Via the always thought-provoking Mental Floss, we learn of the rather questionable (though possibly nothing ought to be taboo in the name of science, and equally not surprising given our native stinginess and de-enterprising ways of finding short-cuts) endeavour of crafting wine without the fruit of the vine. San Francisco-based Ava Winery simplifies and expedites the whole time-tested, involved process of growing, harvesting, fermenting and ageing through chemistry.
For us, of course, Dover and its surrounds were more than a departure point and terminal, with its iconic chalk cliffs and stretches of beaches. As always, click on any image to enlarge.
We were delighted, however, to also discover the series of white escarpments outside the town of Seaford (between Brighton-by-the-Sea and Eastbourne) in East Sussex called Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters. It was a pleasant hike through a tidal estuary, populated by cows and sheep, to the undulating cliffs, marching along pebbly strands that were abundant with the signs of partial fossil imprints—though no terribly exciting specimens were to be found.
The Seven Sisters, owing to their whiter character and lack of potentially anachronistic additions (there being only a sedate golf course a top the cliffs), are often favoured by film-crews as a substitute site, an understudy for the more famous White Cliffs of Dover.
First recommended by the always interesting Everlasting Blรถrt, with additional reporting from Gizmodo’s Paleofuture department, we learn about the pioneering work of one of the Soviet Union’s first missile and rocket test sites, Kaspustin Yar, whose existence was made public only to protect the secret identity of the cosmodrome of Baikonur. A cache of photographs from the test-ground’s early days has been recently declassified in celebration of the facility’s seventieth anniversary. Be sure to visit both of the links above (scroll down a bit on the Blรถrt) to see video footage and a curated gallery of images.
Bored Panda reports that the French train network SNCF (Sociรฉtรฉ nationale des chemins de fer franรงais) has collaborated with an American firm specialising in large format displays in order to deck out the fleet of commuter carriages as moving galleries to bring the elevating experience of going to the world’s finest museums and stately homes to the masses. The Hall of Mirrors of Versailles and the Library of Louis XVI are some of the installations featured. This ongoing project called Art in Transit, which is being introduced to other metropolitan lines, also has curtailed vandalism, riders proud and protective of such national treasures.
