neato – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Metal of Heaven: Ancient Egyptians Got Iron from Meteorites

The Gerzeh Bead, an ancient Egyptian iron bead derived from a meteor (c. 3300 BC) Photo: The Open University / The University of Manchester The name for iron in ancient Egyptian is ” metal of heaven ,” and they’re not kidding! Researchers from The Open University and the University of Manchester have proven that ancient Egyptians used meteorites to make iron beads accessories for their dead. Dr Joyce Tyldesley is a Senior Lecturer in Egyptology at The University of Manchester and worked on the research. She said: “Today, we see iron first and foremost as a practical, rather dull metal. To the ancient Egyptians, however, it was a rare and beautiful material which, as it fell from the sky, surely had some magical/religious properties. They therefore used this remarkable metal to create small objects of beauty and religious significance which were so important to them that they chose to include them in their graves.” Link – via Nature

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Metal of Heaven: Ancient Egyptians Got Iron from Meteorites

See Inside a Butterfly Chrysalis

Just like everyone else, you learned about how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly (or moth) inside a chrysalis (or cocoon) and you desperately tried to envision what happens inside and what it looks like. Scientists who’ve opened a lot of chrysalises will tell you the caterpillar turns to goop and then a butterfly, but that’s not completely accurate, and the process of opening one destroys the structure anyway. But now, two teams of scientists have started to captured intimate series of images showing the same caterpillars metamorphosing inside their pupae. Both teams used a technique called micro-CT, in which X-rays capture cross-sections of an object that can be combined into a three-dimensional virtual model. By dissecting these models rather than the actual insects, the teams could see the structures of specific organs, like the guts or breathing tubes. They could also watch the organs change over time by repeatedly scanning the same chrysalis over many days. And since insects tolerate high doses of radiation, this procedure doesn’t seem to harm them, much less kill them. Ed Yong explains more about this technology, and you’ll more pictures of an insect going through the metamorphosis at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Link (Image credit: Lowe et al. 2013. Interface)

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See Inside a Butterfly Chrysalis

People of Timbuktu save Manuscripts from Invaders

The Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research in Timbuktu, Mali, holds a collection of 30,000 of the world’s most precious ancient manuscripts. Or it did until recently. On January 23rd, al-Qaida-linked extremists, who invaded Timbuktu almost a year ago, ransacked the library and set it on fire. The fire raged for eight days straight. What the extremists did not know was that only about 2,000 of the hand-written documents had been moved to the new library building. However, they didn’t bother searching the old building, where an elderly man named Abba Alhadi has spent 40 of his 72 years on earth taking care of rare manuscripts. The illiterate old man, who walks with a cane and looks like a character from the Bible, was the perfect foil for the Islamists. They wrongly assumed that the city’s European-educated elite would be the ones trying to save the manuscripts, he said. So last August, Alhadi began stuffing the thousands of books into empty rice and millet sacks. At night, he loaded the millet sacks onto the type of trolley used to cart boxes of vegetables to the market. He pushed them across town and piled them into a lorry and onto the backs of motorcycles, which drove them to the banks of the Niger River. From there, they floated down to the central Malian town of Mopti in a pinasse, a narrow, canoe-like boat. Then cars drove them from Mopti, the first government-controlled town, to Mali’s capital, Bamako, over 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from here. “I have spent my life protecting these manuscripts. This has been my life’s work. And I had to come to terms with the fact that I could no longer protect them here,” said Alhadi. “It hurt me deeply to see them go, but I took strength knowing that they were being sent to a safe place.” It took two weeks in all to spirit out the bulk of the collection, around 28,000 texts housed in the old building covering the subjects of theology, astronomy, geography and more. The 2,000 documents that were in the new library were digitized, so the information survives even if the parchment does not. Link -via Metafilter (Image credit: AP/Harouna Traore)

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People of Timbuktu save Manuscripts from Invaders

Beautiful, Fragile Nudibranchs Can Kill You

If you’re hungry while on the ocean floor, don’t chow down on these fellows, no matter how tasty they look. The Chromodoris annae, like many nudibranchs, is soft, colorful and poisonous. Wildlife photographer David Doubilet took photos of many different species. You can view more pictures at the link. Link -via It’s Okay to Be Smart | Photo: David Doubilet

What Does a “New Year” Really Mean?

Today is New Year’s Day, which simply means the earth has completed another journey around the sun. But how in the world do we know how long that takes? To answer the question, Phil Plat has “taken a simple concept like ‘years’ and turned it into a horrifying nightmare of nerdery and math.” Let’s take a look at the Earth from a distance. From our imaginary point in space, we look down and see the Earth and the Sun. The Earth is moving, orbiting the Sun. Of course it is, you think to yourself. But how do you measure that? For something to be moving, it has to be moving relative to something else. What can we use as a yardstick against which to measure the Earth’s motion? Well, we might notice as we float in space that we are surrounded by billions of pretty stars. We can use them! So we mark the position of the Earth and Sun using the stars as benchmarks, and then watch and wait. Some time later, the Earth has moved in a big circle and is back to where it started in reference to those stars. That’s called a “sidereal year” (sidus is the Latin word for star). How long did that take? Let’s say we used a stopwatch to measure the elapsed time. We’ll see that it took the Earth 31,558,149 seconds (some people like to approximate that as pi x 10 million = 31,415,926 seconds, which is an easy way to be pretty dang close). But how many days is that? Well, that’s a second complication. A “day” is how long it takes the Earth to rotate once, but we’re back to that measurement problem again. But hey, we used the stars once, let’s do it again! You stand on the Earth and define a day as the time it takes for a star to go from directly overhead to directly overhead again: a sidereal day. That takes 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds = 86,164 seconds. But wait a second (a sidereal second?)—shouldn’t that be exactly equal to 24 hours? What happened to those 3 minutes and 56 seconds? I was afraid you’d ask that—but this turns out to be important. And that’s only the beginning of the explanation of where we get the concepts and the measurements for a “day” and a “year.” Read the rest at Bad Astronomy. Link ( Image credit: ESA ©2009 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA )

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What Does a “New Year” Really Mean?

The Eggheaded, Noggin-Filling Story of Eggnog

There’s something deeply polarizing about eggnog. People either love it or hate it and of those that love it, even they are usually at opposing sides when it comes to homemade nog versus the commercial variety. Whether you love it have drank gallons of it this year or hate it and gag at the very thought of it, here is a little trivia about the milky treat. Image Via texascooking [Flickr] What the Heck is A Nog Anyway? The true origin of the drink is hotly debated, as is the reason for its name. Some, including Alton Brown explain that “nog” was a 17 th century slang for a strong beer brewed in East Anglia, England. Others say that the name was a combination of the words “egg” and “grog,” a term for a drink made with rum. When the words are put together to form “eggngrog,” it’s easy to see where “eggnog” would come from. As for the origin of the drink, it is believed to have come from posset, a medieval drink made with warm milk, booze and spices. One thing’s for sure though, before the drink came to America, it was popular with British aristocrats –but they called it an Egg Flip. Its Patriotic Roots in the New World In England, only the rich could afford the fresh eggs and milk required to make “egg flips,” but when the drink crossed the Atlantic, it soared in popularity as practically every American had access to these fresh ingredients and some kind of hard alcohol. Perhaps the biggest difference between the American eggnog and the British predecessor though is that brandy and sherry were the most common alcohols used in England, but these two items were heavily taxed in America so the locals instead turned to rum –which was particularly cheap thanks to a close trade association with the Caribbean. When the Revolutionary War made it more difficult for the colonists to find rum, they instead turned to using bourbon in its place –which is the most common alcohol used in eggnogs today. George Washington was a huge proponent of the creamy mixture and helped cement it into the nation’s history. In fact, he kept eggnog on hand all year long. Of course, his was not just any eggnog. White House records show that his recipe included rum, rye, whiskey, sherry and brandy. Need more proof of how important eggnog was in our fledgling nation? Look no further than the Eggnog Riot of 1926. It all started when some students at the West Point Military Academy, where alcohol was prohibited, smuggled some whiskey into their barracks to make eggnog for their Christmas party. As officials started to crack down on some of the drunk cadets, other drunken revelers started smashing and burning property at the school. By the time the riot was over, twenty cadets and one enlisted soldier were court-martialed. Amongst the many rioters, though he wasn’t court-martialed, was the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Image Via indigo_jones [Flickr] About the Drink Itself Eggnog is essentially a milk and egg custard and the base is almost identical to ice cream –except that the traditional alcoholic varieties have too much alcohol to freeze. Those that cook their eggnog before serving it actually make a real custard. While the CDC says that you should always cook your eggnog prior to consumption in order to kill off any possible salmonella contamination, Alton Brown claims that if your mix contains at least 20% alcohol, is kept below 40 degrees and sits for at least a month, the alcohol will kill off any bacteria. The alcohol also managed to keep the milk from going sour and if you don’t cook the eggnog, it takes at least a month for the flavor to really develop. Alton Brown has a great booze-heavy recipe on Mental Floss if you want to make some of your own at home. Want the traditional eggnog flavor without alcohol and the risk of salmonella poisoning? Then try using the new pasteurized eggs available at most grocery stores. They’re pasteurized at a steady, low temperature to kill of bacteria without cooking the eggs themselves. Old School or New School As for the commercial varieties, there is a reason why real eggnog fans will always badmouth the store stuff. Under U.S. law, commercial eggnogs only need to contain at least 1% of a drink’s final weight to be made from egg yolk solids. If you buy the cheaper alternative “eggnog flavored milk,” it only has to have .5% egg yolk solids. Other than that, commercial eggnog can also contain milk, sugar, modified milk ingredients, glucose-fructose, water, carrageenan, guar gum, natural and artificial flavorings, spices, monoglycerides and colorings. Image Via chotda [Flickr] Need an Alternative? You lactose intolerant eggnog fans are in good company and people have been working for a long time to develop something you can drink without worry. In fact, nondairy eggnogs have been around at least since 1899, when Almeda Lambert printed a recipe for eggnog in her Guide for Nut Cookery that featured a drink made from coconut cream, eggs and sugar. I hope all you eggnog fans enjoyed this article, but before you celebrate too much, you’d better head to the store and grab a few more cartons –or get to mixing up some of your own, before it heads away for the season. Sources: Wikipedia #1 and #2 and Mental Floss #1 , and #2

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The Eggheaded, Noggin-Filling Story of Eggnog

Rare Guinea Pig Hybrid Breeds

Behold the mighty guinea lion, a savage beast that kills with the power of cuteness. Adventurous animal lovers will discover many more examples of guinea pig-animal hybridization at the link below, but don’t let their adorability fool you- these cuties are packing a mean set of chompers! Link

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Rare Guinea Pig Hybrid Breeds

Caterpillar Automaton, c. 1820

( Video Link ) Henri Maillardet (b. 1745) was a master maker of automata. This caterpillar, which is less than three inches long and is covered with diamonds, pearls, emeralds and enamel, remains fully functional. Watch it inch across the surface of the glass just like a real caterpillar. It’s an amazing piece of miniature mechanical craftsmanship. Link -via Richard Kadrey

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Caterpillar Automaton, c. 1820

Scholars: English Is a Scandinavian Language

Two linguists argue that modern English isn’t really a West Germanic language, most similar to modern German, Dutch and Frisian, but a North Germanic language, such as Norwegian, Swedish and Danish: Their research and conclusions are brand new and break with those of earlier linguistic professors who believe English is rooted in “Old English,” also known as the Anglo-Saxon language believed brought to the British Isles by settlers from northwestern and central Europe. Faarlund claims Scandinavians settled in the area long before French-speaking Normans conquered the British Isles in 1066. Faarlund and Edmonds also contend that Old English and modern English are two very different languages. “We think Old English simply died out,” Faarlund told Apollon . “Instead, the Nordic language survived, strongly influenced by Old English.” Scandinavian settlers, Faarlund notes, gained control towards the end of the 9th century of an area known as Danelagen, which forms parts of Scotland and England today. Faarlund stressed that “an extremely important geographic point in our research” is that the East Midlands in England, where he says the modern English language developed, was part of the relatively densely populated southern portion of Danelagen. Edmonds and Faarlund also contend that sentence structure in what developed into modern English is Scandinavian, not western Germanic as previously believed. Both today’s Scandinavian languages place the object after the verb, for example, unlike German and Dutch which place the verb at the end of a sentence. Possessive forms can also be the same in both the Scandinavian languages and English, which also can end sentences with a preposition and split infinitives. While that’s sometimes frowned upon in other variations of modern English such as American English, Faarlund argues it’s not possible in German, Dutch or Old English. Link -via TYWKIWDBI | Image: Dik Browne

Energy from a Single Orange

Every time you bite into an orange, you are tasting the results of the sunshine that went into the plant. The same sensation comes with other fresh ripe fruits and vegetables. In the orange battery, citric acid reacts with the zinc in nails inserted in an orange to release light energy. But the glow you see is not all that bright -photographer Caleb Charland, who made the battery, said the photograph required 14 hours of exposure! Still, this beautiful picture was worth it. Link -via Colossal

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Energy from a Single Orange