Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986), best known as Jorge Luis Borges, was an Argentine writer, essayist, and poet born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school and traveled to Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955 he was appointed director of the National Public Library (Biblioteca Nacional) and professor of Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. In 1961 he came to international attention when he received the first International Publishers' Prize, the Prix Formentor. His work was translated and published widely in the United States and in Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1986.


His work embraces the "chaos that rules the world and the character of unreality in all literature." His most famous books, Ficciones (1944) and The Aleph (1949), are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes: dreams, labyrinths, libraries, fictional writers and works, religion, God. His works have contributed significantly to the genre of magical realism, a sub-genre of Hispanic American fiction that reacted against the realism/naturalism of the nineteenth century. Scholars have noted that Borges's progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination since "poets, like the blind, can see in the dark". The poems of his late period dialogue with such cultural figures as Spinoza, Luís de Camões, and Virgil.


His international fame was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the "Latin American Boom" and the success of Gabriel García Márquez's Cien Años de Soledad. Writer and essayist J. M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish American novelists."

29 Oscar Speeches In 2 Minutes

Comedy.com presents "The Greatest Oscar Speech Ever." Edited by Chris Cullari.


The video shows the best moments of oscars during the last years.


Powerfull moments of artists who gave their best.

BAFTA Awards: ''The Hurt Locker'' wins big

Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker swept 3D blockbuster Avatar aside at the BAFTAs, picking up best film and best director among its six prizes.

The movies, directed by Kathryn Bigelow and ex-husband James Cameron respectively, were both nominated for a leading eight BAFTAs. They also lead the field heading into next month's Academy Awards with nine nominations apiece.

Bigelow is the first woman to win the best director BAFTA.

She says she hopes she will not be the last.

"Women's struggle for equity is a constant struggle, so if this can be a beacon of light, then wonderful," she said after receiving her BAFTA in the gilded splendour of London's Royal Opera House.

Cameron's Avatar - the biggest box office hit in history - won just two BAFTAs: production design and special visual effects.

World's best Michael Jackson's impersonators

His moves, his style and his voice were the inspiration.



For MILLIONS of MJ tributes: Here are some of the world's best Jackson impersonators.



Enjoy Watching!

Avatar: Science Behind Pandora Character

As James Cameron's animated sci-fi movie Avatar goes on general release, astronomers point out that the movie's habitable moon called "Pandora" may exist in reality.

Although none have been found to date, "exomoons" orbiting exoplanets are sure to exist. Could an exomoon be detected? If so, could that exomoon's atmosphere be probed? Yes and yes, according to today's announcement by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Mass.


Exomoon Living

Pandora is a fictional alien world 5 light-years away from Earth orbiting an exoplanet in the system of Alpha Centauri A. As detailed in an exclusive Discovery News interview with the visionary director of Avatar, Cameron has been very careful to base his creation on science fact (unlike some movies I won't mention). The biology of Avatar's alien creatures are no doubt impressive, but what about the planetary physics? Could an exomoon be habitable... even inhabited?

"If Pandora existed, we potentially could detect it and study its atmosphere in the next decade," said CfA's Lisa Kaltenegger.

Kaltenegger and her colleagues point out that all the gas giant planets in our solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) have moons, and if these moons are large enough, they possess an atmosphere.

One example is Saturn's large moon Titan that has a very thick atmosphere and -- as the 2005 ESA Huygens mission discovered -- a lot of the surface features are very Earth-like. It's not a huge leap of the imagination to think that a larger rocky moon, orbiting a gas giant (a large Jupiter-like exoplanet) in another star system might have an exomoon with an atmosphere too.

"All of the gas giant planets in our solar system have rocky and icy moons," Kaltenegger added. "That raises the possibility that alien Jupiters will also have moons. Some of those may be Earth-sized and able to hold onto an atmosphere."

However, seeking out exoplanets is hard, and although over 400 of these worlds have been detected, some hi-tech piece of kit would be needed to go on an exomoon hunt.


Looking for Wobbly Exoplanets

When searching for exoplanets, astronomers will often look for a slight dimming in star light as an exoplanet passes in front of its host star. The exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope is currently looking for these exoplanet "transits" and it is hoped that the presence of exomoons orbiting the exoplanets may be detected too.

As an exomoon orbits its host exoplanet (in the same way our moon orbits the Earth), the exomoon will "tug" on the exoplanet very slightly. From Kepler's point of view, the telescope will see the transiting exoplanet wobble very slightly as it passes in front of the star. This could be the signature of the presence of an exomoon.

Say if Kepler could detect the presence of an exomoon (not necessarily in the Alpha Centauri A system as no exoplanets have been spotted there, yet), how could astronomers work out if it's a real-life Pandora?

"Alpha Centauri A is a bright, nearby star very similar to our Sun, so it gives us a strong signal" Kaltenegger explained. "You would only need a handful of transits to find water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and methane on an Earth-like moon such as Pandora."

"If the Avatar movie is right in its vision, we could characterize that moon with JWST [the James Webb Space Telescope] in the near future," she added.


Exomoons Better than Exoplanets?

Interestingly, exomoons provide an exciting opportunity for the survivability of life. In the case of an exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star, the exoplanet would have to orbit very close to the star to exist within the "habitable zone" (the region surrounding a star that's neither too far away or too close, but in just the right location for water to be maintained in a liquid state). This is because red dwarfs emit less light than a star like our sun; therefore an exoplanet needs to be closer to a red dwarf to receive a quantity of light for life as we know it to survive.

But there's a problem. If an exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf is within the habitable zone of the star, there's a high probability that the exoplanet will be "tidally locked" with the star. Tidal locking means that the same side of the exoplanet will always be facing the star, continuously getting heated. The far side will be forever cold. This kind of situation is very bad for life to survive as there will be no such thing as "days," just one eternal, boring "day."

However, put an exomoon in orbit around this tidally locked exoplanet and we'll have a situation where the exomoon is always orbiting (it will therefore have days). The exomoon would become the more likely location for life to survive, even thrive.

Whether or not Pandora is really out there, perhaps there's more chance of an Earth-sized exomoon (with an atmosphere) rather than an exoplanet nurturing life...



Source: CfA press release

Body Worlds Exposition

* First Video:



* Second Video:




Body Worlds (German title: Körperwelten) is a traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies and body parts that are prepared using a technique called plastination to reveal inner anatomical structures.


In accordance with Wikipedia, the exhibition's developer and promoter is German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, who invented the plastination technique in the late 1970s at the University of Heidelberg.


Body Worlds was first presented in Tokyo in 1995. Body Worlds exhibitions have since been hosted by more than 50 museums and venues in North America, Europe, and Asia.

How to Draw a "Realistic" Manga Face

Good video about how to draw a "realistic" Manga face in less than ten minutes.


You can watch more creative videos about Mangas drawing the same section on Youtube.