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POPSPyramids packed with fossil shells. They say that seashells prove that the rock was quarried, instead of cast in moulds. I can't imagine how making their own 10 tonne bricks in moulds would have made things any easier. Maybe just adding another stage to a process that was already a huge undertaking. I also heard once that after something is build it hasto 'settle' into into it's foundations, Very few builders or architects have been able to find a way to overcome this, but with their weight, and perfect seams with no mortar, the pyramids have only settled a fraction - perhaps a few inches, over thousands of years. Something that seems much more likely with solid rock than bricks. If only the library in Alexandria hadn't burned down with all of the blueprints.
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POPSMythical Roman 'She-Wolf' Cave Found Mythical Roman 'She-Wolf' Cave Found Archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled an underground grotto believed to have been revered by ancient Romans as the place where a wolf nursed the city's legendary founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus. Decorated with seashells and colored marble, the vaulted sanctuary is buried 52 feet inside the Palatine hill, the palatial center of power in imperial Rome, the archaeologists said at a news conference. n the past two years, experts have been probing the space with endoscopes and laser scanners, fearing that the fragile grotto, already partially caved-in, would not survive a full-scale dig, said Giorgio Croci, an engineer who worked on the site.
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POPSCult of the Wolf: An Ancient Roman Cave Shrine Archaeologists have finally discovered the lost Lupercal underneath the ruins of the Emperor Augustine's palace. It was the underground shrine to the she-wolf who raised the legendary fratricidal twins who founded Rome, Romulus and Remus. Somehow my job suddenly seems very boring. But I do like that Italy's Minister of Culture, Mr. Rutelli, appears to believe this is historical validation of the Myth of Romulus. After all, if there's an ancient temple there that must prove the myth to be true in its entirety. (Hey, it worked when they found "Troy," right?) Welcome to the Evans-Schliemann School of Hokey Historiography and Wistful Thinking.
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POPSMoniker Madness unbelievable, yet probably true to some extent.. "While it’s also true that, as statisticians know, if you search for a correlation between some outcome (strikeouts) and enough possible explanations, you’ll find one by chance alone. But again, the scientists say this is not the case here. Other explanations, anyone?"
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POPSFractal Food: Self-Similarity on the Supermarket Shelf This great article on computational self-similarity in nature provided the author with an excuse to take a series of spectacular close-up photos of the incredible Romanesco broccoli plant. Fractals never looked so delicious! (Click pictures for high-resolution images.) Nearly exact self-similar fractal forms occur do in nature, but I'd never seen such a beautiful and perfect example until, some time after moving to Switzerland, I came across a chou Romanesco like the one above in a grocery store. This is so visually stunning an object that on first encounter it's hard to imagine you're looking at a garden vegetable rather than an alien artefact created with molecular nanotechnology. But of course, then you realise that vegetables are created with molecular nanotechnology, albeit the product of earthly evolution, not extraterrestrial engineering.
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