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Findings: Recreating an Ancient Death Ray
By JOHN SCHWARTZ, The New York Times, October 18, 2005
Did Archimedes really produce a death ray 2,200 years ago? According to Greek and Roman historians, he set Roman warships afire with a polished mirror that focused the sun’s rays from afar during the siege of Syracuse. Last year the Discovery Channel program "MythBusters" declared the story a myth after failing to reproduce the feat.
The program intrigued David Wallace, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When he presented the death ray as an offbeat project for his class in product development, he said, "only a small number thought it was technically possible."
( Read More )
A Conversation With Troy Duster: A Sociologist Confronts 'the Messy Stuff'
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS, The New York Times, October 18, 2005
Troy Duster is emphatic: the genomic revolution is moving way too fast.
In more than a dozen books and articles, Dr. Duster, immediate past president of the American Sociological Association, urges geneticists to slow down and check their methods as they search for links between genes, disease and race.
A professor of sociology at New York University, Dr. Duster, 69, wrote "Backdoor to Eugenics" and contributed to "Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society," both appearing in 2003.
Advocacy, it appears, runs in his family. His grandmother was the anti-lynching leader Ida B. Wells, and his mother was a social worker on the South Side of Chicago.
"My grandmother probably would think I'm not militant enough," Dr. Duster said at a lunch at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. "I try to do my part in my own way."
Q. Much of your work has been a cautionary cry against genetic research based on race. Why oppose it?
( Read More )
Chinese Archaeologists Find Ancient Tombs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times, October 17, 2005
BEIJING (AP) -- Archaeologists have unearthed a 1,700-year-old complex of tombs in eastern China that contain bronze mirrors, porcelains and ancient money, a news report said Tuesday.
The tombs near the port city of Ningbo were uncovered by a forklift operator working at a construction site, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The report didn't say who was buried in the tombs or how many bodies had been found.
Inscriptions in the tombs indicate they were built in 256 A.D., the report said, citing Ding Youfu, a member of the archaeological team. He said they were the region's best-preserved tombs.
''Figures embodying fish, beasts, dragons, phoenixes and money can be seen in the wall of the grave,'' Ding said. ''They are incredibly refined and clearcut.''
Archaeologists plan to excavate an area of 50,000 square feet around the main tomb and expect to find at least five other tombs, said Xie Guoqi, another member of the team.
Hunting Habits of Wolves Change Ecological Balance in Yellowstone
By JIM ROBBINS, The New York Times, October 18, 2005
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - Hiking along the small, purling Blacktail Deer Creek, Douglas W. Smith, a wolf biologist, makes his way through a lush curtain of willows.
Nearly absent for decades, willows have roared back to life in Yellowstone, and the reason, Mr. Smith believes, is that 10 years after wolves were introduced to Yellowstone, the park is full of them, dispersed across 13 packs.
He says the wolves have changed the park's ecology in many ways; for one, they have scared the elk to high ground and away from browsing on every willow shoot by rivers and streams.
"Wolves have caused a trophic cascade," he said.
"Wolves are at the top of it all here. They change the conditions for everyone else, including willows."
The last 10 years in Yellowstone have re-written the book on wolf biology. Wildlife biologists and ecologists are stunned by the changes they have seen.
( Read More )
By JOHN SCHWARTZ, The New York Times, October 18, 2005
Did Archimedes really produce a death ray 2,200 years ago? According to Greek and Roman historians, he set Roman warships afire with a polished mirror that focused the sun’s rays from afar during the siege of Syracuse. Last year the Discovery Channel program "MythBusters" declared the story a myth after failing to reproduce the feat.
The program intrigued David Wallace, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When he presented the death ray as an offbeat project for his class in product development, he said, "only a small number thought it was technically possible."
( Read More )
A Conversation With Troy Duster: A Sociologist Confronts 'the Messy Stuff'
By CLAUDIA DREIFUS, The New York Times, October 18, 2005
Troy Duster is emphatic: the genomic revolution is moving way too fast.
In more than a dozen books and articles, Dr. Duster, immediate past president of the American Sociological Association, urges geneticists to slow down and check their methods as they search for links between genes, disease and race.
A professor of sociology at New York University, Dr. Duster, 69, wrote "Backdoor to Eugenics" and contributed to "Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society," both appearing in 2003.
Advocacy, it appears, runs in his family. His grandmother was the anti-lynching leader Ida B. Wells, and his mother was a social worker on the South Side of Chicago.
"My grandmother probably would think I'm not militant enough," Dr. Duster said at a lunch at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. "I try to do my part in my own way."
Q. Much of your work has been a cautionary cry against genetic research based on race. Why oppose it?
( Read More )
Chinese Archaeologists Find Ancient Tombs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times, October 17, 2005
BEIJING (AP) -- Archaeologists have unearthed a 1,700-year-old complex of tombs in eastern China that contain bronze mirrors, porcelains and ancient money, a news report said Tuesday.
The tombs near the port city of Ningbo were uncovered by a forklift operator working at a construction site, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The report didn't say who was buried in the tombs or how many bodies had been found.
Inscriptions in the tombs indicate they were built in 256 A.D., the report said, citing Ding Youfu, a member of the archaeological team. He said they were the region's best-preserved tombs.
''Figures embodying fish, beasts, dragons, phoenixes and money can be seen in the wall of the grave,'' Ding said. ''They are incredibly refined and clearcut.''
Archaeologists plan to excavate an area of 50,000 square feet around the main tomb and expect to find at least five other tombs, said Xie Guoqi, another member of the team.
Hunting Habits of Wolves Change Ecological Balance in Yellowstone
By JIM ROBBINS, The New York Times, October 18, 2005
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - Hiking along the small, purling Blacktail Deer Creek, Douglas W. Smith, a wolf biologist, makes his way through a lush curtain of willows.
Nearly absent for decades, willows have roared back to life in Yellowstone, and the reason, Mr. Smith believes, is that 10 years after wolves were introduced to Yellowstone, the park is full of them, dispersed across 13 packs.
He says the wolves have changed the park's ecology in many ways; for one, they have scared the elk to high ground and away from browsing on every willow shoot by rivers and streams.
"Wolves have caused a trophic cascade," he said.
"Wolves are at the top of it all here. They change the conditions for everyone else, including willows."
The last 10 years in Yellowstone have re-written the book on wolf biology. Wildlife biologists and ecologists are stunned by the changes they have seen.
( Read More )
