have - Blogs - The City of Shamballa Social Network

Lightworker 808: Starseed Ascension Short-Cuts and Star Races

Posted by J-Tariah Aset Maat Kumara on January 19, 2017 at 5:45pm

LIGHTWORKER 808: STARSEED ASCENSION SHORT-CUTS AND STAR RACES -- GFL & ASHTAR COMMAND DOWNLOAD
J--Tar'ia'h En Ra El -- jtariah@protonmail.com --www.20Dhealing.com

You probably think you are perusing this writing to learn more about starseed Ascension shortcuts and star races. Yet, reading these words begins your path towards a new reality. You are seeking your origins in the skies above: this is your quest. You are upon an adventurous intergalactic quest to find reflections of your innermost “self” -- patterns to identify with -- fractals which mirror you to your real Starseed family.

When you are truly Ascending and/or when you have already Ascended to the 5th Dimension, you will constantly be experiencing serendipity, a sense of inner wisdom, your body will be growing younger, and you will be instantly manifesting your wants and needs! Not quite there yet? Here are some super easy Starseed Ascension Shortcuts for you to use to rocket yourself to the 5th dimension and beyond!

Go Vegan Plus Probiotics -- this will get rid of all of your sleepiness and all groggy feelings, plus this will remove all ''time-loss'' scenarios!

Wear only Cotton or Hemp -- this will increase connections to your Guides, Angels, and Twin Flames, because synthetics block higher dimensions!

Remove Metal from Your Wardrobe --- this also increases connections to the Angelic realm. Only copper is Angel plusFaerie Sidhe friendly!

Be Celibate or Twin Flame Monogomous -- Being sensual only with your own Soul, with the self, with your Twin Flame heightens your dimension!

Create and Maintain Starseed Altars -- Creating Starseed Altars with your higher dimensional desires is a sure gateway to maintain your 5D reality!

Take Salt Baths -- Dunking in salt water followed by clear water daily removes 3D annd 4D residue from your Soul, body, and Merkaba!

Keep Crystals On You -- Drilled & copper-wrapped crystals -- and on your body, and in your bedroom -- help you maintain higher dimensions always!

Use Essential Oils & Hire Shamans for Healing -- Avoid western medicine in order to Ascend your pure Soul to the higher crystalline dimensions!

If you do not know ''HOW'' to do these shortcuts, write to me at jtariah@protonmail.com and I will help you out at no cost! And yes, I AM doing all of these shortcuts myself, daily!

Your Starseed relatives -- within the ships -- are attempting to talk with you now. They are trying all means of communication available. They approach you through dreams, visual signs, plus you may sense them physically of feel their ever-persistent presence in the psychic realms. Are you listening? Are you feeling? Are you sensing?

While you believe you are sleeping, you are -- in fact -- *on assignment* on your ship above. You are now attending ship-side schools related to your skill-set and Starseed race. Fundamentally, you're being *reprogrammed* for a brighter intergalactic future every night.

Many factors and tests (in the ships and higher dimensional areas while you believe you are sleeping) have decided your upcoming roles and jobs -– in the very near future -– in these primary arenas:
- Acting as a Liaison between Humans and many other Star Races;
- Being a journalist on one of many media 7D holo ships;
- Returning to your home planet for rest and reunions;
- Working in this system for the Ashtar Command;
- Being a VOYAGER with your Twin Flames;
- Employment in space farm agriculture;
- Negotiating within a liaison / alliance;
- Performing within a committee;
- Being an empath healer;
- Working for the GFL;
- Being an artist;
- Performer;
- Pilot.

Most of these posts involve living on a ship, if only for a short time. This calls for traveling to a different planet within another galaxy -- or to an alternative dimensional reality such as a parallel universe -- or to even to a higher frequency of expression.

While you are co-habitating within a starship, flagship or lightship, you will be interacting with those from across the Cosmos! They will not be comparable to anything you’ve seen, felt, or perceived with your current reality veils (in this incarnation thus far).

Since you are now experiencing dimensional shifts leading to *life aboard the ships with your star race family* it is crucial to be as open-minded and open-hearted as possible: there are infinite prisms of kindness and utility that can be found within each planetary civilization.

Your Starseed relatives cannot *yet* be completely understood from your current vantage point, but will be holistically perceivable during your ecstatic love-filled multidimensional Starseed reunion.

You will be surrounded by non-human *family* on these ships (and your appearance will most definitely reflect theirs in your future). What will they look like? What will they be like? Here are some basic essential traits of just a few of the planetary star races you will relate with very soon:

Andromedans:
1) The 7D, 8D and 9D humanoid group-thinkers from the Andromedan Star System, or; 2) term identifying the race of sentient service-to-other beings occupying the livable planets such as Aion in the Andromeda sector, as well as; 3) Sentients known for perfecting co-creation for peacefully-running planets and star bases.

Arcturians:
1) Both 6D and 7D Sentient service-to-other beings occupying the livable planets and bases in the area of the star Arcturus, and; 2) These individuals are known by their deep compassion and unfailing kindness towards all walks of life in all dimensions.

Centaurians from Meton in Alpha Centauri:
1) 7D - 12D Loving high dimensional humanoids who are descendants of Venus Beings; and 2) Wildly strategic deep mental thinkers who are holographically connected to the Great Central Sun and maintain a 12D Akashic Library within it, and; 3) Gorgeous brainy beings whose ships appear in the form of a Merkaba spinning.

Centaurians from Proximi Centauri:
1) 5D to 7D Beings who come in the form of Humanoids and Reptoids, and hybrids who have both types of DNA; 2) Strategists, counselors, and empaths who are excellent benevolent thought-broadcasters; 3) machine savants who can fix anything mechanical, and; 4) Peaceful and harmonious group-thinkers with telepathy.

Lyrans:
1) Felines -- the original progenitor race of this Universe -- who are beautiful bipedal (standing) cats, and; 2) 6D through 12D Creators originally from the Vegan Star System of a planet called Lyra, but now live everywhere in the Universe, and; 3) Planners of many flagships and living planets, plus; 4) Cat-Beings who have a keen sense of fair play in all arenas, plus; 5) Sentients who believe that their young have more wisdom than elders.

Orion Beings:
1) 4D and 5D polymorphs who are either chameleon-reptilian or humanoid-reptilian hybrids, and; 2) Beings from the Orion System – also called the Orion Nebula – whom reside upon planets and space stations throughout the Universe, and; 3) Individuals and soul-collectives from Orion who have tendencies towards high intellectual pursuits in physics, plus; 4) Sentients whose self-ascension practices are linked to extreme isolation, as well as; 5) Beings well-known for the utter perfection of holographic recreation of other star races' emvironments.

Pegasians from the Pegasus Galaxy:
1) Humanoid descendants from Sirius B and Dinoids plus hybrids who have DNA from both; 2) Innovators, scientists, and diplomats in many sectors; 3) Expert polite gracious beings who are expert in creating peace, plus; 4) Linguists whose brains are adept and learning thousands of languages at once.

Pleiadians:
1) 5D and 6D humanoids as well as reptilian-humanoid hybrids (in gorgeous prismatic skin colors) from the planets surrounding the stars Targeta and Maia; 2) Soul-collective service-to-others beings who are artistic and sensual in nature, plus; 3) Beings who are masters of storytelling as well as inspired artistic ingenuity in
both music and projected visualizations.

Sirians from Sirius A:
1) 6D - 8D hybrids with a variety of humanoid, canine, and fox-like appearances resulting from tremendous dna manipulation, as well as; 2) Star races who are experts in bodily implant-device-tracking over eons of time, plus; 3) Beings well-versed in hyper-advanced bio-technology and organic holographic realities, and; 4) Sentients who are well-known across the Universe for their senses of humor, and their love of practical jokes.

Sirians from Sirius B:
1) Nektons of hyper-intelligent water beings -- called Chloglians, who look like Cetaceans (dolphins, whales, and orcas) of Earthshan -- whom group-think within pods, and; 2) Chloglian-humanoid hybrids, who are bipedal in shades of pale blues and greens, and; 3) Higher dimensional Sentients who reside in and upon many planets to raise vibrations, plus; 4) Playful and loving group-consciousness beings, known for their intricate songs, and also; 5) Advanced Beings who can live as numerous souls (called a pod) within one biological entity, such as a whale or orca.

Now that you have some depictions of some of your biological star race relatives, spend some time each day communicating with them -- until you have a constant rapport -- so you can quickly Ascend upward beyond the mundane.

Multidimensional life with your Starseed relatives is multi-layered, and must be cultivated by **you** making an effort to be alert to all subtleties. You need to reach out towards your Star relatives to begin communicating with them to have a relationship with them in a pro-active way!

It is the time to discipline yourself to be silent and aware of every nuance through waking hours of hearing (e.g.; you hear songs about specific constellations, star beings, etc.). Also it is vital to be hyper-aware of what you’re seeing (i.e.; you notice paintings of aliens, observing lightships everywhere, seeing number sequences indicating names of universes). Focus all of your six senses on receiving signals from your NOW future’s new realities.

Force your inner “Self” to wake up! Attempt to be lucid while your projected Earthshan body sleeps: talk to whomever you meet in dreams, as they just might be your relatives in the ships above.
In the near future -- the upcoming articles will cover electrifying intergalactic chronicles, including: future home planets, Starseed missions, how to interact with non-organic life forms, and more! Meanwhile, WAKE UP -- shake others awake -- and remember that you are not *Home* yet…

///\\\\\\//\\//\\//\\\/\/\/\\\\\\\\\\\////\\//\\//\\//\\//\\\/
About the Author:
J--Tar'ia'h En Ra El is a Walk-In from three space sectors. Every night during lucid dreaming, she is within the ships above attending school. Currently – during the day – she is a published poet, author and artist. Her Lightworking includes being a PR specialist for Sananda’s Eagles: www.sanandaseagles.com. Her new post-Matrix website can be found at www.20dhealing.com. In the near future – her upcoming articles will cover exciting multidimensional information, including: future home planets, intergalactic cultural understanding, how to interact with non-organic life forms, and more!

///\\\\\\//\\//\\//\\\/\/\/\\\\\\\\\\\////\\//\\//\\//\\//\\\/
Distribution Information:
You are free to distribute this essay only if you do so in its entirety, including the article and graphics plus the “about the author” bio with the article links. Thank you and enjoy your new Freedom. This writing is NOT copy written.
///\\\\\\//\\//\\//\\\/\/\/\\\\\\\\\\\////\\//\\//\\//\\//\\\/

Lightworker 101:
http://tinyurl.com/101-lightworker
Lightworker 202:
http://tinyurl.com/202-lightworker
Lightworker 303:
http://tinyurl.com/303-lightworker
Lightworker 404:
http://tinyurl.com/light-worker-404
Lightworker 505:
http://tinyurl.com/lightworker-505
Lightworker 606:
http://tinyurl.com/lightworker-606
Lightworker 707:
http://tinyurl.com/707-lightworker

jtariah@protonmail.com

Not bad for an amateur effort…Amateur photographers have submitted photos for National Geographic's 125th anniversary. Wish you were here?

Posted by Melodie Munro on October 23, 2013 at 7:04pm

Not bad for an amateur effort… Amateur photographers have submitted photos for National Geographic's 125th anniversary. Wish you were here?

Your Shot: Beautiful images from the readers of National Geographic

National Geographic magazine turned 125 this month, with an anniversary issue devoted to the power of photography. The magazine moves the birthday celebration off its pages with the October 1st public launch of a photo-sharing platform, Your Shot (NGYourShot.com), that allows photography fans to connect with photographers and editors around virtual assignments, get direct feedback on their work and participate in a unique photography-based community. One of the magazine’s young star photographers, Cory Richards, will usher in the month as lead curator of the magazine’s first assignment on Your Shot.

Led by Richards and his magazine photo editor, Sadie Quarrier, the assignment invites
photographers to share three images that convey how photography can help us explore our changing world. Throughout the assignment, Richards and Quarrier will provide photo tips and feedback on the images that are submitted along with direction on what they feel will best help tell the story. Their favorite photograph will be selected to appear in a future issue of National Geographic magazine. Participants must join Your Shot, National Geographic’s free online photo community and storytelling platform, to submit photos to the assignment, which runs until Oct. 22. (National Geographic)

Here's a look at some of the offers for the first assignment, "Explore our Changing World" and links to the galleries of the photographers.

Photograph and caption by Junichi Saito, National Geographic Your Shot - Seagull - Feeding a seagull.

Photograph and caption by Wayne Panepinto, National Geographic Your Shot - Perfect Catch - I'm amazed how easy the sea lions catch their food. I'm very happy for sea lion Lily and Seneca Park Zoo with the Daily Dozen end results

Photograph and caption by Rolf Maeder, National Geographic Your Shot - Night of Lightning at Grand Canyon - It was such a wonderful experience to witness this beautiful thunderstorm far across the Grand Canyon

Photograph and caption by Junaid Ahmed, National Geographic Your Shot - People at Prayer - Ijtema is the second largest muslim gatherings in the world after Hazz.The gatherings is so huge that people did not get place at the field to pray jumma prayer and sited themselves at road

Photograph and caption by Ryan Deboodt, National Geographic Your Shot - Camp inside Hang Son Doong - After two days of trekking and caving, we reach the first camp inside Hang Son Doong, the world's largest cave

Photograph and caption by Dimitris Maroulakis, National Geographic Your Shot - Weightless - Freediver slides peacefully over sea bed in the blue hole area of Vouliagmeni.

Photograph and caption by Noel Kerns, National Geographic Your Shot - Meteorite - Abandoned farmhouse near Sanger, Texas. 3-minute exposure under a 3/4 moon, f/5.6, ISO 200. Interior of house light-painted with X2000 flashlights

Photograph and caption by Arati Rao
Photograph and caption by Arati Rao, National Geographic Your Shot - Best Shelter Ever - A baby shelters under its mother one late afternoon in Sri Lanka

Photograph and caption by Eiko Jones, National Geographic Your Shot - Cloud of Tadpoles - While photographing lilies in a local swamp a cloud of tadpoles swam by numbering in the thousands, all following along in a trail

Photograph and caption by Andrew Inaba, National Geographic Your Shot - The Ice Caves - Granite Falls, Washington is home to the Big Four Ice Caves; A large network of tunnels formed from heaps of avalanche-deposited snow, and hollowed by cascading water and warm winds. Spectacle and beauty must come with respect, as the ice is prone to collapse and cave-ins

Americas' Natives have European Roots

Posted by Melodie Munro on December 4, 2013 at 6:29pm

Americas' Natives have European Roots

Posted: 27 Nov 2013 09:47 PM PST

Ed Yong
Nature News

The 24,000-year-old remains of a young boy from the Siberian village of Mal'ta have added a new root to the family tree of indigenous Americans. While some of the New World's native ancestry clearly traces back to east Asia, the Mal'ta boy's genome - the oldest known of any modern human - shows that up to one-third of that ancestry can be traced back to Europe.

The results show that people related to western Eurasians had spread further east than anyone had suspected, and lived in Siberia during the coldest parts of the last Ice Age.

"At some point in the past, a branch of east Asians and a branch of western Eurasians met each other and had sex a lot," says palaeogeneticist Eske Willerslev at the University of Copenhagen, who led the sequencing of the boy's genome. This mixing, he says, created Native Americans - in the sense of the populations of both North and South America that predated - as we know them. His team's results are published today in Nature1.

In 2009, Willerslev's team traveled to Hermitage State Museum in St. Petersberg, where it had arranged to collect a DNA sample from one of the Mal'ta boy's arm bones. "We hoped that he could tell us something about the early peopling of the Americas, but it was a complete long shot," he says.

Stunning before-and-after pictures have been released showing the falling water levels in flood-hit Walton-on-Thames in Surrey

Posted by Melodie Munro on February 23, 2014 at 5:07pm

Getty
Stunning before-and-after pictures have been released showing the falling water levels in flood-hit Walton-on-Thames in Surrey.

This picture shows the transformation of a street in the village on 10 February (below) and 19 February (above).

Walton-on-Thames: 19 February (above) and 10 February (below)

19 February (above) and 10 February (below)

Extraordinary images of space have been shortlisted for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2013

Posted by Melodie Munro on October 12, 2013 at 6:12pm

Extraordinary images of space have been shortlisted for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2013.

Extraordinary images of space have been shortlisted for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2013. A beautiful snap of the Milky Way from Dorset's Durdle Door competes with a close-up of the surface of the Sun and other incredible subjects thousands and millions of miles away. The entries will be whittled down to just a few category winners and exhibited at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich from September. We take a look at the best of the shortlist...

'Receiving the Galatic Beam'. The photographer has managed to catch the moment when the Milky Way appears to line up with the giant 64m dish of the radio telescope at Parkes Observatory in Australia (Wayne England)

'Leaning In'. Stars and constellations form a stunning backdrop to this windswept tree in Dartmoor National Park in the south-west of England. Just above the horizon is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, followed by the unmistakeable outline of Orion the Hunter. Above this lies the triangular face of Taurus the Bull with the orange star Aldebaran, the disc of the Moon and the bright, compact cluster of the Pleiades (Anna Walls

'A Flawless Point'. The photograph shows the Milky Way arching over Yosemite Valley in California’s famous national park. A lens-shaped (lenticular) cloud hovers over the distinct granite dome of Liberty Cap, which rises to an elevation of over 2000m, near the centre of the photograph (Rogelio Bernal Andreo)

'Hunters Moon over the Alps'. As the full Moon sinks in the west, the Sun rises in the east, lighting up the snow-capped Alpine horizon in dazzling fuschia. Although both Moon and mountain are illuminated by sunlight in this image their different colours reveal the scattering effects of the Earth’s atmosphere on the white light of the Sun. The rays of the rising Sun pass through the full thickness of the air causing the blue, green and yellow light to be scattered in all directions and leaving only the red light to reach the distant mountains. The Moon is slightly higher in the sky, so its reflected sunlight is scattered less severely, and retains a warm yellow glow (Stefano De Rosa)

'Orion Nebula'. Modern cameras are able to detect light which the human eye cannot see but many images capture faraway space in shades of grey. As such, astrophotographers must make practical and aesthetic choices about contrast, brightness and colour in their images. Here, the photographer has chosen an unusually subdued palette of colours to represent the Orion Nebula, replacing the familiar colour spectrum of reds and magentas with subtle greys and salmon pinks which emphasise the delicate structure of the nebula’s dust clouds (Nik Szymanek)

'Herbig-Haro Objects in the Pelican Nebula'. The birth of new stars is a complex process which astronomers are still trying to understand in detail. One fascinating aspect of stellar formation is the production of jets of material which blast out from the poles of some new-born stars. Here, these jets, or ‘Herbig-Haro objects’, can be seen emerging from the thick dust and gas clouds of the Pelican Nebula, a stellar nursery in the constellation of Cygnus (Andre van der Hoeven)

'Photographers on the Rim of Myvatn Craters'. Snappers stand in awe of the auroral displays in northern Iceland (James Woodend)

'Full view of Noctilucent cloud'. Noctilucent clouds are formed of tiny ice crystals high in the atmosphere, around 80km above the ground. Their name means ‘night shining’ in Latin and they only become visible during deep twilight conditions. This is because they are not competing with the blue daytime sky and the more substantial clouds at lower altitudes. Here, despite the bright urban lights, they put on a spectacular display above the Pennine Hills of northern England (Mark Shaw)

'Archway to Heaven'. The spectacular rock formations of the Durdle Door in this part of Dorset’s Jurassic Coast are more than 100 million years old. However, many of the stars that make up the Milky Way are far older, at up to ten billion years old (Stephen Banks)

'Northern Lights XXIII'. To capture all of the different sources of light – the stars, the aurora light and the streetlights of the distant towns – is a tricky balancing act requiring great skill of the photographer (Mike Curry)

'Comet Panstarrs'. Most of the light in this image comes from the Sun. High in the sky the bright disc of the Moon is shining with reflected sunlight, while a tiny smudge above the sea is sunlight reflecting from the dust and gas in the tail of Comet Panstarrs. Even the aurora’s ghostly curtains of glowing gas are ultimately powered by the ‘solar wind’ of subatomic particles given off by the Sun. Only the stars shine with their own light (Ingólfur Bjargmundsson)

'Eta Carinae and her Keyhole'. The Carina Nebula is a chaotic region of star formation several thousand light years from Earth. In the central part of the nebula, shown here, dense clouds of gas and dust are lit up by the light of newly born stars. One of these is a true giant – the star Eta Carinae right at the centre of this image. More than a hundred times as massive as the Sun, and millions of times brighter, Eta Carinae is unstable and will one day explode as a supernova (Michael Sidonio)

'Solar Max' A full disc image of the Sun showing detail such as dark filaments and sunspots which the naked eye cannot see (Paul Haese)

Astronomers claim to have found 'tens of billions' of rocky planets in our galaxy where life can exist

Posted by Melodie Munro on March 29, 2012 at 4:30pm

Astronomers claim to have found 'tens of billions' of rocky planets in our galaxy where life can exist

A handout released in 2010 by the European Southern Observatory shows an artist's impression of the atmosphere around a super-Earth exoplanet. A scan of small, cool stars in the Milky Way suggests our galaxy has "tens of billions" of rocky planets located like Earth in zones where life can exist, European astronomers say

NASA satellite image shows the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina region of the Milky Way that is 7,500 light years from Earth. A scan of small, cool stars in the Milky Way suggests our galaxy has "tens of billions" of rocky planets located like Earth in zones where life can exist, European astronomers say

A scan of small, cool stars in the Milky Way suggests our galaxy has "tens of billions" of rocky planets located like Earth in zones where life can exist, European astronomers say.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) says it found nine "super-Earths" in a sample survey of 102 stars known as red dwarves.

"Super-Earths" are rocky planets -- as opposed to gassy giants -- that orbit their stars in the so-called Goldilocks zone, where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold but just right to have the potential to nurture life.

In this balmy region, the planet is neither scorched nor frozen, and water can exist in liquid form.
The ESO team used a powerful 3.6-metre (11.7-feet) telescope, known by its acronym of HARPS, at their observatory in Chile's Atacama desert.

"Our new observations with HARPS mean that about 40 percent of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet," said Xavier Bonfils of the Observatory of the Sciences of the Universe in Grenoble, southeastern France.

"Because red dwarves are so common -- there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way -- this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone," he said in an ESO press release issued on Wednesday.

By ESO's estimate, there could be around 100 "super-Earths" in stars less than 30 light years from Earth.

In cosmic terms, such distances are just a flea jump, but they are an impossible gap for Man to bridge with current space technology.

A total of 763 exoplanets, the term for a planet in another solar system, have been found since the first was detected in 1995, according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia (http://exoplanet.eu/

Inside an eco home: What life is like when you don’t have bills

Posted by Melodie Munro on March 12, 2012 at 4:40pm

Inside an eco home: What life is like when you don’t have bills
By Yahoo! staff writer

Jane and Stephen Frances' eco home outside Ely
By Harriet Meyer

Energy bills are burning a hole in consumers' pockets, with the cost of heating and lighting the average home amounting to an eye-watering £1,200 a year, according to the Energy Saving Trust.
But some households manage to reduce or even wipe out these bills entirely by putting in place eco measures to reduce their energy consumption.

So what's life like for these eco-enthusiasts off the grid? Don't all those green tweaks and energy-saving measures get in the way of daily life?

Eco home in the woods

Jane and Stephen Frances, 56 and 53 respectively, are reaping the benefits of life in a 'green' home and find their quality of life is much improved. The couple bought a four-bed house made entirely from natural materials in the Fens outside Ely two years ago (pictured above).

"We saw it online and at first were scared of its unusual qualities — but we love it now," says Jane. "It's built from natural materials, so made primarily from timber, straw bales, clay and lime — and the roof is made of shingles which are a kind of wooden tiles."

Alongside the structure, the couple have installed a multitude eco-friendly measures to reduce their energy usage.

These include a wood-burning stove, for which they gather wood from the surrounding land, solar thermal to generate renewable power on the roof and rainwater harvesting — so there is an area on the roof where rainwater is collected in tanks to reduce the use of mains water.

"From April to October we really don't heat the water at all because the sun heats it, so we benefit from extremely low energy bills during these months," says Jane. "We also have an air-source heat pump, which is a low temperature heat source — and we aim to be self-sufficient by growing our own vegetables."

Jane and Stephen's garden

However, it's not just the odd eco-home around the country that includes a range of green measures.

Driven by the Government's 10—year plan for all new homes to be carbon neutral by 2016 many developers are building energy—efficient apartment blocks around the UK.

After all, a staggering 50% of the UK's carbon footprint comes from running buildings, according to the UK Green Buildings Council, so concern over climate change is seeing developers devise new ways to reduce their impact.

A feat of eco design

An example is One Brighton, built jointly by Crest Nicholson and sustainable developer BioRegional Quintain and completed in 2010, which comprises 172 studio, one and two-bedroom "eco apartments" in the New England quarter.

About 58% of the concrete frame is made from recycled materials, reducing carbon emissions by a third.

The aim of the project was to build a community designed to run entirely on renewable energy — and it appears to have succeeded. Principles include achieving zero-waste status through recycling and composting, building using sustainable materials wherever possible, implementing sustainable transport solutions and applying measures to support local suppliers, food and wildlife.

TheTop of FormBottom of Form energy on site comes from a renewable wood-fuelled boiler and photovoltaic array on the roof, with green electricity supplied from eight wind turbines. All communal areas use eco lightbulbs, with all fitted appliances being A or AA-energy rated. There is also an on-site composter.

The eco development One Brighton

But what are the benefits? As the 'zero carbon sustainable community' shares the building's environment facilities, you're likely to get to know your neighbours — so it's a sociable place with a shared sense of purpose.

How you can use less energy

Wherever you live there are various methods of incorporating energy-saving measures into your lifestyle to save energy in your home. Here is a selection from the Energy Saving Trust:

• Turn your room heating thermostat down by 1C to cut your heating bills by up to 10%.
• You can get foams and sealants available at most DIY stores to combat poor ventilation and draughts.
• Insulating your loft is also worthwhile to cut bills, as the recommended 270mm depth can be installed at a cost of a few hundred pounds — and you could save around £100 a year on your bills.
• Also, lag your pipes and water tank at the same time for maximum efficiency by fitting a British Standard jacket around your hot water cylinder — this can cut heat loss by over 75%.
• A third of the heat in an un-insulated home is lost through the walls. There are two wall types — solid walls and cavity walls. Both can be insulated to improve the energy efficiency of a property. If the home was built from 1920 onwards there is a good chance it has cavity walls. A home with un-insulated cavity walls could cost up to £135 more to run each year than one with insulated cavities, so it's worth finding out the state of play.
• You should replace your boiler roughly every 15 years and opt for an 'A' rated appliance which uses less energy and is also more environmentally friendly. Standard efficiency boilers that you may have had for ten years or more are only 50% efficient. Replacing a G rated boiler could save around £300 a year on running costs. Worcester's 'A' rated condensing boilers, for example, are particularly efficient.
• Double-glazed windows can save up to £165 on heating bills compared to a single-glazed property.
• Heavy lined curtains can help keep the heat in if double-glazing can't be fitted.

Researchers say long-lost Leonardo may have been found

Posted by Melodie Munro on March 13, 2012 at 5:40pm

Researchers say long-lost Leonardo may have been found

FLORENCE (Reuters) - Art researchers and scientists said on Monday that a high-tech project using tiny video probes has uncovered evidence that a fresco by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci lost for five centuries may still exist behind a wall of Florence's city hall.

Researchers work on the "Battle of Angiari" project to find a lost Leonardo da Vinci fresco. Photo credit:Reut

"Together with art historians and scientists combining historical evidence and technology, this research team has unlocked a mystery that has been with us for more than 500 years," said Terry Garcia, an executive vice president of the U.S. National Geographic Society, which sponsored the research.

The project to find what has come to be known as the "Lost Leonardo" has been controversial, in part because researchers had to drill several holes into an existing work and because not all agree that the Leonardo fresco is still there.

At the start of the 16th century, Florence's leaders commissioned Leonardo, then at the height of his career, to paint a massive fresco celebrating the Florentine Republic's victory over the Milanese in a battle on the plains of Anghiari that took place on June 29, 1440.

Leonardo, who loathed war as "a most beastly madness," depicted a group of horses and riders furiously fighting.

A banner promotes the "Battle of Angiari" project in Florence. Photo credit: Reuters

He abandoned the project a year after he started, probably because a new experimental technique for frescoes failed. But some of his preparatory studies remain, as well as other artists' copies of the original fresco.

All traces of the original were lost more than 50 years later when Giorgio Vasari renovated the great Sala dei Cinquecento in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio and was ordered to paint a new fresco, "The Battle of Marciano," to accommodate the higher walls.

Some believe that Vasari was loathe to destroy Leonardo's work, so he built a new wall with an air gap of several centimetres in front of the Leonardo in order to preserve what was left.

MEDICAL-STYLE PROBE
Researchers used tiny, medical-style endoscopic probes And other high-tech tools inserted through existing cracks in the outer wall holding the Vasari fresco and took samples of substances.

"We found traces of pigments that appear to be those known to have been used exclusively by Leonardo," said Maurizio Seracini, an engineer and expert in art diagnostics who has been on the trail of the "Lost Leonardo" for three decades.

"These data are very encouraging," he said, adding that one black pigment found was believed to be of the same type used by Leonardo on the Mona Lisa.

A high-tech project uses tiny video probes to find a long-lost Leonardo Da Vinci painting. Photo credit: Reute …

The research work was carried out by the U.S. National Geographic Society, the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology at the University of California at San Diego and Italian art officials.

"I am quite convinced that something has been found and I think this is a historic day," Garcia said in an interview with Reuters at the presentation of the results.

"There is overwhelming historic documentation that indicates that the Leonardo was painted, that it was behind the wall and that it was in existence at the time that Vasari painted his fresco," he said.

"Then through a series of scientific analysis using state-of-the-art imaging technology we were able to determine that there was a wall in front of the original wall and we confirmed it visually with the endoscope that showed that there is a gap ... and the sample from the wall clearly indicates that there are pigments behind this," he said.

NEXT STEPS UNCERTAIN
He said it was now up to Italy's culture ministry to decide the next steps and if to explore other parts of the wall.

"We can't tell you today the condition of the Leonardo. That is for subsequent research and exploration," Garcia said. "Whatever remains of the Leonardo is behind that wall."

But some art historians are sceptical, saying the fresco of Battle of Anghiari was most likely destroyed before Vasari painted his new fresco.

A Leonardo da Vinci fresco may still exist behind a wall in Florence's city hall. Photo credit: Reuters

Some art historians working on the project withdrew their support and Italia Nostra, Italy's leading nature and arts conservation group, asked Florentine authorities to halt it because they said it risked harming the Vasari fresco and because they believed it was unlikely that the original Leonardo was there.

Garcia dismissed the criticism. "I think we have demonstrated that those who said the Leonardo was not behind the wall are wrong," he said.

"All of the holes that were put into the mural were either in areas that had been previously restored or in fissures, so the original Vasari was not touched," he said.

But even some of the participants at the presentation urged caution.

"We need further certainties and maximum protection for the Vasari fresco," said Cristina Acidini, arts superintendent for Florence, in response to a question about what the next step would be.

"There are pros and cons about every art project," said Marco Chatti, head of the Opificio Delle Pietre Dure, Florence's most prestigious arts restoration laboratory.

Florence mayor Matteo Renzi said more work needed to be done on the project to reveal the condition of the Leonardo, which he believes is behind the wall.

"I ask the government to authorise us to find out how much (of the Leonardo) is left, in what condition it is in, and to evaluate if we can bring this work of Leonardo back into the light for the whole world," Renzi said.

The mayor said he believed that modern technology should allow the public to appreciate both the Leonardo and Vasari.

"But if I had to choose, I would choose Leonardo," Renzi said.
(Additional reporting by Silvia Ognibene, editing by Paul Casciato)