M.J. Rose

I love it when the edge of reality touches the edge of science fiction. I am however not at all anxious for those giant insects they had way-back-when to be resurrected any time soon.

Long-extinct creatures like the dodo and woolly mammoth could be brought back to life thanks to scientific advances
By Fiona Macrae

It has long been synonymous with death.

But the dodo could live again, along with other long-extinct creatures from the fearsome sabre-toothed tiger to the lumbering Neanderthal.

Other beasts of yesteryear ripe for resurrection include the Tasmanian tiger, the woolly rhinoceros and the glyptodon – a VW Beetle-sized armadillo which last roamed the Earth 11,000 years ago…

[Read the rest of the article at the DailyMail]

Welcome to 2009 – The International Year of Astronomy. I am having a tough time thinking of a subject with more intrigue, hope and optimism than Astronomy (star-gazing is such a romantic and ancient pastime), so this is a great match for humanity’s big, hope-filled year ahead…

‘English Galileo’ maps on display
By Christine McGourty
Science correspondent, BBC News

Experts hope the maps will give Thomas Harriot the credit he deserves
“Moon maps” created by a little-known Englishman 400 years ago are to go on display to mark the launch of the International Year of Astronomy.

Experts say they prove their creator – Thomas Harriot – beat Galileo to become the first man to view the Moon through a telescope.

The Italian philosopher is credited with the feat in December 1609.

But papers at the West Sussex Record Office show that Harriot drew images of the Moon several months earlier.

And Dr Allan Chapman, a science historian at Oxford University, said Harriot’s composite drawing of the Moon – produced in 1612 or 1613 – marked “the birth of modern cartography”.

“Thomas Harriot was not only the first person ever to draw an astronomical body with a telescope on 26 July 1609, he rapidly developed to become an absolutely superb lunar cartographer,” he said

“There weren’t equivalent lunar drawings to be done for another 30 years.

Sir Patrick Moore on British stargazer Thomas Harriot

“Tragically, no-one knew of it until relatively recent times, so Galileo gets all the credit.” [the rest]

…As we enter the future (welcome 2009), let us look to the past…

Rocks of Ages: A composite photo of the Oshoro Stone Circle in Otaru, Hokkaido ANDREW KERSHAW

Mystery shrouds the ancient Oshoro circle

By MICHAEL HOFFMAN
Special to The Japan Times

In 1861 at Oshoro, southwestern Hokkaido, a party of herring fishermen, migrants from Honshu, were laying the foundation for a fishing port when they saw taking shape beneath their shovels a mysterious spectacle — a broad circular arrangement of large rocks, strikingly symmetrical, evidently man-made. What could it be? An Ainu fortress?

They would have been astonished to learn, as in fact they never did, that the Oshoro Stone Circle is a relic from a time before even war — let alone fortresses — likely existed in Japan.

Oshoro today is part of the city of Otaru, on its western fringe, 20 km from the city center and 60 km west of Sapporo.

The Late Jomon period (circa 2400-1000 B.C.) was an age of northward migration. The north was warming, and severe rainfall was ravaging the established Jomon sites, primarily in the vicinity of today’s Tokyo and Nagoya.

Perhaps resettlement stimulated thought, for it coincided with a novel Jomon institution — the cemetery.

“By devoting a special area to burials,” writes J. Edward Kidder in “The Cambridge History of Japan,” “Late Jomon people were isolating the dead, allowing the gap to be bridged by mediums who eventually drew the rational world of the living further away from the spirit world of the dead.” [the rest]