Letting sleeping bears lie is an article from The Globe and Mail about Cari and Boo, the orphaned grizzly bears who are hibernating just next to a ski run at Kicking Horse Mountain.
When the 1,050-hectare ski area opens for the season on Dec. 12, visitors will be carving tracks into the hills just a snowball's throw from the den where the orphaned siblings will be tucked away for the next five months. The den, a log cabin located below the resort's busy gondola lift, is lined inside with dirt and branches, and buried in a deep blanket of snow.
While the notion of bears on a ski hill may seem unusual, veterinarian Ken Macquisten, director of the refuge, has had success with a similar project launched in 2001 at Grouse Mountain near Vancouver.
Even though there will be plenty of noise on the Kicking Horse hill -- a steady drone of snowmaking equipment, the hum of the overhead gondola and an occasional skier's shout -- the bears will continue to sleep well in their soundproof den, Dr. Macquisten says. [continue]
There are photos of the bears on the Kicking Horse Bear Refuge page.
Related links:
Bear Webcam - Mirabilis.ca posting about the bearcam at Grouse Mountain, near Vancouver.
Refuge for Endangered Wildlife - grousemountain.com
Grouse Mountain Grizzlycams - grousemountain.com
We rarely get any snow in Vancouver, which is a pity. How am I going to build an igloo without any snow? Hmmm?
If you're lucky enough to have snow and would like to build an igloo, the thing I posted last winter about building igloos might be of interest. And here's something similar to the Eskimold kit I mentioned back then:
The Icebox igloo construction tool is used for igloo building by creating sequential blocks in place. You set the clamps on the form then fill it while packing. after you have filled it you unclamp it and slide it to the next position. A pole with 8 adjustments, 1 for each layer is used to build igloos with the correct catenary shape and to help support the weight of the snow and form while packing the snow. After finishing 6 rows of the igloo you remove the outside of the form as the wall is now leaning in far enough so the snow can be packed from the outside. The snow only needs to hold its form well enough to stay in place until you start the next block. 8 total rows are built including the final cap.
That's from grandshelters.com. Doesn't that gizmo sound like fun?
From Ananova: Remote jungle tribe.com.
A remote tribe in the Brazilian jungle are now online after a charity gave them five battery-powered computers.
The Guarani tribe who live deep in the Atlantic jungle, near Angra dos Reis, have even come up with their own word for the internet.
The word they created, in their Tupi language, translates as "where you can put words, documents and knowledge". [continue]
Related:
Guarani - wikipedia.org
From the BBC: £1m prayer book found in school.
A Renaissance prayer book worth an estimated £1m has been found at a Hertfordshire school.
A British Library curator discovered the Book of Hours at St Edmund's College in Ware and will now put it on show at London's Royal Academy of Arts.
The book is small, gilt-edged and richly illustrated by a highly regarded 16th century Flemish painter.
Probably used by a wealthy patron for private prayers, its public display will be the first for 140 years.
The Books of Hours were Christian religious texts developed in the late Middle Ages and used by lay people.
Their pages contained text, borders and drawings of figures such as the Virgin Mary.
The books were treasured by families and passed down through generations, although as printing became more advanced they were soon mass produced.
The one discovered in Hertfordshire was last seen in public in 1862 and is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.
The St Edmund's School website claims that St Edmund's is England's oldest Catholic school, founded in 1568. Hmmm. Do you suppose they might have any other interesting books lying about?
Related:
Old Hall (St. Edmund's College) - Catholic Encyclopedia
You must take a few minutes to visit Ikons: Windows into Heaven. The site offers lots of information, and photos of ikons, too. Sections include The earliest Christian Ikons, Ikons of the Middle Byzantine Period, and Golden Age of Russian Ikons.
If ikon painting sounds like just the thing for you, check out the craft of iconography page for some tips on getting started. Wouldn't you rather paint icons than mess around on the web?
Syrians ‘click’ via a rolling Internet cafe. From csmonitor.com:
MARRANE, SYRIA — At the edge of this tiny western village, where newspapers aren't delivered, 15 Syrians are stuck for two hours on a parked bus. To their left are brown hills with rows of olive, apple, and date trees. On their right sit a few modest cement homes.
And directly in front of each villager is a sleek wooden desk, a flat screen computer, and an ergonomic mouse. Here by choice, these mothers, high school students, teachers, and farmers are the recent beneficiaries of a Syrian initiative to bring information technology to the country's remotest parts.
The Mobile Information Centre, or MIC, is a former long-haul passenger bus refitted with 18 computer stations and a server. It hops between remote villages offering basic computer training and Internet access for $3 per course. [continue]
Ancient Khitan nobleman "reborn" on computer screen. From Xinhuanet:
The facial features of an ancient Khitan nobleman of the Liao Dynasty (916 - 1125), restored from skeletal remains, have vividly appeared on the computer screen of the Frontier Archeology Center of Jilin University in northeast China's Jilin Province.
The skeleton was unearthed in March from a well-preserved tomb, which was decorated with colorful paintings, on Mount Tugaljin in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The archeologists then opened a 1,000-year-old coffin, revealing a body covered in an eight layered silk blanket and wearing a necklace, bells around the ankles and a metal-studded mask and helmet, which was believed to be the remains of a nobleman of the Liao Dynasty founded by the Khitan ethnic group.
In August, the Archeology Institute of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region authorized the frontier archeology center of Jilin University to conduct research on physical anthropology, ethnology, facial image restoration and DNA testing on the skeleton.
Based on several months' hard work, a three-dimensioned facial reconstruction of the nobleman was achieved. [continue]
From nature.com: Language tree rooted in Turkey.
A family tree of Indo-European languages suggests they began to spread and split about 9,000 years ago. The finding hints that farmers in what is now Turkey drove the language boom - and not later Siberian horsemen, as some linguists reckon.
Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson, of the University of Auckland in New Zealand use the rate at which words change to gauge the age of the tree's roots - just as biologists estimate a species' age from the rate of gene mutations. The differences between words, or DNA sequences, are a measure of how closely languages, or species, are related.
Gray and Atkinson analysed 87 languages from Irish to Afghan. Rather than compare entire dictionaries, they used a list of 200 words that are found in all cultures, such as ‘I’, ‘hunt’ and ‘sky’. Words are better understood than grammar as a guide to language history; the same sentence structure can arise independently in different tongues.
The resulting tree matches many existing ideas about language development. Spanish and Portuguese come out as sisters, for example - both are cousins to German, and Hindi is a more distant relation to all three.
All other Indo-European languages split off from Hittite, the oldest recorded member of the group, between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago, the pair calculates. [continue]
How utterly annoying that an archaeological site in the Trastevere area of Rome is going to be covered up with a stupid parking lot. Argh! From the Globe and Mail: Italian commuters win out over history.
Rome — In the battle between saving ancient glories and easing modern hassles, score a victory for Rome's commuters.
Frustrated archeologists said Monday that a sprawling area of recently discovered early third-century warehouses will soon be topped by a 200-car parking lot in the Trastevere area near the Tiber River.
Archeologists had to put down their tools after exploring only a small slice of the approximately 420-square-metre expanse of storehouses that once served as busy port when Roman traders and armies sailed the Mediterranean during the Imperial era.
While there is money available to build parking spots in this car-choked metropolis, the coffers for archeological exploration are practically bare.
*sigh*
But archeologists expressed relief that they will at least be able to rescue three stunning mosaics from what could be thermal baths from the start of the fourth century.
The mosaics were found some three metres above the level of the storehouses, thought to date about a century earlier.
It is not the first time Romans’ hunger for more parking lots fared better than archeologists' thirst for more knowledge. A frescoed, second-century Imperial villa was razed on the Janiculum hill to make way for a multi-storey Vatican garage for its 2000 millennium celebrations.[continue]
The Vinland Map is back in the news today. From Scientific American: Ink Analysis Smudges Case for Forgery of Vinland Map.
To some, the Vinland map offers proof that Norse explorers discovered North America before Columbus did; to others, it is simply a well-crafted forgery. Last year, the publication of two studies that supported opposite conclusions fueled debate over the map's origins. One research group determined that the parchment indeed dates back to 1434, but a second group countered that the map's ink was distinctly modern. In the December 1 issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry, Smithsonian Institution scientist Jacqueline S. Olin, who worked with the group that dated the map's paper, suggests an alternative to the ink explanation. [continue]
Recent news articles:
Viking New World map genuine: study - CBC
Tests support theory that Vinland Map is hundreds of years old -canoe.ca
New study says disputed, ancient New World map is real - newsday.com
More info about the Vinland Map:
Vinland Map picture and info - webdesk.com
What is the Vinland Map? - webexhibits.org
From The Guardian: Mini-turbine brings ‘green power for all’.
The winds of change will blow a little stronger this morning when a small Scottish company launches Britain's first wind power system designed to be fitted on almost any roof or wall to supplement electricity from the grid.
Just two days after Britain's biggest offshore wind farm started generating electricity off the north Wales coast, the designers of the tiny domestic unit believe they can provide up to 15% of the annual electricity needs of an average house for a one-off cost of £750 - bringing green electricity into the price range of most families.
The machine, a 3ft by 2ft sealed box with three blades which face into the prevailing wind, is backed by the energy minister, Brian Wilson, who is a paid consultant for Windsave, the company behind it.
Unlike old-style domestic wind generators, which needed a lot of land, sat on top of poles and drove pumps and a few bulbs for farmers and backwoodsmen, the machine does not need batteries to store the electricity. Instead, it tops up the existing mains supply. [continue].
Well, bless the Bibliothèque nationale de France - they've put the 15th century Breviary of Martin of Aragon on the web.
There's so much to see: David battling Goliath, the adoration of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the martyrdom of St Peter, - and oh, look, even St Christina Mirabilis! Tons of others, too, of course. Each small image is a thumbnail leading to a bigger version.
(Here's more about St Christina Mirabilis, just in case you were wondering about her.)
From csmonitor.com: Forget the gods - we shape lightning.
Mythology considered lightning the plaything of "the gods." Science explained its atmospheric physics. Now research shows it also can be shaped by human hands.
Especially in cities.
Recent research suggests that crowded urban centers become "heat islands," whose relative warmth encourages thunderstorms. And pollution from cars and industries encourages lightning strokes.
It's "a very real effect," says Prof. Richard Orville at Texas A&M University in College Station, who has spent several years researching storms around Houston and looking at studies elsewhere. He says there's a higher density of cloud-to-ground lightning strokes in the Houston area than expected naturally and "it's caused by man."
Until recently, however, it wasn't clear which factor played the more important role in creating lightning - heat-island warmth or pollution. Thanks to a discovery made during an exercise in his physical meteorology class, Dr. Orville now thinks he has the answer: pollution. [continue]
New technology helps protect ancient silk products. From Chinadaily.com:
Chinese scientists claim to have developed a new technology to preserve excavated ancient silk products.
The technology could help restore "rotten" silk relics and preserve their bright colors, according to experts with the Jingzhou Relics Protection Center in Hubei Province, which developed the technology.
China is the birthplace of silk, but little ancient silk is still in existence due to the special qualities of protein-rich silk easily degenerate.
Most silk products in ancient mausoleums were already destroyed by underground water when found. Some silk unearthed in the Mawangdui Relics site in Changsha City in Hunan Province had been deep frozen for almost 20 years.
Some 2,300-year-old silk products from an ancient mausoleum are being displayed in Jingzhou Museum after being treated with the new technology. The silk is still bright and rich in colors. [full article]
From The Scotsman: Medieval Tomb May Contain Remains of King Harold.
A group of historians believe they are on the verge of solving the mystery of King Harold's final resting place.
In a move yet to receive the backing of the church, the group want to open a medieval tomb in West Sussex which they believe holds the remains of the Saxon king.
Tomorrow they will seek permission to break open the tomb, previously opened in 1954, at Holy Trinity Church in Bosham, West Sussex, from the Chichester Diocese consistory court.
If successful, the group will then call on scientists from University College London to test DNA found in the remains against three men who claim they are distant descendants of King Harold.
The debate over the burial site of Harold, killed by William the Conqueror's army during the Battle of Hastings in 1066, has raged for decades.
Some experts say the most likely burial place is Waltham Abbey, one of Harold's churches, while most accept his grave was probably hidden by Norman troops to prevent it becoming a shrine.
There is also debate over how he died. History books say he was killed by an arrow in the eye.
But John Pollock, who is leading the bid to open the tomb at Bosham, has also challenged the nature of Harold's death, saying he may have been dismembered with a sword, a scene also depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. [continue]
Related:
King's grave mystery may be unearthed - BBC News
Harold II of England - wikipedia.org
Bayeux Tapestry - wikipedia.org
Holy Trinity, Bosham, West Sussex - crsbi.ac.uk
Saxon Archaeology: Holy Trinity Church, Bosham - earlybritishkingdoms.com
From The Telegraph: Ghost fleet ‘shows Pisa was an ancient Venice’.
The chance discovery of a Roman "ghost fleet" buried in mud just outside Pisa has led experts to conclude that the city was built on a lagoon much like an early Venice.
Archaeologists believe that traces of a community dating back to a pre-Roman era, a sort of "Etruscan Venice", may lie beneath the ships.
The end of the lagoon civilisation may also offer clues to the fate of modern Venice - the waterways were silted up by violent floods over a long period.
"The situation in Venice is not just similar to that of Pisa, but is practically identical," said Prof Stefano Bruni of the University of Ferrara.
The find first came to light five years ago when a bulldozer involved in work to build railway offices beside the San Rossore station on the outskirts of Pisa came across an ancient wooden ship 30ft below ground. A large archaeological dig which was started under Prof Bruni's direction later found four ships dating from various Roman periods.
The number of vessels, which were found in remarkable condition, rose to six, then nine, and finally 21, including what experts believe may be a Roman warship. They date from 200BC-AD500. (...)
The extraordinary finds have produced much new data about Roman shipbuilding techniques, cargoes, classical trade and naval life. Some of the ships were adapted for river and sea navigation.[continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca content:
Rome - another Italian city on water?
From The Scotsman: New Testament Verse on Ancient Shrine.
Two Jerusalem scholars have uncovered a rare New Testament verse on an ancient burial monument.
A barely legible clue – the name "Simon" carved in Greek letters – beckoned from high up on the weather-beaten facade of the monument. Then the scholars uncovered six previously invisible lines of inscription: a Gospel verse – Luke 2:25.
Archaeological finds confirming biblical narrative or referring to figures from the Bible are rare, and this is believed to be the first discovery of a New Testament verse carved on to an ancient Holy Land shrine, says inscriptions expert Emile Puech, who deciphered the writing. (...)
The inscription declares the 60ft-high monument is the tomb of Simon, a devout Jew who the Bible says cradled the infant Jesus and recognised him as the Messiah.
It is unlikely Simon is buried there, as the monument is one of several built for Jerusalem’s aristocracy at the time of Jesus. But the inscription does back up what until now were scant references to a Byzantine-era belief that three biblical figures – Simon, Zachariah and James, the brother of Jesus – shared the same tomb.
Earlier this year, an inscription referring to Zachariah, who was John the Baptist’s father, was found on the same facade. Puech and Joe Zias, a physical anthropologist, continued to study the monument. Applying a "squeeze" – a simple 19th-century technique of spreading a kind of papier mache over a surface – they uncovered the Simon inscription. Now, they hope to complete the trio by finding writing referring to James. [continue]
Dig uncovers medieval finds. From the BBC:
Archaeologists have uncovered some fascinating finds - including human remains and a headless horse - on a dig in Stafford.
The site, part of a new development for Stafford College, has produced what could be the first physical evidence of a medieval castle in nearby Broadeye as well as the burial site of the headless horse and human remains.
Experts from Birmingham Archaeology, based at the University of Birmingham, are now trying to record the discoveries before work begins on a sports hall that will stand on the site.
The find of the animal's remains is perplexing experts as burial would have been unusual at a time when both the hide and bones of the horse would have provided valuable resources. [full article]
From The Telegraph: Urban sprawl ruins tradition of shepherds' long migration.
Spain's attempt to keep alive the centuries-old tradition of sheep droving was held up by one of the curses of the modern age yesterday when 1,500 animals found themselves penned in by the urban sprawl of Madrid.
Spain's shepherds have been seeking to maintain the 8,000-year-old practice known as transhumance, in which sheep are herded between the scorching plains of Extremadura in the south-west and summer pastures in the lush mountains of the north.
Yesterday, however, the bells of the stocky marinero sheep tinkled incongruously among the concrete of the soulless estate. The path, part of Spain's network of cañadas reales - 78,000 miles of sheep routes - was blocked by property developers.
The shepherds cited in vain a law passed eight years ago guaranteeing the sheep's safe passage and ended up in an impasse with both police officers and men welding sticks.
"They won't let us pass. It is all about development - they have illegally marked this land as theirs," said Longino Alvarez, a grizzled shepherd in his 60s.
Mr Alvarez bore the setback patiently. His weather-beaten face, with several front teeth fallen by the wayside, showing that he had been trudging the long route just as his father had. [continue]
From the Jerusalem Post: Ancient Jewish village uncovered in Jerusalem.
The remains of a heretofore-unknown ancient Jewish village dating back nearly two thousand years has been uncovered on the northern rim of Jerusalem, the Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday. (...)
A three-month long archaeological excavation at the site - which archaeologists date back to the second temple period and was abandoned during the days of the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans -- uncovered the remains of homes made of ashlar stone, courtyards and three bathhouses in the village.
Some of the walls of the well-constructed homes were found intact a meter and a half high.
Excavations director Debbie Sklar-Parnes said Tuesday that an assemblage of vessels, glass bottles and "extremely expensive" stone-basins were also uncovered at the site, indicating that the community was well to do.
Fragments of a red green and black fresco which were used to decorate the houses were also found at the site.
The archaeologist estimates that the entire well-planned village was built around 60-70 CE and`abandoned about seventy years later in 130-135 CE, due to the Jewish revolt. [full article] (Jerusalem Post requires registration.)
From Ananova: Scientists confirm discovery of new whale species.
A previously unknown species of whale has been identified by scientists.
Eight specimens were caught by Japanese whaling research vessels in the 1970s. The carcass of a ninth was found stranded on a coastal island in the Sea of Japan in 1998.
Detailed analysis has now confirmed that they are members of a species of baleen whale not recognised before.
A team of Japanese researchers led by Shiro Wada, from the National Research Institute of Fisheries Science in Yokohama, have reported the findings in the journal Nature.
The scientists found that the DNA of all nine specimens matched, but were different from all other known baleen species.
The toothless baleen group of whales includes all the major species of large whale, except sperm whales, which have teeth.
The new species, named Balaenoptera omurai, also had an unusually-shaped head and a small number of baleen plates. These form the sieve-like device, made from the same material as hair and fingernails, that the whales use to filter out the tiny crustacea on which they feed. [full article]
New Whale Species Announced by Japanese Scientists - nationalgeographic.com
New whale species found in museum - newscientist.com
Japanese team identifies new whale species - CBC
Whale species is new to science - BBC
Ancient Buddhist temple uncovered in west Afghanistan. From mainichi.co.jp:
A team of Japanese researchers has confirmed the existence of an ancient Buddhist temple 120 kilometers west of the Afghanistan town of Bamiyan.
The remains of the temple, which is thought to have been built before the 8th century, when Islam spread throughout the region, are in an area largely untouched by world research teams.
Researchers say the remains suggest the existence of a new Silk Road path that extended west from Bamiyan. (...)
The remains contain a courtyard, several small rooms with dome-shaped roofs and a lecture hall. In hollows in the walls were miniature shrines to place Buddhist images. The remains also contain a stupa with a diameter of about 7.7 meters. About 6 kilometers west of the temple remains are the remains of a fortress whose local names translates as "40 towers."
Bamiyan, with its stone caves and giant stone Buddhas, is mentioned in ancient writings by the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuan Zang (602-664), but no literary records mentioning the temple and fortress 100 kilometers to the west have yet been found. [full article]
[Update: sorry, this article is no longer available on mainichi.co.jp.]
Ancient toothbrush unearthed in Germany.
BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- German archaeologists have unearthed what could be Europe's oldest toothbrush, officials said Tuesday.
The brush, dug up at the site of a former hospital in the western city of Minden, is at least 250 years old, said the Landscape Association of Westfalen-Lippe, which oversees the excavation.
While the bristles have rotted away, the brush's 4 inch (10 centimeter) handle of animal bone is carved at the other end into a tiny spoon believed to be used for cleaning out the owner's ears.
The toothbrush is almost identical to one found earlier this year near Quedlinburg, about 100 miles (170 kilometers) farther east.
Experts dated that brush at around 1750, making it the oldest found in Europe at the time, and suggest the latest find may have come from the same workshop. [full article]
Early this month I blogged about the utterly fascinating discovery of native clam gardens. Now there'll be some interesting stuff about this on a CBC radio show . . . you can listen in over the web if you have Real Audio. (See below for more on that.) Here's the blurb:
Wednesday November 19th - Dr. John Harper
Imagine peering down at a beach from a small airplane and looking back in time a couple of hundred years. That's what marine geologist Dr. John Harper did when he spotted something in the waters off Vancouver Island. Further investigation revealed an important piece of First Nations history that was almost lost forever. Hear Bill Richardson's conversation with Dr. John Harper, and how the history he unearthed may change the future for many Canadian First Nations people.
That's from the "what's coming up" email that Richardson's Roundup just sent out. The interview mentioned above will air on that show between 2pm and 4pm (2:30-4:30 in Newfoundland, of course) this Wednesday, November 19th.
Related:
If you live in Canada and need to know the CBC Radio frequency for your area, check this list.
If you're planning to listen over the web, these details might be helpful:
Info on Canadian time zones
About Real Audio: the free version is all you need; download links for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix users are here. (The other pages on the Real Audio site will all direct you to commercial software.)
From The Herald: Ancient Scots link to Stonehenge.
Ancient Scots may have enjoyed sophisticated economic, social and cultural links with the builders of one of the world's most mysterious ancient monuments, according to new research.
Experts have revealed a previously unknown link between the elite of ancient Scots society and Stonehenge, dispelling the myth that Scotland's Bronze Age tribes were uncultivated barbarians.
Research into the discovery of a series of enigmatic axe carvings at the Wiltshire site and one in Argyll has hinted that the country's ancient magnates were proto-capitalists whoruled a powerful monopolistic dynasty.
Dr Alison Sheridan, assistant keeper of archaeology at the National Museums of Scotland, said there was also evidence that the people around Stonehenge must have been in contact with Scotland.
She said: "These people were very sophisticated with wide-ranging links. It is nonsense to say these people were barbarians. They were very savvy. [continue]
Near-Extinct ‘Whistling Language’ Returns. From an Associated Press article at Yahoo [UPDATE: sorry, article no longer available]:
SAN SEBASTIAN, Canary Islands - Juan Cabello takes pride in not using a cell phone or the Internet to communicate. Instead, he puckers up and whistles.
Cabello is a "silbador," until recently a dying breed on tiny, mountainous La Gomera, one of Spain's Canary Islands off West Africa. Like his father and grandfather before him, Cabello, 50, knows "Silbo Gomero," a language that's whistled, not spoken, and can be heard more than two miles away.
This chirpy brand of chatter is thought to have come over with early African settlers 2,500 years ago. Now, educators are working hard to save it from extinction by making schoolchildren study it up to age 14.
Silbo — the word comes from Spanish verb silbar, meaning to whistle — features four "vowels" and four "consonants" that can be strung together to form more than 4,000 words. It sounds just like bird conversation and Cabello says it has plenty of uses. [continue]
Thanks to Amity Wilczek for pointing out this article.
Related:
Whistled Speech - Wikipedia
Agulo la Gomera - silbo - agulo.net. (In Spanish)
Updates:
Canary island whistles again - BBC, November 28th, 2003.
Whistling children save ancient language - Mirabilis.ca, January, 2005
New power source: wall vibrations. From csmonitor.com:
Imagine using a computer that runs on energy generated from your building's wall and window vibrations. Masayuki Miyazaki, a senior researcher at Hitachi Co. Ltd.'s central lab in Tokyo, is trying to do just that.
He recently made a tiny generator that converts building movements into electricity, creating enough energy to run a temperature or light sensor once an hour. Though the output is small right now, only about 10 microwatts, scientists predict the generator's potential could be huge in coming decades - possibly used in battery-free computing systems.
Dr. Miyazaki's work is part of a growing movement by scientists to find, create, or capture alternative sources of energy - even in small amounts much less than one watt. Researchers hope to harvest power from anything from the vibrations of walls and windows to the movements of air and the human body.
While alternative energy sources alone might not produce much electricity, they could help power small devices such as computer chips, wireless sensor networks, or cellphones. The idea is simple. Just as some wristwatches power themselves from the random movements of a person's arm, these devices would capture energy from random movements of other things. [continue]
From the New York Times: Marriages Made Not in Heaven but in a Cleric's Office.
TEHRAN, Nov. 10 — Jaffar Savalanpour Ardabili, 38, a midranking Shiite cleric, sits at his desk, sifting through reams of applications filled with yearning.
His Web site, ardabili.com, is so flooded that it closes several days a month to limit submissions. His office is filled from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday through Thursday with hopeful men and women. His smiling wife, Zahra Tafreshi, welcomes them into a room decorated with holiday lights and the sound of prerevolution love songs in the air.
They are all seeking his help — to get married.
"But I do not like to be called a matchmaker," he said, laughing. "It reminds me of old women."
In business for the last three years — and swamped since newspaper articles publicized the opening of his office three months ago — Mr. Ardabili is doing a unique job in a country where, after the 1979 Islamic revolution, dating was banned and extramarital relationships became subject to severe punishment. Some restrictions eased after the election of President Mohammad Khatami, a moderate, in 1997.
Still, Mr. Ardabili is careful to work within approved Islamic standards. His Web site has links to statements of permission from half a dozen prominent Iranian clerics. [continue]
Related:
Ardabili.com - "In the name of lovely God." Mind-boggling site design.
It's not like I need another clock, but one of these weird and wonderful clocks from klockwerks.com would be a riot.
Which one would you choose? The Jules Verne Table clock, perhaps?
Link via Boing Boing.
From USNews.com: Barbarians get sophisticated.
BERLIN--For something so small, the "sky disk" has made quite an impact here. Not even a foot across, the 5-pound bronze disk is embossed in gold leaf with intricate images of the sun, moon, and 32 stars. In the plate's center is a representation of the star cluster Pleiades, which appears in the sky around the autumnal equinox and signaled the arrival of harvest season.
What's most amazing is its age. More than 3,500 years old, the sky disk may well be the most important Bronze Age find in decades. Treasure hunters found it first in 2000 near the eastern German town of Nebra; police in Switzerland had to use an elaborate sting operation to get it safely into the hands of archaeologists. Its recovery was front-page news, and the find inspired headlines like "Culture of the Star Wizards" from the weekly Der Spiegel. "It's an absolutely key find--this is the first accurate picture of the cosmos in human history," says Harald Meller, head of the Halle Institute for Archaeological Research, where the object is being studied. "It's astonishing to people that this was found in Central Europe and not Egypt or Mesopotamia."
Nebra's sky disk isn't the only artifact that has people here buzzing. When Berlin's Museum for Pre- and Early History reopens fully next spring, its centerpiece will be an elaborately decorated gold "hat," 29 inches tall and made out of over a pound of thinly beaten gold. Museum director Wilfried Menghin says that the object, dating from around 1000 B.C. and acquired recently from a private collection, was worn by Bronze Age astronomer-priests and that the decorations are actually an extremely complex solar-lunar conversion calendar. Many scholars are skeptical: The artifact is almost unique, they say, and it's impossible to prove the theory conclusively. What's more, while experts suspect it's from the Nuremberg area, no one really knows its origins. But if true, the achievement would beat the Greek discovery of a similar mathematical system by more than five centuries.[continue]
You must go take a look at that Conical Cult Hat with Brim shown on The Museum for Pre- and Early History (Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte) site. Can you imagine wearing that? Yipes. Anyway... from there you can wander through some other one-page museum sites, like Afrika: art and culture, Ägyptisches Museum - The Egyptian Museum, and Museum für Islamische Kunst - Museum of Islamic Art.
All this makes me think that maybe I should go to Germany in February, after all.
From a Telegraph article about St Paul's Cathedral:
St Paul's Cathedral is undergoing a £33 million restoration, to be completed in time for the building's 300th anniversary in October 2008. Much of the budget is allocated to stone cleaning. When it is finished we shall be able to see Wren's entire building, inside and out, gleaming in ivory Portland stone as the architect intended, but as he never saw it himself - much of the stone was already blackened by the end of the cathedral's 33-year construction, thanks to 17th-century pollution from London's coal fires.
We can already gauge the dramatic effects of cleaning the interior stonework by taking advantage of the behind-the-scenes triforium tour, which takes in hitherto inaccessible parts of the cathedral. On the west gallery, with its glorious bird's-eye view of the nave, we can examine the test patches carried out to evaluate cleaning techniques.
The method chosen, Arte Mundit from Belgium, is non-invasive (unlike earlier, cruder techniques such as sandblasting and pressurised washing) and works rather like a peel-off face mask. Having seen the treated area, I cannot wait to see the entire interior softened and lightened by cleaning; the transformation will be as dramatic as seeing a landscape suddenly bathed in sunshine when black thunderclouds roll away. [continue]
Related:
St Paul's Cathedral - stpauls.co.uk
St Paul's Cathedral - Sir Christopher Wren - greatbuildings.com
BBC History - Christopher Wren and St Paul's Cathedral
From the BBC: Guinness good for you - official.
The old advertising slogan "Guinness is Good for You" may be true after all, according to researchers.
A pint of the black stuff a day may work as well as an aspirin to prevent heart clots that raise the risk of heart attacks.
Drinking lager does not yield the same benefits, experts from Wisconsin University told a conference in the US.
Guinness were told to stop using the slogan decades ago - and the firm still makes no health claims for the drink.
The Wisconsin team tested the health-giving properties of stout against lager by giving it to dogs who had narrowed arteries similar to those in heart disease.
They found that those given the Guinness had reduced clotting activity in their blood, but not those given lager. [continue]
Related:
Beer ‘may be good for you’ - BBC, April 2000
City of Vancouver steers developers to car-sharing. From the Vancouver Sun:
When the Co-operative Auto Network, Vancouver's non-profit car-sharing society, started in 1996, it only had a single Pontiac Firefly -- donated by two of its founders -- and a handful of members.
For many years, it was hard to convince people to forsake their own car for the inconvenience of a shared vehicle that could be several blocks from their homes.
But in the past few years, the popularity of car-sharing has exploded in Vancouver.
In the past four years alone, the co-op's membership has more than quadrupled -- from about 300 members in 1999 to 1,300 today. And the number of vehicles owned by the co-op has more than tripled, from 21 to 69.
And now the city of Vancouver is getting behind the idea. [continue]
Related links:
Carsharing - Mirabilis.ca, August 2002
Co-operative Auto Net - Vancouver's car-sharing co-operative
Ancient Play to Be Shown After Text Found in Mummy. From Reuters:
NICOSIA (Reuters) - A ancient play is to be staged for the first time in more than 2,050 years after fragments of the text were found stuffed in an Egyptian mummy.
Cyprus's national theater company, Thoc, plans a modern-day world premiere of Aeschylus's Trojan War story Achilles in Cyprus next summer. The play will then be performed in Cyprus and Greece.
Scholars had believed the trilogy to be lost forever when the Library of Alexandria burned to ashes in 48 BC.
"But in the last decades archaeologists found mummies in Egypt which were stuffed with papyrus, containing excerpts of the original plays of Aeschylus," Thoc director Andy Bargilly told Reuters.
Drawing on references to the trilogy by other ancient playwrights and the recently discovered papyrus texts, Thoc and researchers believe they have the closest possible adaptation of Aeschylus's masterpiece. [continue]
Revealed: the solicitor who fooled science with fossils of ‘ancient’ Piltdown Man. From The Independent:
Fifty years after one of the great fossil frauds was exposed, two academics believe they may have answered a question which has intrigued science: who faked Piltdown Man?
When the remains of an ancient man were found in a quarry in Sussex in 1911-12, scientists believed that they had found the "missing link" between humans and apes.
It was only in 1953 that dating evidence proved that Piltdown Man was not an ape-like human who lived more than 500,000 years ago. "He" had been made out of a medieval human skull and the jawbone of a modern ape.
In a public lecture to be given at the museum later this month, Professor Chris Stringer and Andy Currant will explain why they think the hoax of Piltdown Man was actually two frauds committed by two sets of people. [continue]
Related:
Piltdown Man - Sussex Dig - lots of info! From the BBC
Fossil fools: Return to Piltdown - BBC
Piltdown Man - talkorigins.org
Piltdown: The Man that Never Was - unmuseum.mus.pa.us
Piltdown Man -piltdown-man.com
Piltdown Man - museumofhoaxes.com
Canada.com has an article about the time when Canadians repelled an American invasion - November 11th, 1813.
"That battle spelled the end of the most serious American attempt to conquer Canada during the War of 1812," says Donald Graves, a military historian whose 1999 book Field of Glory is the definitive account of the fight at John and Nancy Crysler's farm near Cornwall. " (...)
The Battle of Crysler's Farm, fought exactly 190 years ago yesterday on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River between Kingston and Montreal, resulted in a crucial and resounding victory over 4,000 Americans by an Anglo-Canadian force of just 800. The defeat halted a planned American assault on Montreal, by far the largest and most important city in British North America at the time.
Notably, the winning side included French- and English-Canadian militiamen who fought alongside Mohawk warriors and professional British soldiers under the direction of Lt.-Col. Joseph Morrison.
The triumph of the underdog thanks to those key alliances -- French and English, mother country and colony, white man and First Nation -- makes the battle "particularly significant in terms of the mythology of Canada," says Mr. Graves. [continue]
Related book:
Field of Glory: The Battle of Crysler's Farm, 1813
From the Scotsman: Love's labours found.
The 900-year-old story of Abelard and Heloise is probably the most memorable of the Middle Ages: the secret affair of a brilliant philosopher with his pupil; the birth of their child Astralabe; their secret marriage followed by Abelard's brutal castration at the hands of Heloise's uncle; the couple's retreat into monasticism. It is also the one in which we are given an unrivalled insight into the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists.
We know about these events because of the two discoveries of collections of letters. The first took place less than 100 years after their deaths; the second had to wait until the last three years to be recognised for what it was. The first find was a collection of eight letters in Latin, five from Abelard and three from Heloise. They were first published in the 13th century. Other sources corroborate the story, but without these letters nobody today would be aware of the love affair. Abelard would still be remembered, but as a controversial philosopher of the Middle Ages whose career had culminated in a disastrous clash with ecclesiastical authority. Heloise would be little more than a name on an obscure 12th-century manuscript. It is a tribute to her qualities, not least as a writer, that her three letters alone were enough to have made her famous.
These letters captivate anyone who comes in contact with them. Not only do they contain the story but they are a unique resource for anyone interested in the inner world of people from an age which is both so different from and yet so similar to our own. It would almost have been ungrateful to have asked providence for anything more. Yet there was more.
In 1980 a young scholar in New Zealand called Constant Mews was looking at a modern edition of a rather obscure Latin book from the 15th century. It contained examples of how to write letters: correct forms of address, good style, etc. The work included a number of worthy but staid letters but the author had finished with something a little different: a section he headed "From the Letters of Two Lovers". This was less formal and much more passionate. It was a collection of fragments from 113 letters. The correspondents were not named; they were simply labelled "Man" and "Woman".
Mews read: "To her sweet love, more sweetly scented than any spice, from she who is his in heart and body: I send the freshness of eternal happiness as the flowers of your youth fade."
He knew the story of Abelard and Heloise well. As he read the book he realised it was possible that these letters constituted the most extraordinary time capsule. Both Abelard and Heloise mention that during the period of their affair (no more than two years) they wrote to each other every day. Could he now be looking at copies of these daily messages? It was not impossible. (...)
Mews was fascinated by the possibility; he continued to study the letters for the next decade. If he was right, it was the kind of discovery about which historians do not even dare let themselves fantasise. It was almost of the order of a new play by Shakespeare or a lost gospel. Or was it a blatant forgery that could only bring ruin to an academic? This could not be a modern forgery, however. The letters were obviously from an old source, on paper of the right period. [continue]
Related book:
The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France (The New Middle Ages)
Vietnam Unveils Ancient Artifacts from Excavation. From Reuters:
Ancient terracotta dragons, phoenix statues and ceramic urns unearthed from a royal compound accidentally discovered where Vietnam's new parliament was being built were put on display for the first time on Tuesday.
In its first international briefing at the site, the Ministry of Information and Culture displayed some of the estimated two million items that have been uncovered since excavation began in December 2002 in the capital Hanoi.
The discovery provided a glimpse into the lives of nobility in Hoang Thanh, or the royal city, that was part of a sixth century town later renamed Thang Long or "ascending dragon."
Deep wells, ornate pavilions and bases for mighty pillars were found along with the more mundane rubbish dumps and tiled drains. Some gold jewelry, decorated swords and a cannon were also retrieved along with skeletal remains from a later period.
Construction on the National Assembly building was halted after workers stumbled upon the items -- some of which date from the seventh century. Experts have determined the site is layered with antiquities from a number of dynasties, including the Le, Ly, Tran and Nguyen. [continue]
Related:
Ancient citadel uncovered - news24.com
Downloadable .wav files from the Royal Canadian Legion website:
O Canada (2.58MB)
Last Post (1.48MB)
Lament (3.75MB)
Reveille (439KB)
God Save The Queen (3.63MB)
John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields during the First World War. If you've ever wondered about him, go peek at the The story of John McCrae at the McRae House Museum site. And here's a bit of trivia about the poem from the museum's FAQ page:
Is the first line of the poem "In Flanders Field" - "In Flanders Field the poppies blow" or "In Flanders Fields the poppies grow"?
Both lines can be considered correct. When John McCrae first penned the poem in the spring of 1915 he used "grow". When the poem was published in Punch Magazine in December of 1915 an editor (with McCrae’s permission) changed the line to read "blow" noting that "grow" was repeated in the last stanza of the poem. McCrae himself interchanged the two words in the poem over the next few years before his death in 1918.
The Royal Canadian Legion website explains: Why was the poppy chosen as the symbol of remembrance for Canada's war dead?
The poppy, an international symbol for those who died in war, also had international origins.
A writer first made the connection between the poppy and battlefield deaths during the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century, remarking that fields that were barren before battle exploded with the blood-red flowers after the fighting ended.
Prior to the First World War few poppies grew in Flanders. During the tremendous bombardments of that war the chalk soils became rich in lime from rubble, allowing ‘popaver rhoeas’ to thrive. When the war ended the lime was quickly absorbed, and the poppy began to disappear again.
Lieut-Col. John McCrae, the Canadian doctor who wrote the poem IN FLANDERS FIELDS, made the same connection 100 years later, during the First World War, and the scarlet poppy quickly became the symbol for soldiers who died in battle.
Three years later an American, Moina Michael, was working in a New York City YMCA canteen when she started wearing a poppy in memory of the millions who died on the battlefield. During a 1920 visit to the United States a French woman, Madame Guerin, learned of the custom. On her return to France she decided to use handmade poppies to raise money for the destitute children in war-torn areas of the country. In November 1921, the first poppies were distributed in Canada.
Thanks to the millions of Canadians who wear the flowers each November, the little red plant has never died. And neither have Canadian's memories for 117,000 of their countrymen who died in battle.
There's much happy browsing to be had at the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection website. If you've a fondness for old manuscripts, go take a look. I liked the Codex runicus, described as:
... a vellum manuscript dating from c. 1300 and containing early Danish law texts, most importantly the so-called Skånske lov, or Scanian law (Skåne being until 1658 part of the Danish realm). AM 28 8vo contains one of the oldest and best preserved texts of the Skånske lov, but the manuscript is perhaps most notable for its being written entirely in runes. The Latin alphabet, which came to Scandinavia in the wake of Christianity, had completely replaced the older runic system of writing some two centuries before, and this late use of runes can only have been prompted by antiquarian interest. Shown here is f. 27r. Transliterated, the central section of the text, i.e. from the first rubric (l. 3), reads: "Særær man annær man mæþæn kunung ær innæn lændæs bøtæ fore sar sum loh æræ ok kunungi firitiuhu mark ok hinum ær sar fik firitiuhu mark fore friþbrut." (If a man wounds another man while the king is the province he shall pay a fine for the wound in accordance with the law, and 40 marks to the king and 40 marks for breach of the peace to the one who was wounded.)
Codex runicus is also the source for the melody "Drømte mig en drøm i nat".... [continue]
Drømte mig en drøm i nat is here. The page notes that it's "the oldest preserved piece of music known in Denmark."
There's so much more in the Arnamagnæan collection; I hardly know where to begin. Here, check out this 16th century Danish prayer book.
The book contains a wealth of medieval religious material of widely varying kinds, including the only known medieval Danish verse translation of the well-known hymn Stabat mater. It is unusual among Danish prayer-books for its many coloured miniatures. [continue]
I could spend hours at this site.
From the Guardian: Mud, glorious mud.
The Timbuktu mosque, like the Djenne mosque, has survived, at least in part - a fact that seems all the more remarkable given that these sensational buildings are constructed from mud. Each year, in gloriously splashy festivals, their walls are repaired and the ancient buildings live on. Far from being a wobbly material guaranteed to wash away, mud, as Blier is keen to point out, has an enduring life of its own. Here are buildings that are at once organic, animated and, if local traditions survive modernisation, almost eternal.
Even if they crumble, the buildings can be raised up again without too much strain. The existing Djenne mosque, for example, is barely a century old. The original, dating from the 13th or 14th century, was deliberately allowed to collapse during the jihad of Sheikh Amadu in the 1830s. The architect Ismaila Traore was paid by the French, who had taken control of Mali in 1893, to rebuild the mosque. Although it is traditional in many ways, its symmetrical, almost rational planning shows a certain degree of French influence; quite how much remains unclear.
The mosque is built on a platform of regular sun-dried mud bricks. The walls are between 16 and 24 inches thick. These allow the interior of the mosque, the world's biggest mud building, to stay cool throughout the day, which is some achievement considering that, outdoors, summer temperatures reach 50C. The palm beams sticking out from the walls serve as structural supports and as permanent scaffolding to bear timber platforms used for repairing and replastering the building with a mix of mud and rice husks each year. [continue]
Related:
Photos of Djenne - danheller.com
Djenne Mosque photos - jorgetutor.com
World's largest mud mosque - photo - cultureshocktherapy.com
The Great Mosque - getty.edu
From discovery.com: Ancient City, ‘Little Rome’ Discovered.
After 10 years of digging, "Little Rome," as the great Roman orator Cicero called it, is coming to light near Naples, in what could be the most important discovery of an ancient Roman town since the excavation of lava-entombed Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 18th century.
The ancient town of Puteoli, once one of the major trading ports of the Mediterranean, has been found under Rione Terra, a stout promontory in Pozzuoli, just 8 miles west of Naples.
Known to Italians as the birthplace of movie star Sophia Loren, Pozzuoli is a pleasant seaside resort surrounded by volcanic hills. But under palaces and hotels lies an ancient city with streets, temples and exceptionally preserved buildings — in no way inferior to those of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
"Puteoli lies encased in the foundations of the city built in the 16th century by the Spanish, who at that time ruled the kingdom of Naples. Bringing it to light is a very difficult task. As we excavate, we need to use steel beams to support the new buildings on the top level," chief archaeologist Costanza Gialanella told Discovery News.
So far, the archaeologists have unearthed a street network from 194 B.C. — when a Roman colony of just 300 men was established on the massive tufa promontory dominating the Gulf of Naples — and buildings dating to different periods, mainly related to the rule of emperors Augustus and Nero. [continue]
You should study Old Norse because it is your best source of information in understanding how early Germanic people thought, what their world was like, and what was important to them, and it is your best source for understanding the early history of all Germanic languages, including German, English, and the Scandinavian languages. (...)
Iceland, that fair sized island in the North Atlantic, was settled by Norwegians around the 900's. And one thing these new settlers did that no other Germanic people had done, is they wrote. Boy, did they ever write. they wrote down many of the stories, and historical accounts (Sagas), they wrote of the marvelous type of strict poetry that had arisen in Germanic culture, they wrote of the Gods and Goddesses and monsters that had so shaped their culture and view of the world. (Mind you, by this time they were Christians, so they didn't believe in these Gods.) They wrote in a certain blunt, yet powerful style that is tremendous and something really to be experienced and unlike any other type of writing, and they used many kennings, or metaphorical phrases for things (of which the most common English example is calling a camel 'the ship of the desert', there aren't a lot of kennings in English. They wrote all this marvelous stuff in Old Norse, and it survives until today, and you can read it for yourself.)
So why study Old Norse? To give yourself a thrilling window into a world long gone, the heritage of a people who have undergone so many changes. To Germanic peoples, Old Norse literature is a treasure, a gift from ancestors long gone, and learning Old Norse is a chance to see the world through the eyes of early Germanic people.
This is from GR Burgess's Old Norse Page, which has lots of interesting content and links.
From discovery.com: Book: Who Killed Chaucer?
Geoffrey Chaucer, the 14th century author of The Canterbury Tales, may have been murdered, according to a new book authored by former "Monty Python" member Terry Jones and backed by a team of English literature scholars.
According to Jones and his team, both Chaucer and his writings, including The Canterbury Tales, could have become "politically inconvenient" during the turbulent overthrow of King Richard II by Henry IV in 1399. (...)
Jones and his colleagues allege that in 1400, Chaucer basically disappears. They say there is no official confirmation of his death, no chronicle entry, no notice of a funeral or burial, no will, and no remaining manuscripts.
Given the author's status as a public figure and senior member of Richard II's court, Chaucer did receive a tomb at Westminster Abbey. Jones and his team claim that the rather unimposing tomb was not in keeping with a person of Chaucer's status. It was replaced in the 16th century. [coninue]
Related article:
Monty Python's death of Chaucer - telegraph.co.uk
Related book:
Who Murdered Chaucer?
From National Geographic: Armor-Plated Snail Discovered in Deep Sea.
Researchers have found perhaps the world's most unusual snail. The as-yet-unnamed creature bears a mass of interlocking, iron-based plates on its body and the base of its foot. Like a suit of medieval armor, the snail may use its metal scales as a defense against predatory attack.
As gardeners already know, all other slugs and snails (or gastropod mollusks, to the experts) sport a soft and slimy foot.
The new snail, described in the current edition of the journal Science, was discovered in the hostile hydrothermal vent environment of the deep Indian Ocean.
Anders Waren, a biologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm and the lead researcher behind the find, said this "very strange little beast" is the first animal discovered that uses iron sulfides for a structural purpose. [continue]
Related:
Cast-Iron Foot: Undersea snail has mineral armor - sciencenews.org
Armored snail - biomedcentral.com
I stumbled upon this creepy bit of news at Jewish World Review: Accidental discovery led to doubts about safety of plastic.
Something was wrong with the mice eggs.
In two separate labs at Case Western Reserve University, researchers noticed a sudden mini-epidemic of defective chromosomes in August 1998.
And no one could say why.
Was it the food? The water?
Human error in handling the eggs?
After some anxious detective work, with months of valuable research in jeopardy, genetics professor Patricia Hunt made a surprising discovery:
When someone used the wrong soap to clean the plastic mice cages, a chemical - bisphenol-A, the same chemical that is used to make baby bottles, dental sealants, and linings for food and beverage cans - leached out of the plastic.
In the five years since that discovery, industry has continued to make millions of pounds of BPA, even though, the Case Western researchers learned, studies beginning in 1997 had claimed it was linked to problems such as enlarged prostates and decreased fertility.
"The first thing I wanted to do was go down to my kitchen and throw out every bit of plastic I had in my house," Hunt said. "I thought, ‘What is this stuff still doing on the market?’ " [continue]
Doesn't this make you want to go buy a bunch of glass containers?
Related:
Compound in plastic bottles causes abnormal pregnancies in mice - Case Western Reserve
Geneticists Find Component of Common Plastic Bottles Causes Abnormal Pregnancies in Mice
Common plastic ingredient linked to birth defects
Component in plastic bottles found to cause abnormal pregnancies in mice
Inca city found in Peru jungle. From The Guardian:
A team of explorers have found an Inca city, lost for centuries in the Peruvian jungles despite being within sight of the key religious centre at Machu Picchu.
Using infra-red aerial photography to penetrate the forest canopy, the team led by Briton Hugh Thomson and American Gary Zeigler located the ruins at Llactapata, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the ancient Inca capital Cusco.
"This is a very important discovery. It is very close to Machu Picchu and aligned with it," Mr Thomson told Reuters.
The site was first mentioned by explorer Hiram Bingham, the discoverer of Machu Picchu, in 1912. But he was vague about its location, and the ruins have lain undisturbed ever since.
After locating the city from the air, the expedition hacked through the jungle to reach it, 3,000 metres (9,000 ft) up the side of a mountain.
They found stone buildings, including a solar temple and houses covering several square kilometres in the same alignment with the June solstice sunrise as Machu Picchu, which was a sacred centre. Not only was Llactapata probably a ceremonial site, excavations show it might also have acted as a granary and dormitory for its sacred neighbour, Mr Thomspon said. [continue]
Related news articles:
Ruins show ‘lost city’ of the Incas was part of vast complex. - The Independent
Explorers find lost Inca city near Machu Picchu - The Scotsman
Explorers rediscover Inca city near Machu Picchu - Sydney Morning Herald
Explorers find the lost ruins of sacred Inca city - The Telegraph
Explorers uncover Incan 'lost city' - BBC, June 2002
Peru's new Machu Picchu - BBC, March 2002
About Machu Picchu:
Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu - unesco.org
Machu Picchu photos - culturefocus.com
Machu Picchu Library - machupicchu.org
A walk to Machu Picchu - Mirabilis.ca, January, 2003
Machu Picchu Under Threat From Pressures of Tourism - nationalgeographic.com
Oh, won't you be busy! Here, take a look at the Elizabethan Costuming Page. Follow a few links and you'll learn about Tudor snoods, hairnets & bags, Elizabethan makeup, and how to make a bumroll. Don't forget to dress Cecily! (Cecily doesn't work in Mozilla but does work in Opera).
A friend told me about Shoutcast.com the other day - is it ever cool! If you're online and you've got some software that plays .mp3s, check this out - Shoutcast links to stations offering streaming .mp3s.
I typed "baroque" into the search box at Shoutcast, which led me to Magnatune.com... another excellent discovery. Here's a bit from the Magnatune site:
We're a record label. But we're not evil.
We call it "try before you buy." It's the shareware model applied to music.
Listen to hundreds of MP3'd albums from our artists. Or try our genre-based radio stations.
If you like what you hear, buy our music online for as little as $5 an album or license our music for commercial use.
Artists get a full 50% of the purchase price. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep the rights to their music.
Founded by musicians, for musicians.
No major label connections.
We are not evil.
Who knew this existed?
They've got lots of genre pages: classical, electronica, metal & punk, new age, rock, world, and others. I've been playing some excellent stuff from their classical page, and I'm a happy camper.
From the BBC: Let your fingers do the talking.
Throw away your earpiece, soon your finger could be helping you make and take calls via your mobile phone.
Japanese phone firm NTT DoCoMo has created a wristwatch phone that uses its owner's finger as an earpiece.
The gadget, dubbed Finger Whisper, uses a wristband to convert the sounds of conversation to vibrations that can be heard when the finger is placed in the ear. [continue]
From the Beeb: Ancient man ‘used tooth picks’.
Palaeontologist Dr Leslea Hlusko, of the University of Illinois, claims to have evidence ancient man used rudimentary tooth picks.
She has shown that curved grooves found on fossil teeth dating back 1.8 million years could be the result of erosion caused by repeated rubbing with grass stalks.
Sceptics argue today's toothpicks leave no such marks, but Dr Hlusko said grass is more abrasive.
Unlike wood, it contains large numbers of hard, abrasive silica particles.
Dr Hlusko said grass stalks were the right size to leave the marks - between 1.5 to 2.6 millimetres wide.
They were also widely available, and required little modification to become an effective toothpick. [continue]
From This is London: What if Guy Fawkes had succeeded?
Guy Fawkes would have devastated Central London if his gunpowder plot had succeeded, according to physicists.
As well as destroying the Houses of Parliament, the blast caused by 5,500lb of gunpowder going off would have wrecked Westminster Abbey.
Buildings as far away as Whitehall would have lost walls and roofs and streets within a third of a mile would have suffered damage.
To coincide with this year's Bonfire Night celebrations, scientists worked out how much damage Fawkes and his conspirators would have caused if they blew up Parliament on November 5, 1605.
The 5,500lb of gunpowder which he packed in a cellar beneath the old Westminster Hall would, if prepared properly, cause the same devastation as a similar amount of TNT today. [continue]
Related Info:
Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night - BBC
The Gunpowder Plot - Catholic Encyclopedia
Gunpowder Plot Society - gunpowder-plot.org
The Gunpowder Plot - britannia.com
Related news articles:
Guy Fawkes plot ‘was devastating’ - BBC
The damage Guy Fawkes could have done - The Guardian
Explosives experts say Guy Fawkes would have destroyed Parliament - The Telegraph
Physicists discover Guy Fawkes would have devastated Westminster - Institute of Physics
Well... look what we've found here. From This is Worcester:
EVIDENCE of 1st Century buildings and masonry uncovered in Worcester have been hailed as the most important Roman finds ever made in the city.
Mike Napthan, an archaeologist in Worcester for the past 15 years, discovered the haul as he was digging trenches and surveying land by the city walls along The Butts.
He unearthed a sandstone well, about a metre across, and on excavating further found plaster, brick, stone, pottery, glassware, a bracelet and pieces of a Roman mosaic.
There was also a stone column topped with a decorative capitol, a ceiling-vault tile, roof tiles and hypocaust stack bricks.
The collection indicated the existence of high quality Roman properties nearby - the first such evidence discovered in Worcester.
Much of the material showed signs of burning, which Mr Napthan says suggests that Roman Worcester came to a sudden and dramatic end.
"It's significant for the city because the well is the earliest masonry found here and the first signs of proper buildings in Worcester," he said.
"It was just below the surface and was so shallow I thought it must be mediaeval at first. It is certainly one of the most interesting finds I have ever come across. [continue]
From Discovery.com: Etruscan Demons, Monsters Unearthed.
Etruscan art, made of strange demons and monsters, is emerging in a Tuscan village, in what could be one of the most important discoveries of recent times, according to scholars who have seen the paintings.
Lurking on the left wall of a 4th century B.C. tomb, the exceptionally preserved monsters have been unearthed during the ongoing excavation of the Pianacce necropolis in Sarteano, a village 50 miles from Siena, Italy.
"So far we have found some scenes of banquets, snake-like monsters, demons, a hyppocampus and a sarcophagus broken in many fragments, probably by tomb robbers. We are confident to find more art as the digging goes on," archaeologist Alessandra Minetti told Discovery News.
One of Europe's most mysterious people, the Etruscans forged Italy's most sophisticated civilization before the Romans. They rose from Italian prehistory around 900 B.C. and dominated most of the country for about five centuries.
Yet mystery shrouds their history. First defeated by the Romans in the 4th century B.C., in 90 B.C., after centuries of decline, the Etruscans became Roman citizens. They left no literature to record their culture — few traces of their puzzling, non-Indo-European language survive. Only the richly decorated tombs they left behind provide a glimpse into their world. [continue]
I meant to blog this article about plans to exhume Petrarch a few days ago. Now a similar article has appeared on Newsday: Experts to Examine Bones of Italian Poet. From newsday.com:
ROME -- As a poet he encouraged his readers to contemplate death. Now, as the 700th anniversary of his birth approaches, archaeologists will remove the remains of the Italian poet Petrarch from their pink marble resting place, hoping to piece together details of his life.
Led by an Italian anatomy professor, the team wants to reconstruct Petrarch's physical features to shed light on the man considered second only to Dante in the pantheon of Italian writers.
"We will be able to analyze his physical makeup, his height. We will be able to tell from his bones if he was suffering from illnesses," Vito Terribile Wiel Marin, of Padua University, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home in the Padua area.
The bones will be removed Nov. 18 from the tomb in Arqua-Petrarca, the village in northeast Italy where Petrarch died in 1374. [continue]
Related:
Francesco Petrarch - Catholic Encyclopedia
Petrarch - Wikipedia
Petrarch - Project Bartleby
Francesco Petrarch: Letters, c 1372 - Medieval Sourcebook
UPDATE:
Mystery over dead poet's head - from the BBC, April 7th, 2004.
From the Guardian: University project to teach seals how to talk.
St Andrew's University has acquired its very own Dr Dolittle, with the arrival of a Harvard academic on a mission to teach seals to talk.
Tecumseh Fitch, a specialist in language evolution, plans to recruit undergraduates to "hang out" with young seals in the hope that the seals will pick up human speech patterns.
The experiment may have echoes of Hugh Lofting's creation, but it is inspired by the bizarre but entirely genuine example of a talking seal called Hoover, who entertained visitors at an aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts, with entire phrases delivered in gravelly male tones.
"He said things like ‘hey Hoover, get out of there’, and ‘move over Hoover’," said Dr Fitch. "Not only did he do this, he said it with a Maine fisherman's accent."
On this side of the Atlantic, Dr Fitch and his colleague Vincent Janik will research seals' rare ability - shared with humans and birds - to imitate sounds. [continue]
Related:
Hoover, the talking seal - from the New England Aquarium
From National Geographic: Humans Sped to U.K. After Ice Age, Study Says.
Humans hotfooted it to Britain after the last ice age, scientists say. The new research, which challenges previous studies, suggests these early settlers advanced rapidly as the glaciers melted away.
A team of European scientists estimated the speed and timing of human resettlement in late glacial Britain by comparing radiocarbon dated remains with ice-core climate records. Their findings, now published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, suggest a wave of migration coincided with a sudden rise in temperature and the northwards spread of herd animals such as wild horse and deer.
Previously, scientists thought repopulation had been a drawn-out affair, preceded by centuries of sporadic forays from mainland Europe. [continue]
From the Guardian: Monkeys Terrorize India Workers, Tourists.
NEW DELHI (AP) - In a capital city where cows roam the streets and elephants plod along in the bus lanes, it's no surprise to find government buildings overrun with monkeys.
But the officials who work there are fed up. They've been bitten, robbed and otherwise tormented by monkeys that ransack files, bring down power lines, screech at visitors and bang on office windows.
The Supreme Court has stepped in, decreeing that New Delhi should be a monkey-free city after citizens filed a lawsuit demanding protection from the animals.
Easier said than done. A past initiative to scare off the army of Rhesus macaques with ultrahigh frequency loudspeakers didn't work. A plan to deport them to distant regions has stalled because local governments refused to have them.
There's an ape patrol of fierce-looking primates called langurs, led about on leashes by keepers. But whenever a langur looms, the pink-faced, two-foot-tall hooligans simply move elsewhere on government grounds. [continue]
Lone security guard tells how he saved Bactrian treasure. From the Telegraph:
An Afghan security guard has spoken for the first time of how he prevented a hoard of gold bullion and priceless 2,100-year-old treasure falling into the hands of the Taliban and their ally, Osama bin Laden.
The fate of the Golden Hoard of Bactria, an ancient collection of 20,000 artefacts, has been the subject of fantastic rumours: that it was stolen by Soviet troops or looted by the Taliban to be sold through antique dealers in Pakistan to fund a terrorist network.
But the treasure remained safe largely due to the efforts of one man: Askerzai, who has been guardian of the vaults for 30 years. Mr Askerzai, 50, an employee of the central bank, is one of the few people in history to have seen the 20,000 gold objects. [continue]
From The Herald: Was Orkney the ceremonial capital of ancient Britain? [Update: article no longer available.]
Orkney may have been the largest prehistoric settlement or ceremonial site in Britain, new research reveals today.
Archaeologists using the latest techniques to map under the soil discovered the world heritage site covering the Ness of Brodgar in Stenness, was a massive centre of activity in Stone Age times.
Orkney's landscape has largely managed to avoid the rigours of industrialised farming and may yet yield its secrets about the recently-surveyed site, which in terms of scale, puts the likes of Stonehenge, Avebury and Skara Brae in the shade.
Orkney Archaeological Trust (OAT) used magnetometry, a geophysical technique which measures magnetism in the soil, to trace the patterns of activity left by prehistoric Orcadians.
Ancient occurrences, particularly burning, leave magnetic traces that show up when analysed with hi-tech equipment. Buried features such as ditches or pits, when filled with burned or partially burned materials, can be detected, giving a picture of sub-surface archaeology.
Nick Card, projects manager of OAT, said that if all the evidence was related, then Orkney would qualify as the largest neolithic settlement or ceremonial site in Britain. [continue]
Related:
Orkneyjar - The Heritage of the Orkney Islands
Orkney Archaeological Trust
In the "beyond fascinating" category, we have Stephen Hume's recent article from the Vancouver Sun, Science chases legends to secret of clam gardens. It's about John Harper's discovery of rocks placed along the low tide line on a whole lot of BC beaches, and his subsequent research into the topic.
"If you saw just one, you might not even notice," he said. "But these were all over the place. The light clicked on. I said, ‘Stop the helicopter.’ "
He examined a line of stones that curved across the mouth of a small cove in a near-perfect arc. The barrier trapped sediments thrown up by wave action, creating a terrace of sand and shell hash between two rocky promontories. The sand flat teemed with bivalves. The more he looked, the more astonishment he felt.
"I was pretty sure they were man-made," he said. "There's evidence that whole beaches were actually engineered."
When Harper got back to Victoria and reported his findings, the province put up research funds for a field reconnaissance survey and he went to work analysing the data that he'd unknowingly collected already. [continue]
Link found at Parking Lot.
A bit of Monday morning distraction for you: Meowmory, the kitten memory game. (Requires Flash.)
Link from Coolio's, which I found through Sugar'n Spicy.
From the Trouser Semaphore page: [UPDATE: sorry, page is no longer available.]
The acquired skill known as Trouser Semaphore is swiftly gaining currency as the only way for people of quality to communicate in an age of rapidly escalating background noise levels. Typically, at the race track or at unexpectedly rumbustious parties, attempts to make oneself heard above the general hubbub can prove exasperating and, as often as not, utterly futile. Within the space of a week, and with minimal amount of application, it is possible to gain a skill of incalculable worth. Across the floor of a crowded cocktail gathering, you too would be able to convey your inner most thoughts and deepest needs to like minded individuals, using nothing more than flexibility of your physique and the rough pliability of one’s trouser cloth. Surely, there is no sight more moving than a man and three square yards of carefully tailored cavalry twill moving in perfect harmony. [continue]
This is much more entertaining than the regular semaphore some of us learned in Girl Guides. Don't miss the brilliant little movie; you'll want sound turned on for that. [Update: movie no longer available. Sorry.]
Link found at J-Walk.
From the explanatory entry on the House in Progress blog:
We bought this 1917 bungalow from a woman whose family owned it for 60 years. With all that history and an interest in collecting, they'd developed quite a houseful. As a result, we gave the seller a 30-day rent-back period after closing to remove her family possessions. Then, one week before she was to be out we received the letter...
The seller had not removed their things and didn't intend to. Surprise!! We were caught a bit off guard, as you might expect. That night we went through the house and found that 50% of what was originally there still remained. Books, furniture, kitchenware, rocks (really) and boxes and boxes and boxes.
After some discussion we ended up negotiating an agreement. We were rather inconvenienced (we had to rent storage for our own things for an additional month) but figured we could rent a dumpster still quickly get to the task of renovating our new home. But then came the second surprise--the stuff in the house was really cool! So, we're going to start posting photos of the items we've found. Well, some of the 1000's. We'll just keep plugging away until you have no more patience to peek in there with us. [full page]
What an amazing collection of stuff! Some of the items are for sale here.
Found at Linkfilter.
