Posted on Wednesday 26 November 2003
Some highlights from the archive for November 2002
The
Perils of Reading Chinese, Japanese and Korean Characters in English
In an interesting essay,
George Leonard discusses the problems of transliterating Asian
languages into the English. In the process he discusses the more
noteworthy features of each of these languages and their various
writing systems.
Maps
of the Roman Empire from 1 AD until the fall of Byzantium
The title says it all.
Memento
Mori
The British sociologist Geoffrey Gorer makes some interesting
observations on the difference between cultural attitudes toward death
in the Victorian era and our own. In his 1955 article, "The Pornography
of Death," Gorer points out that death is treated in twentieth century
society much like sex was treated in the nineteenth century. The
subject is avoided, especially with children, or spoken of in
euphemisms if it cannot be avoided. Death now, like sex then, is
hidden, an event which takes place behind closed doors.
Ancient
proteins
A lot of recent progress in paleontology has been based on analysis of
DNA taken from ancient bones but
DNA has one problem, it is an extremely complex and fragile molecule
and it deteriorates rapidly over time. Estimates of the maximum useful
for age for DNA range from 50,000 to 100,000 years. However, a new
approach which focuses on sequencing proteins instead of DNA promises
to open a window in to species development over millions of years.
Colour
photography in Pre-Revolutionary Russia
Sergei
Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii was a chemist turned photographer
ahead of his time who undertook an ambitious photographic survey of the
Russian Empire for Tsar Nicholas II. Between 1909 and 1915,
he completed tours of eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped
train carriage which had been provided by the Ministry of
Transportation. But what made this project remarkable was his use of an
innovative technique for taking photographs in full colour.
Migration
Routes
A
visibility map showing the possible migration routes taken by Ice Age
humans to the Australian continent some 40,000 years ago.
Ice
Age
A
map of the world during the peak of the last ice age about 18,000 years
ago when sea level was 110 meters below its present level.
Sharpest
ever view of the Sun
The
first images from the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope on the Canary Island
of La Palma are presented in Nature on November 14. The images are the
most detailed ever obtained of the Sun - among the new solar features
uncovered are hitherto unknown phenomenae in sunspots.
Network
motifs
An international team of scientists said Thursday they have used a
mathematical algorithm to detect recurring patterns in the networks
making up everything from food webs to the Internet to gene regulation
in cells.
