Rewriting the story of Machu Picchu

From the postcards bearing his swashbuckling, fedora-topped image to the luxury train emblazoned with his name that runs to the foot of the mountain redoubt of Machu Picchu, reminders are ubiquitous here of Hiram Bingham, the Yale explorer long credited with revealing the so-called Lost City of the Incas to the outside world almost a century ago.

But in recent months, a confluence of contrary events has threatened to upend the legacy of Bingham, the ostensible model for the fictional Indiana Jones. Peru has threatened legal action against Yale to recover thousands of artifacts Bingham removed. Evidence has emerged suggesting that a German adventurer may have arrived there first. And a dispute has been grinding on over who owned the site when Bingham supposedly discovered it. . .

Not only may Bingham not be quite the heroic pioneer that he has been portrayed as, but it may well be that the Lost City of the Incas was never really lost after all.

Oxyrhynchus Gospel fragment bought in?

Looks like the early fragment of the Gospel of John did not sell at Sotheby's December 3rd sale. Press release here; Sotheby's catalog entry here; sale results here.

The other highlight of the sale, an historical compendium including Marco Polo's travelogue, did sell. Catalog entry here; hammer price was £937,250. Excerpt from the description:

This is evidently the long-lost manuscript of historical tracts used by the scribe of the Burghley transcripts, last seen in the sixteenth century, and containing the only substantial Marco Polo manuscript to come to the auction market in nearly a century, as well as the only medieval manuscript of the Encomium Emmae (a contemporary biography of the wife of King Cnut) in the version revised for her son Edward the Confessor, and a number of other important and rare historical texts including accounts and assessments of medieval Islam and the Near-East

Better thinking through chemistry

Is the next doping scandal going to be academic?

Healthy people are increasingly turning to brain-enhancing drugs like Ritalin to boost their performance in school or at work, researchers said on Monday.

And while some expressed alarm over the trend, others embraced the idea, provided the drugs are proven safe. . .

Volkow said recent surveys on college campuses suggest drugs like Novartis' Ritalin, or methylphenidate, and Cephalon's Provigil, or modafinil, for narcolepsy are being used by students, professors and others as a way to get a competitive edge.

(Mis)estimating volume

John Tierney's science articles in the NY Times have been looking at consumers' tendency to underestimate the actual contents of supersized packages. I don't think it is cultural, or food-specific; rather, there's something about how humans are wired regarding perceptions of length vs volume. This struck me years ago, in both lab and kitchen settings, when transferring liquids or leftovers from one container to another. When the containers are the same shape, selecting the right size for the receptacle container is trivial -- but not so when, say, the transfer is from a wide, low dish or pan to a receptacle of squarer proportions. In those cases, pretty much everyone I've worked with overestimates the size of receptacle container needed, often by a good two-to-one.

It's not easy to make rational choices when our eyes come miscalibrated.

PS Note, too, Tierney's discussions of the "halo effect" -- the tendency of the diet-conscious to let down their guard around foods bearing the imprimatur of trusted names, or described as "low fat", "healthy", "organic", etc. How often I've shaken my head at friends who would never buy their kids junk cereals, yet happily bring home the Whole Foods counterparts containing just as much sugar, but organic.

Elephant Polo World Cup

Video coverage here.