Brown acquires major history of mathematics collection

The Brown University Library has acquired the library of the late David E. Pingree, an internationally renowned historian of the exact sciences in antiquity and a member of the Brown faculty from 1971 to 2005. Pingree was chair of Brown’s Department of History of Mathematics and a University Professor.

Reflecting his scholarly interests, the collection focuses on the study of mathematics and exact sciences in the ancient world, especially India, and the relationship of Eastern mathematics to the development of mathematics and related disciplines in the West. The collection contains some 22,000 volumes and a number of other publications and manuscripts. The holdings consist of both antiquarian and recent materials published in Sanskrit, Arabic, Hindi, and Western languages as well as microfilm and photocopies of manuscript material from around the world, much of which is now lost in its original format.

Full press release here.

Spain plays tough with treasure hunters

The Spanish Civil Guard has intercepted a boat operated by a US company amid a row over treasure from a shipwreck.

The guard had been ordered by a Spanish judge to seize the vessel as soon as it left the British colony of Gibraltar.

Gibraltar officials and Odyssey Marine Exploration, which owns the ship, said Spain had boarded the ship illegally as it was in international waters.

From the BBC.

Perfidious Albion

News from Basra:

Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic.

But several of the creatures, caught and killed by local farmers, have been identified by experts as honey badgers.

The rumours spread because the animals had appeared near the British base at Basra airport.

UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.

Lies, damned lies, and edits

The BBC has apologised to the Queen for wrongly implying she walked out of a portrait session with photographer Annie Leibovitz during a documentary.

A trailer for the programme, unveiled on Wednesday, showed the Queen in an exchange with Leibovitz, followed by a clip of her apparently walking off.

The BBC said in a statement: "This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was misrepresented."

Reversed, in fact.

This sort of misrepresentation through selective editing is all too easy and all too common, with corrections -- if they come -- usually buried where they can do little to undo the impact of the original broadcast or publication. The BBC's coverage in this instance is a welcome exception, but one wonders if one has to be a royal to get this sort of clarification.

Exercise and bad air

An article in today's NY Times on athletes concerned about what air pollution is doing to their lungs:

SUSAN JAMES, a 50-year-old probation officer in Bakersfield, Calif., has been a competitive runner for almost three decades. “I’ve spent a lot of hours running through this city,” she said.

Which is beginning to worry her.

“Twenty years ago, I didn’t have asthma or allergies,” she said. Today, she has both, probably due to the same improbable cause. “My doctor told me I’m allergic to Bakersfield air,” she said. “I’m actually allergic to it.”

In May, the American Lung Association called Bakersfield the third-sootiest city in the country, behind Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.

When I moved to NYC for graduate school, I would routinely get around by bicycle. After a few months, I stopped going anywhere from Midtown south -- not because of the traffic, but because of all the gunk I was sucking up. I kept on riding through the park when going from my Columbia-area apartment to classes on East 78th Street, but after a couple of years I gave that up, too. Sore legs, good. Sore lungs and throat, bad.

Kenneth Rundell, the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood University in Scranton, Pa., said, “Athletes typically take in 10 to 20 times as much air,” and thus pollutants, with every breath as sedentary people do. . .

. . . a 2004 review of pollution studies worldwide conducted by the University of Brisbane, Australia, found that during exercise, low concentrations of pollutants caused lung damage similar to that caused by high concentrations in people not working out.

The article notes that studies are pointing to fine particulates, not ozone, as the main risk factor. This isn't exactly news, which is why I still shake my head to see so many runners and cyclists gravitating towards major thoroughfares. One thing to keep in mind that the article does not point out is that the presence of trees and other roadside greenery may be deceptive, in that they tend to raise fine particulate levels in their immediate area. There was a study written up in the NY Times many years ago, comparing soot levels along planted and barren parkways, and the differences were both significant and counterintuitive (at least until you think about it).

Molier than thou

King's College London scientists compared key ageing DNA with the number of moles in a study of 1,800 twins.

They found the more moles a person had, the more likely their DNA was to have the properties to fight off ageing.

The study, in the Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention journal, contrasts with the link between a high mole-count and high skin cancer risk. . .

Lead researcher Dr Veronique Bataille said: "The results of this study are very exciting as they show, for the first time, that moley people who have a slightly increased risk of melanoma may, on the other hand, have the benefit of a reduced rate of ageing.

"This could imply susceptibility to fewer age-related diseases such as heart disease or osteoporosis, for example. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings."

From the BBC.

The stress of the stacks

Fighting fires may sound taxing, chasing criminals demanding, but a new study says that working in a library is the most stressful job of all.

Librarians are the most unhappy with their workplace, often finding their job repetitive and unchallenging, according to psychologist Saqib Saddiq.

He will tell the British Psychological Society that one in three workers suffer from poor psychological health.

The study surveyed nearly 300 people drawn from five occupations.

They were firefighters, police officers, train operators, teachers and librarians and were intended to cover the spectrum, with the librarians first-thought to be the least stressful occupation.

From the BBC.

ADDENDUM: Dr. Weevil rightly points out that it isn't necessarily the job, noting "the possibility that unhappy people might be more drawn to library science in the first place".

Or maybe it's just a British thing. This bunch doesn't seem so glum.

Watch collection stolen and recovered

A highly valuable collection of Swiss watches has been recovered in France shortly after being stolen from a museum in Switzerland, officials said.

The timepieces belonging to luxury watchmaker Girard-Perregaux were found in a sack in scrubland in eastern France, near the Swiss border.

Two men were arrested on Friday over the theft and a third is being sought. . .

The robbers snatched the watches after smashing display cases at the museum in the north-western Swiss town of La Chaux-de-Fonds last Thursday.

From the BBC.

Coin collection stolen

A coin collection rated as one of Britain's most historically important, including pieces dating back to as far as the 10th century, has been stolen.

Specimens including up to 1,000 of Scotland's oldest minted coins worth more than £500,000 were taken from the home of Lord and Lady Stewartby in the Borders region of Scotland on Wednesday night.

The theft was described by historians as a "total disaster" for the country's heritage.

From the Times of London.

Frozen baby mammoth

A baby mammoth unearthed in the permafrost of north-west Siberia could be the best preserved specimen of its type, scientists have said.

The frozen carcass is to be sent to Japan for detailed study.

The six-month-old female calf was discovered on the Yamal peninsula of Russia and is thought to have died 10,000 years ago.

The animal's trunk and eyes are still intact and some of its fur remains on the body.

From the BBC, which has a picture.

Also of note is the potential for cloning. It seems that it is now only a matter of time before we see living mammoths once again. If the mammoth remains can be kept out of the clutches of the looters, that is:

Dr Agenbroad warned that scientifically valuable Siberian mammoth specimens were being lost to a lucrative trade in ivory, skin, hair and other body parts. . .

Local people are scouring the Siberian permafrost for remains to sell on, and, according to Dr Agenbroad, more carcasses could be falling into the hands of dealers than are finding their way to scientists.

"These products are primarily for collectors and it is usually illicit," he explained.

"Originally it was for ivory, now it is everything. You can now go on almost any fossil marketing website and find mammoth hair for $50 an inch. It has grown beyond anyone's imagination."

Sunscreens, once again

A number of our friends were commenting last week on a syndicated feature in our local paper on the ineffectiveness of many sunscreen products (Washington Post version here). Hardly news, I'm afraid, but it seems not everyone is big on reading fine print -- and the newspaper coverage is still far from complete.

If you are serious about skin protection (and if you spend any time outdoors to speak of, you ought to be), this database from the Environmental Working Group is a great resource -- though its abundance of data on every possible hazard of every single ingredient may leave your head spinning. Although I'm glad for it: I just looked up their #1 recommendation (UV Natural Sport SPF 30+), only to find that the sixth-listed ingredient is sesame oil -- to which my oldest daughter is (or at least was, last time she was exposed) quite strongly allergic.