Science bails out history again: scraps of evidence support elements of the Romulus and Remus myth

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.nytimes.com)

And once again, the historians are sending the scientists a big "Thank-You" fruit basket. The Roman founding of Romulus and Remus may have a basis in fact, as archaeologists have just found a cave under the Palatine hill that bears a striking resemblance to the one in the myth, as well as a few other structures, like a wall and a well, that figure in the story. However the myth-fans may be jumping to conclusions about whether the brothers themselves existed, it does support the dates and city layout from the story

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NBOP? Nope! The preservation of plastics confounds curators, collectors.

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.nature.com)

Museum curators and environmentalists have the opposite problem: Environmentalists can't get plastics to break down fast enough and museum curators can't make it stick around long enough. Many plastics -- think classic baby dolls -- are approaching the century mark, and though they may linger in landfills, they just don't have the longevity of ceramics, paintings and stone.

Now what might be cool would be if these two groups could get together and compare notes. Someone would pull something useful out of that discussion

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Cognitive dissonance and where the buck stops

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 8 months (sciam.com)

Scientific American attempts to explain the reasoning behind the "mistakes that were made" in the Bush and Kennedy administrations and why such similar conflicts had such different results.

Fascinating.

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Genetic study evaluates Herodotus's claim: Did the Etruscans come from the Near East?

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.nytimes.com)

Early historian Herodotus claimed that the Etruscans came to Italy from what is now Turkey. However, the idea that the Etruscan culture, of which modern Italians are very proud, could have come from outside Italy is offensive to many Italians. For many years, all opponents had to go on was the fact that Etruscan is not an Indo-European language. While the details of his story may be shaky, three new, independent studies support the core idea

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Eunuchs in science, history and our communities

Hecate submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.nytimes.com)

Here, a man who underwent chemical castration after a bout with prostate cancer reacts to his new identity, self-assigned, as a eunuch. He identifies strongly with the idea of a eunuch as a diplomat, calm advisor, and intellectual. I find that most of his responses are in line with the idea of low testosterone levels. Any news from the experts?

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Christian faith in the other good book

Vampire submitted, created time 1 year 10 months (www.newscientist.com)

Flocks of the Christian faithful in the US will this Sunday hold special services celebrating Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The idea is to stand up to creationism, which claims the biblical account of creation is literally true, and which is increasingly being promoted under the guise of "intelligent design". Proponents of ID say the universe is so complex it must have been created by some unnamed designer.

Support for "Evolution Sunday" has grown 13 per cent to 530 congregations this year, from the 467 that celebrated the inaugural event last year

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From words to action

nomad submitted, created time 1 year 11 months (www.nature.com)

The disturbing predictions about global warming in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mark a turning point. That's not because of the figures themselves, which are largely in line with previous IPCC forecasts, but because the science behind them is now certain enough to make a serious response from policy-makers almost inevitable. The debate is no longer about whether we can believe the numbers, but what we should do about them.

And so the report, released in Paris on 2 February (see 'Behind the scenes'), may be the harbinger of another change

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Psychologists and literary historians cooperate on conclusion: There's probably no such thing as repressed memories.

Hecate submitted, created time 1 year 11 months (www.nytimes.com)

Here is a good example of how history and medicine can cross over: It seems that there are no historical references to repressed memories before 1800, when novelists began using it as a plot device, not in fiction and not in nonfiction. Scientists and literary scholars collaborated on this project, which was written up in [i]Psychological Medicine[/i].

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