Here's what fruits and vegetables looked like before we domesticated them Next time you bite into a slice of watermelon or a cob of corn, consider this: these familiar fruits and veggies didn't always look and taste this way. Genetically modified foods, or GMOs, inspire strong reactions nowadays, but humans have been tweaking the genetics of our favourite produce for millennia. While GMOs may involve splicing genes from other organisms (such as bacteria) to give plants desired traits – like resistance to pests, selective breeding is a slower process whereby farmers select and grow crops with those traits over time. From bananas to eggplant, here are some of the foods that looked totally different before humans first started growing them for food. Wild watermelon Alvaro/Wikimedia Commons This 17th-century painting by Giovanni Stanchi depicts a watermelon that looks strikingly different from modern melons, as Vox points out. Modern watermelon Scott Ehardt/Wikimedia Wild banana Genetic Literacy Project Modern banana Domiriel/Flickr Creative Commons Wild eggplant Wild carrot
Ishtar Como ya saben, en esta serie de posts sobre dioses, escogemos una deidad al azar de entre las muchas que existen entre las diversas culturas y mitologías del mundo, y hablamos sobre ellas analizando las similitudes e influencias con otras culturas, tratando de divulgar la mitología más allá de la tradición judeocristiana a la que estamos acostumbrados en occidente. Hoy le toca el turno a Ishtar, diosa mesopotámica. Se asocia a otras diosas como Asherá, de quien ya hablamos aquí. Ishtar es la diosa mesopotámica de la fertilidad, el amor, la guerra y el sexo, y personificación divina del planeta Venus. Aunque su representación suele ser femenina, veremos que tiene rasgos masculinos y que en algunas representaciones los comparte. Dependiendo de la leyenda en la que nos la encontremos, Ishtar puede ser una chica mimada y caprichosa que siempre se sale con la suya, una muchacha inocente y a merced de los deseos de otros o una poderosa guerrera.
Écriture médiévale & numérique | Écritures médiévales et lecture numérique. Carnet du projet ORIFLAMMS (Ontology Research, Image Features, Letterform Analysis on Multilingual Medieval Scripts) As part of ICFHR 2016 ( we propose a competition on Script Classification. 1.1 Task under evaluation The task to be evaluated in the present competition is the classification of 1000 images of Latin Scripts, from handwritten books dated 500 C.E. to 1600 C.E. The organizers provide a training data-set consisting in 2000 images of well defined script types. They will evaluate the results on a 1000 additional images which are not included in the training data-set, or/and on a set of 2000 images of mixed script type images. The complete data-set is thereafter named CLaMM : classification of Latin Medieval Manuscripts There are 12 pre-defined classes in CLaMM according to the script style. We propose two possible tasks: task 1 named “Crisp Classification” and task 2 named “Fuzzy Classification”. Both tasks are independent, and participants have to announce if they want to perform task 1, task 2, or tasks 1 and 2. 1.2 Context 2.1 Image data-set
This video shows what Ancient Rome actually looked like It's impossible for anyone to see what ancient Rome looked like in all of its splendor, since we've failed to invent a time machine. But the above video, which shows a 3D rendering of Rome in 320 AD, is about as close as we can get. The video was created by Rome Reborn, an academic research project whose central mission is to create a full model of Rome at its greatest heights, working in conjunction with the Khan Academy. The goal is to take historical depictions of the city and create a true-to-life model of every period of Roman development, ranging from 1000 BC to 552 AD. This isn't just a cool pastime; it's useful for everyone from historians to filmmakers looking to capture what the city actually looked like. In the video, Indiana University professor Bernard Frischer (who leads the Rome Reborn project) explains that they chose to use 320 AD for this visualization because it was "the peak of Rome's urban development."
MUITO ALÉM DAS PALAVRAS E SENTIDOS: SUMÉRIOS - OS INVENTORES PRIMORDIAIS A Suméria é a civilização mais antiga que se tem registro, estima-se que eles viveram a mais de 3.500 anos antes de Cristo. Muitos chegam a estimar que eles datam muito mais de 6 mil anos. No quarto milênio antes de Cristo, as primeiras populações sumerianas teriam se deslocado do planalto do Irã até se fixarem na região da Caldeia, que compreende a Baixa e a Média Mesopotâmia. Provavelmente, Quish foi a primeira cidade fundada e logo foi seguida pelo surgimento de cidades como Eridu, Nipur, Ur, Uruk e Lagash. Os sumérios foram os pais da escrita, chamada escrita cuneiforme e posteriormente também foi creditado a eles os títulos de pai da astronomia. Criadores da roda, das carruagens e muito mais. Habitavam o sul da Mesopotâmia, entre o rio Tigre e Eufrates, lugar extremamente fértil que a Bíblia referencia como Terra Prometida e Hebrom. Os sumérios foram uma civilização a frente da época que viviam. Como bons comerciantes, os sumérios foram bastante dedicados à matemática.
General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex - World Digital Library Historia general de las cosas de nueva España (General history of the things of New Spain) is an encyclopedic work about the people and culture of central Mexico compiled by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590), a Franciscan missionary who arrived in Mexico in 1529, eight years after completion of the Spanish conquest by Hernan Cortés. Commonly called the Florentine Codex, the manuscript came into the possession of the Medici no later than 1588 and is now in the Medicea Laurenziana Library in Florence. Sahagún began conducting research into indigenous cultures in the 1540s, using a methodology that scholars consider to be a precursor to modern anthropological field technique. His motives were primarily religious: he believed that to convert the natives to Christianity and eradicate their devotion to false gods, it was necessary to understand those gods and the hold they had on the Aztec people.
Humanity's forgotten return to Africa revealed in DNA Not so isolated: Khoisan tribes have European DNA (Image: Ariadne Van Zandbergen/Alamy) Call it humanity’s unexpected U-turn. One of the biggest events in the history of our species is the exodus out of Africa some 65,000 years ago, the start of Homo sapiens‘ long march across the world. According to conventional thinking, the Khoisan tribes of southern Africa, have lived in near-isolation from the rest of humanity for thousands of years. Because Eurasian people also carry traces of Neanderthal DNA, the finding also shows – for the first time – that genetic material from our extinct cousin may be widespread in African populations. Advertisement The Khoisan tribes of southern Africa are hunter-gatherers and pastoralists who speak unique click languages. Ancient lineages “These are very special, isolated populations, carrying what are probably the most ancient lineages in human populations today,” says David Reich of Harvard University. Khoe-Kwadi tribes Twist in tale That made sense.
Sumerian Gods and Goddesses Sumerian Gods Is Anu holding the symbolic Holy Grail of a Bloodline he created? British Museum Nephilim, Anunnaki - Royal Bloodline - Creators "Those who from Heaven to Earth came" The Sumerian King List allegedly recorded all the rulers of Earth over 400,000 years who were said to be gods, demigods, or immortals ... or one soul playing all the roles. In Sumerian Mythology the Anunnaki were a pantheon of good and evil gods and goddesses (duality) who came to Earth to create the human race. Talismans | Kabbalah | Amulets Creating Bloodlines According to Ancient Alien Theory, the Anunnaki, and other alien groups, came to Earth and seeded the human race in many variations. Physical evidence of ancient astronauts is found throughout the planet, leading one to conclude that different races visited here at different periods in Earth's history, or the same aliens return and set up various programs (civilizations) in which they could remain and experience. These would include: Middle East, Egypt, India,
Brill’s Bridge to Arabic - AramcoWorld Amsterdam’s 1883 International Colonial and Export Exhibition was a lavish, five-month celebration of Dutch colonialism and capitalism that drew more than a million visitors from around the world. Still, Amin ibn Hasan al-Halawani al-Madani al-Hanafi, who had traveled all the way from Cairo, was disappointed. Muslim jurist and part-time book dealer, al-Madani (as he was known in the West) had come in hopes of selling a large collection of manuscripts amassed during his travels throughout the Islamic world. The Count’s tip paid off. Their expertise was no coincidence. In Luchtmans’s day, bookshops and publishers were mostly synonymous. From two centuries prior to al-Madani’s visit and continuing up to the present day, the centers of this intellectual activity have lain not only at Leiden University, but also with the firm of Brill, the oldest publisher in the Netherlands and among the oldest in Europe. Brill’s roots reach deeply into this past. At the helm was chief editor M.
How Fruit And Vegetables Have Changed Over Human History If someone handed you a wild banana from 7,000 years ago, you would barely recognize it from its modern-day ancestor. Fruit and vegetables have changed a lot since humans have domesticated them over the past few thousand years. They’ve undergone a transformation from selective breeding that has tailored them to suit our picky tastes and conveniences. More recently, fruit and veg have been molded by genetic engineering, allowing us to pick ‘n’ mix the best genes from desirable plants. This video from Business Insider gives you a small sample of the make-overs much of our fruit and vegetables have undergone. Main image credit: John Mason/Flickr.
Book Culture | medievalbooks What a clever device the book is. It is compact and light, yet contains hundreds of pages that hold an incredible amount of information. Moving forward or backward in the text is as easy as flipping a page, while the book’s square shape and flat bottom facilitates easy shelving. Still, the object is useless if the information it contains cannot be found. And so tools were developed to help the reader do just that, such as page numbers, running titles, and indices. As familiar as these aids may be, they are older than you think. Crucially, to look up information in a book you must have first located the object. 1. Why make things complicated? The manuscript shown in Figs. 1-2 was copied around 1100 and still has its original binding. 2. Writing text on a manuscript’s cover, as seen in Fig. 2, was not easy. As detailed as these labels are, they exclusively list the titles of the works contained by the manuscript, not the authors’ names. 3. 4. Like this: Like Loading...
Olenko sittenkin rasisti? – Kuusi kysymystä rodusta Ihmisten alkuperästä puhutaan nyt enemmän kuin aikoihin. Lähi-idästä tulevat turvapaikanhakijat niputetaan terroristeiksi ja raiskaajiksi, Suomessa syntyneet tummaihoiset joutuvat rasismin kohteiksi netissä ja kaduilla. Rotuajattelu nostaa vahvasti päätään. Viime elokuussa Suomen Kuvalehti selvitti suomalaisten rasistisuutta ja suhtautumista maahanmuuttoon. Tulos oli yllättävä, koska tieteen näkökulmasta asia on selvä: biologisia rotuja ei ole. Lähdimme tutkimaan ihmisen geneettistä taustaa tekemällä dna-testin kolmelle helsinkiläiselle, eri puolilta maailmaa kotoisin olevalle miehelle. Hänen, Alan Salehzadehin ja Abdirahim ”Husu” Husseinin suvuista, dna:sta ja geneettisestä taustasta kerrotaan videoiden, karttojen ja tarinoiden avulla. Kun katselee maailman ihmisiä, rotu vaikuttaa käyttökelpoiselta käsitteeltä. Kysyimme kolmelta tutkijalta rodusta. 1. Rotu on hankala sana, koska sillä ei ole tarkkaa merkitystä. ”Silloin käsite on ongelmallinen”, Laura Huttunen sanoo. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
medievalfragments | Turning Over a New Leaf Jari Tervo joutui dna-testiin – yllättävä ”lorahdus” löytyi perimästä Oli siis joulukuun alku, kun Jari, Husu ja Alan tapasivat toisensa ja ottivat dna-näytteet. ”Entäs jos paljastuu, että Jari onkin afrikkalainen?” ”Entäs jos Husu ei olekaan musta?” Naurettiin, otettiin yhteiskuvia kännyköillä. Miehet kokoontuivat oikeusbiologian laboratoriossa Helsingin Ruskeasuolla. Laboratorionjohtaja Jukka Palo kertoi dna-tutkimuksista ja ihmisen geeniperimästä. Kun Palo kertoi, näytteenantajat kuuntelivat hiirenhiljaa. Entä jos omasta taustasta tosiaan löytyisi jokin yllätys, vaikuttaisiko se käsitykseen omasta itsestä? Ei, miehet uskoivat. Silti jokainen jo odotti tuloksia. Jukka Palo valvoi, että miehet ottivat näytteensä oikein. Näytteet lähetettiin Yhdysvaltoihin Family Tree DNA -nimisen yrityksen tutkittaviksi. Yritys on myös mukana National Geographic -lehden Genographic-projektissa. Perjantaina 11. joulukuuta 2015 kolme dna-näytettä lähtivät kukin omassa kirjekuoressaan matkaan, määränpäänä laboratorio paikassa Houston, Texas. Alanin tuloksia ei kuulunut. Husu Alan