Sunday 24 June 2012

History and Prehistory stuff (including Turing tributes) from the week 18-24/6/12

The 100th anniversary of Alan Turing's birth
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/06/23/in-memoriam-alan-turings-100th-birthday/?
http://phys.org/news/2012-06-science-world-commemorates-father.html
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/06/23/google-celebrates-100th-anniversary-of-gay-war-heros-alan-turings-birth-with-doodle/
The Science Museum's biography of Turing:
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/People/Alan%20Turing.aspx
If you can get there, the Science Museum, London, UK, has a special exhibition up:
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/galleries/turing.aspx


The British woman who gave birth to the world's first test tube baby has died aged 64
Lesley Brown made history on July 22, 1978 when her daughter Louise was born following pioneering in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-mother-world-tube-baby-dies.html

'Chemical analysis of pottery reveals first dairying in Saharan Africa in the fifth millennium BCE'
Using lipid biomarker and stable carbon isotope analysis, researchers examined preserved fatty acids held within the fabric of pottery found in present-day Libya, and found that half of the vessels had been used for processing dairy fats.
This means that humans have been using dairy products for at least seven thousand years, in Africa as well as Europe.
http://phys.org/news/2012-06-chemical-analysis-pottery-reveals-dairying.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428703.300-dairy-farming-in-the-sahara--7000-years-ago.html

'Oldest confirmed cave art is a single red dot'
Nothing more than a dot of paint has been used to work out the age of what is now known to be the world's oldest discovered cave art - surpassing the French at 35000 years - to 40800 years old!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428702.400-oldest-confirmed-cave-art-is-a-single-red-dot.html


'Muscle reconstruction reveals how dinosaurs stood'
Analysis of dinosaurs' modern-day relatives - crocodiles, and birds - has informed models of how dinosaurs themselves were 'built'.
These have shown that ceratopsids, stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, and hadrosaurs, had different body shapes, and different gaits, that, of course, fit into the tracks they left.
"Although their skeletons were very similar, the team found that the muscles were different, showing the ornithischian dinosaurs had more diverse methods of locomotion than previously thought."
http://phys.org/news/2012-06-muscle-reconstruction-reveals-dinosaurs-stood.html


'Australians find huge mega-wombat graveyard'
From 2 million to 50000 years ago, Australia was grazed by gigantic marsupial Diprotodons, which were as big as a rhinoceros.
"Megafauna are thought to have evolved to such large sizes to cope with inhospitable climates and food scarcity, with fossils found in Australia of prehistoric emus, tree-dwelling crocodiles and carnivorous kangaroos."
Australia's such a weird place!
http://phys.org/news/2012-06-australians-huge-mega-wombat-graveyard.html


More spurious claims about the importance of/reasons for building Stonehenge
http://phys.org/news/2012-06-stonehenge-monument-unification-britain.html

Not exactly prehistory, but a fossil T-Rex has been seized by the US State, because they think it was illegally removed from Mongolia.
The Mongolians are very possessive of their fossil artefacts - i'm not surprised they're taking it seriously. Then again, the guy spent a year of his life sticking it back together!
http://phys.org/news/2012-06-seizes-ty-dinosaur-ny.html
http://phys.org/news/2012-06-florida-defends-dinosaur-import.html

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