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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. In this interview, World History Encyclopedia is talking to author Daniel Ogden about his new book The Werewolf in the Ancient World. Daniel Ogden (Author): Thank you for inviting me! Kelly (WHE): Of course, we are very excited to have you. Would you tell us a little bit about your new book?...

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. West Africa was one of the world’s greatest producers of gold in the Middle Ages. Trade in the metal went back to antiquity but when the camel caravans of the Sahara linked North Africa to the savannah interior, the trade really took off. A succession of great African empires rose off the back of the gold trade as salt, ivory, and slaves were just some of the commodities exchanged for the precious metal that eventually found its way into most of southern Europe’s gold coinage....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Bible is often quoted in the modern discourse concerning human sexuality, gender identification, same-sex marriages, birth control, and especially abortion. However, most modern Christian teaching evolved from the writings of the Church Fathers, a group of bishops in the 2nd century CE who created Christian dogma (a set of beliefs that everyone should follow), absorbing ideas from Judaism as well as the dominant religious culture of the Roman Empire....

Astronomers have discovered a potential “rogue” alien planet wandering alone just 100 light-years from Earth, suggesting that such starless worlds may be extremely common across the galaxy. The free-floating object, called CFBDSIR2149, is likely a gas giant planet four to seven times more massive than Jupiter, scientists say in a new study unveiled today (Nov. 14). The planet cruises unbound through space relatively close to Earth (in astronomical terms), perhaps after being booted from its own solar system....

A group of over 50 researchers has called on the European Commission to hold a scientific briefing on research that involves engineering microbes to make them more deadly. In a December 18 letter to European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, the scientists—including representatives from the non-profit Foundation for Vaccine Research in Washington, D.C.—urged the commission to organize the briefing, and to formally evaluate the risks and benefits of such “gain-of-function” research....

U.S. health officials are urging Americans to get their flu shots this year in the hopes of thwarting a winter “twindemic”—a situation in which both influenza and COVID-19 spread and sicken the public. But a new study suggests that there could be another key reason to get a flu jab this year: it might reduce your risk of COVID-19. The research, released as a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, indicates that a flu vaccine against the influenza virus may also trigger the body to produce broad infection-fighting molecules that combat the pandemic-causing coronavirus....

Miami—In rough terms, the sun’s activity ebbs and flows in an 11-year cycle, with flares, coronal mass ejections, and other energetic phenomena peaking at what is called solar maximum and bottoming out at solar minimum. Sunspots, markers of magnetic activity on the sun’s surface, provide a visual proxy for the cycle’s evolution; they appear in droves at maximum and all but disappear at minimum. But the behavior of our host star is not as predictable as all that—the most recent solar minimum of late 2008 was surprisingly quiet and prolonged....

An ancient Egyptian mummy found with an intact brain, but no heart, has a plaque on her abdomen that may have been intended to ritually heal her, say a team of researchers who examined the female body with CT scans. The woman probably lived around 1,700 years ago, at a time when Egypt was under Roman rule and Christianity was spreading, according to radiocarbon dating. Her name is unknown and she died between age 30 and 50....

A barrage of lightning strikes and erratic winds sparked fires across California and the West last weekend, forcing evacuations from several towns and threatening thousands of homes. Fire crews battled to head off the blazes yesterday, with temperatures in the high 80s offering little relief. Late summer is normally prime fire season in the American West, and record heat and dryness have left the region particularly vulnerable this year. Anticipating these conditions, the Forest Service has temporarily suspended a long-standing policy of allowing small fires to burn out, according to a memo from the agency’s deputy chief of forestry....

By Ron Cowen of Nature magazine Newly released observations of the top quark – the heaviest of all known fundamental particles – could topple the standard model of particle physics. Data from collisions at the Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, hint that some of the top quark’s interactions are governed by an as-yet unknown force, communicated by a hypothetical particle called the top gluon. The standard model does not allow for such a force or particle....

A battery’s power comes from the tendency of electric charge to migrate between different substances. It is the power that Italian scientist Alessandro Volta sought to tap into when he built the first battery at the end of 1799. Although different designs exist, the basic structure has remained the same ever since. Every battery has two electrodes. One, the anode, wants to give electrons (which carry a negative electric charge) to the other, the cathode....

“Seventeen is closed, Skyline is closed, nine is closed, 152 is closed,” my mom tells me at a restaurant in San Jose, Calif., rattling off highways between the San Francisco Bay Area and the Pacific coast, where I’m scheduled to drive the next morning. Last winter’s torrential storms turned California’s hillsides so sodden that they slid down over roads, cutting off communities. Between October 2016 and February 2017, the state saw about double the seasonal average annual precipitation....

CLIMATEWIRE | U.S. aviation company Textron Inc. announced last week that it will “accelerate” its development of an electric fleet, starting with the purchase of a Slovenian electric aircraft company. Textron paid $235 million for Pipistrel, which produced the world’s first electric-powered aircraft to be internationally certified as being safe for passenger flights. Pipistrel will be part of a new division focused on the development of battery- and fuel-cell-powered electric aircraft....

Singapore-based ES Cell International (ESI) has emerged as one of world’s first commercial ventures to focus on developing stem cells for therapeutic purposes. Established in 2000, ESI sought to draw on the pioneering research of Ariff Bongso and other researchers at the National University of Singapore in growing stem cell lines from human embryos. As part of Singapore’s quest to become a global centre of medical research, the government’s Economic Development Board agreed to finance ESI in co-operation with several wealthy Australian investors....

Cancer treatment can be brutal for patients. Many of the tools we have—chemotherapy, radiation—are big, blunt weapons that deal punishing blows to healthy tissues along with cancerous ones. So the hunt has been on for more and more finely targeted therapies that will attack malignant cells yet minimize damage to patients’ bodies. But a new study shows that we might be able to catch cancer cells off guard by using an ancient and body-wide tactic: fasting....

The article “Food Fight"in the April issue details Roger Beachy’s involvement in the birth of genetic engineering of food crops, how he went on to become an avid defender of the new technology and how these beliefs will shape his tenure at the agriculture department’s newly formed National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Here he answers four more questions for readers about his own background and agriculture in the developing world....

In 1916, when British composer Gustav Holst finished his famous orchestral suite The Planets, the solar system was thought of as a relatively simple and unique place. Clyde Tombaugh, the American astronomer who would discover Pluto in 1930, was just a schoolboy when Holst’s landmark composition was written, and the sum total of known planets was a tidy eight. Since that time, Pluto has been added to—and then subtracted from—the official roster of planets, and hundreds of more distant worlds, known as exoplanets, have been discovered orbiting stars beyond our sun....

The presence of light may do more for us than merely allow for sight. A study by Gilles Vandewalle and his colleagues at the University of Montreal suggests that light affects important brain functions—even in the absence of vision. Previous studies have found that certain photoreceptor cells located in the retina can detect light even in people who do not have the ability to see. Yet most studies suggested that at least 30 minutes of light exposure is needed to significantly affect cognition via these nonvisual pathways....

Early last year seven-year-old Josh Hardy lay terminally ill at a hospital in Memphis, Tenn. He was combating a life-threatening adenovirus infection and his physicians had run out of options. They wanted to try an experimental treatment for his condition that was currently in clinical trials. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will sometimes green-light such procedures as “compassionate use” when sick patients have already tried other available treatments without success....

Psychedelic mushrooms have for millennia been said to trigger mystical experiences. The most rigorous scientific experiment with the hallucinogen, and the first in 40 years, proved capable of producing mystical states in the laboratory safely. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University selected 36 spiritually active volunteers, who might interpret the experiences best, and disqualified potential subjects who had a family or personal risk for psychosis or bipolar disorder. One third of volunteers given psilocybin, the mushroom’s active compound, described it as the most spiritually meaningful experience of their lives, and about two thirds rated it in their top five....