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Pap Test, a Mainstay Against Cervical Cancer, May Be Fading
By ANDREW POLLACK, The New York Times, January 16, 2007
The big news in the war on cervical cancer is the new vaccine recently approved to prevent the disease. But another major change that will affect millions of women is also under way, though more slowly and quietly.
The Pap smear, an annual ritual for many women and the mainstay of cervical cancer prevention for more than half a century, may start to fade in importance.
It will not disappear for many more years, if ever. But a newer genetic test that detects human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer, is starting to play a bigger role in screening. And other genetic tests are being developed. At the least, some experts say, women will no longer need Pap smears as often.
( Read More )
Huts have been reconstructed near the site as a heritage center.
Humble Brass Was Even Better Than Gold to a 16th-Century Tribe in Cuba
By JENNIFER PINKOWSKI, The New York Times, January 16, 2007
Because of its otherworldly brilliance, the 16th-century Taíno Indians of Cuba called it turey, their word for the most luminous part of the sky.
They adored its sweet smell, its reddish hue, its exotic origins and its dazzling iridescence, qualities that elevated it to the category of sacred materials known as guanín. Local chieftains wore it in pendants and medallions to show their wealth, influence and connection to the supernatural realm. Elite women and children were buried with it.
What was this treasured stuff? Humble brass — specifically, the lace tags and fasteners from Spanish explorers’ shoes and clothes, for which the Taíno eagerly traded their local gold.
( Read More )
Archaeological digs at Tell Hamoukar in Syria have yielded the remains of a body, possibly a war casualty.
Ruins in Northern Syria Bear the Scars of a City’s Final Battle
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, January 16, 2007
Archaeologists digging in Syria, in the upper reaches of what was ancient Mesopotamia, have found new evidence of how one of the world’s earliest cities met a violent end by fire, collapsing walls and roofs, and a fierce rain of clay bullets. The battle left some of the oldest known ruins of organized warfare.
The excavations at the city, Tell Hamoukar, which was destroyed in about 3500 B.C., have also exposed remains suggesting its origins as a manufacturing center for obsidian tools and blades, perhaps as early as 4500 B.C.
The two discoveries were made in September and October and announced yesterday by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and the Syrian Department of Antiquities. The site is in northeastern Syria, less than five miles from the Iraqi border.
( Read More )
A penisula long thought to be part of Greenland's mainland turned out to be an island when a glacier retreated.
The Warming of Greenland
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF, The New York Times, January 16, 2007
LIVERPOOL LAND, Greenland — Flying over snow-capped peaks and into a thick fog, the helicopter set down on a barren strip of rocks between two glaciers. A dozen bags of supplies, a rifle and a can of cooking gas were tossed out onto the cold ground. Then, with engines whining, the helicopter lifted off, snow and fog swirling in the rotor wash.
When it had disappeared over the horizon, no sound remained but the howling of the Arctic wind.
“It feels a little like the days of the old explorers, doesn’t it?” Dennis Schmitt said.
Mr. Schmitt, a 60-year-old explorer from Berkeley, Calif., had just landed on a newly revealed island 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle in eastern Greenland. It was a moment of triumph: he had discovered the island on an ocean voyage in September 2005. Now, a year later, he and a small expedition team had returned to spend a week climbing peaks, crossing treacherous glaciers and documenting animal and plant life.
Despite its remote location, the island would almost certainly have been discovered, named and mapped almost a century ago when explorers like Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Philippe, Duke of Orléans, charted these coastlines. Would have been discovered had it not been bound to the coast by glacial ice.
( Read More )
By ANDREW POLLACK, The New York Times, January 16, 2007
The big news in the war on cervical cancer is the new vaccine recently approved to prevent the disease. But another major change that will affect millions of women is also under way, though more slowly and quietly.
The Pap smear, an annual ritual for many women and the mainstay of cervical cancer prevention for more than half a century, may start to fade in importance.
It will not disappear for many more years, if ever. But a newer genetic test that detects human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer, is starting to play a bigger role in screening. And other genetic tests are being developed. At the least, some experts say, women will no longer need Pap smears as often.
( Read More )
Huts have been reconstructed near the site as a heritage center.
Humble Brass Was Even Better Than Gold to a 16th-Century Tribe in Cuba
By JENNIFER PINKOWSKI, The New York Times, January 16, 2007
Because of its otherworldly brilliance, the 16th-century Taíno Indians of Cuba called it turey, their word for the most luminous part of the sky.
They adored its sweet smell, its reddish hue, its exotic origins and its dazzling iridescence, qualities that elevated it to the category of sacred materials known as guanín. Local chieftains wore it in pendants and medallions to show their wealth, influence and connection to the supernatural realm. Elite women and children were buried with it.
What was this treasured stuff? Humble brass — specifically, the lace tags and fasteners from Spanish explorers’ shoes and clothes, for which the Taíno eagerly traded their local gold.
( Read More )
Archaeological digs at Tell Hamoukar in Syria have yielded the remains of a body, possibly a war casualty.
Ruins in Northern Syria Bear the Scars of a City’s Final Battle
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, January 16, 2007
Archaeologists digging in Syria, in the upper reaches of what was ancient Mesopotamia, have found new evidence of how one of the world’s earliest cities met a violent end by fire, collapsing walls and roofs, and a fierce rain of clay bullets. The battle left some of the oldest known ruins of organized warfare.
The excavations at the city, Tell Hamoukar, which was destroyed in about 3500 B.C., have also exposed remains suggesting its origins as a manufacturing center for obsidian tools and blades, perhaps as early as 4500 B.C.
The two discoveries were made in September and October and announced yesterday by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and the Syrian Department of Antiquities. The site is in northeastern Syria, less than five miles from the Iraqi border.
( Read More )
A penisula long thought to be part of Greenland's mainland turned out to be an island when a glacier retreated.
The Warming of Greenland
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF, The New York Times, January 16, 2007
LIVERPOOL LAND, Greenland — Flying over snow-capped peaks and into a thick fog, the helicopter set down on a barren strip of rocks between two glaciers. A dozen bags of supplies, a rifle and a can of cooking gas were tossed out onto the cold ground. Then, with engines whining, the helicopter lifted off, snow and fog swirling in the rotor wash.
When it had disappeared over the horizon, no sound remained but the howling of the Arctic wind.
“It feels a little like the days of the old explorers, doesn’t it?” Dennis Schmitt said.
Mr. Schmitt, a 60-year-old explorer from Berkeley, Calif., had just landed on a newly revealed island 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle in eastern Greenland. It was a moment of triumph: he had discovered the island on an ocean voyage in September 2005. Now, a year later, he and a small expedition team had returned to spend a week climbing peaks, crossing treacherous glaciers and documenting animal and plant life.
Despite its remote location, the island would almost certainly have been discovered, named and mapped almost a century ago when explorers like Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Philippe, Duke of Orléans, charted these coastlines. Would have been discovered had it not been bound to the coast by glacial ice.
( Read More )
