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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 Dexileos Stele assesses the way that Athenian political thought penetrated all levels of society, showing the conflict that the aristocratic classes were faced with in trying to find their place within the Athenian Democracy. As a visual document it presents an image that would have been seen and understood to those who passed it; despite being a cavalryman, a typically elite element of the military, Dexileos was still firmly a part of the Athenian demos....

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 Lacedaemon, as in all enduring political communities, there was a symbiotic relationship between the form of government chosen, the way of life that this form of government fostered, and the grand strategy that the community gradually articulated for the defense of its ruling order and way of life....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. The Norman conquest of England, led by William the Conqueror (r. 1066-1087 CE) was achieved over a five-year period from 1066 CE to 1071 CE. Hard-fought battles, castle building, land redistribution, and scorched earth tactics ensured that the Normans were here to stay. The conquest saw the Norman elite replace that of the Anglo-Saxons and take over the country’s lands, the Church was restructured, a new architecture was introduced in the form of motte and bailey castles and Romanesque cathedrals, feudalism became much more widespread, and the English language absorbed thousands of new French words, amongst a host of many other lasting changes which all combine to make the Norman invasion a momentous watershed in English history....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. According to Jewish tradition, the original Jerusalem Temple was ordained by Yahweh/God, as described in 2 Samuel 7:12 where Yahweh commands Nathan to tell David: As well as the postexilic text, 1 Chronicles 28:2-7, where David declares: When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom....

Did you like this article? Editorial Review This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication. Joshua J. Mark goes looking for adventure while visiting the Maya site of Chichen Itza in Mexico and finds sprites, spirits and iguanas amongst the ruins. He tells of his journey to this magical ancient site that has become a symbol of the Maya civilisation. The small bus bumped along the uneven roads of Tinum in Yucatan, Mexico....

New lithium-ion technology may finally make batteries cheap and durable enough to turn electric cars from a niche product into a mass-market mode of transport. Waltham, Mass.–manufacturer A123 Systems has produced a cell that delivers 20 percent more power, works at temperatures as low as −30 degrees Celsius and as high as 60 degrees C, and should be just as easy as current batteries to manufacture. Independent scientists who have been scrutinizing the company’s claims say they are impressed....

Let’s start at the beginning—for the reader, anyway. The title sounds a bit like a self-help book. Is it meant to be? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to help folks—but at the end of the day, I think self-help has a very flimsy sound to it, and this book is based on a ton of reporting. Talking to researchers and neuroscientists, reporting in the field. I hope people will read this book and learn how to become more productive....

In 2020 Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, a company that specializes in looking for new drug candidates for rare and communicable diseases, received an unusual request. The private Raleigh, N.C., firm was asked to make a presentation at an international conference on chemical and biological weapons. The talk dealt with how artificial intelligence software, typically used to develop drugs for treating, say, Pitt-Hopkins syndrome or Chagas disease, might be sidetracked for more nefarious purposes....

Parents trying to help their children manage the constellation of symptoms associated with autism have had few drug options available to treat key aspects of the disorder. Now, encouraging results from a new study suggest that low doses of antianxiety medications already available on the market, such as benzodiazepines, might become the latest drugs parents ask doctors to prescribe, even if the drugs are not an approved treatment for autism. A move to antianxiety medications would mark a dramatic shift in how physicians treat autism spectrum disorder....

Like surveyors charting out a parcel of land by measuring angles, distances and elevations, astronomers have long mapped the positions of celestial objects in the sky. Those celestial maps are about to see some major revisions. New and upcoming campaigns using ground-based telescopes or spacecraft promise to fill in many new details. Together these projects will catalogue positional information on several billion stars and galaxies, near and far. By scanning the skies for six years, a next-generation space telescope called Euclid ought to map up to two billion galaxies in three dimensions....

What pushes employees to do their best work? Many businesses operate under the belief that the key to motivating workers is giving them tangible rewards, such as a cash bonus or a corner office. In the book Drive, business writer Daniel H. Pink argues persuasively that these companies have it all wrong. He cites a body of behavioral science research that suggests that optimal performance comes when people find intrinsic meaning in their work....

One tiny flick of a microscopic cellular hair, known as a cilium, can’t do much on its own. But together, these structures routinely pull off biological marvels within the body. Cilia remove inhaled pathogens from the respiratory tract, carry cerebrospinal fluid across brain cavities, transport eggs from the ovary to the uterus, and drain mucus from the middle ear to the nasal cavity. These tiny, extracellular organelles exert precise microfluidic control over life-sustaining liquids in the body....

Some portions of the Northeast have a chance at vibrant fall foliage based on forecast weather, while drought-stricken parts of the country may not have much of a display. Warm and wet weather through the remainder of September and into the first couple of weeks of October would not be good news for leaf-peepers in the Northeast, according to Dr. Marc Abrams, a professor of Forest Ecology and Physiology at Penn State....

LET US START with a little quiz. How many of these conditions have you heard of? Taijin kyofusho, hikikomori, hwa-byung, or qi-gong psychotic reaction. If your score was 0 out of 4, do not feel bad: your culture may be to blame. The first two conditions are mental illnesses largely endemic to Japan; the second two are endemic to China. Psychological disorders, or at least our labels for them, differ across cultures....

In the wake of a campaign by the controversial blogger Vani Hari, who goes by the name Food Babe, General Mills says it is removing the antioxidant butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) from its cereals. The action is the latest to be trumpeted by Hari, who is not a scientist but whose blogging about food additives has the ability to make big companies jump. Last year the Subway sandwich chain removed a dough conditioner, azodicarbonamide, from its breads after similar haranguing by Hari....

Suddenly she heard someone call her name–“Laurie!”–but no one else was in the room. Feeling irritated, Laurie looked around the apartment. It was empty. Maybe someone was in the hallway? Or at the door? She found no one. Realizing that she was completely alone, Laurie felt chills run up her spine. Was she crazy? Perhaps no other symptom is as instantly associated with insanity–some 70 percent of schizophrenics hear voices that regularly interrupt their thoughts, as do 15 percent of those who have mood disorders–but auditory hallucinations are not necessarily a sign of mental illness....

Several large recalls of lithium-ion batteries used in notebook computers have raised questions about how these power packs could overheat enough to erupt in flames. Equally valid is the question of why accidents don’t happen more often, given that very few occur among hundreds of millions of batteries sold annually. Lithium-ion cells exploit various chemistries, but virtually all rechargeable varieties, including those in cameras and in cell phones, use lithium cobalt oxide in the cathode and graphite in the anode....

For three years as an undergraduate physics student performing at science magic shows and open houses, I convinced students (and sometimes their parents) that I was some kind of magician by levitating a small cube-shaped magnet. The magnet floated above a superconductor by only a centimeter or so, but that was ample space to wave a piece of paper between the two to prove there were literally no strings attached. Tapping one edge of the cube sent it spinning in place, and even if you pushed the magnet down it resolutely bounced back up again—if it failed to do so, it meant the superconductor needed to be colder....

Dear EarthTalk: Why are some environmental groups jumping on the immigration issue? What does immigration have to do with the environment? – Ginna Jones, Darien, CT What to do about booming legal and illegal immigration rates is one of the most controversial topics on Americans’ political agenda these days. More than a million immigrants achieve permanent resident status in the U.S. every year. Another 700,000 become full-fledged American citizens. The non-profit Pew Research Center reports that 82 percent of U....

By Robert Robertsson REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Iceland lowered its warning code for possible volcanic disruption to the aviation industry to orange from red on Sunday after further analysis of an apparent eruption under a glacier found there had been no eruption after all. The risk level had been raised to red, the highest level on the country’s five-point alert system, on Saturday after authorities detected signs of a small eruption beneath a glacier near the Bardarbunga volcano in central Iceland....