Facts and Trivias about Sardinia

[askra]

The Sardinia Radio Telescope (Srt), inaugurated in september 2013, is the second largest, fully steerable single-dish radio telescope in the world (after the Green Bank Radiotelescope in West Virginia, USA) and the first in Europe.

The telescope, originated from a collaboration between National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), Italian Space Agency (ASI) and Sardinia Autonomous Region, costs approximately 70 million of euros and it is located 40 kilometers from Cagliari, in the Pranu Sanguni (that in southern sardinian language means Bloody Plain, because according to a legend here the dragon was killed by Saint George and its blood dispersed on the land)

The Srt is designed to accommodate several instruments with a frequency coverage from 0.30 GHz to 100 GHz. In addition to the radio astronomy science applications, this instrument will be used for deep space communication missions in conjunction with the Italian Space Agency, European Space Agency and Nasa, as well as for geodynamic studies.

The radio telescope will be used also to search extraterrestrial intelligence, by SETI program by NASA.

According to a conspiracy theory the radio telescope is used by the HAARP program, and originated the Cyclone Cleopatra, which hit Sardinia in november 2013.






https://www.researchitaly.it/en/unde...ope-in-europe/
http://www.focus.it/scienza/spazio/i...uropa_C12.aspx
http://lanuovasardegna.gelocal.it/ca...cope-1.7843415

[askra]

According to some researches due to the low birth rate the island will lose 300,000 inhabitants in the next 50 years (about the 20% of the actual population).

• Birth rate 8.3 births/1000 inhabitants (If Sardinia was a sovereign country would be second only to Germany according to the OECD and the World Bank)
• Fertility rate 1.07 sons per woman (second only to Macau according to the World Bank).

Sardinia is the italian region with the highest consumption of the contraceptive pill (30,3% of women vs only 16% of the italian average).

Sardinia is the italian region with the highest number of babies born by older mothers (over 40 years old). In Sardinia the percentage is 11 %, while the national average is 8,2%.


http://www.ilciriaco.it/donna/news/?news=7229
http://lanuovasardegna.gelocal.it/sa...r-40-1.8192023

[Black Wolf]

Indeed Sardinians are an interesting group of people. They are the closest living people genetically to the early Neolithic farmers of Europe.

[askra]

One of the largest grottoes in the island, houses a large stalactite-stalagmite compound, the tallest in Europe and the 4th tallest in the world, measuring 38 m in total.


stalactite-stalagmite in the Ispinigoli Grottos (Dorgali)

http://www.showcaves.com/english/explain/Statistics/Stalagmites.html

[askra]

Flag of the kingdom of Tavolara



The Kingdom of Tavolara was an imaginary state claiming independence in the 19th and 20th centuries in Tavolara Island, off the northeast coast of Sardinia. Set up by the Bertoleoni family, it claimed to be one of the smallest kingdoms in the world.

Giuseppe Bertoleoni claimed to be its monarch. When he died in the 1840s, his eldest son became "King" Paolo I.

During his reign, in 1861 the Italian government paid 12,000 lire for land at the northeast end of the island to build a lighthouse, which began operating in 1868.


Isle of Tavolara

After Paolo's death in 1886, a number of newspapers published the report that according to his will, the island had become a republic. The New York Times described a government with president and council of six elected every six years by a vote of the people, male and female. Others reported on Tavolara's alleged third presidential election in 1896. These reports, however, did not end the Bertoleoni "kingdom".


The third "king" of Tavolara was Carlo I, who was succeeded upon his death in 1928 by his son "King" Paolo II. Paolo went abroad, however, and left Carlo's sister Mariangela as regent in his absence. Mariangela died in 1934, leaving the "kingdom" to Italy.
Her nephew Paolo II still claimed the kingdom, however until his death in 1962. A year that marked the installation of a NATO station on the island.
The present head of the Bertoleoni family is Tonino Bertoleoni, who runs "Da Tonino", a restaurant on the island. Politically, the interests of the micronation are represented in its external dealings by "Prince" Ernesto Geremia di Tavolara of La Spezia, Italy, who has written a history of the island.
The tomb of Paolo I is in the graveyard on the island, surmounted by a crown.


Photo of the family of Carlo Bertoleoni (self-proclaimed "King of Tavolara", a tiny island in Sardinia), ca. 1890. The Berteleonis were the only inhabitants of the island (and "kingdom"), where they sustained themselves by farming goats and fishing.


Grave of the 2nd King of Tavolara in the island's cemetery

[askra]

The only colony where cats live on the beach in the world .

Many ethologists are studying the weird behaviour of these cats, which look they don't fear the water and the waves, on the contrary they play on the seashore and observe and try to hunt fishes, shellfish and other aquatic animals.

[askra]

Though Sardinia is out from the political influence of the Kingdom of Spain since the 18th century, the Kings of Spain have maintained some title of nobilities related to Sardinia.

Today the King Felipe VI of Spain has been appointed Marquis of Goceano (A sub region of central northern Sardinia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goceano) and Oristano (one of the 7 Sardinian "Royal Towns", that were directly ruled by the emperor of Spain in the past http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oristano).

[askra]

The mistral (Sardinian: maistràle or bentu maestru) is the dominant wind in Sardinia.

It's a strong, cold and northwesterly wind that blows from north west europe to France into the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean and towards Sardinia and Corsica.

The Mistral has left indelible signs in the island's landscape. It eroded and modelled the rocks, and deformed the trees which assumed an inclined position towards South-East. In summer this wind can quickly lower the temperatures and strengthens the forest fires.

Coark oaks bent by the mistral in Sardinia:








Granitic rock formations eroded by the mistral and rain:

[askra]

On the West Sardinia coasts exist some fossil beaches constituted not by sand but by crystals of quartz. They are so rare that stealing the quartz grains can lead to the arrest.

[askra]

Sea silk is an extremely fine, rare, and valuable fabric that is made from the long silky filaments or byssus secreted by a gland in the foot of pen shells (in particular Pinna nobilis). The byssus is used by the clam to attach itself to the sea bed.

Sea silk was produced in the Mediterranean region from the large marine bivalve mollusc Pinna nobilis until early in the 20th century, it is still produced today only in the Sant'Antioco Island, in South West Sardinia.

The shell, which is sometimes almost a metre long, adheres itself to rocks with a tuft of very strong thin fibres, pointed end down, in the intertidal zone. These byssus or filaments (which can be up to 6 cm long) are spun and, when treated with lemon juice, turn a golden colour, which never fades.

The cloth produced from these filaments can be woven even finer than silk, and is extremely light and warm; however, it attracts clothes moths, the larvae of which will eat it. It was said that a pair of women's gloves could fit into half a walnut shell and a pair of stockings in a snuffbox. In addition, Pinna nobilis is also sometimes gathered for its flesh (as food) and occasionally has pearls of fair quality.

Pinna nobilis has become threatened with extinction, partly due to overfishing, the decline in seagrass fields, and pollution. As it has declined so dramatically, the once small but vibrant sea silk industry has almost disappeared.