An eclectic assortment of stuff: food, archaeology, fun, books, history, geekery, etc.
Posted in history & archaeology, religion on Feb 28th, 2007
From haaretz.com: Present-day Sanhedrin court seeks to revive ancient Temple rituals.
The present-day Sanhedrin Court decided Tuesday to purchase a herd of sheep for ritual sacrifice at the site of the Temple on the eve of Passover, conditions on the Temple Mount permitting.
The modern Sanhedrin was established several years ago and is headed by Rabbi Adin [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 28th, 2007
By now you will have heard claims that the tombs of Jesus and his family have been found in Jerusalem. Here’s the response from Prof. Amos Kloner, printed in the Jerusalem Post: A great story, but nonsense.
Prof. Amos Kloner oversaw the archeological work at the Talpiot tomb when it was discovered during construction in 1980.
What [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 28th, 2007
From ansa.it: ‘First’ Sicilian woman gets face.
The face of a late Stone Age woman who lived in Sicily has been reconstructed by a sculptor working with anthropologists at Palermo University.
The skeleton of the woman, who lived 14,000 years ago, was discovered in a cave near Messina in 1937, along with the incomplete skeletons of six [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 27th, 2007
From The Telegraph: Sceptre from Roman emperor exhibited.
The only Roman emperor’s sceptre to have been found has gone on public display in Rome for the first time.
The sceptre, which is topped by a blue orb that represents the earth, was discovered at the end of last year and is believed to have been held by [...]
Posted in books & lit, history & archaeology on Feb 27th, 2007
From Radio Praha: Rare 16th century nautical atlas found in Olomouc.
Historians in the department of old prints and manuscripts at the Research Library in Olomouc have made a surprising discovery. While moving a safe containing rare documents to a new building, they found a seven-page nautical atlas that was hand-made in 1563. The richly coloured [...]
Posted in food, health, history & archaeology on Feb 27th, 2007
From the Beeb: Early man ‘couldn’t stomach milk’.
A drink of milk was off the menu for Europeans until only a few thousand years ago, say researchers from London.
Analysis of Neolithic remains, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests no European adults could digest the drink at that time.
University College London scientists say that [...]
Posted in language on Feb 27th, 2007
From the Guardian: Anyone here speak Cromarty fisher?
Obscure fishing dialects aren’t renowned for their ability to set the heart racing, but news that a centuries-old brand of Anglo-Scottish pidgin is only two people from extinction has induced mild panic among traditionalists. The Cromarty fisher dialect is being kept alive by two Scottish brothers, Bobby and [...]
Posted in DNA, history & archaeology on Feb 27th, 2007
From the BBC: Skull man suffered bad toothache.
A human skull found in woodland in Buckinghamshire belonged to an 18th Century man with severe toothache.
The skull was found on 7 January by a member of the public walking his dog in Wendover Woods near Aylesbury.
Forensic archaeologists took DNA samples from a tooth and dated the skull [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 26th, 2007
From the Telegraph: Find of Roman coin shows ancient Britons in a new light.
Experts are excited about a rare coin unearthed by an amateur treasure hunter which could change the accepted ancient history of Britain.
The silver denarius which dates back to the Roman Republic — before Julius Caesar made Rome an empire — was unearthed [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 25th, 2007
From PressTV.ir: Lost ancient city unearthed in Iran.
Archeologists have discovered an ancient structure in southern Iran believed to be the fourth largest site of the Achaemenid era after structures in Susa, Pasargad, and Persepolis.
They say the site may be the lost city of Lidoma which is mentioned in the ancient tablets discovered in Persepolis.
A team [...]
Posted in gardening, history & archaeology on Feb 25th, 2007
From The Proceedings of the Athinasius Kircher Society: Linnaeus’s Flower Clock.
Carl Linnaeus, father of taxonomy, divided the flowering plants into three groups: the meteorici, which change their opening and closing times according to the weather conditions; the tropici, which change their opening and closing times according to the length of the day; and the aequinoctales, [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 24th, 2007
From discovery.com: Ancient Tiles Reveal Complex Geometry.
Those wondrously intricate tile mosaics that adorn medieval Islamic architecture may cloak a mastery of geometry not matched in the West for hundreds of years.
Historians have long assumed that sheer hard work with the equivalent of a ruler and compass allowed medieval craftsmen to create the ornate star-and-polygon tile [...]
Posted in animals, birds, insects, etc on Feb 23rd, 2007
From the BBC: Chimpanzees ‘hunt using spears’.
Chimpanzees in Senegal have been observed making and using wooden spears to hunt other primates, according to a study in the journal Current Biology.
Researchers documented 22 cases of chimps fashioning tools to jab at smaller primates sheltering in cavities of hollow branches or tree trunks. [continue]
Thanks to cricket for [...]
Posted in chocolate on Feb 23rd, 2007
From Deutsche Welle: German Cuisine Gets Molecular Makeover.
Licorice is paired with salmon. Caviar gets served atop white chocolate or warm ice cream. If a dish sounds like it defies the laws of nature, it’s likely a matter of molecular gastronomy, an approach to cooking that has entered the mainstream over the past few years.
The most [...]
Posted in health, technology on Feb 21st, 2007
From Wired: Nintendo Surgeons More Precise?
If Dr. James Rosser Jr. had his way, every surgeon in America would have three indispensable tools on the operating room tray: a scalpel, sutures, and a video game controller.
Rosser looks like a football player and cracks jokes like a comic, but his job as a top surgeon and director [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 20th, 2007
From IC Wales: Ritual piece of Stonehenge discovered.
A missing stone which could be an integral part of rituals at Stonehenge may have been discovered by a Welsh archaeologist.
Dennis Price, pictured below, who has done years of research on the mysterious stone structure, believes he has tracked down a previously lost altar stone, identified during one [...]
Posted in strange stuff on Feb 20th, 2007
As if the Cargo Cult stuff isn’t strange enough, now this! From The Telegraph: South Sea tribe prepares birthday feast for their favourite god, Prince Philip.
At the base of a banyan tree, an elderly village chief held his most prized possession between bony fingers. "Philip sent this to us," he said. "Now we have three [...]
Posted in history & archaeology, miscellaneous on Feb 20th, 2007
This is utterly fascinating. From The Province: The Masked Man.
For several centuries, the Chewa men of Malawi have reaffirmed their brotherhood through a secret masked society.
But Doug Curran is neither Chewa nor anything remotely approaching African.
He is a twice-divorced white man from North Vancouver. He grew up a military brat, photographs publicity film stills for [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 20th, 2007
From the Beeb: Beach hunt for lost Jacobite gold.
Archaeologists hope to find missing French gold sent to Scotland to help fund a Jacobite Rebellion buried under a remote Highland beach.
A portion of the money was believed to have been hidden at Arisaig, near Mallaig, in the 1700s. (…)
The money did not arrive in Scotland until [...]
Posted in miscellaneous on Feb 20th, 2007
From the LA Times: Homeless by choice, O.C. student learns self-reliance.
After a long day of film classes, working at the Apple Store, rock climbing at the gym and finishing homework in the student union, Cal State Fullerton senior Andy Bussell heads home — to a white Toyota Tacoma with a twin-size mattress in the truck [...]
Posted in technology on Feb 18th, 2007
From Wired: Your Face, Immortalized.
"You must have blinked. That’s probably why your eye is missing."
Bill Mongon is right. I did blink, and now there’s a gaping hole in my left eye socket.
Fortunately, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a digital touch-up.
Mongon’s company, Accurex, specializes in providing high-quality 3-D scans for industrial and archival purposes; [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Feb 18th, 2007
From The Telegraph: Gladiators fought to the death in Chester.
Gladiatorial contests took place at the largest amphitheatre in Roman Britain, according to new evidence unearthed by archaeologists.
Finds at an excavation of the arena in Chester provide the most conclusive proof yet that it played host to grisly fights to the death for public entertainment, and [...]
Posted in strange stuff on Feb 18th, 2007
Hey, do you remember my blog entry about cargo cults? Well, look what I found at the BBC tonight: Cargo cult lives on in South Pacific.
At the base of a sacred volcano in an isolated corner of the South Pacific young men play the “Star Spangled Banner” on bamboo flutes.
Others go bare-chested with the letters [...]
Posted in technology on Feb 16th, 2007
From the BBC: Deaf to sign via video handsets.
Deaf people could soon be using video mobiles to chat with their friends using sign language.
Video compression tools made by US researchers make it possible to send live pictures of people signing across low bandwidth mobile networks.
The system cuts down on the bandwidth needed by only sending [...]
Posted in food, history & archaeology on Feb 16th, 2007
From EurekAlert: Red hot chili pepper research spices up historical record.
Next time you’re shaking Tabasco sauce on your eggs or dried chili pepper flakes on your pizza, you might pause to thank the indigenous Latin American cultures of more than 6,100 years ago that made it possible.
Three University of Calgary researchers, together with international colleagues, [...]