The other news today: Saddam's chief bodyguard

There is nothing I can add to the coverage of the loss of the Columbia; we were out at friends' for brunch, and I only stumbled across the news after coming home and going online.

By chance, the first notable story I surfed across was completely unrelated, and seems to have been generally overlooked amidst all the space shuttle coverage: the defection to Israel of Saddam Hussein's chief bodyguard. A hugely important development, whether widely publicized or not. The full story is in the Melbourne Herald Sun.

Saddam Hussein's senior bodyguard has fled with details of Iraq's secret arsenal.

His revelations have supported US President George W. Bush's claim there is enough evidence from UN inspectors to justify going to war.

Abu Hamdi Mahmoud has provided Israeli intelligence with a list of sites that the inspectors have not visited. William Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector who has continued to gather information on Saddam's arsenal, said Mahmoud's information is "the smoking gun". . . "Once the inspectors go to where Mahmoud has pointed them, then it's all over for Saddam," Tierney said. . .

Mahmoud was a member of the elite unit that protects Saddam. It is called the Murasiq Qun – the "Inner Circle". He was known as "The Gatekeeper". . .

Last week, Mahmoud was being debriefed at a high-security base in Israel's Negev Desert.

Ariel Sharon, the country's hard-line prime minister, has only allowed snippets of Mahmoud's sensational claims to be shared with the CIA and MI6.

"Sharon intends to shatter the growing anti-war movement," a source close to Mr Sharon said.

UPDATE: Still no trace of this story in other news outlets as of late Sunday morning (EST).

NOW the Jerusalem Post has picked it up, as has Glenn Reynolds.

Defenders of classics speak out in UK

The Education Secretary has been accused of "pig ignorance and blind prejudice" after questioning the value of studying classics at university. Charles Clarke said education for its own sake was "a bit dodgy" and that students "need a relationship with the workplace".

But Peter Jones, a writer for The Spectator who used to teach classics at Newcastle University, told Radio 4's Today programme: "This is an attack not just on classics but on anyone who studies arts subjects."

More on the Temple tablet

Joseph Brean and Simcha Jacobovici report on the state of the question in today's National Post. The article's title sums it up: Temple tablet or forger's art? Patina fits, words don't.

Isadora Duncan redux in Japan

This season's fad for extra-long scarves claimed another fashion victim when a Japanese woman fell from her motorcycle after her two-meter (six feet six inches) long muffler got caught in the bike's rear wheel, police said Tuesday.

The woman was in a coma after the accident but regained consciousness on Tuesday, a police spokesman said, adding that she remained in a serious condition. . .

The motorcycle accident followed a similar incident in November, when a 26-year-old Japanese woman suffocated to death after her long scarf was caught in the engine of a go-cart at an amusement park in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo.

Fashion accessories have caused a handful of unusual deaths and accidents among young Japanese women in recent years. In September 1999, a 25-year-old woman died after falling over and knocking her head when wearing platform sandals. Until recently, many young Japanese women wore platform shoes, which towered as high as 25 centimeters (10 inches).

Female motorists wearing such shoes have been responsible for several traffic accidents.

Antique dealer's blackmailers jailed

Two blackmailers who picked on a bric-a-brac dealer after he made a £115,000 profit on an antique vase have been jailed.

Dealer Mark Tarbitt picked up an 18th-century Chinese vase at a country auction for £450 and went on to sell it at Christie's in London for £140,000, making £115,000 after commission.

He was targeted by two men who threatened to wrongly accuse him of child abuse if he did not give them money.

Rembrandt self-portrait uncovered

Art restorers have uncovered a self-portrait of Rembrandt which had been retouched hundreds of years ago to [depict] a Russian nobleman. . .

Layers and layers of paint were painstakingly scraped away to reveal the original picture of the Dutch master, complete with the round chin and gentle eyes common to other self-studies.

The painting was first done in 1634 when Rembrandt was 28 yearsold, according to the Rembrandt House museum in Amsterdam where the work is now on show temporarily. . .

It was unclear how much the wood-panel painting, 70.8 by 55.2 centimetres (44.3 by 34.5 inches), was worth, but recent Rembrandts on the market had price tags of more than $30m.

Old Masters market update

From the Art Newspaper:

The most notable event at the January Old Master sales in New York was the revelation that the J. Paul Getty Museum is increasingly irrelevant to today’s art market. Not only did it not buy Mantegna’s Descent into Limbo at Sotheby’s on 23 January, but it did not even bid. Despite the pleading of curator Scott Schaefer, its director, Deborah Gribbon, decided not to pursue it, despite the fact that several years previously, the Getty had very nearly clinched a deal for it with consigner Basia Johnson.

Phoning while driving

Motorists are more accident-prone and slower to react when they talk on cellular telephones - even hands-free models - because "inattention blindness" makes the drivers less able to process visual information, University of Utah researchers found.

"Even when participants [drivers] are directing their gaze at objects in the driving environment, they may fail to 'see' them because attention is directed elsewhere," says the new study by psychologists David Strayer, Frank Drews and William A. Johnston. "Phone conversations impair driving performance by withdrawing attention from the visual scene, yielding a form of inattention blindness."

The study concludes that that inattention blindness explains the researchers' widely publicized 2001 findings that users of hands-free and hand-held cell phones are equally impaired, missing more traffic signals and reacting to signals more slowly than motorists who do not use cell phones.

The new study is being published in the March 2003 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. A portion of the study also is featured in the February-March 2003 issue of Injury Insights, published by the National Safety Council.

This reminds me of a Christmas vacation many years ago, when I visited a friend who had one of the first video game consoles. It was quite startling to see how much my game performance deteriorated after only a half a glass of wine. I certainly didn't feel intoxicated, but the effect was undeniable and precisely quantifiable.

Ernst Kitzinger dies

Just spotted this at La Repubblica; no mention so far in the English-language newsweb.

According to the note, Kitzinger passed away in London at the age of 90. Will post links to obituaries as they appear. For now, here's a link to a description of his collected papers.

UPDATE: See the comments for references for other and apparently more accurate obituaries.

Pacemaker reset by rice cooker

Guess I'll stick with my trusty older rice maker:

People wearing pacemakers should stay away from the latest models of rice cookers, the [Japanese] Ministry of Health has warned.

Electromagnetic waves emitted from rice cookers equipped with induction heating systems may disturb pacemakers in the same manner as mobile phones, according to a warning issued by the ministry Thursday.

Health officials quoted an example of a woman in her 60s who discovered during a regular check-up that her pacemaker's setting was changed without her realizing it. Fortunately, the change did not affect her heart condition.

Condoms for infants?

I guess it's a slow day for archeological discoveries, but I did just get a call confirming that my daughter's blood isn't full of lead. Apparently another family in Norway got a reassuring note of their own recently, though it came as a bit of a surprise:

A two-month-old Norwegian boy has received a letter warning him to use a condom.

The letter from a hospital in Finnmark also told Even Andreas the results of his test for a sexually transmitted disease had come back negative.

His parents say they were astonished when they receieved the letter, addressed to their son, telling the infant he did not have chlamydia. . .

The baby's father, Tor Johnny Aikio said: "Statistics show that youths in Finnmark start having sex earlier than others in Norway, but I think this was a bit early."

Pioneer aviator Evelyn Trout

Evelyn Trout, who helped charter new ground for female aviators and participated in the first women's transcontinental air race in 1929, has died. She was 97. . .

Dubbed "Bobbi" after she adopted the stylishly bobbed hairdo that was popular at the time, Trout began taking flying lessons in Los Angeles in early 1928. Within eight months of completing a solo flight, the 22-year-old Trout set women's endurance flight records. . .

"She was a tremendous American aviation pioneer," said Bruce Bleakley, executive director of the San Diego Aerospace Museum, which features Trout in its "Women in Aviation" exhibit. "She served as an inspiration to a lot of ladies back in those days and even later on."

Trout, a charter member of the Ninety-Nines, a women's flying organization, joined Amelia Earhart and 18 other participants in the first All-Women's Transcontinental Air Race from Santa Monica to Cleveland. Trout made it to Cleveland, although her engine quit twice and she was forced to make emergency landings that put her out of the running.

Sea lions join Navy in Gulf

The US Navy has deployed trained California sea lions to the Gulf, to act as lookouts for those who may be trying to attack a port or ship. . .

The Navy has effectively used marine mammals for past 30 years, some even during actual combat missions, including the Vietnam War in the 1970s.

During the late 1980s, the Navy sent six dolphins to the Arabian Gulf, where they patrolled Bahrain harbour to protect US ships from enemy swimmers and mines, and escorted Kuwaiti oil tankers through potentially dangerous waters.

Why work for a living?

. . . when there seem to be so many idiots ready to throw money at you?

A Dutchman has been charged with fraud after "making a small fortune" selling plots of land on the moon.

Rene Veenema is being prosecuted after complaints from clients who said they paid for, but never received, ownership certificates for their parcels of land in space.

Rubens' Massacre of The Innocents on display

From Sky News:

One of the world's most expensive paintings will go on display in a public gallery this week for the first time in its eventful 400-year history.

"The Massacre of the Innocents" by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens will hang at London's National Gallery from Thursday.

The picture belongs to David Thomson, billionaire chairman of the Thomson newspaper empire, who bought it at Sotheby's auction house last year for £49.5 million - a world record price in sterling.

He has loaned it to the gallery for three years, after which it will be housed at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Canada.

Lego thieves

Wonder what this is all about?

Thieves broke into a children's nursery containing computers and cash but only stole the Lego.

Police said they even stole a plastic brick being used to prop up an alarm clock which had a missing a leg.

Esphigmenou besieged

The story of the schismatic monks continues; the Guardian reports that Greek police have blocked access to and from the monastery.

Cyclops' bones found on Crete

Well, not really -- but pretty close, as CNN reports:

Researchers on the southern Greek island of Crete have unearthed the fossilized tusk, teeth and bones of a Deinotherium Gigantisimum, a fearsome elephant-like creature that might have given rise to ancient legends of one-eyed cyclops monsters.

The 7 million-year-old remains suggest the mammal moved around larger areas of Europe than previously believed, possibly swimming long distances in search of food. . .

Remains of other elephant ancestors have previously been found on mainland Greece, leading some researchers to speculate that bones found by ancient Greeks may have become part of their mythology.

A large hole in the middle of the elephant's skull -- the nasal cavity for its trunk -- could have given rise to the tales of the cyclops, the ferocious mythological giant with one eye that appears in Homer's Odyssey and other stories.

This, of course, ties in to the well-received thesis of Adrienne Mayor and Peter Dodson's The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times.

Geologists confirm Iliad's geography

Homer knew his geography, say US researchers. The ancient Greek writer's description of the war fought around Troy is consistent with a new reconstruction of the way the region looked about three millennia ago. . .

When Troy was first built around 3000 BC, say John Kraft, of the University of Delaware in Newark, and his colleagues, it was on the coast of a great bay that filled most of the plain.

Today, however, Troy's environs look very different. Little by little, silt from the Simois and Scamander rivers (today called the Dumrek Su and Kara Menderes), which flow into the bay, moved the Dardanelles coastline several kilometres north, leaving Troy high and dry.

The researchers tracked these changes back through time by radiocarbon dating the fossils in columns of sediment drilled from the rivers' flood plain. Their analysis revealed where, at different times, the ground was once a swamp, a brackish lagoon, or earlier still, a flooded bay. The investigation was begun in 1977 and has been directed by Kraft's collaborator Ilhan Kayan of Ege University in Izmir, Turkey .

The Greek army, Homer tells us, camped on the Aegean cost to the west of Troy, and drew up their ships "on the shore of the surging sea well away from the fighting". Kraft's team figures that this camp was situated on a promontory along the west of the former Bay of Troy, which the Greeks defended with a "deep ditch" to the south that prevented the Trojans from advancing up the narrow finger of land.

The researchers also located the "ford of the fair-flowing river" Scamander. Here, according to Homer, Achilles "broke the Trojan line" and forced many of the Trojans over the steep riverbanks into the deep, swift water. By Strabo's time, the plain was probably much farther north, so that the promontory was no longer evident and the two rivers were able to flow together before emptying into the retreating bay.

The team's findings show that Strabo's judgement was unfailingly acute when he spoke of the geography of the Trojan War. He realized that alluvial deposition had changed the coast since Homer's day, and he seems to have guessed rightly when he stated that the Greek camp and ship station were situated "20 stades [about 4 kilometres] from Ilium".

War then, war now

John Keegan writes in todays' Telegraph on the parallels and differences between current events and those of the 1930s.

In passing, I should mention some rather sobering figures Keegan throws out in illustration of the background to the appeasement of the '30s:

Britain had suffered 750,000 battle deaths in the First World War. Only 15 of England's 10,000 villages had not lost a son, husband or father.

More stolen stuff recovered on eBay

Good news from Pennsylvania:

Several historical documents stolen from the York County Historical Society Museum were found on eBay's Internet auction site.

The artifacts, including an 1846 Fraktur, a Pennsylvania German illuminated document, were stolen from the museum on Jan. 15 or 16.

Three of the artifacts, including a 1775 blank Minuteman enlistment form, were reported missing on Jan. 17. A fourth item, a 1782 public notice about registration of prisoners of war, was discovered missing Jan. 20.

Atlatl champion

Just stumbled across this:

The atlatl is an ancient device used to throw thin spears called darts. It was used for thousands of years as the principle means of hunting large game animals like mammoth, buffalo and whales.

Today it is emerging as a tournament sport with participants from all around the world.

No "Aztecs" in Mexico

Interesting note in the Art Newspaper, regarding an export policy that's a bit extreme:

The Royal Academy’s magnificent “Aztecs” exhibition (until 11 April) could never be shown in Mexico, for legal reasons. It is the most comprehensive show ever held on Aztec culture, but a third of the objects come from European and American museums, and these cannot be lent to Mexico. Under Mexico’s extremely tough 1962 export regulations, no antiquities are allowed to leave the country, not even those sent on loan from abroad.

$20 admission to "Matisse Picasso"

Somehow missed this:

When the "Matisse Picasso" show opens at the Museum of Modern Art in Queens next month, the museum will be charging an unprecedented $20 admission for the blockbuster exhibition of the two great artists who were both rivals and friends. The high fee, says museum director Glenn Lowry, is to cover the cost of insuring and handling the art, which is valued at $1.5 billion, according to Crain's New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, by contrast, charges no extra for its blockbuster shows.

Putin vs Potter

I don't know whether to believe this news item; as they say, if it seems too strange to be true. . .

A Russian law firm is reportedly drawing up legal action against the special effects people who dreamt up Dobby as he appears in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

It is arguing the elf has been modelled on the Russian president, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper reports.

The Kremlin and Harry Potter film producers Warner Bros have declined to comment on the matter but the controversy has stirred emotions in Russia.

Harry Potter websites and chatrooms have been inundated with angry Russians posting messages attacking anyone even suggesting a likeness between the elf and Putin.

Ancient Indian mound preserved on Biltmore estate

More than a century ago, George Vanderbilt created a monument to Gilded Age opulence amid the lush Blue Ridge Mountains. In doing so, he also protected the remnants of a people whose lives were far removed from the elegance of Biltmore Estate.

For more than two years, archaeologists have excavated part of what once was a cornfield next to the Swannanoa River. What they've found is an American Indian mound that offers the most complete picture yet of the culture of a prehistoric people known as the Connestee.

Archaeologists believe that between A.D. 200 and A.D. 500 — what is known as the Middle Woodland period — the site was a major ceremonial center for the Connestee, who may have been ancestors of the Cherokee tribe.

Located near the intersection of two major American Indian trails, the mound was saved from the intrusion of modern culture by its location inside the sprawling, undeveloped Biltmore property. . .

Vanderbilt and the people who created Biltmore for him knew they were working on land that had been previously occupied. When the estate was built, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead did rough archaeological studies of the property and gave specific instructions that no Indian remains were to be disturbed.

However, the mound being excavated now was not discovered until 1984, by an archaeologist working for the state, David Moore.

The only known similar Connestee mound lies beneath a subdivision near Canton, about 15 miles west of Asheville.

Roman Forum in virtual reality

Computer-savvy scholars at the University of California, Los Angeles have created a virtual reality version of the Roman Forum that allows viewers to wander the ancient complex.

The scientifically authentic, three-dimensional model allows users to explore 22 of the temples, basilicas, columns, triumphal arches and other structures that crowded the Forum at the zenith of the Roman empire. Most now lie in ruins.

The supercomputer-run simulation restores the buildings to virtual life when broadcast on a 22-foot, curved screen. . .

The Forum is the largest and most complex of a group of computer models of cultural sites in England, Israel, Peru and Spain put together by UCLA's Cultural Virtual Reality Lab. It took five years and $500,000 to complete. . .

The team hopes to create a Web version of the Forum in two to three years. Meanwhile, they continue to build out the model, tacking on more and more structures. Eventually, UCLA wants to recreate the entirety of imperial Rome as part of its Rome Reborn project. Like the city itself, the virtual version won't be built in a day.

Spy photos reveal Bronze Age highways

Bronze Age inhabitants of what is now modern-day Iraq, Syria and Turkey traded and traveled more widely along a network of highways than previously thought, archeologists studying newly released U.S. spy photographs said on Monday.

Around 5,000 years ago, wheeled wagons navigated along wide dirt roads that extended dozens of miles across the fertile prairies of northern Iraq and its neighboring states, and probably to the Mediterranean Sea, the research showed.

"We assumed that these ancient sites were pretty parochial, but in fact they were tied together by well-traveled highways," said University of Chicago archeologist Tony Wilkinson, who co-authored a paper on the findings to be published in the upcoming issue of the journal Antiquity.

6000-year-old cheese and milk

Chemical analysis of 6000-year-old pottery shards shows ancient Britons also had a taste for cow's milk and goat's cheese.

"This is the first direct evidence for widespread dairying at prehistoric sites anywhere in the world," says Richard Evershed, professor of biogeochemistry at the University of Bristol, UK. Archaeologists had previously uncovered a few objects that suggested dairying, such as suspected cheese strainers, but nothing unambiguous.

Until now, the earliest proof of dairying was a picture of a Sumerian frieze in the Baghdad Museum showing milking 4500 years ago. "And in Britain we had no proof till pictures and writing in Roman times," Evershed told New Scientist.

Major Victorian painting to San Francisco

On Thursday afternoon, the Trustees of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco were informed by director Harry Parker that he had acquired Love and the Maiden, a monumental painting by the Victorian artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope. Love and the Maiden is considered Stanhope's masterpiece and was bought for the Californian Palace of the Legion of Honor, a Beaux Arts-style museum that overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge, to strengthen its holdings of Victorian art.

Trevor-Roper obituaries

Hugh Trevor-Roper, best known as the author of The Last Days of Hitler, is dead at 89. Obituaries in the NY Times, the Independent, Times of London, and Telegraph.

Chinese antiques: caveat emptor

I've always liked Chinese ceramics, but have also stayed away from buying them; it didn't take much research to realize that the market was full of excellent reproductions, including some of considerable age. That's what one gets with a history of connoisseurship and collectings that goes back centuries! Here's an article from the Seattle Times on the pitfalls facing buyers of Chinese art and antiques.

NOTE: This is just one part of an exposé of a local Asian art gallery; quite an interesting local flap (actually, not so local, since the alleged fraudsters also sell on eBay).

Medical history seminar in Staffordshire

For anyone expecting to be in Staffordshire on March 1st without anything to do, the information is here. I rather like the title of the talk, "Piles, Potions and Old War Wounds in Mediaeval Records".

Yahoo Japan exposes problem users

Many buyers and sellers are not happy with online auction services' perceived failure to pursue fraudsters with due diligence. Perhaps this BBC article would be of interest:

The head of Yahoo in Japan has defended the internet firm's practice of publishing the names of suspected fraudulent users of its online auction service. . .

Yahoo Japan is not the first firm to publish details of clients it believes may be acting dishonestly to order to protect its own reputation and business model. . .

Other users of the name and shame technique include UK car hire firm Easycar, which attracted controversy when it began publishing photographs on its website of clients who failed to return vehicles.

Iron Age fort vandalized in Bedfordshire

Historians are counting the cost after vandals used a stolen digger to damage an ancient monument in Bedfordshire.

Holes have been scraped inside the Iron Age Maiden Bower Fort at Sewell, near Dunstable, to make ramps for off-road motorbikes. Earthworks which surround much of the fort have been damaged in two places. The digger has also been used to scrape holes inside the ancient monument.

Lion auction results

Another online surprise while looking for auction news:

An eastern Free State lion auction fetched a turnover of R1,1 million on Saturday, including a new South African record price of R300000 for a black-maned nine-year-old male.

The auction, held near Reitz, was the third predator auction held in the province.

Wimpie du Plessis, spokesman for auction organisers Vleissentraal, said 38 of the 49 animals put on sale were sold.

An estimated 800 people from across the country attended the auction, including around 75 registered buyers.

Modern art as torture

A Spanish art historian has uncovered what was alleged to be the first use of modern art as a deliberate form of torture, with the discovery that mind-bending prison cells were built by anarchist artists 65 years ago during the country's bloody civil war.

Bauhaus artists such as Kandinsky, Klee and Itten, as well as the surrealist film-maker Luis Bunuel and his friend Salvador Dali, were said to be the inspiration behind a series of secret cells and torture centres built in Barcelona and elsewhere, yesterday's El Pais newspaper reported.

Most were the work of an enthusiastic French anarchist, Alphonse Laurencic, who invented a form of "psychotechnic" torture, according to the research of the historian Jose Milicua.

Phillips to abandon auction business

The rumors have been confirmed, as reported in the Friday Wall Street Journal (no link, but reported in French in Le Monde). Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg will henceforth restrict their activities to private dealing; they will leave their New York digs at 57th Street for more modest accommodation in Chelsea.

No mention of this yet on the Phillips website.

Tale of the Tate Turners' recovery

For those with access to the Times of London (access info here), an interesting account of the recovery of the stolen Turners in this Sunday's magazine.

Pompeii redux?

Pompeii could be doomed again, but this time by a tsunami, or gigantic sea wave, rather than a volcano. A research paper to be published next month will warn that Pompeii, along with much of Naples and other nearby towns, may be in mortal danger.

Scientists have long feared a serious eruption by Vesuvius, which buried the ancient city of Pompeii in AD79. It last exploded in 1944 and records show there have seldom been more than a few decades between eruptions.

The paper will warn, however, that eruption is not the only hazard. The rocky slopes of Vesuvius have become increasingly unstable and the entire seaward side of the mountain is at risk of sliding into the Mediterranean. If that happens, billions of tons of rock hitting the water could generate an immense tsunami that would devastate the Italian coast and islands.

Alfonsa Milia, of the marine geology institute of Naples, fears that such a collapse may be overdue. In the paper, which will appear in the Journal of the Geological Society of London, he says this could happen without warning — unlike eruptions, which are often preceded by several days of earthquakes.

Leonardo's glider flies

More than 500 years after Leonardo da Vinci first sketched out designs for manned flight, British engineers have succeeded in putting his ideas into practice.

A glider based on drawings by da Vinci has made its maiden flight from a hillside in Sussex. It is part of a widespread revival of interest in da Vinci’s hundreds of mechanical designs, many of which lay forgotten in libraries for hundreds of years. . .

For da Vinci’s glider idea to take to the air, present-day designers had to give some help. They used wood and linen to make the hang-glider-like craft — materials that would have been available in the 15th century — but had to combine several different da Vinci drawings for the design.

“I didn’t think there was a cat in hell’s chance of it working,” said Tim Moore, the owner of Skysport Engineering, which built the plane. It will appear in a Channel 4 series on da Vinci next month. “A firm of structural analysts looked at the design to see if we were barking up the wrong tree and decided we were, but it flew anyway”. . .

The glider’s wing in the television programme is based on a drawing of 1487, one of many ornithopters — planes with bird-like flapping wings — that are among da Vinci’s more impractical ideas. The wing from the sketch, kept in a library in Milan, was combined with a tailplane and wooden basket for the pilot from other drawings.

Judy Leden, a former world hang-gliding champion, was selected as pilot because of her light, 9st [126 lb] frame.

“My first reaction was that I was stunned by the beauty of the thing,” said Leden. “It was a bit scary when they said I shouldn’t fly any higher than I was prepared to fall, as the glider would probably break up with my weight, but it proved to be much stronger than modern hang-gliders.”

She found she could control the up-and-down movement well but struggled to steer it as she flew the craft about 100 yards at a maximum height of 30ft. “It was like having a car with a brake and accelerator but no steering wheel,” said Leden.

A separate glider project, which also made a successful flight, will feature in a BBC series on da Vinci’s life and work, to be presented in the spring by Alan Yentob, the corporation’s head of drama. The plane was flown only after extensive testing in a flight simulator at Liverpool University.

Napoleonic mass grave recap

Not a new story, but this article from the Sunday Times does have some additional details about the excavation results that I hadn't seen before:

The excavation of the biggest mass grave of Napoleonic soldiers ever found has shed new light on one of the worst military disasters in history.

Thousands of bones have been uncovered during the construction of a block of flats in Lithuania, revealing the final agonies of the soldiers who invaded Russia with Napoleon in 1812. Most froze to death before they could be cut down by the tsar’s Cossacks.

Archeologists believe that as many as 40,000 troops from the Grande Armée could lie in the pits in Vilnius, now the capital of Lithuania. The bones show there were a surprising number of women in the ranks and that 80% of the soldiers suffered from venereal diseases.

“There is inflammation in some skulls showing signs of advanced syphilis,” said Rimantas Jankauskas, associate professor of anatomy at Vilnius University. “This makes it all the more surprising that they were able to march 700 miles in the extreme cold”. . .

The excavation is to be described in documentaries by the Discovery Channel and the BBC. Both channels helped to fund the dig. The BBC film will be shown next month. Builders who discovered the grave at the end of 2001 first thought that it contained victims of the Nazis or the communists. But pieces of uniform and buttons showed that the catastrophe was much earlier.

When the starving soldiers entered Vilnius, a supply centre for the invasion, they found undreamt-of luxuries. They gorged on hams, omelettes and brandy and many died from digestive shock while others swelled to death after warming themselves too quickly. Thousands froze in the streets, where the temperature fell to -35C, after they collapsed drunk or because the terrified inhabitants kept their doors locked.

Biohazard suits found in London mosque

Got a late start blogging today with some overnight technical problems. Just started in on the Sunday Times -- there's a report there that I haven't seen anywere else yet:

Detectives investigating a plot by Islamic terrorists to carry out a chemical weapons attack in Britain have found chemical warfare protection suits at a mosque in north London.

The NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) suits were discovered during a raid by 150 police officers on the Finsbury Park mosque last Monday. Informed sources said the discovery confirmed growing fears by police and MI5 that a chemical attack is being planned by supporters of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda movement in Britain. . .

. . . discovery of the NBC suits has been kept a closely guarded secret known only to a handful of senior officers. Ministers are acutely aware that any suggestion that the mosque may have been involved with chemical weapons could inflame racial tensions. Seven men — six north Africans and one eastern European — were arrested during the raid. Last night two were still being held under the terrorism act.

It is not known how many suits were found at the mosque or their purpose. However, police say there has so far been no evidence found of chemicals or anything that would pose an immediate threat to the public. . .

Reda Husseine, an Algerian journalist once paid by French and British security services to infiltrate the mosque, said he had heard conversations by militants there about the possible use of chemical weapons. He said: “In 1999 and 2000, there were discussions about chemical, biological and even a possible attack with a ‘dirty bomb’ (a crudely constructed device containing uranium). I told British authorities about that. They dismissed it as rubbish”. . .

Last month a chemical warfare suit was seized after French police arrested four suspects in a Paris suburb. Sources say that raid has helped investigators in Britain begin to unravel a new terrorist network. . .

Scotland Yard said it was “not prepared to discuss” the investigation.

Badly phrased

I've been meaning to post something about the latest bit of bestselling bunk -- Gavin Menzies' 1421: The Year China Discovered America, but for now I will just link to today's Guardian, which reports on Chinese scholars' own rejection of Menzies' thesis.

The article itself is also noteworthy for one of the most unfortunate sentences I've seen in a long time:

And humans are believed to have walked from Asia across the Bering Strait when it was covered with ice to become American Indians.

Egyptian antiquities officials arrested

Just in from Ananova:

An Egyptian official appointed to protect the country's archaeological treasures has been arrested on suspicion of taking a bribe to allow 362 of those treasures to be smuggled to Spain.

The arrests came after airport customs police discovered pieces from Egypt's pharaonic, Roman and Greek eras.

It included 288 icons, 13 bracelets, 60 small statues and the head of a large statue packed in a box for air shipping to a private dealer in Spain.

Airport officials said the merchant, Mohamed al-Shaaer, had a certificate from the government's Supreme Council of Antiquities identifying the items as modern fakes made in Cairo's main tourist bazaar.

Customs police arrested al-Shaaer, Abdel Karim Abu Shanab, the top Supreme Council of Antiquities official in charge of tracking stolen artifacts and Mohamed Abdel Rahman Fahmy, an antiquities council inspector.