Oh, my programmer friends are going to enjoy this thing about primates programming in Visual Basic. Hee! Found at PeteBevin.com.

This is the sort of project I love to hear about: software to make the web more accessible for people in poor countries.

Software that speeds internet access by up to 35 times has been developed to help people in poor countries go online.

Aidbase, which currently exists as a working prototype, is one of a range of pieces of software under development by the Aidworld team, associated with Cambridge University.

"Aidworld is developing lightweight software to take the world wide web world wide," said Tom Corsellis, Aidworld's founder.

The Aidbase software, which will be free to use, is aimed at the vast majority of the world's population, well over 90%, not yet online.

A significant proportion of these people have access to a landline.

"We wanted to bridge the digital divide instead of talking about it," Dr Corsellis said.

The software, demonstrated at Aidworld's website, works by stripping out graphics and simplifying the format of web pages, leaving just the lightweight text.

It is designed for use on internet connections running either over satellite telephones, where connection costs are ruinously high, or poor-quality landlines, where the connection may break at any moment.

Aidworld hopes that by initially making the software available to aid workers, the technology will be adopted by others in the developing world who need access to web-based information. [continue]

From novinite.com: Archeologists Excited to Explore Unique Roman Tomb in Sofia.

A unique Roman tomb was discovered by accident in Bulgaria's capital Sofia. During works to repair the city's water conduit, a tomb was unearthed as part of the Roman necropolis under the St Sofia basilica.

The tomb dates back to the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century B.C. according to the head of the archeological team Mario Ivanov. This is one of the biggest burial places discovered in the region, he pointed out.

The tomb draws special attention because of the unique way its vault-arch was built. It is supported by massive stones to make sure it would not collapse under its own weight.

The tomb's history of discovery is as interesting as its design. Two years ago, plumbers came across it while digging in the area but kept working in secrecy so they could complete the task without having "annoying" archeologists on the site. When a pipe recently cracked and digging started again, an architect spotted the ancient ruins and called the specialists.

When a fjord takes on a tropical hue, there are a lot of surprised Norwegians. From Aftenposten:

An unusually warm summer and lots of sunshine has given rise to plankton that's turned the usually blue waters of Northern Norway's Alta Fjord to a tropical turquoise.

A plunge into the water would jolt anyone to reality. It's still a lot chillier than the warm waters of Kailua or St Thomas.

But the visual similarity is striking, and local government agencies have received plenty of calls from worried residents who wonder what's going on.

Researchers attribute the phenomenon to the more than 12 million plankton plants per liter of water that were measured in the Alta Fjord on Monday. [continue]

From the Scotsman: Church's mystery skeletons may have been priests.

The six skeletons found last week beneath the floorboards of a Church of Scotland parish church could be the bones of Roman Catholic priests.

This is the opinion of Canon Bernard Canning, a Catholic historian and parish priest of St Thomas's, in Neilston, Renfrewshire.

The find was made by workers on the major refurbishment programme at the parish church in Neilston, which has been a place of prayer or a site of a church for the past 1,000 years.

Canon Canning explained: "It is possible that they are the remains of former parish priests. Until 1927, it was customary in many countries to inter the remains of parish priests within churches.

"After 1927, Rome issued a decree stating that only the remains of residential bishops were to be interred within a church or cathedral."

When the grim discovery was made, the police were alerted and they immediately sealed off the building as a possible crime site.

But members of Glasgow University's Department of Archaeology who were also working on the site soon confirmed that the skeletons could be 400 years old. [continue]

From This is Lincolnshire: Treasures could mark site of Roman temple.

A Roman temple containing thousands of ancient artefacts may have been discovered lying just three feet beneath a Lincolnshire field.

Coins, brooches, bronze armour and mosaic tiles all from the first century have been found at the site near Market Rasen.

Interest in the field was sparked by a man who regularly uses a metal detector to scan the surface for buried objects - in the past three months he has found more than 200 artefacts at the site.

He reported his finds to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, a project run by Lincolnshire County Council which records archaeological objects found by members of the public.

Finds liaison officer Adam Daubney (24) said it was an important discovery.

"Objects found at site include a knife handle which is embossed with a bull's head, a pair of brooches, a complete bronze bowl and a statuette of the goddess Minerva.

"And there were three finds described as 'treasure' - which means that they contain 10 per cent gold. For such prized artefacts to be together it means the site would have been used by the Romans."

A team from the council's conservation department is investigating the finds but is not yet sure what the discoveries represent.

"We do not think it is a domestic dwelling because we know there is a Roman villa nearby and villas tend to be spread far apart," he said.

"But it could be the site of a Roman temple which may explain why there are so many expensive finds at the one site.

"Maybe these are sacrificial offering to Roman gods."

The department is now planning to investigate the site to find out exactly what is beneath the surface. [continue]

From Ananova: Mystery capsule reveals 2,000-year-old Roman ointment.

A Roman capsule unearthed at an archaeological dig in central London has been opened to reveal a pot of 2,000-year-old cream.

The ointment, complete with finger marks, was discovered in a sealed tin canister at a Roman temple complex in Southwark.

The round, metal box has a diameter of 6cm and is 5cm high. It was taken from a Roman drain and appears to have been deliberately hidden, 2,000 years ago.

It was opened at the Museum of London by Museum conservator Liz Barham, who said: "It seems to be very much like an ointment, it's got finger marks in the lid.

"If this is a sealed Roman container, those are Roman finger marks."

The discovery was unearthed in mid-July by Pre-Construct Archaeology, whose managing director, Gary Brown, looking over Ms Barham's shoulder, said: "I'm astounded. We've been asked several times what to expect in there, but I don't think we could have expected that it would be so full, or that it would be some kind of cosmetic, moisturising cream or whatever it is.

"Clearly Roman creams of any type, paint or cosmetic, do not normally survive in the archaeological record, we don't know if it's unique, but it's pretty exceptional."

Francis Grew, curator of the museum, said it was known that the Romans had face creams. They used asses' milk as a cream, he said.

When Ms Barham took the top off the box, a strong sulphurous smell was released from the container.

The religious complex is the first in the capital and one of the most important ever seen in Britain. The site is rare evidence of organised religion in London 2,000 years ago and opens out a previously hidden district of the ancient city.

Related articles:
Capsule reveals cream of Roman society - BBC
Ancient Roman cosmetic cream unearthed - NewScientist.com
Ancient Roman cosmetics unearthed in London - from abc.net.au
Roman fingerprints found in 2,000-year-old cream - from The Guardian
2,000-year-old pot opened - another one from The Guardian
Explorers rub hands over ancient Roman cream - from the New Zealand Herald
Face cream found from ancient Rome - from the Herald Sun
Ancient Roman cosmetic cream unearthed - from New Scientist

From Wired.com: Diagnosis and Medicine in a Pill.

Engineers at the University of Calgary have developed a pill that, once swallowed, will determine how healthy or ill the patient is, and will release just the right amount of medicine accordingly.

Dubbed the Intelligent Pill or iPill, the new drug-delivery system packs a micropump and sensors that monitor the body's temperature and pH balance into one pill. If the body's temperature and pH reach certain levels, the iPill responds by pumping out more or less of its drug payload. It could be used to treat many ailments like AIDS or diabetes.

"If you overdose yourself with pain relievers, you are killing your kidneys and liver," said the iPill's inventor, Wael Badawy, an electrical engineer at the University of Calgary. "The iPill will help people have healthier kidneys and liver, as it will only deliver the dose that's needed."

The device also can be programmed to release drugs at various intervals. This could be particularly useful in treating diseases such as cancer or AIDS, where cocktails of many different medications may be required at constant intervals.

"Instead of taking many pills at different times, with the iPill you could adjust its timer and swallow them all at once and get the right doses at the right times," Badawy said. [continue]

I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth, and will blog more on Monday. We've escaped Vancouver for a while, and are now staying in a cottage by the sea. It's lovely. More soon.

Odd Music is the sort of site that could keep a person busy for hours, or maybe days.

Oddmusic.com is for anyone interested in unique, unusual, ethnic, or experimental music and instruments. So whether you play stalagmites in a cave, the kaval, bow telegraph wires across the Nullarbor Plain, twist electrons by circuit bending, call whales on a Waterphone, or just love listening, this site is for you.

Showcasing the sounds, music, and instruments of artists and artisans from around the globe. From gourd music to electronic odysseys, harp guitars to industrial insect metal, from the beautiful to the bizarre.

The Odd Music Gallery includes links to musical instruments stranger than you could have imagined. Beer bottle organ, anyone? A double violin? Or how about the Pikasso, with its four necks, two sound holes, and 42 strings?

There's lots to explore, but it would be hard to beat the Stalacpipe Organ:

Located deep in the Luray Caverns in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley is the Great Stalacpipe Organ, the worlds largest musical instrument. Stalactites covering 3 1/2 acres of the surrounding caverns produce tones of symphonic quality when electronically tapped by rubber-tipped mallets. This most unique, one-of-a-kind instrument was invented in 1954 by Mr. LeIand W. Sprinkle of Springfield, Virginia, a mathematician and electronic scientist at the Pentagon. He began his monumental 3 year project by searching the vast chambers of the caverns selecting stalactites to precisely match a musical scale. Electronic mallets were wired throughout the caverns and connected to a large four-manual console. When a key is depressed, a tone occurs as the rubber-tipped plunger strikes the stalactite tuned to concert pitch.

The mind boggles.

From the Times of London: Cliffs reveal history down to last drop.

Archaeologists are defying cliff erosion to study a quarry containing the remnants of Britain's first major chemical industry, which flourished for 250 years with the help of a stolen Vatican secret and the urine of Londoners. The site at Loftus, near Whitby, on the North Yorkshire coast, was one of 20 quarries which provided a living for generations of workers between the early 17th and late 19th centuries, producing alum for the cloth-dyeing industry.

Experts from English Heritage, equipped with ropes and harnesses, have spent the past month perched on cliffs to record evidence of the process by which shale dug from the quarry was turned into what was then one of the world's most valuable commodities.

The crumbling 600ft cliffs will vanish into the North Sea within ten years and some sections are so dangerous that they can be photographed only from the air, but archaeologists have already found remains of old buildings, culverts and other workings left untouched since the industry collapsed with the arrival of new technology in the 1870s.

Alum had been discovered during the Middle Ages to be the ideal fixing agent for dyeing cloth, especially wool, the chemical acting as a "mordant" to hold the dye molecules to the fibres of the cloth. In Europe, a lucrative monopoly on the alum market was held by the Vatican, largely because no one else had mastered the complex refining process by which alum was created — much to the frustration of Yorkshire landowners who knew that alum shale was to be found in abundance on the cliffs and the edges of the moors around Whitby.

Rome's monopoly was shattered at the end of the 16th century, allegedly when a group of Italian workers were persuaded to sell the secret to the English. Abby Hunt, an English Heritage archaeological investigator, said that the defectors were set to work on the Yorkshire coast, spawning an industry that would provide work for thousands and was "a most significant point in Britain's industrial heritage". [continue]

Spotted here at Cronaca.

At the beach last night we were more than surprised when this Viking ship sailed past. It's not the sort of thing one expects to see in Vancouver waters, you know? Turns out that a local group, The British Columbia Viking Ship Project, built this 40 foot replica. They've named the boat Munin. Go have a look at some of the sailing pictures, the launching ceremony pictures, or the picture gallery.

I've been thinking about building a boat (more on that another day) but building something like this never would have occurred to me.

(Born 1150. Died 1224.)

Today is the feast day of St Christina Mirabilis - "Christina the Astonishing" as she's called in English. Considering the name of this blog, how could I resist mentioning her? The account of Christina's life is most incredible. Here's Thomas de Cantimpré's description of what happened at Christina's funeral:

Her lifeless body was laid out in the midst of her friends and her sisters wept copiously over it. The next day when it was borne to the church and while her Requiem Mass was being said, suddenly the body stirred in the coffin and rose up and, like a bird, immediately ascended to the rafters of the church. All those present fled and only her sister remained behind fearfully and stayed there immovably until Mass was finished, when she who had been kept in check by the Sacrament of the Church was forced to descend by the priest. Some say that the sensitivity of her spirit was revolted by the smell of human bodies. She soon returned home with her sisters and was reinvigorated by food.

After that:

Then Christina began to do those things for which she had been sent back [to the world] by the Lord. She crept into fiery ovens where bread was baking and was tormented by fires &mdash just like any of us mortals — so that her howls were terrible to hear. Nevertheless when she emerged, no mutilation of any sort appeared in her body.

Some of Christina's contemporaries thought she was a holy woman; others thought she was raving mad...that's probably why she came to be a patron saint for the mentally ill. I suppose I'll have to claim her as patron saint of Mirabilis.ca, too, although I like to believe that I'm quite sane!

Related links:

De S. Christina Mirabili Virgine Vita - in Latin. Thomas de Cantimpré's biography of Christina Mirabilis.
The  Life of Christina the Astonishing, by Thomas de Cantimpré This little book is an English translation of De S. Christina Mirabili Virgine Vita.

Painting of St Christina Mirabilis - from cynthialarge.com
St. Christina the Astonishing - essay - from cynthialarge.com
Christina Mirabilis - from mundoblaineo.com
Spirituality and Self-Representation in The Life of Christina Mirabilis -from Essays in Medieval Studies
Christina the Astonishing - lyrics to the song by Nick Cave
St Christina the Astonishing - from CatholicExchange.com
Christina of Liege - from Ed LoPresti's Saints' Lives

Note:
The excerpts from Thomas de Cantimpré's writing above come from Margot King's translation: The Life of Christina the Astonishing. I got my copy from Peregrina Publishing, but I see that one can also order The Life of Christina the Astonishing at Amazon.

Catholic News reports that a historic passagway between the Vatican and Castel Sant'Angelo is temporarily open to visitors.

From today, Roman residents and visitors will be able to walk the historic "passageway of popes" that connects the Vatican with the Castel Sant'Angelo on the bank of the Tiber.

The walled passageway, almost one kilometre long, is part of a defensive wall that was built in the 6th century to protect the Pope. The wall eventually collapsed into ruins over the next three centuries, but was rebuilt at the order of Pope Leo III. In 816 it was demolished by Roman residents who were worried by the growing political power of the papacy. But in 848, after the sack of St. Peter's basilica, Pope Leo IV ordered the wall rebuilt once again. Since that time it has been called the Leonine Wall.

In 1277, a long enclosed corridor was added to the Leonine Wall, designed specifically to give the Pope a ready means of retreat from the Vatican to the Castel Sant'Angelo in case of armed attack. Only the Pope himself held the keys to this corridor.

In modern times the Leonine Wall has been the subject of keen interest among historians and tourists, and it has regularly been restored to repair the damage caused by time and erosion.

From time to time, the Leonine Wall and the papal passageway are opened to visitors, most recently during the 2000 Jubilee Year. The current opening lasts until 10 August.

Related links:
Castel St. Angelo - from tiscali.it
Pope St. Leo IV - from the Catholic Encyclopedia

Some Irish sheep these days are being tracked by satellite. From abc.net.au:

Former military satellites are being used to track sheep in the west of Ireland as part of a research project aimed at sustaining grazing and controlling soil erosion on the country's scenic mountainsides.

Ireland's agricultural research and advisory body, Teagasc, hopes the study will lead to a blueprint for farmers to protect the environmentally sensitive areas.

Traditional black-faced mountain sheep have grazed the mountains for centuries, but from 1980 to 1997 their numbers increased by almost 110%. Over-grazing resulted in some of the steeper and drier sections of mountainsides suffering particularly badly. In some cases the sheep eroded peat and soil to bare rock and vegetation would not grow again. (...)

To try and draw up a scheme for grazing the mountains while still protecting the environment, special satellite tracking collars developed in Canada and Scotland have been fitted to sheep on an experimental farm at Erriff in County Mayo. (...)

Dummy collars have had to be fitted to some sheep, after researchers found those wearing the real satellite collars were treated as outcasts by other members of the flock. "The sheep wearing the collars became persona non grata," [continue]

From peopledaily.com: Ancient Taoist Medicine Bottles Found in Mountain Bird Nest.

Dozens of exquisite medicine bottles have been discovered in a bird nest in Huanglong cave on Wudang Mountain, a famous Taoist resort in central China's Hubei Province.

Words on the bottles showed they were used to store eye medicines during the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279), Ming Dynasty (1368- 1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911).

A board, 127 centimeters long and 56 centimeters wide, was found in a pavilion below the grotto, which specifies functions of eye medicines made by a Taoist named Yunxia, explaining they could cure 72 kinds of eye sicknesses, including cataracts presbyopia and tearing in the wind. The advertisement also informed buyers topay the exact fees listed, since the "sacred cave is far above and words can hardly be heard". [continue]

What's your typing speed? The fun little typing test at learn2type.com is an easy way to find out.

From Turks.US: Secret of ancient graffiti.

The secret of ancient graffiti discovered in the basement of a basilica in ancient Agora, Izmir is being solved day by day.

Final research on the graffiti showed that the youth who lived in Smyrna (ancient name for Izmir) coded their lover's names on the walls of the city by the help of this graffiti.

Izmir Archaeology Museum working with Professor Thomas Derwbear was the tablet expert who solved the tablets discovered in Agora. Derwbear had come to Izmir as a guest of Izmir Archaeology Museum Manager Mehmet Taslialan and worked on the tablets for about a month last year.

Following the archaeological research Derwbear stated that the graffiti found in Agora had been protected well.

"Smyrnian youth ornamented the walls with everything about their daily life. Gladiator figures describing a fight with lions, comedians on stage and other graffiti about sport and health were found. They had drawn their superstitious beliefs on the walls and a big part of the graffiti was about love," said Derwbear.

Archaeological research still continues and especially ancient wall writings attract attention.

From Haaretz.com: Jewish Yad Avshalom revealed as a Christian shrine from Byzantine.

The historic Yad Avshalom monument in Jerusalem's Kidron Valley, revered for centuries as a Jewish shrine, was also a Christian holy place in the fourth century, new evidence has revealed.

A fourth-century inscription on one of the walls near the monument, recently uncovered by chance, marks the site as the burial place of the Temple priest Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist who baptized Jesus.

Scholars believe the monument was built in the first century, making it possible that figures holy to Christians could be buried there. According to Jewish belief, Yad Avshalom was named for Absalom, the son of King David, since Samuel II relates that Absalom built a memorial in "the valley of the king" which lies below the Temple Mount. Absalom died more than 1,000 years earlier.

Parts of the inscription were discovered two years ago but the deciphering was only recently completed. Results of the research were published in the Revue Biblique in Paris two weeks ago. [continue]

I've met some remarkable kayakers, but the woman I heard inteviewed on CBC Radio this afternoon tops them all. Audrey Sutherland is 81, and goes for long kayak tours all by her lonesome. (This woman's no fool: read about her pre-trip preparation.) Here's a bit about how she got started on these solo adventures:

Raised in California, Audrey moved to Hawaii in 1952, and has lived there ever since. When her husband decided to return to the mainland, Audrey stayed on in her adopted home. She found a job as an educational counselor and raised her four children there. One day, on a flight from one island to the next, Audrey became intrigued by the folded-up coastline of the island of Molokai. She wanted to explore it all, but the cliffs were accessible only by boat (which she didn't have) or chopper (which she couldn't afford). So, in 1962, she decided to tour the coast by swimming along it, towing an inflatable raft with supplies. She has since refined her mode of travel, and now uses an inflatable kayak because it is transportable, light enough for her to handle comfortably, and relatively inexpensive.

This summer Audrey's paddling in Alaska, and then of course she'll write a book about kayaking solo in Alaska. Of course.

So. What are you doing on your summer vacation?

More on Audrey

An excerpt from The Perfect Boat and the "If Only..." Trap:

At an age when most of us would regard wrestling with the TV remote to be a pretty good work-out, Audrey Sutherland was paddling her 9 1/2-foot Tahiti Sport inflatable kayak along the west coast of Chichagof Island in southeast Alaska. Off hand, I'd be hard-pressed to think of a less-suitable craft for such a venture, but that didn't bother Audrey. It was the boat she had. Moreover, she'd already used it to explore the northern coast of Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands. It had just worked fine there, thanks, and it was working just fine in Alaska. End of story.

And here's the start of A kayak, a free spirit and decades of discovering The power of one:

Wind and driving rain were beating against the Alaska Discovery kayak tour Ken Leghorn was leading on the outer coast when he spotted a lone kayaker ahead.

The inflatable kayak had no spray skirt and was being half-paddled, half-blown toward them. The paddler, a white-haired woman, was singing.

"She looked like a total free spirit, completely at home in her environment," Leghorn said of the 1981 meeting. "There was water below her boat, water in her boat and she was completely happy, with a great big aloha smile."

The lone kayaker was Audrey Sutherland, the Grandma Moses of paddling. In 1978 her first book, "Paddling My Own Canoe," opened the way for kayakers to explore Hawaii's wild and woolly coast. Sutherland was in her late 50s then and had been paddling for 10 years. [continue]

Books by Audrey Sutherland:
Paddling My Own Canoe
Paddling Hawaii

About the radio show:
Audrey was interviewed on the July 21st edition of the Richardson's Roundup show.

Update
I get lots of email asking me for Audrey's contact details. I don't have them. I haven't a clue where Audrey is, whether she has email, or where her daughter is. If you're still tempted to write and ask me for details about Audrey, please read this.

From the Guardian: DNA used in attempt to solve Christian mystery.

Genetic fingerprinting might soon clear up an ancient Christian mystery - the origins of medieval parchments and even the Canterbury Gospels, thought to have arrived in Britain in 579AD.

Cambridge scientists plan to study DNA in parchments prepared from animal skins to trace where they came from.

With a £52,000 grant from the arts and humanities research board, Christopher Howe, a Cambridge biochemist, and Christopher de Hamel of Corpus Christi college, have begun to hunt for ways to take tiny samples of tissue from manuscripts.

In Dr Howe's sights is a spiritual treasure. Corpus Christi college houses a set of gospels which, according to tradition, were given to St Augustine, the founder of Christianity in England, by Pope Gregory the Great. It is the earliest existing illustrated Latin manuscript of the Gospels. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, swore his enthronement oath upon this text.

"If we could show the DNA in the parchment of those was closely related to parchment known to have come from Italy, then it would be very good evidence this really was an Italian manuscript," he said. [continue]

From abc.net.au: Ancient headache cures proven effective.

Many ancient headache treatments, recorded by Persian physicians, have been proven in modern-day studies to be effective pain relievers according to a new German report.

Medieval Persian texts revealing that opium and cannabis were often used, as well as oil from willow trees - from which aspirin was derived centuries later - suggest that many other such remedies should be scientifically tested for therapeutic value as well, says Dr Ali Gorji, of the Institute for Physiology, Munster University, in Germany, in a report in the journal Trends in Pharmacological Sciences.

"Despite progress in the development of therapy in recent years, effective and potent drugs are still required for the treatment of headache," Gorji says. "The search for new pharmacologically active analgesics obtained from plants has led to the discovery of some clinically useful drugs that, during the past two centuries, have played a major role in the treatment of human diseases. However, most medicinal plants prescribed by Persian physicians remain largely unexamined."

Persian headache treatments go back to the 6th century BC, but physicians there in the medieval era scrupulously observed and diagnosed different headache types and assembled much information on traditional remedies from ancient Greece, Egypt, India and China to augment their own innovative treatment arsenal, he says.

In turn, Persian medical theories and knowledge were brought to the West during the renaissance and some of them have influenced medicine ever since, although they are little recognised as such.

"Medieval Persian physicians described the treatment of headache using many substances with variable modes of action. They attributed the therapeutic actions of plants to a specific analgesic, sedative or prophylactic drug property of variable strength," he says.

Their medicines were mainly applied topically to the head: they were mixed with vinegar, the head was shaved and the skin was washed with water and salt to increase their penetration. To reduce side-effects and dilute potent substances, some were mixed with flour, egg white, or milk. Others were given orally, nasally and rectally.

Treatment plans, which recognised trauma and environmental factors as the causes of some headaches, included abstinence from certain foods or activities, foot and head massage, as well as the use of ointments, essential oils and even leeches. All are finding renewed favour in mainstream and alternative medicine today.

But it is the long list of medicinal herbs and plant extracts - some of them toxic in large doses — recorded in these old documents that Gorji believes may hold hidden chemical treasures. They include garlic, camomile, artemisia, deadly nightshade, camphor, caraway, frankincense, myrrh, saffron, spearmint, turmeric, henna, Spanish lavender, gum arabic and rose oil. [continue]

Discovery of Cromwell's flagship rivals the Mary Rose

When it sank in the ‘graveyard of a thousand ships’, the Great Lewis was the pride of Oliver Cromwell's fleet.

During a mission to recapture a fort near the Irish port of Waterford from Royalist forces in 1645, Cromwell's flagship was sent to the bottom of the sea by a combination of enemy cannon and the rocky coastline.

Now archaeologists believe they have found the wreck and have begun to bring up the first artefacts.

Historians are already comparing its importance to the discovery of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's flagship, which sank near Portsmouth exactly 100 years before.

Cromwell's attack on Waterford, which involved three other ships, gave rise to a famous saying when the Lord Protector declared he would take the town "by Hook or by Crook", referring to the two headlands which surround it.

It is not known yet what the remains of the Great Lewis will yield, but along with skeletal remains of some of the crew and 200 soldiers on board, divers expect to find artillery and the personal booty of the ship's skipper, Captain Beale.

The National Maritime Museum at Greenwich said the find was very important. [continue]

Related information:

From IrelandsEye.com, The Curse of Cromwell:

On 15 August 1649 Oliver Cromwell landed at Ringsend, near Dublin, with an army of 3,000 battle-hardened Ironsides. The civil war in England had ended, and King Charles I had been executed seven months earlier. In Ireland, however, the Roman Catholics had been in revolt since 1641 and held much of the island. They had generally taken the King's side, though some had seen in England's turmoil a chance to restore Irish independence. Cromwell entered Dublin as "lord lieutenant and general for the parliament of England". A fanatical Protestant, he intended to offer no quarter to papist rebels who had massacred English and Scottish settlers. In Ireland, he could use confiscated land to pay off debts to his troops and to the so-called "Adventurers" who had financed the parliamentary cause. [continue]

Bless the BBC for content like this: Stuffed dormice a Roman favourite.

Archaeologists in Northamptonshire are unearthing the recipe secrets of the Romans. Excavations in the county have shown the dish of the day 2,000 years ago was freshly-grilled hare and stuffed dormice.

The excavations are at Whitehall Villa, Nether Heyford, just yards from the Grand Union Canal, are revealing the secrets of Northamptonshire's Roman Heritage, including their unusual diet.

Archaeologist Martin Weaver said a burned bowl found at the site contained the remnants of hare stew.

"They also ate dormice - stuffed - and oysters. They loved their oysters," he said.

The villa sits on land now owned and farmed by Nick Adams who is discovering he has more in common with his ancestors than he realised.

"I had no real interest in archaeology or Roman things before this came along but, because it's on my land, I get a real kick.

"The Romans were actually living and working here as I am doing now. They raised sheep and farmed crops as I am doing today," he said. [continue]

The BBC notes that the 12th century St Albans Psalter is now online.

A 12th century manuscript featuring the tale of a liaison between one of Britain's early feminists and a monk has been reproduced on the internet. The rarely-viewed St Albans Psalter partly recounts the story of Christina of Markyate and her admirer, Abbot Geoffrey, in medieval times.

The online reproduction is the result of a £72,000 project by the University of Aberdeen's History of Art, Modern Languages and Historic Collections departments.

The psalter, made in the 1130s, features the Chanson of St Alexis, the earliest piece of French literature, and contains coded pictorial references relating to the events of Christina's life. [continue]

I've enjoyed browsing through the psalter, and learning things about the psalter. I particularly liked reading about the scripts used by the six scribes who worked on the book.

Want a quick peek at a couple of pages? Here's Psalm 13, here's Psalm 30, and here's a table to demonstrate the Easter limits.

Visit the psalter project's home page, or just flip through the book page by page, starting at the beginning. 418 pages in all!

What would you look like if you were made of lego?

From AGI Online: Iron Age "Industrial" Kilns Discovered in Lecco.

Archaeologists have discovered what appear to be the precursors of today's industrial kilns, dating back to the iron age. The discovery was made at Piani d'Emma, during a archaeological field campaign carried out by Bergamo University and Lecco's Civil Museum. During excavations traces of metal working were found in conjunction with iron ore extractors, dating 3rd century BC.

According to Marco Tizzoni of Bergamo University "it is the most ancient proof of iron ore reduction in the [Lombardy] region found thus far. We are looking at what are probably some of the first proto-historic mines in Lombardy".

The kilns were very simple: small clay structures resting at the feet of the mountain, they were used in conjunction with hand driven vents, which allowed for the creation of iron in a paste form". "The ore was mined at nearby sites - archaeologists explained - which were used, according to scant documentation up until [...] the 17 hundreds".

The material found thus far is being studied and great attention is being paid to the process' by-products, coal, and kiln fragments. A new, in depth campaign will start after the latest finds.

So do cats have strange postpartum mental problems? From canada.com: Family cat a mom to mice.

CRANBROOK -- The Weller family awoke yesterday to find their cat nursing two mice -- along with her seven week-old kittens.

Irene Weller said one of her daughters found some baby mice in a nest in their home on Monday.

"I didn't want mice in the house," Weller said. So the baby rodents were promptly taken outside.

But yesterday morning, the Wellers saw their cat Patches nursing and caring for the mice as if they were part of her litter.

"I don't know where she found them," Weller said. "But clearly she found them and brought them in instead of killing them."

It appears Patches is in a real maternal groove.

"She's actually feeding the mice," Weller said. [continue]

From Child's play key to ancient discovery in The Herald:

Colin Kilgour and Jock Moyes spent their childhood building dens among the rocky outcrops and crags of Binn Hill near Burntisland on the Fife coast.

They barely paid a moment's notice to the geometrical shapes carved on the rocks around them...until almost three decades later.

Jubilant archaeologists this week declared their discovery to be 4000-years-old after the men reported the site following a visit to an exhibition on ancient cup and ring carvings.

Their find could soon be given the same ancient monument status as Edinburgh Castle and Skarra Brae in Orkney.

Similar markings have been found throughout the Highlands and in Ireland but archaeologists say it is the first time multiple carvings of this kind have been found so far south in Scotland.

They also say it could shed fresh light on how they were carved and how the design was spread through the country. [continue]

From a wired.com article:

Robert Ballard found the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean floor. He rediscovered the Bismarck, the infamous Nazi battleship. He mapped the Lusitania, the sinking of which became a World War I rallying cry. And he located John F. Kennedy's boat, PT-109.

Now, Ballard is traveling to the Black Sea to investigate what may be the best-preserved ship from the ancient world ever found. He's bringing a robotic archaeologist to scour the vessel. And anyone with an Internet connection will be able to watch the $7 million, 41-day mission live.

The 1,500-year-old ship sits mast-up off the coast of Turkey, buried in Black Sea mud. What makes the craft -- unimaginatively called Wreck D -- remarkable is how intact it is. Usually, shipwrecks decompose rapidly after falling under the surface. But the main mast and stanchions of the Byzantine-era ship have remained whole, despite centuries on the sea floor.

"Most archaeological sites are sticks, stones and bones," Ballard said. "The organic content gets eaten up. And so much of our history has been created on something edible, like people or paper."

On most wrecks, said Ballard, important cultural information is missing. "Who these people traded with, what they were carrying, who they were -- all that's gone -- except on the Black Sea."

Scientists have long theorized that ships sinking to the bottom of certain seas could stay preserved for hundreds, even thousands, of years because almost no oxygen is present -- in science-speak, the site is "anoxic." The wood-boring mites that eat up most wrecks can't live in such environs.

But until Ballard's Wreck D appeared, scant evidence of such preservation existed, mostly because undersea archaeologists had concentrated their efforts in shallower coastal waters.

Right now, all but the upper extremities of the ship are immersed in mud. The task is to examine more of the vessel, and see if the ship's gear -- the rigging, the ropes, the sail, maybe even the even the wreck's cargo -- can be brought up, said mission specialist Dwight Coleman. [continue]

From abc.net.au: Great tits hit the high notes in the city.

The great tit, a bird common throughout Europe, changes its song to a higher frequency when competing with the din of a city, Dutch researchers have found.

The reason for hitting higher notes might be so that male great tits can still make their mating call heard above the loud, generally low-frequency, racket of urban areas, suggest the scientists in the latest issue of the journal, Nature.

Dr Hans Slabbekoorn and colleague Margriet Peet of the University of Leiden recorded the songs of 32 male great tits in different parts of the Dutch city of Leiden.

Each of the birds (Parsus major) had a repertoire of between three and nine distinct song types. Slabbekoorn and Peet found that great tits living in noisy urban territories had, on average, higher-pitched songs than great tits living in quieter suburban areas.

While it is possible that birds with different song frequencies choose home environments suited to their vocal range, the duo said that it is much more likely that they adapt their song to their surroundings.

Great tits are particularly adaptable singers. It is well known that the great tit's song is learnt, rather than pre-programmed: they can even adjust their frequency according to the acoustic properties of their habitat.

Although there is no evidence that sound pollution plays a direct role in the declining biodiversity in urban areas, these results suggest that human-altered environments can change the communication signals of wild bird species. Species that are less adaptable to the city might find themselves drowned out and mate-less, the researchers said.

From Biblical Archaeology, The True Cross: Separating Myth from History.

In the days of Constantine the Great, the cross on which Jesus died was "rediscovered" in Jerusalem. Tradition gives Constantine's mother, Helena, full credit for the find. Today, visitors to Jerusalem are shown the very spot, in a cistern beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the empress is said to have unearthed not only the true cross, but the nails that punctured Jesus' hands and feet, the crosses of the two thieves who died beside Jesus, and the plaque, naming Jesus "King of the Jews," that hung on his cross.

For her efforts, Helena was named a saint by the Roman Catholic and Eastern churches; in art, the cross became her symbol. In more recent times, she has been hailed as the first biblical archaeologist. But did Helena actually find the true cross? And if not, how did this legend, kept alive in Renaissance paintings and today's popular press, arise?

Before evaluating the veracity of the legend of the true cross, we should review what many scholars agree we do know about Helena. Several historical sources provide us with some basic facts about Constantine's mother. One of the most detailed is the Life of Constantine, written by the church father Eusebius of Caesarea in about 339 C.E.

From Eusebius and other early writers, we know that Flavia Iulia Helena (her official name) was born in about 248/249 C.E.,2 probably in the harbor town of Drepanum, in Bithynia (modern Turkey).3 After her death, her son Constantine renamed the town Helenopolis.

The mother of the Roman emperor was of humble social origins. The late-fourth-century bishop Ambrose of Milan identifies her as a stabularia, which might suggest that she worked as a servant in an inn. The pagan historian Zosimus (c. 500) calls her a harlot. The Christian author Philostorgius (c. 368-c. 439) seems to agree, describing her as "a common woman not different from strumpets." [continue]

From Ananova: Astronomy unlocks van Gogh painting mystery.

A US physicist reckons he's solved the position of Vincent van Gogh's orange-red moon in his painting Moonrise.

After tracking its cycle Donald Olson has narrowed it down to 9.08pm, July 13, 1889, give or take a minute.

Prior to the 1930s it wasn't known if it was a moonrise or sunrise until a letter van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, described it as a moon.

However, the letter, written while institutionalised in a Saint Remy monastery, wasn't dated, and eventually it was lost and its authenticity was questioned.

So, Mr Olson, from Southwest Texas State University, travelled to France to solve the puzzle describing it as a "useful lesson in astronomy".

Along with his wife, Marilynn, and a fellow physics lecturer Russell Doescher he spent six days hunting for the exact spot where van Gogh stood, taking measurements of the distinctive landscape he'd painted more than a dozen times: the shed beside a stone wall, rounded hills, an overhanging cliff.

They returned to Texas and plugged the coordinates into a computer, which searching for the exact date and time in 1889 when a full or nearly full moon peaked behind the cliff between May and September.

May 16 and July 13 came up, but the team eliminated May because van Gogh had written in a letter that the fields were green in May. The fields in the painting are golden.

From there, the computer calculated a two-minute window in which the moon would have been partly behind the cliff in the painting.

Details of the project are published in the July 2003 edition of Sky and Telescope magazine.

Did the Brits invent lasagne? From the BBC:

Italy may be a land of lazy lunches and sun-kissed siestas, but challenge its reputation for home-grown cuisine at your peril.

With the Battle of Parma Ham not two months over the nation is facing an even more audacious claim.

Lasagne is British.

It's so British the court of Richard II was making it in the 14th Century and most likely serving it up to ravenous knights in oak-panelled banqueting halls.

The claim has been made by researchers who found the world's oldest cookery book, The Forme of Cury, in the British Museum. [continue]

Those researchers could just as easily have found the online version of the Forme of Cury, complete with photos of the pages. And here's the Loseyns (lasagna) recipe.

And "world's oldest cookery book" -um, really?

Related book:
To the King's Taste: Richard II's Book of Feasts and Recipes

Related link:
Britain shocks Italians by claiming to have found medieval lasagna recipe

This is from Mike Reddy's page on Tudor and Medieval Beekeeping.

Beekeeping has always been an integral part of the British Economy. Although we now see honey as a rather expensive sweetener, compared with sugar - At £2 a 1 lb jar it loses hands down to a 25 pence bag of sugar - The main product of Mediaeval and Tudor apiarists was the wax, used by chandlers to make candles for the Church until the Reformation in 1536 when King Henry the 8th in his obsession to gain a male heir all but destroyed the market. Honey was still the reserve of the richer families and was used in baking, medicines, polish and the manufacture of Mead (the oldest alcoholic drink!).
In fact, mead was the weakest of a number of honey derived beverages, collectively known as Meth (not Meths!) or Hydromel. The strongest was Methaeglen, a one time favourite of Queen Elizabeth the 1st. Such was the importance of the drink to the Royal Court that Welsh mead makers were immune from all prosecution while making it! They could, literally, get away with murder!

The main difference between beekeeping is that now we have techniques for separating the honey from the brood - a legal requirement for selling in fact - with the movable comb hive. Although, tree stumps and clay pots have been used around the World, in Western Europe, the most popular hive was a conical basket called a skep - derived from the Anglo Saxon "Skeppa" which means basket - made of woven wicker baskets (with a coating of cloome or daub), or long straw coiled and stitched with blackberry briar. The straw skep is said to have started with tribes west of the Elbe in Germany [Crane]. The earliest remains may have come from possibly a twelfth century skep found in 1980 during an excavation at Coppergate, York. [Crane].

Skeps need not be made with long wheat straw. Reeds and sedges could also be used, presumably dependent upon locally available materials. Skeps have been known to last 150 years. Skeps were usually set upon tables to protect them from damp and scavengers. The platforms would be made of wood, as stone would be likely to chill the bees. [continue, and see photos]

And here's some informatin from the The Scottish Beekeepers' Association:

Before hives with removable wooden frames were invented, bees were kept in a variety of hollow containers in which they were free to build comb just as they liked. The trouble with this arrangement was that the combs could not be removed to be inspected or moved from one hive to another, which made efficient beekeeping rather more difficult.

Below is a photograph of one of the older types of beehive used in Scotland. It is made from coils of tightly bound straw, and is called a skep. Skeps were not very waterproof, and easily blown away, so were usually kept under some sort of more substantial shelter. A recess in a stone wall was a common location for a beehive, where in winter it would be packed around with straw to help keep the cold away from the bees.

Travelling with Norwegian goat cheese is one way to add excitement to your airport security check. From Aftenposten:

A block of brown Norwegian goat cheese recently raised a fuss at the Brussels airport. Security guards thought the unusual sweet, gooey substance called geitost was a dangerous explosive.

Norwegian goat cheese, also called brunost, or literally "brown cheese", is a local delicacy on bread, crackers and waffles.

The drama began when Norwegian Tore Fauske, who lives in England, was given a block of the delicacy from his homeland while on a business trip to Brussels. He was delighted with the gift, which in turn had been brought from Norway with no trouble at Oslo's airport.

Fauske tucked it into his carry-on and headed for the airport for the return trip to England.

When his bag rolled through the X-ray machines at check-in, however, security guards stopped him and sent all others in line behind him to other checkpoints.

Fauske told newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad that he then was asked to open his bag, "and the guards visibly took a step backward when I unzipped it."

Still puzzled over what the guards were worried about, Fauske emptied his bag and its contents were then sent through separately until the culprit was singled out: The block of goat cheese from Norwegian dairy cooperative Tine.

Fauske says he tried to explain what it was. "It's a goat cheese, a Norwegian goat cheese," he said of the much-loved local staple that's an acquired taste, especially for non-Norwegians.

Related links:
Teddington Cheese's description of gjetost
Ski Queen Gjetost from Tine.no

Scitoys.com invites you to "Make toys at home with common household materials, often in only a few minutes, that demonstrate fascinating scientific principles."

Is this ever cool! I want to build a crystal radio. And hmmm, maybe a rocket, too.

Link found at Idletype.

From nature.com: Fish fossils reveal Roman trade routes.

Fossilized remains of a fish supper have revealed a hitherto unknown Roman trade route. Genetic analysis shows that 1400-year-old catfish unearthed in an ancient Turkish city probably came from Egypt.

The fossils were found among the mountain-top ruins at Sagalassos, 110 kilometres inland from Turkey's southern Mediterranean coast. Catfish (Clarias gariepinus) are not native this region.

In AD600 Sagalassos was a hub of Greco-Roman culture, agriculture and export. "The catfish was probably a delicacy for aristocrats," says the director of the dig Marc Waelkens from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Romans may also have imported these and other exotic fish to stock their decorative pools - Waelkens and his colleagues found Nile perch (Lates niloticus) and African tilapia (Tilapia zillii) at the site too.

The fish add to growing evidence that Sagalassos had connections with far-flung regions of the Roman Empire - its pottery, for example, has turned up in north-east Africa.

It's interesting that trade relationships were going on this late, says Stephen Mitchell, who studies ancient history at the University of Exeter. From AD500 onwards, the city suffered earthquakes, economic recession, plague and invasion. Evidence of fish importing, he says, "implies a high level of organisation close to the city's end". [continue]

Another one from the Beeb: Ducks' odyssey nears end.

A consignment of thousands of rubber ducks is expected to wash up any day on the coast of New England - after more than a decade at sea.

The ducks - along with other bathtub toys like beavers, turtles and frogs - fell overboard from a container ship en route from China to Seattle during a storm in 1992.

During the ducks' long voyage through three oceans, scientists have tracked their progress - and say it has taught them valuable lessons about surface currents.

"The ducks went around the North Pacific in three years - all the way from the spill site to Alaska, over to Japan and back to North America," said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired oceanographer based in Seattle.

"This was twice as fast as the water at the surface - so I began to call them hyper-ducks." [continue]

Storks' nest switch jolts scientists. From the BBC:

Storks in Poland have set scientists an intriguing puzzle: to understand why they are changing their nesting habits.

Traditionally the birds used to nest on the roofs of buildings and in trees.

But over the last 25 years they have begun developing a marked preference for building their nests on electricity pylons instead.

Ornithologists think the change may be linked to greater breeding success.

Poland is one of the European strongholds of the white stork, with about a quarter of the continent's total population. The birds spend the summer there and winter in Africa.

In 1985 there were about 30,000 breeding pairs, and by 1995 around 40,000. The estimate for 2002 is 44,000 pairs.

Dr Przemek Chylarecki, a biologist, is president of the Polish Society for the Protection of Birds (Otop).

He told BBC News Online: "In 1974 4% of Polish storks built their nests on electricity pylons, and by 1995 that had risen to 37%.

"We don't know why they prefer the pylons, but we suspect they may be breeding more successfully there - there is some slight evidence to support that. It does seem to be an evolutionary change." [continue]

Hmmm. Lots of stuff I didn't know about cork from abc.net.au: Portugal's cork groves under threat from plastic.

Will cork survive the threat from plastic stoppers in wine bottles? It's a question that preoccupies Antonio Jose Boneco as he strips bark from cork trees in southern Portugal, just as he has done every summer for the past 50 years.

But whether his grandchildren will still be stripping the same trees in another 50 years will very much depend on whether new technology and branding embraced by the cork industry can face off a challenge from synthetic bungs.

"It's a question of quality demarcation, just as you prefer to wear a cotton shirt," said Roderick Reynolds, who farms 400 hectares of cork groves near the village of Santana do Mato, 70 km east of Lisbon. "We face the same battle as cotton, silk, linen and wool," he added, giving directions to Boneco and other workers.

Portugal is the world's biggest producer of natural cork, a time-consuming business which could be squeezed out by plastic stoppers that are far easier to make and claim to preserve the taste of wine better. Cork makers estimate synthetic rivals have already eaten away 8% of a market which earns Portugal some 900 million euros a year in exports.

Environmental and wildlife groups have warned that a big drop in natural cork sales could make farmers abandon ancient cork groves, which help prevent desertification in much of Portugal and neighbouring Spain.

Known as montados in Portugal and dehesas in Spain, cork groves are also home to endangered species like the Iberian lynx, the Spanish imperial eagle and rare birds like the booted eagle, black vulture and turtle dove.

"If current trends continue, the wildlife-rich montados and dehesas could disappear within 20 to 30 years," a report by Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said. [continue]

Oooooh! Nature is Profligate. has a fine posting: The time has come, the Doctor said, to talk of many things: Of shrews -- and shrimps--and shocking acts -- and whether birds have flings. Here's what the entry says:

One of my sources of inspiration in creating this blog has been Olivia Judson's recent book Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation. A number of my recent posts (e.g. Not afraid to throw themselves at a pretty girl's head) discuss new studies that touch on topics treated in detail in her book.

Written as a series of sex advice columns to various distressed or confused non-human creatures, Judson's tone is light but her research is extensive. If you're wondering whether such a humorous, light-hearted book can be scientifically accurate, wonder no more. Olivia Judson (through her alter ego, Dr. Tatiana) shows it can be done. This is easily one of my favorite books of recent years.

Judson's motivation in assembling such a volume, or at least my interpretation of it, is both a desire to expound on the diversity of bizarre sexual practices in the (animal) world and to foster some tolerance in her human audience. If you feel either intolerant or squeamish when it comes to the sometimes messy, sometimes violent practices surrounding reproduction, then this book --newly out in paperback -- may not be your ideal summer read. Having said that, I have yet to encounter a negative reaction to the book's content among my friends, who have devoured the book with an enthusiasm similar to mine. Dr. Tatiana does not glorify or endorse any particular reproductive strategy; she simply documents the truly astonishing diversity of practices and seeks to explain them from an evolutionary perspective. She'll make you look at the world in a different way, and that's a rare quality in such an easy to read book.

If you want a second (or third, fourth, etc.) opinion, Dr. Tatiana's publishers have assembled a list of links to reviews, but they seem to have left out this fantastic review from National Geographic magazine. Write again soon, Dr. Tatiana!

Thanks to Amity for the above, and to Jill at Unlocking the Air for suggesting that I go read Nature is Profligate. Now I've got to stop by the local bookshop to order that book.

From wired.com: Trailblazer.

In the far reaches of the Kalahari Desert, in southern Africa, researcher Louis Liebenberg is deploying what may be the first illiterate computers integrated into a hunter-gatherer society, a group known as the San Bushmen. The desert natives, now thought to be the first people, are famous for their mysterious capacity to decipher animal tracks, or spoor, in the natural environment. The plethora of specific data that a Bushman can extract from even a partial spoor has astonished scientists for decades: This unusual ability is subtle and multispectral; it's steeped in an experience of nature that recognizes no division of life into distinct categories.

Liebenberg's handheld device allows a Bushman to enter spoor readings and other observations, hit a button, and register, via satellite, the place and time of the observation. The information is transferred to a central database, where it is correlated to produce a dynamic map of the location, and then used to study ecological relationships, animal behavior patterns, and even poaching activity (a Bushman can tell from a track whether an animal is fleeing a human or natural predator). The info is also used to inform guides about activities of scientific, documentary, or tourist significance, as well as for a wide variety of conservation applications. [continue]

Compare your own favourite recipes to those in White Trash Recipes collection and I bet you'll feel like a brilliant gourmet chef. Just imagine serving some of these:
7 up cake
Fried bologna sandwiches ("This is for people who think a regular bologna sandwich is just too healthy...")
White Trash Farmer Omelettes
Tater Tot Hot Dish
White Trash Fondue ("You would be amazed by the things you can do with a can of Spam.")

Just what you need for next week's family picnic, kids.

From The Herald: Roman brooch find in Shetland extends ancient travel routes.

Amateur archaeologists may have found Britain's most northerly ancient Roman artefact, it emerged yesterday.

The fibula, or brooch, which has been dated to between 50BC and 50AD, could have belonged to an islander returning to the area around Norwick on Shetland after serving in the Roman army. (...)

It is highly unusual to find Roman goods so far north and the item gives a revealing insight into trade routes and social mobility at the time.

Les Smith, from Lerwick, is the member of the Unst Archaeological Group who found the bronze, two-inch-long brooch.

"This was a very rare and important find. I was very surprised when I saw the flash of the object. I have a reasonable knowledge of the artefacts in the local museum but this was unlike anything I had seen before," he said.

"At first, it was difficult to say what it was. Eventually, you could see that it was very finely made. Bulldozers at the graveyard site had uncovered some Viking objects and underneath that we found the Iron Age material."

Fibulas were used as fasteners to hold clothing together. Experts at the British Museum believe the one found on Shetland, from the late Iron age/early Roman period, could have been made in Germany. [continue]

Well! Look who's doing stuff with webcams now:

Webrothers -
www.studentscapuchins.tvheaven.com
A community of Capuchin Franciscan students living in an ancient friary in Malta has a website allowing visitors to glimpse their daily lives in a manner that has at least some parallels with the Big Brother reality TV phenomenon. Br Hayden explains that they're putting the simplicity of their lives on show strictly for evangelical purposes. Webcams are sited in the brothers' living room and chapel. A Webrother remains on call during adoration, and SMS prayer requests are welcome.

From Catholic News.

From Wired.com: Euro Scheme Makes Money Talk.

Euro cash could be embedded with radio frequency identification tags if a reported deal between the European Central Bank and Hitachi becomes reality.

The bank is working on a hush-hush project to embed RFIDs, wireless transponders the size of a grain of sand, into the fibers of euro bank notes to foil would-be counterfeiters. The bills currently have a number of security marks, including threads that glow under ultraviolet light, but as the euros wear thin, these are less perceptible.

If the deal goes through, it will be a boon to the nascent RFID industry, which has long been in search of a market. However, consumer privacy advocates have questions about other possible uses of the tags. (...)

If embedded in the euro, the chips could make it possible to track information such as when and where transactions take place, according to Paul Lee of Deloitte Research in London.

RFID technology involves a minuscule chip and antenna, which would be implanted in the bank notes, and a reader similar to those used with bar codes, only much smaller, Lee said. Though it might be used simply to identify the note's serial number, it would also be possible to add more data.

"There is a worry in our field as to how these things will be used, given the lack of coherent privacy regulations," said Dan Moniz, staff technologist for San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital watchdog organization. [continue]

If you liked the medieval and renaissance musical instruments. thing I posted last week, I think you'll enjoy The Serpent Website. The serpent is that large twisty instrument, and here's what it sounds like. (mp3)

Amazing, isn't it? The Serpent Website has the history of the serpent, serpent anecdotes & quotes, and some other stuff. You've gotta see the directions for building a serpent or ophicleide. Is there a squarpent, box-o-cleide, or contrabass squarpent in your future?

From NewScientist.com: Satellites hunt for buried treasure.

In a first for radar sensing, researchers have shown the technology can locate and identify buried objects. Their technique could be used in the hunt for archaeological artefacts smothered by sand or networks of underground buildings, or even to peer below the surface of Mars.

Scientists have long suspected that microwave radar from satellites could "see" below the surface of very dry ground. Many were startled when images from a shuttle mission in the 1980s revealed what appeared to be ancient river drainage patterns below the eastern Sahara desert. Since then there have been other intriguing finds, including ring structures buried under Antarctic ice that look like meteorite craters or the remains of subglacial volcanic eruptions. [continue]

Update/Related article:
Satellites hunt for buried treasure - from Israel 21c, July 20, 2003. Thanks to Frank DiSalle for sending this link.

It was in the early 1800s that people began to flock to the beaches for seaside amusement. With the introduction of railroads, oceanside beaches became even more popular for sunny recreations. Along with this new outdoor pastime came the need for a stylish garment for the privileged lady of fashion.

That's from Victoriana.com, which invites you to view the path of the fashionable bathing suit. See what women wore to the beach in 1797, back when "ladies were known to sew weights into the hem of their smock-like bathing gowns to prevent the garment from floating up..." Follow along through ten more images to the 1920s.

From ABC Online, Australia: Bacteria start underground fires in Mali.

Patches of mysterious shoe-melting, foot-roasting hot ground in parts of West Africa may have been caused by bacteria, not volcanic activity as has been thought for decades.

A team led by Dr Henrik Svensen of the University of Oslo in Norway report, in the July issue of the journal Geology, the results of their investigation into baked patches of ground which have been known about in northern Mali for more than a century.

Since about 1960, several authors argued these hot patches of ground were due to volcanic activity. However the researchers have found otherwise. They dug down into areas of ground venting smoke from holes and fractures, and found evidence that the ground itself was burning. They found buried layers of peat - the combustible buried remains of vegetation - apparently igniting spontaneously, and possibly having done so for eons.

"The patterns and speed are typical for the propagation of a smoldering fire front," said Svensen.

The team located the hottest area on the edge of a wide patch of seared ground - exceeding 760 degrees Celsius - near Haribibi in the Lac Faguibine area west of Timbuktu, Mali. They then dug an exploratory trench through the hottest area. What they found was a flaming 830 degrees C layer of peat not more than a metre down. [continue]

You've probably heard about using microchips to identify pets; now the same technology is being used to protect cycad plants. From iol.co.za: Ancient cycads go hi-tech for their own good.

A project was launched several years ago with the initiative of the World Conservation Union to control illegal trading of these plants and to relocate stolen cycads.

Carl Brown, Conservation Services Manager, Western Cape Nature Conservation Board, explained: "A transponder, in the form of a microchip, is inserted in the stem of an adult cycad.

A specific number on the chip is recorded in a data form in the national registry in Johannesburg. A plant from any of the provinces is identified by its unique number which also gives details of its location."

So if a plant gets stolen it is easy to track and identify.

Cycads are valuable because they are rare and it takes many years to grow a large plant. So any large cycad is assumed "kidnapped" from the wild.

The plants originated more than 300 million years ago - they evolved even before dinosaurs. On the illegal market a mature plant can cost up to R75 000. [continue]

From Wired.com: Going Wireless in the Wilderness.

Wi-Fi networks, fairly common in North America's urban centers, have extended their habitat far into Canada's frozen north.

There, local tourism operator Tundra Buggy Tours is setting up a four-kilometer-radius wireless network that will let people watch the famed polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba, over the Internet.

Approximately 10,000 tourists descend each year on Churchill, an isolated outpost in northeast Manitoba with a population approaching 1,000, and turn it into a boomtown as they flood onto the tundra to watch the massive bears wrestle and play.

Of the dozens of tour operators plying the frigid northern barrens, Tundra Buggy Tours is the oldest, having taken tourists out for the past 24 years.

Three years ago, the company added a Polar Bear Cam, a feature that proved surprisingly popular. In fact, according to Tundra Buggy spokesman John Gunter, last year about 500 people paid $25 each to have a subscription to the cam.

Previously, the cam was attached to the Tundra Buggy Lodge, a train-like series of cars that are towed out to the tundra and left in place for a week or more. Typically, well-heeled tourists pay anywhere from $4,500 to $4,900 to sit inside the lodge and wait for the bears to approach.

Tundra's new Wi-Fi network will allow the company to capitalize on the success of the cam, letting it roam to where the action is taking place. (...)

Gunter said Tundra Buggy Tours has noticed a trend over the past couple of years: More and more of their visitors tote laptops and digital cameras. The Wi-Fi network will take advantage of that technology, letting tourists upload their images of polar bears onto the company's website. [continue]

From the extreme ironing website:

Welcome to the home of extreme ironing - the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt.

Includes extreme ironing news, photos from the first extreme ironing world championships, and an FAQ. (Q: "Who does extreme ironing?" A: "the fearless!" )

Oh wow! I just found the website of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia.

The State Hermitage occupies six magnificent buildings situated along the embankment of the River Neva, right in the heart of St Petersburg. The leading role in this unique architectural ensemble is played by the Winter Palace, the residence of the Russian tsars that was built to the design of Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli in 1754-62. This ensemble, formed in the 18th and 19th centuries, is extended by the eastern wing of the General Staff building, the Menshikov Palace and the recently constructed Repository.

Put together throughout two centuries and a half, the Hermitage collections of works of art (over 3,000,000 items) present the development of the world culture and art from the Stone Age to the 20th century. Today the Museum is creating its digital self-portrait to be displayed around the world. Computer technologies enable the State Hermitage Museum to provide people from all over the world with wider access to information about the Museum and its treasures.

Browse around in the virtual visit section, view the collection highlights, read about the Hermitage's history, or wander through clickable floor plans. There's lots more, too.

Now, all this reminds me: did you see the amazing Russian Ark movie? It was filmed in the Hermitage Museum in one continuous shot. Here's the Russian Ark trailer.

Hermitage Museum links
The Hermitage - from Geographica
Hermitage Museum - from CityVision2000.com
The State Hermitage Museum Foundation of Canada
By working on a knowledge gap, Canada aims to help the bountiful State Hermitage Museum achieve its full glory - from cdi.org
American Friends of the Hermitage Museum

Russian Ark links
Russian Ark synopsis - from wellspring.com
Russian Ark - details and an interview with the filmmaker, Alexander Sokurov
Russian Ark review "An incredible epic in a single point-of-view take, 'Ark' is a transporting journey through Russian history." - from splicedonline.com
Russian Ark review - from thezreview.co.uk

This would have been fun to watch: Gallant police snare croc, but it was stuffed.

Italian police snared a two-metre crocodile in Rome's Tiber river only to find the reptile, believed to be the same one which has terrorised Romans for a week, was a stuffed hunting trophy.

Two intrepid police officers, who answered an emergency call, swooped onto a city centre riverbank after passers-by had seen the croc, jaws agape, apparently closing in on a child.

One officer clobbered the beast with stones as the other moved in, watched by hundreds of people from the city's Garibaldi bridge in the Trastevere tourist area.

Sportingly, the embarrassed cops later posed for pictures with their catch for Italian newspapers.

Police are hoping a burgeoning urban legend has been nipped in the bud, after overheated commuters reported sighting a crocodile in various parts of Rome over the past week.

From the Guardian: Inscription on Ancient Tomb Revealed.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The discovery was a stroke of luck: the light of the setting sun hit an ancient tomb at just the right angle and revealed hints of a worn inscription, unnoticed for centuries, commemorating the father of John the Baptist.

"This is the tomb of Zachariah, martyr, very pious priest, father of John," the inscription of 47 Greek letters reads.

The inscription probably does not mean that the father of the biblical figure is actually buried in the 60-foot-high funerary monument at the foot of the Mount of Olives, say the text's discoverers. But it does give new insight into the local lore surrounding the early figures of the Christian Church.

Scholars say the words were probably written several hundred years after Zachariah's death - and after the tomb's construction - by Byzantine Christians.

The Byzantines scoured the Holy Land in the 4th and 5th centuries and, drawing on local tradition, marked sites they felt were linked to the characters they knew from the Bible. Leading the charge was Helena, the newly converted mother of Emperor Constantine, who selected the site now marked by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, said to be the site where Jesus was crucified and buried.

But even such second hand references are important, scholars say, because they confirm the traditions among early Christians and because there are so few artifacts directly relating to biblical narrative.

"We actually have contact with ancient history through Byzantine Christians," said Jim Strange, a New Testament scholar at the University of South Florida. [continue]

Update:
Inscription discovery links Jerusalem tomb to Jesus. - Sept 1st, 2003. Reuters.

Go click your way around Dickens' London, and you'll wish you'd had this when you read the books.

An example? A click on Seven Dials leads to:

Seven Dials (Map: C-5) - Infamous criminal district where seven streets converge at St. Giles. Dickens noted that a stranger who finds himself in The Dials for the first time will see enough around him to keep his curiosity and attention awake for no inconsiderable time (Seven Dials-Sketches by Boz). [detail] [dictionary]

Found at Incoming Signals, which credits Scrubbles and Things.

From a Reuters article at the Toronto Star: A two-lobe language.

LONDON — Mandarin speakers use more areas of their brains than people who speak English, scientists say in a finding that provides insight into how the brain processes language.

Scientists at the Wellcome Trust research charity in Britain discovered that both the left and right temporal lobes are used to interpret variations in sounds in Mandarin, a language in which intonation conveys meaning. "Ma," for example, can mean mother, scold, horse or hemp, depending on the tone.

English speakers use just the left lobe. The right lobe is normally used to process melody in music and speech.

"We were very surprised to discover that people who speak different sorts of languages use their brains to decode speech in different ways; it overturned some long-held theories," said Sophie Scott, a psychologist at the charity. [continue] [Update: article no longer available.]

Always wanted to join a mob? Maybe this Flash Mob thing is for you. From wired.com:

Flash mobs are performance art projects involving large groups of people. Mobilized by e-mail, a mob suddenly materializes in a public place, acts out according to some loose instructions, and then melts away as quickly as it formed.

In New York, the city's finest turned out in force to block the city's third mob gathering last Wednesday evening.

Set to gather at 7 p.m. at Grand Central Station for what promised to be an elaborate "mob ballet," the crowd of about 250 was greeted by a "huge" police presence, according to the Mob Project's anonymous organizer known only as Bill.

Bill said the mob moved to the Grand Hyatt next door instead. The crowd walked quietly upstairs to the hotel's mezzanine and gathered shoulder-to-shoulder around the balcony.

"At 7:12, we burst into thunderous, screaming applause for 15 seconds, and then dispersed, just as police cars came screaming around the corner to where we were," said Bill. "It was fabulous." [continue]

Related link:
Flash mobs page at cheesebikini.com
Flash mobs: a new social phenomenon? - from abc.net.au

If you happen to be in London, this seems worth a peek.

An important archaeological discovery from Tabard Street is now on display at the Cuming Museum near the Elephant & Castle.

The rare Roman marble inscription, which dates from around the mid to late 2nd century AD, was found in October 2002 during an excavation at Tabard Square in Southwark. The inscription is important because it makes reference to the Latin name for London in "Londoniensi" which means "the people of London". There are very few Roman items including the whole of the word "London", and this is considered to be an extremely important find.

Catherine Hamilton, collections & museum manager at the Cuming Museum, said: "We are extremely excited to be able to display this inscription. It is on loan to us for a short period only - I hope people will take the chance to pop into the Cuming Museum to have a look. This is an important piece of Southwark's history."

The inscription will be on display until 26 July 2003 and admission to the Cuming Museum is free. The museum is open from Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm and is located within the Newington Library building, 155-157 Walworth Road, SE17 1RS, 5 minutes from the Elephant and Castle.

Source: Tabard Street Roman inscription now on display at London-SE1.co.uk.

Related link:
Photo of the inscription and more info.

Arts and Letters has found a splendid thing. They write:

In 1950, Popular Mechanics saw the future. Disposable dishes, fax machines, milk in frozen bricks, candy made from rayon underwear, and house cleaning with a fire hose...more>>

And the link goes to Miracles you'll see in the next 50 years - a reprint of a 1950 Popular Mechanics article. It's a hoot. Get this: "Because everything in her home is waterproof, the housewife of 2000 can do her daily cleaning with a hose."

[Update: sorry, article no longer available. Argh.]

From EdinburghNews.com: 7th century village is back on map.

To look at, it is no more than a common field forming part of the farming landscape in the heart of East Lothian.

But the land near East Linton holds a secret beneath its soil.

It contains the answer to an early medieval mystery, only solved after the accidental discovery of a 200-year-old map.

It pointed to the field being the location of the long-lost settlement of Whittingehame, which dated from the seventh century, but was abandoned nearly 300 years ago.

Investigations quickly identified the site of old buildings, including the pub, blacksmiths and school, while a host of relics were brought to the surface by a farmer's plough. (...)

Historic Scotland archaeologist Chris Tabraham, who has been working on the site in his spare time, said local people had heard of the village before, but until now did not know where it was.

"There is a church which now stands called Whittingehame Kirk, and the map shows that the village was to the left of it.

"It is so exciting to find because it means there is a lost village underneath the soil just waiting for someone to excavate it.

"It is highly unusual because there are very few which have been completely abandoned that haven't then been built on.

"This is an open field where we could access the secrets which lurk beneath." [continue]

Related link:
Whittingehame Church

What fun! From the BBC: Walkway propels Paris metro into future.

"Keep your feet flat on the ground, keep your feet flat on the ground."

This is the constant refrain at Montparnasse station's main interchange inside the Paris metro.

And there is a good reason for it - failing to comply could land you flat on your face.

The message is directed at people using a new high-speed travelator, an invention that some say could revolutionise the way we get around big cities.

The trottoir roulant rapide (fast rolling pavement) or TRR is on trial until October, when the metro's safety committee will decide whether it has been a success - and whether to roll it out elsewhere.

The prototype carries passengers the length of Montparnasse station at 9km/h - three times as fast as normal travelators, and about the average speed of a Paris bus. [continue]

Construction crew finds ancient cistern:

JERUSALEM — A construction crew digging near a major Christian shrine in Nazareth, the boyhood town of Jesus, discovered a cistern that crusaders might have built 1,000 years ago, archaeologists said Friday.

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority plan to excavate the site next week to learn more about the cistern, or underground water reservoir.

The cistern, which is 40 feet deep in some places, is close to the Basilica of the Annunciation, where Christians believe the Angel Gabriel appeared before the Virgin Mary and foretold the birth of Jesus.

On Tuesday, bulldozers tore out the foundations of a mosque that was being built without authorization next to the basilica. After demolition of the mosque foundation, a construction crew started work on a plaza for pilgrims at the site.

The workers found the Byzantine-era well, said archaeologist Dror Barshad.

Researchers rappelled into the dark cavern to have a closer look. [full article]

Oh, sign me up! I wanna be a researcher. I can rappel!

From The Hindu newspaper: Huge haul of ancient coins in SW China.

Chinese archaeologists have unearthed a seven-tonne column of corroded coins dating back to the southern Song dynasty (1127 AD-1279 AD) in the Suishui town of south-western China's Sichuan province.

The column, two meters high and one-and-a-half meters in diameter, sheltered inside a big stone pit, was found on June 27 by a local farmer working with a bulldozer.

The coins had been divided according to their sizes and dates and strung together with cords, and later rusted into the columnar shape after being buried underground for such a long period of time, according to the archaeologists. [continue]

Patrick Durand has been busy taking photos of Paris, Rome, The French Riviera, and the Val de Loire - all from a low flying plane. Some of the images are incredible. Just imagine Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, flying buttresses and all, viewed from above!

To see these photos, go to Patrick's site and click on the vertical cities link. (Warning: Flash site, better for fast conections.)

Found via Metafilter.

From the BBC: Hi-tech imaging could reveal lost texts.

A unique library of medieval manuscripts, devastated by fire during World War II and considered lost by scholars, could be restored using technology developed to study the surface of planets.

The medieval library at Chartres, France, was destroyed in an allied bombing raid on the evening of 26 May, 1944.

The collection, then housed in an annexe of Chartres town hall, comprised around 2,000 medieval books and parchments, many of which dated to the 12th Century.

The library was considered a national treasure and a good proportion of the works were unpublished.

After the fire was quelled, volunteers moved in to save what they could from the smouldering ruins. Although thousands of texts were recovered, the fierce inferno carbonised the majority, rendering them unreadable.

But digital technology called multispectral imaging may now be able to reveal text on even the most badly burned manuscripts, allowing scholars to study them again. [continue]

From abc.net.au: Beetles walk backwards by the light of the moon.

Dung beetles use polarised moonlight - light which has different properties in different directions - to walk backwards in a straight line.

Dr Marie Dacke from the University of Lund, in Sweden and colleagues from South Africa report their investigation of the use of polarised moonlight by African dung beetles in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

The African dung beetle (Scarabaeus zambesianus) flies around foraging for fresh dung at sunset. When it finds a pile, the beetle lands and uses its front legs and head to make a small ball of dung. It then immediately sets out to hide the booty from competitors, making a beeline away from the main pile. The beetle pushes the ball along with its back legs while walking with its front legs, face down to the ground.

The researchers had suspected the beetles were using polarised moonlight when they noticed that on overcast nights beetles made very erratic paths, compared to the straight lines they made when the moon was shining. [continue]

Could His Words Have Been Recorded in His Lifetime? From Biblical Archaeology Review:

How likely is it that someone would have written down and collected Jesus' sayings into a book in Jesus' lifetime? Several lines of evidence converge to suggest it is quite probable.

The first factor to consider is how prevalent literacy was in Jesus' time. Full literacy means being able to read and write proficiently, but degrees of literacy vary; people who can read, for example, may not be able to write. A common view is that of W.H. Kelber, who claims that, in first-century A.D. Palestine, "writing was in the hands of an élite of trained specialists, and reading required an advanced education available only to a few." It is often asserted that writing was restricted to government and religious circles and would have had no place among the peasantry of Galilee, where Jesus did much of his teaching. If this statement were true, there would be more validity to the widely-held opinion that knowledge of Jesus' words and deeds depended on oral tradition — people passed on what they saw and heard by word of mouth — until about 70 A.D., when the earliest of the Gospels, the Gospel of Mark, was composed.

However, the evidence showing that reading and writing were widely practiced in Jesus' age grows with every discovery of a new inscription. Much of this evidence comes from religious and governmental circles, but a great deal of it does not.

The library of Qumran — otherwise known as the Dead Sea Scrolls — includes mostly religious texts, to be sure, but significantly, these represent both the continued copying of the sacred scripture and other religious books, and the creation of new ones. Members of the Jewish sect based at Qumran — commonly thought to be Essenes — must have been expected to read the Law regularly, since they produced so many copies of religious texts. [continue]

In case you were wondering, the key to wife carrying is upside down. From the Wall Street Journal:

VAIKE-MAARJA, Estonia -- Take it from a world champion: The best way for a man to carry a woman is to dangle her upside down over his back, with her thighs squeezing his neck and her arms around his torso.

"That way, your arms are free to help with balance. It's more stable. There's less shifting of the weight," says Margo Uusorg. He has just carried Egle Soll, her pigtails flapping against his back, around a 278-yard oval track that includes a 3-foot-deep water trough and two hurdles of wooden logs. In just over one minute, they won the Estonian championship here, and qualified for this coming weekend's Wife Carrying World Championship in Sonkajarvi, Finland, where Mr. Uusorg is a heavy favorite to win his third world crown.

"When you carry this way," he says, "it's much easier."

Ms. Soll, upright again and flushed by the experience, if not the victory, says, "It's not so bad. But you don't see much."

Estonian men turned up in this little farming village lugging their women upside down five years ago, and the sport of wife carrying hasn't been the same since. Suddenly, gone were the glory days of the piggyback carry, the fireman's carry, the wrap-around-the-shoulders carry. The "Estonian carry," as it was dubbed, was in. And Estonians have won five straight wife-carrying world championships. (Actually, "wife carrying" is a misnomer, for the rules in the freestyle competition allow the man to carry any woman older than 17, his wife or not.)

This Estonian dominance doesn't sit well with the Finns, who have been wife-carrying since the late 1800s, when marauding gangs would make off with women from neighboring villages. According to legend, a notorious brigand of the time named Rosvo-Ronkainen recruited only men who had first proved their worth by carrying heavy weight on a challenging track.

Now, it is the neighboring Estonians who are getting the spoils of victory. And a frosty Baltic Sea rivalry is getting fiercer. [continue]

Related links:
Estonia's clean sweep at wife-carrying - BBC
Wife Carrying, Finland - LonelyPlanet.com

If you could play any one of these medieval and renaissance instruments, which one would you pick? The crumhorn? The organetto? The rackett? Or how about the outrageous serpent?

I think the rebec looks pretty cool.

From the BBC: Pupils learn in wi-fi wood.

If you go down to the woods in southern England, you may be surprised to find a group of pupils armed with the latest handheld gadgets.

The children have been given personal digital assistants (PDAs) and pocket radios to track down and record plants and wildlife.

They have been taking part in a scheme called the Ambient Wood Project, which looks at how technology can best be used to teach schoolchildren about ecology.

"It could help get people interested in nature because nowadays people are just sitting of the couch watching TV a lot," said Harry, one of the pupils who took part in the scheme.

The Ambient Wood Project was initially set up just over a year ago and involves academics from around the UK.

The aim is to find out the best ways of using the latest digital devices to teach children about the world around them.

For the project, a wireless network has been set up in a wood in Sussex on the south coast of England.

Schoolchildren with PDAs and walkie talkies are encouraged to explore the wood, reporting back about wildlife or plants they see along the way. [continue]

It seems that the rare and strange Wollemi Pine tree isn't the only amazing thing in Australia's Wollemi National Park. From New Scientist: Cave reveals 4000 years of Aboriginal art.

A cavern resplendent with Aboriginal cave art encompassing 4000 years is being hailed in Australia as the most important find in half a century. The cave was discovered by a backpacker in a remote and almost inaccessible part of Wollemi National Park in New South Wales.

Among the newly revealed images are fantastic images of half human/half animal creatures, a rare rendering of a wombat and numerous birds, lizards and marsupials. The find also includes stenciled images of arms and boomerangs.

"We are incredibly excited about what the cave has revealed to us of the long record of visitors to the area," says Paul Taçon of the Australian Museum in Sydney, who led an expedition to analyse the paintings in May.

"It is amazing to contemplate why people repeatedly travelled great distances through such a rugged landscape to leave their marks out this cave time and again," he says.

First discovered in 1995, the artwork lies in such a hard to reach location that experts were only able to carry out a full analysis recently. The precise location of the find is being kept secret to prevent it being disturbed by vandals or sightseers. [continue]

From an abc.net.au article:

A new method of analysing language supports the idea that farmers carried Celtic to the British Isles, Ireland and France in a single wave 6,000 years ago, researchers report.

This runs counter to existing linguistic theories that Celtic, one of the Indo-European languages, arrived in two separate events.

Dr Peter Forster, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge in Britain used techniques usually reserved for DNA analysis for his study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It is a major debate among geneticists whether Europeans are descended mainly from Indo-European speakers, who came in possibly with farming, or whether most of our genes have been here much longer - with the early hunter-gatherers who arrived 30,000 to 40,000 years ago," Forster said.

Experts have dated the migration of peoples, and even the origin of humans, using a technique called mutational analysis. The idea is there is a 'genetic clock': that random mutations in DNA average out to a steady rate over thousands and millions of years. The technique has dated human origins to a theoretical single African female living 180,000 years ago.

Forster applied this technique to language - specifically to the Celtic languages, spoken widely before the Roman empire imposed Latin 2,000 years ago. Celtic languages survive in parts of Ireland, Britain, France and Wales. [continue]

related link:
Celtic Found to Have Ancient Roots - New York Times (requires free registration)

Why build a new water system when you can re-activate the environmentally-friendly one the Romans built centuries ago?

ALEPPO: "Have some water, it's clean enough to drink," say some women of Shalala Saghira (little falls), as they draw water from restored qanats (canals) and carry buckets of it on their heads to their small homes in the hills near Aleppo. The village, located approximately 70 kilometers southeast of Aleppo near the town of Khanasser, is the first in Syria to have its qanats, which date from Byzantine times, reactivated. This program, in partnership with the International Center for Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the directorate of the National Museum of Aleppo, gives the locals of Shalala Saghira the chance to use this ancient yet clean and efficient way of getting their water.(...)

The first ancient qanats to be excavated in Syria were found by German archaeologists approximately 100 years ago in northern Syria at Tel Halaf along the Turkish border. Yet large-scale plans to reactivate them for practical use are relatively recent.

The idea of reactivating the qanats comes from the same need the Romans had when they initially built them — to make the most of scarce water resources in an arid region.

During Roman times, these canals connected cities such as Duro Europos, Bosra and Palmyra. The paths of the qanats (basically large tunnels) are so big that one could drive a car through them. The Romans were probably the biggest builders of qanats, though other civilizations also contributed their irrigation techniques to the region. Qanats rely on gravity to carry water and are considered environmentally sound because they do not deplete groundwater resources. [continue]

Cool! This from wired.com: Sinbad Hears Linux's Siren Song.

A thousand years ago, people were telling the story of Sinbad the Sailor and his seven amazing voyages. Now the swashbuckling sailor has been given new life with Linux.

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, an animated movie from DreamWorks Animation Technology that hits theaters July 2, is the first Hollywood production created entirely on Linux. More than 250 Hewlett-Packard workstations running Red Hat Linux make up the core of DreamWorks' graphics platform. [continue]

From The Australian: Ancient tomb found in China.

Chinese archaeologists have unearthed a spectacular tomb thought to be more than 2500 years old, probably belonging to a ruler of the mysterious Ba Kingdom.

Along with more than 500 bronze objects, the skeletons of two women and a man were found, face up and pointed east. Archaeologists said they had probably been servants or vassals of a Ba king, buried with him as human sacrifices.

The site at Luo Jiaba in Xuanhan county, Sichuan province, was first discovered in 1987, and has been under excavation since 1996. The latest discoveries, made late last month, were typical of a luxury tomb, seeming to confirm the archaeologists' belief that a Ba king might lie nearby. Thirty-one tombs have been found in the area. [continue]

There are just ten questions in Canada.com's Canada Trivia quiz - how many can you get right? Here's the rest of Canada.com's Canada Day coverage, and here's the Canadian national anthem, courtesy of singforcanada.ca. Sing, sing, sing!

Well, what kind of things have you made out of wood lately? Matthias Wandel made a pipe organ, and he put all the details on his website.

My first organ experiments were high in volume, if not in harmony. I proceeded to build two wooden pipes, and mounted these on top of a box with a vacuum cleaner motor inside.

He's got photos and diagrams, and even sound files.

This is the most encouraging bit of tech news I've seen lately. From the Seattle Times: Free Wi-Fi on way to becoming standard of service.

Michael Prins has his eyes — and nose — on his coffee, but his ears tell a different story. His new shop, Herkimer Coffee, opened at the end of May in the Greenwood neighborhood to the sound of tapping keys. (...)

"On the very first day we opened, at noon there were three people with laptops in here," Prins said. "I was like, ‘How did you guys even know?’ "

Herkimer offers a free Internet connection via Wi-Fi, a wireless standard increasingly included as a default option in laptops. Prins placed a small sign in the window noting the free service, and the connected set found his shop. "It's amazing how fast word travels," he said.

Prins' store is one of many public venues in Seattle and worldwide that are following a different path from Starbucks, Borders, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and some other independent coffee shops, by charging nothing for wireless access under the presumably measurable hope that other revenue will increase.

... he has noted that laptop users tend to show up when there are fewer people in the store. With setup costs in the low hundreds, and a monthly business broadband bill of about $80, Prins doesn't need much additional traffic to offset those expenses.

And just think of all the free advertising he'll get! Wireless geeks will tell their friends about that cafe, and it'll be listed in the various directories that list free hotspots.

On a smaller scale, the national restaurant chain Schlotzsky's Deli has seen a return by offering free wireless and free computer access in just a handful of company-owned stores in the Austin, Texas, area.

Monica Landers, Schlotzsky's director of communications, said that in surveys 6 percent of customers in the company's Internet-equipped restaurants said online access "was an important part of the decision" to come in.

Company CEO John Wooley has said that at those rates, each store could see an additional 15,000 customers and $100,000 in additional revenue per year. Even better, those customers tend to come in during the slack time in the afternoon, Landers said.

That's a refrain echoed by many venues: Wireless users — whether free or paying — tend to add to overall customer numbers and fill in the empty times. [continue]

Related links:
Herkimer Coffee

Related Mirabilis.ca entries:
Cafe wireless should be free