Concise Napoleon Timeline

PBS has a nice concise Napoleon timeline here and a section covering his Campaigns and battles here. There is a lot more Napoleon info if you just go through the links once you get to the site. Here is the site map.

Missing body parts of famous people

From cnn.com:
Remember that goofy uncle of yours who always tried to impress you by “stealing your nose” or pulling the ol’ separating-his-thumb-from-his-hand move? Well, those parlor tricks are nothing compared to the appendage stunts pulled by these 10 (6) famous people.

- John Wilkes Booth’s neck bones

- Einstein’s brain

- “Stonewall” Jackson’s arm

- Saint Francis Xavier’s hand

- Napoleon’s bits and pieces

- Oliver Cromwell’s head

Read the article here.

Human exoskeleton suit helps paralyzed people walk

From the reuters.com article:

Paralyzed for the past 20 years, former Israeli paratrooper Radi Kaiof now walks down the street with a dim mechanical hum.

That is the sound of an electronic exoskeleton moving the 41-year-old’s legs and propelling him forward — with a proud expression on his face — as passersby stare in surprise.

“I never dreamed I would walk again. After I was wounded, I forgot what it’s like,” said Kaiof, who was injured while serving in the Israeli military in 1988.

“Only when standing up can I feel how tall I really am and speak to people eye to eye, not from below.”

The device, called ReWalk, is the brainchild of engineer Amit Goffer, founder of Argo Medical Technologies, a small Israeli high-tech company.

Something of a mix between the exoskeleton of a crustacean and the suit worn by comic hero Iron Man, ReWalk helps paraplegics — people paralyzed below the waist — to stand, walk and climb stairs.

Read the article here.

Army Moves Ahead With Mobile Laser Cannon

From the wired.com article:
The Army is moving ahead with plans to mount a laser cannon on a massive, 35-ton-plus truck.

The service just handed Boeing a $36 million contract to “continue developing a truck-mounted, high-energy laser weapon system that will destroy rockets, artillery shells and mortar rounds,” according to a company statement.

Read the article here.

Olympic-sized Roman villa discovered in Britain

Mosaic inside the Brading Roman Villa

From the telegraph.co.uk article:
A Roman villa 1,800 years old and as big as an Olympic swimming pool has been discovered in Britain.

The discovery is one of the largest and best-preserved Roman villas yet discovered in the country.

Shaped like a church, the building was discovered on the Isle of Wight, and has been likened to a medieval hall.

Its remains were discovered at the site of another Roman villa in Brading, and are believed to have been constructed 150 years before the other building.

The later Brading villa’s remains had disappeared from sight until 1879 when a couple of local men stumbled across them by chance.

Its ornate decorations are unrivalled in Britain and the building may have belonged to Allectus, who in AD293 murdered his predecessor Carausius, a Roman army commander who had proclaimed himself Emperor of Britain.
…

A team of 30 archaeologists from America and Europe are now involved in the excavation.

The new site will now have to be covered up however, with Sir Barry warning they would disintegrate in two winters.

Read the article here.

First Greek Mummy Once Led Privileged Life

From the discovery.com article:
The first evidence of artificial mummification in ancient Greece lies in a lead coffin at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, according to a Swiss-Greek research team.

Dating to 300 A.D., when the Romans ruled Greece, the partially mummified remains belong to a middle-aged woman. Her Roman-type marble sarcophagus was unearthed in 1962 during archaeological excavations in the eastern cemetery of Thessaloniki, which was used from the Hellenistic to the Byzantine Periods for burials and other rituals.

Wrapped in bandages and covered with a gold-embroidered purple silk cloth, the woman lay on a wooden pallet.

“Besides the clothes, remnants of soft tissue as well as the individual’s original hairstyle and eyebrows were exceptionally well preserved,” Christina Papageorgopoulou of the University of Zurich and colleagues wrote in a paper to be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science shortly.

Using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray analysis, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, the researchers discovered the probable means of mummification.

“The embalming technology was quite sophisticated,” said study co-leader Frank Rohli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project. “We found different chemical components, mostly originating from oils. There were also spices. It looks like the embalming technique was partially taken over from the Egyptians.”

Read tghe article here.

Quantum atoms – Dance to chaos

From the cosmosmagazine.com article:
Chaotic behaviour has been observed for the first time in a quantum system of ‘frozen’ atoms. The controversial finding is an important step in applying classical physical laws to weird quantum systems and could have spin-off benefits in technologies such as electronics and optical fibres.

The research, led by Brian Saam from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, U.S., is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

His team examined the properties of atoms in four tubes of xenon exposed to first to a magnetic field, then to a laser beam and radio-wave pulses. This had the result of locking the samples into a crystal lattice that constrained the ’spin’ of the atoms.

Nuclear spin is a measurement of the direction of spin of the atomic nucleus and its electrons. Spin state may be either ‘up’ or ‘down’.
…
“Chaos (classical physics) and quantum mechanics lie at extreme ends of the spectrum of physical theories. Quantum mechanics deals with probabilities and statistics, while chaos is a product of classical, deterministic mathematics,” he said. “Quantum chaos straddles the boundary between these two difficult fields, and hence by its nature is controversial.”

Read the article here.

Scientists map Neanderthal maternal DNA

neanderthal

From abc.net.au:
DNA extracted from a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal bone has enabled scientists to sequence the complete mitochondrial genome for the human-like species, say scientists.

The remarkable feat, which appears in the journal Cell, has led to at least three major discoveries about the extinct stocky European individuals, representing a breakthrough for studies on the evolution of the human family.

“This is the first complete mitochondrial genome sequence from an extinct hominid,”says lead author Dr Richard Green.

Mitochondria (mtDNA), which an individual inherits from his or her mother, are cellular powerhouses that possess their own DNA and include 13 protein-coding genes.

The researchers sequenced the Neanderthal mitochondria 35 times to ensure their findings were as accurate as possible.

REad the article here.

Q and A: SpaceX’s Elon Musk Vows to Make Orbit

The third time was definitely not a charm for SpaceX.

The spaceflight company run by PayPal founder Elon Musk suffered its third high-profile mishap Saturday when an undisclosed problem caused a rocket launch to fail. The light-lift Falcon 1 was lost after its two stages failed to separate during the launch from the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean.

Also lost were a Department of Defense satellite, two NASA satellites and the ashes of 208 people, including astronaut Gordon Cooper and James Doohan, the actor who played Scotty in the original Star Trek television show, according to The New York Times.

Wired.com spoke with Musk about SpaceX’s string of setbacks, the power of patience and the future of privately funded spaceflight.

Read the article here.

Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione Website

Go to this site, find the 8C Competizione among the other cars, click it and then spin the car around to see it from all angles. Lots of cool stuff to look at. Nice website, even better looking car.

Go to the site here.