Tony Gerber and a team of scientist and filmmakers are heading to Afghanistan to film the elusive snow leopard. They will be in the Wakhan Corridor, specifically. Over the last month, we’ve learned interesting things about the Wakhan Corridor. For instance:

Pari are female supernatural denizens of the high mountains. People in Pakistan, Afghanistan, north India and throughout Central Asia are familiar with pari. The Wakhi ethnic population in northern Pakistan, China, Tajikistan and Afghanistan have their own word for pari: mergichan. The mergichan inhabit the mergich realm, which is the realm of the mountains and high pastures. It is a pure, even sacred realm, where the supernatural mountain spirits tend their wild flocks of blue sheep and ibex. Humans only enter the mergich realm during summer, and only after ceremonially announcing to the mergichan that the people will displace them for the summer and asking them for a favorable influence on the livestock and dairy production.

By Dr. John Mock, 2004

Continue reading here.

By David Hinckley/ New York Daily News
Friday, April 13, 2012 9:18 PM

News of the Titanic’s sinking spread a little differently a hundred years ago.

There being no Twitter and Facebook, not to mention no television or radio, newspapers were the primary means of relaying the word.

But there was a viral culture then, too, and if it wasn’t on a 4G network, it was still pretty time-tested: word of mouth.
And those mouths often turned to singing.

Something awful would happen and someone would write a song about it, usually set to a familiar melody and packed with ultra-melodramatic imagery.

The Titanic tragedy was perfect material. Everyone was interested in this huge unsinkable ship plunging to the ocean floor and no imagery could be too over-the-top to conjure it.

Here are a few samples, with some links to listen:

Read more here.

There’s little known about the only black family on the Titanic. While there is a rich history of creating “Shine” songs and stories about black peoples aboard “the ship of dreams”, none of these touch on the actual family whose lives changed forever aboard the ship.

Born in Haiti in 1886, Joseph Lemercier Laroache couldn’t possibly have known that he would play as major a role in history as he has. At the age of 15 he moved to France with the plan of getting an education in engineering. Joseph and Juliette Laroache had two children, Simonne and Louise. Due to her premature birth, Louise was terribly ill and, therefore, her medical bills were pretty expensive. Unable to find high paying work as an engineer in France, Mr. Laroache decided to move his family back to Haiti.

Originally schedule to set sail aboard the France, a gift from Mr. Laroache’s mother, Mr. Laroache and his family sold their 1st class tickets for 2nd class Titanic seats. Like many men, Mr. Laroache did not survive that fateful night on April 14th. Mrs. Juliette Laroache survived with her two children Simonne and Louise.

Not since the George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview has National Geographic seen a rating score like they saw Sunday night with Titanic: The Final Word w/ James Cameron. The film was produced and directed by Market Road’s Tony Gerber and that night, Gerber live tweeted during the event.

According to National Geographic, the show received over 1.7 million viewers over the age of two. I’m sure we also had a ton of viewers under the age of two.

If, for whatever reason, you missed the show, you can catch it this Friday, April 13th at 9:00 PM EST and Sunday, April 15th at 5:00 PM EST on National Geographic Channel.

Below are some of our favorite tweet questions from the night:

Tune in on Sunday, April 8, 2012 at 8:00 PM EST/PST for Market Road’s National Geographic special Titanic: The Final Word w/ James Cameron.

Join James Cameron and some of the foremost Titanic experts in the ultimate forensic investigation, the climax of 100 years of inquiries into a disaster that continues to resonate a century after the fact. Cameron’s crack team of engineers, naval architects, and artists will not only apply their expertise to some of the lingering unanswered questions behind the disaster, but will examine the feature film and determine what Cameron got wrong fifteen years ago.

How did “the ship of dreams” become a devastating nightmare? What happened to the ship during its balletic two-mile plummet from ocean surface to sea floor? Why does the stern section of the ship look like it was hit by a nuclear bomb?

“There have been a lot of ideas, a lot of theories. It’s time to just say, this is what happened to the best of our collective knowledge,” says Cameron, director of the 1997 Academy Award winning Titanic. “Titanic is like a fractal, the more you get to it, the more you see completely new patterns.”

Directed by Market Road Films’ Tony Gerber, and using state of the art technology, this film will give you a real inside look into the unsinkable ship. For more information or to watch a preview, visit National Geographic.

Gerber will be live tweeting director’s commentary, including his experience directing James Cameron and behind the scenes information, during the world premiere.

Follow him @marketroadfilms and tweet him your questions.