this pressed for your spider photo collection: 5 Spooky Spider Myths Busted : Discovery News

Spiders: they creep, they leap, they haunt the nightmares of arachnophobic humans. But a lot of the fear surrounding spiders is based on myths, not facts, according to the experts who study these eight-legged creatures.

Did you know, for example, that the venom of most tarantulas would hardly make adult humans flinch, let alone kill them? And all those stories you’ve heard about spiders laying eggs inside an open wound are the stuff of urban legend, not reality.

via 5 Spooky Spider Myths Busted : Discovery News.

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Kempff – Brahms Capriccio op.76 no.2 in B minor: great compositons/performances

Kempff – Brahms Capriccio op.76 no.2 in B minor

TheLeonardoSaez

Johannes Brahms, Capriccio op.76 no.2 in B minor.

Wilhelm Kempff, piano.
Recorded in 1953.

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Stravinsky Divertimento from “The Fairy’s Kiss” (Muti-Philadelphia Orch.): great compositions/performances

Stravinsky Divertimento from “The Fairy’s Kiss” (Muti-Philadelphia Orch.)

mvvm18

I think this was also performed at the concert “A Tribute to Dr.Martin Luther King under Maestro Muti conducting when Sejun’s father,Sangmin Park,was a cello member of the
orchestra for 7 years

Gioachino Rossini – Semiramide (Overture): make music part of your life series

Gioachino Rossini – Semiramide (Overture)

George Enescu

Semiramide is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire’s tragedy Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Babylon. The opera was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on February 3, 1823.

Semiramide (Semiramis) was Rossini’s final Italian opera, and took the form of a return to vocal traditions of his youth, a melodrama in which he “recreated the baroque tradition of decorative singing with unparalleled skill”. The ensemble-scenes (particularly the duos between Arsace and Semiramide) and choruses are of a high order, as is the orchestral writing, which makes full use of a large pit.

Rossini wrote the title role for his wife, Isabella Colbran. The work starts with a well-known overture, and throughout it calls for outstanding singers in the leading roles. Although the overture is one of several of Rossini’s to be widely recorded, the opera is only occasionally performed.Because Rossini’s overtures were sometimes shuffled from one opera to another, Rossini would have found the fact that most music lovers today identify his operas by their overture to be ironic. It is well known, for example, that The Barber of Seville, one of the greatest of comic operas, is performed all over the world with an overture that had already served Rossini twice for serious operas. Semiramide, though, has its own overture.

The overture was almost certainly composed last. Unlike many operatic overtures of the day, it borrowed musical ideas from the opera itself, thus making it unsuitable for use with another score. The range and balance of musical ideas, from the hushed, rhythmic opening through the Andantino for four horns (drawn from the opera itself) and the repetition with pizzicato countermelodies in the strings to the lively Allegro, make the overture to Semiramide one of Rossini’s finest contributions to the genre and deservedly one of the most popular.Every summer, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra holds a summer concert of music guaranteed to please the crowds at the outdoor countryside venue of Waldbühne, a few miles outside Berlin.

Based on the amphitheater in the ancient Greek city of Epidaurus, and nestled in a natural valley, the Waldbuhne theater seats 22,000 in leafy comfort and remains one of Berlin’s favorite open air concert venues, with magnificent views of the stage. World class conductors lead the Berlin Philharmonic in evening concerts of popular Italian, French, Russian and American favorites.

This is a recording of the concert from 2006, conducted by Marco Armiliato..

This pressed for your guidance: Matthew 15:14 “Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” — Catholic Online October 31, 2014

Matthew 15:14 “Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” What… http://t.co/qmFPM3FXXW

— Catholic Online (@CatholicOnline) October 31, 2014

Just a thought: “A guide without vision is like a boat without compass: it may take you places, but they may not be what you expected as destination” – George-B

this presssed for your bat week experience: National Bat Week Pictures: Just in Time for Halloween!

Bats on the Wing Photograph by Joel Sartore with Cole Sartore, National Geographic Creative

Bats on the Wing

Photograph by Joel Sartore with Cole Sartore, National Geographic Creative

Bats have long been associated with vampires, witches, and Halloween. But their bad reputation looks more like a trick than a treat.

Bats matter in a big way in countless ecosystems around the world. In truth, the only thing scary about bats is the rate at which they’re disappearing.

Bats are a wildly diverse order of mammals, with more than 1,300 species worldwide. About one out of every five mammal species is a bat.

Despite the way they’re often depicted in movies and television, only three species of bats feed exclusively on blood. Most species—around 70 percent—dine on insects, making them invaluable partners in human agriculture by removing crop pests. The rest eat nectar and fruit and serve as some of the best pollinators and seed dispersers on the planet.

via National Bat Week Pictures: Just in Time for Halloween!.

Stanford doctor in Ebola quarantine in Bay Area – SFGate

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Friction Grows Between Israel and Jordan Over Jerusalem Holy Site – NYTimes.com

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IPCC debates ‘most important’ report

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The volunteers ready to fight Ebola

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Key Jerusalem holy site ‘to reopen’

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How an Antifreeze Ingredient Led to a Whiskey Recall in Europe – ABC News

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U.S. quarantines ‘chilling’ Ebola fight in West Africa: MSF

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Clashes erupt as Israeli police kill Palestinian suspected of shooting Jewish far-rightist

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Low oxygen ‘delayed life on Earth’

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Long-serving Boston mayor dies

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Mass graves found in western Iraq

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UN rebuke over Jerusalem settlements

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Penalties ‘do not stop’ drug use

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Ebola aid ship docks in Sierra Leone

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UK migrant rescue stance criticised

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New species of frog in urban jungle

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Polanski: US extradition attempt fails

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Prison for S Korea bullying soldiers

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Iraqi Kurd fighters ‘enter Kobane’

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Drones buzz French nuclear plants

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The Five Stages of Grief Over $75 Oil — Barron’s – NASDAQ.com

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Saint of the Day for Thursday, October 30th, 2014: St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

Saint of the Day for Thursday, October 30th, 2014

St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

Confessor and Jay brother, also called Alonso. He was born in Segovia, Spain, on July 25, 1532, the son of a wealthy merchant, and was prepared for First Communion by Blessed Peter Favre, a friend of … continue reading

More Saints of the Day

St. Alphonsus Rodriguez Bl. Angelus of Acri St. Arilda St. Artemas St. Dorothy of Montau St. Ethelnoth St. Eutropia St. Herbert Bl. Jean-Michel Langevin

Bl. Jeremiah of Valachia Bl. John Slade St. Maximus St. Saturninus St. Serapion of Antioch St. Talacrian St. Theonestus St. Zenobius & Zenobia

today’s holiday: Punkie Night

Punkie Night

In the English village of Hinton St. George, Somerset, it is traditional for both children and adults to walk through town carrying “punkies,” or lanterns made from carved-out mangel-wurzels, or mangolds (a variety of beet), with candles in them. Although this custom is observed in other English towns, the celebration at Hinton St. George is by far the best established. There is a procession of children carrying punkies through the streets, begging for money, and singing the “punky song.” A prize is given out for the best carved punky. More… Discuss

quotation: Beauty is all very well at first sight; but whoever looks at it when it has been in the house three days? George Bernard Shaw

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but whoever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Discuss

today’s birthday: Charles Atlas (1892)

Charles Atlas (1892)

A scrawny youth, Angelo Siciliano, better known as “Charles Atlas,” built up his physique using a system of exercises he developed that worked muscles against each other and in 1922 was dubbed “The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man.” Under the Atlas pseudonym, he launched a highly successful mail-order bodybuilding course, advertising his “dynamic tension” system with the now-iconic image of the “97-pound weakling” who loses his girl to a bully at the beach. How does the weakling’s story end? More… Discuss

this day in the yesteryear: The Rumble in the Jungle (1974)

The Rumble in the Jungle (1974)

The “Rumble in the Jungle” pitted boxer Muhammad Ali against heavyweight champion George Foreman in Zaire—now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The match is remembered for Ali’s incredible performance in regaining the heavyweight title. Surrounded by spellbound fans, he used a strategy later dubbed the “rope-a-dope” to tire Foreman before winning in the eighth round. This fight was Don King‘s first major venture as a professional boxing promoter. What musical acts were booked for the event? More… Discuss

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Skunks

These small black-and-white mammals are best known for the foul-smelling oily liquid they expel when threatened. Skunks do not make use of this weapon unless severely provoked and then only after raising their tails in a warning display. Most animals quickly learn to avoid skunks because the odor of skunk spray is so strong. In addition to stinking, the spray causes choking and tearing of the eyes. What do researchers believe is essential to successfully neutralizing the skunk smell? More… Discuss

iota

Definition:	(noun) A very small amount; a bit.
Synonyms:	scintilla, shred, smidgeon, whit
Usage:	There was not an iota of truth to that tale. Discuss.

U.S. FDA Approves Once-Daily XIGDUO™ XR Tablets for Adults with Type 2 Diabetes – MarketWatch

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Sweden recognizes state of Palestine

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Venezuela recalls ambassador to Spain

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