Interview With Illustrator Flora Of Flaroh Illustration

Did you like this interview? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Join World History Encyclopedia as they chat with Flora of Flaroh Illustration, a freelance illustrator who loves to create art inspired by archaeological artefacts and myths. Kelly (WHE): What is your process in creating art based on history? Advertisement Flora (Flaroh Illustration): There is not really one set way....

September 3, 2022 · 13 min · 2613 words · Deborah Murphy

Magic In Ancient Egypt

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. In ancient Egypt, if a woman were having difficulty conceiving a child, she might spend an evening in a Bes Chamber (also known as an incubation chamber) located within a temple. Bes was the god of childbirth, sexuality, fertility, among other his other responsibilities, and it was thought an evening in the god’s presence would encourage conception....

September 3, 2022 · 11 min · 2307 words · Matthew Mendoza

Saladin S Conquest Of Jerusalem 1187 Ce

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Jerusalem, a holy city for the adherents of all three great monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) was conquered by the armies of the First Crusade in 1099 CE. The Muslims failed to halt their advance, as they were themselves disunited and disorganized, but this was soon to change and the Holy City was to be retaken....

September 3, 2022 · 14 min · 2932 words · Tom Green

The Cyrus Cylinder

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Cyrus Cylinder is a document issued by Cyrus the Great, consisting of a cylinder of clay inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform script. The cylinder was created in 539 BCE, surely by order of Cyrus the Great, when he took Babylon from Nabonidus, ending the Neo-Babylonian empire. This document is considered propaganda, praising the Achaemenid ruler Cyrus and treating Nabonidus like an impious and bad king....

September 3, 2022 · 9 min · 1854 words · Helen Gaddis

The Forty Two Judges

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Forty-Two Judges were divine entities associated with the afterlife in ancient Egypt and, specifically, the judgment of the soul in the Hall of Truth. The soul would recite the Negative Confession in their presence as well as other gods and hope to be allowed to continue on to the paradise of the Field of Reeds....

September 3, 2022 · 12 min · 2353 words · Joseph Danforth

The Mandate Of Heaven And The Yellow Turban Rebellion

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Throughout history, in order for a government to be respected and obeyed, it must possess some form of legitimacy recognized by the governed. Governmental systems have relied on a number of models for legitimacy, among them the dynastic form in which the son or close relative of the monarch succeeds to the throne and passes power down to the next generation....

September 3, 2022 · 15 min · 3065 words · Martha Wiegand

5 Ways Energy Is Transforming U S Railroads

U.S. railroads have not hauled so much crude oil since the short period at the dawn of the petroleum age, when John D. Rockefeller relied on trains to build his Standard Oil empire. But the long, black tanker trains are only the most visible way that the changing U.S. energy picture is transforming railroads. The fracking revolution has brought other business to railroads, from pipes to propane, and more change is underway....

September 2, 2022 · 9 min · 1871 words · Alvin Trosper

Angela Belcher Building Tiny Living Batteries

Editor’s Note: In mid-May, Scientific American will announce the winners of this year’s Scientific American 10. Every Monday we will profile a previous Scientific American 50 winner. Year in Scientific American 50: 2006 Recognized for: Her work on self-assembling viruses for electronic nanotechnology applications. Angela Belcher, a professor of materials science and engineering and of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was inspired by how abalone control calcium carbonate to make their hard shells....

September 2, 2022 · 3 min · 555 words · Craig Powers

California Law Would Let You Know Who S Got Your Data

California legislators could pass a bill that would require companies to tell you exactly what personal data they’ve shared with other companies. Known as the “Right to Know Act of 2013,” the bill yanks California consumer law in line with today’s technology, expanding coverage to include online advertising networks, along with pesky direct marketers. Under Assembly Bill 1291, if a California resident asks a company for personal information that’s been shared with any other party, the company would be required to provide a detailed response within 30 days at no charge to the consumer....

September 2, 2022 · 4 min · 838 words · Melvin Chio

Coral Genomes Could Aid Reefs Damaged By Global Warming

By Ewen Callaway of Nature magazine One of the coral species hit hardest by climate change has become the first to have its genome published. The genome of the branching coralAcropora digitifera appears online today in Nature. The draft sequence of a related species common on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the staghorn coralAcropora millepora, was released online earlier this month, prior to formal publication. Corals are under threat from environmental change caused by global warming – which has led to warmer, more acidic oceans – as well as from disease and other stresses....

September 2, 2022 · 4 min · 801 words · Silvia Hurley

Dust Bowl 2 0 Is The Southwest Drying Up

In his much-ballyhooed 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck describes the conditions of the southern American Great Plains, where a severe drought caused the devastating wind-swept storms of the 1930s dust bowl: “When June was half gone, the big clouds moved up out of Texas and the Gulf, high heavy clouds, rain-heads,” Steinbeck wrote. “The rain-heads dropped a little spattering and hurried on to some other country. Behind them the sky was pale again and the sun flared....

September 2, 2022 · 5 min · 927 words · Charlene Capers

Early Results From Large Dark Matter Detector Cast Doubt On Earlier Claims

An experiment looking for the signal of dark matter deep in an underground lab in Italy turned up no candidate signals in 11 days of early operation, the experimental collaboration reported in a paper posted online Monday. The underground detector, called XENON100, only recently began taking data but is already challenging prior claims and hints of dark matter signals, according to the team, which published its findings on the physics preprint repository arXiv....

September 2, 2022 · 3 min · 610 words · Leslie Hoy

Even Deep Cuts In Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Not Stop Global Warming

BOULDER – Drastic, economy-changing cuts to greenhouse gas emissions will spare the planet half the trauma expected over the next century as the Earth warms. And that’s the good news. Because failure to significantly curb these planet-warming gases will truly transform our world in less than 100 years. A new study to be published by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research finds that a 70 percent cut in emissions should stabilize temperatures at a mark not too much higher than today....

September 2, 2022 · 8 min · 1538 words · Robert Custard

Experts Tackle Question Of How Humans Will Evolve

What will become of humanity hundreds, thousands, millions of years from now? In the September Scientific American, experts make predictions about what the future holds for our kind. Additional predictions follow. “Evolution is not a process that allows us to predict what will happen in the future. We can see what happened in the past only. To do that, we would need to know what was causing some individuals to leave more surviving descendants than others, and to be sure that that selection pressure would be maintained for hundreds or thousands of generations, and know what the genetic and phenotypic basis for the variance underlying these differences was....

September 2, 2022 · 4 min · 723 words · Thomas Blake

First Birds Might Have Flown On 4 Wings

Instead of two wings, the first birds might have used four feathered limbs to stay aloft, according to research published today in Science. Birdlike dinosaurs, such as Microraptor and Sinornithosaurus, are known to have had long, sturdy feathers on their hindlimbs. But until now, researchers were not sure whether the earliest birds had already abandoned this extra plumage when they emerged to take to the Cretaceous skies over 100 million years ago....

September 2, 2022 · 5 min · 875 words · Darrell Yucha

Gene Therapy Offers Hope For Parkinson S Disease

By Ewen Callaway An experimental gene-therapy treatment for Parkinson’s disease has eased the movement problems of a small number of patients and raised no major safety concerns. The study, reported in The Lancet Neurology, is the first double-blind clinical trial to show a benefit of gene therapy to patients with the neurodegenerative condition.Parkinson’s disease is characterized by tremors, slowness and cognitive problems, and is caused by the death of neurons in brain circuits that makes dopamine....

September 2, 2022 · 3 min · 598 words · Leonard Sylvester

Genome Databases Suffer From The Human Touch

By Melissa Lee PhillipsAround a fifth of non-primate genome databases seem to be contaminated with human DNA sequences, according to a study.Mark Longo, a geneticist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, and his colleagues found that 18% of public databases of bacterial, plant and animal genome sequences contain stretches of human DNA, possibly as a result of researchers handling samples during sequencing. Their findings are published today in PLoS ONE1....

September 2, 2022 · 3 min · 586 words · Larry Hill

Gorilla Joins The Genome Club

By Kerri Smith of Nature magazineKamilah lives in San Diego, California, is 35 years old, weighs 136 kilograms and has a dark fur coat covering her skin. And she is the first gorilla to have its full genome sequenced.Researchers have already sequenced the genomes of humans, chimpanzees and orang-utans. Understanding these genetic catalogues, from our closest living relatives, can reveal much about our evolutionary path – such as when we diverged from our primate cousins and what makes humans different from apes....

September 2, 2022 · 3 min · 579 words · Dolores Pullen

Here S What We Know About Wildfires And Climate Change

As deadly wildfires rage across California’s wine country, leaving at least 29 dead and a trail of destruction in their wake, the influence of climate change is again being questioned. Just Monday, Hillary Clinton delivered a speech at the University of California, Davis, in which she noted that “it’s been a tough couple of weeks with hurricanes and earthquakes and now these terrible fires” (Climatewire, Oct. 12). “So in addition to expressing our sympathy, we need to really come together to try to work to prevent and mitigate, and that starts with acknowledging climate change and the role that it plays in exacerbating such events,” she added....

September 2, 2022 · 13 min · 2694 words · Angela Phillips

Hunger For Sea Cucumbers Reaches Islands Of Sierra Leone

By Tommy Trenchard DUBLIN Sierra Leone (Reuters) - As evening falls over Sierra Leone’s Banana Island archipelago, bats stream from their beachside roosts to circle in their thousands over the jungle village of Dublin. Below them a struggle is playing out over an unexpected commodity - the lowly sea cucumber, a fleshy, sausage-shaped creature that scavenges for food on the seabed. It is a struggle that is familiar to many in the West African country....

September 2, 2022 · 12 min · 2381 words · John Johnson