New wonders? Contd….

The Taj and the Angkor Wat: Access to modern technology played a role in the campaign.
Given the familiarity of the newly elected seven world wonders, the claim that this campaign would significantly add to the inflow of tourists to these monuments remains doubtful.

World Heritage Sites and not World Wonders
UNESCO turned down several invitations extended by the new seven wonder foundation to join the campaign. It dismissed the exercise as a mediatised campaign and dismissed any comparison with its own world heritage list. To them, a mere acknowledgement of the sentimental value and inscribing the sites on a new list is not enough. UNESCO has distanced itself from such euphoria of list making. In contrast, promotes a sustained effort to conserve and manage world heritage sites. So far, it has declared 851 properties including 660 cultural, 166 natural and 25 mixed properties as world heritage sites.
In their view, the approach they adopt is sustainable since it compels the relevant authorities to commit to the upkeep of heritage sites.
They think their project also has a clear educational role with respect to the value of the heritage sites, the threats they face and their protection.
For the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites, see http://whc.unesco.org/en/list
The World Heritage Convention
The idea to have a common convention and list concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by UNESCO in 1972. The first list of World Heritage Sites was published in 1978 and continues since then.
The countries that are signatories to the world heritage convention can access the world heritage fund. Every year about US$4 million assistance is available for these counties to promote and preserve their heritage. So far about 184 countries have ratified the world heritage convention.
Article 6 of the world heritage convention makes it clear on the member countries that they will not deliberately damage directly or indirectly the cultural and natural heritage of other member countries. This, it is hoped, will protect world heritage sites from the devastation of war
The world heritage convention reiterates that the protection of the cultural and natural heritage should be dovetailed into regional planning programmes. Whether this happened remains doubtful? The conservation of Taj Mahal and lack of development within the Agra city is a case in point.
There is also increasing concern as to whether the world heritage list itself is a balanced one or does it reflect only a particular understanding of what constitutes heritage.

New wonders? Contd...

The Easter Island statues.

Navine-al-Aref wrote in the Al-Ahram online issue that Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, opposed the Foundation’s move to put the Pyramids of Giza up for election.
In response, the Foundation issued a press release conferring a special status on the Pyramid as the only honorary candidate of the New Seven Wonders of the World campaign. The website said that the voters could not vote for Giza. It would not have been surprising if the pyramid had been voted out.
While nations like India, China, Peru and Brazil rushed to vote, Europe and America appeared to be indifferent. This difference in response cannot be attributed to access to the Internet or lack of it. Had it got to do with the peculiar post-colonial conditions of these countries?
For almost a month, my inbox, and that of many others, was flooded with mails urging that we vote for the Taj to save our national pride. The idea of a national monument was cleverly overlaid on the New Seven Wonders campaign and it seemed to pay off.
To a country with a national flower, national bird, even a national game, the absence of a national monument appeared to be long overdue. Lotus as the national flower, peacock as the national bird and tiger as the national animal — the arbitrariness in such representations does not bother us.
Emblems are useful and can be handy, many seem to think. The patriotic ploy did work. Not many could resist or oppose it. This echoes what Alessandra Stanley, writing for The New York Times, had to say about media coverage of Paris Hilton: “the sheer absurdity of her fame ensures that anyone who denigrates it looks even more foolish.”
The question is not whether Taj is qualified to be a national monument or a world monument. But the irony that the wonders of the world — buildings of common world heritage — had to be chosen through the prism of a nation remains.
While we celebrate the selection of the Taj, the state of the heritage city of Agra or the pollution of the Yamuna does not draw the necessary attention. One hardly hears of a large campaign to protect local monuments. Concerns about heritage protection and voting for the Taj appear to be mutually exclusive. Understandably, the UNESCO has distanced itself from this campaign and even dismissed it.
Commercial motives
What can we expect of this new wonder campaign? Many have criticised the commercial motives behind the campaign. Newsweek wrote, quoting the foundation spokesperson that Bernard Weber, the founder of this campaign, paid $700 for a w ebsite based out of Canada to launch this contest. The voter turnout and the Internet voting have been many times more than what was expected.
The foundation pledged half of its revenue for the various conservation efforts including reconstruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan. The fact that the Afghan government has not prioritised the restoration of Bamiyan Buddhas nor that the Japanese government has already pledged US$ 1.8 million for the same project and the work is in progress is not an issue for the foundation. Instead of getting into such highly visible reconstruction project, should the foundation look at many monuments that languish without funds? This is a separate issue.

The New Indian Express recently reported that the New Seven Wonders Foundation claimed that they have invested €10 million in the whole campaign and that they did not break even. As a result, the Foundation announced that the mon uments will not receive any funding for their conservation.
The Foundation may claim that it is a non-profit organisation, but another organisation called the New Open World Corporation (NOWC) owns the copyright to its content and operations. The Foundation’s spokesperson has neither confirmed the expense and revenue figures nor explained the commercial arrangement with the NOWC. The details of who owns and runs NOWC are also not clear.
Till this article went to press, there was no reply to these queries. In the absence of information about voting details, revenue earned and the actual money pledged for conservation, the commercial theory gains ground. To be contd…

Does Elephant sneeze....more....

New wonders?

Not in the Final list: The Acropolis in Greece.

The Pyramids of Giza.

New wonders?
Not everyone is happy with the new seven wonders or with the voting method adopted.

A. SRIVATHSAN
While nations like India, China, Peru and
Brazil rushed to vote, Europe and America appeared to be indifferent.
Photos: AP Not in the final list: The Pyramids of Giza, the only honorary member.
“List of shame, list of ignorance,” spewed an angry blogger. “How can you leave out Acropolis, which was formally proclaimed as the pre-eminent monument on the European Cultural Heritage in 2007?” said another? “Surprising, inexplicable, even suspicious,” was the response of the Vatican pontifical commission for culture and archaeology, reported The Times of London. The Vatican was disappointed at the omission of the Sistine Chape l. Cambodia was crestfallen with the omission of Angkor Wat temple. Not every one agreed with the list of new seven wonders or with the method adopted.
The campaign
The original list of wonders compiled by the Greeks was dismissed as “a travel guide for fellow Athenians” by the Swiss-based foundation that initiated the campaign. The New Seven Wonders Foundation declared that the compilation, this time around, would be democratic and open. Anyone was free to choose and vote. Straight, simple and easy — reach for your computer or phone and make a choice. So went the campaign.
Does this make the complaints and quibbles appear like crying sour grapes or does the voting pattern genuinely warrant a critical look at the results.
“About 80 per cent of people voted online and 20 per cent through SMS and phone (many, many more via SMS than telephone)”, e-mailed Tia Viering from the New Seven Wonders Foundation. This was in reply to my query about the voting pattern. “We are not divulging the votes obtained by various monuments. To us the new seven wonders are equal and without ranking,” she said.
Viering seems to have barely noticed the irony in her statement. If the seven wonders are equal so are the remaining 14 that were left out in the final race and, more so, the many hundred monuments that never made it to the list in the first place.
The Greeks, who first introduced the idea of seven wonders about 2,000 years ago, would hardly have imagined that a day would come when the architectural merit or the spectacle value would no more be a necessary benchmark. Nor would they have realised that society could dispense with high priests of culture — in their case Herodotus, the historian, and Callimachus, the chief librarian of Alexandria — to arbitrate taste and choose on their behalf.
What possibly would comfort them is that, even after many thousand years, people can still be as arbitrary and parochial as they were when it comes to listing the wonders. In the old list, only two of the seven wonders were outside the Greek culture. In the new list, each nation voted for itself with fervour.
The Foundation, through its spokesperson Tia Viering, claims that the voting was truly international. But when asked about the countrywise voting pattern, Viering refused to share any data. Her reluctance to share the information is understandable. Details, if and when they come, will reveal how Indians and other successful nations mobbed the voting machine, in this case their personal computer or the ones at Internet cafés.
Tracy Wilkinson, writing for the Los Angeles Times, described how people in Cuzco, Peru, filled Internet cafes for weeks and voted for the ruins of Machu Picchu. The foundation’s website declared that, as early as 2002, 70,000 Chinese were voting everyday.
The media blogsite http://www.danwei.org/, citing the The Beijing News, wrote that the Great Wall of China was temporarily top of the list in January 2006. In November, it fell to fourth place a nd, in April 2007, dropped out of the top seven.
According to the blogsite, the majority of Chinese were unable to vote because they could not read English. Hence a “SMS vote” service was developed. As the results show, this changed the course of the voting. The New Seven Wonders Foundation announced on June 7 that about 50 million had voted. By July 7, when the results were declared, another 50 million votes had been added.
Monuments in countries that are poor and do not have substantial access to SMS or the Internet fell out of the race.
Reason to complain
The disappointment, if not anger, as in the case of the 12th century Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia, exemplifies this. The Nation, a Bangkok-based newspaper, reported that Chan Sophal, deputy provincial governor of Siem Reap where th e Angkor Wat temple is located, had said that an architectural marvel being overlooked in this fashion was “regrettable”.
The governor had reason to complain. “The competition just wasn’t suitable for a country in Cambodia’s situation. It is a country with a very small population, most of whom know nothing about information technology or computers so they could not vote or contribute,” he was quoted as saying in The Nation.
The Internet may have the potential to create a relatively democratic space. But people still need capital and effort to take part. Those who did not mobilise it could not vote. This fact was overlooked right through this campaign.
The fate of the Pyramid of Giza was humiliating. The Pyramid is the only surviving wonder from the original Greek list. The Egyptian Government was apprehensive and worried about the voting system. There were fears that the Pyramids would not make it to the list.

To be contd...

At Ellora : Testimony to design, skill and engineering.

Chiselled wonder
A. SRIVATHSAN
The Kailasanatha temple at Ellora is the grandest, with its unusually high plinth that makes the temple visible from outside and follows the contours of the mountain.

A miracle of patient industry”; “not a man-made affair”, “master piece of human creative genius”, the encomiums and eulogies are duly showered on this architectural wonder. Wonder it is because; this four storied, exquisitely carved building was scooped out, chiselled and burrowed out of the slopes of the Sahyadri. This large monolithic temple is a testimony to design, skill and engineering acumen of Indian building craftsmen. The structure that is in the eye of appreciation is the Kailasanatha temple at Ellora
Soaring
Ellora or Ellapura, as it was early known, was the epicentre of the Rashtrakuta kings who ruled between 8th century and 10th century A.D. While there were many valiant kings in this dynasty, Krishna I is the most popular as the patron of the Kailasanatha temple. Ellora is a multi religious site with Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves totalling about 34. Kailasanatha — cave 16 — is the grandest. It is broadly agreed that this temple was built between 757-72 A.D, by Krishna 1.

The temple is enclosed by a courtyard and has an unusually high plinth. The plinth was probably scaled up to make the temple visible from outside and helps the form follow the contours of the mountain. Two independent pillars and elephants greet as you enter the temple courtyard and the elevated main temple is interlinked with the gopura by a bridge. The temple is also famous for its sculpture panels.
Meru, Mandira and other mountains, real and mythical, were part of the conception of temple architecture. But Kailasanatha literally and visually is a solid mountain soaring to the sky (about 90 feet height). Two theories exist as to how this temple could have been built. One theory suggests that the temple was chiselled and hewn from top down. While others think it must have been built in five phases and mainly by burrowing from the front. Any which way, the consensus is that this structure could not have been completed in 15 years. It must have taken longer. There is an inconclusive debate among the architecture historians as to whether this temple is a copy of the Virupaksha at Pattadakal or not. Monoliths and rock structures were present before Kailasanatha. Architecturally, it may even resemble Pattadakal and Kanchipuram temples. But what makes this world heritage site special, unique and important is the daring conception, scale and industry.

Back.....To Discovery of India...

Historic art forms found in caves

Historic art forms found in caves (June 15,2007, Young World)
CHANDAN SEN
Some cave paintings found in Bundi have been dated to the Solutrian Meglelian period.
Photo: Chandan Sen Heritage: Rock painting in Gararda.
In Bundi you can see pre-historic art in two forms — cave paintings and rock shelters. The cave paintings date back from 30,000 to 20,000 years (Solutrian Meglelian age) and 20000 to 10000 years (Aurgnahan Paragarhon age). There are similar caves at Altamira, Frant de game and Lasko and Troyfares. In India, almost all pre-historic paintings are seen in rock shelters.
In the rural areas
Rock paintings have been found near the river /rivulet on rocks and caves in the district . The colours for these paintings were derived from powdered rocks or coloured earth found in and around these places. The prominent colours used were ochre, tan, dark red , white and yellow and purple. The paintings of the mesolithic period show animals — bison, tiger, dogs and antelopes, armies, hunting scenes, lakes, and scenes from daily life, dancing, swords, flags, herd of deer and so on.
The style of the painting suggests it could be 20,000 to 30,000 years old. The Naldah, Gararda, Golpur rock painting sites are undoubtedly the best sites discovered so far. The collection includes microlithic tools, fishing tools from the copper age, stone age arrow heads and many small interesting items from the historic period.
Historic rock painting sites have been discovered in the rural areas of Bundi. Unfortunately in some sites stone mining has been going on destroying many paintings. Other locations are also under threat because of lack of identification and protection.
Gararda is bigger in size and has around three dozen caves housing the rock paintings. The prominent theme in these paintings are the bird rider and geometric designs.

Modern humans reached India earlier

Modern Humans reached India early
Evidence found in excavations by international team of scientists at Jwalapuram in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.
(The Hindu, July 12th 2007.)
In the coure of archaeological excavations at Jwalapuram in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, an international team of scientists has found evidence that anatomically modern human beings have reached India before a massive volcanic eruption in what is today Indonesia occurred tens of thousands of years ago.
“Super– eruption”
The “super-eruption” of the Toba volcano in Sumatra 74,000 years ago was the largest volcanic event to have occurred in the last two million years and the ash thrown up high into the atmosphere by that cataclysmic explosion reached India too, said Ravi Korisettar of the Department of History and Archaeology at Karnatak University in Dharwad, Karnataka.
During five years of excavations at Jwalapuram, Indian, British and Australian scientists unearthed fine stone flakes that had been turned into tools for various purposes.
The stone tools were to be found in layers of earth above as well as below the fine ash from the Toba super-eruption, the scientists noted in a paper published in the latest issue of the journal Science.
“Volcanic Winter”
It had been thought that the vast amounts of volcanic ash flung into the atmosphere by the eruption could have blocked the sun light and produced a “Volcanic winter” that decimated the humans living then. But the evidence from the Jwalapuram excavations, however, suggest that the volcanic eruption did not have such a catastrophic impact on the early human population there.
Stone Tools
The stone tools also pointed to a more exciting possibility. The stone tool assemblages found in jwalapuram were “ very similar to ones that we see produced in Africa at the same time”’ said Michael Petragila of the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary studies at the University of Cambridge in the UK, the first author of the paper.
These stone tools in Africa had been produced by modern humans.
“Closer affinities”
In the science paper, the researchers noted that the techniques used for making the stone tools at Jwalapuram suggested “closer affinities” to African middle stone Ages traditions than to contemporaneous Eurasian ones. This finding is significant because genetic studies of telltale patterns in the DNA of people living in various parts of the world have supported the view that all modern humans arose in Africa.
It is believed that these modern humans probably dispersed from Africa into India at a very early date, earlier than anyone has suggested before”’ Dr.Petraglia told this correspondent.
There is a hypothesis that modern humans could have taken the “southern route of dispersal,” utilising the coastlines to travel from Africa, through Arabia, across the Indian subcontinent and then into South –East Asia and finally into Australia, he said. The presence of modern humans in India at the time of the Toba super-erection would be consistent with humans having used the southern route, but would remain speculative till further excavations were carried out in the Indian subcontinent and Arabian peninsula, remarked the scientists in their journal paper.
Key role
India has played a key role in the migration of modern humans out of Africa, says K.Thangaraj of the Centre fr Cellular and Molecular Biology at Hyderabad. In a paper published in science two years ago, Dr. Thangaraj and others held that genetic lineages to be found among Andaman islanders supported an out-of-Africa migration by modern humans some 500,000 to 70,000 years ago.
Archaeological data
Dr. Korisettar is, however, sceptical about modern humans opting for a coastal route for their migration.
There was currently no archaeological evidence of such ancient human migrations along India’s west coast and into southern Tamil Nadu. Rather, the available archaeological data favoured a continental route through the Bolan and Khyber passes to the north-western parts of the Indian subcontinent and then into Rajasthan before dispersing to other parts of the country, he added. N.Gopal Raj. To Bhimbetka Rock shelters Geography.....

Lobbying or not Taj Mahal will never loose its sheen

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Lobbying or not, Taj Mahal will never lose its sheen (The Hindu,July 06,2007)
Current campaign for inclusion in seven wonders’ list not approved by UNESCO
Country being misled by campaign with commercial interests
PIL planned against the Central Government’s silence on the issue
HYDERABAD: Taj Mahal will not lose its status if the lovers of the magnificent edifice don’t vote for it for a place in the new Seven Wonders of the World. The reason is simple – the present campaign launched by a private organisation doesn’t have the backing of UNESCO.
World heritage status
Taj Mahal has already been given the world heritage status in 1983 and no private or public opinion can snatch that status away from it. In fact, UNESCO has posted a note on its website (http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/352) detaching itself from the present campaign. “In order to avoid any damaging confusion, UNESCO wishes to reaffirm that there is no link whatsoever between UNESCO’s World Heritage programme, which aims to protect world heritage, and the current campaign concerning ‘The New 7 Wonders of the World’, the posting on the UNESCO website reads. The posting on the website points out it was not a party to the ‘private initiative’ launched in 2000 by Bernard Weber.
Heritage lovers are annoyed that the country is being misled by a private campaign and the Government is silent on the issue when the sentiments of people are being exploited. “It is a purely private affair done for monetary and personal gains,” says N. Raghunandan Kumar, General Secretary, Planetary Society of India. “Unfortunately, people believe that the campaign has the Government backing and are proud of voting spending money that would go to a private organisation,” he says.
Big money
Heritage lovers say millions of Indians have voted for Taj Mahal using various modes and the kind of money generated is mind-boggling and none of this would be spent for preservation of the heritage sites. It is believed that the organisation has launched the campaign in the country spending Rs. 70 crore.
“Their commercial interests are very clear, but people are not aware of it,” says a heritage lover. He feels that heritage value cannot be defined with people’s sentiments and it is very clear in the UNESCO’s objectives also.
In fact, the note posted on the UNESCO also says that its mandate is to assist countries in identifying, protecting and preserving World Heritage. Acknowledging the sentimental or emblematic value of sites and inscribing them on a new list is not enough. The task is one of technical conservation and political persuasion.
There is also a clear educational role with respect to the sites’ inherent value, the threats they face and what must be done to prevent their loss.
The Planetary Society now plans to file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on Government’s silence on the issue.

How to Cash in on Your Scrapbooking Expertise

How to Cash in on Your Scrapbooking Expertise

(ARA) - Move over Tiger Woods! Scrapbooking has recently become more popular than golf, according to the Craft and Hobby Association.

With one in three households containing a scrapbooker, the hobby, which involves preserving a legacy of written history through photographs, memorabilia and embellishments, has grown rapidly since its modern debut in the early 1980s.

As part of a nationwide challenge in creativity, The Skinny Cow brand, maker of low-fat ice cream snacks, is inviting “scrappers” across the country to share their snipped, stamped and stenciled memories. The contest involves creating a layout with two photos, a title, at least one accent or embellishment, and a journalizing block to bring the page to life. “Croppers” have until midnight on July 31, 2007, to submit their entries in one of the following categories:

* Best “Girls Nite Out” Page: From movie nights to book clubs and happy hours, memories are always made when good friends come together for an evening of fun!

* Best “Crop Party” Page: Scrapbooking and parties go together like glitter and glue! If your scrapbooking get-togethers go down in history, be sure to preserve the memories with an amazing visual display of all the good times.

* Best “Scrapbook Convention” Page: Croppers across the country convene to refine skills and creativity – and not to mention, scrapbook!

The top 150 contest entries will be judged by a panel of “celebrity scrapbookers” from Creating Keepsakes and Simple Scrapbooks magazines. The grand prize winner will be crowned “Queen of the Crop,” and receive a trip for four to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. Three first prize winners (one per category) will receive a digital camera and photo printer package, and 30 second prize winners (10 per category) will receive a year’s supply of The Skinny Cow frozen treats.

For additional contest information, a complete list of the rules, and to fill out an entry form, visit

How to Cash in on Your Scrapbooking Expertise

(ARA) - Move over Tiger Woods! Scrapbooking has recently become more popular than golf, according to the Craft and Hobby Association.

With one in three households containing a scrapbooker, the hobby, which involves preserving a legacy of written history through photographs, memorabilia and embellishments, has grown rapidly since its modern debut in the early 1980s.

As part of a nationwide challenge in creativity, The Skinny Cow brand, maker of low-fat ice cream snacks, is inviting “scrappers” across the country to share their snipped, stamped and stenciled memories. The contest involves creating a layout with two photos, a title, at least one accent or embellishment, and a journalizing block to bring the page to life. “Croppers” have until midnight on July 31, 2007, to submit their entries in one of the following categories:

* Best “Girls Nite Out” Page: From movie nights to book clubs and happy hours, memories are always made when good friends come together for an evening of fun!

* Best “Crop Party” Page: Scrapbooking and parties go together like glitter and glue! If your scrapbooking get-togethers go down in history, be sure to preserve the memories with an amazing visual display of all the good times.

* Best “Scrapbook Convention” Page: Croppers across the country convene to refine skills and creativity – and not to mention, scrapbook!

The top 150 contest entries will be judged by a panel of “celebrity scrapbookers” from Creating Keepsakes and Simple Scrapbooks magazines. The grand prize winner will be crowned “Queen of the Crop,” and receive a trip for four to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. Three first prize winners (one per category) will receive a digital camera and photo printer package, and 30 second prize winners (10 per category) will receive a year’s supply of The Skinny Cow frozen treats.

For additional contest information, a complete list of the rules, and to fill out an entry form, visit

Magna Carta,

Charter of liberties (22June 2007 young world.)

K.S.S. SESHAN

The Magna Carta contained 63 articles and these could be divided into several sectors, each dealing with aspects like church, feudal obligations, law, justice and so on.

King John: Signing the Magna Carta.

The English Constitution, unlike ours, is an unwritten one. However, there are few written elements in such an unwritten constitution in England. The first and foremost of such written documents in the history of England is the Magna Carta, given by King John in 1215 A.D.

England in the 13th century was feudal and the lords were powerful. They provided the king with military help. In turn, they enjoyed all lands given by the king. When King John ascended the throne in 1204, he could not get along with the nobles. He knew only the art of making enemies both within and outside. He was at loggerheads with the king of France and also with the religious head, the Pope. He wanted to invade France and so asked the nobles to provide an army. But the nobles refused, declaring that by the “Oath of Homage” they were obliged to help the king with their armies only when he was fighting within the country. In the meantime, King John set out with a small army but was defeated by the French king.

Individual rights

When he returned, all the feudal nobles in England joined together and demanded he sign a charter of demands ensuring certain liberties. The townsmen also joined the nobles. King John signed the Charter of Demands, the Magna Carta at Runnymede grounds, about 30 miles outside London on June 15, 1215.

The Magna Carta contained 63 Articles and these could be divided into several sectors, each dealing with different aspects like church, feudal obligations, law, justice, constitutional clauses etc. Though the Magna Carta was seen as a feudal document it was in reality a reactionary Charter which paved the way for the individual rights.

The Charter makes frequent use of the word ‘Liberty’ though unlike today, the word in the 13th century had a limited connotation. The Magna Carta is said to be the first constitutional document in history and is rightly regarded as the cornerstone of the English constitution. The Magna Carta remained fresh in the minds of the people throughout the 13th century.

But in the 14th and 15th centuries, Parliament held the same place in the minds of men as the Magna Carta had earlier. During the Tudor period, people cared very little about the Magna Carta, because the kings of this period, through their popular despotism, took care to ensure the liberties of the people.

Shakespeare in his play “King John” did not even refer to the Magna Carta.

When the Stuart kings came to the English throne after Elizabeth in 1603, and tried to place themselves above the law, the Magna Carta came back quickly to the minds of the people.

The entire 17th century witnessed the constitutional struggle between the king and the Parliament over the question of sovereignty and the struggle was carried by the Parliament in the name of the Magna Carta. In the 18th century leaders like Edmund Burke thought the document deserved to be worshipped. The Magna Carta served as an example for the American colonists while drafting the Declaration of Independence. Back......

In search Of Indies.

June 22,2007 Young world.

In search of the Indies
RADHA H.S.
Columbus sailed west from Europe in his search for the Indies. When he landed on an island in the Bahamas, he assumed it was the Indies.
As early as 1000 B.C. India was a centre for trade in spices. Indians, Arabs and Chinese had already been trading.
I am an Indian. Wait! Let me clarify: I am from India and therefore an Indian.
Thanks to Christopher Columbus’s goof up, we have two types of Indians: One, like me from India and the other American Indians native to North and South America.
In 1492, Columbus sailing west from Europe, under a Spanish flag set out in search of the Indies. Coming upon an island in the Bahamas, he called the people “Indians” assuming he had reached an island in the Indies. Within a few years they knew for sure that this was not the Indies. But the island went down in history as the West Indies and the local inhabitants of the continents of North and South America are now referred to as American Indians.
Trade ties
Indies in those days comprised India, China, East Indies and Japan. Columbus was searching for the Indies because he wanted spices like pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cummin and so on.

As early as 1000 B.C. India was a centre for trade in spices. Indians, Arabs and Chinese had already been trading. Europe was a part of the Old World. Europeans in the 15th century had heard about pepper, cinnamon and many other spices for a long time and they knew it came from the Indies. The European market and hunger for these spices was enormous. Most of the spices were transported to Europe over land using camel caravans, Arab boats and mules and the traders were mostly Arabs. Wealthy Italian merchants sponsored the caravans. Even if five cargoes out of six were lost, the merchant ran a profit by selling the sixth. Spices could be used to buy mortgage or a coat of arms. Having spices was like having hard cash.
The Europeans especially the Portuguese thought it made great economic sense to trade directly with the Indies for these spices. The Ottoman Empire came between the Europeans and the Indies. An alternative to land travel was finding a sea passage.
Columbus thought if he sailed west he would find the Philippines, but then he ran into the landmass of the West Indies. To travel west from Europe and reach the Philippines, one had to cross the Americas. To go east of Europe meant sailing down the coast of West Africa through the Atlantic Ocean, going around the southern tip of Africa, up the coast of East Africa and crossing the Indian Ocean to reach a port on the west coast of India. In those years the Europeans had not even crossed the equator to sail south.
Navigation news
Portuguese maritime experts had collected extensive information about the waters they travelled. Charts and maps were made. Land where food and water was available was marked. Sailors pooled in all they knew. Navigation was improved. The best navigators and other experts in Europe had been tapped for information.In 1482, Columbus approached Portuguese King John II to fund his trip westwards to find the Indies. Portuguese experts thought it was a worthless idea and he was refused.

Back.........

Sleep tight, live longer!

Sleep tight, live longer!Tuesday June 19 2007 15:36 IST
“His insomnia was so bad, he couldn’t sleep during office hours.” –Arthur Baer.‘‘The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.’’ Sleep needs change over a person’s lifetime. Children and adolescents need more sleep than adults. However, older adults need about the same amount of sleep as younger adults -- seven to nine hours of sleep per night. But many often they get less sleep than they need. One reason is that they often have more trouble falling asleep.A study of adults over 65 found that 13 percent of men and 36 percent of women take more than 30 minutes to fall asleep. Many older adults tend to get sleepier earlier in the evening and awaken earlier in the morning. There are many reasons for such phenomenon.
Older adults may produce and secrete less melatonin, the hormone that promotes sleep. They may also be more sensitive to, and may awaken because of changes in their environment, or may have medical and psychiatric problems that can affect their nighttime sleep.
Restless slumber
Not sleeping well can lead to a number of problems. Older adults who have poor nighttime sleep are more likely to have a depressed mood, attention and memory problems, excessive daytime sleepiness, more nighttime falls, and use more overthe- counter or prescription sleep aids.Sleep patterns change as one ages, but disturbed sleep and waking up tired every day are not part of normal aging.Living with a sleep disorder can make you feel like you are fighting a losing battle as it disrupts and disturbs the very quality of life. It can affect a child, teen, single adult, parent or senior citizen. Sleep disorders can make it hard to fall asleep during the night, and can make you drowsy during the day. The following are the most common sleep disorders among older adults.
Insomnia
Insomnia, the most common sleep complaint at any age, affects almost half of adults and older people. The common symptoms include taking a long time to fall asleep, waking up many times each night, and that too feeling tired. Short-term insomnia, lasting less than one month, may result from a medical or psychiatric condition. If insomnia lasts longer than a month, it is considered chronic.The most common reason older adults wake up at night is to go to the bathroom. Prostate enlargement in men and continence problems in women are often the causes. Disorders such as heartburn, arthritis, menopause and cancer may make it more difficult to sleep through the night. Neurologic conditions such as parkinson’s disease and dementia, and psychiatric conditions such as depression also result in sleep problems.
Sleep-disordered breathing
Sleep apnea and snoring are examples of sleep-disordered breathing -- conditions that make it more difficult to breathe during sleep. When severe, these disorders may cause people to wake up often at night and be drowsy during the day.Snoring affects nearly 40 percent of adults, and is more common among older people and those who are overweight. When severe, snoring not only causes frequent awakenings at night and daytime sleepiness, but also disrupt a bed partner’s sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea is more common among older adults and people who are significantly overweight. It can increase a person’s risk for high blood pressure, strokes, heart diease, and cognitive problems.
Movement disorders
Two movement disorders that can make it harder to sleep include restless legs syndrome, or RLS, and periodic limb movement disorder, or PLMD. Both the conditions cause people to move their limbs when they sleep, leading to poor sleep and daytime drowsiness. RLS is a common condition in older adults, and affects more than 20 percent of people 80 years and older. People with RLS experience uncomfortable feelings in their legs such as tingling, crawling, or pins and needles. It has been linked to a variety of conditions such as iron deficiency, kidney failure and dialysis, pregnancy, and nerve abnormalities.Periodic limb movement disorder, or PLMD, is a condition that causes people to jerk and kick their legs every 20 to 40 seconds during sleep.As with RLS, PLMD often disrupts sleep not only for the patient but the bed partner as well.
Getting help
If you are often tired during the day and don’t feel that you sleep well, you should consult a doctor. Diagnose sleep disorders and offering suggestions and treatments can improve one’s sleep.Before you visit the doctor, keep a sleep diary for a week or more. A sleep diary will give you and your doctor a picture of your sleep habits and schedules and help determine whether they may be affecting your sleep.During your appointment with the doctor let your bed partner come with you since he or she may be able to report symptoms unknown to you such as loud snoring, breathing pauses, or movements during sleep. Inform your doctor about any health condition or medication you are taking.Also, mention over-the-counter medications, coffee or caffeine use, and alcohol since these also may have an impact on your sleep.
Treatment
Once the source of a problem is found, sleep disorders can be treated effectively. Besides, there are a number of therapies available to help one fall asleep. Try to limit excessive noise or light in your sleep environment.Limit the time spent in bed while not sleeping, and use bright lights to help with circadian rhythm problems, which is one’s 24-hour internal body clock that is affected by sunlight.Medications also can be useful early in your treatment.People who are diagnosed with sleep apnea should try to lose weight.Adjusting the body position during the night may benefit those if they experience sleep apnea more often when they lie on their back. Many sleep problems will improve with changes that one makes on one’s own.You can often sleep better by simply following the practices of good sleep hygiene, which consists of basic habits and tips that help you develop a pattern of healthy sleep.
Source: Internet Back....To Maharana Pratap....click here..

All about slumber

All about slumber
Tuesday June 19 2007 15:38 IST (The New Indian Express)Peaceful sleep has become a much evasive commodity that people would go into any extent to get a little bit of it every 24 hours. Sleep deprivation or poor quality of sleep impacts both short-term and long-term health, with depression, obesity, loss of mental clarity and fatigue as some of the frigtening consequences.Ayurveda does not dictate eight hours of sleep every night for everyone. But quality and quantity of sleep required by an individual to completely recharge in mind and body are considered crucial for health, bliss and longevity.Some secretsHere are some suggestions for falling asleep easily and naturally, and for obtaining a more rejuvenating quality of sleep.Rise with the sun or shortly before, and get into bed early - no later than 9.45 pm Getting up before 6 am is ideal, and between 6 pm and 10 pm sleep will come most easily. Follow this routine at the weekend as well.Arise and go to bed at about the same time each day. This helps your body and mind relax as the appointed bedtime approaches, and over time it conditions your physiology to fall asleep at that time.Doing exercises in the morning will help one fall asleep easier at night. Working out late in the day is not recommended as this will raise energy levels and set you up for activity rather than sleep. Exercise moderately, according to the needs of your constitution, every day.Do not eat a heavy dinner, and avoid spicy foods at night.Do not drink too much water or other beverages after 6.30 pm. Drink a cup of warm milk at bedtime.Do not drink alcohol or caffeinated beverages; they impact the quality and quantity of sleep you get. Avoid nicotine as well.Calming activities such as listening to soft relaxing music and practicing deep breathing can help your mind and body wind down gradually.Avoid napping during the day. Practice regularly a meditation technique. This will help strengthen your ability to deal with day-to-day stresses and worries.— Ayurveda and Health TourismE mail: www.ayurvedamagazine@gmail.com

MY COUNTRY MY PEOPLE

MY COUNTRY MY PEOPLE
(Modern Indian Epic)

By Gunturu Seshendra Sarma.
Moments are not the retinue of time. There is one which
decides the turning point of mankind. I can’t hand over to sighs
that time which stands and beckons me. To hell with the shades
to recline and chew the gum of past.
Remember, the storms do not count for a life which strides
With hills and shifts oceans; the fiercest storms blow off while
Struggles of life flit around like flies.
Look! Drunk on pearls of sweat, the sun grows large
and formidable with millions sickles and hammers of light.
In history where savage winds blow in cantos, I cannot be
Like the braches of trees that remain trembling in the hands
Of unrelenting winds.
Do not query why so restless, ask the ocean why it is restless.
Do not say why so furious; ask the hurricane for the answer. Better
Know that time after all is my paper, upon which I write the
Charter of my dreams for the world, sculpture a colossus of force
Out of man; my will, will shout and break the spine of time, tear off
the horizon and throw a new era on the earth-
It shall confer unrest on man and
Flow like red-hot blood through all the roads of
Our villages and make him into a sea and into a tempestuous storm.
I shall gift that consciousness to my country with my four dimensional poems….
Now, centuries will speak the language, which I learnt in the wombs of forests;
My word will be the legacy to future generations;
my poems, only countries and nations deserve-
To go to Discovery of India...click here...

Ages Around the Sun

Ages Around the Sun By Guntur Seshendra Sarma.
In the mirror of time I do not see the foot prints of years

I have seen trees shedding their leaves about 60 times

I have also seen hunger dribbling its drops of sweat

from the first bicycle entering my village to

Man setting his feet on the moon
I have seen the entire span of

Man’s journey in this century

I dreamt that this century would see

A new sky showering drizzles of stars

on a new country

But alas! what did I see?

I have seen down pour

of bombs from Paris to Pearl Harbor

I have seen gushing floods of human blood




Inundating those very two rivers Which gave birth to the Sumerian civilization.

I have also seen great monuments of humanity being reduced to shambles.

My words of anguish streamed into newspapers to become Headlines

I am now not left with many years nor tears

I now see the foot prints of time

Is this the fruit of mother earth revolving around the sun for so many ages?

I now see history facing this question.

A WILD WILLING VICTIM OF BEAUTY

pic
A WILD WILLING VICTIM OF BEAUTY
He calls poetry an adventure and believes multiplicity of languages in India is the root of all social evils.

In fact, for immensely –respected Telugu poet, critic and scholar gunturu Seshendra Sharma, love for poetry and nature, and concern for the problems in society have been the driving forces in his five-decade-long literary career.

“ I am a victim of beauty-it chases me like a hunter chases a wild animal. But I walk into its trap willingly as I experience a strange pleasure in it incomparable to any other.’ The sahitya Akademi award-winning poet says about his inspiration for writing poetry.

Widely-traveled poet Sharma is credited with the revival of modern Telugu poetry, and his Munday Suryudu (Burning Sun), Rakta Rekha (Arc of Blood) and the Magnum opus Naa desham Naa Prajalu (My country-My people) are treated as bench-marks of modern Indian Poetry.

“The unknown beckons the searcher with its beauty, but it is doubtful whether he is successful in capturing it fully though it exists every where.” Mr. Sharma
a former Civil Servant, says about his source of inspiration.

“If you do not seek anything and do not sharpen your eye, you will be left gorging only the familiarities,” he told a audience at a Sahitya Akademi programme recently.
Relating how he draws his inspiration from the mundane, Mr. Sharma says, “Once while going to the airport in Madras I saw a woman dressed in rags with a naked child in her arms, begging on the roads. And I wrote: the child in the womb/better it remains in the womb in our country/otherwise, if it cries of hunger/ people will show it the way to the footpaths and not to the fields.”

His love for nature and corresponding concern for the deteriorating environment is reflected in another of his poems, written once again, during his journey through a forest by road.
It says, “Chased away by the human Bazaar, silence fled to the hills.. I measure the forest with a song of a bird or with a melody of a meandering brook.”
Called a rare combination of a poet and critic, Mr. Sharma was born on October 20th, 1927 at Nagaraajupadu in Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh.

He translated Mathew Arnold’s version of the Persian epic Shahnama into Sohrab
His first collection of prose poems “Shesha Jyotsna” came out in 1972 in telugu6 and English bilingual edition.
Then in 1974, came Munday Suryudu and Rakta Rekha, which created a stir in the Telugu literary world for their erudite and pro-profound expressions. Both are now considered classics of modern Indian poetry.
Next year he came out with Naa desham Naa prajalu which has been hailed as landmark by poet-critics like ali Sardar Jafri, Virendra Kumar Jain And Dr.Vishwambharnath Upadhyay.

He won the Sahitya Akademi award in 1994 for Kaala Rekha (Arc of time), which, incidentally, is not a poetry collection but comprises 25 critical papers presented in seminars on topics like ancient drama, comparitive literature, classical poetry and modern writing.
Upadhyaya once described Mr. Sharma thus, “ He is not a mere medium of the age, but the architect of the spirit of the age.”
While another litterateur-critic C.N. Sastry said, “ His emergence is to be hailed as a significant landmark in the history of modern Telugu poetry.”
Sharma who has visited many countries including Greece Germany, Mauritius, Madagascar, Kenya, France and Italy, believes, “ Poets want to cross the barrier of languages, I cannot tolerate to be referred to as a Telugu poet- a poet is a poet in a any language

Incidentally, Sharma is a proponent of one common language in India, which once spoken by, he believes will solve most of the socio-political problems of the country.

Why so many languages, select one language for the country.” He says in his poetic innocence, and refers to the e biblical story of the Tower of Babel. “ Unfortunately, in our country people are too much in love with their respective languages.”

“ Man is superior to language, but he now is being dominated by the latter,” he says adding “ but do not misunderstand me.”

-Uttapal Bhorpujari
The Pioneer
Daily News paper
New Delhi: 14th December 1996

* * * * * *
Address:
Saatyaki
32,Janatha flats,
Kanthi Sikhara complex,
Punjagutta, somajiguda Post,
Hyderabad
AP
India 500 482

My Web Links:
Seshendra:visionary poet of the millennium
http://www.geocities.com/saatyaki2001

Threatened messengers

NATURE (The Hindu Mgagzine 27 May 2007)
Threatened messengers
The plight of cranes the world over has become a metaphor for vanishing wildlife. S. THEODORE BASKARAN
Photo: John Isaac

Among the oldest on earth: Sandhill cranes in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in the U.S.
What is the colour of snow like? It is like white crane.
Nirvana Sutra
ZEN monk, nature writer and explorer Peter Matthiessen was in India three years ago, to observe the crane phenomenon at Khichan village in Rajasthan, where these graceful migrants — common and demoiselle cranes — gather by the thousands t o feed on the grains strewn by the villagers. This is a community ritual that has been going on for the past 115 years.
Matthiessen travelled on to Gujarat to watch Sarus cranes in their home territory. It was part of his worldwide peregrination to observe all the cranes of the world. The result is a fascinating book The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cran es (2003) Matthiessen points out that the plight of the cranes all over the world has become a metaphor for vanishing wildlife.
Cranes are long-legged birds with a long neck and bill. Though they look like large storks, they are very different. All cranes nest on ground while storks nest on tree tops. They are one of the oldest of birds on earth; nine million year old fossils of Sandhill cranes have been found in Wyoming. In India you can see five species of cranes: the Common Crane, the Demoiselle, the Siberian, the Black-necked, and Sarus crane. Only the last two are residents and the rest are winter visitors
Myths and legends
All the 15 species of cranes, in both the old and the new world, are subjects of myths and legends. In many cultures, they were once regarded as messengers from heaven, but are now threatened. Their being sensitive to human interference and being slow breeders makes the task of protecting them difficult. War, hunting, habitat destruction, reclaiming wetlands have all taken their toll and many of the crane species are doddering on the brink of extinction.
So in 1973, the International Crane Foundation was formed in Wisconsin to protect these magnificent birds, many of which migrate to warmer climes thousands of kilometres during winter. Mattheissen teams up with five ornithologists and journeys across the world — from New Mexico to Hokkaido in Japan and on to the outback in Australia. In this effort at creating awareness about cranes, he is joined by local conservation enthusiasts, from Mongolian herdsmen to Australian aboriginals. He has recorded this experience of travel, spread over 10 years in this memorable book. The exquisite paintings and drawings of the cranes by bird artist Robert Bateman add to the value of the book.
While writing about the fortunes of Siberian crane, he refers to Richard Meinertzhagen, the notorious ornithologist. Recently The New York Times exposed a scientific fraud this British army officer had committed to gain ornithologic al fame. However, he, along with Salim Ali, first reported the sighting of Siberian crane in Bharatpur in 1937. He has left a note that he and Salim Ali shot one of these cranes for the pot. This species of crane has attracted notice for centuries. Ustad Mansur, the court painter of Jehangir painted this bird. A.O. Hume saw it in Leh in 1854 and described it as “the lily of birds”. As late as 1964, 200 visited Bharatpur. For the last few years, none has been sighted.
There is a distinction between nature writing and writing on wildlife. In the former, the writer responds to nature intuitively in the manner of Thoreau. The writer on wildlife presents scientific findings in a readable manner. Matthiessen combines these two types of writing admirably. He has built up an awesome reputation as a writer through works such as The African Silence, in which he writes about his search for the pigmy elephants and The Snow Leopard in which he gives a gripping account of his trek, in the company of the legendary wildlifer George Schaller, along the Himalayas trying to get a glimpse of the elusive cat. ‘Lyrical’ is the adjective often used to describe his writing.
Virtual reality
The word-pictures he creates have the power of virtual reality. Here is a sample from The Birds of Heaven, in which he describes an incident while looking for the breeding grounds of the Siberian crane. “A steppe fox whisks th rough the blowing grass, a steppe-eagle scoops on a young marmot. The eagle glares at the oncoming vehicles as it tears away red shining shreds. Neatly, then, it eviscerates the rodent, leaving the heavy guts behind as it takes wing, dragging the rest away over the grass”
Various conservation issues also come up for discussion in the book. He writes about the problems in China, about tampering with rivers by building dams and about Lake Baikal, which stores one fifth of the world’s fresh water. There are pen pictures of individuals who work to save the cranes in various parts of the world. That includes Prakash Jain, who renounced everything to work for cranes in Rajasthan and Finley Gilber, an Australian aborigine, who provides information on Brolga crane, a close relative of the Sarus. About his own motivation Mattheissen records, “I care profoundly about cranes and tigers, not only as magnificent and stirring creatures, but as heralds and symbols of all that is being lost”

Archaeologists unearth America's 'lost' history

Archaeologists unearth America's 'lost' history
Audio: Hear the team discuss this feature as part of SciPod, New Scientist’s weekly podcast.

Michael Lavin raises his hand and shows me a single tobacco seed swirling in a small vial of water. This tiny brown speck he tells me, is a 400-year-old national treasure, one that is helping archaeologists uncover the story of the birth of America.

Lavin is a conservator with the Jamestown Rediscovery Project, which is unearthing the remains of England's first successful colony in the New World. In the past few years, he says, the dig has uncovered more than 1 million artefacts, and each day a few more emerge. As America nears the 400th anniversary of the first settlers disembarking at the site of Jamestown, the archaeological findings are subtly reshaping the story of America's beginnings.

On 13 May 1607, 104 colonists seeking their fortune and a better life disembarked from three ships and stepped ashore onto a spot that would become ground zero in a cultural and ecological exchange that was to transform a continent. It was a shaky start - two weeks later they were attacked by a war party of the Paspahegh tribe and suffered their first casualties. The incident awoke the settlers to the dire need for better defences, and in response they hastily constructed a triangular palisade with bulwarks at each corner, a building they named James Fort.

That fort was discovered just 13 years ago. "Throughout the 20th century most scholars thought that James Fort had been lost to erosion," says senior archaeologist Danny Schmidt. "They assumed there was no need to even look for it." That was until another archaeologist Bill Kelso, following a hunch, initiated a modern search for the building.

In his first season, Kelso discovered the remains of the fort's south wall in Jamestown, and his team has now located all three sides of the triangle and excavated the foundations of several buildings within the perimeter. Luckily, just 15 per cent of the fort has been eroded away by the adjacent river, and archaeologists are uncovering artefacts such as the tobacco seed and skeletons of the early inhabitants (see "Death in the new world"). "It's an incredibly rich site," says senior curator Bly Straub. "Little by little the fort has revealed itself."

During my visit, Schmidt led me to an open pit in the north corner of the triangle, farthest from the shore, where last summer the team discovered the remains of a buried well. "This has been a wonderful find for us," says Schmidt. "We think it's one of James Fort's earliest." Part of the foundation of a building dated to 1617 sits on top of the well, confirming it was dug earlier.

In recent months archaeologists have excavated to the bottom. On the way down, says Schmidt, "we encountered multiple trash layers - predominantly the remains of what the colonists were eating". These table scraps offer a snapshot of survival on the edge, and show how the colonists learned to sustain themselves on food sources such as oysters, turtles and fish - although historical accounts relate that many starved before the colony had a stable food supply.

“Table scraps offer a snapshot of life on the edge, and show how the colonists survived on oysters, turtles and fish”Apart from helping to flesh out the story of America's beginnings, the food remains have also proved to be an exciting new resource for scientists hoping to characterise the ongoing environmental impact of human habitation and industry around Chesapeake Bay.

Juliana Harding, a marine biologist at the nearby Virginia Institute of Marine Science is working on a study comparing oyster shells from the James Fort era with those of modern populations. The differences are striking. Oysters today are smaller and have shorter lifespans because of environmental degradation and over-harvesting. Because the shells in the well can be dated to within 10 years, it is possible to relate growth patterns and isotopic ratios in the shells to corresponding patterns in tree rings on land. This can link the climate record as captured in trees directly to corresponding water temperature and salinity patterns extracted from the shells, potentially providing a baseline that will allow Harding and others to measure the effects of climate change on the region.

"In eating and discarding the oysters, the colonists collected all of these little environmental data recorders and then essentially put them in a time capsule for us to find four hundred years later," says Harding. Similar studies are planned for insect parts that have been collected at the well, along with botanical remains.

Collectively, these studies should provide a portrait of the earliest moments in the so-called "Columbian exchange", when European plant and animal species began to change the landscape. It is for this reason that the tobacco seed, identified at the bottom of the well by archaeobotanist Steve Archer, is so important.

Lavin and his colleagues would like to know if the seed is the native North American species Nicotiana rustica or a southern variety, Nicotiana tabacum, which English colonist John Rolfe is thought to have imported from the West Indies around 1611 and cultivated for its superior flavour. In doing so, Rolfe, better known for marrying the Native American princess Pocahontas, ensured that tobacco became the nascent colony's first economically viable export, safeguarding its future and that of the entire American enterprise. The problem, says Lavin, is that DNA testing may destroy the seed, which is their only well-preserved specimen.

Meanwhile, Schmidt and his colleagues have begun to excavate what appears to be another well. It may be the colony's first, which records suggest was ordered by John Smith - the dominant figure in the history of Jamestown - sometime between 1608 and 1609. The excavation is still metres from the bottom. Schmidt shows me a partial deer skull emerging from the clay. It will shortly be catalogued along with the ever-growing collection that is filling up the project's vault.

"All this data that we thought were gone forever are now coming to light," says Straub. And the story is subtly different story to the one Americans grew up with. Popular accounts tend to take a derogatory view of the Jamestown colony, portraying the colonists as ill-prepared opportunists only interested in finding New World gold and too lazy to save themselves from starvation and disease. The artefacts suggest a different picture, in which adaptation under extreme pressure eventually produced a thriving population and the seeds of a new nation. "This is our birthplace as Americans," says Straub. "This is where we started."

From issue 2603 of New Scientist magazine, 11 May 2007, page 6-7
Death in the new world
Most of the first colonists to arrive in Jamestown did not survive their first year in the New World. Now their stories are being told thanks to the work of forensic anthropologists who have been examining many of the human remains uncovered by the Jamestown Rediscovery Project.

Colonists buried many of their first dead within James Fort itself, abiding by a Virginia Company directive to conceal their casualties from watchful Native Americans keeping track of their numbers. Some of these skeletons can be identified as newly arrived Europeans, not only by their features, but by the relatively low concentrations of the isotope carbon-13 in their bone tissue, a consequence of a European diet based on wheat, barley and rye. Those who stayed long enough to become corn-fed Americans bear a different isotopic signature.

"The kinds of studies I'm doing today with these skeletons you would never have been thought possible 30 years ago," says Doug Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. "In some cases I think we'll be able to identify individuals." With that, America will know the final resting places of its founders.

One grand experiment
They may have founded a nation, but the first English people to arrive in Jamestown were more like scientist-entrepreneurs than conquerors.

Their arrival was part of a project run by the Virginia Company, a business venture with priorities that ranged from finding a passage to the Orient to jump-starting an English brass industry.

In the early 17th century, England had domestic sources of copper but no zinc-bearing minerals for brass-making. Among the recent finds at Jamestown are scraps of copper that were brought from England both for trade with the Native Americans and also for experimental metallurgy with local ores. Residue in crucibles recovered by archaeologists suggests that the metalwork began almost immediately after the colonists arrived. "They didn't have a good understanding of what they might find," says archaeologist Carter Hudgins, who has studied the metals found at Jamestown. "They were simply looking at the resources, hoping to find something that could be used to manufacture brass."

The experiments were short-lived. The need to survive and defend the colony against attack soon took up all the attention of the 34 colonists who survived the first year. Other ventures, including glass-making, were started and then abandoned. Not until tobacco began to make its way from Jamestown did the colony finally fulfil its core mandate to make money. "The name of the game at Jamestown was making a profit," says Hudgins.

Climate change: A guide for the perplexed

Giant tree in motion....more..Climate change: A guide for the perplexed
17:00 16 May 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Michael Le Page

Our planet's climate is anything but simple. All kinds of factors influence it, from massive events on the Sun to the growth of microscopic creatures in the oceans, and there are subtle interactions between many of these factors.

Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences.

Yes, there are still big uncertainties in some predictions, but these swing both ways. For example, the response of clouds could slow the warming or speed it up.

With so much at stake, it is right that climate science is subjected to the most intense scrutiny. What does not help is for the real issues to be muddied by discredited arguments or wild theories.

So for those who are not sure what to believe, here is our round-up of the 26 most common climate myths and misconceptions.

There is also a guide to assessing the evidence. In the articles we've included lots of links to primary research and major reports for those who want to follow through to the original sources.

• Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter

• We can't do anything about climate change

• The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong

• Chaotic systems are not predictable

• We can't trust computer models of climate

• They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

• It's been far warmer in the past, what's the big deal?

• It's too cold where I live - warming will be great

• Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans

• It’s all down to cosmic rays

• CO2 isn't the most important greenhouse gas

• The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming

• Antarctica is getting cooler, not warmer, disproving global warming

• The oceans are cooling

• The cooling after 1940 shows CO2 does not cause warming

• It was warmer during the Medieval period, with vineyards in England

• We are simply recovering from the Little Ice Age

• Warming will cause an ice age in Europe

• Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming

• Ice cores show CO2 rising as temperatures fell

• Mars and Pluto are warming too

• Many leading scientists question climate change

• It's all a conspiracy

• Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming

• Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production

• Polar bear numbers are increasing

If you would like to comment on this article, visit our blog.

For further reading, see the weblinks below.

Web Links
Climate myths special, New Scientist
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
FAQs, IPCC (pdf)
RealClimate.org
How to talk to a climate skeptic, Grist
Common arguments by climate sceptics, Logical Science
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CHILL WITH SANJEEV KAPOOR'S RECIPES!

Image Source :SanjeevKapoor.com
MIXED FRUIT LASSI

Ingredients Pear, roughly chopped 1 medium Apple, roughly chopped 1 medium Yogurt 2 cupsHoney 2 tablespoonsApricot preserve 2 tablespoons Fresh mint leaves 4Method1. Blend chopped pear and apple in a blender well. Add yogurt, honey and apricot preserve and continue to blend till smooth.2. Add a cup of ice cubes and blend some more.3. Add mint leaves and blend again.4. Serve chilled.

Sanjeev Kapoor's Palate TeasersMaster Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, India's best known chef, is also the celebrity host of TV show Khana Khazana, author of best selling cookbooks, has restaurant franchisees in India and abroad and is the winner of several culinary awards. His mission is evident: to make Indian cuisine the number one cuisine in the world.

CHILL WITH SANJEEV KAPOOR'S RECIPES!

CHILL WITH SANJEEV KAPOOR'S RECIPES!


Photo 1 of 4 Previous | Next










Image Source :SanjeevKapoor.com
MIXED FRUIT LASSI

Ingredients

Pear, roughly chopped 1 medium
Apple, roughly chopped 1 medium
Yogurt 2 cups
Honey 2 tablespoons
Apricot preserve 2 tablespoons
Fresh mint leaves 4

Method

1. Blend chopped pear and apple in a blender well. Add yogurt, honey and apricot preserve and continue to blend till smooth.
2. Add a cup of ice cubes and blend some more.
3. Add mint leaves and blend again.
4. Serve chilled.

Sanjeev Kapoor's Palate Teasers
Master Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, India's best known chef, is also the celebrity host of TV show Khana Khazana, author of best selling cookbooks, has restaurant franchisees in India and abroad and is the winner of several culinary awards. His mission is evident: to make Indian cuisine the number one cuisine in the world.

Tunnels interconnected

Spidey and some spider facts...more..to read click here.Underground
Tunnels interconnected

RAMESH SETH

An achievement in urban planning, the underground city is a tourist attraction.



ALL UNDERGROUND: Shops, cinema halls and more.

On a visit to Montreal, Canada, in late November I visited the underground city. It is a vast subterranean city located below the grounds of Christ Church Cathedral. In a predominantly Catholic city, the Anglican Church found itself in a financial crunch. The solution appeared in leasing out the underground. And so this wonderful underground city was born. It is a set of interconnected complexes (both above and below ground) in and around downtown Montreal. It is also known as the indoor city and is the largest underground complex in the world.

New name

In 2004, the downtown segments of the underground city were rebranded and named RÉSO. The name RÉSO is a homonym of the French word réseau, or network (as in a network of tunnels). With over 32 km of tunnels spread over an area of 12 square km it houses more than 1600 shops and boutiques and over 2900 eateries. There are also several cinema halls, shops and commercial complexes. It also has 60 residential complexes.

Some 5,00,000 people use the underground city every day, especially to escape the traffic and/or Montreal's harsh winter or hot summer.

The underground city is promoted as an important tourist attraction by most Montreal travel guidebooks, and as an urban planning achievement it is impressive.

Saturn gets star treatment in trio of Hubble movies

Saturn gets star treatment in trio of Hubble movies
14:31 21 March 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Hazel Muir







Enlarge image
From left to right, the moon Tethys (bright dot near rings), the large moon Titan and its shadow appear in this image of Saturn taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (Image: NASA/ESA/E Karkoschka/U Arizona)
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Images of Saturn from the Hubble Space Telescope have been seamlessly woven together into three movies of the majestic planet rotating. Each movie highlights a rare view of the planet during its 30-year waltz around the Sun.
The first movie shows the moons Titan and Tethys orbiting Saturn when the planet's rings were tilted nearly edge-on towards Earth in 1995. This edge-on alignment happens just once every 15 years.
Titan's shadow appears first, followed by Titan itself. Then Tethys appears on the left from behind the planet. The 15-second movie was created from Hubble images taken over 10.5 hours.
The second movie shows Saturn with its rings at maximum tilt towards Earth, which again occurs once every 15 years. The movie zooms in on the banded clouds of the planet's southern hemisphere, where the blue and white spots are giant storms. This 24-second movie was created from Hubble images taken over 24 hours in 2003.
The third and longest movie shows four icy moons circling Saturn in 1995, when the rings were nearly edge-on to us. Enceladus appears first, followed by Mimas and Dione. They all cast shadows onto Saturn. There's a fleeting view of Tethys as it moves behind the planet on the right. This 30-second film was made from Hubble images taken over 9.5 hours.
Hubble only recorded about a dozen images for each event. Astronomers then used software to generate hundreds of "in between" frames to make the movies continuous.

New species of big cat

New species of big cat

The latest in a list of unique inhabitants of Borneo

Clouded leopard in a rainforest. - PHOTO: AFP

KUALA LUMPUR: The clouded leopard of Borneo, discovered to be an entirely new species, is the latest in a growing list of animals and plants unique to the South-East Asian country's rainforest and underscores the need to preserve the area, conservationists said on Thursday.

Genetic tests by researchers at the U.S. National Cancer Institute revealed that the clouded leopard of Borneo and Sumatra islands is a unique cat species and not the same one found in mainland South-East Asia as long believed, said a statement by WWF, the global conservation organisation.

"Who said a leopard can never change its spots? For over a hundred years we have been looking at this animal and never realised it was unique," said Stuart Chapman, WWF International Coordinator of the Heart of Borneo programme, which is dedicated to preserving the flora and fauna in the deep jungles on Borneo.

The secretive clouded leopards are the biggest predators on Borneo, growing sometimes to the size of a small panther. They have the longest canine teeth relative to body size of any cat.

"The fact that Borneo's top predator is now considered a separate species further emphasises the importance of conserving the Heart of Borneo," Mr. Chapman said.

The news about the clouded leopard comes just a few weeks after a WWF report showed that scientists had identified at least 52 new species of animals and plants over the past year on Borneo, the world's third largest island that is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

The Heart of Borneo, a mountainous region covered with equatorial rainforest, is the last great forest home of the Bornean Clouded Leopard. — AP

A slice of Pi

A slice of Pi

SAM JORDISON

TO A CERTAIN type of person, the number 3.14 holds a fascination that can only be equalled by reciting scripts from old episodes of Monty Python or watching repeats of Xena: Warrior Princess. They are the first three digits of pi (p), the key to calculating the circumference and area of every circle. Simply put, it represents the ratio between the diameter and the circumference of any circle, and is one of the most significant numbers in maths. It is also (when it is written in the US fashion) today's date: 3/14.

And that's why maths students at Harvard University are today holding a p recitation contest to see who can list the notoriously long number to the most decimal places. They'll also be holding a pe-eating contest and the naughtier members of the faculty are even threatening to wash those down with some pña colada. Meanwhile, in an attempt to trick their pupils into thinking that maths is fun, teachers all over the world will be bringing pizza p to school and arranging p-themed activities throughout the day. These may or not include the singing of the following beautiful ditty (to the tune of Jingle Bells) written by a teacher and his class in Minnesota especially for the occasion:

Pi day songs

All day long.

Oh, what fun it is,

To sing a jolly pi day song

in a fun math class

like this. (Repeat )

Circles in the snow,

Around and round we go.

How far did we have to run?

Diameter times pi! (Refrain)

I imagine that at this point many of my readers are gagging, if not snorting derisively. Especially since, if you're anything like me, you probably only really know of p as the number that caused you hours of trouble and worry at school when you were instructed to use it to work out the circumference of various circles.

Even now the symbols 2pr send a chill down my spine and until recently I'd never thought to question the importance of all that time spent measuring radii and typing 3.142 into my calculator. The best that I'd have been able to come up with would have been some vague conspiracy theory about keeping Casio and the manufacturers of compasses and protractors in business (and keeping schoolboys like me quiet and unhappy).

I dropped maths as soon as I possibly could, and the vital importance of being able to work with p was lost to me. I hadn't given it any thought for many years. And that's a terrible shame because, as I now know, p really is quite special.

The practical applications of p are, in fact, legion. The number has all kinds of relevances outside the world of square-ruled exercise books and smudged equations, above and beyond the fairly obvious usefulness of being able to accurately work out the circumference of circles in the tunnelling and construction industries. Pi is used in just about every manufacturing process you can think of, from loo rolls to fighter jets. Everywhere there's a circle that needs to be measured, in fact, and that's an awful lot of places, if you think about the number of screws there are in the world (not to mention lenses, tubes and wheels). It's also vital in telecommunications. Radio, TV, telephone and radar signals can all be described as sine waves and p is fundamental in calculating their size and frequency, as it is in calculating the size of the waves in the sea. The magic number is also used in an unutterably complex way to stimulate unknown factors and loading conditions in engineering, wind gusts on a plane, and even random variables in computer-game manufacture.

In short, p is one of the foundation stones of our way of living and we'd be in a lot of trouble without it. It's not overstating things too much to say that the history of our civilisation can be traced in the history of p. Arguably the first technological society, the Babylonians had calculated p using the value of 25/8. It was this level of accuracy that enabled them to produce some of the first serious construction marvels - and to build all those towers that so annoyed the writers of the Old Testament.

Meanwhile, in spite of its claims to be the infallible word of an omnipotent God, the references to p in the Old Testament are distinctly underwhelming. Verses in Kings and II Corinthians about the construction of Solomon's Temple give p a value of "3". Proof at least that the concept had broad currency by the first millennium BC, but nothing like as impressive as the earlier Ancient Egyptian figure of 3.160, written down by a scribe called Ahmes in 1650BC, and which no doubt helped the people of the pharaohs build all those magnificent temples.

The single biggest leap in the evolution of p came, as with so many things, thanks to the ancient Greeks. In the 3rd century BC Archimedes of Syracuse work-ed out the first known theoretical calculation of the number. His idea was that by drawing a polygon outside a circle and then a smaller one inside and calculating the perimeters of both, he'd be able to approximate the circumference of the circle somewhere in between the two figures and thus work his way back to p. This gives a pretty rudimentary value if you draw a four-sided polygon outside and inside the circle, but very accurate when you draw, as Archimedes did, two 96-sided polygons. He worked out the value of p as lying somewhere between 223/71 and 22/7. The average of these two values is roughly 3.1419.

Now, don't worry if you don't completely understand Archimedes's calculations. If I'm being honest, I don't either - which just goes to show how impressive his achievement was. And, just as it took almost two millennia for modern civilisation to catch up with that attained by the ancient Greeks and Romans, it also took almost 2,000 years for Europeans to come up with a better calculation of p. In other words, you aren't alone if you have trouble following the man in the toga. The Indians and Chinese had both produced more accurate approximations by the 15th century AD, but the first modern (ahem) pioneer of Western civilisation was Ludolph van Ceulen, who managed to work the number out to within 35 decimal places. So proud was he of this achievement that he supposedly had them inscribed on his tombstone.

Calculations became steadily more accurate as the Renaissance gave way to the Enlightenment and, in 1706, a Welshman called William Jones also became the first known person to use the actual symbol "p" when discussing the magic number. He did so in a text with the snappy title Synopsis Palmariorium Mathesios. Unfortunately, he didn't record for posterity the reason he opted for this symbol. The best explanation is that it was a little tribute to Archimedes, being the first letter of the Greek word, perimetron, from peri (around) and metrein (to measure). Nobody really knows, but all the same, the symbol stuck, and calculating it accurately became something of a Holy Grail for eggheads around the world as technology advanced during the Age of Steam.

Rather tragically, one William Shanks devoted the 20 years of his life leading up to 1873 to calculating p to 707 decimal places, only to have a DF Ferguson come along in 1944 and prove that his predecessor had made a mistake. Shanks had got the figure at the 528th decimal place wrong, which meant that all his subsequent figures were also incorrect. Ferguson, of course, had a considerable advantage over the Victorian in that he had a mechanical calculating machine, and the development of computers has been tied up with calculations of p ever since. One of the best ways of testing the power of a new machine is still to see how accurately it can work out p - and they now come up with some huge figures. Just over a year ago Professor Kanada at Tokyo University announced the calculation of p to 1.2411 trillion places. If that number were written down from left to right in the same size typeface as this newsprint, it would be long enough to wrap round the Earth.

The other thing that mathematicians came to realise about p as they calculated it more and more accurately is that it's an irrational number. That's to say, you can't get to the end of it if you try and write it down. There will always be more and more numbers to the right of the decimal point - and it can't be described as a fraction, either. The numerical configuration of p is infinite and so, in a particularly mindbending way, as big as the universe.

All of which goes to prove, I hope, why nerds and mathematicians get so excited about the 14th day of the third month, and why they have adopted it as their own special day of celebration, just as romantics have Valentine's Day, batter-lovers have Pancake Day, and Mums have Mother's Day (don't forget, by the way, it's this Sunday). It's easy to mock those pasty students drinking piña colada, reciting huge numbers to each other and dancing to Don Maclean's American Pie, but when you think about it, they're closer than any of us to understanding one of the secrets of the cosmos. If that isn't cause for celebration, I don't know what is.

THE SECRET LIFE OF p

1 THERE'S some controversy over the exact time celebrations of p day should begin. Some state that 1:59pm is the best time, but those who prefer the 24-hour clock say you should go for 1:59 in the morning as 1:59pm is represented on a 24-hour clock as 15:59.

2 On Kate Bush's double album Aerial, there is a song called p. In it Bush recites the number to its 137th decimal place, inexplicably omitting the 37th and 100th places.

3.1415... The European record for recounting p belongs to Daniel Tammet, who recited the number to its 22,514th digit on 14 March 2004.

4 As well as being p day, 14 March was also the birthday of Albert Einstein.

5 Lars Erickson, a mathematician and composer, has written an entire symphony based on p.

6 Even though computers have worked out a value of p to billions of decimal places, it's very rare that such accuracy is needed. For instance, working out the circumference of the Earth's equator from its radius using only ten decimal places of p produces an error of less than 0.2 millimetres. Not bad, out of 40,075.02 km.

7 Here's p to 50 decimal places: 3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510

8 In The Simpsons' episode "Marge in Chains", Apu boasts that he can recite p to 40,000 decimal places. When asked what the 40,000th number is, he answers "one", which is quite correct. Rumour has it that the script writers approached the mathematician David H Bailey in order to get it right.

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=398332007

Last updated: 14-Mar-07 01:34 GMT

musicismylife / 6:22am 14 Mar 2007

It seems my husband, Scaramouche, is STILL being moderated against and his posts disallowed. I'd like to know how he's been so bad compared with some of the posts I've seen on this forum.
Anyway, he's asked me to submit his Ode to Math for the delectation of his public. (silly old f*rt!!)

Flat
Like an angle in a triangle
A plane upon a plane
Euclidian geometry's
Not too hard to explain
Like a pi rolls down a mountain
Or a path upon a sphere
Once you hit that third dimension
It all becomes less clear
Like a tiny 1-D superstring
That's infinitely small
It exists in ten dimensions,
Or is it really there at all?
These are problems that you face
When pondering n-dimensional space

Like a tesseract unfolding
As from nowhere it has grown
We see it coming from a fourth
Dimension of its own
Like a door that keeps revolving
Pushed by Schroedinger's dead cat
Just which three of the ten
Dimensions are we looking at?
Like a theory mutated
On a plane that's rearranged
And topology that's twisted
'Till reality has changed
Can mathematics keep apace
With changing N-dimensional space?

Sets that hold dimensions
Whose dimensions set the sets
If you understand recursion
That's as complex as it gets
Things that by their interactions
And their intersects defined
Does the logical conclusion cause
Implosion of the mind?
Pictures like they were by Dali
Looking really, very odd
In the depths of quantum physics
Do we see the face of God?
When you knew exams were over
Were you suddenly aware
That what you wrote was rubbish
But now you really couldn't care .....

Like a one-dimensional ribbon
Like a thread around a thread
Superstring theory turns
The world upon its head
And it shows a certain grace
Electro-microscopic lace
In N-Dimensional space

*adapted from "Windmills of Your Mind" by Noel Harrison

Musicismylife / 8:44pm 14 Mar 2007

Scaramouche is still not being allowed to post. He's spitting nails!!! Silly old duffer better not have another heart attack, or I'll be at the Scotsman door screaming blue bloody murder!

Anyway, he wants me to point out that it's not a poem it's a SONG. It was featured in the 1968 Steve McQueen movie The Thomas Crown Affair. Director Norman Jewison wanted a song that sounded like The Beatles "Strawberry Fields Forever" for a scene where McQueen's character is flying a glider. The song provided a contrast to the visual ..... McQueen appeared firmly in control, but the music made viewers feel the trepidation going through his mind.
Songwriters Michel Legrand and Marilyn and Alan Bergman wrote it. It took them a while to come up with the title, which they chose because they thought it was interesting.
The song won the 1969 Oscar for Best Song From A Film. It was sung by Noel Harris Harrison, the son of the British actor Rex Harrison. He is best known in the US for co-starring with Stefanie Powers in the popular '60s TV spy series The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.
Dusty Springfield recorded a popular version of this song on her 1969 album Dusty In Memphis.
Edward Woodward also recorded a rather disturbing version of this song on his 1972 album 'The Edward Woodward Album' (now sadly hard to find, but comparable, in places, to William Shatner's 'musical' work from the same period).
Alison Moyet has also recorded this song on her album "Voices". It is very mellow, quite soft-jazzy and being that Alison Moyet has quite a low, husky voice means that like "Only You" from her days with Yazoo.
Noel Harrison's also recorded "A Young Girl" .... originally sung (in French) by Edith Piaf as "Une Enfant".
Jose Feliciano sang the song at the Academy Award show because Harrison was busy making a movie and the director would not let him fly to Hollywood to sing it.
Noel Harrison hosted the TV show Hullabaloo. He had a parking space at MGM next to Natalie Wood. He toured for a while with The Beach Boys and Sonny and Cher.
In the 1970's Harrison fled Hollywood following his stint as Mark Slate on The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. He went to Nova Scotia, grew a bushy beard, and built a house with no electricity. The wood stove caused it to burn to the ground and he had to rebuild it from scratch. To go Back click here.