Well, look what the British Museum found: Senua, Britain's unknown goddess. From the Guardian:

She is faceless and armless, but she has a name: Senua. A previously unknown Romano-British goddess has been resurrected at the British Museum, patiently prised from soil-encrusted clumps of gold and corroded silver which have buried her identity for more than 1,600 years. Her name is published for the first time today.

The 26 pieces of gold and silver, found in a Hertfordshire field last year, are believed to be the treasures of a shrine in her honour, carefully hidden as some disaster loomed in the late 3rd century. The fact that they were never recovered suggests the protection of the goddess did nothing to save her conscientious devotee.

"This is a hugely significant find, of national and international importance," Ralph Jackson, Roman curator at the British Museum, said. "Personal hoards, hidden in some crisis, are reasonably common. To find a hoard of a temple treasure, such as this one, is incredibly rare, not just in Britain but anywhere. To give Britain a new goddess is extraordinary."

He believes Senua was probably an older Celtic goddess, worshipped at a spring on the site, who was then adopted and Romanised - twinned with their goddess Minerva - by the invaders. There is a direct parallel at Bath, where the Romans seamlessly absorbed the Celtic god Sulis, and a much older shrine, into their religion. [continue]

From the Sunday Herald: Meet France's Mother Teresa.

France has produced some of the world's most memorable icons — writers, actresses, philosophers, cheesemakers — but even Francophiles may have raised an eyebrow at the news this week that a 91-year-old priest has just been voted France's most popular person for the 17th year running.

Abbé Pierre, a frail Capuchin brother, beat football superstar Zinedine Zidane and veteran crooner Johnny Halliday into second and third place in the annual poll carried out by the Journal De Dimanche newspaper. President Jacques Chirac barely registered at Number 22.

Little is known about Abbé Pierre outside his native France, where he is revered for his work with the most marginalised members of society and for founding what has become a worldwide network of communities which find housing and work for homeless people. [continue]

Monks remain a favored icon for advertisers. From a New York Times article, conveniently reprinted at the Contra Costa Times:

The men in hoods and robes are marketers' darlings, having starred lately in campaigns for America Online's broadband service, General Mills' Oatmeal Crisp Fruit 'n Cereal Bars and PepsiCo's Pepsi Blue brand. These came after appearances in commercials for companies like IBM, Nintendo and Sony.

"They're lovable," said Len Short, executive vice president for brand marketing at America Online in Dulles, Va., part of AOL Time Warner. In the pantheon of widely appealing stock figures, "you have dogs, babies and monks." he said. "Who hates monks?"

Monk characters recur in advertisements though real monks generally live sequestered in monasteries and often make vows of silence and poverty -- sharing little with the free-spending, hard-charging consumers that marketers seek. But that disparity, according to advertisers and observers of religion and culture, is what makes monks work for advertisers. [continue]

Norway's famous antarctic explorer is back in the news 75 years after his death. From The Age: Norwegian search may end 75-year explorer mystery.

A slab of driftwood and a fisherman's chart may help solve a mystery about the death of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in a plane crash 75 years ago.

Amundsen, who in 1911 became the first person to reach the South Pole after a historic race with Briton Robert Falcon Scott, vanished on June 18, 1928, when his seaplane crashed during a rescue mission for an Italian rival lost in the Arctic.

Armed with tantalising new evidence, Norway is considering sending a submarine to scour the seabed for the wreck of Amundsen's plane near Bear Island in icy North Atlantic waters 70 to 100 metres deep.

"We have a chart, new witness reports and what could be part of a plane," said Per Arvid Pettersen, project leader at the Norwegian Aviation Museum in Bodoe, northern Norway. [continue]

Related news articles:
New clue in Amundsen disappearance - from Aftenposten (Includes photo.)
Search for South Pole hero - from the BBC

Related links:
Antarctic Explorers: Roald Amundsen - from south-pole.com
The life of Roald Amundsen -from Oden.dep.no
Roald Amundsen - from CoolAntarctica.com
Roald Amundsen - from Wikipedia

From Light in the Dark Ages, over at the Guardian:

Cats are suited to a monastic life; they spend hours in silent contemplation and have little interest in worldly goods. Back in the Dark Ages, a cat could do a lot worse than make a home in a monastery, with its warm kitchens and quiet, cool corners. Opportunist strays were adopted by monks who appreciated the pest control and waste disposal services they offered. No doubt the companionship was also a welcome intrusion into a life of isolation and austerity.

Monastery cats even made a contribution to one of the world's most exquisite illuminated manuscripts. The Lindisfarne Gospels was created around the year 715 in the island monastery of Lindisfarne. On the initial page of St Luke's Gospel, an elongated cat stretches along the right-hand margin. A chain of birds walk blithely towards the cat, whose belly is already full of their hapless friends. There is a touch of humour in the illustration, as well as an allegorical warning to the faithful. According to Michelle Brown, curator of illuminated manuscripts at the British Library (where the Gospels are on exhibition), the cat represents "the ever present threat of evil waiting to pounce on the unwary".

Yet more cats decorate the Book Of Kells, another fine example of Celtic calligraphy, which was written around 800. In one image, two mice nibble at the Eucharist under the watchful gaze of a pair of cats. Two more mice have escaped peril by perching on the cats' backs. Medieval Christians may have worried about animals consuming the body of Christ, and this illustration may allude to unworthy receivers of the communion host. The cats sit in judgment - but are they guardians of good or agents of evil? Either way, it is likely that these monk-scribes were familiar with real cats. According to Felicity O'Mahony, a librarian at Trinity College Library, Dublin, where the Book Of Kells is displayed, "It may be that the scribes were drawing the very animals that shared the scriptorium with them, keeping vermin away from expensive vellum." [continue]

The Romans played a wide variety of board games, including Knucklebones (Tali & Tropa), Dice (Tesserae), Roman Chess (Latrunculi), Roman Checkers (Calculi), The Game of Twelve Lines (Duodecim Scripta), The Game of Lucky Sixes (Felix Sex), Tic-Tac-Toe (Terni Lapilli), Roman Backgammon (Tabula), Egyptian Backgammon (Senet), and others.

This is from Roman Board Games, which has lots more information.

Link from Diffuse Shadows.

I've wondered how this HadiaBucks thing would turn out.

Lately, the coffee in Masset, a small town on the remote island of Haida Gwaii, tastes especially sweet. That's because HaidaBucks, a small indigenous-owned coffee house and restaurant located there, is savouring its victory over Starbucks and its claims of trademark infringement.

In true David-vs.-Goliath fashion, HaidaBucks stared down a multi-billion-dollar global enterprise. "We won," said co-owner Darin Swanson. "We did more than defend our name; we defended our honour as indigenous peoples, and our right to our heritage."

It began when Starbucks alleged that the small, struggling business was violating Starbucks' trademark rights. Threatened with legal action if they did not change their name or logo, HaidaBucks did not back down.

Instead, the bucks enlisted the help of a Victoria law firm Arvay Finlay, and launched a massive web-based campaign with the help of West Virginia, USA businessman Lane Baldwin. Now, after months of legal wrangling and a swell of public support for HaidaBucks, it appears that Starbucks is the one that backed down.

HaidaBucks has recently received a letter from StarBucks which concludes "Starbucks considers this matter closed". And with that, HaidaBucks' triumph is complete. [continue]

Link found at the Dominion Weblog.

Related links:
HaidaBucks Cafe
How to tell the difference between HaidaBucks and Starbucks
HaidaBucks t-shirts and mugs
Starbucks to sue aboriginal cafe, HaidaBucks - CBC, April 25th, 2003

From the Telegraph: The monasteries mean business.

The Abbey of Our Lady of Bellefontaine, hidden among orchards and farmland 30 miles south of the medieval city of Angers, has little in common with other corporate headquarters in Europe.

The Cistercian monastery's staff canteen is a soaring refectory where meals are taken in silence. There are no gyms or vending machines or conference rooms - unless you count the chapel. And the chief executive is not some fist-pumping sales whizz but Brother Gérard, a 54-year-old monk in a cream cassock, black hood and sandals.

For the past six years, Brother Gérard has been president of Monastic, an association set up in 1991 to protect and develop the cottage industries run in monasteries throughout France, Belgium and parts of Germany.

Annual turnover has now reached more than £3 million, with the shop at Our Lady of Bellefontaine accounting for one tenth of that. Monastic now has 227 monasteries and convents as members and is spreading into Africa and the rest of Europe. [continue]

Related:
Gifts from the Monastery

Weird plants in everyday gardens. From National Geographic:

Some smell like putrefied meat, others have stalks reminiscent of male anatomy, and others are outrageously big, or black, or carnivorous, or explosive. The world is full of weird plants and more and more people are encouraging them to take root in their gardens.

In 1999, after being disappointed by the poor selection of plants sold at the big garden centers in the United Kingdom, Diane Halligan created The Weird and Wonderful Plant Company in East Lothian, Scotland, to source, produce, and promote plants that are different than the ordinary. She reports solid business.

"Any keen gardener with a bit of rebel in them — including me — is driven mad by the rows upon rows of pastel colored bedding plants offered by garden centers and some nurseries," she said. "In today's society when land is at such a premium, gardeners want to grow something a bit more special in their borders." [continue]

I'm amused by the giant rhubarb plant down the block, but I think that's about as strange as it gets in this neighbourhood. But you want weird? These plants are rather unusual.

Oh, and don't miss the weird plants photo gallery at National Geographic.

Related links:
Weird plants from gridclub.com
Weird and Wonderful Plant Company

From the Guardian: Britain's longest-inhabited dwelling.

Saltford Manor House, in Somerset, has beaten contenders from all over the country to take the title of the oldest continuously inhabited house in Britain.

The search was launched by Country Life and attracted hundreds of nominations from its readers, mostly ruled out on technicalities - former ecclesiastical buildings, unexpectedly available in the property boom which followed Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, were ruled out.

Architectural historian John Goodall also struck out swaths of ancient buildings constructed as houses but now in use as gift shops, museums or offices, as well as those where only fragments of very old houses are attached to more modern buildings.

The Tower of London, built to intimidate the potentially rebellious citizens within decades of the Norman conquest, and the great hall of Westminster Palace, along with many castles and some cathedrals, are older but cannot claim continuous domestic use.

However, in finally ruling in favour of Saltford, which is near Bristol, he believes the house has details, particularly in the ornate windows, which date it securely to before 1150, and probably to around 1148, the completion date of Hereford Cathedral, which has some similarities. [continue]

A Telegraph article about the house quotes the current owner:

You just don't expect to have a Norman window with intricate friezes next to your bathroom. There are Tudor fireplaces and doors and ecclesiastical paintings in the spare bedroom of St Francis of Assisi and Mary and Jesus. When you stop to think about it, it is just astonishing." [full article]

From the Guardian: Turkmenistan Ruins at Risk of Crumbling.

MERV, Turkmenistan (AP) - Genghis Khan's hordes couldn't wipe the great city at Merv from the earth when they killed thousands here in their bloody wave of conquest. Centuries later, though, modern man's meddling with Mother Nature threatens to obliterate the remains of the metropolis.

Merv enjoyed a golden age during the 11th and 12th centuries, when the Sultan Kala fortress was the eastern capital of the Turkish Seljuk Empire and one of the world's biggest cities. Legend says the blue dome of the Sultan Sanjar mausoleum was visible a day's journey away. Even when Mongolian warriors led by Genghis Khan's son sacked the city in 1221, killing what a 13th century historian claimed were 1.3 million people, the city still stood.

Today, the mausoleum is still Merv's crowning landmark, but the dome's blue tiles disappeared long ago. Well-intentioned Soviet efforts in the 1980s to preserve the structure by capping the dome with concrete did more harm than good, trapping water inside and weighing it down.

Now Merv is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and

...preservationists funded by UNESCO have dug pits across Merv, looking for the right earth to build new bricks to help shore up the buildings' walls. Bendakir said residents had forgotten traditional methods for making high-quality mud bricks, so the preservationists experiment with different proportions of mud and water, sometimes adding straw or lime. [continue]

(Story spotted at Phluzein.)

Related links:
Photos of Merv Fantastic thumbnail shots. Registration required if you want to see full size photos.
Merv, Turkmenistan, excavations from the British Museum's Department of Ancient Near East
The International Merv Project, Turkmenistan
Merv, Turkmenistan - Galen R Frysinger's travel photos

Gardening experts in China aren't about to let their local ancient tree die. They're trying to revitalize the tree with traditional Chinese medicine.

TIANJIN, Aug. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Gardening and forestry experts are saving a dying ancient pine in north China's municipality of Tianjin with a therapy of traditional Chinese medicine.

A landmark on Mount Panshan, a state-level scenic site in Jixian county, the old pine is called yingkesong, or "welcoming pine," because of its shape of opening arms.

The pine, believed to be 400 to 600 years old, became withered in 1997, and though rescuing measures were taken, it remained in danger of death.

Living leaves and branches could be seen only on a small part of the crown and only a width of less than 10 centimeters of the trunk was kept alive.

Led by Li Jinling, an expert dubbed "savior of ancient trees" from the Beijing Gardening Bureau, experts from Beijing and Tianjin are treating the pine in a more holistic, traditional Chinese method.

"We take the pine as a human body," said Chen Xiaokui, an expert with the Tianjin Gardening and Forestation Institute. "And in diagnosis, we not only took into consideration its symptoms, but also the impact its environment might have on it."

The diagnosis showed that the roots were dying as a result of the fluctuation of water under the stone bridge where the ancient pine roots, which meant the old tree could not get enough water, Chen said.

Worm-eating was another factor leaving the pine on the verge of death, according to Chen.

Inspired by the theory of qi, or vital energy, in traditional Chinese medical science, and in order to achieve a balance of air getting into and out of the plant roots, the experts decided to aerate the soil around the pine by digging grooves and holes to let in more air.

After deciding what nutrients the pine lacked by testing the leaves and the soil, Chinese medicine believed to be helpful for recuperation was poured into the soil for the roots to absorb.

The ancient tree was also wrapped with sacks soaked in Chinese medicine to ward off woodworms. [continue]

From an article at The Australian:

France has mourned the death in this month's heatwave of the oldest tree at the Chateau de Versailles, a 321-year-old oak that once shaded the playground of Marie-Antoinette.

The Marie-Antoinette oak, nearly 30m tall, was certified dead by experts from the National Office of Forests on Monday after losing its last leaves to the scorching sun that inflicted record temperatures all over France. The great oak stood midway between the Grand Trianon palace and the lake, and survived the 1776 revamp of Versailles in which Louis XVI, husband of Queen Marie-Antoinette, felled most of the royal trees.

The oak lived through revolution and war as well as the 1999 storms that destroyed 10,000 of the trees in the 1600ha Versailles park. It was planted in 1680 by Andre Lenotre, the architect-landscaper who built the chateau and laid out the park for Louis XIV, the Sun King.

A century later Marie-Antoinette and her court of friends and followers used to play blind-man's bluff and other games around the tree. [continue]

The prim black boots of Queen Victoria's era did not fade away with her death in 1901; they continued with unabashed popularity for several more years. Skirts were, after all, still brushing the tops of women's feet. However, hemlines began to rise a few years into the new century, and the rest, as they say, is history ...

This is from a fun site called Soulmates: the century in shoes.

Note: The flash option is more fun. If you choose that one, turn up your speakers before you begin. (Unless you're at work, pretending that you're Officially Busy.)

From The Glasgow Herald: Ancient history revealed in a circle.

A stone circle discovered on a ridge overlooking the famous Callanish standing stones on Lewis could shed new light on the purpose of the ancient structures, say archaeologists.

The circle is believed to pre-date Stonehenge.

It was found by a team of archaeologists from Manchester University, led by Colin Richards, who has been studying the construction of stone circles for the past two years.

The group found the circle was built on the site of a quarry from which stones for the main Callanish circle probably came - only the second such quarry ever to be found.

Called Na Dromannan, the new circle is about 90ft in diameter - larger than the existing ones - and each stone is between 7ft and 12ft long. [continue]

Related links:
Ancient stone circle discovered - BBC
Callanish - Stone Circle
Virtual Calanais - 360 degree quicktime view
The Megalithic Portal: Callanish X Stone Circle

A Dutch church has come up with an unusual fundraising method. From the Globe and Mail: Worshipping at the altar of cheese.

EDAM, THE NETHERLANDS -- In an effort to raise funds for the renovation of the epic 42-metre tower of their landmark 15th-century Grote Kerk (Great Church), the Dutch town of Edam has constructed a cathedral out of thousands of un-holey orbs of its most famous export: cheese.

Until Sept. 13, visitors to Amsterdam can take the scenic 13-kilometre detour to the hallowed halls of Edam's Great Church, also known as St. Nicolaas Church, to view a 1:10 scale model inside. The model is built out of about 10,000 spheres of Edam cheese, each one individually sponsored. (St. Nicolaas is the longest hall church in Europe. It is also the reputed final resting place of Rembrandt's mistress, Grietje Dircks.)

In addition to attracting an estimated 10,000 visitors and generating much-needed funds, the mildly odorous edifice will undoubtedly find itself a spot in the Guinness Book of Records alongside that of Canada's greatest cheese achievement: the 26-tonne cheddar wonder produced in 1995 by Loblaws Supermarkets and Agropurv Dairies in Granby, Que. [continue]

Related:
Kerk van Kaas - this is the Cheese Church website. Quite fun, but in Dutch, of course. (Requires Flash)

From the New York Times: Uncovered Trove May Yield Clues to Pharaohs.

When the Aswan High Dam was built across the Upper Nile in the 1960's, international teams managed to rescue ancient temples and other monuments from the rising waters upstream. They were moved and restored to dry land.

A less grand but important Aswan site avoided submersion but not the neglect of years. Only recently have Egyptian archaeologists begun work on a major quarry that yielded the black granite for the sarcophagi, statues and enormous obelisks.

Sediment and debris buried the quarry floor. Once it was cleared, archaeologists found pits in the shapes of the extracted obelisks and materials for removing and finishing the stone. They also uncovered remains of the harbor where boats picked up the stones. [continue]

Note: NYT requires free registration. (Sometimes, anyway.) This article is reprinted, minus the photos, here at the International Herald Tribune site. No registration required to view that version.

From Love on the rocks:

Amidst an exciting sea of swimmers, stingers, and stunning beauties, barnacles may seem boring. But within their limestone homes, these tiny crustaceans hide an extraordinary sexual endowment and enviable masonry skills that have guided them down a long and successful evolutionary path. Emerging more than 520 million years ago, barnacles even survived the Permian extinction, which decimated up to 96 percent of all marine species.

Cemented into a permanent headstand, barnacles kick food into their mouths with feathery feet. [continue]

How could you do anything but continue, after an introduction like that?

You may also like The Secret Life of Barnacles. And how about the amazing barnacle photos at the Virtual Ocean?

From Ananova: G-strings save the art of crochet.

Polish women are swapping doilies for G-strings in a bid to save the art of crochet.

No longer able to sell their hand-crafted doilies and table cloths, women in the tiny Polish mountain village of Koniakow are giving the centuries old art a new twist by making sexy G-strings, bras and slips.

Shop owner Tadeusz Rucki told daily paper Gazeta Wyborcza: "Typical crochet lace doesn't sell very well these days. We needed something new to offer women."

And she said it was beneficial not only to those buying it, but to the craft itself.

She added: "We need a way to encourage young girls to keep the tradition of crocheting alive."

Related:
Basic Crochet Instructions

TrekEarth boasts "over 10,425 photos from around the world". It's a fine site to browse through. Here, for example, is a photo of Saint-Germain abbey, captioned as follows.

What to say about the extraordinary Saint-Germain abbey of the city of Auxerre?

The original place was an oratory with relics which was founded in 448 AC. Today, we can see some among the oldest mural paintings discovered in France. This crypt is in the basement of the successive layers of religious buildings (Basilica of Clotild from the 6th century; the Carolingian church from the 9th century, the lower & upper churchs between the 11th and the 14th centuries).

Taken from one bridge across the Yonne river, this shot allows us to see the church and the Saint-Jean tower from the 12th century.

A few other striking photos:
Venice, Italy
Meteora Monastery, Greece
Un Ptit Bizous (What a face!)

Thanks to Frank DiSalle for telling me about TrekEarth.

An excerpt from the earliest clocks page at nist.gov:

Water clocks were among the earliest timekeepers that didn't depend on the observation of celestial bodies. One of the oldest was found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep I, buried around 1500 BCE. Later named clepsydras ("water thieves") by the Greeks, who began using them about 325 BCE, these were stone vessels with sloping sides that allowed water to drip at a nearly constant rate from a small hole near the bottom. Other clepsydras were cylindrical or bowl-shaped containers designed to slowly fill with water coming in at a constant rate. Markings on the inside surfaces measured the passage of "hours" as the water level reached them. These clocks were used to determine hours at night, but may have been used in daylight as well. Another version consisted of a metal bowl with a hole in the bottom; when placed in a container of water the bowl would fill and sink in a certain time. These were still in use in North Africa in the 20th century.

More elaborate and impressive mechanized water clocks were developed between 100 BCE and 500 CE by Greek and Roman horologists and astronomers. The added complexity was aimed at making the flow more constant by regulating the pressure, and at providing fancier displays of the passage of time. Some water clocks rang bells and gongs; others opened doors and windows to show little figures of people, or moved pointers, dials, and astrological models of the universe. [continue]

Further reading:
Water clocks - from Factmonster
Time and the History of its Measurement (Includes That sinking feeling and Water Clocks and Clepsydra sections)
Clepsydra from Rees's Clocks, Watches and Chronometers, 1819

Spotted at Giornale Nuovo:

The University of Aberdeen's Bestiary is a particularly fine mediaeval manuscript which, moreover, has been given an exemplary on-line presentation. [continue]

I found this a while ago, while checking to see if anybody really does dip scorpions in chocolate. (Yes, and yes. Isn't it incredible what some people will eat?) Anyway, here is Escorpion Especial and a Side of Chocolate, Por Favor. It's not about eating scorpions, but gives a good idea of what it would be like to live with scorpions appearing in one's house now and again. Total creep-out stuff for innocent Vancouverites, I tell you. I love the second part of the scorption bite remedy.

Scorpions are everywhere in Mexico (including, it turns out, my kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom) and they range in size from about the length of a cigarette filter to that of a very manly cigar. In some places, birds hunt for scorpions, and in others, the scorpions hunt birds. They come in black, white, green, brown, and in combinations of these colors. They come out only at night, and they fall: from thatched roofs and clotheslines, cracked skylights and banana trees, anything overhead. You choose your steps cautiously from bed to bathroom, and plop! there is one on your shoulder. You plod barefoot from the beach to your home, and plop! one appears in the sand, awaiting your next footfall.

When they are not busy falling, they march. In a perfect 4:4 time (remember that arachnids have eight legs) and always in a precisely straight line, they march, death held aloft and swinging slightly left and right with each step. They are like tiny tanks rolling inexorably over your kitchen floor, turrets swiveling this way and that in search of movement. They have no discernible head. There is only death, swaying lightly above, and legs, marching steady below.

The locals have numerous precautions, procedures, remedies, and superstitions. The most intriguing of these is chocolate, considered in these parts the sole known antidote for some varieties of scorpion sting. If you are attacked, you are supposed to 1) kill the thing, 2) eat chocolate, and 3) don't sleep. If you sleep you may fall into a coma. While you are awake your skin will burn and you will develop a fever, but you can reduce these symptoms by consuming heaps of chocolate. [continue]

A quiz from the Guardian:

It is 100 years since Queen Victoria died - having ruled for 64 years, survived seven attempts on her life, produced nine children and coloured the world map red. But how much do you know about her, a century on? [continue]

There are quite a lot of you who read Mirabilis.ca in rss aggregators, so I thought I'd mention that I made a better rss news feed; this one uses the rss 2.0 standard. In some aggregators, this new feed looks better than the old one. Just imagine: paragraphs and indentation, oh my! (Of course, display all depends on what your aggregator supports.)

The new and improved feed is
http://www.mirabilis.ca/index.xml

If you use an aggregator to read this site, you might want to change your settings so you're getting the new feed instead of the old .rdf one.

By the way, some RSS aggregators are significantly better than others. If you'd like to try a few aggregators, take a look at this list. It includes online aggregators, and aggregator software for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Related Mirabilis.ca content
Online aggregators
Aggregators to the rescue!
RSS FAQ

Archaeologists unearth evidence of Roman sock crime. From Ananova:

Archaeologists say Roman Britons may have committed the fashion howler of wearing socks with their sandals.

A bronze foot unearthed at a major archaeological dig appears to be wearing a sock-like garment, an expert said.

"It's embarrassing for them," said Nansi Rosenberg, senior archaeological consultant at EC Harris, which is managing the excavation of a three acre temple complex in Southwark, south London.

"I would think their excuse would be the cold. We know from the writings of Tacitus that the weather in Britain was terrible.

"The foot is wearing a Mediterranean-type sandal but the garment with it may have been some kind of woollen stocking. [continue]

Related:
Romans' crimes of fashion revealed - BBC

This is lovely: Bob the Angry Flower's Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots. I'm going to print 17 copies and post them on walls where they are most needed. You may also like Bob's Quick Guide to Its and It's, You Idiots. Both are from Angryflower.com. Link found at Polyglut.

Related:
Apostrophe poster. Full colour.

From Techdirt, on wireless Internet access: WiFi to support the employees.

It appears that more and more people are beginning to realize that business models surrounding WiFi can be a bit more creative than "charge for access". More and more retail establishments are discovering that their staff can do a lot more with WiFi. The first example may be the best. A restaurant gave WiFi-enabled handhelds to all waitstaff to submit orders. Customers get faster, more accurate service, and the waitstaff gets better tips. Seems like a win-win for everyone involved. Now, how long until that same pub realizes they can also make customers happier by letting them tap into that WiFi goodness?

From the Washington Post: Scholars Perform Autopsy on Ancient Writing Systems.

When a system of writing begins to die, people probably don't even notice at first. Maybe the culture that spawned it loses its vitality, and the script decays along with it. Maybe the scribes or priests decide that most ordinary people aren't able to learn it, so they don't teach it.

Or a new, simpler system may show up -- an alphabet, perhaps -- that can be easily learned by aggressive upstarts who don't speak the old language and don't care to learn its fancy pictographic forms.

Or perhaps invaders take over. They decide the old language is an inconvenience, the old culture is mumbo jumbo and the script that serves it is subversive. The scribes are shunned, discredited and, if they persist, obliterated.

In the first study of its kind, three experts in the study of written language have described the common characteristics that caused three famous scripts -- ancient Egyptian, Middle Eastern cuneiform and pre-Columbian Mayan -- to disappear. [continue]

From the Telegraph: Ancient monastic island turns back pleasure-seekers.

One of France's oldest monastic communities, on an island less than a mile off Cannes on the Côte d'Azur, has barricaded its land against a tide of tourists.

The 27 Cistercian monks who inhabit a fortified 11th century monastery on the Ile Saint-Honorat are an oddity in a region otherwise devoted to pleasure-seeking.

Jet-skiers and yachts churn the waters around the mile-long island and in the distance the monks can see the domes of the Carlton Hotel, modelled on the breasts of the early 20th century dancer, La Belle Otero.

The monks, who cultivate 17 acres, producing 50,000 bottles of wine a year, hold tenaciously to their ancient ways in a region of rapid change. Their community's founder, St Honorat, settled there in the fourth century. [continue]

Related:
Abbaye de Lérins (in French)
Association for the protection of the exceptional conservation area of the Island Saint Honorat

What a excellent use of technology! From Australian IT: Japan ready to market "robot suit".

Japanese companies are preparing for the commercial launch of a "robot suit" that helps aged or physically disabled people walk, get up the stairs or seat themselves to relax without a chair.

Trading house Mitsui and Co. and some 30 other Tokyo firms plan to set up a joint-venture in April or May next year to market the powered suit developed by Yoshiyuki Sankai, professor and engineer at Tsukuba University, officials said. (...)

"The suit practically supports people's life, focusing on the strong point of robots," Mr Sankai said.

The powered suit, code-named HAL-3 (Hybrid Assistive Leg), consists of a computer and batteries in the backpack as well as four actuators attached around the knees and hip joints.

The motor-powered devices guide movement of the legs as the computer calculates the user's next motion by detecting faint electric signals from the muscle, the professor said.

With the equipment, the user can walk at a speed of four kilometres (2.5 miles) per hour with little physical exertion and avoid the jerky stop-go moves of ordinary robots.

As a first step, the new venture plans to lease or sell 10 prototypes next year, targetting hospitals and nursing-care facilities at home and abroad, Mr Sankai said. (...)

"Not only the elderly but also disabled people will be able to live comfortably, leaving heavy physical tasks to the suit," he said. [continue]

Of course, any malfunctions would be a little like Wallace's wrong trousers when they've gone wrong.

Related:
The Wrong Trousers video. Very much fun; highly recommended.
DVD Review - Wallace and Gromit

Mind your tongue, from News24.com.

"Vel ny partanyn snaue, Joe?," says the ghostly voice from the archives.

"'Cha nel monney, cha nel monney,' dooyrt Joe. 'T'ad feer ghoan'."

The voice belonged to Ned Maddrell, the very last native speaker of Manx, the Celtic language once spoken on the Isle of Man - the small island located between Britain and Ireland.

Maddrell died in 1974, leaving behind recordings of his fishing anecdotes and daily chat (translation of this snippet: "Are the crabs crawling, Joe? 'Not much, not much,' said Joe. 'They're very scarce'.").

Casual, almost banal as they seemed at the time, Mandrell's utterances are now precious beyond price.

Carefully stored and pored over by phonetics experts, his words are the linguistic equivalent of a gene bank for dead species.

More than 300 languages have already become extinct, and "thousands" more are hurtling down the same road, say Daniel Abrams and Steven Strogatz of New York's Cornell University. [continue] (News24 requires annoying registration.)

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (Scotland's Gaelic college) has a two Manx language samples on their website, in written and .wav format. One is the text quoted above, and the other is the story of the pig and the parson.

From National Geographic: Scientists Rethinking Nature of Animal Memory.

An elephant never forgets — or does it?

Scientists have long believed that animals do not have so-called episodic memory — the kind that allows humans to remember past events. But recent experiments with scrub jays, chimpanzees, and gorillas have led to rethinking of the nature of memory in animals.

Animal memory researchers first face the challenge of communicating between species. "You can't exactly ask the animals where they were, and what they were doing, when Bambi's mother was shot," says Nicola Clayton, a professor of comparative cognition at University of Cambridge in England and a leading researcher in the field of animal memory.

Over the past six years Clayton has devised a series of ingenious experiments that seem to show that scrub jays can recall past events and use the information to plan for the future. [continue]

Wolds find proves medieval babies stayed healthy for longer on mother's milk. From the Guardian:

A study of infant bones from a deserted medieval village has given backing to the ancient nursing nostrum that "breast is best".

Evidence from Wharram Percy in the Yorkshire Wolds, abandoned when almost everyone was killed by the Black Death, shows that unweaned children were as healthy as their modern counterparts.

Malnutrition, disease and other curses of peasant life in the 10th to 14th centuries set in when children left the breast - which appears to have happened later than is usually the case today.

Results from nitrogen isotopes in the bones show children were still taking breast milk at 18 months, although by then their diet included food and water, much of which was sub-standard or contaminated.

"Stunted growth really started after this point," said Simon Mays, a human skeletal biologist with English Heritage, who has carried out the study with archaeologists from Bradford and Oxford universities.

"Conditions thereafter were so poor that adults in Wharram Percy continuing to grow until their late 20s, in order to make up for the slow start, as opposed to the modern figure of about 18 years old." [continue]

From Wired.com: Genetic Tests in Your Bedroom.

Researchers at the University of California at San Diego have found a way to test biological samples for the existence of protein molecules using a standard CD-ROM drive and inkjet printer. The findings could lead to the development of genetic tests that ordinary people could take in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

The team released a paper this week in the Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry journal outlining the procedure.

"This technology could really empower people," said Dr. Michael Burkart, an assistant professor of biochemistry at the university and a co-author of the paper. "The existing technologies that laboratories use to identify molecules cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our method uses equipment that is almost ubiquitous."

The method was conceived in 1999 when chemist and co-author James La Clair accidentally spilled laboratory chemicals on a compact disc. The new technology relies on counting the errors detected by the laser in a CD player whenever particles in a solution cross its path. [continue]

I'd like to read this: Memoir by working man's Samuel Pepys discovered in Wiltshire.

A unique and moving memoir, detailing life in Salisbury during the 19th century and written by a local tradesman, has been discovered and acquired by Wiltshire & Swindon Record Office.

Written in 1881, the 736-page memoir recalls the life and times of painter, glazier and Salisbury resident William Small.

Just like the diaries of Samuel Pepys centuries before him, Small's account offers historians a fascinating first hand snapshot of an era, which in this case means life as it was in Wiltshire during the Victorian period.

However, unlike Pepys, Small was an ordinary, working man and his memoir offers a different perspective to that of the wealthy, educated classes who were more typical keepers of diaries. (...)

Born in Salisbury in 1820 William Small followed in his father's footsteps, working in the local area as a painter and glazier.

His memoir offers a colourful account of local life, taking the reader through the many houses he worked on and introducing the various characters he met.

He notes the local vicar, Rev. Hugh Stevens, remarking: "kept a school in the house adjoining the New Inn. I knew him well and he was very eccentric. His lady I also knew, her dress caught on fire and she died from the effects." [continue]

I found this at the remarkable 24 hour Museum, where you'll find all kinds of other interesting stuff. (A few days ago the featured article was 2000 years late! Lost Roman earring found in Leicestershire.)

Everybody knows that Venice is sinking, but this method of figuring out exactly how much Venice sank in 300 years is pretty interesting. [Sorry, article no longer available.]

Venice has lost 60 centimeters (24 inches) of its historical buildings to the sea in the past three centuries, according to research based on minutely detailed scenes by the 18th-century painter Canaletto.

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Climatic Change, analyzed eight paintings by Giovanni Antonio Canal, nicknamed Canaletto, (1697-1768) and three by his lesser-known nephew Bernardo Bellotto (1720-1780).

Both artists produced their paintings with the help of a portable camera obscura, a lens that projects images onto sketch pads. The trick, described by Leonardo da Vinci 250 years earlier, enabled them to reproduce accurate urban landscapes, complete with the lines of green scum formed by algae left on canal-side buildings by retreating high tides.

By comparing these painted algae traces with algae on the same buildings today, Italian scientists have been able to trace the natural trend of the relative sea level change — the net result of the ocean rising and the sinking of the land — back from 1872, when it was first recorded, to 1727, when the earliest pictures were dated. [continue]

Other stuff about Venice on Mirabilis.ca:
If Venice is sinking...
Art and architecture of Venice
Rome - another Italian city on water?

From the Narragansett Times: Deep down under: Ballard, technology take viewers to ancient undersea world.

Nearly 1000 feet under the surface of the Black Sea, the bright yellow deep submergence remote operated vehicle, Hercules, uses its mechanical arm to delicately lift an amphorae - an ancient storage container used in the Byzantine era to transport goods on ships - out of its 2500 year old silt bed.

On the surface, Bob Ballard, legendary ocean explorer and leader of the expedition, sits in the control room of the Woods Hole's R/V Knorr, surrounded by screens. He wears a headset and smiles up at a camera which transmits his words alongside DVD quality video of the expedition in response to questions asked by members of an audience at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography auditorium on August 13.

"We're sitting right now a few feet away from a Roman shipwreck from the first century BC. This has tremendous implications for the research field, and will have tremendous impact though the graduate program," said Ballard of the new URI Institute for Archaeological Oceanography. [continue]

Are you bored with your diet? Head over to edible com to order something a bit unusual. Canned black scorpions? Barbequed worm crisps? Smoked rattlesnake? Or will it be chocolate-covered worms? If you can't decide, maybe the canned mixed insects would be best.

Now, what to drink? Those seeking an aphrodisiac might opt for pearl dust to stir into champagne. And yes, there's snake vodka, but surely you wouldn't want that so early in the day. Why, you probably haven't even had your morning coffee yet, poor dear. That brings us to:

Kopi Luwak

This is the rarest and most definitely extraordinary coffee in the world! This coffee has been selected for us by paradoxurus hermaphroditis. Better known as the Common Palm Civet Cat. It prowls the Sumamtran coffee plantations at night, choosing to eat only the finest, ripest cherries. The stones (which eventually form coffee beans) are then collected by cleaning through the droppings.

Kopi Luwak, as it is known, is considered to be the finest coffee by native Sumatrans. Kopi Luwak has a rich chocolate like flavour and no aftertaste, which is unique. The flavour is due to the fact that the coffee has been partially fermented by passing through the digestive system of the Kopi.

Bet you won't find that at Starbucks.

(Edible.com is a Flash site. Start here if you want an animated introduction, with sound. If you'd rather go directly to the site's content, start here instead. The non-Flash version of edible.com is here.)

Related links:
Kopi Luwak: An Indonesian Island Treasure
Kopi Luwak

Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Chocolate-covered scorpions

This from the Guardian:

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli archeologists have unearthed an 8,000-year-old Bronze Age settlement and the remains of a 1st century A.D. Jewish homestead, close to a town named for Biblical giant Goliath's birthplace.

The Israel Antiquities Authority said Monday that contractors working on a new trans-Israel highway asked the authority to carry out an exploratory dig at Ptora, in the archeologically rich region east of the town of Kiryat Gat, before earthmovers started ripping into the ground.

Founded in 1955, Kiryat Gat was named after the Philistine city of Gath, said to be the birthplace of Goliath and believed to lie nearby. Today, most archeologists believe Gath was sited some distance to the northeast, near the coastal town of Ashdod.

The authority said remnants found at the 1.75-acre Ptora site showed that its Bronze Age inhabitants engaged in agriculture, copper production and the making of ceramics and occupied the settlement continuously until about 3,000 BC.

"The excavations reveal to us the daily life of the residents over the course of more than 3,000 years," authority excavation director Yaakov Baumgarten said in a statement.

Also unearthed at the site were the remains of a 1st century A.D. farmhouse, apparently abandoned by its Jewish occupants during the bloody revolt against Roman occupation in the year 70 A.D., the authority said.

The building had an open court yard used as a kitchen, two ritual baths as used by pious Jews and a variety of stoneware vessels, it added.

From the New York Times: 2000 Years of History in Bath.

You are looking out over 2,000 years of history," said the voice at my ear. I was in the city of Bath, standing behind a stone balustrade. Behind me loomed a late-medieval abbey. Some 20 feet below me lay the matte green waters of the Great Bath, built by the Romans between A.D. 60 and 70.

Actually, 2,000 years is a gross understatement. The warm water in which ducks now swim fell on the surrounding Mendip Hills some 10,000 years ago and was trapped underground until a fault in the earth under the site of present-day Bath permitted it to reach the surface. In its subterranean journey, the rainwater heats up, so that when it emerges, it is 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

When the Romans occupied England, they created a complex of baths and pools, sacrificial sites and a temple from what had previously been a sacred Celtic spot. When they left four centuries later, the baths fell into ruin. Roofs collapsed, walls caved in.

A new bath — the King's Bath — was built in the Middle Ages. It was joined in 1580 by the Queen's Bath and in 1706 by the Pump Room, which ushered in the golden age of Bath, when the beautiful people came to see and be seen, as well as to pursue better health. The baths were reputed to relieve ailments like palsy and gout, and were credited with having cured the infertility of Queen Mary, the wife of James II.

In 1880, the entire Roman bath complex was discovered after locals complained of hot water leaking into their homes. In 1983, archaeologists excavated the Temple Precinct and the Roman Sacred Spring, and as recently as 1988, the West Baths were put on display for the first time. [continue]

From the BBC: Ancient farm is discovered.

One of Wales' oldest farms dating back thousands of years is believed to have been discovered in a field in Ceredigion.

Archaeologists were called in to investigate the site near Llandysul after workmen clearing farmland for a new Welsh Development Agency industrial estate noticed dark circles in the soil.

Cambria Archaeology workers then identified several large circular graves from the Bronze Age.

And about 200 yards away they found the foundations of a farmyard wall which could have been built 5,000 years ago. [continue]

I love my RSS news aggregators (see Aggregators to the rescue! from a few days ago), and I don't know how I managed to keep up with lots of websites without them. But the problem with that lovely software is that it's only on my home machine. "Wouldn't it be nice," I thought, "if I could get some rss aggregator thing to work on all the machines I might use?"

And so I've been trying out a few online aggregators. The one I've been using most so far is Bloglines, which introduces itself as follows:

Bloglines is a free service that makes it easy to keep up with your favorite blogs and newsfeeds. With Bloglines, you can subscribe to the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs, and Bloglines will monitor updates to those sites. You can read the latest entries easily within Bloglines.

Unlike other aggregators which require you to download and install software, Bloglines runs on our servers and requires no installation. Because your Bloglines account is accessible through a web browser, you can access your account from any Internet-connected machine.

This is very cool. Now I have an easy way to check my favourite news feeds while I'm at work, or at some Internet cafe in Paris, (yeah, I wish) or, well, anywhere. And there's no software to download or install. And it's free.

There are several other online aggregators, too. The ones I know about are:

Bloglines
Feedster
Fresh News
FastBuzz

They're all free — for now, anyway — and some have impressive features. If you try one (or all of them), will you let me know what you think? I'd also like to hear about any other online aggregators.

(If you get a account at one of these places and want to subscribe to the Mirabilis.ca newsfeed, the URL you need is http://www.mirabilis.ca/index.xml )

Hee! Wish I'd thought of this. From Defective Yeti:

Oh man, have you heard about these Flash Mobs? They are so rad. Secret email goes out to a bunch of cool people and then they all, like, get together somewhere and act like robots or worship dinosaurs or some other crazy thing. Hah hah! So awesome!

Now I totally want to do one here in Seattle! So I'm proud to announce that defective yeti's First Flash Mob takes place on August 17!

Here's the plan. Everybody meet up at the house at 11765 Parker st. N. (98101) on that Sunday morning. Then, at exactly 10:00 AM we'll completely clean the place! Hah hah! Talk about zany and unexpected! We'll go nuts: scrubbing the shower and cleaning the gutters and washing the cars and mowing the lawn and brushing the cats, etc. This is going to totally freak out the house owners (who I will trick into going to get French Slams at the nearby Denny's while this takes place)! And when we're done (making sure we clean behind the fridge, just to be extra-unexpected) we'll suddenly disperse. Poof!

Hah hah! This is going to be so wild we'll probably get in the paper and stuff. Just meet at the house on the morning of Sunday, August 17th (don't worry about how we are going to get in -- fortunately I have a key and will leave the door unlocked), bring cleaning supplies, and be sure to pass this message on to all of your friends. It's gonna be, like, so great! Flash mobs! Woo! Spread the word! [continue to readers' comments]

Found at Boing Boing.

From the 1540s, Jesuit missionaries in East Asia tried to convert the Chinese and Japanese to Christianity, as part of the Counter-Reformation drive to win the world back to Rome. The Japanese mission failed quickly, but the Chinese one seemed immensely promising. Jesuits like Matteo Ricci learned Chinese, mastered the canon of classic Confucian texts, dressed as mandarins, and joined the imperial court. They showed the Chinese intellectuals that the west had superior skills in some areas that the Chinese recognized as vital, like cartography and astronomy, and they translated accounts of western ideas and Christian doctrine into Chinese for their converts. For a time their mission prospered. Meanwhile the Vatican, which controlled and managed the missionary enterprise, became a great repository both of the works the Jesuits produced in Eastern languages and of texts and works of art that they sent back. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the famous Roman Jesuit Athanasius Kircher could try to study Chinese in Rome. He insisted that the Chinese tradition was as old and profound as that of the Egyptians (indeed, he saw Chinese ideograms and Egyptian hieroglyphs as deriving from the same roots). Some argued that Chinese culture was actually more moral and pious than European. Like earlier humanist efforts to find pagan sages who could teach Christians basic truths, the Jesuits' Chinese enterprise, too, eventually failed. But the Vatican's holdings wonderfully exemplify the fragile, fascinating bridge of texts and images which the Jesuits built in order to reach, understand--and convert--the most foreign of cultures.

That's from the How Rome Went to China page, which is well worth a peek. Images include things like a Chinese map of all nations, ca. 1620.

I've just mentioned the China page here. The website to which it belongs, Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture, has lots of interesting things as well.

From the Taipei Times: Seeking the ultimate among the stars.

As the pope slept downstairs, Brother Guy Consolmagno maneuvered the viewing deck into position, stopping when he reached the massive telescope pointing heavenward through the open ceiling.

"Anyone see Mars?" he asked the four off-duty Swiss Guards standing around him. They strained to find the bright spot that had poked out from behind the clouds just moments before.

"Ah, yes, perfect. There it is," Consolmagno said from behind the eyepiece. "Not bad, all in all."

It was just before midnight on a Friday at Castel Gandolfo, Pope John Paul II's lakeside summer residence and the home of the Vatican Observatory. The Swiss Guards had the night off, and Consolmagno, a 50-year-old Jesuit astronomer from Detroit, had invited them up to the viewing deck to gaze at something they won't see again in their lifetime.

All this month, Mars is closer to Earth than at any time in the past 60,000 years, shining brighter than any other celestial body except the moon and Venus. On Wednesday, at its nearest, Mars will be 34.6 million miles from Earth — and won't be that close again until Aug. 28, 2287.

All of which means lots of nighttime viewing activity for the pope's stargazers — the Jesuits who run the Observatory and who have battled to correct the notion, spawned by the Galileo affair nearly 400 years ago, that the Roman Catholic Church is hostile to science.

The Vatican Observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, is one of their prime exhibits, generating top-notch research from its scientist-clerics and drawing academics to its meteorite collection, which includes bits of Mars and is considered one of the world's best. [continue]

Related links:
Vatican Observatory - peletier.co.uk
The Vatican's Eyes On the Heavens - space.com

Related Mirabilis.ca content:
The Pope's Astrophysicist

Hmmm! Look what I found about matrimony cake over at the Oxford English Dictionary website:

‘Matrimonial cake’. The classic 4" x 6" OED dictionary slip sitting on the table in the slip-filing room at the OED's offices one day in 1992 was duly catchworded. The slip, however, came not with the customary quotation but rather with a confection: a dessert, made with my very own hands, consisting of two layers of a crumbly sweet oat mixture with a date filling in the middle. Home baking was admittedly a somewhat unorthodox method for getting a Canadianism into the OED, but it was apparently not unappreciated by the OED lexicographers, who perhaps were too busy eating to complain about the lack of a proper citation. Known in most of Canada as ‘date squares’, this dessert has acquired this matrimonial moniker in Western Canada (where I grew up), for reasons that even the OED has alas been unable to determine. For my efforts were successful, and ‘matrimonial cake’ is one of the new Canadian entries that have appeared in OED Online. The word is now properly exemplified by quotations, the sources being a 1944 Canadian cookbook unearthed by our Canadian library researcher, Alice Munro's 1971 collection of short stories Lives of Girls and Women, and the Hamilton Spectator newspaper that I found on one of our newspaper CD-ROMs when an OED lexicographer emailed me for a postdating. [continue]

It was always called "matrimony cake" in our family. I didn't know that the term is a Canadianism, much less a Western Canadianism.

Anyway, one of my grandma's cookbooks has a recipe for matrimony cake in it, and the publication date is 1938. Will the OED give me a prize for finding an earlier recipe than the one they have?

See also:
Buttertarts. Because I can't think about Canadian baking without making some of these.

The Oxford English Dictionary's new edition is coming out this week. From an AP article at the Toronto Star, here's a bit about the new words included.

Are you feeling like a muppet because you cannot remember the meaning of a word? Or are you a bit Eeyorish and confused at our rapidly changing language?

Those are among 3,000 new words and expressions, many of them slang or foreign, that have entered English usage and are included in the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, which is being released Thursday.

Muppet, taken from the children's TV show, Sesame Street, means a foolish person, while Eeyorish refers to the character in Winnie the Pooh known for his gloomy outlook on life.

Unsurprisingly, many new entries come from the world of science and high-technology, particularly genetics and the Internet. Thus blog (short for Web log), and egosurfing (searching the Internet for references to oneself) are joined in the dictionary by more unusual phrases such as shotgun cloning (the insertion of random fragments of DNA).

New words included in the dictionary often reflect trends and the changing cultural makeup of the United Kingdom.

Britain's multiethnic population has had a great influence on the new edition, with many words included from Chinese, Yiddish and Indian languages. Chacha is a Hindi word for uncle, doudou is a West Indian term of endearment, sic bo is a Chinese game of dice, and bashert is a Yiddish word for fate. [continue]

From ic Northwales: Secrets of the ancients revealed.

An independent archaeological dig on the Welsh border has emerged as one of Britain's most important excavations.

Experts working on farmland alongside the Duke of Westminster's Eaton estate, have discovered evidence of human activity dating back 9,000 years.

They have unearthed five Bronze Age burial mounds, two Roman buildings and a medieval chapel and cemetery, unique in the UK.

The series of remarkable discoveries was made during excavations to find the lost Abbey of Poulton which once stood on the site near Pulford. [continue]

Another update tonight, this one about the Borobudur Ship replica mentioned here in June. From the Scotsman: Temple reliefs lead to epic trip.

They were the first seafarers to cross the oceans in the search of trade, yet little is known of the Indonesian expeditions to Madagascar and eastern Africa.

Now a Scots captain is to sail a replica of an eighth-century ship, based on designs found on stone carvings, on a voyage that will take four months.

The Borobudur, named after the temple where the carvings were found, set sail from Jakarta at the weekend.

The expedition is the passion of Philip Beale, a London fund manager, who 20 years ago stumbled across the beautifully carved stone reliefs of simple outrigger boats on the eighth-century Buddhist temple Borobudur in Java. He wondered whether the boats were the same ones that had transported Indonesian explorers to Madagascar.

Now, in an attempt to answer that question, 42-year-old Mr Beale has assembled a 15-strong international group of crew, marine archeologists and a Scots skipper, Alan Campbell, and built a replica of the Borobudur reliefs. [continue]

Turning the Pages of Priceless Manuscripts

If you ran the British Library, would you let the general public into your climate-controlled rare books area, allow them to finger the pages of priceless medieval manuscripts, encourage them to touch a 14th century Koran, Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, or the world's earliest dated printed book? Would you endanger the Sherborne Missal, a 15th century service book worth $24 million, by allowing people to turn its pages? Thanks to an innovative digitization project, appropriately called Turning the Pages (TTP), the Library plans to do just that.

From the word digitization, you've probably realized that patrons won't be physically walking into the Library's rare book area to turn these pages. However, you can visit the exhibition galleries in London at the Library's St. Pancras location to view the ten treasures digitized thus far — the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Diamond Sutra, the Sforza Hours, the Leonardo Notebook, the Golden Haggadah, the Luttrell Psalter, Elizabeth Blackwell's Herbal, Vesalius's Anatomy, the Sherborne Missal, and Sultan Baybars' Qur'an.

It's an interesting mixture of religion and science. According to Clive Izard, creative projects manager, there's been a conscious effort to expose the Library's collection to the broadest possible audience and the collection is particularly strong in manuscripts relating to world faith. He has a "wish list" of other titles to add to TTP, but these must wait for sponsorship money. [continue]

If you're going to be in London, do plan a visit to the British library, where you'll see all manner of bibliographic delights. Once you've seen the real old books (under glass) sit down at the digitized version of some grand old text and "flip" through all the pages you like.

The rest of us will have to be content with the British Library's website. It has some fun sections, including one on The Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition.

In January I blogged about Hasankeyf, Turkey. Here's an update from NTVMSNBC.com: Ancient medieval city of Hasankeyf coming to light.

Archaeologists have resumed excavations on the ancient city of Hasankeyf, located in the south eastern Turkish province of Mardin, fighting against time before construction of a dam on the nearby Tigris River threatens to flood the site.

This year's dig began well behind schedule, according to the head of the archaeological team, Professor Olug Arik, who blamed the Culture and Tourism Ministry for the three months long delay. This season, there will be a team of 40 technicians and 120 workers taking part in the one month long dig.

Ark, who has been working on the site since 1991, said that if excavations were kept with this speed that there would be a need for another 50 years to save the beautiful city. [continue]

Agi.it has published only a few tempting sentences about the underwater remains of an ancient port at Agrigento.

Agrigento, Italy, 20 August - An "important under water archaeological site" has been discovered in the tract of sea opposite the mouth of the river Akragas, in Agrigento, by a submarine of the Italian Naval League. Deep in the estuary, great blocks have been found along with paving stones. This is the ancient port of Agrigento. But there are also pieces of finely worked limestone. It is also thought that there was a temple.

Here's how Unesco describes Agrigento:

Founded as a Greek colony in the 6th century BC, Agrigento became one of the leading cities of the Mediterranean world. Its supremacy and pride are demonstrated by the remains of the magnificent Doric temples that dominate the ancient town, much of which remains intact under latter-day fields and orchards. Selected excavated areas throw light on the later Hellenic and Roman town and on the burial practices of its palaeochristian inhabitants.

Related links:
Best of Scicily - Agrigento
Agrigento: The Valley of the Temples

From the Hindustan Times: Secrets of China's ancient cure for malaria laid bare.

Scientists believe they have unlocked the workings of an ancient Chinese herbal remedy which has become one of the brightest yet most puzzling hopes in the war against malaria.

The knowledge, they hope, may give rise to a new generation of cheaper, more effective drugs against a scourge that kills around a million people each year and infects hundreds of millions more.

"We are particularly pleased to have found the missing piece in the anti-malarial jigsaw and solved one of the longest-running mysteries about how a critical anti-malarial works," the researchers said in a statement on Wednesday, on the eve of the publication of their work.

"We cannot wait to apply this information in areas where there is a lot of drug resistance in (malaria) parasites."

The remarkable story behind the herb starts off in 340 AD, when a Taoist scribe wrote "Zhou Hou Bei Ji Feng" ("Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency Treatments"), giving a recipe for using sweet wormwood (qing hao) in an infusion for treating fever.

More than 1,200 years later, a Chinese sage, Li Shizen, realised that this could be used for tackling the symptoms of malaria, and included the treatment in a compendium that is a landmark in Chinese medical history.

There things lay until 1972, when Chinese scientists took an interest in the plant's reputed qualities.

They successfully extracted the plant's active compound, calling it qing hao su -- transcribed into artemisinin in conventional scientific terminology, after the herb's Latin name, Artemisia annua.

Artemisinin has since become a leading medication against the malaria parasite, not least in Southeast Asia, where the cheapest frontline treatments, chloroquine and sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine, are encountering big resistance problems.

But how artemisinin works has never been clear.

The prevailing theory was that it interacts with haem molecules, the iron-rich debris from red bloodcells which are destroyed by the parasite as it replicates around the body. [continue]

From news.com: Rockin' on without Microsoft.

Sterling Ball, a jovial, plain-talking businessman, is CEO of Ernie Ball, the world's leading maker of premium guitar strings endorsed by generations of artists ranging from the likes of Eric Clapton to the dudes from Metallica. But since jettisoning all of Microsoft products three years ago, Ernie Ball has also gained notoriety as a company that dumped most of its proprietary software--and still lived to tell the tale.

In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees. But by then, the BSA, a trade group that helps enforce copyrights and licensing provisions for major business software makers, had put the company on the evening news and featured it in regional ads warning other businesses to monitor their software licenses.

Humiliated by the experience, Ball told his IT department he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly." (...)

"I know I saved $80,000 right away by going to open source, and each time something like (Windows) XP comes along, I save even more money because I don't have to buy new equipment to run the software. One of the great things is that we're able to run a poor man's thin client by using old computers we weren't using before because it couldn't handle Windows 2000. They work fine with the software we have now." [continue]

Oh, the things I find at the BBC. Like this: Recipes that won't go down well with a film crew.

1. Chocolate scorpions
You will need: 12 dead scorpions, a big bar of chocolate, a big pan of boiling water, a big heatproof bowl. Put the chocolate in the bowl, and gently rest it in the pan of boiling water. Once the chocolate has melted, carefully remove it from the water, taking extra care not to burn your fingers. Dip the scorpions in the chocolate, and allow to dry. Now eat. Yummy! (PS: Scorpion stings are not lethal once they're dead.)

Ha ha! Crazy Brits. But surely nobody would really... oh wait. Cybercandy offers milk chocolate scorpions.

A genuine chinese scorpion coated in the finest belgian milk chocolate. The scorpions are specially bred in the markets of China and are reputed to have many excellent health properties when eaten. They are subjected to processing under a high temperature prior to being made into chocolate confections, which destroys their toxins, they are 100% safe to eat and are in fact a tasty snack! They come presented in a clear and stylish acrylic presentation dish. (Please not scorpions are very delicate and sometimes breakages can occur we cannot accept returns on this basis)

The mind boggles.

Hmmm, this would have been a creepy find. From DiscoveryNews.com: Human Bones Beneath Ben Franklin House.

Renovation of Benjamin Franklin's London home has revealed everything from a basement pit containing over 1,200 human bones, to the windows where Franklin would sit naked facing the street, according to the Friends of Benjamin Franklin House, the London nonprofit that is readying the house for public tours.

The organization is in the second phase of renovation work and recently completed interior restoration of the basement, first and second floors.

Benjamin Franklin House, on 36 Craven Street, is the only original Franklin home in existence. He lived in the house between 1757 and 1775.

Discovery of the basement bones startled workers, who called in police to investigate. Human skeletal remains ranged from the bones of a young infant to those of an elderly man. After analysis, the Westminster coroner declared "it most likely that these are anatomical specimens... ."

As it turns out, Franklin rented the home from a London widower. Her daughter, Polly, married a surgeon, William Hewson, who opened an anatomy school in the home.

"The unconventional disposal probably was necessary because specimens were often obtained from grave robbers," explained Marcia Balisciano, director of the Friends of Benjamin Franklin House. [continue]

Found at Linkfilter

Related links:
Benjamin Franklin House
Benjamin Franklin House - restoration
Benjamin Franklin's house: the naked truth - Guardian

I'm already peeved at Monsanto for their nefarious deeds (see below), including their attempts to bully Percy Schmeiser. And this? I could just sputter. From It's a Mystery:

Roundup may harm wheat [update: link out of order in Jan 2004.]

"Researchers say Monsanto's popular weedkiller might boost blight" [ Saskatoon Star Phoenix - canada.com network ] Well, isn't that special? A disease of wheat that is actually fueled by a herbicide. And Monsanto is producing a genetically modified wheat (which is also creating other problems) that is resistant to this herbicide so you can use even more of the herbicide. And Monsanto owns both the herbicide, Roundup, and the genetically modified wheat. And all the experts are running around trying to do damage control because the information has come out. As I said, isn't that special? Bah!

More about Monsanto, those scoundrels:
Monsanto Invades Mexico
GMO Corn Invades Mexico
Monsanto accused of cover-up
Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution
Unethical Firms: Monsanto
The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods: Monsanto Files

Ah, another article on radio frequency ID tags. From news.com: Privacy advocates call for RFID regulation.

Proponents hail the technology as the next-generation bar code, allowing merchants and manufacturers to operate more efficiently and cut down on theft.

Privacy activists worry, however, that the unchecked use of RFID could end up trampling consumer privacy by allowing retailers to gather unprecedented amounts of information about activity in their stores and link it to customer information databases. They also worry about the possibility that companies, governments and would-be thieves might be able to monitor people's personal belongings, embedded with tiny RFID microchips, after they are purchased.

"How would you like it if, for instance, one day you realized your underwear was reporting on your whereabouts?" said Bowen, posing a hypothetical RFID scenario. [continue]

I'd stop wearing underwear, but I hope it doesn't come to that.

Related content on Mirabilis.ca:
RFID tags for tracking money
Radio Frequency ID tags
Privacy-invading clothing
Microchips to track your every move

Ananova reports that a nervous dragon receives acupuncture treatments.

An eight foot long Komodo dragon lizard in Singapore's zoo has been receiving traditional Chinese acupuncture treatment for a nerve disorder.

Eight-year-old male lizard, Tirto, who weights six stone, has been receiving twice-weekly treatments for a neurological disorder for the past three weeks.

"Tirto is now more relaxed and is beginning to enjoy his treatments," a spokesman for the Singapore Zoological Gardens, Vincent Tan, said.

Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards, are prehistoric-looking reptiles that can grow up to 3 meters long and weigh more than 90 kilograms. They have long claws and serrated teeth that help them tear meat from the animals they prey upon. [continue]

Related links:
Animal bytes: Komodo dragon
Giant lizards
Komodo dragon pictures
The Komodo Dragon: On a few small islands in the Indonesian archipelago, the world's largest lizard reigns supreme
Singapore Zoo

From the Moscow Times: The Holy Doctor Resonates 150 Years Later.

The life of a man who mixed with the top echelons of Russian society and died a pauper after giving his possessions to those at the bottom is being celebrated on the 150th anniversary of his death this year.

Friedrich-Joseph Haass, or Fyodor Petrovich Gaaz as Russians called him, was born in the small German town of Munstereifel but spent almost 50 years as a medical doctor in Russia.

At least 20,000 people are reported to have accompanied him on Aug. 19 on his final journey to his grave in the German Cemetery, today the Vvedenskoye Cemetery, where well-wishers lay flowers year-round.

"Hasten to do good works," was his motto. The Vatican, with the support of the Orthodox church, has started the process of recognizing him as a saint. [continue]

If terms like aggregator, news feed, and RSS mean nothing to you, Wired.com has come to your aid. Here's the start of their Aggregators Attack Info Overload article.

Maniacally wired netizens who read a hundred blogs a day and just as many news sources are turning to a new breed of software, called newsreaders or aggregators, to help them manage information overload.

Many now say that their news aggregator is as indispensable as their e-mail client.

Aggregators, such as NewsGator and AmphetaDesk, allow users to subscribe to feeds from sources as diverse as the BBC, Sci-Fi Today, Slashdot and thousands of bloggers across the world. The services work by checking an Internet address at a regular interval, usually once an hour, to see if new content has been added.

The feeds are written according to one of a few competing shared specifications, which are collectively referred to as RSS, which stands, depending on who you talk to, for really simple syndication or rich site summary. [continue]

I think it ought to stand for Read Splendid Sites, but nobody asked me.

If you'd like to try an aggregator, check out this list of aggregators. There you'll find links to online aggregators, and to aggregator software for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Palm computers.

Oh, and by the way - the Mirabilis.ca RSS feed is at http://www.mirabilis.ca/index.xml (It will look awful if you view it in your web browser, but it works just fine in an aggregator.)

Related Mirabilis.ca content:
News aggregators
RSS FAQ

Why Humans and Their Fur Parted Ways. From the New York Times:

One of the most distinctive evolutionary changes as humans parted company from their fellow apes was their loss of body hair. But why and when human body hair disappeared, together with the matter of when people first started to wear clothes, are questions that have long lain beyond the reach of archaeology and paleontology.

Ingenious solutions to both issues have now been proposed, independently, by two research groups analyzing changes in DNA. The result, if the dates are accurate, is something of an embarrassment. It implies we were naked for more than a million years before we started wearing clothes.

Dr. Alan R. Rogers, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Utah, has figured out when humans lost their hair by an indirect method depending on the gene that determines skin color. Dr. Mark Stone- king of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, believes he has established when humans first wore clothes. His method too is indirect: it involves dating the evolution of the human body louse, which infests only clothes.

Meanwhile a third group of researchers, resurrecting a suggestion of Darwin, has come up with a novel explanation of why humans lost their body hair in the first place.

Mammals need body hair to keep warm, and lose it only for special evolutionary reasons. Whales and walruses shed their hair to improve speed in their new medium, the sea. Elephants and rhinoceroses have specially thick skins and are too bulky to lose much heat on cold nights. But why did humans, the only hairless primates, lose their body hair?

One theory holds that the hominid line went through a semi-aquatic phase — witness the slight webbing on our hands. A better suggestion is that loss of body hair helped our distant ancestors keep cool when they first ventured beyond the forest's shade and across the hot African savannah. But loss of hair is not an unmixed blessing in regulating body temperature because the naked skin absorbs more energy in the heat of the day and loses more in the cold of the night.

Dr. Mark Pagel of the University of Reading in England and Dr. Walter Bodmer of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford have proposed a different solution to the mystery and their idea, if true, goes far toward explaining contemporary attitudes about hirsuteness. Humans lost their body hair, they say, to free themselves of external parasites that infest fur — blood-sucking lice, fleas and ticks and the diseases they spread. [continue] (NYT may require free registration.)

From the BBC: Mary Rose divers’ ‘exciting’ find.

Experts working on the site of the Mary Rose say they have uncovered the front section of the Tudor warship.

Divers have excavated a five-metre-long piece of wood, which they believe is the front stem of the vessel's keel.

Archaeologists believe this stem could be attached to the front section, the bowcastle, of the ship which sunk in 1545. (...)

Over the past month divers have been looking for more pieces of the ship, most of which was raised from the murk of the Solent in 1982 after 437 years under the sea off Portsmouth.

The "find" now means that a complete cross section of the warship has now been discovered.

However, experts have no idea what the bowcastle actually looks like - the earliest picture of Henry VIII's flagship was painted in 1547, two years after the vessel sank. [continue]

Related article:
Experts excited by extraordinary find at Mary rose wreck site

This has got to be the best edition of Harry Potter: Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis. Cool!

Spotted at PeteBevin.com.

Previous Mirabilis.ca entry on Harry Potter:
Medieval Christian symbols in Harry Potter

Jay Currie has an article up at Tech Central Station about Canadian copyright law and the nasty ol' RIAA. Jay writes:

A desperate American recording industry is waging a fierce fight against digital copyright infringement seemingly oblivious to the fact that, for practical purposes, it lost the digital music sharing fight over five years ago. In Canada. [continue]

Now there's a happy thought! The RIAA gives me a pain.

Link found at Jay Currie's blog.

Related links:
RIAA wants to hack your PC - from Wired.com
Fair use is not illegal blurb, tshirt. From ThinkGeek.
RIAA Wrath Hits Teen - from ABC News
Is the RIAA running scared? - from Salon.com
RIAA Methods Under Scrutiny - from Wired.com
RIAA Wants Background Checks on CD-RW Buyers - from bbspot.com (satire)
Senator launches investigation into RIAA piracy crackdown - from kansascity.com
RIAA Plans To Sue Individual Downloaders - from dtheatre.com
Why the RIAA owes us all an apology - from ZDNet.com
Courtney Love does the math See what Courtney has to say about the RIAA on page 2.

From the BBC: Tube heat is snow problem.

Thousands of ideas to cool the Tube have flooded in after London Mayor Ken Livingstone offered a £100,000 reward for the best idea. The latest, from an Israeli firm, says snow is the answer.

An idea imported from the gold mines of South Africa could stop commuters suffering sweltering heat on London's Tube network.

An Israeli firm says giant snow machines should be built above ground.

Avshalom Felber, President of IDE Technologies, said the snow made at street-level would be pumped through pipes into containers placed in train tunnels or at platform entrances.

Then as trains pass through it would create air currents causing cold air from the containers to circulate and cool passengers in stations.

The idea is one of 3,000 entries submitted to London Underground after mayor Ken Livingstone offered £100,000 for the best solution for cooling the Tube in July. [continue]

Related links:
It's perfect barbecue time in London
IDE Technologies
Mayor of London, the London Assembly and the Greater London Authority
London Underground
Cool Down the Tube

From Ananova: Ancient Celtic spoon is 2,000-year-old.

A 2,000-year-old spoon, used for scooping out shellfish, has been discovered at the site of a Celtic village.

The tiny, copper alloy metal Romano British spoon, the handle of which is missing, was found by workmen at the Chysauster site, which is just three miles from Mounts Bay, near Penzance, Cornwall.

A similar spoon was found during recent excavations in Newquay, north Cornwall.

Cornwall County Council archaeologist Charlie Johns said the spoons would have had long, prong like handles to open shellfish. [continue]

Related links:
Stones of England - Chysauster settlement
Chysauster (photos of ruins)
Chysauster Iron Age Village

Hate those long dinner parties where you get stuck between the same two mind-numbing personalities all night? A Swiss railroad engineer has come up with a solution -- a dinner table that is not only designed to work in the same fashion as the floor of a revolving restaurant, but one that may also "improve human communicaiton and promote world peace."

On his drawing board are plans for a long rectangular table with attached seats that continually move en masse around the perimiter. (Sort of like how sushi orbits around the chef in one of those conveyor belt Japanese restaurants.) The way it is set up, the people sitting to your left and right remain constant for the evening, but the person located directly opposite from you changes every 20 minutes or so as the night goes on.

This totally mechanized system is merely a modern hi-tech version of an old British banquet hall custom. When the hostess rang a small bell between courses, the gentlemen (who had been seated alternately between the ladies) were required to stand up and move two seats to the left; a practice referred to in the tea party scene in Alice in Wonderland.

From Restaurants 2003, an article in the print version of City Food.

From the Compendium of Lost Words.

The Compendium lists over 400 of the rarest modern English words - in fact, ones that have been entirely absent from the Internet, including all online dictionaries, until now.

Just the place to find words like famelicose, phlyarologist, speustic, and sceptriferous. (Isn't that last one the best?)

Link found at Metafilter.

"What," I wondered this morning, "did Victorians take for pain?"

They took laudanum. From nycgoth.com:

Laudanum was a wildly popular drug during the Victorian era. It was an opium-based painkiller prescribed for everything from headaches to tuberculosis. Victorian nursemaids even spoon fed the drug to cranky infants, often leading to the untimely deaths of their charges.

Originally, Laudanum was thought of as a drug of the working class. As it was cheaper than gin it was not uncommon for blue-collar men and woman to binge on laudanum after a hard week's work. Use of the drug spread rapidly. Doctors of the time prescribed it for almost every aliment. Many upper-class women developed habits.(...)

Laudanum's biggest clam to fame however was its use by the romantic poets. Many of the Pre-Raphaelites (Among them Lord Byron, Shelly and others) were know to indulge. The image of the romantic poet, pale, morose, drunk on absinthe and laudanum is a common one. The film Gothic portrays the stereotypical image of that society. In reality, most of the PRB were heavy drinkers first and formost.

This excerpt (source unknown) describes the process of making laudanum.

"She got up and went to the cabinet and took out a basketful of withered poppies and set about making laudanum. She picked out the poppy heads one by one, pierced the capsules with a sewing needle and then dropped them into a small glazed crock and set it near the stove for the opium to sweat out."

Afterwards, the extract would be mixed with sugar and/or alcohol to make it easier to drink. [continue]

Related links:
Laudanum -from Wikipedia.org
Laudanum from bartelby.com
Confessions of a Young Lady Laudanum-Drinker -from druglibrary.org. They say it's from The Journal of Mental Sciences, January 1889.
Laudanuim - Patient & Family Version from adultpain.nursing.uiowa.edu

Related book:
In the Arms of Morpheus: The Tragic History of Laudanum, Morphine, and Patent Medicines

Plenty peculiar, if you ask me. From Ananova: Hi-tech changing room ‘will tell you what not to wear’.

A British company has developed a "smart" changing room that tells clothes shoppers what not to wear.

The QinetiQ system uses 3D digital cameras which not only take pictures but also record precise measurements from more than 1,000 points on an object.

Installed in a changing room, an array of about six cameras would feed data to a computer running software that matches particular styles to individual body shapes.

The inventors say it could provide advice like "your bum looks too big in this" - or words to that effect. [continue]

Imagine living in the sort of country where a person might stumble across an ancient forger's coin die. From the BBC:

An ancient British coin die - used to create the design on gold coins in the Iron Age - has been found in Hampshire.

The discovery near Alton is only the second time a pre-Roman or Celtic coin-die has been found in Britain.

It was uncovered by a member of the public who handed it over to local museums staff.

They sent it to the Curator for Iron Age Coins at the British Museum, who confirmed that the object was genuine, dating from about 100BC.

Early analysis of the die suggests that it may have been made by a forger producing imitation gold coins for his or her own purposes.

The design engraved on the die is a galloping horse, a widely recognised symbol of wealth and power in ancient Britain, and a common motif on Celtic coins. [continue]

This is from the Cultural Entomology Digest Online.

Consider the following questions: What insects do we find in art? What insects affect us psychologically? Can you think of any song, book or movie based on insects? What insects have been deified? Do insects carry any symbolism? Maybe you've seen Dürer's stag beetle or Jiminy Cricket. Perhaps you've experienced entomophobia (fear of insects). You might have heard Flight of The Bumblebee, read ‘Metamorphosis,’ or seen ‘The Fly.’ The Egyptian's deified the scarab beetle and the ancient Greek cult of Artemis worshipped the bee. As you work like an industrious ant, your mind might think of love as you watch a butterfly drift by. We begin to realize the extent to which insects have become a part of almost every facet of the humanities. We'll call these cross-spectrum snippets "Cultural Entomology."

It's a fascinating website, this. Check out the butterfly wing patterns, the very cool bugs, or some of the articles.

Where else can you read about Japanese family crests containing designs based on butterflies, or about the butterfly and moth as symbols in western art?

Now and again I read about one isolated café or another "getting it" - offering free wireless Internet access for customers. Makes sense, don't you think? Kind of like having newspapers for customers to read, only better.

Well, now a whole chain of cafés is offering free wi-fi, and you should see the free promotion they're getting. For starters there's this, from Wi-Fi Networking News:

Panera says eventually, 1,000 hot spots; for now, 60 and then 70: The Panera Bread Company has equipped 70 stores with free hot spots and another 60 will be unwired by year's end. Eventually, they plan to unwire all 1,000 locations.

I've never heard of Panera (they're a US chain) but I'm cheered by this news. I hope this is a part of a trend.

Related articles:
Panera Bread goes Wi-Fi, for free
Free Wi-Fi on way to becoming standard of service

Panera pages:
Panera wireless locations
Panera

Related Mirabilis.ca postings:
Free wi-fi to become standard of service?
Café wireless should be free

If you enjoy Quicktime panoramas, I've got just the site for you: Panoramas.dk. It links to about a bajilliion other sites, and a person could spend ages exploring. I found lots of fun stuff, like Ziggy the interactive cat, for instance

But this... oh, this is the best: Roma.

(NB: These sites are more suitable for fast connections. You'll need the free Quicktime plugin, of course, but I bet it's already on your computer.)

Thanks to Frank DiSalle for the link.

How sad. From Christianity Today: Row Seethes in Bethlehem Over Keys to the Birthplace of Jesus.

The Greek Orthodox Church in Bethlehem has angered the Roman Catholic and Armenian churches in the Holy Land by asserting sole control over the "locks and keys" to the Church of the Nativity, revered by many as marking the birthplace of Jesus.

"We claim we are the possessors of the keys, we are the guardians of the door [at the Church of the Nativity]," Archbishop Aristarchos, of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem told Ecumenical News International.

He acknowledged that the Greek Orthodox monks at the site had changed the locks and refused to share the keys, evoking the outrage of the Catholics and Armenians.

A set of rules known as the "Status Quo" set down by the Ottoman rulers of the Holy Land in 1852, who were Muslims, prescribes the spaces that Greek Orthodox, Catholic, and Armenian Orthodox Christians can use for worship in the Church of the Nativity. [continue]

Related article:
Clash over keys to Christ's birthplace - from the Telegraph

I'm a big fan of popsicles. Not the kind you buy in a store (why would I pay some company to add extra sugar, chemicals, and fake colour?) but rather the kind I make in my freezer, usually out of pineapple juice. Yum.

From the Great Idea Finder, here's the history of the popsicle.

Frank Epperson, a then eleven-year-old, invented the the Popsicle and the invention was accidental.

One day Frank mixed some soda water powder and water, which was a popular drink in those days. He left the mixture on the back porch overnight with the stirring stick still in it. The temperature dropped to a record low that night and the next day Frank had a stick of frozen soda water to show his friends at school. Eighteen years later-in 1923- Frank Epperson remembered his frozen soda water mixture and began a business producing Epsicles in seven fruit flavors. The name was later changed to the Popsicle. One estimate says three million Popsicle frozen treats are sold each year. There are more them thirty different flavors to choose from, but Popsicle Industries says the general flavor favorite through the years has remained "taste-tingling orange".

Did they try pineapple?

Related links:
Kid inventors in history
Why is a Popsicle called a quiescently frozen confection? (It is?)
You say Popsicle, I say quiescently frozen confection (Oh. It is.)
Popsicle - from HungryMonster.com
The Kids Hall of Fame: Frank Epperson (more info, slightly different version)
Let's Talk Food: Chill out with a Popsicle

Related book:
The Kid Who Invented the Popsicle: And Other Surprising Stories About Inventions

Is there one in your garden shed? From the Christian Science Monitor archives: A Time Machine That Also Cuts Grass.

Before I knew it, I was a grown-up with a lawn of my own. My husband mowed it once a week with his consumer-magazine-researched power mower. It was a sporty-looking thing, red and gray, reeking of gasoline and ear-blastingly loud. But efficient, of course. Very.

One day, in a yuppyish gardening catalog, I happened upon a person-powered push mower. My ears seemed to hum with the long-ago, gentle whirring of Dad's ancient push mower. In a flash I was a drowsy young girl, stretching and blinking awake to the sweet, green-scented promise of summer mornings. For a moment, I believed that if I were to press my face to the window screen, as I did on those Saturday mornings, I would see Dad following Rickety Green up and down the backyard as he shaved the grass in methodical, overlapping stripes.

It was irresistible, that memory, and soon a sleek reincarnation of Rickety Green squatted in our garage. Each Saturday when my husband headed out to mow, I'd say hopefully, "Are you going to use the new mower?" And every Saturday he'd say, "I'm in a hurry today. Maybe next week."

It rained one weekend and the lawn couldn't be cut, and the next week we were out of town. One weekday morning, very early, I went out to look at the ankle-tickling tangle. "Hmm," I said. And then a magnetic force yanked me toward the garage and the gleaming push mower. [continue]

Link found at Metafilter.

Related:
Lee Valley Traditional Reel Mowers

From the Beeb: Iron Age coin hoard found.

A hoard of Iron Age gold coins has been found at an archaeological dig in Norfolk.

The coins, which are about 2000 years old, were discovered at Sedgeford in north west Norfolk.

The 18 coins which show a horse on one side, were found stuffed inside a cow bone after it was x-rayed at a hospital.

A number of loose coins were also found at the Sedgeford site.

Chris Mackie, co-director of the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project, said: "The find of a hoard of coins in bone is absolutely unique."

He said the dig at Sedgeford had been going on for eight years.

"We have been finding a few coins over the years and we hoped they were part of a hoard.

"We took the bone to Sandringham Hospital. They were fantastic. They x-rayed it and it was exciting to see the coins in it," he said. [continue]

From Ananova, Face of Nefertiti ‘recreated’.

Egyptologists believe they have recreated the face of the legendary Queen Nefertiti.

A picture of the Egyptian ruler was built up by a team which discovered a mummy in what is thought to be her tomb.

Nefertiti - whose name means "the beautiful or perfect one has come" - lived more than 3,000 years ago and was famed for her elegant profile and swan-like neck. [continue, see photos]

Good news from this Reuters article: Pope's secret roof-top path to open.

ROME (Reuters) - Fancy following in papal footsteps?

We've got just the passage for you -- a fortified raised walkway that links the Vatican with Rome and once provided popes with a vital escape route from rampaging troops.

Italian authorities plan to reopen the ‘passetto’ in two months time, giving visitors a chance to stroll among the roof-tops, drinking in unique views of St Peter's Basilica and the ancient Castel Sant'Angelo that flank the narrow corridor.

"It's a historic space, used by popes at moments of high drama, that conjures up all sorts of mysteries and really gets people's curiosity going," Fiora Bellini, director of the Sant'Angelo museum, told Reuters on Wednesday.

Physically the passetto may only stretch 800 metres but historically it has a much longer span. [continue]

Fascinating article; fantastic news! Last time I blogged about the Popes' escape route, it was only going to be open for a couple of weeks. ‘Permanently’ sounds a lot better; I'd love to walk along that passageway.

I think I feel a trip to Rome coming on.

From the Providence Journal: Deep-sea camera offers a unique glimpse of ancient history.

SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- Live and in video color: a deep-sea robot called Hercules, exploring an ancient Roman shipwreck in the Mediterranean.

At the helm of this undersea excavation, explorer and oceanographer Robert D. Ballard, who discovered the Titanic's watery grave.

A handpicked audience at the University of Rhode Island's Coastal Research Institute enjoyed a private peek yesterday at Ballard's ongoing 2003 expedition: a 41-day, world-first archaeological excavation of shipwrecks in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. (...)

Satellite and Internet technology gave last night's audience a crystal view of Hercules's robotic arm vacuuming sediment in the ship's hold. Beneath the bluish dust lay amphorae -- decorated clay vessels in which the Romans carried cargo such as olive oil, honey, or perfume.

Also visible was a hewn corner of the ship's beam, preserved in low-oxygen waters inhospitable to wood-boring sea creatures. (...)

Coleman, who is Ballard's chief scientist, explained that some of the collected sediment from the amphorae (what he called 'the shipping containers of antiquity"), will be sent to URI for analysis.

"We'll take the contents and sieve it for grape seeds or olive pits, or resin -- in the event that honey penetrated the clay," he said. (...)

The academic implications of this archeological research "is to understand more about ancient trade routes and ancient ships. The goal is to deliver an oceanographic expedition to students and other researchers who can't go aboard," said Coleman. [full article] (Note: the Providence Journal requires registration, and they ask an annoying number of snoopy questions. Scoundrels.)

Related link:
Expedition website

From allafrica.com: Pilgrimage to the ‘Houses of Stone’.

There is a city in Africa known as the "Houses of Stone". It is ancient, indeed medieval, and in many ways beautifully preserved. In archaeological circles, it is well known, being on the World Heritage List.

This is the city of Great Zimbabwe, from which the country took its name. Archaeologists call it the greatest historical monument south of the Sahara, offering a cultural heritage that brings tears ‘if not pride’ to those who love their ancestry. (...)

To come to Great Zimbabwe is a journey back in time. The myths surrounding it - principally that its citadels were built by the Israelites, Phoenicians or the Arabians, even having links with the Queen of Sheba -have long been swept away.

The old-time archaeologists, who for 50 years favoured such theories in a great battle over the history of the buildings, have given way to a new breed of scientists who through radiocarbon dating and other evidence, have positively identified the architects as African.

The centre of an empire from the 13th to the 15th centuries, they were, in fact, the work of a Shona-Karanga civilisation, which constructed the "Houses of Stone" entirely without mortar. The native source of this skill has become extremely important to those who live in Zimbabwe today and others associated with Africa through its heritage. [continue]

Related Mirabilis.ca entry:
Medieval African observatory - December 4th, 2002.

Related links:
Mystery of Great Zimbabwe - pbs.org
Great Zimbabwe
The Ruins of Great Zimbabwe

From Ananova: Luxury underwater hotel planned for Emirates.

A German architect has unveiled plans for a £350 million underwater hotel off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.

The emirate of Dubai says it will be the first development to be fully owned and operated by a foreign investor.

The 220-suite, bubble-like Hydropolis Hotel is to float just below the waters off the coast of Dubai's upscale Jumeirah area. [continue]

I suppose it would be interesting to stay in a giant reverse aquarium, but could one relax? I'd want my scuba gear at the bedside, just in case.

Related articles:
Dubai to build undersea hotel
The underwater hotel
Underwater hotel for mind, body and soul
Dubai to build world's first $500m underwater hotel

At Incoming Signals I noticed a link to a "clickable web-tour of the Sistine Chapel ceiling." And oh! What fun. To start with you can zoom the

9 scenes of the Genesis,
4 corner pendentives,
4 pairs of bronze nudes above the pendentives,
8 triangular spandrels with pairs of bronze nudes,
7 prophets,
5 sybils,
20 ignudi, and
10 medallions.

There's more to explore here, and you can use some of the images (like this ones on this page) on web postcards.

From Aish.com, Harry's Magic: A true story about what one Jewish kid learned from the teenage wizard.

My son sat in silence for a few minutes, lost in thought, and then turned to me with his own insight that was worth every day off from school. "So it's like... I'm a wizard kid... being raised by a wizard family. And I'm thinking of going to a muggle school?"

Another silent moment.

"I think I'm ready for a Jewish education." [full story]

Have you heard about the Julie/Julia Project? Julie Powell has spent the last year cooking her way through one of Julia Child's cookbooks, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and blogging about it.

I admire Julie's tenacity. I have far too many cookbooks (over 60, yipes) but would never be able to stick to just one of them for a whole year. Imagine making 536 recipes from the same book!

Anyway, there's an article in the New York Times today about Julie and her project: A Race to Master the Art of French Cooking.

Julie Powell is in the homestretch. She has 13 days and 22 recipes to go to complete what possibly only Julia Child has done. If she meets her Aug. 26 deadline, Ms. Powell will have cooked all 524 recipes in the 1961 classic, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

Ms. Powell began climbing this culinary Mount Everest last summer, on Aug. 26, and has kept an amusing, irreverent and increasingly popular daily Web log of her progress on Salon, called the Julie/Julia Project (blogs.salon.com/0001399). [continue] (NYT requires free registration.)

From Reuters: Italians Dig Deep to Reveal Forgotten Roman City.

POZZUOLI, Italy (Reuters) - Archaeologists are used to rummaging in the dirt for lost treasures, but they rarely have to do it with an entire city weighing down on them.

Yet for 10 years, an Italian team has been beavering away underground to reveal the wonders of Pozzuoli, once the port of ancient Rome, which is buried under a 16th century city.

Excavators at Pompeii, entombed in ash and toxic debris by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, were able to remove the volcanic material and expose the city to the open air.

But in Pozzuoli, whose beauty was such that the great Roman orator Cicero called it "little Rome," the ancient streets were encased in the foundations of a new city built by the Spanish in the 1500s, when they ruled what was then the Kingdom of Naples. [continue]

Update:
Ancient City, ‘Little Rome’ Discovered - discovery.com, November 2003

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the remains of a Viking warrior have been uncovered in Dublin.

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a Viking warrior during excavations on a building site in the Irish capital, Dublin.

A skeleton was found with an iron shield and what appeared to be a dagger in a shallow grave near the centre of Dublin, said archaeologist Linzi Simpson. (...)

The burial site of the warrior, now nicknamed Eric by archaeologists, appears to have been disturbed at some stage in the past and his sword is missing.

Ms Simpson believes he may have been part of an early raiding party that arrived about 40 years before a Viking settlement was established in Dublin.

The site is close to where there had been a monastery.

"I have no doubt that this guy was a member of a raiding party probably doing something nasty to the monastery," she said. [full article]

Related links:
Viking Dublin
Temple Bar - Viking Excavations

An amusing article from wired.com: Luxury Loo: The Seat Also Rises.

Steve Marshall vividly remembers the night he was terrorized by a toilet.

Marshall, an embedded systems programmer, had just arrived in Tokyo to deliver a sales pitch. After a couple of hours happily spent swilling sake to celebrate the closing of a deal, he, not surprisingly, had to use the facilities.

"When I approached the toilet, the lid lifted automatically," said Marshall. "Then, as I stood in front of it, the seat also lifted. All I could think was, whoa . . haunted bathroom! I just could not urinate for fear of what might happen next." [continue]

(You really must continue. It's hilarious.)

While we're on the subject of toilets, here's the funniest toilet-related disaster story I've ever read: Ask the pilot.

According to a Harvard magazine article, Egyptologist Mark Lehner "has found the city of the pyramid builders. They were not slaves."

The pyramids and the Great Sphinx rise inexplicably from the desert at Giza, relics of a vanished culture. They dwarf the approaching sprawl of modern Cairo, a city of 16 million. The largest pyramid, built for the Pharaoh Khufu around 2530 B.C. and intended to last an eternity, was until early in the twentieth century the biggest building on the planet. To raise it, laborers moved into position six and a half million tons of stone — some in blocks as large as nine tons — with nothing but wood and rope. During the last 4,500 years, the pyramids have drawn every kind of admiration and interest, ranging in ancient times from religious worship to grave robbery, and, in the modern era, from New-Age claims for healing "pyramid power" to pseudoscientific searches by "fantastic archaeologists" seeking hidden chambers or signs of alien visitations to Earth. As feats of engineering or testaments to the decades-long labor of tens of thousands, they have awed even the most sober observers.

The question of who labored to build them, and why, has long been part of their fascination. Rooted firmly in the popular imagination is the idea that the pyramids were built by slaves serving a merciless pharaoh. This notion of a vast slave class in Egypt originated in Judeo-Christian tradition and has been popularized by Hollywood productions like Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments, in which a captive people labor in the scorching sun beneath the whips of pharaoh's overseers. But graffiti from inside the Giza monuments themselves have long suggested something very different.

Until recently, however, the fabulous art and gold treasures of pharaohs like Tutankhamen have overshadowed the efforts of scientific archaeologists to understand how human forces — perhaps all levels of Egyptian society — were mobilized to enable the construction of the pyramids. Now, drawing on diverse strands of evidence, from geological history to analysis of living arrangements, bread-making technology, and animal remains, Egyptologist Mark Lehner, an associate of Harvard's Semitic Museum, is beginning to fashion an answer. He has found the city of the pyramid builders. They were not slaves. [continue]

Link found at Arts and Letters Daily.

Related articles:
Interview with Mark Lehner - from pbs.org
Giza Village - from touregypt.net
Mark Lehner, Egyptologist - from touregypt.net
Pyramid Builders' Village Found in Egypt - National Geographic
Giza Plateau Mapping Project

From the Guardian: Rare bell shrine found in Ireland.

Archaeologists have uncovered one of the most important holy relics ever found in Ireland.

The bronze bell shrine, dating back to between AD1180 and 1200, had been hidden carefully in the ground for safe keeping at the site of a settlement at Drumadoon, near Ballycastle in Co Antrim.

Brian Williams, joint excavation director of the environment and heritage service, said it was "a rare and remarkable object". He said: "This is among the most important archaeological objects ever found in the course of an excavation in Ireland."

The shrine is made of bronze and would have contained a sacred bell.

Related articles:
12th Century relic ‘greatest find’ of archaeologist's life
Find of Lifetime as Dig Reveals Sacred Ancient Shrine

Last August I blogged about the Roman villas found under the playing field at a school in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. Today there's more news about the same site — they've found an early Christian baptistry. From the Guardian:

The first Christian baptistry built onto the sumptuous mosaic of the dining room of an opulent 4th century Roman villa has been uncovered by archaeologists under the playing fields of a school in Wiltshire.

The archaeologists have also discovered what appears to be a sham palatial twin villa.

The twin villas, aligned on a hilltop and identical in plan would have been a stunning sight: built with metre thick stone walls, high on hill above Bradford-on-Avon and near a much older Iron Age hill fort.

However while one is a conventionally splendid Romano British villa, with the beautiful dolphin and wine cup mosaic in the dining room, the other is emerging the most bizarre ever uncovered.

"You need a shed load of superlatives for this site, it's gobsmacking," said Mark Corney, of the archaeology department at Bristol University. He has just completed a second summer's excavation on the site, with a team from Bristol and Cardiff University, funded by English Heritage and the Wiltshire county archaeology service.

This summer they have not only uncovered the 5th century baptistry, but discovered that in the twin villa there is no trace of living accommodation. It appears to have been used as farm stores, housing cattle on mud or rough stone floors. [continue]

Related links:
Bradford mosaic reveals itself on TV
Bradford-on-Avon Roman Villa
Unearthed: a luxury Roman villa with chapel and granny flat

Related pages on Mirabilis.ca:
Roman villas found under the playing field - August 18th, 2002
Roman mosaic under the field - October 19, 2002

The Guardian reports that archaeologists have uncovered the earliest examination certificate ever found in Britain.

Fragments of two bronze sheets, which had been threaded together, were unearthed by metal detector enthusiasts in Norfolk.

The diploma was awarded in AD98 to a garrison soldier whose name has not survived but who was recruited in the imperial province of Pannonia, now the Balkans. Lettering inscribed on the eroded metal shows that he served in the legions from AD73, most of the time in Britain.

His certificate acknowledges lessons learned during 25 years in the Roman army, lessons which became as subject to controversy and allegations of cheating as any modern exam.

As the empire declined, the diplomas were traded on an illegal market for their value as proof of citizenship, which carried privileges and exemptions. [continue]

From the Sydney Morning Herald: Viking models strut the catwalk.

It wasn't quite haute couture and the models weren't exactly Givenchy. But the clothes were chic, or at least fashionable in their time - thousands of years ago.

Models in hides, wool and coarse linen strutted the Viking catwalk, showing off the "latest" in prehistoric and medieval fashion at an outdoor museum near this small town, 40km west of the capital, Copenhagen.

The pret-a-porter of ancient Scandinavia designed from pieces of fabric excavated from archaeological sites, raised some eyebrows among bleating sheep in the Danish countryside.

"You could call this quite sexy," said Sven Dammann, a German who lives in Denmark.

Galit Peleg, a 20-year-old student, wore a tight woollen blouse and a daring skirt of strings from the Bronze Age, some 3,000 years ago, probably used only on ceremonial occasions.

"It's very tight-fitting and warm, and not very practical," she said. "But the skirt makes you want to dance." [continue]

The origins and ancient history of wine offers a photo of the world's oldest wine jar (5400-5000 B.C.) and links like these: Neolithic Period - "chateau hajji firuz" and Egypt - wine for the afterlife. Who can resist? Here's a bit from the Egypt page:

The wild grape never grew in ancient Egypt. Yet a thriving royal winemaking industry had been established in the Nile Delta — most likely due to Early Bronze Age trade between Egypt and Palestine, encompassing modern Israel,the West Bank and Gaza, and Jordan — by at least Dynasty 3 (ca. 2700 B.C.), the beginning of the Old Kingdom period. Winemaking scenes appear on tomb walls, and the accompanying offering lists include wine that was definitely produced at vineyards in the Delta. By the end of the Old Kingdom, five wines — all probably made in the Delta — constitute a canonical set of provisions, or fixed "menu," for the afterlife. [continue]

From 24 Hour Museum: Huge hoard of Viking-age silver unearthed on the Isle of Man.

A hoard of Viking-age silver, considered by experts to be of international importance has been unearthed on the Isle of Man by a metal detectorist.

Uncovered in March this year by detectorist Andy Whewell, the collection is comprised of 464 coins, 25 ingots and a broken armlet, all dating back to around 1020 AD.

The hoard has now been declared Treasure by the island's High Bailiff and will go on display at the Manx Museum once further research and conservation work has been carried out.

Curator of Archaeology at Manx National Heritage, Allison Fox explained just how significant the find has proved to be.

"Although the island is well-known for producing hoards of Viking silver, we have never had a find of this size and quality before," said Allison.

"The condition, range of styles of coinage, purity of silver in the ingots and the design of the broken armlet are remarkable. It is rare that such important material is discovered in such good condition and with fragments of the original container." [continue]

Going away for a couple of days, my dears. Back Sunday night. Or Monday night. Tuesday at the latest.

What kind of things do people give the pope, and what happens to those gifts? This Catholic News Service article has the details. Gifts from the heart for the pope: Humble items that speak volumes.

From Deutsche Welle: Archaeologists Unearth German Stonehenge.

German experts on Thursday hailed Europe's oldest astronomical observatory, discovered in Saxony-Anhalt last year, a "milestone in archaeological research" after the details of the sensational find were made public.

The sleepy town of Goseck, nestled in the district of Weissenfels in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt shimmers under the brutal summer heat, as residents seek respite in the shade.

Nothing in this slumbering locale indicates that one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of all times was made here. But this is indeed exactly where archaeologists digging in the region last September stumbled upon what they believe is Europe's oldest astronomical observatory ever unearthed. [continue]

Via Cronaca.

From Bruce Feiler's At The Monastery of The Burning Bush. (Update: page no longer available.)

Sinai Desert, Egypt — I bolted upright the first time I heard the bells, a sound so loud it yanked me from sleep. I held my ears when I realized the clamor was just outside my door. It was a carillon 15 centuries old; a wake-up call older than clocks.

I looked at my watch: 4:25 a.m. The room was whitewashed, with a bed, a desk, and a chair. A reproduction of an eighth-century crucifix hung on the wall, alongside a small painting of St. Catherine, the Egyptian martyr and namesake of the monastery at which I was staying. Before I came to the mountains, people had warned of the cold, meager facilities. But the room was quite accommodating, with plenty of bedding, a portable heater, hot water, a toilet, and even a bidet. This was the Ritz for pilgrims, a hermitage with a view.

I slid into my boots and splashed water on my face. The morning service would start in five minutes. Outside, the courtyard was still dark. A rosefinch hopped quietly on the banister; even the birds didn't speak at this hour. [continue]

Related book:
Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses - by Bruce Feiler.

More from Mirabilis.ca about St. Catherine's Monastery:
Ancient monastery opens library - January 31, 2003

If you find that your life is too full of possessions, All That Stuff at Dervala.net is just the thing to read.

The African Ceremonies website has stunning photographs of sacred ritutals in tribal cultures. You can't miss this. Photos include those of an Adioukrou Queen Mother in the Ivory Coast, one of a Surma Father with Children in Ethiopia, and oh, lots more.

Thanks to Frank DiSalle for the link.

From the BBC: Calculating the perfect marriage.

Delegates at a conference in Dundee have heard how mathematics can determine the fate of a marriage.

Professor James Murray from the University of Washington believes he has formulated a model which can predict the chances of staying with a chosen partner.

He claims data from a couple's conversations, converted into algebra, is 94% accurate in determining how long a couple will remain wed. [continue]

From abc.net.au: London airport yields Stone Age finds.

The building of a new terminal at Heathrow airport is providing an unexpected trove of information about the people inhabiting the area, going back to the hunter gatherers of the Stone Age some 8,000 years ago.

A team of about 80 archaeologists has been working alongside the construction teams preparing the 100-hectare site, where Heathrow airport's fifth terminal will be built. They have found Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Saxon, medieval and later remains, as well as traces of Stone Age culture.

The researchers have identified 80,000 archaeological objects, including 18,000 pieces of pottery, 40,000 pieces of worked flint and the only wooden bowl found dating to the Middle Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago. [continue]

Sometimes I find little bits of information about ancient Rome in the most unlikely places. This is from a steganography article in the paper version of Linux Format magazine:

During the wars over which he had command, Julius Caesar was purported to use a very early cipher, known today as rot13, which is short for "rotate characters by 13 places". So, "a" becomes "n", "n" beomces "a", etc. It's a very simple cipher, and one generally only used today so that the meaning of a message isn't immediately apparent. A common example of this is on Usenet, where messages containing movie spoilers and offensive material are often posted in rot 13 so that visitors can't read them by accident.

Cryptography websites confirm that Caesar's was indeed a rotational cipher, but most of the pages about Caesar (like this one) say that "the plaintext letter was replaced by the ciphertext three places down the alphabet." Three. Not 13. Same idea, though.

So, Usenet users: did you know that rot 13 uses the same technique that Caesar used?

Related links:
Julius Caesar's Substitution Cipher
The Caesar Cipher
Beginners' Guide to Cryptography
Caesar Cipher - Wikipedia
Steganography Revealed
Rot13
Rot13 conversion CGI

From Ananova: Caligula ‘thought he was a god’.

Ancient Roman emperor Caligula may have been crazier than previously known according to archaeologists.

An Anglo-American team has examined remains in Rome's Forum which show he incorporated a holy temple into his palace to imply that he himself was a god.

This shows Caligula "was really maniacal", said Darius Arya, executive director for the American Institute for Roman Culture.

"He's saying, ‘I'm living with the gods, I am a god,"’ said Arya, who led a 35-person team, including students from Oxford and Stanford universities, on the five-week dig.

Arya said Roman emperors could expect elevation to the status of gods after death, but to harbour these pretensions while alive was extraordinary.

Italian archaeological officials were cautious about the team's claims, saying they could not yet confirm the research.

Arya's team analysed drainage systems, walls and pavement in the Forum which they said indicated that Caligula extended his palace to include the venerated temple of Castor and Pollux.

In his account of the life of the emperor, Roman historian Suetonius wrote that Caligula had "extended the Palace as far as the Forum, converted the shrine of Castor and Pollux into its vestibule and would often stand between these Divine Brethren to be worshipped by all visitants".

Arya said the team's research confirmed this account. [full article]

Related article:
Roman dig backs ancient writers' portrait of megalomaniac Caligula - Guardian

You might drive around town in a strange vehicle of some sort, but can you beat Sean Irving's camera on wheels? From wired.com:

He constructed the machine, dubbed Peanut, out of an old mail-delivery truck he bought on eBay and surplus military parts, including a lens that came straight from a submarine periscope. The camera truck takes photos that are 4 feet tall and 8 feet wide -- more than 3,000 times larger than the typical negative.

It's essentially one step above a pinhole camera, the standard prop used in introductory photography classes. Irving composes his images by driving closer to or farther away from his subjects and stands inside the camera to make the images.

"It's amazing to be inside a camera as it takes a picture," said Irving. "You step in there, shut all the doors, and you see this projection of everything outside ... only it's upside-down. [continue]

Here's one of my favourite stories: Kipling's The Elephant's Child.

In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn't pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant--a new Elephant--an Elephant's Child--who was full of 'satiable curtiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions. And he lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa with his 'satiable curtiosities. He asked his tall aunt, the Ostrich, why her tail-feathers grew just so, and his tall aunt the Ostrich spanked him with her hard, hard claw. He asked his tall uncle, the Giraffe, what made his skin spotty, and his tall uncle, the Giraffe, spanked him with his hard, hard hoof. And still he was full of 'satiable curtiosity! He asked his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, why her eyes were red, and his broad aunt, the Hippopotamus, spanked him with her broad, broad hoof; and he asked his hairy uncle, the Baboon, why melons tasted just so, and his hairy uncle, the Baboon, spanked him with his hairy, hairy paw. And still he was full of 'satiable curtiosity! He asked questions about everything that he saw, or heard, or felt, or smelt, or touched, and all his uncles and his aunts spanked him. And still he was full of 'satiable curtiosity!

One fine morning in the middle of the Precession of the Equinoxes this 'satiable Elephant's Child asked a new fine question that he had never asked before. He asked, 'What does the Crocodile have for dinner?' Then everybody said, 'Hush!' in a loud and dretful tone, and they spanked him immediately and directly, without stopping, for a long time.

By and by, when that was finished, he came upon Kolokolo Bird sitting in the middle of a wait-a-bit thorn-bush, and he said, 'My father has spanked me, and my mother has spanked me; all my aunts and uncles have spanked me for my 'satiable curtiosity; and still I want to know what the Crocodile has for dinner!'

Then Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry, 'Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out.' [continue]

From an Ananova article:

The secrets of a famous 18th century cure-all ointment have been disclosed, after its recipe was put up for sale.

For about 200 years The Poor Man's Friend was sold around the world as a cure for aches and pains.

The ingredients of the ointment, formulated by Dorset apothecary Giles Roberts in the 1790s, remained a mystery.

The secrets were finally disclosed as an original copy of the recipe was listed for auction next week along with other papers and memorabilia belonging to Roberts.

Matthew Denny, a valuer at Dorset auctioneer Duke's, said the recipe had been found by a pharmacist who bought Roberts' old shop in the 1970s.

The recipe for Poor Man's Friend was discovered in a sealed envelope marked private.

It sets out ingredients for making a vat of the ointment, which was usually sold in small jars.

The largest element was 50lbs of Waterford lard, which was to be cut into pieces and steamed with 6lbs of English beeswax, before being strained through cheesecloth.

Other key ingredients include calamel, similar to soothing calamine lotion, sugar of lead, zinc oxide, and lavender.

Dr Frances Lawlor, a dermatologist at St Andrew's hospital in London, said the resulting ointment could have some beneficial effects for conditions such as eczema, mild infections and headaches.

There's a photo of the old Poor Man's friend container on this antique and collectible bottles and pots site.

Related info:

From Medical Heritage, Dorset:

This town was once the home of Dr G.L.Roberts (1766-1834), inventor of the Poor Man's Friend, a salve sold mainly through advertisements in newspapers of the late 18th and early nineteenth centuries. The ointment was recommended for treatment of Piles, Cuts, Burns and Leg Ulcers and "should be found on every dressing table". Dr Roberts also recommended his "Alterative Pills", a necessary adjunct to The Poor Man's Friend. There is a large collection of pots and other memorabilia relating to Dr Roberts in the Bridport Museum.

Related link:
Secret recipe of quack ointment revealed at last - Guardian

Update:
Museum buys secret ointment recipe - Ananova, August 15th, 2003.

From PhysicsWeb.org: Archaeology turns to superconductivity.

Researchers from Israel have developed a new way to date archaeological objects that is based on superconductivity. The new technique relies on measuring the magnetic signal from lead - which was widely used in antiquity - in samples that have been cooled to cryogenic temperatures. The method could be used to date pipes, coins, bottles and other objects (S Reich et al. 2003 New J. Phys 5 99)

Lead is stable in many environments and corrodes only very slowly into lead oxide and lead carbonate. It becomes a superconductor when cooled below 7.2 Kelvin, whereas the corrosion products do not. This means that the magnetization of the lead will be several orders of magnitude higher than that of the corrosion products when the sample is placed in an applied magnetic field at temperatures below 7.2 Kelvin. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the magnetic signal from the sample is coming from the lead only. [continue]

Regular readers might have guessed that I have a weakness for slightly strange "do it yourself" projects. (Like, say, that wooden serpent.) The only problem is that I don't have a workshop, so I lack the tools to make all these projects. But if I did have a workshop, oh boy, I'd be right on this one: Making Simple Flutes from PVC Plumbing Pipe.

Never mind that I have a perfectly lovely open-hole Gemeinhardt silver flute ... I'd still love to make a flute, or at least have a cheap one for camping trips. Maybe one day.

If you make one of these pvc flutes, could you please let me know how it turns out?

The people behind Webexhibits have created lots of cool sites for curious folk like us. Go visit Bellini's Feast of the Gods, Causes of Color, Pigments through the Ages, Calendars Through the Ages, or Daylight Savings Time. They've even got pages on the history and makings of butter!

There are also links to hundreds of interesting exhibits from other places.

I thank Mirabilis.ca reader Frank DiSalle for writing to tell me about Webexhibits. "You'll spend hours in there, I bet," Frank wrote. Yup!

(Oh, and if the rest of you want to email cool links to me, please do. I'd love that.)

Creepy crawly news from the BBC: Robot insect walks on water.

Scientists have developed a robotic insect which walks on water.

The team, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, were testing out a theory about how one family of foraging insects performs the same trick.

Previous theories put forward to explain how water striders (Gerridae) manage to propel themselves across the surface of ponds and lakes had one major problem.

They predicted that young water striders should be too weak to move, while nature shows clearly that they are not.

Surface tension explains why water striders do not sink below the surface as they stand on water.

But a careful experimental study was needed to explain how they propel themselves forward.

"What we did was to apply some conventional techniques of flow visualisation in fluid dynamics," MIT's John Bush told BBC News Online.

"You basically sprinkle dye or tiny particles into the water and record what happens with a high-speed camera." [continue]

From the Beeb: Tudor garden rediscovered.

A rare Elizabethan garden which used to belong to one of the Conwy valley's most influential families has been uncovered.

The bowling green and ornamental viewing mount were rediscovered near the summerhouse of the powerful Wynn family at Gwydir Uchaf above Llanrwst.

The Tudor grounds, which is part of a Cadw-registered historic site, had lain forgotten in dense woodlands since the first half of the last century.

But it came to light once again when local schoolchildren set about clearing the area.

It has a round-shaped bowling green and a ziggurat - a mount shaped like a "Walnut Whip" sweet, with paths spiralling up to its top. [continue]

Spotted at Cronaca.

A mind-boggling article from the Guardian: Italians keep face by faking holidays.

"So where are you going on holiday?"

It is a question you hear everywhere in Italy in the weeks leading up to summer.

And in the land of "bella figura" (keeping up appearances), almost no one says "nowhere".

Yet, according to a survey published yesterday, some 3 million Italians fake their holidays.

The phenomenon of Italy's phony vacationers has been known about for some time. Two years ago, it supplied the plot for a film - Mari del Sud - about an executive who discovers he has been swindled out of his money but, rather than lose face, locks himself in a cellar for two weeks in the summer with his family.

The first indication of just how many Italians are taking imaginary holidays emerged from a survey carried out this year for Help Me, a voluntary organisation founded by psychologists to identify and assist those in need of help.

The results suggested that, for various reasons, ranging from ill health to financial constraints, 19% of Italians were not planning to take a holiday this year, but that almost a third of them intended to pretend that they were.

Two-thirds said they would make sure they informed themselves about the resort they were pretending to visit. But some were ready to go to quite extraordinary lengths to keep up the pretence: 24% were planning to buy an ultra-violet lamp to get a fake tan and 19% intended taking their plants to a neighbour. [full article]

From IC Wales: Welsh well key to poetic riddle.

The mystery surrounding an obscure TS Eliot poem has eventually been solved after the object of his verse - a disused white well - was discovered in a small picturesque Welsh village.

The baffling poem, entitled Usk, was written in 1935 while the famous American poet was touring Wales.

But literary professors have struggled to understand the eleven lines of poetry which referred to a "white hart" behind a "white well".

The line reads, "Do not suddenly break the branch, or Hope to find the white hart behind the white well".

Following research by a retired professor - and a sequence of coincidences - it is now believed that the white well is a disused holy well hidden in a hedge in the small rural village of Llangybi, in Monmouthshire. [continue]

Related link:
TS Eliot scholar finds answer to pub poet's riddle - Guardian

From Social Studies in today's Globe and Mail:

David Rea has designed a computer program that allows poems to evolve, reports The Boston Globe.

"Starting with 1,000 random words culled from Hamlet, Beowulf and the Iliad, among others, his program randomly assembles them to create a short verse. If you visit his Web site (www.codeasart.com/poetry/darwin.html), you are given two of these verses and you choose the one you like [better]. The unpopular ones are killed off, but the poems with the most votes get to ‘breed’ with each other, exchanging words like genes. Rea has also programmed in a mutation, where every new poem has a one-in-a-thousand chance of having a dropped or added word, or a word shifting its place."

Related link:
Poetry red in tooth and claw - Boston Globe article. (scroll down a bit.)

From the Independent: Ancient cities discovered in Yangtze Valley.

China's Yangtze River was once home to an ancient civilisation, just as the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates and the Indus rivers were, according to new archaeological research.

A series of 13 walled towns and cities have so far been discovered. Dating from around 3000BC these ancient urban centres - excavated by Chinese and Japanese archaeological teams over the past decade - appear to have had populations of up to 10,000. The largest cities had up to three miles of defensive walls. The discoveries show that exactly the same process of urbanisation and state formation was taking place in China in the same river valley environment and in roughly the same period that similar developments were occurring in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.

Like the earliest phases of the other great riverine civilisations, the newly discovered Yangtze civilisation belonged to the neolithic period - substantially prior to the development in China of metal technology.

The culture that gave rise to these first Chinese towns had its origins in around 7000BC, when the first villages started appearing on the banks of the Yangtze. Indeed the Yangtze area was one of the first in the world to produce pottery - an amazing 13,000 years ago. [continue]

I'm looking through the exhibit at the Museum of Ancient Inventions, trying to decide which is the coolest thing. I like the tumbler lock from 1000 BC, and the Chinese compass from 220 BC. And my, those Aztec calendar wheels are astonishing.

I think the item that appeals most, though, is the coin-operated holy water dispensing machine:

Designed by the Greek inventor Heron, this coin-operated holy water dispenser was used in Egyptian temples to dispense water for ritual washings. Worshippers would place a coin into the machine and receive holy water to bathe themselves with before entering the temple. At the end of the day, the slot machine would be emptied of its coins and refilled with holy water for the next day's worshippers. Dropping a coin into the slot machine initiates a chain reaction: the weight of the coin depresses a metal pan, which in turn results in the opening of a valve, which in turn allows the water to flow out for the worshipper.

Amazing.

I've been hoping that somebody would make Photoshop work on the Linux platform. Well! Somebody did. And surprise — the somebody is Walt Disney and a couple of other animation studios. From eWeek.com: Penguin Moves to Disney:

Last year, when the Walt Disney Co.'s feature animation unit, in Burbank, Calif., announced that it was using Linux for digital animation work, speculation grew that Adobe Systems Inc. would finally port its products to Linux. To this day, however, Adobe has done no such thing. Rather than wait, Disney, along with two other motion picture animation studios (which declined to be named for this article), decided to jointly fund the development of a Windows-to-Linux porting solution. The idea: develop technology using the Wine emulator to run Adobe Photoshop on Linux.

While animation studios compete fiercely for ticket sales and are not known as team players, all three agreed that a project that would benefit the entire open-source community — while delivering a technology they needed — was worth their cooperation, said Jack Brooks, director of technology at Walt Disney Feature Animation.

The project has paid off tremendously for Disney this year alone. Development of the porting solution, including site licenses, cost Disney less than $15,000. Had he opted to run Photoshop on Windows machines, it would have cost upward of $50,000 just in annual licensing fees, said Brooks. He estimates support would have been an additional $40,000 a year.

"It's been a win-win model to have someone else provide added value to an open-source product," Brooks said. "I didn't have the resources to chase that project internally. This way, the open-source community got the product, and we got what we needed cheaper than we could have done it ourselves."

Although Linux has proven success on servers, it is just beginning to gain ground on enterprise desktops, experts said. Much of this has to do with emulators such as Wine, which enable companies to run Windows-only applications on Linux, said Chad Robinson, an analyst at Robert Frances Group Inc., a research company in Westport, Conn.

"Wine has always been an important element in considering Linux deployment on the desktop in corporate environments because desktop product vendors have simply not kept pace with server product vendors in porting their products," Robinson said. "Although there are a few methods of emulation available, Wine is one of the most complete and effective; and while not every application runs perfectly, enough do that many companies end up using it at some point." [continue]

Found here at Slashdot.

Related:

If you want a FREE high-powered image editing program, check out The GIMP. (Gnu Image Manipulation Project.) Linux and Windows versions available.

Wine is very useful for running Windows programs on Linux machines.

My network security friends will want one of these robot guard dogs to use in finding wireless network vulnerabilities. From ZDnet UK news:

Created by two members of a loose association of security experts called the Shmoo Group, the robot is designed to wheel around on its own detecting and reporting the security problems of Wi-Fi wireless networks.

"The point of the hacker robot is that it can become an autonomous hacker droid," said Paul Holman, the robot's co-designer, who demonstrated it for the first time at the DefCon hacker convention here. "It can get in close to the network. On the offensive side, it can be used for corporate or political espionage. On the defensive side, it can be used for network vulnerability assessment."

The prototype robot, which has not been named, may be the first creature designed for this purpose. Holman and hardware engineer Eric Johanson hope to sell custom versions of the unit to government agencies and businesses that are worried about the security of their own wireless networks or that hope to break into someone else's. Holman and Johanson have not yet set a price. [continue]

Link found at Mike's List.

From IranMania.com: Iranian judges forced to take calligraphy lessons.

Iranian judges are being forced to take calligraphy lessons to make their verdicts more readable, the head of Iran's supreme calligraphy council, Hasan Gholampour told the Entekhab daily on Sunday.

"On the order of the chief of the judiciary (Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahrudi), all judges and other officials with important posts in the judiciary will have to take Nastaliq lessons," he said, referring to Iran's official style of calligraphy.

Despite computerisation, Iranian judges still handwrite their verdicts which are often illegible.

Modern-day Persian script is based on the Arabic alphabet, with extra markings added to Arabic letters to represent sounds which only exist in Persian. [continue]

This one's a couple of days old. Did everyone but me already see this? From iol.co.za: Temple to Zeus unearthed at Mount Olympus.

Athens - Diggers accidentally discovered a temple to Zeus at the foot of Mount Olympus in an indicating that ancient Greeks switched away from polytheism to the faith of a single God even before Christianity appeared in Greece, archaeologists said on Friday.

The sanctuary was found during works to broaden the bed of the Vaphyras river running through the Dion temple complex at the foot of Mount Olympus, northern Greece - the seat of Greek mythology's twelve Gods.

The findings include the sanctuary's foundations, 14 marble blocks with marble eagles engraved on them - Zeus's symbol - and a slightly smaller-than-life-size, headless marble statue of Zeus, said archaeologist Dimitris Pantermalis who supervises the Dion site.

The sanctuary dates to the centuries preceding Christ's birth. Insignia found on it refer to Zeus as "the highest".

"It is a special version of Zeus as a single God residing in heaven... we know that 'Zeus the Highest' played an important role in the transition to monotheism," Pantermalis said. [continue]

A Shanghai Museum has bought the Chunhuage Tie!

BEIJING (AP) — A museum in Shanghai has paid a record $4.5 million to buy a 1,000-year-old set of Chinese calligraphy books from an American art dealer, officials said Monday.

The "Chunhuage Tie" includes the only known works by several master calligraphers, said Zhou Yanqun, head of the Shanghai Museum's cultural exchange office. She identified the seller as Robert Hatfield Ellsworth of New York City.

"It's one of the most valuable national relics," Zhou said.

The price is the highest ever paid by a Chinese institution for calligraphy, said an official of the China National Relics Bureau in Beijing. She refused to give her name.

The purchase comes amid Chinese efforts to recover art treasures from abroad. Several institutions have made multimillion-dollar purchases recently, taking advantage of a fall in prices due to the global economic slump.

Chinese regard the writing of their language's ideograms as an art form on a level with painting.

The "Chunhuage Tie" was assembled in the 10th century during the Song dynasty, Zhou said. The state newspaper China Daily said it was created for the Emperor Taizong, gathering together the work of 100 calligraphers from antiquity through the 9th century.

Their works were copied onto wooden blocks and then printed on paper, Zhou said. She said those represented included Wang Xizhi, who lived in the 4th century and is regarded as one of China's most important calligraphers. [continue]

Related links:
Shanghai buys back lost calligraphic work - Bangkok Post
Chinese Calligraphy - Inscriptions and Handwriting - ChinaKnowledge.de

A "heads up" to Canadian bloggers, and those who like to read Canadian blogs: BlogsCanada.ca looks like it's going to be pretty cool.

From their home page:

Here at BlogsCan, we are about all things blog - with a decidedly Canadian flavour. We wax poetic about multiculturalism and the colours in our neighbourhoods. We consume hydro and we take our shoes off at the door, eh?

We're gun-hating, Celsius-loving, maple-leaf-on-our-backpacks, standing on guard Canadians. We know we're a lot better off than you-know-who but we're just too darned polite to crow about it.

BlogsCanada's purpose is to provide a place where Canadians and those interested in Canada (isn't everyone?) can find links to Canadian bloggers' sites.

If you're a Canadian blogger, you can add your site to the directory.

From an Associated Press article at the Toronto Star: E-glove turns sign language into speech.

An electronic glove that can turn American Sign Language gestures into spoken words or text, designed to help the deaf communicate more easily with the hearing world, is under development.

Researcher Jose Hernandez-Rebollar of George Washington University has demonstrated that his "AcceleGlove" can translate the rapid hand movements used to make the alphabet and some of the words and phrases of sign language. (...)

Hernandez-Rebollar demonstrated his invention during a recent interview. He wore a right-hand glove and two small armbands, one near his wrist and the other on his upper arm.

His software converted the signs he made with his hand into sound from a small loudspeaker — all in milliseconds. After a few taps on a laptop keyboard, he made standard American Sign Language gestures and the loudspeaker came out with single words — "food," "drink," "restaurant," "father." The words can also appear typed on a screen.

The single glove can make the signs that correspond to all 26 letters of the alphabet, so any word can be spelled out. But this is a slow process.

American Sign Language also includes hundreds of gestures that express single words and simple sentences, but most require two hands. So far the single glove can produce fewer than 200 words that can be signed with the one hand, and a few expressions such as "What's the matter?" and "I'll help you."

Some further testing is needed, Hernandez-Rebollar said. He believes the right hand glove could be manufactured and on the market next year, while a two-handed version with much greater possibilities could be ready in 2005. [full article]

Related links:
The Sound of One-Hand Signing - from George Washington University
photo of the Acceleglove (scroll down a bit) - from George Washington University
Acceleglove: Turning sign into much more from nbo4.com
Sign Language Glove - from komotv.com
Giving a Helping Hand - from techtv.com
A High-Tech Helping Hand: Prototype Glove Translates Sign Langauge Into Speech - from abcnews.go.com

From Ananova: Experts train rats to sniff out landmines.

Giant rats are being trained to sniff out landmines in Tanzania.

Their trainers at Tanzania's Sokoine University of Agriculture say the African pouched rats can do a much better job than dogs.

Christophe Cox is the Belgian co-ordinator of a project that is training 300 rats to locate mines by recognising the smell of dynamite and TNT.

He said: "Rats are good, clever to learn, small, like performing repeated tasks and have a better sense of smell than dogs."

One reason the animals are useful in detecting mines is that despite their description as "giant" rats, they are small enough, about 30 inches long to scamper across a minefield without setting off the charges. [continue]

From a BBC article:

Historic documents giving an insight into an 18th Century clockmaker's struggle to be awarded the prize for measuring longitude have been bought by the National Maritime Museum. Working class joiner John Harrison was ridiculed when he suggested a clock could be used to accurately measure a ship's position at sea.

After 40 years of work, his H4 clock, tested in 1761 was accurate to within five seconds.

But he had a fight on his hands to persuade the Board of Longitude to give him the £20,000 prize offered in a 1714 Act of Parliament.

In the end King George III intervened on his behalf and Harrison was finally granted the money in 1772, aged 79.

Now papers belonging to the 2nd Viscount Barrington, who sat in judgement on Harrison's work, have been bought by the museum in Greenwich, south-east London.

Museum director Roy Clare said: "These fascinating papers will enable the museum's experts to reassess the discussions of the Board of Longitude and to shed new light on the events that led to Harrison eventually bypassing the board, and making a personal appeal to King George III for the longitude prize to be awarded to him."

The longitude problem, or how a ship could measure how far west or east it had sailed, led King Charles II to found the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, in 1675. [continue]

If this interests you, check out Dava Sobel's book, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. It's short and interesting — just the thing to take with you to the beach.

Related links:
National Maritime Museum
Longitude clock comes alive - BBC
Longitude - Wikipedia

From the Guardian: Delphic oracle was ancient glue-sniffer.

She advised generals about invasions; told citizens about the fates of their investments; and even warned Oedipus about the dangers of murdering his father and marrying his mother.

Yet the oracle at Delphi was not blessed with prophetic vision, scientists have discovered. In fact, she was high on alcoholic vapours.

This is the conclusion of scientists -- writing in this month's Scientific American -- who have found that the oracle chamber was built over a geological fault from which seeped ethane and ethylene gases. As a result, the oracle, the temple maiden who uttered Delphi's prophecies, was probably in a permanent narcotic state.

In other words, the oracle's utterings, upon which so much of ancient Greek life depended, were not the words of Apollo, the god of prophecy, but the babblings of a drunk or glue-sniffer.

‘The petrochemical-rich layers in the limestone formations most likely produced ethylene, a gas that induces a trancelike state, that could have risen through fissures,’ state the team led by Prof John Hale of Louisville University.

The oracle was typically depicted in Greek art as sitting on a tall three-legged stool, with a laurel sprig in one hand, and a cup of water filled from the spring that bubbled into her chamber. In a trance, she answered the questions of supplicants. [continue]

And here's the Scientific American article, Questioning the Delphic Oracle. Five pages long! I love stuff like this.

Anthropologist Joe Zias deserves a big fat award for patience and perseverance. From Haaretz.com: One day the letters emerged.

When you stand on the round observation point called the Absalom's Tomb observatory, and look down at the arid Kidron Valley, you can see several ancient tombs carved into the mountain: Absalom's tomb, the Tomb of the Sons of Hezir and Zacharia's Tomb. Absalom's Tomb is the only monument that remains whole, and is the most magnificent of them all: a pitcher-shaped structure, about 20 meters high, hewn from the rock. Anthropologist Joe Zias spent most of his free time over the past two years next to this structure.

For days on end, Zias sprawled alongside the grave. Sometimes, in the evenings, he came accompanied by security guards, because in this neighborhood one tends to encounter drug dealers and their customers, both Jews and Palestinians. During the daylight hours, Zias sat in the shade of a tree near the site, reading a book,with a camera ready at his side. Every hour he examined the angle of the sun, checking to see if the inscription he was looking for would be illuminated and appear on the corner of the structure.

"I had the time, and after all, it's a matter of patience," he says. "For about two years I sat there regularly. For entire days. Sometimes I would go two or three times a week only to see if the situation had improved. I could have sat there for months on end. I read a book and every hour I took a picture, until one day, actually at the end of the day, at dusk, the letters emerged." [continue]

If you've thought about starting a blog and wanted an easy way to begin, this is for you. If you're already blogging but you're sick of Blogger's problems, or maybe you've wanted to try Movable Type but it seemed too complicated — this is for you, too.

It's TypePad, an online blog thingy run by the people who created Movable Type. And kids, TypePad looks pretty cool! Here's the Typepad features and pricing page. It's launching on Monday, August 4th.

If I were in Ottawa, I'd hunt up Nick Raina to see the rock moving thing he has in his driveway. From Canada.com: The ‘eccentric man’ who moves big rocks.

Ottawa's Nick Raina may have solved one of the world's greatest mysteries. Brushing aside hundreds of years worth of theories by historians and archeologists, the 69-year-old man claims he can build a Great Pyramid just like the one constructed by the Egyptians, in approximately 2450 BC, using simple hand tools and minimal force.

Mr. Raina is not an engineer or a scientist. He describes himself simply as "an eccentric old man that moves big rocks." (...)

Whereas it has traditionally been assumed that the Egyptians built ramps and laboriously dragged more than two million limestone slabs, each weighing approximately 2.3 tonnes, to the top of the Great Pyramid, Mr. Raina said the real answer to the mystery can be found in a bizarre-looking wooden contraption that sits on his driveway.

"Modern man's concept of how ancient man moved rock is balderdash," he said, standing outside his Onondaga Crescent house in Nepean, surrounded by logs, rocks and rope. "I've reduced moving rocks to the pyramid to a mom-and-pop operation." [continue]

Found at SciTech Daily.

Spotted at In4mador:

The Illustrated Catalog of ACME Products
Pretty much every single product created by ACME, Wile E. Coyote's favourite company.

I'd want the jet propelled pogo stick and the rocket powered roller skates.

From the Independent: The museum whose insect collection is being eaten ... by insects.

To the human eye, the display cases of iridescent butterflies and delicate blooms in the archives of the Natural History Museum are objects of interest and beauty. To Anthrenus sarnicus, a tiny beetle just two millimetres in length, they represent something else - dinner.

The curators of Britain's leading repository of plant and insect specimens revealed yesterday that the diminutive bug is the voracious vanguard of a creepy-crawly army that is threatening the nation's botanical and zoological treasures.

Staff are fighting a daily battle to halt the progress of Anthrenus sarnicus - one of a species aptly called museum beetles - and a cast of other hungry creatures hell-bent on munching their way through cases of rare vegetation and delicately preserved creatures. [continue]

Related links:
Natural History Museum
Discover Insects - part of the Natural History Museum's site

From the Edinburgh Evening News: Discovery of ancient site stuns experts.

Prehistoric remains hailed by experts as one of Scotland's most significant archaeological finds in 50 years have been unearthed in the path of a major road development.

Scores of pots, tools and ceremonial items dating back 7000 years have been unearthed where work is being carried out to create a dual-carriageway between Haddington and Dunbar.

Ancient burial sites and neolithic settlements have also been uncovered.

The discovery has stunned experts who say it is one of the biggest and most important finds in recent years.

Archaeologists have yet to analyse the many items uncovered along the 11-mile stretch but are already predicting it will tell them much about early civilisation in the Lothians region.

They say the sheer volume of material confirms the existence of thriving communities which survived on the fertile farmland of East Lothian for thousands of years.

A major conference will be held next month to discuss the results. The £500,000 dig has been funded by Historic Scotland, which says it is "surprised and delighted" at the results of the excavations, carried out by a team of archaeologists from Glasgow University.

Team leader John Atkinson said: "In a rich farming area like East Lothian we expected to find quite a lot, but we were taken aback by the sheer volume of what we discovered. It is absolutely priceless."

Twelve individual sites were uncovered by the team of 30 archaeological staff, who worked up to five months ahead of the army of bulldozers which cleared the way for extra lanes on the A1.

Among the most stunning finds was a burial cairn at Ewford, near Dunbar. A copper alloy pike, used for ceremonial occasions was also found together with funeral urns thought to be 3500 years old. Elsewhere, remains of a prehistoric burial ground were found on Pencraig Hill, overlooking Traprain Law.

But the most exciting and unexpected find was evidence of a previously unknown settlement at Phantassie, near East Linton. The remains of around a dozen buildings and linking pathways constructed entirely of rock were discovered along with hundreds of small pieces of pottery. [continue]

It was the end of the 1700s and the Napoleonic wars raged. As Napoleon pushed forward into Russia, the retreating Russian army left a stripped and ravaged countryside . . . and no food. As a result, Napoleon's army was suffering more casualties from scurvy, malnutrition, and starvation than from enemy muskets. The French government offered 12,000 francs to anyone who could develop a method of preserving food.

Nicolas Appert, an obscure candy-maker, brewer, and baker took up the challenge. He had a theory that if fresh foods were put in airtight containers and sufficient heat applied, they would keep. After 14 years of experimentation, he won the prize--given to him by Napoleon himself.

Appert packed his foods in bottles, corked them, and submerged them in boiling water. Without realizing it, he sterilized them, stopping bacterial spoilage. [continue]

The excerpt above is from the history of processed foods. Isn't it fascinating? Now you can tell your grandma about Napoleon and Appert while you can those peaches.

Related links:
The invention of canning - from cancentral.com
Canning history: from the beginning to modern days (Interesting bit about canning sardines in Norway. Illustrations.) - from sommecan.com
About canned food: whence it came: the history of food canning - from foodreference.com
canning history - from infoplease.com
Nicholas Appert - from foodreference.com

From the BBC: Paradise island gets wireless web.

Imagine being able to send e-mails to your friends back home as you sip a beer on a beach in the paradise resort of the Maldives.

A group of computer enthusiasts have turned this dream into a reality, setting up a wireless internet on the tiny island of Mirihi, some 100 kilometres (70 miles) south of the capital, Male.

"They're coming into the 21st century from being back in the 1970s," said Andy Ambridge, one of the experts who helped bring fast internet access to the island.

They are now looking at expanding the wireless or wi-fi network to neighbouring islands so that they can take advantage of the high-speed connection on Mirihi.

Mirihi's entry into the era of the internet came about almost by chance. [continue]

Related links:
Visit Maldives
World Factbook: Maldives
Lonely Planet World Guide: Maldives

Oooh! Look what I found over at Alan Phipps' blog, Ad Altare Dei:

Check out the Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum, a collaborative effort to assemble a digital library containing the entire corpus of Latin Literature.

The Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum (CSL) is a collaborative project among scholars from a variety of disciplines with the main purpose of creating a digital library of the entire body of Latin literature, spanning from the earliest epigraphic remains to the Neo-Latinists of the eighteenth century. As a first step toward this end, we maintain an up-to-date catalogue of all Latin texts that are currently available online, making CSL a single, centralized resource for locating Latin literature on the internet. If you can't find a text or translation through this site, odds are that it does not yet exist online.

It's part of Forum Romanum, one of my favorite Internet resources.

Completely fascinating. Thanks, Alan!

My favourite farmer, Percy Schmeiser, is still battling Monsanto's absurd claims. From the BBC: Seed battle heads to supreme court.

A single farmer from the Canadian Prairies is preparing to take on a mighty biotech corporation in his country's Supreme Court.

Percy Schmeiser, a sprightly 72-year-old from Bruno, Saskatchewan, has become a hero to the anti-GM movement worldwide for resisting Monsanto's attempts to enforce its patent rights over the seeds it promotes.

The outcome of the case could have major implications not just for genetically modified crops, but for the patenting of genetic techniques in many other areas.

Mr Schmeiser's battle with Monsanto dates back to 1998, when it accused him of planting the company's genetically modified canola (oilseed rape) on his land without permission, and demanded that he pay it the same fee required of those growing GM crops under contract.

He refused, saying that he had simply followed his usual practice of collecting seeds from his own crop to plant for the following year, and that it must have become contaminated from GM canola grown nearby.

Mr Schmeiser told BBC News Online: "I was very concerned, because we realised that there was contamination of the pure seed we had been developing for half a century.

"We said to Monsanto when we received the law suit, 'if you have any GMOs in our pure seed, you should be liable and there should be a law suit against you people'." [continue]

Percy's own website at www.percyschmeiser.com has lots more information, and a paypal "donate" button, too.

Related links:
Blowin' in the Wind - from CBC.ca
Farmer's Plight Shows GM Trouble - from wired.com

The Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci is perhaps the world's most famous masterpiece. She is a classic vision of beauty and sensualtity, but let's face it, after 500 years, who couldn't use a little "restoration?" Some Botox here, some collagen there, and she'll be looking centuries younger in no time...

From Making over Mona, where you can modify the Mona Lisa with botox, collagen, surgery, or a chemical peel. (Requires Flash.)

Found at Mike's list.

From The Age: Archaeologists uncover 12,000-year-old settlement.

Israeli archaeologists said today they had discovered a 12,000-year-old neolithic settlement west of Jerusalem which they believe is the largest of the period ever discovered in the Holy Land.

The settlement, in Motza 5km west of Jerusalem, was home to 2,000 people and dates to 9,500 BC, Hammadid Khalife, head of the archeological team, told AFP.

"We discovered a real treasure on the site consisting of 58 flint blades, found together, which at the time served as a kind of currency," Khalife said.

"The origin of the stone and the way the blades were made show they come from northern Syria," he added.

"It is the first time that such a treasure ... from this neolithic period, has been discovered in the Holy Land," said Khalife, who specified the site belonged to an era known as pre-pottery neolithic. [continue]