Mike Ruggieri's News

Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient Andean Archaeology News

April 13, 2011

"Oldest Textiles in South America
Textiles and rope fragments that were found 30 years ago in Guitarrero Cave in the Andes have now been dated to 10,000 BCE, making them the oldest textiles ever found in South America. ... Textile weaving took place in these caves showing that women were probably amo

ng the first to live at these altitudes in the area. The article will appear in the current issue of Current Anthropology."
http://web.me.com/michaelruggeri/Mike_Ruggeris_Ancient_Andean_Archaeology_News/Mike_Ruggeris_Ancient_Andean_Archaeology_News.html

Guaman Poma

Da Wikipedia.
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, conosciuto anche come Guaman Poma (San Cristóbal de Suntuntu, località della provincia di Lucanas nella regione di Ayacucho, 1550 ca. – dopo il 1615), è stato un cronista indigeno del Perù durante la conquista dell'America.
 « Questo è il nostro paese, perché Dio ce lo ha dato »
Era il figlio di Guaman Mallqui e Juana Cori Ocllo Coya (ultima figlia del sovrano Túpac Yupanqui)...
Nel 1908, nella Biblioteca Reale di Copenaghen (Danimarca), fu riscoperto un antico manoscritto di 1179 pagine: la Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno di Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, di cui non si avevano più notizie da circa 300 anni. ...
Questa opera, di altissimo valore storico, aveva in origine un obiettivo concreto: ritrarre la realtà andina e sollecitare la corona spagnola ad effettuare una riforma del governo coloniale per salvare le popolazioni andine dallo sfruttamento e dai maltrattamenti. La relazione, infatti, era dedicata al re Filippo III di Spagna, ma andò smarrita durante il viaggio verso la penisola iberica. Oggi si conserva nella Biblioteca Reale di Copenaghen e si può consultare on-line.
http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/info/en/frontpage.htm

Fossilised spider in amber

Scientists have used X-ray computed tomography to produce 3D images of a 49 million-year-old spider trapped inside an opaque piece of fossilised amber resin.
Scientists get a 3D view of ancient fossilised spider | News | The Engineer

Yale Papyrus Collection

"The Yale papyrus collection began in 1889 with a gift of papyri from W. M. F. Petrie's excavations at Hawara, the archeological site in Ancient Egypt. In the following decades, Yale received a number of papyri, many of them from the discoveries at Oxyrhynchus, the ancient city west of the Nile River, by two young British excavators, Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt."Yale Papyrus Collection

Voynich Manuscript

Written in Central Europe,  the Voynich Manuscript—named after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller, Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912—are still being debated as vigorously as its puzzling drawings and undeciphered text. It is considered as a magical or a scientific text, nearly every page contains botanical, figurative, and scientific drawings.
A new radiocarbon dating determined that the manuscript was penned on 15th-century pages.

http://news.discovery.com/history/voynich-manuscript-mystery-age-110211.html

You can see the manuscript at

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/voynich.html
http://www.archive.org/details/TheVoynichManuscript

Unbound planets could abound in the universe

"Ten planets that appear to be drifting in interstellar space have been spotted by an international team of astronomers. The planets are so far from any host stars that they may not orbit a star at all, and could be drifting unbound through space. The team believes that such rogue planets could outnumber normal stars almost 2:1 and their existence could confirm computer simulations of solar-system formation."
Unbound planets could abound in the universe - physicsworld.com

Il Guardiano del Nord

Vaishravana, il Guardiano del Nord e dio della ricchezza
Legno laccato, dorato e dipinto, h. cm 38
Arte sino-tibetana, XVII secolo

Museo Arte Orientale, Torino

Il Re Guardiano del Nord è uno dei Re Celesti e siede sul dorso di un leone delle nevi,
reso in questa scultura secondo gli schemi della tradizione cinese. Vaishravana è ornato da una grande tiara, da orecchini ricadenti sulle spalle e dal gioiello pettorale del “nodo senza fine”, uno degli otto simboli auspiciosi del Buddhismo. La mano destra atteggiata nella tarjani mudra, il gesto per allontanare gli spiriti maligni, trattiene un gioiello fra il pollice e il medio, mentre il braccio sinistro sostiene una mangusta sputa-gioielli. L'animale è simbolo della caratteristica del dio, quale divinita' che dona ricchezza e dominatore dei serpenti che regnano nel sottosuolo.

Mudra, http://www.cultor.org/Orient/Iconography/Mudras/Mudras.html

Vaishravana, also known as Jambhala in Tibet and Bishamonten in Japan is the name of the chief of the Four Heavenly Kings and an important figure in Buddhist mythology.
In Japan, Bishamonten, or just Bishamon, is thought of as an armor-clad god of warfare or warriors and a punisher of evildoers. Bishamon is portrayed holding a spear in one hand and a small pagoda in the other hand, the latter symbolizing the divine treasure house, whose contents he both guards and gives away. He is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. Bishamon is also called Tamon-ten, meaning

"listening to many teachings".

Adam's Calendar

"A 75,000 year-old stone calendar - In the cradle of humankind.

A new discovery of an ancient circular monolithic stone calendar site in Mpumalanga has proven to be at least 75,000 years old, pre-dating any other structure found to date. Southern Africa holds some of the deepest mysteries in all of human history... at around 60,000 years ago the early humans migrated from Africa and populated the rest of the world.... Modern historians have been speculating about the origins of these ruins, often calling them ‘cattle kraal of little historic importance’. The truth of the matter is that closer scientific inspection shows that we actually know very little about these spectacular ancient ruins. ...Adam’s Calendar is the flagship among these ruins because we can date this monolithic calendar with relative certainty to at least 75,000 years of age based on a number of scientific evaluations."

http://www.adamscalendar.com/

Scarab seal

"Ancient Egyptian scarabs were popular amulets in ancient Egypt. According to ancient Egyptian myths, the sun  rolls across the sky each day and transforms bodies and souls. Modeled upon the Scarabaeidae family dung beetle, which rolls dung into a ball for the purposes of eating and laying eggs that are later transformed into larva, the scarab was seen as an earthly symbol of this heavenly cycle. This came to be iconographic, and ideological symbols were incorporated into Ancient Egyptian society."

From Wiki

Heart-scarab with a decoration on the back

(Egyptian Museum, Torino)

See my book

http://www.scribd.com/doc/42000776/Ancient-Egyptian-Seals-and-Scarabs-by-A-C-Sparavigna-2009

Gold

Inca Gold  

Painted ostraca

Painted ostraca

Egyptian Museum, Torino

Nubia

"In 2300 BC, Nubia was first mentioned in Old Kingdom Egyptian accounts of trade missions. From Aswan, right above the First Cataract, southern limit of Egyptian control at the time, Egyptians imported gold, incense, ebony, ivory, and exotic animals from tropical Africa through Nubia. As trade between Egypt and Nubia increased so did wealth and stability."
More http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubia

Wind turbines for renewables industry

Wind turbine tower factory to boost UK renewables industry | News | The Engineer

Origami and shopping bags

"Engineers from Oxford University have used the principles of origami to create the first rigid, flat-folding shopping bag with a rectangular base.
The project started off as a mathematical curiosity for Dr Zhong You, a lecturer at Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science, but it may have important implications for the packaging industry."
Origami principles lead to rigid, flat-folding shopping bag | News | The Engineer

Fernando Sanford and the "Kirlian effect"

My paper on Fernando Sanford and the Kirlian effect has been selected by
Look 'n' Watch
The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv this week

http://technologyreview.es/blog/arxiv/26758/

To use sound waves to measure temperature

"A sensor that uses sound waves to measure temperature could replace thermometers that lose accuracy in harsh environments such as nuclear power stations. Scientists at UK measurement institute the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) are using the long-established principle that sound travels faster through warm air to create a cheap and robust thermometer that doesn’t need recalibrating or replacing. They hope the device would be used to measure extremely high temperatures or in locations where it would be difficult to change the thermometer, such as in nuclear reactors."

Sensor uses sound waves for temperature measurement | News | The Engineer

'Memristor' could mimic brain neurons in future

"Computers that mimic the human brain in the way they process data have moved a step closer to reality thanks to new research from the US. Researchers at Hewlett Packard (HP) and California University in Santa Barbara have used highly focused X-rays to, for the first time, map out the nanoscale properties of a newly understood circuit element called a memory resistor or ‘memristor’. These have the ability to ‘remember’ how much electronic charge passes through them and one day may be able to act like synapses within electronic circuits, mimicking the complex network of neurons present in the brain."

'Memristor' could one day mimic complex brain neurons | News | The Engineer

Photosynthesis and the entanglement

"Recent studies have indeed suggested that electronic excitation transfer (EET) in photosynthesis benefits from quantum entanglement. ... To model the photosynthesis that occurs in plants, Briggs and Eisfeld study a collection of monomers, each possessing a single electronic state and coupled to its neighboring units by a dipolar interaction. The authors find that for dipolar interactions similar to those found in real molecular aggregates, the coherences in quantum transport (from the Schrödinger equation) are identical to those occurring in classical transport according to Newton’s equation."

Photosynthesis disentangled?

Graphite oxides boost supercapacitors

"Researchers in the US have discovered a new form of carbon produced by "activating" expanded graphite oxide. The material is full of tiny nanometre-sized pores and contains highly curved atom-thick walls throughout its 3D structure. The team has also found that the material performs exceptionally well as an electrode material for supercapacitors, allowing such energy-storage devices to be used in a wider range of applications."

http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/45975

Makara

Museo Arte Orientale

Uttar Pradesh, II d.C.

Il Makara è una creatura mitica della mitologia indiana. La tradizione lo descrive come una creatura acquatica. Questa creatura rappresenta l'acqua, fonte di vita e di fertilità. In astrologia è il segno del Capricorno. Nell'arte indiana il makara è un motivo ricorrente sulle entrate (toran) di templi e monumenti. Da Wikipedia
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makara_(mitologia_indiana)

Makara (Sanskrit: मकर) is a sea-creature in Hindu mythology. It is generally depicted as half animal (in the frontal part in animal forms of elephant or crocodile or stag, or deer) and in hind part as aquatic creature, in the tail part, as a fish tail or also as seal. Sometimes, even a peacock tail is depicted.
Makara is the vahana (vehicle) of the Ganga - the goddess of river Ganges (Ganga) and the sea god Varuna. ... Makara is the astrological sign of Capricorn, one of the twelve symbols of the Zodiac. It is often portrayed protecting entryways to Hindu and Buddhist temples. Read more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makara_(Hindu_mythology)

Energy harvesting

A new device that collects and focuses light before converting it into a current of electrons has been developed by researchers at Rice University in the US. The nano-optical antenna and photodiode – the first device of its kind – could potentially be used in a variety of applications such as photosensing, energy harvesting and imaging.

Nano-antenna fashions charge from light - physicsworld.com

Boosting the thermoelectric performances

"Physicists in the US and China have boosted the performance of a common thermoelectric material by modifying its electronic band structure. The improvement was made by carefully adjusting the relative abundances of tellurium and selenium in a lead alloy. The result is a material with an all-time-high thermoelectric figure of merit of 1.8 – a result that could lead to new types of thermoelectric devices that can convert waste heat into useful electricity"

Multiple valleys boost thermoelectric performance - physicsworld.com

Polymers for neural implants

Polymers for Neural Implants

by Christina Hassler, Tim Boretius, Thomas Stieglitz

The paper is discussing neural implants, technical systems that restore sensory or motor functions after injury and modulate neural behavior in neuronal diseases. According to the abstract the interface between the nervous tissue and the technical material is the place that determines success or failure of the neural implant. Polymers are the most common material class for substrate and insulation materials in combination with metals for interconnection wires and electrode sites. The paper focuses on the neuro-technical interface and summarizes its fundamental specifications first. The most common polymer materials are presented and described in detail. An overview is proposed also, of the different applications and their specific designs with the accompanying manufacturing processes.

2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym

Sci Part B: Polym Phys 49: 18–33, 2011

Polymers for neural implants - Hassler - 2010 - Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics - Wiley Online Library

Le "qochas" dell'altopiano andino.

Le "qochas" dell'altopiano andino.

In quechua, il termine "qocha" si riferisce a un piccolo lago o stagno o di origine naturale o artificiale, oppure ad un tipo di vasellame. Una "qocha" artificiale del periodo Inca si trova alla periferia di Cuzco, vicino al Rodadero, ed è la monumentale  "Qocha Chincanas", un lago artificiale creato per scopi cerimoniali.
Un'antica tecnica agricola è basata sull'impiego delle qochas, sia naturali o create artificialmente, collegate tra loro da una rete di canali. Esse formano un sistema di gestione delle acque e del suolo adatto a coltivare patate e quinoa a rotazione col pascolo. Queste strutture si trovano in alcune aree pianeggianti di Perù e Bolivia, nei pressi del lago Titicaca, ad un'altitudine media di 4000 metri. Le qochas sono molto numerose  nel dipartimento di Puno (Perù).
Un libro molto interessante intitolato "Agricultures Singulières", che discute alcune antiche tecniche agricole, dedica un capitolo alle qochas: secondo questo testo [1], i popoli andini hanno potuto prosperare grazie a dei sistemi agricoli, tra cui le qochas, che permettevano un utilizzo flessibile del suolo in una regione che spesso subisce periodi di siccità seguiti da inondazioni.
La forma più comune della qocha è rotonda e misura dai 30 ai 200 metri di diametro. La sua struttura concava raccoglie la pioggia tramite i suoi canali radiali e circolari (vedi figura), riducendone anche la forte evaporazione provocata dalla radiazione solare e dal vento. Adriano Forgione suggerisce che una tale struttura potrebbe permettere di misurare il tempo. In effetti, la struttura concava radiale può fornire molti punti di riferimento, per verificare il momento migliore per la semina.
Fino a cinquant'anni fa, qochas e waru-warus erano molto più utilizzati. L'introduzione dei macchinari agricoli sta portando all'abbandono o alla distruzione di queste forme tradizionali di agricoltura [2].  I waru-warus sono i "campi rialzati", un'altra tecnica agricola molto utilizzata nei pressi del Lago Titicaca.  Oltre a qochas e waru-warus, vi sono altre antiche strutture agricole in Perù e Bolivia: ci sono i "bofedales", zone umide artificiali, le "andenes", che sono le colline terrazzate e i "puquios". I puquios più noti sono quelli di Nasca. Sono un sistema di gallerie sotterranee di filtraggio che forniscono l'acqua per l'irrigazione e gli usi domestici nell'area centrale di Nasca e in altre zone del Perù [3].
Il sistema di qochas ha una origine pre-incaica, come mostrato dai frammenti di ceramica trovati nelle loro vicinanze. Sebbene il sistema agricolo delle qochas sia probabilmente anteriore, di solito è associato alla cultura Pukara. Pukara era un centro importante per centinaia di anni dal 1300 aC. Tra il 250 aC e il 380 dC, divenne un importante sito religioso, densamente popolato. La società dei Pukara aveva una  gestione centralizzata delle acque. Con l'ascesa di Tiwanaku,  l'area è stata progressivamente abbandonata. Dopo la sua caduta, attorno al 1000 DC, l'area si ripopolò e le qochas vennero di nuovo usate. Durante i seguenti prolungati periodi di siccità, l'uso delle qochas divenne essenziale per la sopravvivenza delle popolazioni locali. Il successo di queste strutture sta nel fatto che esse sono abbastanza semplici e piccole: ognuna può essere gestita da una sola famiglia garantendone la sussistenza alimentare, mentre il terreno che la circonda è lasciato a pascolo.  Oggi, molte qochas sono state abbandonate per la crescente salinità del suolo e per l'uso di macchinari agricola. La loro lunga persistenza nella storia passata dice però  che il loro uso è forse quello più adatto e sostenibile dall'ambiente andino.

1. Agricultures Singulières, Mollard Eric, Walter Annie, Editors, IRD Éditions, Institute of Development Research, Paris, 2008.
2. Los camellones alrededor del lago Titicaca, Pierre Morlon, in Agricultura ancestral: camellones y albarradas. Institut français d'études andines. Quito, 2006.
3.The Puquios of Nasca, Katharina Jeanne Schreiber, Josué Lancho Rojas, Latin American Antiquity, Vol. 6, No. 3, Sep., 1995

Solo metà della struttura originaria di questa qocha in Perù si è salvata.

The origin of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

In 1912 Thomas Jaggar left MIT to start an observatory on the remote Kilauea volcano. The move was the culmination of a tortuous chain of events.

The origin of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory - Physics Today May 2011

Seawater creates neurotoxins

A relatively harmless inorganic form of mercury found worldwide in ocean water is transformed into a potent neurotoxin in the seawater itself. ... "After two years of testing water samples across the Arctic Ocean, the researchers found that relatively harmless inorganic mercury, released from human activities such as industry and coal burning, undergoes a process called methylation and becomes deadly monomethylmercury."
Sea turns harmless form of mercury into potent neurotoxin | News | The Engineer

Pleiades in Peru

On an ancient calendar
"Most historians agree that the Inca had a calendar based on the observation of both the Sun and the Moon, and their relationship to the stars. Names of 12 lunar months are recorded, as well as their association with festivities of the agricultural cycle... A count of this sort was described by Alexander von Humboldt for a Chibcha tribe living outside of the Inca Empire, in the mountainous region of Colombia... The smallest unit of this calendar was a numerical count of three days, which, interacting with a similar count of 10 days, formed a standard 30-day month. Every third year was made up of 13 moons, the others having 12. This formed a cycle of 37 moons, and 20 of these cycles made up a period of 60 years, which was subdivided into four parts and could be multiplied by 100. A period of 20 months is also mentioned. ...
In one account, it is said that the Inca Veracocha established a year of 12 months, each beginning with the New Moon, and that his successor, Pachacuti, finding confusion in regard to the year, built the sun towers in order to keep a check on the calendar. Since Pachacuti reigned less than a century before the conquest, it may be that the contradictions and the meagerness of information on the Inca calendar are due to the fact that the system was still in the process of being revised when the Spaniards first arrived.
Despite the uncertainties, further research has made it clear that at least at Cuzco, the capital city of the Inca, there was an official calendar of the sidereal-lunar type, based on the sidereal month of 27 1/3 days. It consisted of 328 nights (12X271/3) and began on June 8/9, coinciding with the heliacal rising (the rising just after sunset) of the Pleiades; it ended on the first Full Moon after the June solstice (the winter solstice for the Southern Hemisphere). This sidereal-lunar calendar fell short of the solar year by 37 days, which consequently were intercalated. This intercalation, and thus the place of the sidereal-lunar within the solar year, was fixed by following the cycle of the Sun as it strengthened to summer (December) solstice and weakened afterward, and by noting a similar cycle in the visibility of the Pleiades."
This is what we find at the page
http://www.lost-civilizations.net/inca-civilization-page-5.html

On Pleiades see

http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.1592

The Pleiades: the celestial herd of ancient timekeepers by Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, (Submitted on 9 Oct 2008). In the ancient Egypt seven goddesses, represented by seven cows, composed the celestial herd that provides the nourishment to her worshippers. This herd is observed in the sky as a group of stars, the Pleiades, close to Aldebaran, the main star in the Taurus constellation. For many ancient populations, Pleiades were relevant stars and their rising was marked as a special time of the year. In this paper, we will discuss the presence of these stars in ancient cultures. Moreover, we will report some results of archeoastronomy on the role for timekeeping of these stars, results which show that for hunter-gatherers at Palaeolithic times, they were linked to the seasonal cycles of aurochs.
http://philosophyofscienceportal.blogspot.com/2008/10/pleiades-and-mythology.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(constellation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_chart

Primo Maggio - Festa del Lavoro

Museo Egizio - Torino

John Paul II

A tribute to John Paul II
http://www.vatican.va/special/anniversario_gpii/documents/index_en.htm

SETI forced to close

"The multi-million dollar American Seti Institute has fallen victim to government cuts.
It has had to shut down a series of telescopes that have been scanning the universe for extra-terrestrial communications."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13223633

Icy telescope

"The Baikal underwater telescope NT-200 in Russia has been set up to capture elusive neutrino particles in a bid to unravel the secrets of the formation of the Universe.
At 1.1 km beneath the surface of the world's deepest lake and pointing towards the centre of the Earth, it is one of the most unusual telescopes on the planet."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11384614

Plasma for textiles

My paper on the Plasma treatment advantages for textiles has been selected by

Ball’s ‘n’ fire
The best of the rest from the arXiv this week

http://arxivblog.com/?p=281

Leonardo Da Vinci sketch

My paper on the Digital Restoration of Da Vinci's Sketches has been selected by
Chops 'n' changes
The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv this week

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23135/

More at

http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.1448

Digital restoration of ancient papyri

My paper on the Digital Restoration of Ancient Papyri has been selected by
Drives 'n' droves
The best of the rest from the physics arXiv this week
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23293/

Egyptian faience

"Egyptian faience is a non-clay based ceramic displaying surface vitrification which creates a bright lustre of various blue-green colours. Having not been made from clay it is often not classed as pottery. It is called "Egyptian faience" to distinguish it from faience, the tin glazed pottery associated with Faenza in northern Italy. Egyptian faience, both locally produced and exported from Egypt, occurs widely in the ancient world, and is well known from Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean and in northern Europe as far away as Scotland." Wiki

Faience bowl blue-glazed decorated with lotus flowers and the face of the goddess Hathor, symbol of rebirth are the decoration.

Faience. Provenance unknown. New Kingdom, dynasty XVIII-XX (1350-1070 B.C.)
Egyptian Museum, Turin.

Fishes and flowers

Ciotola decorata con pesci e fiori di loto
Faience azzurra con decorazioni nere, provenienza sconosciuta
Bowl decorated with fishes and flowers.
Blue faience,  unknown origin.
First period of XVIII Dinasty (XV century BC)
Berlino, Aegyptisches Museum und Papyrussammling

Three-fold rotational symmetry in the decoration of this bowl.
Note the eye of the fishes at the center of the bowl.
It seems a Escher's creation!

It is amazing that very old creations (pottery and seals) show symmetry in their decorations.

For a discussion on symmetry of the engraved images on seals, see:

Symmetries in Images on Ancient Seals, Amelia Carolina Sparavigna
Abstract: We discuss the presence of symmetries in images engraved on ancient seals, in particular on stamp seals. Used to stamp decorations, to secure the containers from
tampering and for owner's identification, we can find seals that can be dated from Neolithic times. Earliest seals were engraved with lines, dots and spirals. Nevertheless, these very  ancient stamp seals, in the small circular or ovoid space of their bases, possess bilateral and rotational symmetries.  The shape of the base seems to determine the symmetries of images engraved on it.  We will also discuss what could be the meaning of antisymmetry and broken symmetry for images on seals.

http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.3566

Michael Archangel and his balance

Chemistry and Materials Science Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry
Volume 62, Number 2, 579-580, DOI: 10.1023/A:1010151912165
Michael Archangel and Balance , by E. Robens

"Michael escorts the deceased to God's throne and acts as a weigher of the soul at the Last Judgement."

Weighing of the Heart

"In Egyptian religion, the heart was the key to the afterlife. It was conceived as surviving death in the nether world, where it gave evidence for, or against, its possessor. It was thought that the heart was examined by Anubis and the deities during the Weighing of the Heart ceremony. If the heart weighed more than the feather of Maat, it was immediately consumed by the monster Ammit."
Wiki

Egyptian Museum Torino

Four sons of Horus

Statuette dei quattro figli di Horus: Duamutef, a testa di sciacallo, Hapi, a testa di babbuino, Qebehsebuf, a testa di falco, Amset, a testa umana erano i protettori delle viscere del defunto, XXV-XXXI dinastia. Statuettes of the four sons of Horus:  Duamutef, jackal headed, Hapi, baboon headed,  Qebehsebuf, falcon headed, and human headed Amset, protectors of the deceased's viscera,  Dinasty XXV-XXXI
(712-332 BC)

Alcohol haze at galactic heart

BBC NEWS, Tuesday, 9 October, 2001, 14:34 GMT 15:34 UK
Alcohol haze at galactic heart
Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse
"The detection of yet more alcohol in a giant molecular cloud near the centre of our galaxy could give clues to the origin of complex organic molecules in space.Astronomers have long been seeking evidence of this particular alcohol to help explain how these life-promoting substances got started. ... Vinyl alcohol, actually a non-inebriating complex organic molecule, is an important part of many chemical reactions on Earth, and the last of the three stable members of the C2H4O group of molecules to be discovered in interstellar space. It was detected in a massive molecular cloud called Sagittarius B2, located 26,000 light-years from Earth, near the centre of our galaxy....The specific radio signature of vinyl alcohol was first detected using a 12-metre radio telescope during May and June of 2001. Results from the observations will soon be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Of the approximately 125 molecules so far detected in interstellar space, scientists believe that most are formed by a simple process in which smaller molecules (and occasionally atoms) stick together after they collide. Since the 1970s, scientists have speculated that molecules could form on the microscopic dust grains that drift in interstellar clouds. These dust grains are thought to trap the fast-moving molecules. The surface of these grains could act as a catalyst enabling the chemical reactions that form vinyl alcohol and other complex molecules. "Scientists speculate that since the dust lies near an area where young stars are forming, the energy from these stars could evaporate the icy surface layers of the grains, liberating the molecules from their chilly nurseries, depositing them into interstellar space where they can be detected by sensitive radio antennae on Earth.