(M) // M’s Journey XYZ

Prelim M6.2 earthquake hits Indonesia....

Scientists at MIT have found a way to turn tumors against themselves, using mRNA to activate an immune pathway that triggers their own destruction. news.mit.edu/2025/turning-i…

India by Norman Parkinson Vogue 1956

@SteveOnSpeed Yes. Apparently so…

A nurse told me to opt out of organ donation because it might affect medical decisions, and not in my favor. Does this actually happen?

A great animation short !! Very creative and the art is banging. instagram.com/nobodyaskedstu…

Taisekkai Mandala in Cave 3, Yulin Grottoes, XiXia Period 西夏时期榆林窟第3窟胎藏界曼陀罗 p2: Pūjā Bodhisattva供养菩萨 p3: Vāyu 风天

The Philippine Dress: 500 Years of Straddling Polarities - Arts of Asia artsofasia.com/the-philippine…

🤔 I think I need some…#SpoilerAlert 4 M

A deal in a French villa, a mountain of gold, and a plan to move the center of the Islamic world to India—this was the "Wedding of the Century." When we think of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, we rarely look toward the Deccan. Yet, as detailed in The Indian Caliphate, the 1930s saw an audacious attempt to resurrect the Caliphate, abolished by the new Turkish Republic, which had exiled the once-mighty Ottoman dynasty. In 1931, in a villa in Nice, an extraordinary alliance was forged between the exiled Ottoman Caliph, Abdulmejid II— bearing the world’s most prestigious lineage—and the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali, then the wealthiest man on Earth, as noted in the book. The deal, brokered by Khilafat leader Maulana Shaukat Ali, was far more than a marriage. The contract joining the Nizam’s sons, Princes Azam Jah and Moazzam Jah, with the Caliph’s daughter Princess Durrushehvar and his niece Niloufer, included a wassiyat (will) aiming to transfer the Caliphal title to the Nizam’s line. Prince Mukarram Jah, son of Azam Jah and Durrushehvar, was intended to one day lead the global Muslim community from Hyderabad—turning the Deccan into a “Vatican of the East.” The arrival of Princesses Durrushehvar and Niloufer in Hyderabad sparked a quiet revolution. Raised in Europe and highly educated, they became the state’s public diplomats—seen driving cars, playing tennis, and founding vital institutions, from girls’ orphanages to a cancer hospital. As the Caliph’s daughter, Durrushehvar famously rebuffed the Turkish Prime Minister in London, refusing to “play nice” with the government that had exiled her family. But history moved too fast. The 1947 Partition and 1948 annexation of Hyderabad ended the “Indian Caliphate” dream. Though the political vision vanished, the legacy of these women endured. They weren’t relics of an empire but modernizers who used prestige to champion women’s education and healthcare. History often views the Caliphate’s fall as purely Mediterranean, yet Durrushehvar and Niloufer’s story reveals an overlooked chapter—when two dynasties sought to bridge tradition and modernity through a marriage that nearly shifted the spiritual axis of the world. More in @Imran_posts ‘s The Indian Caliphate, published by @HarperCollinsIN

The Kingdom of Silk, Poison, and Elaborate Etiquette That Baffled Every Neighbor It Had The kingdom of Dahomey, in what is now the Republic of Benin, was by the standards of its neighbors and its era one of the most unusual states in West Africa and it was unusual in several directions simultaneously. It maintained a standing army that included an all-female unit called the Agojie, known to Europeans as the Dahomey Amazons, who served as the king's personal bodyguard and elite fighting force and by the 19th century numbered several thousand soldiers. They were not a ceremonial unit. They fought in the wars Dahomey conducted against its neighbors with a reputation for effectiveness that European observers, who found the entire institution difficult to process, recorded with a mixture of admiration and discomfort. The kingdom also ran one of the most administratively sophisticated states in the region. It conducted a census. It maintained treasury records. It had a system of taxation that functioned with enough regularity to fund a professional military. The court protocol was elaborate to a degree that startled European visitors. Every statement made to the king was first whispered to a female official who then repeated it aloud to the court, meaning nothing reached the king directly. Every gift had a precise meaning in the gift-giving vocabulary the court had developed. Getting the protocol wrong had consequences that visiting European merchants and diplomats found clarifying. The kingdom's wealth was built significantly on the slave trade, Dahomey raided its neighbors, took prisoners, and sold them to European traders at the coast in numbers that made it one of the most significant suppliers in the West African slave trade during its peak period. The Agojie who fought those raids to capture slaves were themselves legally the king's possessions. The kingdom held every contradiction it contained with complete consistency, right up until the French colonial army arrived in 1892, fought two wars against it, and won the second one. The Agojie fought in both.

Fushifaru Added to Halal Tourism Investment Portfolio as Bidding Process Expands corporatemaldives.com/fushifaru-adde… via @Corporate Maldives

Yes 🙌

The Khmers do not claim cultural supremacy, nor do we distort history to assert an exclusive claim over the Khmer Empire of the Angkorian Era (9th to 14th centuries)... #opinion #KhmerTimes #prejudiced khmertimeskh.com/501870275/a-pr…

@skcrypto18 @pureguava10300 Simple. Terrace door left open.

@pureguava10300 Snakes don’t just turn up in a hotel room. How would it even get in there. Someone has hatched up a sinister plan

What the hell is this?! A couple checked into a hotel in Krabi. Around 5 AM, one partner suddenly got up, ran out of the room crying and shouting that there was a snake on the bed—right by their head. The partner sleeping in the other bed first thought it was a ghost or something supernatural. But listening more carefully, they clearly heard: “A snake—there’s a snake slithering across my neck, a black cobra!” When they checked around the bed, that’s when it appeared—a large snake, hissing aggressively. Just seeing it gives you chills. เชี้ยรัยเนี้ย !! คู่รักเข้าพักโรงแรมแห่งหนึ่ง ที่กระบี่ ช่วงประมาณตี 5 แฟนลุกออกจากห้องแล้วก็ร้องไห้ตะโกนบอกว่ามีงูอยู่บนที่นอน บนหัว แฟนที่นอนอยู่อีกเตียงนึกว่าถูกผีหลอก แต่พอฟังอีกที ก็ได้ยินชัดว่า " งูงูเลื้อยผ่านคอไปงูเห่าตัวสีดำ " พอค้นซอกเตียงเท่านั้นแหละ มาตัวเขื่องขู่ฟ่อฟ่อ เห็นแล้วขนลุกแม่ #kanutakonuttaranakorn facebook.com/share/v/1G29RF…

@WeTheBrandon @cjwerleman Wrong.

There is no other way to say it: the Gulf is never going to recover from this and the world is going to feel economic pain for a while after this.

@mathryn_m My friends - ICU nurses - strongly advised me against being a donor. Since then I withdrew my medical passport ….

Organ donation used to seem like such a charitable idea; now it seems like a death trap.

Why Uppercase and Lowercase Have Those Names

As expected. Greenland next.

'Major disruption in Neanderthal history': 65,000 years ago, all Neanderthals in Europe died out except for one lineage livescience.com/archaeology/ne…

Building Tanks While the Ukrainians Master Drones - The Atlantic theatlantic.com/national-secur…