Monthly Archives: July 2013

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A Russian lawmaker has asked parliament to give women two days paid leave a month when they menstruate, a move that has irked rights activists worried over creeping conservatism since Vladimir Putin resumed the presidency. Mikhail Degtyaryov, a member of the nationalist LDPR party led by the outspoken Vladimir Zhirinovsky, wrote on his website that he had proposed a draft law to increase the protection of women at the workplace.

“During that period (of menstruation), most women experience psychological and physiological discomfort. The pain for the fair sex is often so intense that it is necessary to call an ambulance,” said Degtyaryov, 32, who is married with two sons. Marina Pisklakova-Parker, head of women’s group Anna Center, said the proposal was absurd. “If we are seriously debating women’s efficiency at work during menstruation, we should also consider how fit for work men are after a drinking bout,” she said.

Russian lawmaker proposes paid days off for menstruating women (NBC News)

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Sprite lightning in Armagh.

The observatory said the detection was made around the time of a thunderstorm over Dublin on the 24/25 July 2013. The images show the sprite, a carrot-shaped flash of light, rising high above the thunderclouds as seen from Armagh. Typical lightning discharges often jump between clouds or between clouds and the ground. Sprites are associated with similarly powerful electrical fields that occur high above the clouds of the Earth’s atmosphere often during particularly intense thunderstorms.

Rare atmospheric phenomenon over Armagh (BBC)

river-3 river-5 river-7river-1river-2Photographer Anatoly Beloshchin’s photo series of Cenote Angelita (‘Little Angel’) in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula: an apparent ‘river’ in a collapsed limestone cenote cave formed by a phenomenon known as halocline.

According to Beloshchin, Cenote Angelita is fresh water until a depth of about 29m. There’s then a 1m layer of hydrogen sulphide, below which the entire base of the cave is filled with a dense layer of saltwater 30m to 60m deep.

This saltwater layer is the ‘river’.

Cenote Agelita, the underwater river (Seaway Blog)

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