Clearing away the old for the Games in Delhi

Delhi attracts migrants from all over India (as well as some like me, from the rest of world) and is now the most cosmopolitan and fastest-growing of India's large cities. . .

It is also visibly preparing for its next moment of anxiously anticipated glory, the Commonwealth Games of 2010.

Unsurprisingly, then, there are construction sites all over the city. But despite this extraordinary speed of development, Delhi remains both the leafiest and most archaeologically impressive of the world's megacities.

But much of this architectural heritage remains unrecorded and unprotected -- as the author goes on to describe. From the BBC.

Stupidest caption ever

Today's NY Daily News headline: "Long before Michael Jackson died, pop star looked barely alive".

So far, so good.
Below the picture, though, runs the caption: "Michael Jackson suffered cardiac arrest, a condition that can lead to death if not treated within five minutes, according to doctors". Oy gevalt.

Poison gas for Tokyo, poison darts for Berlin

British officials considered attacking Tokyo with poison gas in 1944, more than a year before the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.

Documents made public today include a memorandum written by a government academic entitled Attack on Tokyo with Gas Bombs. His report was coupled with a note from the Ministry of Supply, dated May 22, 1944.

From the Times of London. The article doesn't indicate how seriously the proposal was considered, but all sorts of ideas were being bruited about at the time -- as the Daily Mail reports:

A war strategy to shower enemy troops with tens of thousands of poisoned darts that could bring death in minutes. . .

Details, revealed today in secret documents released by the National Archives, outline the gruesome physical effects of such an attack on Nazi troops.

The papers also show how the Government tried to rope the Singer Sewing Machine Company into supplying the needles.

The concept, developed between 1941 and 1945, involved darts carrying a sufficient amount of poison to cause 'death or disablement'.

More the 30,000 of the darts could be stored in cluster bombs, which could be dropped onto enemy troops from an aircraft at 3,000ft, according to the file entitled Research Into Use Of Anthrax And Other Poisons For Biological Warfare. Death of a target would occur in 30 minutes if the darts were not removed quickly.

ADDENDUM: Further perspectives over at Airminded.

Chili grenades?

Indian defence scientists are planning to put one of the world's hottest chilli powders into hand grenades.

They say the devices will be used to control rioters and in counter-insurgency operations.

Researchers say the idea is to replace explosives in small hand grenades with a certain variety of red chilli to immobilise people without killing them.

They might not work on some people, though. From the BBC.

Scanning the mummies

A long line of hospital staff wraps around the corridor outside a small conference room in New York to catch a glimpse of the precious cargo.

Inside are the three frail bodies in open wooden crates causing all the commotion. Another body -- a prince no less -- is a few rooms down in a computer tomography scanner.

The bodies are part of the Brooklyn Museum's collection of 11 Egyptian mummies, transported to the North Shore University Hospital to be scanned.

Full article here.

Crop circles discovery

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.

Sheep, too. From the BBC.

Save the whales -- shoot a seagull

The BBC reports, with slideshow:

Whales off the coast of Argentina have acquired a new enemy - seagulls. The gulls have learned to feed on the whales by landing on their backs and just pecking away the skin and blubber. . . .

Thoughts on the new Acropolis Museum

Michael Kimmelman discusses the Acropolis Museum and its implications for the dispute over the Elgin Marbles. Notable quote from writer Nikos Dimou, regarding the paradoxical nature of modern Greek identity:

"We used to speak Albanian and call ourselves Romans, but then Winckelmann, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Delacroix, they all told us, 'No, you are Hellenes, direct descendants of Plato and Socrates,' and that did it. If a small, poor nation has such a burden put on its shoulders, it will never recover."

Very early music

Archaeologists reported Wednesday the discovery last fall of a bone flute and two fragments of ivory flutes that they said represent the earliest known flowering of music-making in Stone Age culture. They said the bone flute with five finger holes, found at Hohle Fels Cave in the hills west of Ulm, was "by far the most complete of the musical instruments so far recovered from the caves" in a region where pieces of other flutes have been turning up in recent years.

Full article in the NY Times.

End of the line for Kodachrome

I love Kodachrome, but I've shot so little of it for so many years now. Nothing like Kodachrome 25 and 64 -- my standbys during my art history grad student days.

Eastman Kodak Co., the photography pioneer whose Kodachrome film inspired Paul Simon's 1973 hit of the same name, said it will retire the 74-year-old product this year after sales dwindled and most labs stopped processing it.

Revenue from Kodachrome represents "a fraction of one percent" of Kodak's total sales of still-picture films, the company said today in a statement. Kodachrome became the world's first commercially successful color film in 1935, Kodak said

Apparently there is now only one lab left still processing Kodachrome. Full story here.