M.J. Rose

We love her, but do we know her?

The Mysterious Disappearance of Nefertiti, Ruler of the Nile

by April Holloway (Ancient Origins)

“The Mysterious Disappearance of Nefertiti, Ruler of the Nile
Nefertiti was the chief consort of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten (formerly Amenhotep IV), who reigned from approximately 1353 to 1336 BC.  Known as the Ruler of the Nile and Daughter of Gods, Nefertiti acquired unprecedented power, and is believed to have held equal status to the pharaoh himself.  However, much controversy lingers about Nefertiti after the twelfth regal year of Akhenaten, when her name vanishes from the pages of history.

In Akhenaten’s new state religion centred on the sun god, he and Nefertiti were depicted as the primeval first couple. Nefertiti was also known throughout Egypt for her beauty. She was said to be proud of her long, swan-like neck and invented her own makeup using the Galena plant. She also shares her name with a type of elongated gold bead, called nefer, that she was often portrayed as wearing.

Long forgotten to history, Nefertiti was made famous when her bust was discovered in the ruins of an artist’s shop in Amarna in 1912, now in Berlin’s Altes Museum. The bust is one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt…”

Read the rest here.

In a new model of the Big Bang, scientists produced two universes: One a mirror of the other. In one universe, time appears to run forwards. In the other, time runs backwards…

In a mirror universe, from our perspective, time may run backwards from the Big Bang.

Big Bang May Have Created a Mirror Universe Where Time Runs Backwards

Posted by Tim De Chant (Nova Next)

“Why does time seem to move forward? It’s a riddle that’s puzzled physicists for well over a century, and they’ve come up with numerous theories to explain time’s arrow. The latest, though, suggests that while time moves forward in our universe, it may run backwards in another, mirror universe that was created on the “other side” of the Big Bang.

Two leading theories propose to explain the direction of time by way of the relatively uniform conditions of the Big Bang. At the very start, what is now the universe was homogeneously hot, so much so that matter didn’t really exist. It was all just a superheated soup. But as the universe expanded and cooled, stars, galaxies, planets, and other celestial bodies formed, birthing the universe’s irregular structure and raising its entropy…”

For the rest click here.

Isn’t it interesting how our vision of dinosaurs has changed over the decades? From big dull-green lizards, to colorful bird-like show offs.

…And amber, oh how we love amber —

Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber

by AnnaleeNewitz (io9.com)

“[Today] a group of paleontologists announced the results of an extensive study of several well-preserved dinosaur feathers encased in amber. Their work, which included samples from many stages in the evolution of feathers, bolstered the findings of other scientists who’ve suggested that dinosaurs (winged and otherwise) had multicolored and transparent feathers of the sort you might see on birds today. The researchers also presented evidence, based on the feathers’ pigmentation and structures, that today’s bird feathers could have evolved from dinosaur feathers.

We’ve got a gallery of these intriguing feathers preserved in amber.

In a profile of lead researcher Ryan McKellar, The Atlantic’s Hans Villarica writes:

These specimens represent distinct stages of feather evolution, from early-stage, single filament protofeathers to much more complex structures associated with modern diving birds . . . They can’t determine which feathers belonged to birds or dinosaurs yet, but they did observe filament structures that are similar to those seen in other non-avian dinosaur fossils.
Villarica also did io9 readers a favor and asked McKellar whether this discovery could lead to a Jurassic Park scenario. McKellar said…”

For the rest, click here.