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Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Battle of Edgehill in Warwickshire on 23 October 1642 was an early engagement in the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) and the first major battle of that conflict. The Royalist forces loyal to Charles I of England (r. 1625-1649) met an army sent by Parliament near Kineton; fought over a single afternoon and evening, the result was indecisive....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Battle of Tricamarum (533 CE) was the second and last major battle of the Vandalic War (533 – 534 CE). The battle was fought between the forces of the Byzantine Empire under the leadership of the general Belisarius (500 – 565 CE) and the king of the Vandals Gelimer (480 – 550 CE)....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The assassination attempt on Gaspard II de Coligny, Admiral of France (l. 1519-1572) on 22 August 1572 was the spark igniting the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre beginning on 24 August and continuing in Paris for the next five days and elsewhere in France for over two months. Admiral Coligny was the first of the Protestants (Huguenots) slaughtered in Paris....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi (c. 1700 BCE) is a Sumerian and later Babylonian poem on the theme of unjust suffering, which is thought to have influenced the biblical Book of Job. Also known as The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, the title translates as “I will praise the Lord of Wisdom” and is among the best-known works of ancient Mesopotamian literature....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The 30 caves at Ajanta lie to the north of Aurangabad in the Indhyadri range of Western Ghats. The caves, famous for their temple architecture and many delicately drawn murals, are located in a 76 m high, horseshoe-shaped escarpment overlooking the Waghora (tiger) River. The Ajanta Caves are listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Site....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Trade has always been a vital aspect of any civilization whether at the local or international level. However many goods one has, whether as an individual, a community, or a country, there will always be something one lacks and will need to purchase through trade with another. Ancient Egypt was a country rich in many natural resources but still was not self-sufficient and so had to rely on trade for necessary goods and luxuries....

Nell (not her real name) was shivering, but she did not realize she was cold. Only when a colleague pointed out her goose bumps and blue lips did she think to put on a sweater. Nor does she register feelings such as exhaustion. “Sometimes I don’t realize I’m tired until three in the morning,” she says. “I just don’t get those clues correctly.” These traits seemed like little more than quirks until September 2010, when the 36-year-old woman took a full battery of psychological tests as she reentered treatment for a relapse of anorexia nervosa, a disorder she had struggled with on and off for more than 20 years....

Stanford university physicist leonard susskind revels in discovering ideas that transform the status quo in physics. Forty years ago he co-founded string theory, which was initially derided but eventually became the leading candidate for a unified theory of nature. For years he disputed Stephen Hawking’s conjecture that black holes do not merely swallow objects but grind them up beyond recovery, in violation of quantum mechanics. Hawking eventually conceded. And Susskind helped to develop the modern conception of parallel universes, based on what he dubbed the “landscape” of string theory....

A variant of a fungus that rots and kills the main variety of export banana has been found in plantations in Mozambique and Jordan, raising fears that it could spread to major producers and decimate supplies. The pathogen, which was until now limited to parts of Asia and a region of Australia, has a particularly devastating effect on the popular Cavendish cultivar, which accounts for almost all of the multibillion-dollar banana export trade....

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday warned that it expects the novel coronavirus that has sparked outbreaks around the world to begin spreading at a community level in the United States, as a top official said that disruptions to daily life could be “severe.” “As we’ve seen from recent countries with community spread, when it has hit those countries, it has moved quite rapidly. We want to make sure the American public is prepared,” Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters....

Let’s begin with the story: the local tyrant contracts the ancient Greek polymath Archimedes to detect fraud in the manufacture of a golden crown. Said tyrant, name of Hiero, suspects his goldsmith of leaving out some measure of gold and replacing it with silver in a wreath dedicated to the gods. Archimedes accepts the challenge and, during a subsequent trip to the public baths, realizes that the more his body sinks into the water, the more water is displaced–making the displaced water an exact measure of his volume....

In 1868 Swedish physicist Anders Ångström discovered that the sky always has a slight glow to it. The light emanates from molecules excited by sunlight or cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere. At night, the amount of airglow is comparable to the light from the full moon spread over the entire sky. But because most of it lies in the short-wave infrared range, the light remains largely invisible—at least to human eyes....

Updated at 9:28 a.m. EDT. The Pentagon released a landmark report yesterday declaring climate change an “immediate risk” to national security and outlining how it intends to protect bases, prepare for humanitarian disasters and plan for global conflicts. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel unveiled the plan at the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas in Peru, where he said defense leaders “must be part of this global discussion” on climate change....

The Linguists Order the DVD at www.thelinguists.com There are 7,000 languages in the world—and one dies every two weeks. With it goes cultural knowledge built for generations as well as an irreplaceable piece of the puzzle that is the human brain’s affinity for words. In an effort to record the most endangered languages before they disappear, Swarthmore College ethnographer David Harrison and linguist Greg Anderson of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in Salem, Ore....

Several of you have written asking me to revisit the subject of nutrigenomics, which is the attempt to use genetic testing as a way to steer dietary recommendations. Nutrition Diva listener Brad writes: You did an episode on DNA-based diets in 2012 (episode 203). I know the genetics field is changing very quickly and I was hoping you could revisit this subject. Some of the companies who do the testing also sell specific supplements based on your results, which seems a little suspcious....

Physicists usually have full lives outside the lab, despite stereotypes to the contrary (think: the antisocial geniuses on TV’s The Big Bang Theory). But when those lives get complicated, they can fall back on their own training to help them out Case in point is physicist Andrés Gomberoff, who turned to condensed-matter physics to grapple with custodial arrangements for kids with two ex-wives and his current girlfriend. In aiming to find a weekend in which he and his partner could see all their children at once, he applied the same process used to minimize the energy of a certain kind of magnetic material....

Red Planet Mars Life Lawrence M. Krauss’s “Rethinking the Dream” [Forum] rightly points out that the benefits of flying humans in space have not been commensurate with the cost, especially when human flight is compared with advanced robotic or automatic systems that can do many of the same tasks at one tenth of the cost and with no risk to humans. I think this is a result of nasa’s focus on dramatic, exciting exploration and failure to create an economical, durable infrastructure....

In the second phase of its life as a planet hunter, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is raking in exoplanet discoveries that are surprisingly different from those found during its first iteration. Between 2009 and 2013, Kepler became the most successful planet-hunting machine ever, discovering at least 1,030 planets and more than 4,600 possible others in a single patch of sky. When a mechanical failure stripped the spacecraft of its ability to point precisely among the stars, engineers reinvented it in 2014 as the K2 mission, which looks at different parts of the cosmos for shorter periods of time....

People who meditate regularly feel an enviable sense of calm. Neuroscientists have shown that by altering brain-wave patterns, the discipline purges negative thoughts. Experienced meditators are calmer in their response to daily stress and perform better at tasks that require focused attention. A handful of researchers think the same brain changes could even confer physical benefits, such as lowering blood pressure and preventing disease. Scientists, as well as practiced meditators such as the Dalai Lama, also want to know how much meditation is needed to achieve these gains....

Every day, millions of single adults, worldwide, visit an online dating site. Many are lucky, finding life-long love or at least some exciting escapades. Others are not so lucky. The industry—eHarmony, Match, OkCupid, and a thousand other online dating sites—wants singles and the general public to believe that seeking a partner through their site is not just an alternative way to traditional venues for finding a partner, but a superior way....