High-tech imaging of ancient papyrus may shed light into writing of early societies

October 6th, 2009 Excerpts from 2009 Nobel physics prizeExcerpts from the citation awarding the 2009 Nobel Prize in physics to Charles K. Kao, Willard S.

September 16th, 2009 SEOUL - Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient Chinese book of Buddhism chantings in a Korean temple. According to a report in Korea Times, the Hangeul copy of an ancient Chinese book, which contains the notes of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910) scholar Kim Si-seup, was discovered at Baekryunam, Haein Temple.

September 3rd, 2009 Ancient skeleton found with gun under Mass. shedCAMBRIDGE, Mass.

August 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists is all set to test nearly 300 engraved stones in a new laboratory in Mexico, in order to decipher the ancient Zapoteca Writing. The laboratory will be operating at Monte Alban Archaeological Zone in Oaxaca, Mexico.

August 5th, 2009 LONDON - Scientists have used 3D imaging that included thousands of X-ray scans to shed light on 300 million year old fossilized spider-like species. According to a report by BBC News, the two species, Cryptomartus hindi and Eophrynus prestvicii, are closely related to modern spiders.

August 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - A novel chemical imaging technique, called Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging (ATR-FTIR imaging), may one day help fight atherosclerosis, say researchers. Atherosclerosis is the disease underlying most heart attacks and strokes and it is characterised by lesions in the arteries, made of fats, collagen and cells.

July 28th, 2009 LONDON - By combining two nanoparticles in one tiny package, University of Washington researchers have created a Swiss Army knife of sorts for medical imaging and therapy. The multipurpose nanotechnology tool could perform wide range of medical uses - imaging tumours, carrying drugs, delivering pulses of heat.

July 14th, 2009 PARIS - Venus Express has charted the first map of the planet's southern hemisphere at infrared wavelengths, which hints that Venus may once have been more Earth-like, with both, a plate tectonics system and an ocean of water. The map comprises over a thousand individual images, recorded between May 2006 and December 2007.

July 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A study has said that advanced nuclear science can shed new light into the well-being and nutrition of ancient mummies. Paleoradiology uses nuclear technologies such as X-rays, computed tomography (CT), and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to study artefacts, skeletons, mummies and fossils.

June 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of researchers at the University of Illinois (U. of I.) has created the world's first acoustic "superlens," an innovation that could have practical implications for high-resolution ultrasound imaging, non-destructive structural testing of buildings and bridges, and novel underwater stealth technology.

June 8th, 2009 LONDON - The discovery of a sword stud beneath shops in Monmouth, Wales, could be evidence of an Anglo-Saxon period settlement, which might rewrite Welsh history. According to a report in Western Mail, at barely a centimetre across and almost unrecognisable after centuries underground, the stud could shed light on an almost unknown era of Welsh history.

June 5th, 2009 LONDON - A new study, based on archaeological records and mathematical simulations, has claimed that lethal warfare drove the evolution of selfless behaviour among ancient humans. If correct, the new model solves a long-standing puzzle in human evolution: how did our species transition from creatures interested in little more than passing down their own genes to societies of law-abiding monogamists? No one knows for sure when these changes happened, but climactic swings that occurred between approximately 10,000 to 150,000 years ago in the late Pleistocene period may have pushed once-isolated bands of hunter-gatherers into more frequent contact with one another, Samuel Bowles, an evolutionary biologist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and the University of Siena, Italy, who led the study, told New Scientist.

May 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A computer scientist from the University of Kentucky hopes that modern digital technology will enable him to read two of the hundreds of fragile papyrus scrolls found in a villa at Herculaneum, thought to have been owned at one time by Julius Caesar's father-in-law, and unlock secrets they have held for almost 2,000 years. Brent Seales, the Gill professor of engineering in UK's computer science department, plans to use an X-Ray CT scanning system to collect interior images of the scrolls' rolled-up pages, hoping to later digitally "unroll" them on a computer screen so that they become readable to scholars.

April 14th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Ancient Egyptians mixed herbs into wines to create medicinal remedies, researchers have found. Deep inside the tomb of Scorpion I, archaeochemist Patrick McGovern and colleagues found that 5,000-year-old wines were spiked with natural medicines-centuries before the practice was thought to exist in Egypt.

January 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A powerful new tool can image single molecules in a cell, with much greater clarity and speed, compared to existing methods. The new tool, dubbed liquid scanning transmission electron microscope or liquid STEM, uses a micro-fluidic device with electron transparent windows to enable the imaging of cells in liquid.