Greece is in for a rough night as protesters in Athens have set fire to buildings and Syntagma Square has been intermittently cloaked in tear gas, the BBC reports. It's estimated that up to 80,000 people have taken to the streets to protest an expected "Yes" vote on additional austerity measures to assure a new loan pay out. Protesters believe the conditions, including a sharp cut in the already-low minimum wage, benefit banks and creditors at the expense of the everyday Greek.

Skai TV, Greece - Live Feed. This feed will show live news from Greece, but may revert to regular daily programming depending on conditions. In Greek.

News Sources from Greece>

On Twitter, posts are aggregating under the hashtags #greece and #syntagma, among many others.

While financial deal talks drag on, despite an announcement of a kind of agreement on Thursday, anti-austerity protestors are taking to the streets in Greece Friday. Protestors were reported to have occupied the Ministry of Finance building in Athens and to have clashed with police at Syntagma Square. A 2-day general transportation strike may be keeping protest numbers down as it is making it difficult to get to the city centers. Official offices and squares in the rest of Greece are also the focus of protests as Greeks fear that the latest round of talks may benefit Greece's creditors but only by exacting a huge price from the average Greek.

Skai TV, Greece - Live Feed. This feed will show live news from Greece, but may revert to regular daily programming depending on conditions. In Greek.

News Sources from Greece>

BBC - Greece crisis: Strike against Eurozone austerity deal

On Twitter, posts are aggregating under the hashtags #greece, #syntagma, and #10fgr, among many others.

The grand city of Thessaloniki in the north of Greece is often skipped by visitors who are naturally seduced by the call of the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens and environs.

Serving once as the "Cultural Capital of Europe", Thessaloniki is renowned for its arts and vigorous intellectual community - but that hasn't stopped local development from threatening to "pave paradise" and put up an apartment building on top of an exceptionally large and ancient temple site to Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty.

Hm. Aren't those divine traits something Greece needs more of right now, not less? Not to mention the wisdom of adding another tourist attraction or two in a time when tourism may be one of the strongest and most reliable components of the Greek economic recovery... while the real estate market and apartment prices are plunging.

Save the Temple

Sixth Century BC Temple of Aphrodite to Be Buried to Make Way for Apartment Building

There is a letter blank to send to the Mayor of Thessaloniki on behalf of Aphrodite - and since Valentine's Day is coming up, you never know - lending her a hand might inspire her to smile right back on your own romantic intentions.

No, not the Greek god of the sea Poseidon - but the sea grass called Posidonia oceanica, which grows throughout the Mediterranean and forms vast clumps off some Greek islands, including Milos and Crete.

Scientists now believe that the grass, which reproduces only by cloning itself, qualifies as a "single" organism with an ancient history of about 43,000 years, based on its slow spread between Cyprus and Spain.

I had a close encounter with this ancient denizen of the not-so-deep when I managed to get my foot tangled in it while trying to clamber back into a kayak in Adamas Bay. Uprooted and dried out on the beaches, tourists often think they've stumbled across a mysterious paper-shredding shipwreck, as the dried fronds look and feel like long quarter-inch strips of paper.

So if you're snorkeling or diving looking for the most ancient remains, forget the submerged column bases and gaze admiringly at the sea grass growing beside it - it can teach carved marble a thing or two about longevity.

NewScientist: Patch of seagrass is world's oldest living organism

More on Seagrass from About.com's Marine Life Guide