Recorded in Modena in 1994, the performance of the song 'O Sole Mio by Bryan Adams and Luciano Pavarotti was not only a remarkable artistic milestone, but also a solemn tribute honoring the life and career of the legendary maestro.
This water has been running for almost 2,000 years, and nobody turns it on. The Romans found a spring up a hill and ran a stone channel down to their city. Then they walked away. The spring never dried up, so the water never stopped. You can find it under an old Roman market in ฤฐzmir, Turkey, and the channel is big enough to climb into and walk down.
There is no pump and no machine anywhere in it. The Romans just used gravity. They found water sitting higher than the city, then cut a channel that sloped downhill the whole way, gentle enough that the water kept moving without tearing up the stone or sitting still and going stale. Get the slope right one time, and the water carries itself for good. They got it right.
The same trick is still working over in Rome. The water in the Trevi Fountain, the one tourists toss coins into, is fed by a Roman channel called the Aqua Virgo that was finished in 19 BC. Rome once had eleven of these water lines running into the city. Ten of them eventually broke down and died. That one never did, and it has carried water for more than two thousand years without a break.
Part of why any of this still stands is the concrete. In 2023, MIT scientists broke open a chunk of old Roman concrete to see what made it last. It heals itself. The Romans had mixed in little lumps of lime that earlier scientists wrote off as careless work. When a crack opens and rain gets in, the lime dissolves, then hardens back into fresh stone and seals the gap before it spreads. It is the same concrete in the dome of the Pantheon, which has held up with no steel inside for nineteen centuries.
So that video is really just good math and a spring that outlived everyone who ever knew its name. The empire that built the channel fell more than 1,500 years ago. The water is still moving, the same way it always has, downhill and on its own.
@ArmandDAngour Here is Joe Le Taxi, a charming jazzy French pop song about taxis๐
Actually, it's about a Parisian taxi driver called Joe who plays music in the cab ๐ท๐ถ๐
https://t.co/U0k3tljitK
@ArmandDAngour There is a light rom-com film called 'Dan In Real Life' (2007, with Steve Carrell and Juliette Binoche).
It turns out you are Dan In Taxi Life.
https://t.co/1gwz7DObu5
ANNOUNCING...
A Periodic Table of Greek Mythology - our first book! ๐
๐ Available 5th Feb 2025 (but you can preorder now)
๐ค In collaboration with @contubernales2
โ๏ธ 117 different writers
๐ผ๏ธ Periodic Table Poster by @drcorabeth
๐ Read more...
The sound of birds singing before sunrise remains one of Englandโs oldest unbroken rituals.
The morning chorus begins nearly an hour before first light, when the air is cold, still, and silent.
Sound travels farther through this quiet. That is why it feels so commanding at dawn.
What seems like chaos is in truth one of natureโs most disciplined rhythms.
Robins are usually among the first to sing while the sky is still dark.
Blackbirds and song thrushes follow soon after with richer, clearer notes.
Then come wrens, finches and dozens more until entire hedgerows and woodlands seem alive with sound.
People on this island have heard the same rising chorus for thousands of years.
Before castles stood on hills, before church bells echoed across villages, before the English language even existed, spring mornings began the same way.
With birdsong.
What is your favourite birdsong?
Follow @oaksandlions for more posts about English wildlife.
#England #EnglishWildlife #Spring #Birdsong #Countryside
This is a special kind of friendship that can stay with you for a lifetime. When Tony met that little robin, he never expected they would bond for so many years ๐โจ
But after years together, Bob suddenly disappeared. To honor him, Tony wrote a book titled โBob the Robinโ โ like a love letter to the bird and his affection for robins. After that, Tony continued making friends with other robins.
๐นputman_and_robin
The largest and sharpest image ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy โ otherwise known as M31.
It is the biggest Hubble image ever released and shows over 100 million stars, thousands of star clusters in a section of the galaxyโs disc stretching across over 40 000 light-years.
@ArmandDAngour@red_loeb It's an occasion for this song:
'I will follow you - will you follow me ?'
Follow You Follow Me by Genesis (1978)
https://t.co/8LOyUt4zhh