The sign at the garden gate reads: "Warning, these plants can kill you"
Inspired by the legendary botanical gardens in Padua where the Medicis plotted the untimely, frothing ends of their enemies, an English duchess created this garden, dedicating it entirely to flora which are deadly and/or narcotic.
This carefully curated garden contains about 100 legendary killers. Guides explain their deadly properties while enforcing the strict "No touching; no smelling" rules. Included in the gardens are narcotic plants like poppies, cannabis, magic mushrooms, and tobacco. Because of the danger posed by the flora (some can kill or sicken just through touch), some plants are caged, and the garden is secured each evening behind gates under a 24-hour security watch.
Of the hundred or so dangerous plants, visitors will find Ricinus communis, whose seeds will disintegrate several vital internal organs, and laburnum, which quickly sends its victims into a coma if consumed. You’ll also find cannabis (above).
Archaeologists in the Burnt City have discovered what appears to be an ancient prosthetic eye. What makes this discovery exceptionally awesome is the striking description of how the owner and her false eye would have appeared while she was still alive and blinking:
[The eye] has a hemispherical form and a diameter of just over 2.5 cm (1 inch). It consists of very light material, probably bitumen paste. The surface of the artificial eye is covered with a thin layer of gold, engraved with a central circle (representing the iris) and gold lines patterned like sun rays. The female remains found with the artificial eye was 1.82 m tall (6 feet), much taller than ordinary women of her time. On both sides of the eye are drilled tiny holes, through which a golden thread could hold the eyeball in place. Since microscopic research has shown that the eye socket showed clear imprints of the golden thread, the eyeball must have been worn during her lifetime. The woman’s skeleton has been dated to between 2900 and 2800 BCE.
So she was an extraordinarily tall woman walking around wearing an engraved golden eye patterned with rays like a tiny sun. What an awesome sight that must have been.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
One of Switzerland's greatest clockmakers Pierre Jaquet-Droz created a human-looking automaton in the 18th century that is programmed to write messages with a pen. Called 'The Writer,' this 240-year-old device is the world's most astonishing and surviving automaton machine.
The concept behind Pierre's construction was to mechanize reason and automate passions. The writer boy consists of approximately 6,000 parts; every single part of this automaton has been excruciatingly refined and reduced to a miniature form to fit everything inside the bodice, allowing the machine to work completely on its own. In the core are a stack of cams, and as they move, built-in followers read the shaped edges and translate these into the movement of the boy's arm controlling every single stroke of the quill pen.
![archiemcphee: Here’s an awesome little piece of history: Archaeologists in the Burnt City have discovered what appears to be an ancient prosthetic eye. What makes this discovery exceptionally awesome is the striking description of how the owner and her false eye would have appeared while she was still alive and blinking: [The eye] has a hemispherical form and a diameter of just over 2.5 cm (1 inch). It consists of very light material, probably bitumen paste. The surface of the artificial eye is covered with a thin layer of gold, engraved with a central circle (representing the iris) and gold lines patterned like sun rays. The female remains found with the artificial eye was 1.82 m tall (6 feet), much taller than ordinary women of her time. On both sides of the eye are drilled tiny holes, through which a golden thread could hold the eyeball in place. Since microscopic research has shown that the eye socket showed clear imprints of the golden thread, the eyeball must have been worn during her lifetime. The woman’s skeleton has been dated to between 2900 and 2800 BCE. So she was an extraordinarily tall woman walking around wearing an engraved golden eye patterned with rays like a tiny sun. What an awesome sight that must have been. [via TYWKIWDBI]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lutwf7hL811qzfsnio1_500.jpg)
