by Jim Rickards, Daily Reckoning: We continue to climb steadily up the World War III escalation ladder. Last week, Biden foolishly gave Ukraine the green light to strike deep into Russian territory using U.S. missiles. Now Russia has responded, as Putin promised they would. On November 21st Russia launched a new hypersonic missile known as […]

The communist-era farmhouse at the Hungarian Open Air Museum, also known as Skanzen, is a time capsule of 1950s domesticity — sturdy wooden furniture, an old transistor radio. The kitchen is well-equipped with enamel cookware and patterned ceramic serving bowls, a table laden with matching tea cups and a tall pitcher of Bambi, the popular orange soda that was the taste of a Hungarian summer before the arrival of Coca-Cola in the late 1960s. For most visitors, the room evokes an almost-forgotten distant past. But for elderly people living with dementia, the surroundings are a welcome return to the familiar world of their youth. Skanzen museum began offering reminiscence sessions for people with dementia in 2014 as part of a joint EU-funded project with four other museums across Europe: Jamtli in Sweden, Den Gamle By in Denmark, Beamish in the UK and Maihaugen in Norway. “We realized that our population is aging,” recalls Márta Bokonics-Kramlik, head of the museum’s learning department. “Many seniors are visiting our museum, and many are living with dementia, so we wanted to create something special for them.” A time capsule of 1950s domesticity is an ideal space for reminiscence therapy. Courtesy of the Hungarian Open Air Museum Dementia is an umbrella term for a group of brain diseases that affect memory, thinking, behavior and emotion, with Alzheimer’s being the most common and best-known form. Over 55 million people were living with dementia worldwide in 2020, and the number is expected to almost double every 20 years due to demographic aging.  While there is no known cure for the cognitive symptoms of dementia, its impact on self-identity and relationships can be ameliorated in different ways. Memories string our past and present selves into a coherent whole, and the perceived loss of identity can be particularly painful for people living with dementia, as well as those caring for them. The post Stories Over Tea: The Power of Reminiscence Therapy appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

November 29, 2024

The music business has lost too many hugely talented artists who've died too soon, but only one, as far as we know, has faced the prospect of being trampled to death on an English farm

Debbie Harry’s new wave trailblazers had a special formula to knocking out the hits in the late 70s, not one your doctor would recommend

A roundup of mysterious, paranormal and strange news stories from the past week. 

There are thousands and thousands of cities and towns all across America. And all over the world, people know many of them. On pretty much every corner of the globe, you’ll find people who recognize New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and many more. But those towns aren’t our focus today. Instead, we’re looking at […] The post Ten Tiny American Towns with Unbelievably Obscene Names appeared first on Listverse.

Christopher Columbus did not discover America. Ferdinand Magellan did not discover the East Indies. James Cook did not discover Australia. Humans were living in all these places long before the Europeans arrived. About 60,000 years ago, Homo sapiens left their African homeland and began the epic migration that would see our species dominant in all […] The post 10 Explorers Who Discovered Lands Virtually Unknown to Any Human appeared first on Listverse.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is on sale for Black Friday, too. | photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The holiday shopping season is here — which means it’s a great time to snag deals on smartwatches and fitness trackers. Black Friday and Cyber Monday, in particular, are excellent opportunities if you or a loved one have health or fitness-related goals for the year ahead. That said, it can get a little daunting sifting through the dozens of models out there. Not to worry — we’ve rounded up the best deals for smartwatches and fitness trackers out there. The best Black Friday smartwatch and fitness tracker deals The 42mm GPS Apple Watch Series 10 is $70 off at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for $329. The larger 46mm model is also $51 off at $359 at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy. The 42mm LTE Apple Watch Series 10 is 14 percent off at... Continue reading…

Ritual deposits including a ritually bent sword have been discovered in a bog near Veksø northwest of Copenhagen, Denmark. The small cache of objects date to the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, around 500 B.C., and the sword actually incarnates the transition, being made of bronze with iron rivets. They were discovered by Claus Falsby on his first outing with a metal detector. He contacted museum organization ROMU which manages archaeological responsibilities for central and western Zealand. ROMU archaeologists immediately went to the site and excavated it, discovering additional objects. In total, the cache now consisted of the bronze sword with iron rivets in the handle sinuously bent into a s-curve, two small bronze axes (known as celts), two or three large ankle bangles called vulrings, a fragment of a large fibula and an object of unknown purpose. Then Claus Falsby and his metal detector went back a few days later and got incredibly lucky again. Just 230 feet away from his original find, he discovered a large bronze necklace with a herringbone design that is only the second example of its kind ever found in Denmark. This type of neck ring is believed to have been manufactured on the Baltic coast of what is now Poland and it likely wound up in Veksø through trade. Located about 12 miles from the Danish capital, Veksø is on a hill surrounded by peat bogs that archaeologists believe were lakes in the Nordic Bronze Age (ca. 1750-500 B.C.). Some exceptional archaeological finds from the Early and Middle Bronze Age have been found around Veksø, including an iconic pair of horned helmets dating to around 1000 B.C., but Late Bronze Age artifacts are much more rare. “This is what I would describe as a very rare find. From the first and middle part of the Bronze Age, we have a great many of these deposit finds, where bronze objects appear in the bogs. But we don’t know that many from the last part of the Bronze Age. The sacrificial tradition, which has been so visible and dominant, and which relates a lot to the society that has existed throughout the Bronze Age, it is in retreat here at the end of the Bronze Age,” says Emil Winther Struve, who is an archaeologist at ROMU and has responsibility for archaeological excavations in Egedal Municipality. Despite the drastic cultural changes occurring in the transition between the eras, the Egedal find is evidence that the elite continued the traditions that had been so much more popular hundreds of years earlier. They were still able to afford incredibly expensive materials and objects and were still willing to destroy them and sacrifice them for religious purposes. The objects from the new find have not yet been examined and analyzed. But Emil Winther Struve can conclude something. Among other things, when they have been put in the bog as a sacrifice. The bronze sword with iron rivets, with the two materials in the same object, is almost a physical manifestation of the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. It is possible that the sword’s iron rivets constitute the earliest known iron find in Denmark. This means that the objects were laid down around 500 BC, i.e. just over 2,500 years ago. At the same time, the design of the sword suggests that it was not produced in Denmark, but probably imported from the south. Specifically, north of the Alps, where the Hallstatt culture at the end of the Bronze Age grew and became dominant in Europe. “Their swords are shaped in a completely different way than before, perhaps because they are used differently. Earlier swords were flimsy and were perhaps used for stabbing. But now they become rougher, more solid and have a different weight, so you can use them more violently and to chop with. The Hallstatt culture, which spreads relatively quickly, has a warrior ideal and an aggressive structuring that requires conquest, war and conflict. The sword may have a picture on it,” says Emil Winther Struve. The objects are now at the National Museum where they are undergoing conservation and analysis.