[Unmuseum_newsletter] The UnMuseum Newsletter for July 2008

[A Monthly Update on the World of Science]

The UnMuseum Newsletter for July 2008
Science Over the Edge
 A Roundup of Strange Science for the Month
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------In the News: 
*Missing Pyramid is Found - Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of Menkauhor, according to Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities chief. The German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius noted he'd found the pyramid in 1842 at Saqqara, calling it the 'Headless Pyramid' because its top was missing, said Hawass. Since then, however, blowing desert winds have covered the base with twenty-five feet of sand. Although archaeologists have not found a Menkauhor's cartouche at the site, Hawass is sure from the dates involved it is his pyramid. Menkauhor was an obscure pharaoh who ruled Egypt for eight years about 4,000 years ago. 
*Stonehenge: Land of the Dead - A team of scientists think that one of the main functions of Stonehenge, the strange ring of giant rocks in southern England, was to act as a cemetery. "It's now clear that burials were a major component of Stonehenge in all its main stages," said Mike Parker Pearson, archaeology professor at the University of Sheffield in England and head of the Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project. According to Pearson the burials started as early as 3,000 BC and continued through the site's zenith. The archaeologists think that Stonehenge is directly related to a settlement they have found at nearby Durrington Walls. While Stonehenge features rock columns, the settlement had wooden columns oriented in the exact opposite direction. "The village appeared to be a land of the living and Stonehenge a land of the ancestors," remarked Pearson. 
*As Far as the Brain is Concern It's Not Just More, but Better - Scientists in Britain have discovered it just isn't the sheer number of nerve cells in the human brain that makes it so smart, it is also the composition of those cells. Researchers looking at the density and molecular makeup of synapses found major differences between different species. The team found more than 600 types of synaptic proteins found in mammals, but were surprised to find that only half that in invertebrate synapses, and a quarter of that in single-cell animals. This means that the genetic transition from single-celled to multi-celled organisms, and then again from invertebrates to vertebrates, both involved huge increases in the architectural complexity and signaling capacity of synapses, says the study, published in Nature Neuroscience. "The view that 'more nerves' is sufficient to explain 'more brain power' is simply not supported by our study," said lead researcher Seth Grant, who heads the Genes to Cognition Program at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Britain. 
*The Smell of Coffee in the Morning - Japanese scientists have found that smelling coffee in the morning may be just as important as drinking it to get your day started. According to a study published in New Scientist, experiments have shown that the aroma of coffee helps restore brain activity to normal levels in sleep deprived rats. Researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, took 30 rats and kept them awake for 24 hours then exposed half of them to the smell of roasted coffee. Researchers then checked brain activity and those rats brains which had smelled the coffee were found to have returned to their normal non sleep deprived state. "These results indirectly explain why so many people use coffee for staying up all night," concluded the study. 
*Probe Finds Martian Ice - NASA's Phoenix probe, which touched down on Mars earlier this year, has found the first hard evidence of ice on the planet. The spacecraft's robotic digging arm scooped out three small trenches 2 inches deep in the soil, uncovering a whitish material. While some researchers thought this was ice, others argued it could also be salt. However, pictures of the trenches taken on successive days shows that the white stuff quickly disappears, something salt would not do. Scientists say it appears that the ice was evaporating in the cold, dry Martian atmosphere. Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, the mission's chief scientist, said "It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I can announce today we have found the proof that this hard, bright material really is water ice and not some other material." The discovery of ice greatly increases the possibility that some form of microbial life exists, or may have existed, on Mars at one time. 
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Science Quote of the Month - "There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. " - Mark Twain
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------What's New at the Museum: 
*The Most Valuable Coin in the World: The 1933 Double Eagle - It was stolen from the U.S. government, collected by an eccentric king, seized by the Secret Service and practically worshiped by numismatists. Though it is not much more than an inch in diameter and weights just a bit more than an ounce, the 1933 Double Eagle is the world's most valuable coin. (http://www.unmuseum.org/doubleeagle.htm)
*Are We All Just Living in a Video Game?- The idea that the world around isn't real, but is actually a game-like simulation has been around for a while. Certainly anybody that has played any simulation type game, from Halo 2 to The Sims has probably, briefly entertained such thoughts. It took a real genius, like Nick Bostrom, to suggest that such a thing just wasn't a possibility, but maybe a probability. > (http://www.unmuseum.org/notescurator/videogame.htm) 
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ask the Curator:
*BC, AD, BCE, and CE- Why are the years called by BC and AD and how exactly did the year change to BC to AD'? Did ancient people follow this? - Gajendra K.
The B.C./A.D. numbering system is based on the presumed year of the birth of Jesus Christ. Years before his birth are given the abbreviation B.C. ("Before Christ") designation and are numbered backwards so the further back in time you go in time the higher the number. For example, the Great Pyramid is thought to have been built 2560 years before Christ was born which would be expressed as 2560 B.C..
The A.D. stands for "Anno Domini" which is Latin for "In the year of our Lord." All recent dates are expressed in the number of years after Jesus's birth. This year is A.D. 2008 which translates to "The year of our Lord 2008" or 2008 years after Christ was born. Technically the A.D. abbreviation should go before the number, but more recently it has become common to put it either at the beginning or the end, for example "2008 A.D.".
Some people prefer to use the designation C.E. (for "Common Era") instead of A.D. so there is no religious connection (though C.E. can also thought of as "Christian Era."). The same thing can be done changing B.C. - Before Christ - to B.C.E which means "Before Common Era." 
This dating system wasn't invented until A.D. 525, and was not commonly used until the 8th century. Before then dates were typically numbered years based on the start of the reign of the current king. For example, Babylon was established as the center of the Babylonian Empire during the 30th year of King Hammurabi's reign. In some cases dates were not established by the beginning of the reign of the current king, but the beginning of the dynasty of kings to which he belonged. 
A few early calendars (like the Hebrew Calendar) tried to base their dates of the number of years since the world was created, but given that different religious scholars disagreed about when this occurred, the number system was never universal. 
While previous number systems were adequate in ancient times when there were few contacts between different peoples and little shared history, as interactions between cultures spread, it became difficult to constantly match the years of different king's reigns together to establish correct dates. The A.D. system first became popular in Western Europe and is now the defacto standard though out most of the world. Its popularity can also be attributed to the success of the Gregorian calendar (our system of months and days) to which it has been closely tied. 
Historical re-examination of the birth of Christ in the last century suggests Jesus was actually born several years before A.D. 1, but given that the system is now so well established there has been no attempt to fix it. Another quirk with the system is that there is no "year zero." This means that if you go one year backwards from A.D. 1 you will find yourself at 2 B.C.. Incidentally some people incorrectly attribute the A.D. to the abbreviation of "After [Christ's] Death" but this is incorrect as it would yield dates 33 years too low - The length of Jesus' life. 
Have a question? Click here to send it to the curator.(http://www.unmuseum.org/postmail.htm)
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In History: 
*Momo - In July of 1971 picnickers in the woods near Louisiana, Missouri, saw a strange "half-ape and half-man." In fear they abandoned their lunch and locked themselves in their car while the creature consumed a peanut butter sandwich they'd left behind. Though they did not report the incident to police until a year later, this was the first of a string of supposed sightings of this creature in the area of northeastern Missouri in the early 70's. The creature, dubbed "Momo" - using the abbreviation for Missouri and the first two letters of "monster" - left tracks which were dismissed by authorities as part of a hoax. The flap of reports ended in August of 1972 and the Momo monster faded into history. 
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the Sky: 
*July Planets in the Sky - This month is a good time to view the Moon, Mars, Saturn, and the star Regulus clustered together in the western sky. They will be closest on the night of the 6th just after sunset. Two days earlier, on July 4th, the earth reaches aphelion - the furthest point in its orbit - 94.5 million miles (152.1 million km) from the sun. Coming in the middle of the northern summer this continues to prove that the variations in our planet's distance from the sun does not affect the seasons. It is only because the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun during the summer that we get warm weather. 
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Observed: 
*British Copter Tangles with UFO - According to the British News portal The Register, a police helicopter at Ministry of Defence base of St. Athan, near the town of Cardiff, tangled with a flying saucer last month. The aircraft was hovering at altitude of 500 feet waiting for clearance to land when the crew spotted a UFO racing towards them from below. The helicopter was forced to swerve sharply to avoid a collision. According to the news site, the aircraft then crossed the Bristol channel in pursuit of the object, but lost sight of it and had to return to base because of low fuel. The crewmen described the UFO as being "saucer-shaped". Police said that the incident had been reported to the relevant authorities for further investigation. 
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------On the Tube: 
Please check local listing for area outside of North America. 
*Nova: Mystery of the Megaflood - What unleashed a catastrophic flood that scarred thousands of square miles in the American Northwest? Jul 22 at 8 p.m.
*Nova: The Perfect Corpse - Forensic investigators tease secrets from the well-preserved bodies of people buried long ago in peat bogs. Jul 8 at 8 p.m.
*Noah's Ark: The True Story - Search for the truth behind the story of Noah and his ark. Find out how Noah could have built such a structure and whether or not a great flood took place on the earth. The search for remains of the ark continues today. On the Discovery Channel. Jul 13, 9:00 pm; Jul 14, 1:00 am; ET/PT
*King Tut's Mystery Tomb Opened - In the first tomb found in Egypt's Valley of the Kings in 84 years, scientists find 7 coffins, plus a golden infant-size coffin, but one coffin remains sealed. Now, in a Discovery exclusive, they race to reach it, read the markings, and lift the lid... On the Discovery Channel. Jul 13, 6:00 pm; ET/PT
*Next Wave, The: Science of Tsunamis - Science demystifies one of the most dangerous and enigmatic forces on earth: tsunamis. See the science behind their devastating power. Understand where they come from and what we can do to better prepare. It's not if it will happen again, but when... On the Science Channel. Jul 05, 9:00 pm; Jul 06, 12:00 am; Jul 06, 4:00 am; ET/PT
*America's Lost H-Bomb - A deadly threat lurks just a few miles off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. A thermo-nuclear weapon is ejected and lost during a war game between U.S. bombers and fighters. Can U.S. military experts retrieve the weapon before someone else tries to? On the Science Channel. Jul 19, 8:00 pm; Jul 19, 11:00 pm; Jul 20, 3:00 am; ET/PT
*Ancient Discoveries: Ancient New York Visit the Show Website - New York's towering skyline and world-leading technology have made it the ultimate city, yet breathtaking new discoveries reveal that the blueprints for this megametropolis were in fact laid thousands of years ago. From brutal bloodsports staged in ancient Madison Square Gardens to Times Square-style celebrations at a gigantic neolithic calendar, you are about to discover that everything you thought you knew about the Big Apple comes from our distant forefathers. On The History Channel. Tuesday, July 01 09:00 PM; Wednesday, July 02 01:00 AM; ET/PT. 
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------*LGM: Check out the antics of Meep and Zeep as they try to find their flying saucer! (http://www.unmuseum.org/soearch/over.htm#lgm)
 
Copyright Lee Krystek, 2008.
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