Archeology
If you were in Peru right now, at the long-abandoned Inca village of Mawchu, you might see something very modern flying over it – a Skate unmanned aerial vehicle. The aircraft is the key part of a system designed by a team from Nashville’s Vanderbilt University. Once perfected, it should be able to accomplish in 10 to 15 minutes what would take an archeological team two to three field seasons to complete. Read More
Ancient Egyptian artificial toes could be world's earliest prostheses
According to tests recently performed at the University of Manchester, two ancient Egyptian artificial big toes were likely used by their owners for walking, and not simply placed on their dead bodies for religious or ritualistic reasons. If so, it would make them the world's earliest-known prosthetic devices. The tests involved getting big-toeless volunteers to try walking while wearing replicas of the two toes ... and the toes were up to the task. Read More
In his book The Artificial Ape, Dr Timothy Taylor convincingly argues that humans are biologically a product of technology. If Taylor is correct, then the ground edge stone tool pictured is of enormous significance. Stone tool-use among our earliest hominid ancestors dates to 3.4 million years ago, but the use of grinding to sharpen stone tool edges is very recent. This is the oldest ground-edge stone tool ever found and represents bleeding edge technology 35,000 years ago. Read More
It’s rather ironic that in order to fully appreciate the value of an archeological artefact, part of that object must first be destroyed. That’s the way it has worked, at least, since the only way of determining the chemical composition of such items has been by breaking down a physical sample from them. As more and more institutions have decided to disallow sampling of their artefacts, however, it has become increasingly important to develop non-destructive methods of analysis. Recently, an archeologist from Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations developed just such a method - Professor Yuval Goren has adapted an off-the-shelf portable x-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer to reveal the soil and clay composition of objects, simply by touching their surface. Read More
It can be extremely frustrating, watching the destruction of our environment and not being able to do a thing about it. Sure, you can give money, write letters and take part in rallies, but... wouldn’t you rather be out there on the front lines, where you could physically help save the threatened habitats, animals and cultures? Well, you can. In fact, you’ve been able to for the past 39 years. Next year, the US-based Earthwatch Institute will celebrate 40 years of giving people the chance to volunteer on environmental research projects all over the world. Read More
March 7, 2006 Museums and history buffs have begun using CAD software for an exciting new application - breathing life into centuries past. "Industrial archeology" is the study and re-creation of machines, parts, vehicles, and buildings that may have vanished, been destroyed, gone obsolete, or perhaps never existed at all. The practice combines art, history, craftsmanship, and, in a new twist, computer-aided design. Industrial archeologists like Californian William L. Gould use SolidWorks software as an efficient, mechanically faithful way to illustrate, in three dimensions and myriad individual components, a piece of lost history. Gould’s (pictured) full-color 3D CAD model of the 1879 Mason Bogie steam locomotive, is rendered in SolidWorks and PhotoWorks software, and exists only as a 3D CAD model with hundreds of discrete parts. It is available as a fine art lithographic print or a set of plans in exacting detail. Read More
