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Did you like this interview? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. ArchaeoConcept is an independent company based in Biel, Switzerland that finds solutions to problems encountered by archaeologists and heritage managers which cannot be answered from within existing structures. Through its integrative projects, ArchaeoConcept participates in the development of material and immaterial heritage management in developing countries. In this interview, Ancient History Encyclopedia (AHE) asks Dr....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Eunuchs were powerful political players in ancient Chinese government. Originating as trusted slaves in the royal household they were ambitious to use their favoured position to gain political power. Advising the emperor from within the palace and blocking the access of officials to their ruler, the eunuchs were eventually able to acquire noble titles themselves, form a bureaucracy to rival the state’s and even select and remove emperors of their choosing....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses of 31 October 1517, although they have since come to represent the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, were not written to challenge the authority of the Roman Catholic Church but were simply an invitation to clergy to debate any or all of the propositions listed....

1909 Construction begins on the Titanic at the Harland and Wolff shipyard on Queen’s Island in Belfast, Ireland. The slipway used to build the Titanic is the biggest ever constructed, taking up three of the existing slipways at the shipyard. Construction causes 246 injuries and eight deaths. 1911 May 31 The Titanic hits the water for the first time in front of about 100,000 spectators. The ship is then towed out to a spot where her engines, funnels and other parts can be installed and the interior finished....

The crux of nanotechnology is the problem of self-assembly, getting uncooperative atoms to link and align themselves precisely. We know it can be done, of course: life persists by turning molecules into complex biological machinery. How fitting, then, that one of today’s most creative materials scientists, Angela Belcher of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has turned to nature for assistance. Belcher has pioneered the use of custom-evolved viruses in synthesizing nanoscale wires and arrays, fusing different research disciplines into something uniquely her own....

Ovarian cancer is relatively rare, ranking as the eighth-most frequent cancer, but it is the fifth-leading cause of cancer deaths among U.S. women. It is disproportionately deadly because ovarian tumors tend to flourish while producing few obvious symptoms. And no reliable methods exist to detect the cancer at early stages, when treatments are most effective. But this situation may soon change if researchers can extend the promise of a recent study, in which scientists detected ovarian cancer from blood samples with near 100 percent accuracy....

Holy upside-down wing stroke, Batman! Researchers have pinpointed the forces generated by the flapping of bat wings, including an odd upside-down wing stroke that seems to help the furry fliers hover languidly. The results not only highlight differences between bat and bird flight, but may help designers of small flying robots—not to mention caped crusaders. To get a grip on bat wings, a Swedish-led team blew foggy wind across two small bats as they hovered in midair, lapping from a source of nectar [see image below]....

SACRAMENTO – California regulators are pushing back their first-in-the-nation greenhouse gas trading system by one year to insulate it from potential market manipulation, the head of the state’s air agency said yesterday. What was originally intended to be a routine legislative hearing on the status of California’s cap-and-trade system became instead a pivotal moment in the state’s climate policy, with a standing-room crowd hanging on Air Resources Board (ARB) Chairwoman Mary Nichols’ every word....

Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of six features on the science of food, running daily from March 30 through April 6, 2009. DAVIS, Calif.—The green dot is everything in India. More than 30 percent of Indians are strict vegetarians, and among upper-class Brahmins with money to burn that number runs as high as 55 percent. Taken together, we’re talking about nearly 300 million potential chocolate-eaters, a market nearly the size of the U....

Since 1982, particle physicists have sojourned every so often in the fresh mountain air of Snowmass, Colorado, to dream up successive generations of particle accelerators. Budgetary restrictions mean that this year’s Snowmass Community Summer Study — the first since 2001 — will be a bit less ambitious. The grass-roots planning exercise, which begins on 29 July, will last one week rather than three. And physicists will be trading the posh mountain resort for a humbler spot: Minneapolis, Minnesota....

Nothing is so difficult as not ­deceiving oneself. —Ludwig Wittgenstein How much of what you consciously experience in your daily life is influenced by hidden unconscious processes? This mystery is one of the many that continue to confound our understanding of ourselves. We do not know how conscious impulses, desires or motives become unconscious or, conversely, how unconscious impulses, desires or motives suddenly become conscious. Advances in technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging permit scientists to directly measure brain activity....

*Correction (3/17/15): The periodic table has been updated to include thallium. Half a century ago only a handful of materials were in widespread use for consumer and industrial products—wood, iron and brick, to name a few of the most prominent ones. Today a single computer chip contains more than 60 elements, ranging from tungsten to ytterbium. Contemporary technology’s reliance on such diverse resources, particularly metals, piqued the interest of Thomas Graedel, an environmental scientist at Yale University....

A farmer in Mozambique grows peas, beans and cassava in rotation—enough to feed the family with a little to spare. The farmer then sells that excess to CleanStar Mozambique, which dries and packages the produce for sale in the capital, Maputo. But the company also takes the surplus cassava, a starch-filled root and local food staple, and sends it to an ethanol fermentation plant built by ICM, a U.S. ethanol company, that employs enzymes produced by Denmark-based Novozymes....

By Bill Berkrot (Reuters) - U.S. researchers on Thursday said they had found a way to predict male sexual orientation based on molecular markers that control DNA function, but genetics experts warned that the research has important limitations and will not provide definitive answers to a potential biological basis for sexual preference. Findings from the study, which has yet to be published or reviewed in detail by other scientists, were presented at a meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in Baltimore....

When the observatory at 1 World Trade Center (1 WTC) opens May 29 in lower Manhattan, visitors will be treated to a spectacular 360-degree view of New York City and the surrounding area from nearly 390 meters above its bustling streets. All that’s needed to travel to the upper reaches of the building, also known as the “Freedom Tower,” is a 60-second ride in the Western Hemisphere’s fastest elevator system. The 104-story 1 WTC—which opened for tenants in November—has 71 elevators, five of which will be express elevators with a top speed of more than 36....

The close of a calendar year is a chance to reflect on the relentless procession of time into the present and any new beginnings the future holds. Humans are enamored with the end of the year—not only for nostalgia’s sake but also for the cognitive clarity it offers amid so much uncertainty. As we look back, then, what was most significant about 2022? The COVID pandemic continues to plague the world....

A few plants in the cabbage and mustard family pay a dramatic price to fend off hungry caterpillars: they kill off patches of their own leaves where butterflies have laid eggs. Deprived of a living anchor, the eggs shrivel and die. These plants’ egg-slaying abilities have been documented since at least the 1980s, but a new study shows they appear in just a few closely related plants in this family—and they are triggered only by certain butterfly species....

THE ROAD OF THE FUTURE will look much like the road of the present, but it most certainly won’t be free. “You can have your driveway,” says Bern Grush, founder of Skymeter, a Toronto-based company that creates GPS-enabled devices to measure road use. “But if you’re going to come over to visit me, you need to pay to get to my place from your place.” With the emergence of wireless, location-based technologies such as GPS, it is now possible to gauge the true costs of driving and the true value of the roads....

Floodwaters that washed icy brine into streets and homes along the eastern seaboard during Saturday’s blizzard reached heights in some places not experienced since Hurricane Sandy. “I just hope it isn’t a sign of things to come,” Pam Bross told a local newspaper as she mopped up the market she operates on a New Jersey street not normally reached by storm surges. With tides and storm surges inching upward and inward, worsening floods are harbingers of even soggier times ahead....

Mammals are not big on monogamy. In fewer than 10 percent of species is it common for two individuals to mate exclusively. The primate wing of the group is only slightly more prone to pairing off. Although 15 to 29 percent of primate species favor living together as couples, far fewer commit to monogamy as humans know it—an exclusive sexual partnership between two individuals. Humans obviously have an imperfect track record....