Most people know little about today's Samaritans. Many believe that the name refers to an ancient Biblical race of which no vestige survives. They are often surprised to learn that the Samaritans, who accept only the Pentateuch as Holy Writ, are a vital, intelligent group with a rich history and a distinctive language and literature, practicing their own form of worship and following age-old traditions and customs.

...Since all human beings have virtually identical DNA, geneticists have to look for slight chemical variations that distinguish one population from another. One technique involves the use of "microsatellites" - short repetitive fragments of DNA whose patterns of variation differ among populations. Because microsatellites are passed from generation to generation and have a high mutation rate, they are a useful tool for estimating when two populations diverged.

Counting in groups of ten, a practice evidently suggested by the number of fingers on two hands has been practiced by many cultures for millennia . But the act of writing them down using a system of place notation system which can expand without limit is only comparatively recent innovation.

Here then is the story of 1 to 9 and of 0 and 10.

In the last few centuries before the Christian era, by our reckoning, India emerged from a dark age that had endured since the fall of the Indus valley civilization fifteen hundred years earlier. It was at this time that the written word started to reappear, especially in the form of edicts and inscriptions left by Ashok , the great emperor of the Mauryan Empire. These words were written in a script known as Brahmi and in amongst its letters we find symbols to express numeric quantities which look like this:


Even in this embryonic form it is possible to see the outlines of their future shapes, but it is important to realise that they did not as yet comprise a fully developed place-notation system, something which requires the symbol zero. Instead Brahmi used special symbols to represent 10, 20, 30, 100, 1000 and so on. The inclusion of zero or "nothing" as a numeral occurred some time around 600 AD and it transformed the Indian counting system into one that allowed numbers to expand without end. It could achieve this remarkable feat economically and without cumbersome notation or need to invent more and more symbols, a feature that all previous systems lacked. In computer parlance, the new positional system was really scalable .

As a slight diversion it is worth looking at how the Greeks represented numbers at the time. Many of us are familiar with Roman numerals but what system did the Greeks use? All of the famous classical mathematicians were Greeks, right?

The Sand Reckoner

Greek mathematical notation was not positional; it utilized many symbols and was cumbersome to work with.



The "M" is a myriad , and represents 10,000. The Greek work is murious (uncountable, pl. murioi ). The Romans converted to this to myriad .

It has been argued that the reason why this innovation occurred in India rather than the West was largely because of a peculiarly Indian fascination with astronomically huge numbers .

The traditional Indian cosmology states that the universe undergoes cyclic periods of birth, development and decay, lasting 4.32×109 years, each of these periods is called a Kalpa or ``day of Brahma''. During each Kalpa the universe develops by natural means and processes, and by natural means and processes it decays; the destruction of the universe is as certain as the death of a mouse (and equally important). Each Kalpa is divided into 1000 ``great ages'', and each great age into 4 ages; during each age humankind deteriorates gradually (the present age will terminate in 426,902 years). These is no final purpose towards which the universe moves, there is no progress, only endless repetition. We do not know how the universe began, perhaps Brahma laid it as an egg and hatched it; perhaps it is but an error or a joke of the Maker.

This description of the universe is remarkable for the enormous numbers it uses. The currently accepted age of the universe is about 1018 seconds and this corresponds to about 7 Kalpas+335 great ages. A unique feature of Indian cosmology is that no other ancient cosmology manipulates such time periods.

In the Surya Siddanta it is stated that the stars revolved around the cosmic mountain Meru at whose summit dwell the gods. The Earth is a sphere divided into four continents. the planets move by the action of a cosmic wind and, in fact, the Vedic conception of nature attributes all motion to such a wind. It was noted that the planets do not move in perfect circles and this was attributed to ``weather forms'' whose hands were tied to the planets by ``cords of wind''

The Brahmi script went through a continuous evolution, spawning numerous variants, the most important of which was the Devanagari (or sometimes simply Nagari) script. With Devanagari numerals, the 1 was rotated by 90 degrees and had developed a serif-like loop at the top. The 2 and 3 took on their familiar shapes due to shortcuts taken by scribes, who chose to link the parallel bars rather than lifting their pens.

While the Devanagari numerals already look quite familiar to Western eyes, in the process of adoption by the Arabs led to a stylistic split between East and West. The Western Arabs of Morocco and Andalusia continued to use numerals that quite closely resembled their Devanagari forebears, even as late as the 14th century:



But only 120 years later they looked like this.


Tibetan


Burmese


Cham



Khmer


Thai

Javanese

istoric Pandemics	Cases	Deaths
Justinian Plague, 6th Century China Plague (Bubonic)	*142 million	~100 million
"Third Pandemic" 1896-1930	30 million	12 million
Spanish Flu Pandemic 1918-1919	1 billion	21 million

Sources: WHO, CDC
*Based on estimated historic mortality rate of 70%

Pandemics Today	 	 
 	Per Year	Per Year
Malaria	300-500 million	1 million
Tuberculosis	8 million	2 million
AIDS	6 million	3 million

Source: The New York Times

Recent Outbreaks	 	 
Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever in the Republic of Congo, from 2000 to May 6, 2003	143	128
Meningococcal Disease in Burkina Faso, from Jan. to April 20, 2003	7146	1058
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Worldwide, as of May 20	7919	662

Source: WHO




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For more than two millennia, the weathered, unimposing tumulus of Qin Shihuangdi, China's first emperor, has loomed among the cornfields and fruit trees east of Xian. While the discovery 29 years ago of the marvelous terra cotta warriors that guard the burial site came as a complete surprise, the existence of the mound was common knowledge. Yet, to this day, the tomb of Qin (pronounced "Chin") Shihuangdi — who united warring states and took the name "China's First Emperor" — remains untouched by the spades of archaeologists. A conundrum wrapped in legend and rumor, the resting place of the emperor holds the promise of a treasure trove that staggers the minds of those who have studied, contemplated and dreamt of unearthing it.

The aftermath of the destruction of the Babri mosque at Ayodhya by a mob of Hindu extremists has been something of a running sore in Indian politics for more than a decade. Ayodhya was, according to legend, the place where Lord Ram was born although a mystery remains as to the exact location of his birthplace. Given Ram's enormous importance within Hinduism, it has been long assumed by many Hindus that a temple to Ram must have once marked this spot. Furthermore, the fact that one does not exist today must have been because Muslims had built a mosque over the demolished remains of this temple in the 16th century. With uncontestable logic like this but with not much in the way of actual historical evidence to go on, Ayodhya it seems was a disaster just waiting to happen. The careers of many Indian politicians, especially those in the ruling party, were built on the wave of hysteria that accompanied the demolition. Recently the High Court of India ordered archaeologists to come up with some real evidence that there was indeed a temple at the site. The preliminary findings, however, have not been very encouraging.

Queen Nefertiti of Egypt's 18th dynasty never ceases to fascinate. Second only in fame to Cleopatra and through her most famous image, the bust made by Thutmose, even more admired for her beauty. It's remarkable to think that despite this, Nefertiti's name was hardly known in antiquity. To those who did remember her, as wife and joint ruler with the pharaoh Ahkenaten (1367-1350 BC) she became a reviled figure and after her death her images were systematically destroyed and cartouches bearing her name defaced. In a campaign of righteous fury and theological correctness, her memory deliberately erased.

Unlike our close genetic relatives - chimps - all humans have virtually identical DNA. In fact, one group of chimps can have more genetic diversity than all of the six billion humans alive today.

It is thought we spilt from a common ancestor with chimps 5-6 million years ago, more than enough time for substantial genetic differences to develop. The absence of those differences suggests to some researchers that the human gene pool was reduced to a small size in the recent past, thereby wiping out genetic variation between current populations...

An international team of fossil hunters is reporting today the discovery of the world's earliest known "near-modern" humans -- a thickly muscled subspecies of Homo sapiens who used stone tools to butcher hippopotamus and buffalo by the shores of an ancient African lake.

UC Berkeley's Tim D. White and colleagues found the well-preserved, 160,000- year-old fossilized skulls of two adults and a child, along with skull fragments and teeth of seven other individuals, in 1997 while combing a fossil- rich area of Ethiopia about 140 miles northeast of the capital, Addis Ababa.

Here's another article about the 160,000 year old skeletons recently unearthed in Ethiopia.

The discovery was largely an accident, one that never would have happened if not for El Nino. Back in 1997, the Pacific Ocean disturbance that affects much of the world's weather triggered punishing rains in Ethiopia. The deluges not only exposed buried fossils but also drove away the people of Herto and their livestock, which would have trampled the fragile bones. When White and the others happened to drive by the village, they noticed a fossil hippo skull poking out of the ancient sand. On closer examination, the skull bore marks indicating that the animal had been gashed with a stone tool. Clearly, human ancestors had once lived there.

The ability to offend vast numbers of your friends and acquaintances has been greatly enhanced with the invention of email. I suppose the potential always existed with other forms of written correspondence but there's something about the immediacy of email which makes it seem more like a verbal form of communication rather than a textual one. That is, a verbal medium but one that is devoid of voice tone, facial expression or body gestures. When used carelessly it can far too easily lead to misunderstanding.

Mithra, known as Mithras to the Romans, was originally a Persian god of the sun. At the beginning of time Mithras had sacrificed the mythical great bull from the body of which flowed the blood which gave life to earth.With the Romans Mithras became the god of kings, justice and contracts. He was a deity particularly favoured by soldiers, who were bound in loyalty to their rulers and is often described as the soldier god.
"If Christianity had been checked in its growth by some
deadly disease, the world would have become Mithraic."


Joseph Renan, French religious historian and critic
Marc-Aurèle et la fin du monde antique

The Israel Antiquities Authority declares that the James Ossuary and the Jehoash Inscription are both forgeries.

James Ossuary Epigraphical experts divided on authenticity of inscription Ossuary is made of local limestone Ossuary surface covered with a natural rock varnish overlaid by patina in places Inscription carved through the varnish "Patina" coating only the inscription was made from a solution of hot water and chalk Conclusion: At some time long after the natural processes of varnish and patination in a damp cave environment had been completed, someone carved a series of letters through the natural varnish on the ossuary. Then he or she covered the freshly cut letters with an imitation patina made from water and ground chalk.

Jehoash Inscription Numerous mistakes in grammar and eccentric letter forms Made of a metamorphic stone found in western Cyprus and points west, not local sandstone Patina covering inscription made from a solution of hot water, clay, chalk, carbonized particles, and micron-sized globules of metal--possibly gold Conclusion: An obvious forgery

Nothing too surprising here but there are lots of things of interest in this article both about the artfulness of 21st century forgers and the techniques used by experts in order to expose them.

Scientists in Sweden have developed a novel technique for making micromachines and demonstrated its potential by making a micro pinball table in which silicon cantilevers acted as the 'flippers', magnetic beads 150 microns in diameter were the balls, and the table measured 25 millimetres square.The table was tilted at an angle of 20 degrees to the horizon.

Pinhole sundials are just the sort of wonderful devices that one might find in a cathedral built during the Renaissance.

The sundial works by focussing the sun's rays into a bright spot on the church's floor. The movement of this spot marks the course of the day.

The interesting aspect here is that the shape of the spot is not simply due to the shape of the hole that it passes through. The hole is so small that it actually acts like a lens and what is displayed is really an inverted image of the sun itself. It works just like a giant pinhole camera.

This becomes more apparent when the spot is observed during a solar eclipse...

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