Japanese Imperial tombs

The headline reads, "Japan's royal tombs opened for inspection", but "not as totally and absolutely closed off as hitherto" would be more accurate:

Japan's royal tombs are to be opened to more thorough investigation by researchers for the first time. The move should re-invigorate studies into the country's ancient history, which have so far depended mostly on legends and myths.

But the change in the rules still won't allow any excavation, nor the inspection of any bodies. It won't, therefore, solve the big mysteries — such as which emperor lies in which tomb, or whether the imperial family has remained purely Japanese or, as some have claimed, been influenced by Korean and Chinese bloodlines.

Cross with care

It is a cautionary tale for any traveller - distinguished historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto tried to cross the road while in Atlanta for the conference of the American Historical Association, only to find himself in handcuffs and surrounded by armed police.

"I come from a country where you can cross the road where you like," said the visiting professor of global environmental history at Queen Mary College, University of London. "It hadn't occurred to me that I wasn't allowed to cross the road between the two main conference venues."

Whether the arrest was proper is being duly investigated. Many article worldwide aren't exactly nuanced, but this time it's the BBC that's notable for taking a judicious tone, warning readers:

Just because you can do something in the UK doesn't mean it's OK in another country. Jaywalking is an offence in most urban areas in the United States - although enforcement varies between states - and Canada, and in places such as Singapore, Spain, Poland, Slovenia and Australia. . .

UPDATE: Arrest report here; active discussion over at the Chronicle of Higher Education's News Blog.

One step forward, two steps back

Research . . . has found that the protective effect that tea has on the cardiovascular system is totally wiped out by adding milk.

Tests on volunteers showed that black tea significantly improves the ability of the arteries to relax and expand, but adding milk completely blunts the effect. Supporting tests on rat aortas (aortic rings) and endothelial (lining) cells showed that tea relaxed the aortic rings by producing nitric oxide, which promotes dilation of blood vessels. But, again, adding milk blocked the effect.

Press release here; spotted via FuturePundit, who adds commentary (and discussion). No mention (yet) of the combined effect of adding milk and sugar, however . . . .

Anglo-Saxon sword hilt to British Museum

A 1400 YEAR old solid gold sword hilt, found in a field near Market Rasen, has netted the finder £125,000, after it was bought by the British Museum in London.

The finder, Christopher Baker of Lincoln, found the pieces of the hilt in the field, which has not been identified but is known to be near a river, in 2002. . .

The find is currently on display in Room 2 at the British Museum and will move to the Medieval galleries (room 41) in 2007. It is hoped the find will be exhibited on loan at Scunthorpe Museum in the future.

Full story here.

Hold the soap!

Another case of "everything you know is wrong" -- though to be fair, who knew about DNA way back when, and more recently, who suspected that ancient DNA would be recoverable?

Washing, brushing and varnishing fossils — all standard conservation treatments used by many fossil hunters and museum curators alike — vastly reduces the chances of recovering ancient DNA.

Instead, excavators should be handling at least some of their bounty with gloves, and freezing samples as they are found, dirt and all, concludes a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today . . .

Geigl and her colleagues looked at 3,200-year-old fossil bones belonging to a single individual of an extinct cattle species, called an aurochs. The fossils were dug up at a site in France at two different times — either in 1947, and stored in a museum collection, or in 2004, and conserved in sterile conditions at -20 ºC.

The team's attempts to extract DNA from the 1947 bones all failed. The newly excavated fossils, however, all yielded DNA.

Because the bones had been buried for the same amount of time, and in the same conditions, the conservation method had to be to blame says Geigl. "As much DNA was degraded in these 57 years as in the 3,200 years before," she says.

From Nature.

Ice cream, sausages -- and clean clothes!

Bizarre and ingenious domestic gadgets will be on display at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum in an exhibition called Design for Living which starts on January 12.

The exhibition is on loan from the Museum of Nostalgia's reserve collection and some items will be on display for the first time.

They include a tiny 1935 spy camera, an 1853 3D viewer, a Victorian step commode, lawn shoes worn by a horse and 1935 washing machine that was claimed to make ice cream and sausages.

Full story here.

Golliwog flap

A collector of golliwog memorabilia today defended putting his collection on display at a museum despite concerns that the items are racist.

Nick Martin, a part-time maintenance worker, has lent 300 items ranging from badges to a teapot for the exhibition being held at the Westbury Manor Museum in Fareham, Hants. . .

John Molyneux, senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth's school of art, design and media, told the Portsmouth News: "This is very much to be regretted as the golly, or golliwog, has very strong racist connotations.

"They were originally a very crude racist stereotype repeated in many children's stories at the height of imperialism when unfortunately overt racism was common in adults and children.

"It is not just an innocent toy and often this issue is not understood by people - and obviously not by the curators and managers of the museum."

Full article here. The article also links to a story from March, when police seized golliwogs from a toy store:

The dolls were removed from a window display at A&E Pettifer's store in the market town of Bromyard, Herefordshire, after a passer-by said they were offensive.

Following an investigation, West Mercia Police said it would not be pressing charges against the owner Donald Reynolds and confirmed the dolls would be returned to him.

More on the history of the Golliwog here.

Look ma, no letters

A bit of Rhode Island news:

To end a sometimes-infuriating flaw in the state’s car registration system, the Division of Motor Vehicles is retiring its traditional way of assigning numbers and letters to passenger vehicles and shifting, at least temporarily, to unique all-numeric plates.

The plates are the same as the current wave design, except for the all-numeric format. The DMV started issuing them in December and reckons that the roughly 300,000 numeric plates available will last four or five years — long enough to replace the aging computer system that is part of the problem.

Wonder if license plate collectors are taking an interest in this. 300,000 seems like a lot of plates, though. Will have to check eBay in five or six years' time.

Agency spokeswoman Gina Zanni said the change is intended to put an end to issuing new plates that duplicate old ones that have expired but are still being used illegally.

Cartoon news

We juxtapose 'em, you try in vain to figure out what we're getting at -- or something like that:

A British Muslim has been found guilty of soliciting murder during a London rally against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

From the BBC, which also reports:

Iwao Takamoto, the US animator who created cartoon dogs Scooby-Doo and Muttley, has died aged 81.

He was responsible for characters from The Flintstones and The Jetsons when he worked for the Hanna-Barbera studio.

The selling of the Louvre

The deal with Atlanta seemed bad enough, but now there are plans for a "Louvre of the Sands" satellite operation in Abu Dhabi, along with a Pompidou satellite in China -- as the Times of London reports:

Leading figures from the French art world have accused the Louvre of cultural prostitution for signing a multimillion-pound deal to exhibit works in Atlanta and negotiating a second deal to build a branch of the museum in Abu Dhabi.

Critics say that the Louvre is being turned into a vulgar brand name to fill state coffers.

The row pits purists, who believe that art must stand high above politics or business, against modernisers, who say that globalisation requires a new approach to cultural values. In the latest salvo, senior curators and art critics have launched a petition denouncing the Government of President Chirac for authorising France’s museums to rent out their collections.

The Re-Reconquista

Being rather under the weather recently, I hadn't gotten around to posting on the Bishop of Córdoba's unsurprising rejection of a Muslim group's request for permission to pray in Córdoba's cathedral (originally built as a mosque, and relatively lightly altered in conversion).

The petition took a lot of chutzpah, I think, given both the unthinkability of Christian (or Jewish) worship being permitted in the leading sanctuaries of the Islamic world, and the strongly traditionalist Catholicism of Spain. On the other hand, it seems that other European countries are more open to such unilateral ecumenism -- the extreme examples also unsurprisingly provoking rather strong responses.

Leopard in the bathroom

The BBC has the story. And we worry about bats . . .