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Computer Automatically Deciphers Ancient Language

Larry Hardesty
MIT News
Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:13 UTC
Tablet
© MIT
An incidental challenge in developing a computer system that could decipher Ugaritic (inscribed on tablet) was developing a way to digitally render Ugaritic symbols (inset).
In his 2002 book Lost Languages,Andrew Robinson, then the literary editor of the London Times' higher-education supplement, declared that "successful archaeological decipherment has turned out to require a synthesis of logic and intuition ... that computers do not (and presumably cannot) possess."

Regina Barzilay, an associate professor in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Ben Snyder, a grad student in her lab, and the University of Southern California's Kevin Knight took that claim personally. At the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics in Sweden next month, they will present a paper on a new computer system that, in a matter of hours, deciphered much of the ancient Semitic language Ugaritic. In addition to helping archeologists decipher the eight or so ancient languages that have so far resisted their efforts, the work could also help expand the number of languages that automated translation systems like Google Translate can handle.

To duplicate the "intuition" that Robinson believed would elude computers, the researchers' software makes several assumptions. The first is that the language being deciphered is closely related to some other language: In the case of Ugaritic, the researchers chose Hebrew. The next is that there's a systematic way to map the alphabet of one language on to the alphabet of the other, and that correlated symbols will occur with similar frequencies in the two languages.
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Info

Cosmic Noise Could Point to Space Storms

Jeremy Hsu
MSNBC
Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:41 UTC
Solar Prominence
© NASA
NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer, or TRACE satellite, took this close-up of a looping solar prominence in September 2005.
A signal astrophysicists once dismissed as contamination of X-ray observations could actually improve forecasts of dangerous space weather that threatens Earth.

Charged particles within the solar wind give off so-called soft X-rays when they collide with the magnetic field that shrouds Earth. The soft X-rays have longer wavelengths and lower frequencies than their hard X-ray cousins.

This signal was once dismissed as local cosmic noise that interfered with space observatory surveys of hot, distant objects such as supernovas, until some scientists realized its significance for Earth.

Measuring the soft X-ray emissions could allow scientists to build a real-time picture of what's happening with the planet's magnetic field, also known as the magnetosphere, which protects Earth against solar storms. Past observations show that soft X-ray data changes almost immediately in response to changes in the solar wind.
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Family

Why Do Couples Start to Look Like Each Other?

Amber Angelle
LiveScience
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:10 UTC
While you may be familiar with the old saying, "opposites attract," in reality, what the heart wants is someone who resembles its owner - and that resemblance increases the longer two lovebirds stay together.

University of Michigan psychologist Robert Zajonc conducted an experiment to test this phenomenon. He analyzed photographs of couples taken when they were newlyweds and photographs of the same couples taken 25 years later.

The results showed that the couples had grown to look more like each other over time. And, the happier that the couple said they were, the more likely they were to have increased in their physical similarity.

Zajonc suggested that older couples looked more alike because people in close contact mimic each other's facial expressions. In other words, if your partner has a good sense of humor and laughs a lot, he or she will probably develop laugh lines around their mouth - and so will you.
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Magnify

T. Rex Plodded Like an Elephant, Nerve Study Says

Mason Inman
National Geographic News
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:00 UTC
Image
© David Evans/National Geographic
Asian elephants walk down a road in Sri Lanka
The mighty Tyrannosaurus rex was no quick, agile killing machine - the "tyrant king" dinosaur just didn't have the nerves.

Instead, most times T. rex probably plodded along like an elephant, according to a new study that estimated the "speed limit" of nerve signals running through the dinosaur's body.

When a vertebrate - an animal with a backbone - stubs its toe, electrical signals get carried from the toe to the spinal cord by a nerve, which is made up of bundles of long, fiberlike cells.

Since the researchers couldn't study a T. rex's nerves directly, the team looked at how nerves work in a range of modern animals, from the tiny shrew to midsize dogs and pigs to massive Asian elephants.
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Sherlock

Cleopatra "Was Killed by a Cocktail of Drugs - Not a Snake Bite"

Allan Hall
The Daily Mail
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:28 UTC
Image
© Alamy
A German scientist says it is unlikely renowned beauty Cleopatra (famously played by Elizabeth Taylor, left) committed suicide via the bite of an Egyptian cobra as this would have been 'agonising and disfiguring'
Cleopatra did not die from a snake bite but from drinking a lethal drug cocktail, a German scientist said today.

The Queen of the Nile ended her life in 30 BC. Legend has always held that it was the bite of an asp - an Egyptian cobra - which caused her demise.

Now Christoph Schaefer, a German historian and professor at the University of Trier, will present evidence on a television programme tomorrow that he claims will prove that drugs and not a snake were the cause of death.

He will say that the bite of an asp would have given her an agonising death over several days. Toxicologists and zoologists believe she took a drug cocktail instead.

'Queen Cleopatra was famous for her beauty and was unlikely to have subjected herself to a long and disfiguring death,' said Schaefer, the author of a best-selling book in Germany called Cleopatra.

The African queen, played by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 film with Richard Burton as her on-screen and real-life lover, modelled herself on the reincarnation of an Egyptian goddess during her reign.

After losing the Battle of Actium, her Roman beau Marc Antony is said to have committed suicide.
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Info

Magnetic Pole Holds Elusive Allure


Sydney Morning Herald
Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:28 UTC
Charlie Barton
© SMH
Moving target .... Charlie Barton and his fluxgate magnetometer.
The Hollywood disaster movie 2012 got a lot of things wrong, an expert on the Earth's magnetism tells Steve Meacham.

Dr Charlie Barton - the Australian scientist who 10 years ago became the closest anyone has been to the constantly moving south magnetic pole - has never seen Roland Emmerich's apocalyptic adventure movie 2012, starring John Cusack.

He knows the film was much criticised when it opened last year, particularly by scholars, who objected to it portraying ancient Mayan mathematicians prophesying 2012 as the date of the end of the world as we know it.

But Barton's reasons for not seeing it are different: the science is flawed.

Sure, says the Canberra-based geo-magnetist, sun spots and other solar activity have an immense - and little-understood - effect on the Earth's ability to sustain human life.

And yes, it is true (as the movie shows) that the planet's magnetic poles will eventually reverse as a result of dramatic changes in its molten core, leading to north becoming south and vice versa.
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Rocket

Duff French Missiles for Royal Navy Finally Fixed

Lewis Page
The Register
Mon, 28 Jun 2010 04:08 UTC
Rocket firing
© The Register
Eighth time's the charm
New £1bn destroyers get post-1940s weaponry at last

Problems with the primary armament of the Royal Navy's new, £1bn+ Type 45 destroyers have been rectified, according to reports.

The Royal Navy already has two Type 45s, HMS Daring and HMS Dauntless, but test-firings last year of their main armament - the Principal Anti Air Missile System (PAAMS, the British configuration of which is known as "Sea Viper") - were failures, meaning that the weapons could not be accepted into service.

This left the Type 45s - one of which is already on her second captain - almost unarmed, packing only a 4.5-inch bombardment gun and a couple of light 30mm cannon.

The failed test firings were blamed on a problem with the French "Aster" missiles used by Sea Viper. This has meant a design change and delayed deliveries, but pan-European missile firm MBDA, maker of the Aster, now says that the redesigned missiles have been successfully tested.

Comment: Do you ever wonder where your tax money goes ?

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Meteor

Comet-bomb interceptor makes low pass above Atlantic

Lewis Page
The Register
Mon, 28 Jun 2010 04:01 UTC
comet
© The Register
One way of looking at it

Earthy speed to get probe 'up close and personal'

A NASA space probe famous for bombing a comet five years ago made a final "flyby" past Earth last night, changing its orbit around the Sun with the aid of the planet's gravity. The renamed "EPOXI" craft (formerly "Deep Impact") swooped low just 19,000 miles above the South Atlantic at 11pm UK time last night.

Last night's 12,750 mph flypast will see the dual-missioned spaceprobe accelerate by no less than 3,470 mph in its bid to reach the comet Hartley 2 later this year. EPOXI's name reflects the two new tasks it was given following the Deep Impact comet-bombing run: Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization plus Deep Impact Extended Investigation.

After the successful 2005 strike in which the then Deep Impact smashed a probe into the comet Tempel 1, NASA assessed that the probe still had plenty of manoeuvring fuel left and that, by means of judicious low passes above Earth, it could be steered to a new rendezvous with another comet. The Hartley intercept, however, will not involve an impact probe like the Tempel rendezvous.
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Sherlock

The Plato Code: Secret Symbols Discovered in Plato's Books

Michael Suen
Geek O' System
Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:15 UTC
Plato
© Geek O' System
Plato
A researcher at the University of Manchester has discovered a pattern of symbols embedded in ancient Greek philosopher Plato's writings which give them a musical structure. According to Dr. Jay Kennedy, a researcher at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine who has been studying Plato's work for five years, this code reveals his "hidden philosophy."

"The result was amazing," he said, "It was like opening a tomb and finding new set of gospels written by Jesus Christ himself."

Another Dan Brown book in the making? Perhaps, but more importantly, what implications do these findings have for our conception of Western history, and the age old conflict between science and religion?

Reportedly, this so-called Plato Code suggests that the philosopher anticipated the Scientific Revolution 2,000 years before Isaac Newton, in that he posited the awe-inspiring force of nature was mathematically dictated. Thus according to Plato, to understand the scientific basis of nature was to move closer to God.

The musical pattern of symbols were derived from ancient Pythagorean disciples, a literary expression of the planets and stars' inaudible music, what Pythagoras had called "harmony of the spheres" a century earlier.
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Pharoah

On the trail of Tutankhamen's penis

Jo Marchant
New Scientist
Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:53 UTC
Image
© Erik Pendzich/Rex Features
When I started investigating a news story about the possible cause of King Tutankhamen's death, I never expected to end up on the trail of his penis.

As I've reported today, a letter published in JAMA this week suggests that contrary to what was said earlier this year, the boy pharaoh did not die of a combination of an inherited bone disorder and a nasty case of malaria, but of a genetic disease called sickle-cell anemia.

This letter is just one of six comments that JAMA has published on the work, carried out by Egypt's chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass and colleagues. Another one suggests that Tut and his relatives may have suffered from a hormonal disorder that is similar to Antley-Bixler syndrome. In this singularly interesting syndrome, a single genetic mutation causes elongated skulls, and over-production of oestrogen. Male sufferers can have distinctive physical features, including breasts and under-developed genitalia.

Irwin Braverman of Yale Medical School and Philip Mackowiak of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, believe that a variant of this syndrome could explain why artwork from the time depicts Tut and his relatives - in particular his father Akhenatun - as having feminine bodies, with hips and breasts, and particularly long heads.
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