Engineer's Daughter

iraqi national museum reopens

There is so much about the Iraq War that makes my heart hurt, but one of the more painful images for me was of the deputy director of the Iraqi National Museum sitting on the floor of his building among the broken and looted remains of myriad priceless artifacts with his head in his hands.  So it seems nothing short of a miracle to hear that the museum reopened a few weeks ago with many of its major pieces recovered (some by US troops no less) and restored.  However, Maev Kennedy says that there is a sad note that must be considered along with the happiness:

In the joyful headlines over the recovery of iconic pieces such as the 5,500-year-old Warka Mask, a serenely enigmatic alabaster head smiling faintly at the absurdities of human folly, it was almost overlooked that thousands of small metal and clay pieces, inscribed tablets and amulets, seal cylinders, easy to smuggle, hard to trace, of little commercial value but priceless to historians, have almost certainly gone for ever.

Still, what a wonderful thing to have some treasures and relics from thousands of years of culture back where they can be enjoyed by visitors.  And may the individuals who pilfered the smaller items and then did not return them be tormented by vengeful ghosts.

underwater museum in alexandria

The classics nerd in me did a little bounce of joy to see the images that have been released by architect Jacques Rougerie of the proposed underwater museum in Alexandria's harbor that will allow visits to Cleopatra's palace by the scuba-disinclined for the first time since the 5th century.  It's a brilliant idea to construct a fiberglass tunnel to the site instead of trying to move the fragile artifacts (which reportedly also contain remnants of the famous Alexandria lighthouse), though the project faces concerns about funding and whether proper site surveys will be conducted before construction begins.  Jack Shenker talked to Naguib Amin, local site manager for the Supreme Council for Antiquities, about some of the questions being raised:

Amin rejected claims that money would be better spent giving a makeover to the city's crumbling downtown buildings, most of which feature stunning colonial-era architecture. "We view the museum as an integral component of revitalising the city as a whole," he said.

If everything comes together properly the museum should be open to the public within five years, at which point I will be on the first plane to Egypt to go walk under the water.

queens of egypt at monaco's grimaldi forum

This morning I point you to some tantalizing images from the (expensive) exhibition Queens of Egypt that just closed at Monaco's Grimaldi Forum.  The show focused on a topic near to my heart, the role of women in ancient Egypt, especially those who held positions of power.  Grégoire Allix talked with curator Christine Ziegler, formerly of the Louvre's Egyptian antiquities department, who attempted to balance scholarship with accessibility in the exhibition to highlight what we know about these intriguing women:

She believes that women enjoyed an unusual position in ancient Egypt. "Monogamy was the rule for ordinary subjects. Women... were allowed to work, own property and bequeath it, and they could be priestesses." But royalty was a masculine preserve. Only a very few, like Hatshepsut or Cleopatra, succeeded in rising to the rank of pharaoh and ruling in their own name.

I was obsessed with Hatshepsut when I was a little girl, and of course Cleopatra has fascinated authors and artists alike for centuries with her famous sensuality, so awesomely portrayed recently by Lyndsey Marshal in HBO's Rome.  I love the queens' depictions in the ancient art as well, so powerfully serene.  I think I might need to pop into the Art Institute's Egyptian galleries when I'm in Chicago next week...

we must decrease our gustav

Besides making me giggle inappropriately every time I heard its name, Hurricane Gustav did mercifully little damage to either people or property when it hit Louisiana this week, which is good because like everyone else I was watching its progress with nauseated apprehension.  However, while the oil platforms fared all right, the area's natural wetlands took a severe beating.  From Grist:

"The last thing on anyone's mind during a hurricane is how the wetlands are going to do," says activist Aaron Giles. But since happy and healthy wetlands act as storm barriers, "wetlands are a critical piece of keeping coastal Louisiana safe." Heavy storms toss around fauna in marshes and deposit saltwater where it ain't supposed to be. Louisiana's wetlands have been severely eroded by natural disaster and development; some estimates hold that healthier wetlands could have knocked Gustav's 12-foot tidal surge down by three feet. The hurricane shut down oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, but at first look it seems the storm has not caused any serious structural damage or significant spills on offshore platforms, leading President Bush to reiterate Tuesday, "This storm should not cause members of the Congress to say, 'Well, we don't need to address our energy independence.' We need more domestic energy. One place to find it is offshore America.'' Oil and gas companies are still assessing damage however, and have said it could take weeks to determine the full extent of the storm's impact since most of the gulf's 717 drilling platforms haven't been examined up close yet.

I'm also looking forward to the day when "energy independence" doesn't automatically translate into "offshore oil drilling", but that's just me.

Also:

1. Measles uptick!  Even as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are urging more measles vaccinations with cases at a 12-year high, some parents are not vaccinating because they fear a possible link between the vaccine and autism.  With such conflicting information if I were a parent I have no idea what I would decide to do.
2. Inexplicable speed!  The performance of world-record-shattering Jamaican Usain Bolt in the Beijing Olympics has scientists scrambling to explain how he did it, positing factors like a hereditary disposition toward fast-twitch muscles and long stride.  Even as a former sprinter myself I can't begin to wrap my brain around the fact that people keep getting faster and faster.

pickled pikas

Augh not the pikas!  Environmental groups Earthjustice and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit this week in which they claimed that climate change could cause mass pika extinction and that the fuzzy little guys should therefore be put on the endangered species list.  From Grist:

The pika, a rabbit cousin characterized by inordinate cuteness and a squeaky call, is "the polar bear of the Lower 48," says Greg Loarie of Earthjustice. Pikas live in alpine meadows and spend their summers gathering vegetation to sustain them through the winter. "Global warming threatens pikas by shortening the time available for them to gather food, changing the types of plants that grow where they live, reducing the insulating snowpack during winter, and, most directly, causing the animals to die from overheating," says CBD. The lawsuits say pika habitat should be protected and that carbon dioxide should be regulated as a pollutant. That won't fly with the Bush administration, which has declared that the Endangered Species Act should not be used to force greenhouse-gas regulation.

Augh, I say again.  

Also:

1. DNA testing concerns!  Privacy advocates want to make sure genetic profiling will not become a new way for employers and insurers to discriminate.  Given human nature, I think tougher laws guarding this info are a fine idea.
2. Oceanic dead zones!  Nitrogen runoff is killing the oxygen in the water in coastal regions around the world, which means sea life cannot survive in these areas.  Marine biologists are saying government intervention is needed to reverse the problem, so basically I don't have a hope in Hades.

takin' a shine to you

What better thing to do on this gloomy Bay Area summer morning than dream of solar energy?  This week local energy provider PG&E announced that they will be investing big in solar power, working with OptiSolar and Sun Power to construct two huge plants.  From Grist:

Together, the plants could generate 800 megawatts of electricity at peak capacity, enough to power 239,000 homes. (Perspective: The total peak capacity of every photovoltaic panel in the U.S. as of last year was 750 MW.) The largest plant will cover nine square miles with solar panels, but it will be "very visually unobtrusive," says OptiSolar CEO Randy Goldstein; with panels only three feet high, "It almost looks like a lake." Both plants aim to be up and running by 2011, dependent on state and local approval and a renewal of tax credits currently stalled in Congress. Photovoltaic power has until now been constrained to rooftops, considered too inefficient for utility-scale use; the PG&E deals are "monumental," says Julia Hamm of the Solar Electric Power Association. "I really think it demonstrates that the time for solar has come."

I know that finding the requisite surface area is an ongoing challenge for solar energy, so I'm dead curious where these plants will be going in.  Still, this is a step in the right direction for sure.

More recent science news:

1. Endangered Species Act in danger!  Dubya wants to relax the rules that require scientific oversight of federal projects so that they wouldn't necessarily have to report ecological impact.  Grrrrr.
2. Magic invisibility cloak!  Yeah OK not really, but all of this bending light the wrong way stuff that's been going on over at UC Berkeley is still damn awesome.  The urge to try to sneak into the lab is strong.

cities at sea

With global sea levels continuing to rise, a few designers and architects are starting to design living solutions that literally float.  The solidly practical Dutch have already built houses along the banks of the Meuse river that are anchored to land but rise and fall as the water does and that look pretty nifty besides.  Other visions are a little more fantastical, like Vincent Callebaut's proposed Project Lilypad (pictured right).  Beautiful in an artist's rendering, sure, but the cost of the project is prohibitive and raises questions about who would populate such cities, who would actually benefit.  From Oliver Burkeman's article in the Guardian:

Besides, it's hard to imagine that life on a Lilypad would really be such a paradise. Surely they'd soon become floating refugee camps, housing people the rest of the world would prefer to forget - prisons for an unrooted, essentially homeless underclass? Even as an elite getaway, it's not clear that a floating metropolis would be that much fun. Cruises, after all, are an acquired taste, and there's something unavoidably fake and claustrophobic about even the finest ships. On board QM2, for example, according to publicity material, "sybarites can enjoy the rejuvenating treatments of the world-renowned Canyon Ranch Spa Club... Or how about a visit to the planetarium? A wine-tasting seminar? Or a walk down history lane at the Maritime Quest exhibit? QM2 is a veritable City at Sea, with everything from virtual-reality golf [and] a basketball court to a bookshop." Now imagine living there all year round.

Images from WALL·E do spring immediately to mind.

A couple more science notes for your Thursday:

1. Water on Mars!  This mission has been so exciting, with everything actually working pretty much as planned.  And if you're not already following the Phoenix lander's Twitter, it's one of the better ones out there.
2. Thriving gorillas!  Supposedly their numbers in the Congo have doubled since the last time they counted.  I just hope it's true.

how darwin won the evolution race

Last Wednesday, June 18, was not only a full moon night but a day of many exciting and significant anniversaries.  Eighty years ago Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger on that date, and then forty five years later Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly into space on June 18, 1983.  Perhaps most importantly, however, 150 years ago last week a paper arrived on Charles Darwin's estate from one Alfred Russel Wallace, a young ornithologist who was inspired with a new theory called natural selection during a malarial fever in Malaysia.  This, of course, was the exact same theory Darwin had spent the previous twenty years working on and gathering data about, and it was the devastation he felt upon reading Wallace's missive that spurred him to finally sit down and put his ideas to paper.  Who knows if he would have otherwise published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a book that occupies its own spot of importance not only in the annals of science but also on my bedside table.  In yesterday's Observer Robin McKie describes the large role that chance played in Darwin's career and gives a brief history of evolution and the four key parts of Darwin and Wallace's theory.  McKie also talks to David Attenborough, who has some choice words for fundamentalists who continue to argue for creationism and intelligent design:

'Opponents say natural selection is not a theory supported by observation or experiment; that it is not based on fact; and that it cannot be proved,' Attenborough says. 'Well, no, you cannot prove the theory to people who won't believe in it any more than you can prove that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. However, we know the battle happened then, just as we know the course of evolution on earth unambiguously shows that Darwin was right.'

As for me, I am living proof faith and science need not be mutually exclusive, and that they actually enrich each other quite a bit when a person has a curious and inquisitive mind.  Darwinist Christians, unite!

the hyperbolic crochet coral reef

While I was at the Hayward Gallery reveling in the awesome Psycho Buildings exhibition on Friday, I also popped upstairs into their Project Space to see the legendary Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef with my own eyes.  Back in 2006 twin sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim noticed that some of the warped crocheting they'd been experimenting with looked an awful lot like coral, and decided to do an entire reef.  There have since been all sorts of overblown connections to hyperbolic space and global warming, but it doesn't diminish the fact that the reef is pretty darn cool in person.  I think the link between art and science is most effective in some of the newer sections that incorporate plastic scraps and other garbage in an attempt to call attention to real-life environmental damage:

Although Wertheim is thrilled that galleries are queuing up to display the work, she hopes one day to find a permanent home for it, preferably not in her own sitting room. As she explains to the group in the Festival Hall how the Great Barrier Reef is slowly dying, you start to wonder whether the crochet homage might one day be all we have left, physically, to remind us of the real thing.

If you can't visit the reef yourself the Guardian has some nice shots of it here.  It's enough to inspire me to finally learn how to crochet, not to mention knit.  I've been saying I want to learn for a while now though.  It's a time management issue.