An interesting idea I stumbled upon first while listening to Radiolab, Gladstone's Color Theory, which suggests that language is directly correlated to our ability to experience certain stimuli...
For example, we've all heard the lie that the first nations who watched Columbus's ships break the horizon before arriving at the New World did not perceive them because they had no concept or understanding of ship. And Centaurs seem clearly to be a misreading of early accounts of people witnessing others on horseback, a concept they didn't have and so communicated through this hybridization of truth.
Gladstone analyzes the colors used in Homer's "The Odyssey" to argue that as the ancients didn't have a word for the color blue, to them it didn't exist. And there is surprising anthropological evidence to support his theory...
Read more here: (Daily Mail, Popular easy to read content): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2976405/Could-ancestors-blue-Ancient-civilisations-didn-t-perceive-colour-didn-t-word-say-scientists.html
And listen to the original Radiolab Podcast here: http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/
And, for the more literate and involved in this, try the Wikipedia article (*Warning: Lots of Jargon): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate
In essence, how language both describes and limits our experience of the world, curious...
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4000 Years of picturing Space, Cosmigraphics is a collection of images that reflect not only our understanding of space and the universe but society as well. Imagine how our silly our illustrations and understandings will appear to those who follow us in 4000 years...
This, for it's abstract qualities...
And this, because, well, just look at it...the caption beneath: (Latin inscription from Ecclesiastes): 'The number of fools is infinite.'.
Brilliant. More images below, buy Michael Bensons book on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1419713876/
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An curious article on the "Fairy Coffins" found in Edinburgh in 1836 at the Smithsonian: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/edinburghs-mysterious-miniature-coffins-22371426/?no-ist.
And, on a similar note, a "Fairy Census", inventory of fairy sightings throughout the UK. Searches for other locations will reveal as many throughout the US, Canada, and the rest of Europe...
Link: http://www.fairyist.com/survey/
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