An eclectic assortment of stuff: food, archaeology, fun, books, history, geekery, etc.
Posted in Italy, history & archaeology on Aug 30th, 2007
From the BBC: Venice lagoon reveals grim secrets.
The Venetian authorities are surveying two ancient ships found beside the lost island of San Marco in Boccalama that disappeared beneath the rising lagoon over 500 years ago.
The island — the site of an abandoned 11th century monastery — became a mass grave for scores of thousands of [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 27th, 2007
From the Guardian: Village skull finds deepen mystery of roundheads.
A long-standing mystery over the way men’s skulls changed from long to round in medieval Europe has been deepened by discoveries at a Yorkshire village.
Huge volumes of data collected at Wharram Percy cast doubt on all current theories about the unexplained blip between the 11th and [...]
Posted in religion on Aug 27th, 2007
From the BBC: Vatican flight service launches.
A senior Vatican cardinal has inaugurated a low-cost charter flight service which aims to transport Catholic pilgrims to holy sites.
The first flight from Rome to Lourdes in France took off at 1130 (0930 GMT), using a small charter airline owned by the Italian post office.
The airline expects to transport [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 27th, 2007
From the International Herald Tribune: Greece: Archaeologists unearth secrets of prehistoric citadel’s water supply.
Archaeologists excavating a sprawling prehistoric fortress in southern Greece have discovered a secret underground passage thought to have supplied the site with water in times of danger.
Dated to the mid-13th century B.C., the stone passage passed under the massive walls of the [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 27th, 2007
From novinite.com: Bulgarian Archaeologists Discover Christian Necropolis on Perperikon.
Bulgarian archaeologists discovered a Christian necropolis outside the ruins of the medieval fortress near the rock sanctuary of Perperikon, located in southern Bulgaria near the town of Kardzhali.
The team lead by Nikolay Ovcharov found 15 tombs dating back to the 14th century, most likely the resting place [...]
Posted in science, strange stuff on Aug 23rd, 2007
From the Beeb: Out-of-body experience recreated.
Experts have found a way to trigger an out-of-body experience in volunteers.
The experiments, described in the Science journal, offer a scientific explanation for a phenomenon experienced by one in 10 people.
Two teams used virtual reality goggles to con the brain into thinking the body was located elsewhere.
The visual illusion plus [...]
Posted in Canada, environment on Aug 23rd, 2007
From the Times Colonist: Town that banned bags touts golf carts.
The tiny town in northern Manitoba that was first in Canada to ban plastic shopping bags is now turning its attention to gas-powered vehicles.
Leaf Rapids Mayor Ed Charrier wants residents to drive electric golf carts around town instead. "Why would you start your vehicle for [...]
Posted in language on Aug 22nd, 2007
From the Telegraph: Bounty mutineers’ language preserved by UN.
A campaign to preserve a unique hybrid language spoken by the descendants of the Bounty mutineers on an isolated South Pacific island has been given a boost by the United Nations.
Norfolk Island’s blend of 18th-century English and Tahitian, known as Norf’k or Norfuk, will be featured by [...]
Posted in BC, Canada, DNA, history & archaeology on Aug 22nd, 2007
From the Vancouver Sun: Sea floor off Charlottes may explain how people came to the Americas.
In a Canadian archeological project that could revolutionize understanding of when and how humans first reached the New World, federal researchers in B.C. have begun probing an underwater site off the Queen Charlotte Islands for traces of a possible prehistoric [...]
Posted in internet on Aug 21st, 2007
From the International Herald Tribune: Corporate editing of Wikipedia revealed.
Last year, someone edited the Wikipedia entry for the Sea World theme parks to change all mentions of "orcas" to "killer whales," insisting that this was a more accurate name for the species.
There was another, unexplained edit: A paragraph about criticism of Sea World’s "lack of [...]
Posted in Canada, history & archaeology on Aug 21st, 2007
From Macleans: Archaeologists solve riddle of site of original Montreal settlement.
A nondescript brown warehouse filled with old barrels and rickety pallets is an unlikely site for the spiritual heart of a city.
Yet beneath the worn cement floors of one such warehouse lies what archaeologists believe are the first permanent buildings of the settlement that became [...]
Posted in animals, birds, insects, etc on Aug 20th, 2007
From NewScientist: Monkeys learn to do arithmetic for peanuts.
It takes a smart monkey to do mathematics, and although Elsa Addessi insists her 10 capuchins aren’t quite doing sums, she admits they must be pretty clever to be able to pass the tests that she has put them through. One can even handle multiplication.
Addessi, a researcher [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 20th, 2007
From the BBC: Student dig unearths ancient gum.
A 5,000-year-old piece of chewing gum has been discovered by an archaeology student from the University of Derby.
Sarah Pickin, 23, found the lump of birch bark tar while on a dig in western Finland.
Neolithic people used the material as an antiseptic to treat gum infections, as well as [...]
Posted in BC on Aug 20th, 2007
Can anybody tell me what kind of mushroom this is? I’ve looked around a few mushroom websites, but haven’t been able to identify it yet. Since Mirabilis.ca readers solved my crab mystery, I thought I’d see if any of you can help me out.
Here, this gives a bit of perspective:
I always thought we were [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 20th, 2007
From the International Herald Tribune: Volunteer archeologists unearth an ancient tomb in Italy.
The Etruscan tomb was hidden in such a remote corner of Tuscany that Andrea Marcocci, the archeology student who had identified it about a decade ago, was not very worried that anyone else would stumble upon it.
Then, earlier this year, woodsmen began to [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 16th, 2007
From haaretz.com: Archeologists discover footprint made by sandal of Roman soldier.
Archeologists have discovered a footprint made by the sandal of a Roman soldier – one of the few such finds in the world – in a wall surrounding the Hellenistic-Roman city of Sussita, east of Lake Kinneret.
The discovery of the print made by a hobnailed [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 15th, 2007
From Reuters: Intact 2,000-year old Etruscan tomb discovered.
Archaeologists have discovered a more than 2,000-year-old Etruscan tomb perfectly preserved in the hills of Tuscany with a treasure trove of artefacts inside, including urns that hold the remains of about 30 people.
The tomb, in the Tuscan town of Civitella Paganico, probably dates from between the 1st and [...]
Posted in food, history & archaeology on Aug 11th, 2007
From the BBC: How Bronze Age man enjoyed his pint
Two archaeologists have put forward a theory that one of the most common ancient monuments seen around Ireland may have been used for brewing ale.
Fulacht fiadh — horseshoe shaped grass covered mounds — are conventionally thought of as ancient cooking spots
But the archaeologists from Galway believe [...]
One of the things I miss about Italy is the bocconcini made from water buffalo milk — mozzarella di bufala. It’s splendid, and almost impossible to get in Canada, from what I’ve seen. (Of course you can buy bocconcini at most supermarkets here, but that stuff is almost certainly made from cows’ milk. What’s worse [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 11th, 2007
From the BBC: Fight on to save Stone Age Atlantis.
A race against time is under way to try to save a Stone Age settlement found buried at the bottom of the sea in the Solent.
Eight thousand years ago the area would have been dry land, a valley and woodland criss-crossed by rivers.
A swamped prehistoric forest [...]
Posted in history & archaeology, science on Aug 11th, 2007
From Macroworld Investor: Cray Supercomputer at Sandia Helps Researchers Discover Origin of Mysterious Glass Found in King Tut’s Tomb.
Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. (NASDAQ: CRAY) today announced that researchers running simulations on the Cray supercomputer at Sandia National Laboratories have re-created what could have happened 29 million years ago when an asteroid explosion turned Saharan [...]
Posted in food, history & archaeology on Aug 11th, 2007
From the Society of Biblical Literature site: Cuneiform Cuisine: Culinary History Reborn at Brown University.
Babylonian food has come a long way since Jean Bottéro, doyen of the cuneiform recipe tablets in the Yale Babylonian Collection, pronounced it fit for only his worst enemies. This year at Brown University, one hundred twenty-two ravenous diners grazed on [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 10th, 2007
The Israel Antiquities Authority reports that an ancient Byzantine church has been found in Tiberias.
In the Israel Antiquities Authority’s excavations in Tiberias a Byzantine church was exposed that is paved with polychrome mosaics decorated with geometric patterns and dedicatory inscriptions. Appearing in one of the inscriptions is the text: "Our Lord, protect the soul of [...]
Posted in animals, birds, insects, etc, books & lit on Aug 9th, 2007
From the Beeb: Venezuela’s four-legged mobile libraries.
Chiquito and Cenizo greet me with a bit of a snort and a flick of the tail.
Mules are too tough to bother being sweet. They do a hard job which no other animal or human invention can do as well.
But these mules are rather special.
They are known as bibliomulas [...]
Posted in history & archaeology on Aug 9th, 2007
From the BBC: Giant statue of Hadrian unearthed.
Parts of a huge, exquisitely carved statue of the Roman Emperor Hadrian have been found at an archaeological site in south-central Turkey.
The original statue would have stood 4m-5m in height, experts estimate.
His achievements include the massive wall built across the width of northern Britain which bears his name.
Ruling [...]