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8000 years of genetic engineering in your fruitbowl
More blogging about research, without a Research Blogging logo, because this is way outside my area of expertise – but it looks interesting. I spotted it going through the accepted papers list at...
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There are more things in heaven and earth, cobber, than are dreamt of in your...
Studying astronomy in culture should be simple. There’s only so much that is visible by the naked eye, and it follows predictable patterns. Modern astronomy means that we can reconstruct what was...
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Archaeologists prove the secret to a successful date is knowing what is on...
Knowing about food will increase the success of your dating Looking from the outside, one of the most underrated areas of archaeological research at the moment is the Archaeology of the Pacific. It’s...
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Copernicus and the Star that was bigger than the Universe
I’ve been trying to watch Cosmos by Carl Sagan. I’ve never seen it and it’s proving to be a bit of a struggle. He definitely can write. Some of the sequences are fantastic, but some of it is badly...
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Would Copernicus have been more convincing if he’d been more accurate?
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, I was wondering if Copernicus would have been more convincing if he’d used ellipses in his model instead of circles. By using circles Copernicus had to use...
View ArticleIt’s never too early for wine?
It’s nice when things connect. There was a press release last week on the earliest known winery being found in Armenia. The paper is Chemical evidence for wine production around 4000 BCE in the Late...
View ArticleMore on Copernicus
There’s a good post up at The Renaissance Mathematicus by Thony C. He disagrees with me about Copernicus and ellipses for the very good reason that Kepler had a big advantage over Copernicus. Kepler...
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How to navigate a Viking longboat with a king, some bees and a DC-8
Viking Ship. Photo (cc) Simon Bishop. Jo Marchant has reported on a new paper, On the trail of Vikings with polarized skylight: experimental study of the atmospheric optical prerequisites allowing...
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The value of models in history
Total War Screen Grab. (cc) Miyaoka Hitchcock. Play the Past, a group blog about the use of video games in history teaching is producing some excellent posts. It’s particularly useful to me given my...
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Topography as a navigational tool
This is a quote that I read and then forgot where in the attic I’d left the book. Whenever I found the book I’d then discover Delphi was’t in the index and, as virtual worlds are not a priority for me,...
View ArticleSciAm and Stonehenge
Scientific American has an article on Stonehenge up this month. My first reaction would be disappointment if I’d bought a copy just to read the Stonehenge article. It’s not bad, but there’s a lot of...
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A medieval chapel pierced by an ancient light?
La Hougue Bie. Photo (cc) Sam K, BY-NC-SA I learned something new reading Mark Patton’s post on an equinoctial alignment at La Hougue Bie on Jersey. I knew the megalithic tomb at La Hougue Bie was...
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Time as an anachronism
Time is Over. Photo CC-BY Gabor Dvornik. I’m writing up a paper, and because it’s one I haven’t actually finished yet I quite like it. It ties up some loose ends with project. It also adds something...
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Blinded by the Viking Sunstones
So, there’s these sunstones that some people think Vikings could have used to navigate to America. It’s possible though the evidence is weak. A Viking Ship. Not the one you might expect, but wait and...
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The earliest astronomers?
The short version of this post is that Astronomy in the Upper Palaeolithic? by Hayden & Villeneuve is a great paper. If you’re interested in astronomy in hunter-gatherer societies you should read...
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The Pericles Commission by Gary Corby
I finally got around to getting The Pericles Commission by Gary Corby this week. is it any good? If the suspense is too much for you, Gary’s a nice bloke, so if it were rubbish I wouldn’t mention I’ve...
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Can only a secular society appreciate the Words of God?
The Bible. Photo by Patrick Feller. There’s a kerfuffle over a new translation of the Bible into Jamaican Patois that has helped throw what bothers me about the British Prime Minister, David Cameron’s,...
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How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown
I’ve known about this book for a while, but the title put me off reading it. It sounds too smug to me, and while there are reasons for reclassifying Pluto I don’t think it’s something astronomers could...
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HDR and Reality
A comment on this link HDR: Love it or or Leave it? posted by +Matt Shalvatis. The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank This has been on my ‘to-blog-about’ list for years. On the one side there’s the...
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