![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranFrom time to time our usual supermarket has a special offer where you get a newspaper free when you spent five dollars or more. Even when we take it up, I find I'm still more likely to read the online version when the paper one is right in front of me.
Saturday morning, the shopping done, and, oh look it's a travel article about the Silk Road in the smh...
In 1900, a Chinese monk clearing sand from a meditation grotto spotted a crack in a painted wall. Behind it lay a small ante-chamber crammed from floor to ceiling with thousands of paper scrolls. All had been perfectly preserved for 1000 years within the dark, dry cave.
Then to wikipedia to learn about the Gobi desert...
The expansion of the Gobi is attributed mostly to human activities, notably deforestation, overgrazing, and depletion of water resources. China has made various plans to try to slow the expansion of the desert, which have met with some small degree of success, but usually have no major impact. The most recent plan involves the planting of the Green Wall of China, a huge ring of newly planted forests that the Chinese government hopes will act as a buffer against further expansion.
And, following the "See Also", the Legendary Mongolian Death Worm...
In his book "On the Trail of Ancient Man" (1926), Roy Chapman Andrews (an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History) cites Mongolian Prime Minister Damdinbazar who in 1922 described the worm allergorhai-horhai:
"It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor leg and it is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death. It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert…"
Saturday morning, the shopping done, and, oh look it's a travel article about the Silk Road in the smh...
In 1900, a Chinese monk clearing sand from a meditation grotto spotted a crack in a painted wall. Behind it lay a small ante-chamber crammed from floor to ceiling with thousands of paper scrolls. All had been perfectly preserved for 1000 years within the dark, dry cave.
Then to wikipedia to learn about the Gobi desert...
The expansion of the Gobi is attributed mostly to human activities, notably deforestation, overgrazing, and depletion of water resources. China has made various plans to try to slow the expansion of the desert, which have met with some small degree of success, but usually have no major impact. The most recent plan involves the planting of the Green Wall of China, a huge ring of newly planted forests that the Chinese government hopes will act as a buffer against further expansion.
And, following the "See Also", the Legendary Mongolian Death Worm...
In his book "On the Trail of Ancient Man" (1926), Roy Chapman Andrews (an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History) cites Mongolian Prime Minister Damdinbazar who in 1922 described the worm allergorhai-horhai:
"It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor leg and it is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death. It lives in the most desolate parts of the Gobi Desert…"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-06-26 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-13 08:25 pm (UTC)The programme makers didn't manage to find one:-(