
Such worlds are of interest to astronomers because they might be small and cool enough to host liquid water on their surface - and might therefore be hospitable to life.
Nasa's science chief John Grunsfeld called the new world the "closest so far" to Earth.
And John Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at Nasa's Ames Research Center in California, added: "It's a real privilege to deliver this news to you today. There's a new kid on the block that's just moved in next door."
The new world joins other exoplanets such as Kepler-186f that are similar in many ways to Earth.
Determining which is most Earth-like depends on the properties one considers. Kepler-186f, announced in 2014, is smaller than the new planet, but orbits a red dwarf star that is significantly cooler than our own.

 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33641648

20150722 - dementia

 

Dementia avoidable in one in three patients

One third of patients with dementia could have prevented the onset of the disease by living healthier and by taking avoidable risk factors into account such as smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure.

In recent years, high blood pressure in particular has emerged as a potent risk factor. Researchers at Erasmus MC will be presenting these findings today at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Washington based on data from the large-scale Erasmus Rotterdam Health Study (ERGO) population screening, also known as the Rotterdam Study.

It has long been recognized that smoking, diabetes, and high blood pressure are risk factors, but now for the first time researchers at Erasmus MC have studied how these factors contribute to the onset of dementia and whether their influence on dementia has changed in recent decades. “This is crucial information,” says Arfan Ikram, neuroepidemiologist with the Department of Epidemiology at Erasmus MC, “because it will help us to work on targeted prevention measures.

The study results show that the influence exerted by avoidable risk factors has increased. Furthermore, there has been a noticeable shift in these factors. Ikram explains: “A quarter century ago, smoking and a low level of education were the primary factors contributing to the development of diabetes, high cholesterol, and hypertension, while they played a lesser role in the development of dementia. These risk factors together were identified in 23 percent of dementia sufferers at the time. Our analysis of the trends in recent decades shows that this proportion has risen to 30 percent.
Read the full press release

 http://www.erasmusmc.nl/corp_home/corp_news-center/2015/2015-07/dementie.soms.vermijdbaar/?lang=en

20150721 - extraterrestial life

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Nets Historic Cash Infusion

With a $100-million donation, billionaire Yuri Milner plans to revolutionize the astronomical quest to find alien life

By Lee Billings | July 20, 2015

Is the cosmos filled with chatty alien civilizations or is Earth a lonely spark of life in a sterile universe? Russian billionaire Yuri Milner wants to know, and has committed to spending at least $100 million to support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Efforts to listen for interstellar messages date back to the 1960s but funding has often proved as elusive as the aliens themselves. NASA’s SETI efforts, which ran from the 1970s to the 1990s, consumed about $110 million across 20 years, according to the agency’s former chief historian, the astronomer Steven Dick, who calls today’s announcement a “sea change” in SETI funding.


 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence-nets-historic-cash-infusion/

20150719 - bollywood

Cinema of India

The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic cultures of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, West Bengal, and Bollywood among others. Indian films came to be followed throughout Southern Asia, the Greater Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the former Soviet Union. Cinema as a medium gained popularity in the country and as many as 1,600 films in various languages of India were produced annually. Dadasaheb Phalke is known as the Father of Indian cinema. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for lifetime contribution to cinema, was instituted in his honour, by the Government of India in 1969, and is the most prestigious and coveted award in Indian cinema.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_India

20150718 - nollywood

Cinema of Nigeria

The cinema of Nigeria, often referred to as Nollywood, grew quickly in the 1990s and 2000s and became the second largest film industry in the world in number of annual film productions, placing it ahead of the United States and behind only India. In 2013, it was rated as the third most valuable film industry in the world after generating a total revenue of NG₦1.72 trillion (US$10 billion) in 2013 alone, placing it behind India and the United States.
The Nigerian film industry is worth NG₦853.9 billion (US$5.1 billion) as at 2014 and produces hundreds of home videos and films per annum. Nigerian cinema is Africa's largest movie industry in terms of value and the number of movies produced per year. Although Nigerian films have been produced since the 1960s, the rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies has stimulated the country's film and video industry.


 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Nigeria

20150717 - mh17 anniversary

MH17 anniversary

One year has passed since MH17 was shot down, killing all 298 people on board

Paul McGeough

Chief foreign correspondent

July 17, 2015 - 12:15AM

On board MH17, 283 passengers were finishing their meal, reading a book, watching a movie or dozing, and its 15 crew drawing breath, while flying over territory that most probably were unaware was being torn apart by civil war.

It was utterly macabre. Even the best-managed disaster scene becomes an assault on the senses, but drop it into a hard-fought separatist war zone and it becomes heartless, even grotesque.

And so it was with Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. Here was a Boeing 777 aircraft, a few hours after departing Amsterdam on July 17, 2014, bound for Kuala Lumpur – its 283 passengers, 38 of them from Australia, finishing their meal, reading a book, watching a movie or dozing, and its 15 crew drawing breath, while flying over territory that most were probably unaware was being torn apart by civil war.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/mh17-anniversary-one-year-has-passed-since-mh17-was-shot-down-killing-all-298-people-on-board-20150716-gidnz4.html

20150716 - stephen hawking

Stephen Hawking


Stephen Hawking is the former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and author of A Brief History of Time which was an international bestseller. Now the Dennis Stanton Avery and Sally Tsui Wong-Avery Director of Research at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and Founder of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at Cambridge, his other books for the general reader include A Briefer History of Time, the essay collection Black Holes and Baby Universe and The Universe in a Nutshell.



http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

20150715 - new horizons - 3

Pluto photographs thrill Nasa scientists after nine-year mission

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jul/14/nasas-new-horizons-probe-makes-pluto-flyby-nine-years-after-leaving-earth

20150714 - greece

Greece says no, 

Tsipras says yes: 

how the Greek papers are covering the deal

By Lauren Davidson | Telegraph

The Greek public votes against austerity conditions. Then the prime minister agrees to an even stricter bail-out package. What's the reaction from Greece's leading newspapers?

Just one week after the results of Greece's referendum rolled in, showing that the Greek public voted to reject the stringent conditions attached to rescue funds, prime minister Alexis Tsipras emerged from a 17-hour all-night meeting in Brussels on Monday having agreed to an even stricter package of bail-out conditions .

Social media erupted with support for the Greek people , making the hashtag #ThisIsACoup trend in support of the "betrayal" of the European project and the Greek people. German newspapers were less sympathetic , running headlines such as "Merkel saves Greece with our money" and "The truth about the richness of Greek Shipowners". 

 https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/greece-says-no-tsipras-says-130202493.html

20150713 - new horizons - 2

Charon's Chasms and Craters

July 12, 2015

New Horizons' newest images reveal Pluto's largest moon Charon to be a world of chasms and craters. The most pronounced chasm, which lies in the southern hemisphere, is longer and miles deeper than Earth's Grand Canyon, according to William McKinnon, deputy lead scientist with New Horizon's Geology and Geophysics investigation team.

"This is the first clear evidence of faulting and surface disruption on Charon," says McKinnon, who is based at the Washington University in St. Louis. "New Horizons has transformed our view of this distant moon from a nearly featureless ball of ice to a world displaying all kinds of geologic activity."

The most prominent crater, which lies near the south pole of Charon in an image taken July 11 and radioed to Earth today, is about 60 miles across. The brightness of the rays of material blasted out of the crater suggest it formed relatively recently in geologic terms, during a collision with a small Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) some time in the last billion years.

The darkness of the crater's floor is especially intriguing, says McKinnon. One explanation is that the crater has exposed a different type of icy material than the more reflective ices that lie on the surface. Another possibility is that the ice in the crater floor is the same material as its surroundings but has a larger ice grain size, which reflects less sunlight. In this scenario, the impactor that gouged the crater melted the ice in the crater floor, which then refroze into larger grains.

A mysterious dark region near Charon's north pole stretches for 200 miles. More detailed images that New Horizons will take around the time of closest approach to the moon on July 14 may provide hints about the dark region's origin.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150712-2

20150712 - auguste rodin

Auguste Rodin

 

 

François-Auguste-René Rodin (12 November 1840 – 17 November 1917)
known as Auguste Rodin, was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past. He was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition, although he was never accepted into Paris's foremost school of art.
Sculpturally, Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, deeply pocketed surface in clay. Many of his most notable sculptures were roundly criticized during his lifetime. They clashed with the predominant figure sculpture tradition, in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodin's most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with realism, and celebrated individual character and physicality. Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, but refused to change his style. Successive works brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community.
From the unexpected realism of his first major figure – inspired by his 1875 trip to Italy – to the unconventional memorials whose commissions he later sought, Rodin's reputation grew, such that he became the preeminent French sculptor of his time. By 1900, he was a world-renowned artist. Wealthy private clients sought Rodin's work after his World's Fair exhibit, and he kept company with a variety of high-profile intellectuals and artists. He married his lifelong companion, Rose Beuret, in the last year of both their lives. His sculptures suffered a decline in popularity after his death in 1917, but within a few decades, his legacy solidified. Rodin remains one of the few sculptors widely known outside the visual arts community.


 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Rodin

20150711 - north sea jazz

The first edition of the North Sea Jazz Festival took place in 1976 in the Nederlands Congresgebouw in The Hague. Some numbers in those early days: six venues, three hundred artists and about nine thousand visitors. In this very first festival year internationally renowned jazz legends performed, such as Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz, as well as most Dutch avant-garde artists.

In 2006, the festival moved to its current, bigger, location in Rotterdam. This year, the organisation expects more than a thousand musicians, spread out over 150 performances and thirteen different stages. Though the numbers of visitors were between 65.000 and 70.000 in recent years, the festival still manages to retain its intimate character.

20150710 - el nino

El Niño Continues to Bulk Up in the Pacific — 
It May Get a Boost From the Pacific’s Surge of Cyclones


The forecast for how sea surface temperatures would vary from normal in the Pacific Ocean on July 9, 2015. The circled area of abnormally warm water is a hallmark of El Niño. (Source: ClimateReanlyzer.org/Climate Change Institute, University of Maine)



The El Niño once regarded as “El Wimpo” is getting ever stronger, and it’s likely to peak in late fall or early winter as one of the more brawny ones on record.
“At this time, the forecaster consensus is in favor of a significant El Niño event,” states the monthly assessment from the U.S. Climate Prediction Center, released today. “Overall, there is a greater than 90% chance that El Niño will continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2015-16, and around an 80% chance it will last into early spring 2016,” according to the report.

 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2015/07/09/latest-report-el-nino-continues-to-bulk-up-in-the-pacific-and-it-may-get-a-boost-from-the-pacifics-surge-of-cyclones/#.VaAd1rWvbEQ

20150709 - chuck blazer

Chuck Blazer: 

Fifa 'supergrass' banned from all football-related activity for life by independent ethics committee

Former Fifa executive committee member Chuck Blazer has been banned from all football-related activity for life, the world governing body's independent ethics committee has announced.

Blazer has been labelled the 'Fifa supergrass' that revealed a string of offences he committed during his time on the Fifa Executive Committee in relation to the 1998 and 2010 World Cup bid processes, and he has been banned for his "many acts of misconduct" while general secretary of the Concacaf confederation as well as Fifa Exco member.
The American agreed to go undercover for the FBI as part of a plea bargain that saw him avoid a possible 75-year jail sentence, having pleaded guilty to 10 charges in 2013, which included bribery, money laundering and tax evasion.

 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/chuck-blazer-fifa-supergrass-banned-from-all-footballrelated-activity-for-life-by-independent-ethics-committee-live-10376946.html
 http://chuckblazer.blogspot.nl/

20150708 - pluto

20150707 - pluto

Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is the second-most massive known dwarf planet, after Eris. It is the largest object in the Kuiper belt and possibly the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume.It is the tenth-most-massive known body directly orbiting the Sun. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is primarily made of rock and ice, and is relatively small—about ¹⁄₆ the mass of the Moon and ¹⁄₃ its volume. It has a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit that takes it from 30 to 49 AU (4.4–7.4 billion km) from the Sun. This means that Pluto periodically comes closer to the Sun than Neptune. However, an orbital resonance with Neptune prevents them from colliding. In 2014, Pluto was 32.6 AU from the Sun. Light from the Sun takes about 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its average distance (39.4 AU)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto

20150706 - new horizons

New Horizons is a NASA space probe launched to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its moons and one or two other Kuiper belt objects, depending on which are in position to be explored. The intention is not to orbit these objects but to observe them as the probe flies by.
Part of the New Frontiers program, the mission was approved in 2001 after cancellation of Pluto Fast Flyby and Pluto Kuiper Express. The mission profile was proposed by a team led by principal investigator Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute. After several delays on the launch site, New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006, from Cape Canaveral, directly into an Earth-and-solar-escape trajectory with an Earth-relative speed of about 16.26 kilometers per second (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph); it set the record for the highest launch speed of a human-made object from Earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=New_Horizons
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

20150705 - pillow lava

Pillow lava 

Pillow lavas are bulbous, spherical, or tubular lobes of lava. They form during eruptions with relatively low effusion rates. Slow extrusion gives enough time for a thick crust to form on all sides of a pillow lobe, and prevents individual pillows from coalescing into a sheet. Internally the pillows are fed via a distributary system of interconnected channels. Pillows are not typically hollow and tend to solidify all the way through. Pillows often have lineations or scrape marks on their sides that form during extrusion. Pillow flows are produced by the piling up of individual pillow lava lobes. As a pillow flow forms, the newest pillows are erupted from the top of the stack and flow outward a limited distance before freezing, a process which tends to produce steep-sided mounds or ridges which can grow to be 10's of meters thick. Within the 1998 eruption area at Axial Volcano, pillow lavas only occur along the edges of the flow, where lobate lava fronts were thin and stalled out. Castle Vent is located on an older pillow ridge that formed prior to the 1998 eruption.

 http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/eoi/nemo/explorer/concepts/pillows.html
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillow_lava

20150704 - tour de france

The Tour de France (French pronunciation: ​[tuʁ də fʁɑ̃s]) is an annual multiple stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally making passes through nearby countries. The race was first organized in 1903 to increase paper sales for the magazine L'Auto; it is currently run by the Amaury Sport Organisation. The race has been held annually since its first edition in 1903 except for when it was stopped for the two World Wars (1915-1919; 1940-1947). As the Tour gained prominence and popularity the race was lengthened and its reach began to extend around the globe. Participation expanded from a primarily French field, as riders from all over the world began to participate in the race each year. The Tour is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are mostly UCI ProTeams, with the exception of the teams that the organizers invite.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France
 http://www.letour.fr/us/

20150703 - geological time scale

The geological time scale (GTS) is a system of chronological measurement that relates stratigraphy to time, and is used by geologists, paleontologists, and other Earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred throughout Earth’s history. The table of geologic time spans presented here agrees with the nomenclature, dates and standard color codes set forth by the International Commission on Stratigraphy.

Evidence from radiometric dating indicates that Earth is about 4.54 billion years old. The geology or deep timeof Earth’s past has been organized into various units according to events which took place in each period. Different spans of time on the GTS are usually delimited by changes in the composition of strata which correspond to them, indicating major geological or paleontological events, such as mass extinctions. For example, the boundary between the Cretaceous period and the Paleogene period is defined by theCretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, which marked the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs and many other groups of life. Older time spans which predate the reliable fossil record (before the Proterozoic Eon) are defined by the absolute age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale

20150702 - paleomap

www.scotese.com

Goal of the PALEOMAP Project The goal of the PALEOMAP Project is to illustrate the plate tectonic development of the ocean basins and continents, as well as the changing distribution of land and sea during the past 1100 million years. In the Earth History section of this website are full-color paleogeographic maps showing the ancient mountain ranges and shorelines, active plate boundaries, and the extent of paleoclimatic belts.

20150701 - ranking 50 states

The Definitive and Final Ranking

 of All 50 States

By Kevin Alexander and Matt Lynch

Seeing how we’ve already danced with state rankings involving food/drink and beer, we thought it was time to use the perfectly American cliche “go big or go home” and rank the states based on everything. More specifically, their contributions to America, so think inventions, food/drink, somewhat productive famous people, unique physical beauty, etc.

As this is the Internet, we expect disagreements. We expect that you will find our placement of Arkansas or New York or Montana infuriating, and accuse us of pandering and showing regional biases. Someone will inevitably use the word “invalid” and say they stopped reading as soon as “X” happened. Someone else will accuse us of having never been to a state, and say mean things about our hair. This is fine. What we’d prefer, though, is for it to start the same sort of debate Matt and I had when sorting out the rankings. Is the loose-meat sandwich greater than the Juicy Lucy? Is Tonya Harding worse than Skip Bayless? Where does one locate Delaware on a map?

 https://www.yahoo.com/travel/the-definitive-and-final-ranking-of-all-50-states-122796477147.html