Home, deadly home

An exhibition at the Science Museum in London, revamped for the Easter weekend, revisits the potentially lethal hazards posed by household gadgets over the past 150 years.

Take the simple task of chopping vegetables or meat. In the 1880s some people did this with a hand-operated machine reputedly based on the design of a Mississippi steamboat's paddle machinery. . .

The chopper and mixer used a ratchet to rotate a container while a beam-and-crank mechanism worked the chopper. Unwary operators risked losing a few fingers in the fast-moving blades. . .

At the turn of the last century clockwork "teasmades" became popular. This bedside contraption, which looks like it was designed by Heath Robinson, used an alarm clock as the trigger for a match to strike against moving sandpaper, lighting a spirit stove under a kettle. When the water boiled, bubbles lifted a hinged flap causing the kettle to tilt so that it poured boiling water into a teapot. That was the theory. In practice, having a naked flame, inflammable liquid and boiling water at the bedside provided ample scope for accidents.

The article, in the Independent, continues with other examples. For some reason, I cannot find anything about the exhibition at the Science Museum website.

Banksy does Manhattan

Many a visitor to New York's Museum of Modern Art has probably thought, "I could do that."

A British graffiti artist who goes by the name "Banksy" went one step further, by smuggling in his own picture of a soup can and hanging it on a wall, where it stayed for more than three days earlier this month before anybody noticed.

The prank was part of a coordinated plan to infiltrate four of New York's top museums on a single day.

The largest piece, which he smuggled into the Brooklyn Museum, was a 2 foot by 1.5 foot oil painting of a colonial-era admiral, to which the artist had added a can of spray paint in his hand and anti-war graffiti in the background.

The other two targets were the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History, where he hung a glass-encased beetle with fighter jet wings and missiles attached to its body. . .

It is not the first time he has staged such stunts. Last year he smuggled work into the Louvre in Paris and London's Tate, attracting attention in the media.

From Reuters. Banksy's website is here; pictures of the installations in progress (and much more) at the Wooster Collective website.

Mississippi shipwreck trove

A section of the Mississippi riverbank near Audubon Park collapsed about a year and a half ago, with astonishing results.

No, muddy water did not inundate Uptown New Orleans. Riverbank repairs are a routine task that the Army Corps of Engineers performs adeptly. What made this job special was the historical treasure trove it turned up: 19 sunken ships, including the remains of a Civil War ironclad that played a major role in the 1864 battle of Mobile Bay.

Read the rest here.

Next stop, Jurassic Park

Cretaceous Park, actually:

A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil has yielded what appear to be the only preserved soft tissues ever recovered from a dinosaur. Taken from a 70-million-year-old thighbone, the structures look like the blood vessels, cells, and proteins involved in bone formation.

Most fossils preserve an organism's hard tissues, such as shell or bone. Finding preserved soft tissue is unheard of in a dinosaur-age specimen.

Full article here. Incredible.

€145,000 peat bucket

Yet another indication of the strength of the Irish economy, via the Antiques Trade Gazette:

Unusually large at 2ft 2in (66cm) high x 21in (53cm) in diameter and notable for its carved scallop shell intaglio, this outstanding George III mahogany and brass bound peat bucket shot to €145,000 (£106,600) at James Adam of Dublin on March 15.

The estimate for the iconic piece of Irish occasional furniture – bought by a relative of the consignor in Dublin in the 1950s or 60s – had been €15,000-20,000.

Palaeojudaica birthday

It's been two years, so go give Jim Davila a pat on the back -- and take a look at his many recent posts on such topics as the Israeli forgery scandal, the plan to mob the Temple Mount, and the Lord's Prayer in Elvish.

Skinnier than thou?

Once again, Americans take the lead, then lose it:

The proportion of overweight or obese men is higher in some European countries than it is in the United States, experts said yesterday in an analysis of Europeans' expanding girth.

The International Obesity Task Force estimated that Finland, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Malta have exceeded the United States figure of 67% for overweight or obese males.

Via FuturePundit, where Randall Parker has some choice comments.

Looted BL missal finally going back to Benevento?

This has really been a matter of when, not if:

A 12th-CENTURY manuscript in the British Library was looted from a cathedral near Naples during the Second World War and must be returned, an independent panel ruled yesterday.

The Spoliation Advisory Panel’s backing of a 27-year campaign by the city of Benevento to be reunited with a jewel of Italy’s heritage was dramatic because it also called for the Government to introduce a law to allow the restitution of looted treasures. . .

It said that the manuscript should be returned as soon as possible on loan while the law is changed to allow its permanent return.

The 290-folio illuminated missal had been kept at the chapter library at the Romanesque cathedral of Benevento for hundreds of years before its removal in September 1943.

From the Times of London.

More submarines found off Hawaii

On Thursday March 17th . . . the Hawai'i Undersea Research Lab (HURL) discovered the wreck of the Japanese World War II submarine I-401 sunk during target practice in 1946. . .

The I-401 was one of 3 aircraft carrying submarine built in 1944. These were the largest diesel electric submarines ever built comparable in size to the largest present day nuclear submarines. . .

The war ended before the I-401 could accomplish its mission of launching its 3 folding wing planes to attack and destroy the Panama Canal. The submarine was brought by a U.S. crew back to Hawai'i (story at www.pacerfarm.org/i-400/ [well worth the read -- D.]). The I-401 was sunk by torpedoes in a target practice exercise in 1946 to prevent its technology being surrendered to the Russians under a war end agreement. . .

If you think of the I-401 not as an oversized submarine, but as a submersible aircraft carrier with a surfacing-to-launch time of under 45 minutes and a dive time of under a minute, the Soviets' interest would be obvious.

On March 15th, HURL also discovered the S-19 a World War I vintage submarine scuttled off Pearl Harbor in about 1938.

Full article with photos at the HURL website.

Titanic newsreel found in Glasgow

TWELVE minutes of unique film that shows the Titanic sailing to its doom and records the aftermath of the disaster has been discovered in a Glasgow loft 93 years after the tragedy.

The original, unedited footage was first viewed within days of the great liner sinking on its maiden voyage in April 1912 by a small audience of cinema-goers in the Odeon, in Greenock, Renfrewshire. . .

Running to 12.5 minutes, the ancient nitrate film lay in the loft of an unnamed family until a descendant of the original "owner" read that a similar four-minute segment of film featuring the doomed ship had been sold at auction for £5,000.

Full story here.

Machu Picchu condominiums?

The [Zavaleta] family says it is the lawful owner of a large part of the Machu Picchu sanctuary, Peru's most famous national treasure, and will start proceedings next week to sue the state for recognition of its ownership rights.

"The Zavaletas bought the land in 1944 and have title deeds that date from 1898," their lawyer Fausto Salinas told Reuters on Monday. "But I have checked and the site has been private property since 1657," he said, adding he had proof in the form of parchment documents wrapped in goatskin. . .

The Zavaletas plan to sell the land if their title is recognized. "There is a lot of foreign interest," Julio Zavaleta said.

From Reuters.

English Heritage vacuum cleaner

English Heritage has decided to dust down its ancient monuments using a vacuum cleaner invented in-house for issue to local staff.

Spring-cleaning trials of the £210 backpack kit began yesterday at Helmsley Castle in North Yorkshire, where it gobbled up grime, mould and the odd bit of wormy wood. . .

The machine, which has a range of nozzles and filters to deal with delicate objects and vulnerable parts of buildings, will be used by monument custodians throughout the country under the guidance of English Heritage conservators.

From the Guardian.

Michelangelesque

A portrait of Michelangelo, yes. A portrait by Michelangelo? Let's just say that the art historians quoted are playing it safe: enthusiastic enough to whip up press interest, but not so enthusiastic as to end up out on a limb:

"The work speaks for itself: it is a very high-quality sculpture which depicts Michelangelo. The skilled chiselling on the back makes us think it might be a self portrait," Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Leonardo da Vinci Museo Ideale, told Discovery News. . .

"I first saw the portrait about seven or eight years ago, when the owner brought it to my house in Tuscany. To my eyes then and to my eyes now it is surely a portrait of Michelangelo from the mid-sixteenth century, which itself is very rare, and it is a very fine object," James Beck, professor of art history at Columbia University and the author of "The Three Worlds of Michelangelo," told Discovery News.

"It is the only portrait of Michelangelo in marble and in relief that I am aware of from his lifetime."

According to Beck, the sculpture could also be the work of Niccolò Tribolo or Pierino da Vinci, the nephew of Leonardo who died at only 23. . .

The marble work will be the centrepiece of an exhibition on the image of Michelangelo in the coming months.

Then there's this:

A Roseville man will spend a month in jail for his depiction of a Michelangelo painting. The original "creation of man" is painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Ed Stross' mural outside his art studio features a bare-chested Eve and the word "love."

Frozen mammoth on display in Japan

A frozen mammoth dug up from the Siberian tundra was unveiled in central Japan on Friday in a preview of the six-month World Exposition, expected to draw millions of tourists.

The beast, believed to have lived 18,000 years ago and preserved in a giant refrigerator, is a key exhibit of the Expo, which will open to the public one week later and will largely feature more modern wonders such as robots. . .

The extinct mammoth on display [as opposed to the not-extinct one? -- D.] has a nearly intact soil-colored head covered with muscle tissue and some woolly hair, along with tusks and a front leg. . .

A group of Russian and Japanese scientists are also hoping to clone mammoths from remains of the animal by using elephant eggs.

Full story with pictures here.

Missing Medici

The tomb of a four-year-old heir of the Medicis has mysteriously disappeared, scientists exhuming the remains of several members of the family that dominated the Florentine Renaissance have announced.

A rather misleading lead: the tomb is there, but the body appears to be missing.

Working in the Medici Chapels at Michelangelo's church of San Lorenzo in Florence, where they aim to exhume 49 bodies of the Medici clan, the researchers found the remains of an unknown one-year-old child in what was supposed to be the tomb of Filippino, the son of Grand Duke Francesco I (1541-1587).

From Discovery News.

Local paper correction

In today's Providence Journal:

A story in Saturday's Lifebeat incorrectly implied that a quahog is not a bivalve mollusk like a mussel or an oyster. It is.

South Carolina excavation

For three months, Knight and dozens of other local volunteers have visited the site, which was unveiled publicly for the first time Wednesday. It is located just inside the county line, midway between Pickens County's Pumpkintown community and Marietta.

During that time, researchers have uncovered thousands of artifacts, unearthing a prehistoric Indian settlement believed by archaelogists to be between 500 to 1,500 years old. . .

Huge pieces of Stallings Island pottery — the earliest Native American pottery in the United States — have been discovered on the site, dating back as much as 4,000 years. The pottery, which is made of a paste formed by mixing Spanish moss with clay, predates farming, and varies in design from the plain to the very ornate.

"It just keeps turning up," said landowner Jesse Robertson, who has shared his farm with archaeologists during the dormant winter months. . .

Since he bought his farm 30 years ago, Robertson has collected hundreds of artifacts, including several perfectly formed bowls, fist-sized stones as smooth as pieces of paper and arrowheads. . .

Even before Robertson moved to the property, residents of Pickens, Greenville and Oconee counties had visited the fields — just off State 288 — in search of Indian artifacts.

Full story here.

Competitive memorization

To attain the rank of grand master of memory, you must be able to perform three seemingly superhuman feats. You have to memorize 1,000 digits in under an hour, the precise order of 10 shuffled decks of playing cards in the same amount of time, and one shuffled deck in less than two minutes. There are 36 grand masters of memory in the world.

Read the rest at Slate.

Bobby Short obit

Bobby Short, the cherubic singer and pianist whose high-spirited but probing renditions of popular standards evoked the glamour and sophistication of Manhattan nightlife, died today at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He was 80, and had homes in Manhattan and southern France. . .

Read the rest in today's New York Times.

The Carlyle was hardly a grad student hangout, but most of my contemporaries at the Institute of Fine Arts had been there at least once. And don't forget the Bemelmans murals.

Antiques roadshow with a difference

SCOTLAND Yard is to put a £500,000 Aladdin’s Cave of stolen antiques on show after a two-year investigation into a £30m burglary ring. The haul will go on display in a series of roadshows in a bid to trace the rightful owners.

And the Metropolitan Police will run a series of seminars designed for owners and collectors to highlight the need for them to keep good photographs and records of their property.

Full story at the Antiques Trade Gazette. The roundup of the burglary ring was also written up recently at the BBC:blockquote>Two men and a woman have been arrested as part of an investigation into the theft of millions of pounds worth of art and antiques.

Much of the property was stolen from country houses and galleries across the UK during night time burglaries, often leaving homeowners traumatised. . .

For two years police have been trying to trace a south London gang believed to have stolen £30m worth of property.

Now Scotland Yard's art and antiques unit believe an organised criminal network was operating from Flogg It auction house, Catford, south-east London.

Salvator Rosa exhibition

"Salvator Rosa: Wild Landscapes" runs from March 25 to June 5, and is the first exhibition devoted to Rosa in the UK since the 1970s, according to the show website . For more, take a look at the Guardian review.

UN to recognize Old Europe's defenses?

And we mean old Europe:

British and German researchers have united to create a European rival to the Great Wall of China.

They have asked Unesco, the United Nations cultural organisation, to give world heritage status to the chain of forts, castles, walls and ditches built by the Romans to defend the northern limits of their empire.

The first stage of the project would include Hadrian's Wall in England and 300 miles of forts, ditches and banks in modern Germany that protected the Romans' north-west frontier. Later, the project's backers plan to extend this to include the entire Roman defence chain, from Britain to the Black Sea.

From the Guardian.

Civil War cannon sale flap

Driving down to the village on a weekend errand, Colin Zimmerman did a double-take as he drove past tiny Greenwood Cemetery: The 816-pound cannon that had adorned the graves of Civil War veterans for more than a century was gone.

"I just couldn't believe it," said Zimmerman, 45, a utility foreman. "I'm saying to myself, where the heck is it?"

The Union muzzleloader, forged in Pennsylvania in 1862, was quietly sold in December to the Civil War Artillery Museum near Pittsburgh and hauled away a few weeks ago. The five-member town board accepted a sweetened offer of $15,000, plus a replica cannon worth $5,000.

From Newsday.

Selling off this bit of the town's heritage without a broader referendum really wasn't the way to go. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time the privately-owned Civil War Artillery Museum has found itself in such a situation (some previous controversies notedhere and here), but it does appear to be a legit operation. Unfortunately, some less-than-scrupulous militaria dealers have persuaded wavering owners to sell by falsely representing themselves as museums, or museum representatives.